Corporate worship is the most important context in which we rehearse the acts of the Lord. The living God has made himself known in the Old and New Testaments. There are ancient and modern songs of the faith that beautifully express what we believe. And through the ordinances of baptism and communion, the saving acts of God are put before our minds and hearts. We gather to remember and proclaim.

One of the most important things we do as Christians is review what we already know. The good news of the “gospel” (which means, it turns out, good news) never expires for us. We gather on the Lord’s Day to sing, preach, and confess what we believe.

As we read the Old Testament, we will discern that the people of God have always been a people who must recall what they already know. In fact, not recalling the acts of God is dangerous. The unreminded heart is more vulnerable than it otherwise would be. Over and over again, Moses—in the book of Deuteronomy—pled with the Israelites to not forget the Lord in the promised land. They needed to repeat his wonders, remember his goodness, and fear his holy name. Left unreminded, their hearts would be prone to wander. Left unreminded, their hearts would become entranced by the false gods of the Canaanites and the false worship that accompanied them.

When the Israelites, at last, crossed the Jordan River (in Josh. 3:14–17), the nature of their crossing was so extraordinary that they were to not stop talking about it in the generations to come. They needed to remember that their standing in the land wasn’t because they were mighty—it was because God was mighty. The entrance into the promised land was a testimony to the unwavering covenant faithfulness of the living God.

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