The Power of Memory

FCC/TPC 05.24.09
MEMORIAL DAY


How many of us know that our memories can serve a powerful function in our lives?

When we’re little we learn to avoid touching the hot stove because either we’ve touched it or we had mommy or daddy make a loud noise when we got close. We retain the memory of pain.

Or, if you’re like my kids, when we ask them where’d they like to go for a treat they invariably say “Baskin Robbins.” They retain the memory of something sweet and pleasurable.

You know memory is important as you get older and, like me, you can’t ever remember where you put the car keys.

There is such a thing as muscle memory. If you haven’t played tennis in over twenty years after having played all throughout high school and college, you can pick up a racket and with some practice remember how to serve or hit a backhand spin.

We remember important people in our lives. How many of us can remember a teacher we had when we were younger? Maybe someone who took a special interest in how we did in school or helped to motivate us just a little more. I remember Miss Ouanita Muller, my 9th grade English teacher, who knew my interest in history and my love for literature took me to the school library and hand wrote a bibliography for me of some of the great works of historical fiction.

In our men’s group this past Wednesday night, we remembered the lives of some of the men who in years past at First Christian had unique personalities, done funny things in church, or had influenced the church in some way. As we went around the circle, it seemed that everyone remembered someone at First Christian who had impacted them in a powerful way.

Who do you remember? When you think about how you’ve turned out in life, as you reflect on the person you’ve become, who is it that sticks in your mind as having a big influence for good long ago? I want you to take a moment right now and write that person’s name down on the sermon note insert inside your bulletin.

Memory is a powerful thing. Memory has the power to anchor us when we feel as if life is rushing by. There have been many times that I’ve found myself in ministry situations that I didn’t have the answer to and I’d think to myself what would my dad do or what would one of my former mentors do in this situation?

When we find ourselves getting lost today as we try to figure out who we are and what we’re supposed to be about – we can look back and see where we’ve been and discern the path that has got us from there to here. Sometimes that can help us move forward. We know who we are, where we’ve been and that gives us direction for where we want to go.

Of course, there are also times when we want to make a break with that path and get on a new path. We know where we are and where we’ve been and we feel as if God has MORE in store for us that what we’ve experienced and we want to pursue that.

The memory of an experience can also be powerful and transforming. Think of a time when you completed a project or task that you never thought when you started you’d be able to do. Was it hitting a baseball for the first time? Making your first free-throw, making your first “A” in Junior High, reading your first full-length novel, holding down your first job and receiving your first paycheck? How about the memory of when you accepted Jesus into your life. And then the memory of being baptized and having the entire church celebrate your decision with you.

In the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, the word “remember” is used over sixteen times. And it’s an interesting contrast. As the people of God are beginning to move forward into their promised inheritance and take the land of Canaan, God says to them – REMEMBER! Remember where you’ve come from. You were once slaves in Egypt. Remember the struggles you had in the desert. Most of the time you didn’t think you were going to make it. Remember where your provision came from. You didn’t do it on your on. Remember the promise that is before you. You will be tempted to chase after other gods.

Dt 7:17 You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” 18 But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. 19 You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the miraculous signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear.

I want you to think about the journey that has brought you to the place where you are in life right now. Who were the people that influenced you? What were the forces that led you to ultimate decide that going to church either by yourself or with your family was a good move to make? What were the struggles you had in your past the pointed you to a better, more secure way of living in God? What were the experiences that you had in your life that suggested that being in the place where God was worshipped was better than being outside of that place?

We know the end of the story with the Israelites. They began to take the land and then to rule over the land that God had given then and then slowly but surely, they forget how it was they received God’s blessing to begin with.

That so typical, isn’t it? We work to receive the blessing. We let go of the stuff holding us down or holding us back. We become focused and diligent and intense about moving toward the desired goal… and then once we have a taste of the blessing, what happens. We start to relax. We start to think to ourselves how awesome we were to get the thing we wanted. We begin the process of forgetting all the hard work and focus and diligence and intensity and prayer that enabled us to step into the blessing. Has anyone else experienced that dynamic before?

