SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Grace Church.
SPEAKER_00: It's awesome to worship with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Pastor Dan Bull, lead pastor of Grace Church, and I'm excited to jump into the Word of God with you.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible or Bible app, please open up to Deuteronomy chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: So Bible or Bible app, Deuteronomy chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are a note taker, here's what I would like you to do with a Sharpie or a pen or your highlighter in Deuteronomy 8, write really big the word remember.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm not asking you to memorize it.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to write the word remember.
SPEAKER_00: Because in Deuteronomy chapter 8, God is asking the people of Israel to remember all that he has done for them.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a significant reality for everyone who's ever been a follower of God, is that he's asking us frequently to remember the things that he has done in our life, in the history of his people, so that we can continue to proclaim how faithful he's been in our past and look forward to how God will be faithful in our future.
SPEAKER_00: So the next two weeks, I'm doing a two-week teaching series called Forward Together.
SPEAKER_00: Next Sunday, if as you've already heard, is our Forward Together Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be celebrating all the things that God has done at Grace Church in the last 12 months.
SPEAKER_00: But this morning, we're gonna talk about why it's so important to actually take time to remember.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the words forward together come from one of our core values that we have as a church.
SPEAKER_00: One of our core values is that we are a unified leadership moving forward together.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't just come up with this name, it's a part of our DNA.
SPEAKER_00: We are a unified leadership that moves forward together.
SPEAKER_00: And so that speaks to the unity that we all have in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the very first foundation of our unity, is that you and I share in the same exact salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And so together, because we have the salvation of Jesus and we also share the mission of Jesus, the elders of Grace Church, the pastors, the staff, the volunteer leaders, the members, and eventually the congregation, with all this unity in Christ and all of this unity of mission, we move forward together to advance the kingdom of God here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: We really desire to help lost people become found people, and found people follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we exist.
SPEAKER_00: That's the great commission in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_00: God has given you and me a task.
SPEAKER_00: We share in the gospel, now we share in the mission.
SPEAKER_00: And so together we move forward in helping advance the kingdom of Christ here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's something unique about a family when they get together.
SPEAKER_00: Just last night, my daughter had her 14th birthday party.
SPEAKER_00: We're super excited for her to kind of become this young, beautiful woman who's following after Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But as we gathered together around the family table and had dinner, we do what most families do.
SPEAKER_00: And whether you're at Christmas or Thanksgiving or birthday, when you're with family, you start telling stories.
SPEAKER_00: And as one person begins the story, it's like, oh hey, grandpa, do you remember that one time, right?
SPEAKER_00: Remember that time where, oh my gosh, when Arela was four years old.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that story that happened when she was four years old?
SPEAKER_00: And then somebody's like, Yeah, but you don't know the whole story.
SPEAKER_00: Let me add this to the story.
SPEAKER_00: And as you begin sharing what's going on in one another's life, you start to laugh, you start to smile, you start to have joy.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's some tears because somebody's like, Don't share that, please.
SPEAKER_00: And you just have this unique bonding moment by sharing the stories of the past.
SPEAKER_00: Through remembering, you are building your bonds.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what remembrance does.
SPEAKER_00: Remembrance reconnects us.
SPEAKER_00: You share a story of something that you all went through and you recall it and you learn more details, and the richness of that moment continues to grow.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds you of the things that you've gone through, how you've changed, how your family's changed, or if you're talking about a church, how your church has changed in that process.
SPEAKER_00: But most importantly, it reinforces a history that increases your communal bonds together.
SPEAKER_00: So remembrance plays a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have been a part of Grace Church since June, uh since July 1st of 2025, you've spent an entire 12 months with us.
SPEAKER_00: You have one year of shared history, and we're gonna be talking all about that.
SPEAKER_00: But if you came in January of 2026, you've only been here five or six months, your shared history is a little bit less.
SPEAKER_00: So by sharing stories of what happened in the last year, you get to learn about what happened at the church before you got here.
SPEAKER_00: And you get to hear how God was faithful then.
SPEAKER_00: And there's this fun thing that happens in a church or in a family, when you share stories again and again, people who are not there to experience those stories, after a while, begin to feel like it's their story.
