Worship in Remembrance
(Fifty Days of Consecration #2)
Psalm 103:1-18[1]
3-27-05
Intro
Your capacity for memory—have you thought about how powerful that gift is—the ability to recall previous experience. It is the way we learn. It keeps us from having to learn the same things over and over again. When I was a toddler I learned something about the yellow wasp. When a wasp bites you, it really hurts! I was outside with my parents when I saw a yellow jacket (as we called them in Texas) sitting on a rock. It was a bright, beautiful yellow creature that needed to be explored. So I walked over to it and put my finger right on his back. Ever since that day when I see a wasp my memory serves me well. I remember an experience I do not want to repeat. As the old phrase goes, “Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me.” We can avoid repeating painful mistakes because we remember.
Memory is a powerful factor in the quality of our current experience. It has the power to turn on all kinds of emotion. If you recall an offense and think about it for awhile, you can make yourself sick with anger. If you recall a particularly joyous experience from the past, you can relive that experience and live in some of its joy once more.
What’s even more amazing about memory is how much power we have in choosing what we will remember. For the last couple of years I have been choosing to remember Greek words. Had I not been so intentional about the process I might remember a few just because of the exposure. But I decided to remember Greek words and applied myself to that process. I have not chosen to remember Hebrew words. I know a few but not very many. The difference has to do with the choices I have made.
This morning, we are going to talk about stewardship over memory. The discipline of remembrance--how are you doing with that spiritual discipline? Are your thoughts under control? Are you remembering the things that need to be remembered?
The Bible has a lot to say about remembrance. God has specified some specific things that we must not forget.
I. What are we told to Remember?
1. We are to remember God.
Listen to God’s instruction to His people in Deut 8:10-18 “Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.”
We know from the history of Israel that they did forget God.[2] They discontinued serving Him and were ultimately judged as a result. In Deuteronomy God is addressing something very important for our future. He is saying to you and me as His people, “Make special effort to remember who God is—don’t forget what He is like—don’t allow other things to crowd into your life and cause you to forget. It’s interesting that this danger is particularly great when things are going well. Verse 12 “ Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God...” When we are in serious trouble we tend to remember God, don’t we? Ps 107:28 talks about people on the high seas in a terrible storm—they are being tossed about by the waves and are not sure they are going to make it. There in the midst of that storm they remember God—they cry out to God in prayer. But in times of prosperity we are tempted to take God for granted. Are you enjoying God’s blessings upon your life? Receive it all with thanksgiving; but never forget where it’s coming from. Never assume you deserve it and never assume you caused it to happen. Remember God!
2. Remember what God has done for you.
He is the one “who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Verse 15 “He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock.” The Bible tells us to guard our hearts with all diligence[3] and one way we do that is by remembering God’s goodness in our lives. In the wilderness the first generation of Israelites complained and murmured themselves right out of the Promise Land. Their fateful decision at Kadesh Barnea did not happen in a vacuum.[4] It did not happen while they were giving thanks for the things God had done for them. It happened while they were murmuring and complaining.[5] It happened because they failed to remember some things. But through the proper use of memory our hearts can be prepared for the opportunities God has planned for us.
Turn with me to Ps 103:1-5
“Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits--
3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s."
Has God done any of those things for you? Has he forgiven you for some sins? Has He healed your soul or your body? Has He protected you and satisfied you? Those are the kind of things we are to remember. Forget not all his benefits—just don’t loose sight of what He has done for you.
In the rest of this Psalm David takes joy in the nature and character of God.
Ps 103:6 “The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.” Aren’t you glad? Verse 8 “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”
Verse 10 “he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.”
When you’re having trouble being thankful, Psalm 103 is a good place to go. Just start thanking God for all the things listed here. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.[6] Everything David says about God in this Psalm is true for you and me as well.
Remember what God has done for you.
