SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not on.
SPEAKER_00: I suppose that all of us have things in our house that we consider valuable.
SPEAKER_00: Um, things that in the event of uh uh a disaster or a fire, those are the that that one thing that you're gonna go to.
SPEAKER_00: Um I think for most of us it's gonna start with family.
SPEAKER_00: Uh then we might include some, if not all, of our pets.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but for me, number three behind those two things is is this suitcase right here.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's it's not a bag uh filled with clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Uh for those of you who can see from far away um uh or can't see from far away, this is rather old.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think it predates me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is when um it was cool to have uh suitcases um that are baby blue.
SPEAKER_00: Um but I have a lot of things in here.
SPEAKER_00: Um I always tell people that a key to a happy life um is a bad memory.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and that's why I'm always smiling because I can't remember anything.
SPEAKER_00: And so over the years I've collected things that to me remind me of something important.
SPEAKER_00: And so this first item I want to show you, uh, I was in Cub Scouts, not the same as Boy Scouts, but it was similar.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I made this belt um years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I was probably eight or ten years old.
SPEAKER_00: Um and I wore it for a long time, probably longer than I should have.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is the loop that it was on for a really long time.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think by the time I was a senior, uh I was six foot, I had graduated to the last belt loop, and so I was about that big.
SPEAKER_00: Um I I had a rule uh at an early age that if my head could fit through it, the rest of my body could.
SPEAKER_00: And so I got into and out of a lot of trouble um wearing this little belt.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that happened probably when I was about eight years old.
SPEAKER_00: Um I was uh a little bit older uh when I got this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh well um I'm gonna actually skip that one.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go to this one next.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this says warning, keep all flammable materials out of furnace room.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is from preferred risk insurance company.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I I took this.
SPEAKER_00: So I take it, I I I think it means I stole it.
SPEAKER_00: And and on top of that, um, I I stole it from my church.
SPEAKER_00: Um so this is not going well.
SPEAKER_00: Um but the irony of this is that I got this just a few days after a large, the vast majority of our church building had burned down.
SPEAKER_00: Some kids broke into the church building.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was about 15 years old, I was not one of those kids.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they decided to uh mess with a few things and they grabbed some songbooks, they poured um some uh Xerox uh fluid on it, copier fluid on it, uh set it on fire and walked out.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I found out that was just uh that was that happened the Friday before spring break.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I can remember spending my whole spring break.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I was kind of small and light and wiry, and so they would send me to the second floor where adults dare not tread, and I would bring things down.
SPEAKER_00: And here's one of the things that I brought down.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that happened uh, let's see, do the math 35 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I oftentimes try to go back in my mind and walk through that building because that so much of my formative years took place in that building around VBS and church and life.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so this means a lot to me.
SPEAKER_00: Um, just uh a few months um after that happened uh is when I got this thing, my little uh Chuck Taylor ceramic shoe.
SPEAKER_00: Um this has great importance to me.
SPEAKER_00: This happened also in another tumultuous time in my life.
SPEAKER_00: My dad was a um a police officer.
SPEAKER_00: He flew helicopters for Dallas, uh, and he had taken an off-duty job one Sunday, and that helicopter that he was uh piloting crashed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh killing his passenger, uh, sending him through the the floorboard uh and into the hospital where he had broken nearly every bone in his body, including his neck.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we were told he wasn't gonna survive on multiple occasions throughout all these different surgeries.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and it was a really tough time.
SPEAKER_00: I was awkward, I was 15, my parents were separated.
SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of things were going on in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then on top of all of that, um, I was now living with my grandparents because of the separation.
SPEAKER_00: I was far away from my um church and my friends there that that were my support group.
SPEAKER_00: And one Saturday they showed up uh with this, and it was filled with candy.
SPEAKER_00: Um and we all sat on my grandgrand's couch uh and and just kind of cried, wondering if my dad was gonna survive, how I was gonna make it, and how I would deal with all these questions about um God and his sovereignty uh when things were just absolutely falling apart.
SPEAKER_00: That was a a difficult time uh in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I had this as another thing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I was supposed to um take this back, but I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: But I got this uh while I worked at Arby's, it was the first job that I have.
SPEAKER_00: I love Arby's, I'm deeply saddened that we don't have one here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I rode my bike to work.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I think the minimum wage was about$325.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so when I uh ended that summer job, um I kept this and I still have this, and it reminds me of all the times that I sat by that fryer and um and uh fried curly fries.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that was that was a good time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh just a couple more that I want to show you.