SPEAKER_00: And when it begins to feel like your story, psychologists call that memory borrowing.
SPEAKER_00: It's a real thing, it's a real term.
SPEAKER_00: Where once you didn't feel bonded to the organization or to the group of people, as the memories were shared, as you borrowed memories, as it became more your own experience, your bond also increases.
SPEAKER_00: So remembrance is a significant part of what families do, and it's a significant part of what God asks his people to do.
SPEAKER_00: Because by sharing stories, you're not just passing time, you're recreating a bond and creating a shared identity.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what God wants his people to do, and that's what he commands in Deuteronomy chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: So you will see as you read the Bible, whether you're starting in the wilderness and going to the promised land, or you look at all the different prophets who exist in the Old Testament, you even go to the time of Jesus at the very last supper.
SPEAKER_00: There are moments when God tells his people, I need you to stop doing what you're doing, forget about the future for just a moment, and remember everything I have done.
SPEAKER_00: Remember everything I have done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Remember everything I have done for others who have come before you.
SPEAKER_00: Why does God make it so important that we take time to remember?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're pretty quick to forget.
SPEAKER_00: We are extraordinarily forgetful people when it comes to remembering the things that God has done for us.
SPEAKER_00: And because we are forgetful, when we become forgetful, we also become disobedient.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what happens in Psalm 78, verses 41 through 42.
SPEAKER_00: It tells the story of what Israel did as a result of their forgetfulness.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the passage, Psalm 78, 41, and 42.
SPEAKER_00: Israel tested God.
SPEAKER_00: It means that they were disobedient.
SPEAKER_00: Israel tested God again and again while they were in the desert because they did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe when he performed his signs in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: These are the people who somehow forgot that God sent ten plagues on Israel.
SPEAKER_00: These are the people that walked through the Red Sea and they forgot that God parted the Red Sea and they walked through on dry land.
SPEAKER_00: They experienced fantastic miracles of God and guess what?
SPEAKER_00: They forgot.
SPEAKER_00: They did not remember.
SPEAKER_00: Now, does that mean that it like lapsed from their memory?
SPEAKER_00: No, it didn't lapse from their memory.
SPEAKER_00: But they didn't remember the experience in a way that put God in his rightful place in their life.
SPEAKER_00: They just went on living.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a unique thing about people.
SPEAKER_00: If the Israelites can forget that, and you're like, man, that seems crazy, they would forget that.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about our shared experience in the United States of America.
SPEAKER_00: In my lifetime, there have been significant events that have happened in this country.
SPEAKER_00: The most significant one is probably being September 11th, 2001.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you lived through that.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you did not live through that.
SPEAKER_00: But if you lived through that, it was probably not long from now, your kids will ask you, hey, where were you on 9-11?
SPEAKER_00: You're going to have that conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll immediately remember where you were, what was going on, and all the things that happened that day.
SPEAKER_00: And I will never forget that the months and years following, probably the first two years following, you would see never forget signs all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: Twenty-five years later, that's a distant memory.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why is it a distant memory?
SPEAKER_00: Because certain people that were living then, they've died.
SPEAKER_00: They're not with us to recall their experiences.
SPEAKER_00: People who are living now, it's been a bunch of times since that experience.
SPEAKER_00: And now there's a generation of people, if you were not born, if you were born the day after September 11th, you were not alive and you wouldn't have any recollection of those experiences.
SPEAKER_00: So culturally, you understand it does not take long to forget the significance of a globally changing event.
SPEAKER_00: As a result, we understand when we read the New Testament or the Old Testament, I get it.
SPEAKER_00: I understand why it would be easy for these generations of people to just forget and not remember these significant events in a way that actually changed their lives and their behavior.
SPEAKER_00: And so what God tells us is this a people who forget what God has done simply will not have the faith to follow for what God has next.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, as we remember, we understand the importance of remembering, this is not just a celebration of everything God did at Grace Church.
SPEAKER_00: This is a spiritual discipline.
SPEAKER_00: Remembering is a spiritual discipline because it's increasing your faith and it's reminding you of what God did for you previously, as God was faithful to his promises.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to look at God's faithfulness, look at God's power, look at God's love in the body of Christ here at Grace Church next Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't do that, we will become proud.