I think there is a way out of that cycle. A way past the very thing the Israelites experienced in their repeating cycle of Obedience – Blessing – Complacency – Rebellion – Suffering – Repentence – Obedience – Blessing. I don’t think that it is God’s plan for us that we have to walk in the same mistakes we’ve made in the past or for our children to repeat the patterns of life that we’ve gone through. In fact, I believe God wants us to have victory and to walk in authority and power and then to help others break this cycle.

So this morning, I want to leave you with three things to remember as we observe what we call Memorial Day. And the first is this:

To move forward into the promise we have to first remember where we’ve been.

The summer after my senior year in college I spent the summer in Germany studying the German language. And there, I had the opportunity to go Dachau – where the Nazi’s had one of their most notorious concentration camps. Twenty-six thousand Jews lost their life there. There was an inscription on one of the walls where you can read the history of the time and the camp. The inscription is from the philosopher George Santayana and it reads, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”

It was chilling to read that quote at Dachau. It was both an observation and a warning. An observation that the Germans had forgotten their own past of brutality and struggle and national arrogance. And a warning that if future generations forgot what atrocities had taken place at Dachau then the deeds could be easily rationalized again and repeated.

Our personal journeys and difficulties often arrive at that moment of forgetfulness, when we’ve left our guard down and forgotten exactly what it is our lives are about. It’s easier to focus on the moment. On how we’re feeling right now. It requires a little more focus to bring into view during these times that God has us on a journey of building righteous character which may or may not make us “feel good” in the moment but enables us to withstand troubles that come our way and still find joy everyday in the small things.

So what do we keep in front of us when we’re tested?

One of the things you can ask yourself is this. Have I been through this before? If so, what did I learn? Too often, we see believers simply going through the cycles of repeating self-destructive and unhealthy patterns. When we begin to see a pattern begin to emerge we have are presented with the choice of going through again or changing it. By choosing to change your behavior you may be going into uncharted territory for you. The pattern, though painful may look initially more comfortable simply because its what you know. The Bible tells us in passages like James 1 and Romans 5 that when we choose to chart a path through the difficulty we face we will always grow.

1 Cor 6:9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?... 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.


For the believer, formation of our character is everything. It is what we call discipleship. And discipleship begins with find our rootedness in the teachings and life of Jesus. We remember what he taught. We remember what he did. And then we do the same.

Not only do we remain aware of what we’ve learned from our life experiences, but we also look to the people we’ve known to inspire us to show us what to avoid.

Hebrews 12 talks about having a “cloud of witnesses” around us. The author of Hebrews was talking about those who had gone before in the faith who were tested and proved faithful in the test.

This is just common sense, really. If you want to learn a new skill or pick up a new hobby, what do you do? You find someone who’s done it already and ask them to show you how to do it.

This makes perfect sense, right? But how many of us try to do the really important things in life – like being a husband or wife, or raising kids without ever asking someone how to do it with excellence?

We’re almost embarrassed to admit that maybe we don’t know how to do what looks to come so naturally to others. But if truth be known, and after having done ministry for almost twenty years now, I can tell you that everyone struggles with relationships or finances or parenting.

If I want to know how to be married for thirty years – I want to talk to someone who’s done it. I want to do what they have done and learn from them the skills it took to make it past the rough spots.

If I want to raise children that are self-reliant, focused, and disciplined, I want to talk to parents whose kids have turned out well and find out from them what things did they do daily to pour life into their children.

If I want to be have the financial freedom to do some of the things I want to do in life – including as John Wesley taught – to have the money to tithe to the ministry of Jesus in your church – then I want to imitate the disciplines followed by people who have saved their money and worked hard.

We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses who can show us what righteous and Godly living looks like. All we need to do is ask. All we need to do is observe and watch and learn and put into practice the lifestyles that actually have staying power and result in life.