3. We are to remember what He has told us to do.
Deut 4:23 “Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden.” This is one reason the Bible is so important. What do we do when you don’t want to forget something? We write it down. In the Scripture God has given us a written record of His commandments as to how we are to live. The world around us is continually promoting a different standard. We must not forget what God has said. In Deut 6:6-9 “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.” I don’t think it is necessary for us to wear the frontlets or Phylacteries[7] that the Jews wore to remind them of God’s law, but we do need to live in the principle of remembrance concerning God’s instruction. We do need to read our Bibles. It’s not a bad idea to have some scripture nicely framed and put upon our wall. Don’t forget God’s commandments. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”[8] There are powerful life lessons taught in the Bible stories. “Remember Lot’s wife.”[9] Remember Jonah’s troubles. Remember the lessons taught in the word of God so that you don’t have to learn them all first hand.
4. Remember the commitments[10] you have made to the Lord and keep your vows.[11]
5. Remember the promises God has given you and let it strengthen your faith on a daily basis.[12] God made a promise to Abraham to give him not only Isaac but countless descendants. It’s interesting to trace that promise through the history of Israel and into the New Testament. God wanted Abraham and his descendants to remember that promise. He even gave Abraham an awesome memory aid. Genesis 22:17 “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky...” “Abraham, every night when you look up into the sky and see all those stars—remember—remember the promise I have made to you.”
II. Why must we Remember these things?
1. Remembrance of these things will strengthen our faith.
Every time Abraham looked at those stars and remembered God’s promise to him he was encouraged to continue on.
Do you remember the story of David and Goliath? As David prepared to face that terrible challenge Goliath was issuing, he remembered some previous experiences with God.
1 Sam 17:32-37 David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him." 33 Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth." 34 But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine."
Do you see how wise stewardship of his memory helped David succeed in his current situation? After David killed Goliath, what did he do? He gave Israel a very vivid memory of what God can do? David didn’t just kill Goliath. After he downed him with the stone, he then took his sword and cut off that ugly giant’s head. Imagine being in that Israelite army when all that happened. David and Goliath are in a valley. You are up on one side of the valley. The Philistines are looking down from the other side. It’s difficult to see everything. But you are watching the action as David takes on Goliath. When the dust settles what do you see? You see David coming up out of that valley toward the armies of Israel with the giant’s bloody head in his hand? They say, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” I think the picture of that stuck in Israel’s mind for a long, long time.
2. Remembrance facilitates worship.
What we choose to remember can powerfully affect our attitudes in the now.[13] Consider with me for a moment how your emotions work? It was when I was reading some books by Dr. Archibald Hart[14] that I came to understand how our emotions are driven by our thoughts. You and I can not directly access our emotions. The way our emotions are evoked is through the process of thought. When you remember something pleasant the emotions follow your thoughts and you are cheered up. When you remember something disgusting you feel the disgust. Memory is powerful. I can think about my little grandson smiling at me and I’m uplifted. But when I think of the terrible loss of life on Sept. 11, 2001 I feel sad.
With this understanding we can return to Psalm 103 and see it as excellent counsel for entering into worship. The Psalm begins with a choice to praise the Lord. “Praise the Lord, O my soul...” Have you ever had to tell yourself to praise the Lord? Sometimes when we come to church we don’t feel like praising the Lord. But we are not to be dominated by our feelings. We can exercise our will and make a choice. We can decide to praise the Lord and we can tell ourselves to do just that. Psalm 103:1 “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my innermost being praise his holy name.” Don’t do it half-heartedly. Do it with all your innermost being. Put yourself into it with everything that’s in you. Verse 2 “Praise the Lord, O my soul.” Have you ever had to tell yourself twice? David is imposing his will upon his emotions. David is choosing to do what ought to be done.
When you come to church, come with a determination in your heart, to give praise and worship to your God. A good way to prepare your heart for a worship service is to count your blessings. Think about the times He has shown you mercy. Think about the day He came into your life. Think about the times when He protected you or healed one of your kids. Think about those things and then begin to give thanks for each one. Don’t just thank God in general terms; but recall the specifics and allow the vividness of the event to inspire gratitude in your heart. Once you are in that frame of mind, a praise service comes very natural. Worship flows out of a grateful heart. And a grateful heart happens when we remember the things God has done for us. Psalms 103:2 “...and forget not all his benefits.” Put your memory to work and prepare yourself for worship.