SPEAKER_00: When we forget that God is the one who accomplished these things, pride grows in our heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what we learn from Deuteronomy 8.
SPEAKER_00: Remembering God's faithfulness keeps you humble.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing you're going to see.
SPEAKER_00: Remembering God's faithfulness is what keeps you humble.
SPEAKER_00: So look at Deuteronomy chapter 8, verses 10 through 14 with me.
SPEAKER_00: This is Moses' warning to the people before they enter the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: When you have eaten and you are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, when you eat and you are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large, then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, I've had a lot of conversations in my lifetime, just as being a pastor and being a follower of Jesus, I've had lots of experiences with people who come to Jesus, who come to faith during real crisis in their life.
SPEAKER_00: A crisis happens, maybe it's a financial crisis or a divorce or job loss or a girlfriend breaks up with them or they're coming out of addiction, but real crisis occurs.
SPEAKER_00: And when crisis occurs, whatever it is, they now come to the body of Christ and they come to Jesus and they cry out for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And they pray like they mean it and they lean into God because they have nowhere else to go, and they leaned on the church because the church is there to help support people through crisis.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what's amazing about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When people come to Him in crisis, He is so faithful to meet them there.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what trouble they're in, no matter what crisis they're in, when people genuinely come and they come to Jesus for help, he will meet them where they're at and he will bring them in, he will care for them, and he will heal them and he will restore them.
SPEAKER_00: It's what Jesus does.
SPEAKER_00: And it's what the church should do.
SPEAKER_00: But as time goes by and they move from crisis to comfort, they begin to forget.
SPEAKER_00: They begin to not think so much about the God who delivered them from their particular crisis.
SPEAKER_00: And as their crisis fades and comfort increases, their fervency for following the Lord becomes less.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we find is that as life gets better, sometimes following Jesus gets harder.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that wild?
SPEAKER_00: We would think that when life is hard, following Jesus is hard.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is what what Moses tells us and what God decrees is that when life is better, following Jesus is harder.
SPEAKER_00: Because our hearts become proud because we fail to put God in the right place.
SPEAKER_00: Understand that the blessings we do have are coming from Him in this place.
SPEAKER_00: And so you have a whole nation of people that after 40 years of wandering around in the wilderness, right before they enter the promised land, God does not warn them about the enemies they're going to face.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't warn them about the trials, the tribulations, or the crisis.
SPEAKER_00: God warns them not to become too comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: What a unique warning.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be too comfort because comfort is the most common place to forget God.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a really comfortable community.
SPEAKER_00: Liditz, Mannheim, Effort, this is a comfortable place to live.
SPEAKER_00: People move here because it is comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Great schools, good restaurants, wonderful work, you know, great businesses that produce wealth for the economy.
SPEAKER_00: People love being here in this place.
SPEAKER_00: This is an idyllic American dream in so many ways.
SPEAKER_00: And it's also a place that you can very quickly find yourself on a path to hell.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's so comfortable, it's so good.
SPEAKER_00: We look at the fruit of our hands that we forget that the reason that these things even exist is because God allows these blessings to be present.
SPEAKER_00: It's just reality.
SPEAKER_00: So I love this town.
SPEAKER_00: I love our community.
SPEAKER_00: I love Lancaster County.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God we live here.
SPEAKER_00: But if we get too comfortable, we'll think that we've created this, not that we're living in a place that God has established for us to enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: So when things are hard, we do pray more.
SPEAKER_00: When things are hard, we remember him more.
SPEAKER_00: When things are hard, we lean in more.
SPEAKER_00: But when things are good, we tend to peel back a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Rest on our lures a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And so Moses says, be careful.
SPEAKER_00: And God says the solution to not becoming proud is to remember.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what remembering does.
SPEAKER_00: Remembering isn't looking backward, remembering is kneeling down.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just looking backward.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just experiencing the things that God did here.
SPEAKER_00: It's an actual act of humility where you get on your knees before God and you hold your hands out to Jesus and you say, Lord, when I think of the last 12 months, both the big things and the small things, both the blessings and the trials in which my faith grew, all of that was from you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so the groceries in my refrigerator, the health of my children, the relationship with my spouse, when they're good, all those blessings are from you.
