Notes of Meeting Sunday 13th November 2022

SONG: 937 My lips will praise you

11am – 2 minutes silence for Remembrance Day

Lee’s Talk

13^th November 2022 – Remembering

• I wonder what you are like for remembering things?
• Are you the sort of person who keeps information in your head, or do you need to write everything down?
• My memory used to be quite good years ago
  • I could remember all my friends birthdays, telephone numbers (talking land lines here!) when homework was due, which bus went where, timetables etc
  • What happens as you get older??????
    • I think you have put so much information into your short term memory that not so much gets into the long term memory
    • Someone can tell me something I need to do in the staffroom, but by the time I’ve walked back to my classroom, I can’t remember what it is I need to do
• At my previous church there was a man called Norman Skinner – great guy – in the breaking of bread he used to talk about how bad his memory was, but how excellent his forgettery was
  • I’m sure in some ways we can all relate to that
  • There is so much competing for our attention these days how do we keep it all in?
• Do you have a strategy for remembering things?
  • I read an article once talking about what  you remember late at night before going to sleep that you must do the next day, then forget it the next morning
  • They suggested hanging something from the door handle to remind you the next morning
  • I have to say for me, it works! If I think of something whilst lying in bed, put something by the bedroom door, and in the morning when I think what on earth is that doing there, I remember
    • The other night I was in the kitchen and we had to remember to open the back gate the next morning for the window cleaners, so I left a random object next to the kettle – the first place I go in the morning – when I saw it I remembered straight away, even though it wasn’t in my memory when I woke up
• Some people tie knots in handkerchiefs, others try to write everything down,  I wonder what you do to remember?
• Today is remembrance Sunday – people do things to remember those fallen in combat, those currently risking their lives – we wear poppies, we attend services, we hold silences, determined to remember what has happened in an attempt not to repeat in the future
  • Why – because as a people, over time, we are prone to forget – this way, yearly we are encouraged to remember the horrors, and the price our freedom cost from tyranny and oppression
• We’re going to take a look at some biblical passages where ‘remember’ is a key concept, so not so much a sermon on a passage, but more thoughts around an idea of remembering, contextually where they occur, and how important it might be for us, to remember
• Genesis 9v12-17
  • Perhaps this is the first reference to remembering in the Bible?
  • I find this quite a strange one – Noah comes out of the ark after the flood, which Ken was speaking about a few weeks ago, and God establishes a covenant through a rainbow – this will be a remembrance to God of his covenant not to flood the Earth again
  • God says, when He sees the rainbow He will remember His covenant with man and not flood the Earth again
  • We need to consider the nature of God here – is it possible for Him to forget?
    • If God is omniscient, can He forget, or need a symbol by which he can remember? He said, I will see the bow and remember the covenant
    • I think the rainbow was more for man to be assured of God’s covenant not to flood the whole Earth again, that the storms would pass
    • WW shared a beautiful reflection on this in his commentary. He brought up two other biblical rainbows – the rainbow that Ezekiel saw on the day of storm, and the rainbow John saw around the throne before the storm of judegement
      • WW says that we may see the rainbow before the storm, during the storm or after the storm, but God’s covenant promise is with us not matter what
      • The storms will pass and we can remember God in the midst of everything that is happening
      • For our assurance, God places the symbol of His covenant in the sky – we see it and God sees it
• Deut 8v1-2;
  • Here we have another passage which discusses remembering, with a covenant
  • Having brought his people out of Egypt and slavery to a new promised land, God made a covenant with is people that they should remember Him, and remember to keep his commandments
  • At this stage, they had 40 years’ worth of experience to remember God’s provision and care for them, the way He had lead them through the wilderness, the miracles, the provision
  • As they stand about to go into the land, Moses says they shall remember the whole way God has lead them
    • I wonder how we are at remembering the whole way God has lead us?
    • Do we forget some of the amazing things He has done in our lives, or the amazing ways He has lead us or the amazing answers to prayer to He has provided?
    • What have we forgotten that God has done for us?
      • It doesn’t take us long to forget what God has done
  • This is why, on the point of entry into the land, Moses urges them to remember the way God has lead them
  • They might remember Him while all the amazing things are happening, but what about during the normality of every day settled life?
    • read v 11 – 17
    • God knows there is a danger in us being settled, comfortable, established – the warning was there to His people – once you feel you do not need to look to God, you forget him, once you are established, once everything seems to be provided, you might begin to think you have achieved this all on your own and forget him
  • Part of this covenant was to remember the Passover – remember they had been redeemed  and bought with blood, set free, God had chosen them – there children were to ask questions about the meaning of the Passover elements as a reminder
  • They were to also as part of the 10 commandments to remember the Sabbath – a picture which reminded them that once they had no rest and were slaves – it was to remind them how God bought them out of that yoke of slavery