SPEAKER_00: This one's really important.
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who are kids, you have no idea what this is.
SPEAKER_00: You might have heard about this.
SPEAKER_00: I think Taylor Swift may have sung about this before at one time.
SPEAKER_00: This is a a mixtape.
SPEAKER_00: Like this is this is just so crazy that we had these things.
SPEAKER_00: And and many of you remember, um, especially if if you grew up in the the 70s and the 80s, that you would um sit beside your boom box, your jam box, with your fingers on the record and play button, just hoping that song would come on and you would push that at the same time, just hoping that the DJ wouldn't talk through the first 30 seconds of the song, and you would have this.
SPEAKER_00: But this is uh really special because I made this mixtape uh for December 21st, uh, 1996.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that was the the day that I proposed to my now wife, and I'd made a mixtape for to be playing in the background, uh trying to distract her enough that she might just accidentally say yes.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then uh one more I want to show you uh is um I I've been to uh quite a few camps, both as a child, then as a camper, and later as a a director, and then I would just go visit them uh when nobody was there.
SPEAKER_00: That seems kind of odd, but um I I took this trip, uh, it's actually September 11th through 14th, uh just a few years ago, four years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Uh September uh of 2022.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I went to Pine Springs.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I am uh just to let you know, I'm an extrovert.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a crazy extrovert, which means that I get my energy when I'm around people, when I'm away from people, I typically lose energy.
SPEAKER_00: Uh exact opposite of my beautiful bride who says, I love people, but I wish they would just go away every once in a while and let me so let me kind of recharge.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so it was weird that that one of the ways that I would um uh spend time uh is that I would go on my own little camping trip with no one else, which was pretty brutal.
SPEAKER_00: But I would I would take a tent and some uh uh hammock and and my Bible and and I would go hang out on a mountain uh and try to just spend time um singing by myself uh and reading and praying and and just allowing God to recharge me and not insist that other people do that when really he's the one who ought to.
SPEAKER_00: This this thing is filled with just thousands and thousands of different things.
SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll show you just one more.
SPEAKER_00: Um here's uh one of me when I was in 1988, so I was in sixth grade basketball.
SPEAKER_00: I just find this odd because I was standing up here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh most of the games I sat, so I just thought it was weird that they had me uh standing up.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, all of these.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's anything in here that's really incriminating, but a lot of it's embarrassing.
SPEAKER_00: But I keep it.
SPEAKER_00: I keep it because I want to remember, because I think it's important, and I believe that we have a God who calls us to remember.
SPEAKER_00: It goes all the way back if you look in Genesis chapter 9, after God seeing the world and seeing how evil it was, and how all the time people were evil, and and he decides like this is not working, but he he instead decides to save the world through one family.
SPEAKER_00: And he sends a flood, and after the flood, he's talking to Noah.
SPEAKER_00: And to remember what he does, what does he give us to remember?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he gives us a rainbow.
SPEAKER_00: But here's something really crazy.
SPEAKER_00: When he's talking to Noah in Genesis chapter 9, really 14 through 16, but especially in 16, you know who he says the rainbow is for?
SPEAKER_00: Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what he says here.
SPEAKER_00: He says, whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He sends the rainbow and he says, I am providing this rainbow rainbow so I remember.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we see that rainbow, it's for us to remember that he remembers that he will not destroy the world, and instead he is going to save it in a completely different way.
SPEAKER_00: But the rainbow is not the only way that God reminds us to remember the past and our awesome God.
SPEAKER_00: He uses altars that we find all throughout.
SPEAKER_00: Right after the rainbow, we have Noah is going to put up an altar.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham is going to provide several different altars, including the one on Mount Moriah that we'll talk about at a later date.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob, after seeing his vision, is going to build an altar.
SPEAKER_00: Moses on multiple occasions is going to build an altar.
SPEAKER_00: And at one place he calls the place Jehovah Nisi.
SPEAKER_00: I'm probably mispronouncing that, but it means the Lord is my banner.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua is going to build an altar of uncut stones to serve as a reminder of the victory they had at Ai.
SPEAKER_00: Gideon is going to build an altar using the wood from the destroyed Asherah Pole.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah, of course, is going to build the altar not only to serve as a reminder of what God did do, but also what God was doing right then when they defeated the prophets of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: But one of my favorites is the altar that they had by the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh.