Finally, what the Israelites kept in front of them as they wandered through the wilderness was the promise that had been given them of the inheritance they would receive if they remained faithful to God.

Speaking to the Israelites after they had been through the cycle of rebellion over and over, God still shows the grace to say in Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I’ve been reading through the book of Proverbs this month. And I find it interesting that every in that book is the assumption that as God’s people live faithfully, they will prosper. Not only will they prosper spiritually, but they will prosper financially. Their children, it says, will live in security and be blessed.

Pr 14:26 Those who fear the LORD have a secure fortress, and for their children it will be a refuge.

Sometimes we get lost in the stream of our everyday stuff. In fact, it can be a bit overwhelming. That’s why we have to keep our eyes fixed on where it is that we’re headed. We’ve got to keep our vision on where God’s leading us and not get knocked off track by the length of the journey or the difficulty of the course. If we are faith, God will be faithful. Every time.

If we are faithful to the task of parenting. Our children will learn to love and trust in God.

If we are faithful to our spouses and committed to growing in our love and service to them, we will experience marriages that not only last a lifetime but are filled with joy and laughter.

If we are faithful to exercise restraint and put off gratification until later, we will grow wealth and be in the position to leave an inheritance for our children.

If we are faithful to the call of Jesus to exercise our spiritual giftedness for the kingdom, we will see others blessed and the kingdom grow. Our lives will be blessed with Gods’ meaning and purpose.

We ever keep the promise of God’s goodness in front of us. We ever keep his love in front of us . God loves us and wants us to walk in power and authority as disciples of Jesus. We ever keep our destiny in front of us. God is raising up a people who will one day judge the world in righteousness (1 Cor 6:2).

But first we remember. We remember the words we have heard and the sights we have seen. We remember what God has done for us and what we’ve seen Him do in the lives of others. We remember what he did through Jesus. How we were once in sin, but through God’s grace we came to know the new creation. Become intentional about talking about the power of God in your home and passing along your spiritual legacy as the legacy of others has been passed along to you.

And we close with the words of the Lord to the Israelites as they are about to possess the land and step into the awesome inheritance that God has planned for them.

Deut 11:18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.

Graduating toward Maturity

It's the season of graduation.

It's both exciting and a little scary leaving behind what you know and jumping into something new. The new is exciting because it's not the old. It means new friends, new experiences, new opportunities, new challenges.

The old, though, can sometimes be hard to leave behind. It's what you know. It's what's comfortable.

In the Bible, God everywhere is pushing his children forward into the new. He doesn't do this because he takes some sort of sinister delight in watching us suffer as we get acclimated. I think he does it because he knows that we are hard-wired to like things the way we like them. And to get us to grow in any way, God has to turn up the heat a little bit - make things just a little uncomfortable, a little risky, a little awkward so that we'll let go of the past and trust in the future that God has for us.

We see this in the OT as the Israelites are wandering through the desert toward their final destination of the Promised Land! Throughout their wanderings they cry out to their leaders to take them back to Egypt! At least there they had consistent food to eat, a place to live, and work to do - even if they did have all those things not as free people, but as slaves.

It was hard for the Israelites to let go of what they knew and press forward to God's amazing promise for them.

At the same time we're letting go, God is doing a work inside of us of pressing us forward to greater maturity. We leave behind spiritual childhood and we move toward becoming spiritually mature adults.

Now it's possible to be a biological adult without being a spiritually mature adult. Look at what Paul has to say in 1 Corinthians as he goads a divided church to start acting like spiritual adults.

1Co 3:1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly-mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?

There's milk. And then there's solid food. There's simple teaching about what one must do to be saved. Then there's the harder work of living out that salvation like Paul says to do in Philippians 2 with "fear and trembling." Once we leave behind simply knowing how to be saved, we enter the much more difficult (but rewarding) journey of daily living out our walk with Jesus.

