Greater Love

GREATER LOVE (John 15:13)

Intro: Memorial day – about remembering

Sometimes, we are not so good at remembering things:

3 sisters, getting up in age:

All in the living room in the evening.

Gerty got up to go to bed, halfway upstairs she stopped and asked, was I going up, or going down?

Mabel shouted back, you were going upstairs to go to bed!

The other sister, Ruth, headed into the kitchen to make a sandwich.

Once she got in there she hollered out “what did I come in here for?”

Mabel shouted back, you went in there to make a sandwich!

Then Mabel said “I’m sure glad I’m not as forgetful as you 2 are”, as she knocked on the coffee table for punctuation.

Then Mabel got up and went over to the door “Who is it?”

Funny story, but we are like that sometimes, we have a hard time remembering

Some things are important, and it is important that we remember them

We use things to help us remember like Holidays, memorials, and stories that get passed down

Memorial Day is one of those days that help us to remember something important

On Memorial Day, we should remember those men and women who have served our country in the military and have given the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of freedom.

It also a day that we remember our loved ones who have moved from this life to the next.

We visit their graves, decorate them with flowers, we tell stories about our loved ones, we tell our kids about them so they can remember and tell their kids.

We remember

We remember their Service

We remember their Sacrifice

We remember their Love

John 15: 12-13(NIV) 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

PRAY

3 types of memorials:

A: Sometimes to remember, we Tell Stories (Oral Tradition)

Stories are great for remembering people

Some of my favorite stories are about my Grandpa – He is still with us

But I have heard stories throughout my whole life about Grandpa

And when my kids are grown, I want them to tell their kids stories about their G.G. Grandpa

I tell them stories about life on the farm, about his example of hard work and determination. About how he stood up for me when Grandma didn’t think I was old enough to drive a tractor

About how when I was out disc-ing a field all day, he would bring me a sandwich and a cold bottle of pop, and we would sit under a shade tree and take a break and just talk.

That’s good stuff.

I’ll show them these medals he won while he was in the Army.

He was in WWII, the big one.

I even have a book – someone interviewed him for a war history project.

He tells a lot of stories in here about the conditions they were in, how cold it was, how hungry they were, how young most of the kids there were.

He mentions that he was injured in battle, took a piece of shrapnel that grazed his head.

But you have to read another man’s account to get the whole story.

A man named Roberts from his unit wrote a book, unpublished Activities of WWII.

He tells about Sergeant James Shelten in the what Roberts called one of the most unselfish acts he had ever witnessed.

They were in the battle of the bulge. A horrible battle with many casualties.

Their battalion was falling back, but a group of men were up the hill and would be cut off and captured by the Germans.

Sergeant Shelten, my Grandpa, walked 300 yards up that hill, exposed to enemy gunfire, because he wasn’t about to leave those men behind.

That’s this one – medal of honor, V for valor

When my Grandmother was Paralyzed from a spinal disease, she slowly went from wheelchair to Bed-ridden.

My Grandpa never once left her side. Even at his age, for 10 years he helped to pick her up, help her bathe, change her bed, bring her food, keep her company, read her Bible to her.

He was there, at her bedside, holding her hand as she slipped away to be with Jesus. If she had lived 2 more hours, they would have been married 50 years.

When I think of my Grandpa, I think of Phil. 2

Phil 2: 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

I want my Kids and their kids, to remember my Grandpa,