SPEAKER_00: You may remember this story.
SPEAKER_00: They have conquered the land.
SPEAKER_00: It is now theirs, and everybody is settling in.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh, they had already asked for and received all the land to the east of the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: So they were heading back to where home was going to be.
SPEAKER_00: They crossed the Jordan and they decide to build this altar.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And so the people on the west side of the Jordan see this and they say, oh great, we've just finished the fighting, and now we have to go fight our own brothers because they're worshiping another God.
SPEAKER_00: And so they head there, they get to Shiloh, and now they're going to go there at Phineas as the high priest, and they're going to square off and start a civil war and say, How dare you start worshiping other gods?
SPEAKER_00: And the Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're completely misunderstanding this.
SPEAKER_00: We put this up so that we will never forget, and that you will never forget that we crossed this river together.
SPEAKER_00: And while you're on the west side of the Jordan, we still have the promise of God, even though we live on the east side of the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: God calls us to remember.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he calls us to remember by building things, and other times he wants us to remember by doing things.
SPEAKER_00: We do this all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We love to celebrate and to remember.
SPEAKER_00: We typically do it, though, for things that are joyful, like birthdays, which actually are less joyful than they used to be.
SPEAKER_00: But birthdays and anniversaries and graduations, we remember those and think about the sacrifice that was made and the joy that we have because of it.
SPEAKER_00: But when God instituted the Passover in Exodus chapter 12, the Israelites were in an incredibly difficult time of their nation.
SPEAKER_00: They were slaves in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to pause for just a second because that's a word that triggers a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of people who hear the word slavery and they're very upset about that, and they turn into the Bible, and the word slavery is in that, and they say, Wow, what is going on?
SPEAKER_00: Why does the Bible condone such behavior?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you need to know that there were lots of forms of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: And if you read the Bible, there are places in which God allowed and clearly permitted slavery.
SPEAKER_00: But the way in which that slavery was dealt with was completely different.
SPEAKER_00: It was indentured slavery, which means that it was temporary, it was for a time.
SPEAKER_00: Why would we have this?
SPEAKER_00: Because there were people, because any number of reasons might end up in debt.
SPEAKER_00: And when you owe a debt, you had to pay it off, and if you couldn't pay it off, then you could be killed or thrown into jail.
SPEAKER_00: And so slavery, indentured slavery, servitude, was a way for people to pay off a debt and be forgiven of that debt, and then they would get their life back.
SPEAKER_00: It's through those relationships of a master and a servant that God called his people to love and uh love one another and to show kindness.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in Exodus chapter 21, he says, Masters, you should treat your slaves and your servants in such a way that when they're through with their time with you, when they've paid off that debt and they get to be released, that you have treated them so well that they say, you know what, I want to remain a servant to my master forever because that's how he treats me.
SPEAKER_00: But not all slavery is like that, not even in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Within this last century and all throughout history, there has been slavery that was abusive, it was race-based, and it was permanent.
SPEAKER_00: And God despised that inhumane treatment.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that when the Egyptians did it to the Israelites, when they the enslaved people and they abused them because of their race, he said, This is not right.
SPEAKER_00: He called down judgment upon the Egyptians, he sent plagues upon them, and he says, You will not do this to another group of people.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where we have this Passover meal.
SPEAKER_00: God has warned, threatened, and sent plagues on the Egyptians, telling them that the way that they're treating this group of people is not right, but they won't listen, and ultimately God is going to take care of this in a very serious yet tragic way.
SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of all of this, he's going to institute a meal.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned earlier, times were especially tough for the Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: They were forced to hard labor, there was suffering, they were starved and beaten even to the point of death.
SPEAKER_00: We might liken it to what happened three thousand years later when the Nazis did this to that same race of people.
SPEAKER_00: Not only were the Israelites in Exodus beaten, but there was an edict from the government to drown all the newborn baby boys.
SPEAKER_00: Allow that to sink in for just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: A government, a group of peoples had said, We will we will drown, we will take the baby boy from the mother and drown it.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah would later write these words.
SPEAKER_00: A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.
SPEAKER_00: It was in this most horrific time that God says, I want you to sit down and have a meal.
SPEAKER_00: Moses had survived the infanticide and would later be called to lead the enslaved people out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: And there are thousands of ways in which God could have delivered the people.
SPEAKER_00: He could have magically transported them.
SPEAKER_00: He could have wiped the Egyptians off the face of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He could have provided chariots from the sky.
