The Power Of Memories

The Power of Memories

Scripture: Isaiah 43:18-19; Philippians 3:12-14; Hebrews 11:13-16;

Good morning Strangers Rest. The title of my message this morning is “The Power of Memories.” This is the second of four messages that God has given me to be delivered to you. As I told you last week, these messages are to both encourage us and equip us as we begin this journey together. Please turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter three and we will be reading verses 12-14. It says, “12) Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. (13) Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, (14) I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Now turn to Isaiah 43:18-19. It says, “(18) Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. (19) Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” I will come back to both of these Scriptures later in this message.

Before I go further, once again I want to recall for you what two of our deacons said about memories when they spoke before you last summer. Dea. Lacy in his message “God Will Take Care of You” said that it is important that we remember, regardless of the issues we are facing, that God loves and cares for us. You will hear this morning that sometimes what we are currently facing will attempt to overshadow our memories of God delivering us in the past and we cannot allow this to happen. Then you heard a message from Dea. Lewis titled, “Jesus is Coming.” He said that we must remember why Jesus came and know that He is coming again! If we forget why Jesus came we will live like His death and resurrection are not relevant to what we face today. Again, how we remember His death impacts how we choose to live today. I wanted to remind you of these two messages as they sort of set the stage for this one.

Let me tell you a personal story of how some of my memories almost derailed my grieving my father’s passing. My father died in 2008. When he died, as you can imagine, I had many days and nights when I thought about him, reflecting on our times together. I loved my father, and we had a great relationship. For example, my father was the one who instilled in me and my siblings a love for bowling. For years, before I left home, I bowled on my father’s team in his bowling league. Whenever my father visited us, or I was visiting home, and we went out to do an activity, bowling or out to dinner, he would whisper to me “Now I know my money is no good here.” In other words, my father knew that while he was with me he did not have to spend his money. When I was a child my father worked a full time job as an orderly at our hospital and 2 or 3 part-time jobs to support us. There were five of us kids and he worked constantly to ensure our needs were met. I loved having the opportunity to give back to him after I became an adult. Now back to the memories.

When I was grieving my father’s death, and even sometimes now, those good memories weren’t the memories that came flooding back. Those weren’t the memories that I was holding on to as I thought about him. No, the memories that came rushing back were the few times that I disrespected him – as a teenager and early adult when I was full of myself. Those were memories of things that happened that I, nor my father, ever thought about or remembered later while he was living (as far as I know anyway). My father had forgiven me and forgotten all about them. However, when I was grieving him, here they came. And with those memories came the thoughts from our enemy – “You were not a good son and now he is gone.” Those thoughts, had I believed and accepted them, would have totally changed how I grieved and remembered my father. Memories are a powerful thing and how we remember things can impact our present and this is the purpose of this message this morning. As we continue on this journey of building on the Church’s foundation, strengthening it and preparing for your new pastor, we will need to evaluate the memories that we will be taking with us versus those that we should leave behind. We need to understand which of our memories will help us to hear God when He speaks to us and the memories that dull or hinder our hearing when He speaks to us.