It's one thing to have a one time experience of your sins being forgiven. It's another thing to daily forgive those who have hurt you and seek God's forgiveness for the ways we've hurt others. It's one thing to to experience the "high" of receiving Christ for the first time. It's another thing to receive Christ every single day even though you're not sure where the strength is going to come from to make it through your day. It's one thing to see realized the hope you have of being in heaven in eternity. It's another to bring heaven down to earth in the ways you treat people, the ways you do your daily work, the ways you show love for people you don't always feel like loving or honoring.

My men's group that meets on Wednesday Nights is reading through C.S. Lewis's, The Screwtape Letters. One of our discussion recently we talked about how every day we experience a "mini-salvation" - a deliverance from evil, a setting free from the things that want to keep us chained up, a renewal of the hope we have that God is good and wants good things for our lives.

Most of us would admit that we are not the same person today that were were in High School. We graduated from High School and just started living life. In the course of that life, we have had to make choices remain stuck where we are because it's what we know or to step in faith into the amazing life of living Jesus daily.

Consider one of my favorite scriptures from James, chapter 1. Jas 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

The journey into God's promise - though uncertain - can be filled with joy because each day of walking that walk, God is perfecting us, God is making us more mature. God is making us complete human beings.

The last thing I want to point you toward is this.

Eph 4:14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Our growth doesn't happen without others praying for us, encouraging us, challenging us and holding us accountable to the goals we have for ourselves. As we live this life together, we're like a body that is held together by a thousand different ligaments each one supporting and assisting the other. We speak the truth in love and don't hold back because life is too short to be stuck in bad place just because the people around us want to be polite and spare our feelings. We can't grow unless we know the truth of where we are.

We also can't grow unless we have a destination. And our destination is full maturity in Christ. He is the head of our body. He is the completion of our process of maturity. He is the horizon upon which we fix our sights as we press forward in life.

Ministering to the Orphans

God's really been stirring my spirit recently about the place Promise Church can play in Jackson ministering to children and youth. When you consider the people that have been gathered into our community and how many teachers and educators and people with "nurturing" high on their spiritual gift it would seem to be almost a no-brainer!

The question, really, is how.

Of the "mission-ministries" I've visited in other countries - Hopegivers in India, and Have of Hope (actually Templo Christiano is the name of the church!) in Mexico - the focus has always been on children. I saw this in Mexico the very first day I was there. The Sunday morning service wasn't an adult service at all. It was designed especially to attract and disciple children and youth. The songs were songs children would want to sing. The praise team consisted of high schoolers and young adults. They had a dedicated team of adult volunteers who viewed it as their MISSION to make disciples of children and youth!

In India, M.A. Thomas sends his recent Bible school graduates out with a Bible and a Bicycle and they go to a village and what's the first thing they do? It often isn't setting up a Bible Study, or creating a church. They will begin gathering orphan children into their families and caring for them. Dr. Thomas's dream was to raise 1 million orphans in India each filled with a passion for serving Jesus Christ. He possessed a vision of what 1 million Christ-filled orphans might do in that predominately Hindu country.

Closer to home, we see the effects of "spiritual orphans" daily. School dropout. Crime. Drug abuse. Broken homes. Divorce. General hopelessness and lack of vision. Is there anything we can do?

That's the question I've been taking to God recently. When we first started Promise Church, I believed our mission would be to reach people who had little or no experience with church. And we have certainly seen some of those folks come and be blessed. But what if our mission really is to and for those who have no one speaking life into their lives right now? Those, who come home from school to an empty house. Those whose parent or parents can't spend time with them because they're working multiple jobs? Is there any way we can help strengthen the family by providing a safe, nurturing, and life-giving environment in which children can be taught to thrive? I believe we can.

I would like to see a shift take place in the way we do ministry at Promise Church. We've been really good about providing small groups and places of nurture for adults who want to experience healing in their lives. This is important ministry. The shift, however, that I would like to see is for these adults who are receiving life begin pouring life into the lives of others. How many of us know that a body of water that just has water coming in but never flows through becomes stagnant over time?

