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,
I want them to remember his Service, his Sacrifice, and his Love.
Dt 6: 4-9 (NIV) 4Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
.... 12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 13 Fear the Lord your God, serve him only
B: Sometimes, we Do Something that helps us remember
One of the things my family will do this Memorial Day is put Flowers on graves
We will go to the cemetery in Garden City to visit the grave of my little brother George
We will put some flowers on his grave, and I will tell my kids some stories. Every time I think of George I see him with a big scab on his forehead that I helped to put there
And that’s OK, litte boys get big scabs on their heads. When I am there, at his grave, the memories seem a little more powerful. I can see his face- you know?
I might tell them how he used to pretend he worked at Hardees and take our order. And everytime we drove by a Hardees he would say – “Hamburger Hardees?”
Then we will visit my uncle’s grave right next to George’s. I don’t remember my uncle very well, but I will pass down stories I heard from my Mom. About the drawings of animals that is on his grave and how he used to draw those animals for us kids.
Then we will go up and over a few rows and visit the graves of my Grandma and Great Grandma.
I will tell them some of the funny stories about how me and my cousin used to drive Grandma crazy in the summer, always getting into some kind of trouble, and how my Great Grandma Ruey used to tell me stories about when she was a little girl, and how one time when I was sick she told me she wished she could take my place and be sick while I was made better – and she meant it!
I’ll tell them again about how my Grandpa took care of Grandma during those years she was in a wheelchair and in Bed.
I’ll tell them how she loved to read her Bible, and how she loved her angels. She had angels everywhere, angels hanging from the ceiling, pictures of angels. God says he sends angels to minister to us. Sometimes I wonder how many angels were in that room with her.
I want to remember my Grandma, I want my kids to remember
Her Service, Her sacrifice, her love
When we share the Lords Supper together, that is a memorial,
We are doing something to help us remember
Luke 22: 19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." 20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
Some things are important to remember, some people are important to remember
Jesus wants us to remember. When we eat that bread, we should remember his body.
How he gave himself over to be beaten, and bruised, crushed for our iniquities, battered and bloody, so badly disfigured that he didn’t even look human anymore.
When we share the Lords Supper together, I get wrapped up in it, in dwelling on the suffering of Christ.
There is something about the experience that makes it powerful. When we eat the bread and we drink the juice,
We remember His blood, His blood that he poured out for us to pay the price for our sins.
The Holy Spirit moves and works in our hearts, it brings us closer together as a church family, it brings us closer together in our relationship with Him
As we remember, we remember His Service, His Sacrifice, His Love
C: Sometimes to remember, we visit a Memorial, Monument
There are civil war memorials around here, they help us to remember History, the price that some paid.
There are other memorials.
In Wash DC, I wasn’t with them, but Sally and the Kids went to the Capitol and saw the War Memorials
You know how Alex is, he runs everywhere, having a great time. Laughing and joking, jumping up and down, climbing stairs balancing on hand-rails, an all American boy, he is a joy to take places because he always has fun.
But when they went to the Vietnam memorial, and that wall with the names of men and women who paid the ultimate price, and there are family members there to find the name of their loved one, leave some flowers for them, make a pencil rubbing of the name, leave a letter. It’s powerful
Alex became completely quiet, and even an 11yr old boy can’t help but stand in quiet awe of the magnitude of what the wall represents, all of the tears shed by mothers and wives, and children and husbands of loved ones who will not be coming home.
IT is good to remember their Service, their Sacrifice, their Love
The ultimate memorial, the one that outlasts, outshines and overshadows them all
Is the The Cross
I get a shiver down my back sometimes when I look at it
It has been around for 2000 years
We put them in our churches, on top of our churches
We put them on necklaces around our necks
We put them on pictures up on the wall
Like sharing the Lords Supper, it reminds us, focuses us on Christ and his work on the Cross
I look at the Cross and I can almost see his face, beaten and disfigured, yet somehow still full of love as he looks down at me.
Blood trickling down from the thorns that were shoved into his scalp by the Roman Soldiers
I can almost hear his voice as he speaks those words, Father Forgive them they do not know what they are doing.
Here is God, in human flesh. All the power in the universe is His, he could stop the torture at any time, he could call down a legion of angels to rescue him, to avenge him and destroy those who would sentence him to die like a criminal
But no – He stayed, He chose to stay on that cross, No one took his life, He laid it down. For us
He had the power to lay down his life, and to pick it back up again
He layed down his life for us. To pay the price that I owe for my sins against God
Jn 15: 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
Jesus paid the price on the Cross because of his love for you and I, he paid the price because it was necessary, it is a price you and I could never pay, we have nothing to offer worth as much as the blood of the Lamb
Phil 2: 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross
Some things are important to remember
Some things we must never forget
When you look at the cross – remember
Remember His Service, His Sacrifice, His Love
But when you look at the cross remember something else – it’s empty
It’s empty because He didn’t stay on the Cross
It’s empty because Jesus endured the Cross, but it didn’t defeat Him
Christ was carried into that Tomb, but it couldn’t keep him
Death couldn’t hold him.
Jesus said I have the power to lay down my life and the power to pick it back up again – and that is exactly what he did
Jesus defeated the cross, he defeated death, he defeated sin and Satan.
Col 2: 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
The stone rolled back and Jesus walked out of that Tomb.
He has the power to forgive your sins, He has the power to reconcile you to God
He has the power to save you
If you trust Him with your life, repent of your sin, believe on Him as the Son of God, the Resurrected Christ, Lord and Savoir.
Some things are important to remember, some things we must never forget:
Memorial Day is about more than Barbecues and long weekends
One thing I am going to do, I am going to visit my Grandpa – and I want to find the words to tell him how much he means to me.
Don’t let time go by without telling the important people in your life how you feel about them. Some day it will be too late.