SPEAKER_00: When they're bad, that's the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: But God, your faithfulness is still in those places to redeem and to restore.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just give you praise.
SPEAKER_00: So when I look at Grace Church, you know, in the last three weeks, let me tell you what I'm most grateful for.
SPEAKER_00: In the last three weeks, I've had two different families tell me that their boys, their little boys, both, I think one's eight and the other one's nine, have both said they want to become pastors.
SPEAKER_00: We have a generation of young people that actually want to go into ministry.
SPEAKER_00: For years, parents said, don't send your kid to ministry, they won't make any money.
SPEAKER_00: And that's pretty much true.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is the reality is God's still calling out of that young generation a future bunch of leaders.
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: That's God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing that I did or that we did that actually told those kids to go into ministry.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit spoke to them and they listened and they're feeling a call.
SPEAKER_00: Now our responsibility is to fan that call into a big flame.
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, we have the next Charles Spurgeon and A.W.
SPEAKER_00: Tozer that come out of this church and change the world for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's the hope.
SPEAKER_00: So remembering is a grateful response to God who for celebrating his faithfulness among us.
SPEAKER_00: It's a humble response.
SPEAKER_00: And so remembering is a discipleship practice, it's not an accident.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody uh sits down and tells stories just on accident, and it happens in a specific place and a specific time.
SPEAKER_00: Let me uh ask you a quick question.
SPEAKER_00: It's a Bible trivia question.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you will know this.
SPEAKER_00: How many times did the nation of Israel walk through a body of water on dry land?
SPEAKER_00: Immediately, my guess is most of you are thinking one, two, one, two, one, two, maybe two?
SPEAKER_00: Trick question, Pastor.
SPEAKER_00: It was one.
SPEAKER_00: Nope, it's two.
SPEAKER_00: The one that you remember is probably Israel crossing through the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: It's what you were taught.
SPEAKER_00: It was in Bruce Almighty, right?
SPEAKER_00: Cultural.
SPEAKER_00: He celebrates the tomato soup.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: We have experiences where that story has been pounded into our brain.
SPEAKER_00: We remember that God delivered Israel by walking them through the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: But if you go to the book of Joshua, they walk through another body of water, the Jordan River.
SPEAKER_00: They walk through the Red Sea as they're being delivered from Egypt, and after 40 years of wandering in the desert, they walk through the Jordan as God delivers the promise for them.
SPEAKER_00: He stops the water on both sides and holds up the river, and Israel walks through.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at Joshua 4, 6 and 7, we're told something specific.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua said to the people of Israel, When your children ask their fathers in times to come, what do these stones mean?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, in Joshua 4, 6, Joshua built a monument.
SPEAKER_00: They had big stone monument with 12 stones to remind Israel that this is where they crossed the Jordan River.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you ever uh have been down to our capital, then you know that our capital is filled with monuments.
SPEAKER_00: Why do those monuments exist?
SPEAKER_00: To help you remember.
SPEAKER_00: And so we are a people, and people have for all centuries have built these monuments that help us remember the things that we have gone through.
SPEAKER_00: Israel built monuments to help them remember what God did in their past.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It's been 3,000 some years since this happened, maybe 3,500.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you one thing: crossing the Jordan is still a pretty forgotten moment.
SPEAKER_00: Most people remember the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: Very few people remember the crossing of the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a good reason behind why that is.
SPEAKER_00: God's people tend to remember the spectacular acts of deliverance far more than his common acts of blessing.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we see.
SPEAKER_00: God's people go, okay, this is extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: I remember this amazing thing that God did in my life, and it was powerful, and it was momentary.
SPEAKER_00: This is an incredible thing.
SPEAKER_00: And yet when God delivers on a promise, a regular promise, which he gave the Israelites, a promise to lead you into the promised land, it oftentimes gets a little more overlooked.
SPEAKER_00: And so the same God in our life, by the way, just so you remember, the same God who fed Israel manna in the desert, you know, he's the same God that put groceries in your refrigerator.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think that it's by the power of our hand that we provided these things.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that God's word tells us that your labor, your strength, your effort, all those things are gifts from God and for the sake of your provision.