Too often people are arguing over what form of worship will be used when the real issue has to do with nurturing an attitude of worship. I appreciate how our worship team encourages praise with its excellent music. But music alone is not worship. Singing alone is not worship. God looks upon the heart. Has something from deep within me rose up to bless the Lord? That can happen with or without music. Before one note is ever played we should be using our memory to cultivate gratitude which prepares us for real worship. No one can do that for you. It is your responsibility. But genuine worship is not something that happens to us from the outside. It is something that happens from deep within us as we remember God’s goodness.
3. There is a close relationship between forgetting God and forsaking God.
Jer 18:15-16 “Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to worthless idols,
which made them stumble in their ways and in the ancient paths. They made them walk in bypaths and on roads not built up. 16 Their land will be laid waste, an object of lasting scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will shake their heads.”
When those people failed to remember God they began to stumble in their walk with God and eventually gave themselves over to sin.
Back in Deut 8:10 the warning was, Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.” The two go hand in hand: forgetting God’s goodness and a life of disobedience. In other words, we do not avoid temptation just by trying to resist evil. We avoid temptation by actively pursuing God—by remembering how good He has been to us and remembering what He has told us to do.
God has given us two powerful faculties—the capacity for memory and the capacity for imagination. When those two faculties are consecrated—are offered up to God as instruments of righteousness wonderful things can happen in our lives. They are not substitutes for the Holy Spirit. They are to be yielded to the Holy Spirit so that we can live in the joy and victory God has for us.
III. How do we Remember the Lord and His goodness?
1. We practice thankfulness. We rehearse in our minds the things God has done for us and we give thanks for those things. While learning Greek I discovered that if I would audibly speak the word I would remember it much better than if I just thought it. Tell others what great things the Lord has done for you. [15] They will be blessed in the hearing and you will be blessed in the telling.
2. We establish memorials[16] to help us remember what God has done.
Remember the story of David and Goliath? That story does not really end with David holding Goliath’s bloody head in his hand. Four chapters later, David is in another battle and needs a weapon. Where does he get that weapon? He gets it at the tabernacle where someone had had the presence of mind to keep a powerful reminder of God’s saving power. There in that temple was the sword of Goliath.[17] I’ve got feeling that the moment David took that sword in hand, faith arose in his heart. He remembered!
A powerful memory aid was set up when Israel crossed the Jordon River and went into the Promise Land. There Joshua set up 12 stones where the priests had carried the Ark of the Covenant across. Their experience with God that day was not to be forgotten. As new generations were born the stones evoked questions from them and the testimony of what God had done was carried from generation to generation.[18]
What memorials have you established to help you keep your experiences with God in mind? One reason we give people a certificate when they are baptized in water is for it to serve as a memorial of their experience in God and their public commitment to God. We do the same thing for baby dedications.
This building is a memorial to our commitment to God. It is a reminder of some great things God has done. When people drive by a church in a community, they are confronted with the fact that a group of people there believe in God enough that they would invest time and money to build and maintain that building. A church is much more than a building. But a well kept building says something to a community.
In our culture pictures serve as memorials. During the water baptisms people take pictures. During baby dedications and weddings people take pictures. Why, because they want to remember the events of that day. My family is planning a day of memorial in the near future. We will invite our grown children and their children and together we will get all the old pictures out of the attic and organize them into albums. We will spend a whole day doing that and talking about what those pictures represent to our family.
3. We celebrate holidays that commemorate something we do not want to forget. In fact, this morning we are celebrating the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything we believe rests upon the death and resurrection of our Lord. It is the most important thing in our lives. It is the greatest event of human history. So we celebrate it every year. We put it on our calendars and we focus upon it that day.
Christmas, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving are all designed to help us remember something we do not want to forget. Hallmark cards provide memorials for personal anniversaries and birthdays and graduations. Husbands, remember your wife’s birthday and your anniversary. There are some things that must be remembered.
The Jews celebrated feasts to commemorate national experiences with God.
At the annual Feast of Tabernacles Israelites would dwell in booths to remind them of Jehovah’s care and protection while they were journeying from Egypt to Canaan. They didn’t just hear about what God had done. They did some physical things that aided their memory.
