The latest example of this is in John Piper's book Future Grace. Early in the the book he states that "you will search the bible in vain for explicit connections between gratitude and obedience." In other words, the bible doesn't call us to me motivated to live in obedience to Christ because of the good things God has done for you. Piper suggests that, "... gratitude was never designed as the primary motivation for radical Christian obedience, perhaps that is one reason so many efforts at holiness abort." Notice he doesn't say gratitude for what God has done doesn't play any part, but that it can't be the primary driving force for continued surrender to Christ. You might think that so far what I'm quoting seems to work against the idea of how critical it is to remember God's story, but several chapters later a connection is made.
In the chapter entitled "Looking Back for the Sake of the Future," Piper makes a case for the significance of looking at the history of God's faithfulness in order to trust in His future reliability. Jesus is the Yes and Amen to all of God's promises. Everything that He promised He would do was fulfilled in Jesus' work here on earth, or will be fulfilled in Him since God's grace is now poured out through Jesus to the world, forever. To bank on God's grace though, you've got to know what the promises were, or are, so that you can see that God's grace has always been faithful, and thus live in faith that He will continue to be. If we never knew about God's past grace, or forget about it, then we will not have a foundation of what God has to rest our future on.
The issue of forgetting God's past grace is what often plagued Israel and led them into a life of disobedience and no faith in the one true God. Here's an example in Judges 8:33-34. "The sons of Israel again played harlot with the baals." They turned to follow after idols instead of the living God. Why did this happen? Simple, "... the sons of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side." As Piper puts it, "They forsook their faith in God's future grace because they stopped remembering his past grace."
I like how he says they stopped remembering (instead of forgot). I may have mentioned this before, but the hebrews and the ancient church understood their act of remembering in worship to be more than just bringing something to mind, but it was to make it real, to remember in a way that would solidify it in as reality (which it is, but this world tries to give us a different reality). So if we, like Israel, stop remembering God's saving deeds and His fulfilled promises, and especially how that is all culminated in Christ, it will eventually cease to be the reality we live in. We might still have the head knowledge, but that will not guide our lives into holiness and enable us to overcome unbelief when the arrows of evil are shooting at us, trying to shake us from relying on God's future grace.
The need to remember what God has done historically as well as recalling His personal work in our lives (all through Christ) is critical in worship. The point I think God is making to me right now through Future Grace is that it is also critical that worship proclaims His promises for the future that He has made to those who love Him. It is the hope of the future promises that justifies through faith and causes God's people to stay the course. May this passage be true of us.
"Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised."
Romans 4:2o-21
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