SPEAKER_00: And so while God extraordinarily provided manna one day, the very next day, with ordinary blessing, he gives you the ability to earn the groceries that are in your fridge.
SPEAKER_00: The God who shut the mouths of lions for Daniel, He's the same God who protects you from dangers that you never even know existed.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know how many times I think I probably should have died?
SPEAKER_00: And yet, for whatever reason, God in his effort spared my life and I didn't even know it.
SPEAKER_00: Places I've been where I shouldn't have been, moments in life where I shouldn't have been there for whatever reason, and all of a sudden God says, I'm going to deliver you from this moment, and you didn't even ask me to do it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just this ordinary grace and blessing in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Or about the same God who sent fire when Elijah prayed, God sent fire down from heaven to consume the altar and the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: The same God who's willing to do that extraordinary act is the same God who answers your everyday common prayers.
SPEAKER_00: The things that you bring to Him with sincerity, the things that are pressing on your heart.
SPEAKER_00: He hears them and he answers.
SPEAKER_00: And so God's faithfulness and God's blessing are far more common in our life, but we tend to overlook them and forget them because they simply are not extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: But God is a God of faithfulness, both in the big and the small.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have to have times, we have to create moments where we remember God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: You know, all throughout church history, the church has uh followed a church calendar for the most part.
SPEAKER_00: Not so much contemporary evangelical churches, but if you go to your high churches, there is a church calendar that churches would follow for the sake of remembrance.
SPEAKER_00: And so you would go through the various experiences.
SPEAKER_00: You would have Advent and then Christmas, you'd have Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you grew up in church backgrounds where you followed a very strict church calendar.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have no idea what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: But the calendar was built around this very idea of remembering.
SPEAKER_00: You would remember the history of the church.
SPEAKER_00: You told the story of the foundation of the church.
SPEAKER_00: You stole, you told the story of God at work, the incarnation, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the establishment of the church.
SPEAKER_00: All of these things, the resurrection of Jesus, were built into the calendar because it kept your eyes focused on the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Every year, the church would walk the entire story of Jesus and they would remember.
SPEAKER_00: But when you get rid of the church calendar, your memory starts to fade because now you're focused on what God does here in just your local body instead of what God has done throughout the history of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's really important that whatever church you belong to, whatever church you subscribe to, that there is a time set aside to remember built into the calendar of the organization.
SPEAKER_00: Because if it's not built in, you won't do it.
SPEAKER_00: You have to have built-in experiences.
SPEAKER_00: So memory needs to be built into the architecture of a community's life.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm preaching a message on remembering to let you know that next Sunday we're going to remember.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to do it again next year, we'll do it again.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is our annual remembrance.
SPEAKER_00: It's our time in the calendar where we stack the stones just like Israel did by the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: We stack the stones so that my children and their children, when they come walking through, say, Man, what's the history of Grace Church?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me tell you.
SPEAKER_00: Because I know the history, because I've remembered the history, because we've shared the stories, and you understand God's faithfulness to this particular body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what remembering does: remembering fuels future obedience.
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to be faithful in the future, you have to have a strong foundation on which you understand that God has been faithful in the past.
SPEAKER_00: This is Moses telling Israel to observe the commands of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him.
SPEAKER_00: For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and the hills.
SPEAKER_00: The very first thing that Moses says is to obey the commands, to revere the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now the commands of God were given to the nation of Israel through the law that Moses brought down from the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: And the law is a form of living.
SPEAKER_00: It's a way of living that pleases God.
SPEAKER_00: It's a form of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Now that law, in order to obey it, you have to remember it.
SPEAKER_00: This was not a literate society.
SPEAKER_00: It was an oral spoken society.
SPEAKER_00: They had to pass things on through oral tradition, through memory.
SPEAKER_00: That's why they would come together, they would memorize scripture, they would say it together out loud, they would have big meetings where instead of praying, they would just chant and recite scripture as audiences so that they could remember the Lord their God.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the commands of God.
SPEAKER_00: So Moses says in this particular act, you are to remember the commands of God and observe them.
SPEAKER_00: And while you observe them, he is going to take you into a new place in the future.
SPEAKER_00: So Moses doesn't separate memory from movement.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes churches like to stay stuck in the past.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, do you remember the good old times?