Would a shift take place in the predominantly secular culture of the United States if there were a movement to educate and nurture 1 million children with the good news of Jesus Christ who have been left spiritually orphaned?

Find a moment today to read James 1:27 and then pray this prayer, if you would.

Lord, how can I be a life bringer to a spiritually orphaned child in my city?

And see what the Lord reveals to you. I'm praying this prayer as well and will be working with the Vision Team to design a way we can do ministry and worship that reaches the "orphans" of Jackson.

It's funny how the prospect of having one's reality changed can wake you up to what you should already have recognized as one's spiritual and moral obligation. John Gilbert sent me today a link to a video on You-Tube depicting demographic changes that were taking place in Europe in fertility rates that would over a short period of time lead to those countries becoming dominated by Islam. (View here)

It was frightening. The solution (according to the video)? Christians having more children, of course. But also, evangelizing Islamic people and culture.

Evangelism in the west - particularly in the United States - hasn't been something that the church has shown much passion for. Largely, the United States is viewed already as an evangelized nation. So our efforts have been much more along missional lines in other countries or what we might call "social" missions at home. Evangelism in mainline churches is almost non-existent. Evangelism in non-mainline churches more resembles a trip to Disneyland than it does a sacrificial commitment of one's life to Jesus Christ - through good times and through times of suffering.

Part of the reason for that is that we're not too sure what it is we're supposed to be evangelizing about. In liberal churches, seminarians have been taught to avoid language or thinking that denigrates the identity and value of another. Sounds great in theory. But this has led to questioning whether Christians have any basis at all for critiquing the value systems of others. That has not been particularly helpful.

Conservative and charismatic churches have been all too willing to make that critique - but often its been from the standpoint of an historical and highly dogmatic point of view - often that has no real relevance to scripture or the gospel (or history, for that matter) and done in a spirit of arrogance and spiritual elitism rather than compassion for others.

I'm not so sure I even want to consider a "middle ground" as much as I want to ask God to reveal a completely "out-of-the-box" manner of sharing the story and power of Jesus with others.

The key, for me, is found in 1 Corinthians 2:1 where Paul tells the Corinthian church that he didn't come to them with wise and persuasive words but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power. I don't think anyone today has any clue what that looked like specifically. We have hints of it throughout Paul's letter to the Corinthians because of the corrections he felt like he needed to make within that church's practice of the faith.

But here is what we can be certain of.

1. Believers have experienced life transformation through Jesus Christ that is worth sharing with others.

2. We can be confident of what God is doing with us as we measure our experience against the "law of love." The check against arrogance and elitism is - Do we love others? (Not in a "we'll love them as long as they become like us" sort of way).

3. If we hunger and pray for it - God will gift believers for the ministry of sharing our encounter with Christ with others. In Matamoros - God's display of His power might look different than it does in Jackson, TN - but we can be confident that God will grant the gift. He wants the good news to be shared.

4. We have a mission, if not an outright mandate, to share the experience and teaching of Jesus with others. Our God is a relational God. He revels in connecting people with each other. Sure, God could choose to download into the memory banks of every person absolute knowledge of Jesus's teachings. Instead, God chose to use "jars of clay" to communicate the good news. If God knew that ahead of time, He also knew our imperfections, our doubts about our being "up to the task", our lack of resources at times, and even that at time we might "get it wrong." Still He chose us. Blows my mind, actually.

5. And finally, if we don't share our message, someone else will certainly share theirs. There exist a number of versions of what life ought to look like in the world - some of which are growing at exponential rates. Ask yourself - does the version I've been taught and now live bear any truth to it? Whether liberals want to recognize it or not, there are versions of truth in the world that are fast growing acceptance that would seek to eliminate entirely any "liberal dream" of an open society. Whether conservatives want to recognize it or not, there have been times in history that believers have tried to impose something other than the gospel on other people.

How important is your story - the story of your experience of Jesus - to share with the people you know who don't know Jesus in any meaningful way? Can we avoid sharing it any longer?