    • Over time, these two elements were forgotten, and so was the Lord their God
      • It’s only a couple of books away in Judges where the find the people forgetting the Lord and needing to be brought back, and then at the end it says everyone did what was right in their own eyes,
    • DO we forget to pray, to read the word?
    • Do we forget what God has done for us?
      • We are in the same position as the Children of Israel
      • We need to remember how God has led us and provided for us, to remember to be devoted and not let things slip, so we do not go the way they did
• Ecc 12 v 1 – 8
  • The children of Israel were to have taught their children the ways of the Lord, through the remembrance of everything the Lord did in bringing them out of Egypt and into the land, in the Sabbath and in the Passover
  • There is something about the things you learn in childhood – when I was young I thought that when I became and adult I would know everything and be able to do anything – that was because the adult around me always seemed to be able to
  • It wasn’t long before I realised that the only things you really knew and could do as an adult are the things you practise and learn as a child – one of my mantras in the classroom
  • It’s interesting how the things are more easily learned as a child – my parents / grandparents could never programmer the video the recorder, and know I find I’m not quite up with modern technology as I once was
  • And just as the learning is best done about the world when you are younger, so remembering God in the days of our youth is advised
  • But why is that? I think it’s because what you learn when you are younger stays with you when you are older, so remember your creator in the days of your youth
  • As children we are less cynical, more believing, more trusting – this is the best time for us to remember God and all his dealing with us, so when inevitably we go through the times the writer describes here, our God is already going through them with us.
• Jeremiah 31v31-34
  • We saw under the first covenant in Deuteronomy that the people had to remember God and all his commandments to do them
  • The people very quickly forgot and did not remember the Lord their God, but that covenant was dependent on man’s obedience
  • God was to establish a new covenant that was not to be dependent on human obedience, but solely on God’s grace – and it would be that He would remember our sins no more
  • We’ve already discussed the nature of God and if He really is God he cannot for something, forgetting is a weakness, an inability to be all knowing, it’s passive – I don’t have to do anything to forget something, it just happens over time
  • We must recognise that in forgiveness, God does not forget our sin
    • nothing escapes the memory of God, and in a future days books will be opened with everything recorded in
  • God isn’t passive in dealing with our sin, he is active.
    • He is active in being the agent of forgiveness – he provides the sacrifice (Christ), He is the one who forgives and pardons, and is the one, as we read here, who remembers no more
  • God doesn’t passively forget our sin – after all, what is forgotten can be remembered – He actively chooses not to remember our sins, so they aren’t brought back to memory. It is His choice not to remember them
    • Interesting how we are encouraged to remember everything about the Lord our God, everything he has done, His goodness, His mercy, His love and care, and He chooses NOT to remember the worst things about us
    • There are lots of symbols in remembering, the rainbow, the Passover lamb,
• 1 Cor 11 v 23-26
  • So we are partakers in this new covenant – but does that imply we are any less likely to forget?
  • It interesting – at the final Passover meal, where the fulfilment of the Passover lamb was eating with His disciples, He took some of the elements of the Passover and changed their significance: the bread was to become a remembrance of His body, broken for us, and the wine a symbol of His blood in the new covenant
  • We still forget, we still need reminding and so Jesus gives us this way to keep remembering how this new covenant was ratified – by God giving Himself in our place, by the Passover lamb fulfilled , and a covenant established which was not dependent on us and our forgetting, but on God and His remembering no more.
  • By partaking in the breaking of bread we remember the love, the mercy, the grace, the forgiveness, the agony, the price, the cost of our forgiveness
    • Lest I forget gethsemane, lest I forget thine agony, lest I forget thy love for me, Lead me to Calvary
• Eph 2 v 11-13
  • What does that mean to us and our relationship to the world around? We are encouraged to remember that we were once separate from Christ, alienated and strangers to the promises.
  • How can we look down on others currently outside of the promises, separate from Christ, alienated – when we are encouraged to remember that is where we used to be
  • We had no part in this covenant or promise, we were outside and excluded – why would we look down upon, or treat others with disrespect if they are currently in the position we were once in?
• So, what are we remembering today? Hopefully those who have brought us freedom from oppression, liberty, those who gave their lives so that other might live
  • But there is someone else in history who did this, who gave His life so that others might live, who brought freedom from oppression and liberty – I wonder if we are remembering Him this day, too
    • The war with sin and death has been fought and won, and even though battles might continue the victory is assured because it is God Himself who has fought and accomplished
    • We will remember those who bought our country freedom and liberation, but will we remember the One who did that for us personally?

NOTICES

• Speaker at 10.15am next Sunday is Ian Cameron
• Wednesday at 10.30am is the monthly Coffee Morning
• The funeral for Debbie Harris is also this Wednesday, 3.45pm at S & S Crematorium.
• The next Horley Foodbank drive-in day is on Saturday 26^th November at HBC.