The Passover Feast was a way to celebrate and remember the last plague on Egypt and God’s protection of Israel’s firstborn and their awesome deliverance from bondage.[19] The Passover was kept each year as a reminder of what God had done for them. In the upper room while eating the Passover with His disciples Jesus elevated the Passover into a celebration of a much greater deliverance—the deliverance that He gave upon the cross. Now we don’t just celebrate Passover once a year. Jesus is our Passover[20] and we celebrate it every time we come to the Communion Table. In Luke 22:19 Jesus “...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."
This morning as we come to the Lord’s Table[21] let us come in worship—worship that is inspired by remembering what He has done for us.[22] As the ushers distribute the elements, take time to remember!
TEXT:
Ps 103:1-18 (Of David.)
Praise the LORD, O my soul;all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul,and forget not all his benefits-- 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 6 The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. 7 He made known his ways to Moses,his deeds to the people of Israel: 8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,slow to anger, abounding in love. 9 He will not always accuse,nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west,so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 13 As a father has compassion on his children,so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed,he remembers that we are dust. 15 As for man, his days are like grass,he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,and its place remembers it no more. 17 But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him,and his righteousness with their children’s children-- 18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. (from New International Version)
Richard Tow
Grace Chapel Foursquare Church
Springfield, MO
www.gracechapelchurch.org
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[1] Text which was read at the beginning of the service is available at the end of this manuscript. All Scripture quotes are New International Version unless otherwise indicated.
[2] Psalm 106:21
[3] Proverbs 4:23
[4] Numbers 13
[5] Numbers 14 and see previous episodes in Numbers 11 and 12.
[6] Hebrews 13:8; James 1:17; Malachi 3:6
[7] The term Phylacteries is from a Greek root word meaning “to keep or guard”. The Greek verb for guard is phulassoo and the noun is phulax. See FRONTLETS (from Fausset’s Bible Dictionary, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1998 by Biblesoft).
[8] Matt 4:4 NKJV
[9] Luke 17:32
[10] Gen. 31:51-52 is an example of how memorials are established as reminders of commitments between two individuals. Today we use contracts for this purpose. I’ve seen a lot of well meaning Christians get hurt because they did not understand the value of a written contract which in addition to its obvious legal value can simply help two individuals remember specifically what they agreed to do. For more on this see page 7 of sermon preached 2-13-05 entitled “Surviving Unhealthy Relationships”.
[11] Ps 116:17-19 Consider also the vows made to other people (Prov. 2:16-17; Mal. 2:15)
[12] Gen. 22:17-18 The remembrance of this promise can be Deut. 10:22; 28:62; 1Chron. 27:23; Neh. 9:23; Rms 4:16-22
[13] We are taught in Scripture to take responsibility for our thought life (Phil. 4:8). To leave something that important to chance—to allow our thought to wander and as a result our emotions to be out of control is very foolish. This series is about consecrating ourselves to God and the capacity of memory should be consecrated to God. This series is about spiritual discipline and our thought life should be properly disciplined.
[14] Dr. Archibald D. Hart has written a number of excellent books and I don’t remember which one I was reading when this became so clear to me but I think it was Unlocking the Mystery of Your Emotions.
[15] Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Psalm 107:2; Mk 5:19; Luke 8:39
[16] Perhaps the greatest memorials of all are the scars in Jesus’ hands, feet, and side as eternal reminders of His love for us (John 20:27).
[17] 1 Samuel 21:8-9
[18] Joshua 4:4-9
[19] In one of our services we used a video clip from the movie, “The Ten Commandments” (Disc 2)(0:30:10 to 0:36:08) to illustrate the way a memorial was established. This whole teaching leads to another teaching about the value of tradition (1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Tim. 1:13-14).
[20] 1 Cor. 5:7-8
[21] The longer I live the more I appreciate the importance of the two visible, physical ordinances that Jesus gave to the church—water baptism and The Lord’s Table. We must never neglect these in the name of spirituality. For God knows better than we how much we need these memorials of the most essential truths of our faith.
[22] 1 Cor. 11:23-26