SPEAKER_00: He could have blinded the Egyptians.
SPEAKER_00: He could have erased an elite army from the Israelites to overpower the regime.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he said, I want you to sit down and have a meal.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a meal that would serve not only at that point, but for millennia to come, that God was to be remembered as a faithful, loving God, a God who delivered.
SPEAKER_00: Within this meal, there would be this unleavened bread to remind them of the haste in which they ate it and the fact that they would be traveling soon, that God was calling them out of where they were.
SPEAKER_00: Within that meal, there would be the bitter herbs that would symbolize the bitterness of the slavery that they had been in.
SPEAKER_00: There were four cups of wine, which represented God delivering them from and through hardship.
SPEAKER_00: Within that Seder meal, there would be these four questions that were asked, and one of them in which the youngest one would ask why this night was so different than all the rest.
SPEAKER_00: And then the elderly around the table would respond.
SPEAKER_00: At that meal, they were called to recline at the table to serve as a reminder that they are now free people and they could enjoy a meal.
SPEAKER_00: And during this time, there was the halel, which was singing songs of praise to God who delivered them.
SPEAKER_00: And each Seder meal each year would end with the hopeful wish next year in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: That this Passover meal.
SPEAKER_00: Took place while they were still in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: But don't forget, someday we'll be in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, they would make it to the land promised to them, but then because of their sin and their brokenness, God would call them away, and yet they would still, whenever possible, they would have that Passover meal, and it would always end with, someday, maybe next year, it will be in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: God did this so that they would not forget.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here we are several thousand years later, and just like the Israelites, we sometimes forget.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up, probably like many of you, in a church and a family that didn't really celebrate Easter.
SPEAKER_00: If we did, it involved telling stories of a big bunny that would hide candy-filled eggs in our front yard.
SPEAKER_00: I still cannot reconcile the beginnings of Easter with how we got to that.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until adulthood, it was not until adulthood that I learned that there was something else to Easter than peeps, plastic eggs, and fighting to get more candy than my siblings.
SPEAKER_00: I had no idea that there was any spirituality to the idea of Easter.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's where we might kind of cringe a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And we might even argue that we shouldn't celebrate Easter.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Easter isn't important because we don't want to be like the other churches and celebrate the way that they do.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe we want to argue that Easter should not be important because there never should be any Sunday that's more important than all the others.
SPEAKER_00: That if we actually stop and say, this is a really special Sunday, we might kind of neglect all the other Sundays.
SPEAKER_00: My argue to that is pretty simple.
SPEAKER_00: Husbands, the next time your anniversary comes around, just tell your wife, we're not celebrating your anniversary, our anniversary, because I don't want it to be any more important than all the others.
SPEAKER_00: I will be a part of the search team that looks for your body.
SPEAKER_00: But one thing I want us to know is this God wants us to remember.
SPEAKER_00: Over the next few weeks leading up to April 12th, that's in three weeks.
SPEAKER_00: I want all of us on Sundays and Mondays and Tuesdays throughout the week, I want us to make an effort to remember, to celebrate, to mourn, and even to redeem what Easter is.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you will join me as we focus on the life and the crucifixion, the burial and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you will set aside time in the mornings to contemplate, in the evenings to meditate, and mealtimes to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm asking you to start now and don't stop when we sing our closing song, but continue on this week in reading and studying your Bible and spending time in prayer, reading through Isaiah 51 and the suffering servant and think about the sacrifice that Jesus made for us because next Sunday we're going to gather again and it'll look a little different, but we're going to have a meal together.
SPEAKER_00: Just like we did this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We are going to partake of the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that we prepare ourselves in such a way over the next 167 and a half hours that as we gather next week, we will approach the Lord's Supper with a greater amount of reverence and awe and gratitude and humility and emotion and intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: My prayer for us this week is don't start thinking about filling the eggs with candy.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I want us to start focusing on the sacrifice of Jesus and what Easter Sunday really means.
SPEAKER_00: It's more than just candy, it's why we meet together.
SPEAKER_00: Because there is an empty tomb, and we can celebrate that.
SPEAKER_00: I look forward to next week because we're going to gather together and we're going to talk about the broken body of Jesus and how his resurrection changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: And we are going to make an effort to take time to be holy before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so my prayer for you this morning as we sing our song of invitation is that begin now focusing on the cross and how he made it from the cross to the grave to the sky.
SPEAKER_00: If you would please join me as we stand and sing.