SPEAKER_00: You remember when we used to have this Bible study?
SPEAKER_00: Remember when we used to do this event?
SPEAKER_00: Remember we used to sing these songs?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's institutional memory.
SPEAKER_00: It's good.
SPEAKER_00: We remember it because God was good in those things.
SPEAKER_00: It had its moment in time, it did wonderful work.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes churches say, oh, we just want to get back to that feeling that we had, that moment that we experienced.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, I understand.
SPEAKER_00: God was faithful then and it was really good and it was really wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: But we're not called to stay there.
SPEAKER_00: We remember what God did then and we take a look at it, we cherish it for what it was, and we recognize that if God was faithful to do incredible things with different programs, different worship styles, different activities at that time in history, he'll be faithful to do it again in a future time in history if the songs are different, if the programs are different, and if the people are different.
SPEAKER_00: God is faithful, regardless of our context.
SPEAKER_00: So we remember not to stay stuck, but we remember to move forward.
SPEAKER_00: In Israel, the Red Sea was behind them, the manna in the wilderness was behind them, their thousands of pairs of shoes they wore out were behind them, and they were now headed into the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: And because God was faithful for 40 years in their past, and they remembered it, as they take the promised land, they know that God will be faithful then.
SPEAKER_00: It's risky, it's scary.
SPEAKER_00: If you know the story of the promised land, it was filled with giants.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there there were things that they were gonna have to do that were challenging and were hard, and it was gonna change everything.
SPEAKER_00: This was a million people living together in close proximity.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're gonna take a country, they're gonna spread out to different territories, their families are gonna grow, their herds are gonna change, they're gonna have different preferences, cultural preferences.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is about to change for Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But it's going to be the greatest blessing for the rest of the world and for them.
SPEAKER_00: And so God was faithful for 40 years.
SPEAKER_00: As they look at the promised land, they know that God will be faithful in the future, even though things will change.
SPEAKER_00: So we need to remember both as a church, but we also have to remember as individuals.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, I want to ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00: What has God done in your yesterday?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about your yesterday from ten years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: What has God done in your yesterday?
SPEAKER_00: God has been faithful to you.
SPEAKER_00: God has shown himself faithful to you in both the extraordinary and also in the ordinary.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have the eyes to see God's ordinary faithfulness?
SPEAKER_00: God's ordinary blessings?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a book of remembrance?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have stone stats somewhere for the extraordinary things that God has done in your yesterday?
SPEAKER_00: So that when you look back, you can say, man, God was so good then.
SPEAKER_00: I believe God will be good in the future.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've been pastoring for a little while, I've already mentioned that.
SPEAKER_00: People that have stories of God's faithfulness, when crisis comes in their life, when difficulty comes upon them, or when there's a new adventure to be had in the future, because they have past stories, they are far more confident in God's ability to deliver, persevere, and renew about the future.
SPEAKER_00: They walk through it more boldly, more courageously, with far less doubt and way more peace because they're standing on evidence of history and experience.
SPEAKER_00: Not just a preached word, an experienced word.
SPEAKER_00: That changes things.
SPEAKER_00: When you have new believers or you have people who just tend to forget God's faithfulness, when those things come, they are far more worried, far more concerned, far more doubt-filled.
SPEAKER_00: Their life is not nearly as strong, or their faith is not nearly as strong as those who remember their stories.
SPEAKER_00: So I would encourage you, if you've not done this in your life, you should do this.
SPEAKER_00: Amy and I have a little black journal, I've been keeping it since we've been married, of all the extraordinary things that God has done.
SPEAKER_00: We remember the ordinary, but we have written down the extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you from the pretty much the first couple weeks of our marriage, the first extraordinary act that God did.
SPEAKER_00: And again and again and again how God has moved in extraordinary ways.
SPEAKER_00: I have 18 years so far of God's extraordinary movements where at least once or twice a year, something beyond my power showed up and did something I couldn't do.
SPEAKER_00: That's the stone.
SPEAKER_00: That's for me, it's for our family.
SPEAKER_00: What is your yesterday?
SPEAKER_00: What has God done for you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember it?
SPEAKER_00: Because God is faithful to walk with you, not only in the past, but in the future, but it requires us to remember.
SPEAKER_00: The past gives us courage, and it increases your faith when you're faced with new or looming challenges.
SPEAKER_00: Church, I want to let you know a secret.
SPEAKER_00: Next Sunday, we're going to remember all that God has done.
SPEAKER_00: We're also going to introduce to you a three-year vision for Grace Church.
SPEAKER_00: It's where God's leading us next.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you right now that some of you are going to hear it and say, that sounds pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are going to hear it and say, I don't know if I want to go along for that ride.
SPEAKER_00: But you got to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: We got to believe that if God was faithful to do incredible things in the life of our church in the past, that God is going to do even greater things in our future, and we're going to walk forward together into that reality.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to walk from a position of remembering all that God has done if we're going to have faith to believe that God can do more than we ask or imagine in the future.
SPEAKER_00: Because the mission hasn't changed.
SPEAKER_00: Lost people need to become found people.
SPEAKER_00: More found people need to begin following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And as found people follow Jesus, more lost people become found people.
SPEAKER_00: And the church grows and we transform and we change, and the kingdom of God expands here on earth in the city of Lidditz, Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're not the only church doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Lots of churches do that.
SPEAKER_00: But we have a specific mandate and call on our life for our church over the next couple of years.
SPEAKER_00: So here's my encouragement to you next Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Be present here.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been journeying with us, come here to remember God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Come here to celebrate everything that God has done.
SPEAKER_00: Come here then to listen what we believe God is going to do.
SPEAKER_00: When we look at the life of Jesus, it's not just in the Old Testament that we see this command to look back.
SPEAKER_00: We look at the command of Christ when he established communion.
SPEAKER_00: Because Christ commands us to look backward often to increase our anticipation of his future return.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're trying to do, church.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't growing grace, church.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't trying to disciple people.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't trying to reach lost people for the sake of us.
SPEAKER_00: We're doing it for the sake of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because one day Jesus is returning.
SPEAKER_00: And I, as a pastor and the elders of this church, and you as a follower of Jesus, you have a mandate.
SPEAKER_00: And that mandate is to present a pure and spotless bride before Jesus upon his return.
SPEAKER_00: That is the call.
SPEAKER_00: We are to reach lost people.
SPEAKER_00: We are to turn them into the person of Jesus Christ through discipleship in partnership with the Holy Spirit through sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: We have a mission.
SPEAKER_00: And when Christ comes back, he's going to be looking for a pure and spotless bride upon arrival.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're pressing into becoming more and more like the person of Jesus so that we can present a pure and spotless bride to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Jesus says in 1 Corinthians 11 25.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
SPEAKER_00: Communion is this incredible illustration that Christ has given the church.
SPEAKER_00: In one sense, it reminds us to look back, what Christ did on the cross, the salvation that we have in Jesus, the unity of the gospel that we all share, because that's our gospel-shared unity.
SPEAKER_00: And we remember it.
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it calls us to look forward.
SPEAKER_00: Because do it until he comes.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is coming.
SPEAKER_00: He's on his way.
SPEAKER_00: He has a plan.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to come and rescue his bride.
SPEAKER_00: He's on the way.
SPEAKER_00: And so we remember the past because it points us to the future.
SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait until Jesus shows up.
SPEAKER_00: But until he does, we're going to keep moving this church forward and we're going to go forward together.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've not yet made it a point to mark in your calendar June 21st, do that now.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not on vacation, make it a priority to be here.
SPEAKER_00: If you are on vacation, make it a priority to watch online.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can't watch online live, record the message for later.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be on Facebook, it'll be on YouTube, it'll be on our podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to it later because this is your story and you're going to want to be a part of it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we come before you this morning recognizing that by your grace and by your mercy this church exists.
SPEAKER_00: And so because we are here this morning, Father, to worship and elevate the name of Jesus, would you always allow us, Lord, to be a Jesus church where the gospel is central, with our eyes focused on the hope of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: As we become more like Him, may we love more like Him.
SPEAKER_00: As we become more like Him, may we be obedient like Him.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, as we follow after you wherever you're going to lead us, would you give us the courage to do so as we remember the ways that you've been faithful in our past?
SPEAKER_00: We ask that in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.