Well, I am thrilled to be with you guys here today. And as I discovered that my turn was going to be Memorial Day, which I. I do enjoy very much, and I’m excited to be with you on this particular day, I started studying it out and figuring out what. Okay, Lord, what is it that you want me to say and what do you want me to share? And it got big. So this may go to next week, may go to the week after. We’ll see. Okay. It’ll be fun.
But I wanted to start with a little history. I think sometimes we forget our history, which is actually where I got to the end of my message, and there was more. So when we start with the history of something, it gives it more meaning. And Memorial Day’s history started as a national day of remembrance, for sure, for men and women who have fallen in service to our country. We have Veterans Day, which is for women who are men and women who are veterans, but Memorial Day specifically for those who gave the ultimate. Who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom here in the United States. And it’s a solemn occasion, for sure. We use it as the beginning of summer.
We use it as the end of school. We use it as a great day to get out the grill, and Dad’s excited for his new smoker, and what are we going to do? And will there be a slip and slide in the yard today? But it did begin and should be remembered also primarily as a day to give a little bit of remembrance to those who have given the greatest sacrifice. So that’s where it starts. It originated after the Civil War, and it was actually was called Decoration Day. And it was a day when people would go to the cemeteries of the fallen and decorate the tombstones and the gravestones of those who had passed. We get a lot of emotion around death of loved ones. We get a lot of emotion around the death of people whose lives have been cut short in their prime. And for people, especially Civil War era, I think funerals and gravestones meant a great deal to.
To them. Not that they don’t mean a great deal to us, but I think there was an extra significance that maybe we don’t have here in the United States now. I think a lot of people don’t put as much emphasis on the funeral and the gravestone and what that represents. So they were very concerned with making sure that it was honored and that those people were remembered. And. And in some ways, it’s a processing of the grieving of losing that loved one, whether it be a husband, a brother, a son, A father. So Decoration Day is really where it started. And it was kind of unofficial holiday for a long time.
So. But the first widely recognized observance was in 1868 on May 30, hence the reason we have it at the end of May. It became a federal holiday in 1971. And I do enjoy that our country recognizes these things. They recognize the need. Our government, because it’s a government by the people and for the people to serve the people, recognizes the need for officially recognizing these holidays and these things that we put into our culture for our own edification. So I think that it’s a great thing that we recognize. Now, I know National Donut Day is important, but it’s not a federally recognized day like Memorial Day is.
So maybe we won’t. Excuse me. Maybe we won’t, you know, make a federal day out of National Donut Day. Although there could be. Okay, back up. I don’t know where I was, Toby, but So I enjoy that our country is cognizant of what its citizens need and go so far as to take what’s happening in our culture and recognize it formally. National Donut Day may not be a day we want to recognize formally, but maybe it should be a day that we celebrate informally. It’s another story.
This is important. It’s a sacred time. There’s a deep meaning to someone giving their life for their brother. It honors this ultimate sacrifice. John 15:13 says, there’s no greater love, has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. And that’s the greatest honor, that’s the greatest love, that’s the greatest sacrifice. So it honors the ultimate sacrifice. It’s not just about patriotism.
It’s about honoring those real life people. It’s not just a picture on a wall. That was a person, that was someone’s person, that was someone’s. That was someone’s father, that was someone’s husband, that was someone’s brother. And bringing to light that it’s not just an idea that we have in our heads. It honors and brings back to our remembrance those actual, real people who laid down their lives. It teaches us gratitude and respect. Taking a moment, taking a day to really recognize those who gave for us is gratitude and respect.
And as you know, gratitude and respect are so important in our human life and in our spiritual life as well. It fosters an environment where we can really fellowship with one another well, connect with one another well and be the best we can be. That gratitude, when we’re grateful for Things that actually helps us improve so that gratitude and respect are so, so important. It preserves this historical memory. And we’re going to talk about this a little bit more as we go forward. Part of the reason why this got so big is it’s bringing back to our remembrance that this actually did happen. It’s commonly said that if we don’t learn from our history, we are doomed to repeat it. If we forget, then there’s no point.
There’s no learning. There’s no getting greater and better from the event if we forget the event. So Memorial Day quite literally helps us to remember and memorialize those people. The cost of freedom should never be forgotten. It should always be remembered. It unites our nation. Anytime you do something as a group, it has a uniting effect. And it’s interesting.
One of the very real life examples that just struck me somehow in my lifetime was as a mom and a PTA mom of middle schoolers. Our PTA for the middle school voted one year to fund the provision of a certain book to every student in the middle school. And it didn’t matter whether they read the book or not, whether they enjoyed the book or not. They could have used it as a doorstop if they felt like it. They could have used it for any number of purposes. They might have actually read it, and they might actually have enjoyed it, or they might not. But it gave them a common topic to discuss that wasn’t necessarily about the school. My opinion could be completely different from yours, but at least it gives us common ground to say, yes, I saw that, and this is how I felt about it.
Now we can discuss it and understand each other better. The super bowl commercials are another really good example of something, oddly enough, that unites us. We kind of gather around. It’s one of the last things that we kind of watch as a big group. We gather around to see what are advertisers gonna do this time, what political statement’s going to be made, what big emotional thing are we going to pull from the. The super bowl commercials? But anything that we do as a group, as a nation, unites us. No matter our political affiliation, no matter our religious affiliation, anything you do together serves to unite you. So that’s really kind of cool and giving that reflection.
And it reminds us that freedom, free, there’s a price for freedom. There’s a price that our ancestors have paid for us to be free. And it reminds us to walk in that freedom, to use it to our very best advantage. Not because we’re selfish, but because people died for us to have it. And it’s honoring to them to walk in our freedom because they died to give it to us. So that’s kind of an overview of Memorial Day and what it really signifies. What does it mean? Why do we do it? And so I just wanted us to think about that. If we don’t dive deep enough into something, then we really don’t get the full benefit.
It get the full benefit today, this weekend of Memorial Day, make it a point to at least have a conversation about those who went before us and be grateful that we are not in near the peril that those who’ve gone before us have been. We still have servicemen who die in service to our country every day, and that is here again, still the ultimate sacrifice. It does not have to be in a certain war, a certain conflict. They are dying to keep us free. And we need to remember them and honor them. Share that with your children this weekend. Before the hamburgers, before the hot dogs, before the watermelon. Share why we’re able to do this.
Why are we able to have a nation that has a national holiday? It’s important. It’s super important. So as we look at this, what does the Bible say about remembering what God has done? Because when we have holidays, when we have these days of remembrance, there’s precedent for that. We didn’t come up with that as Americans. God talks in his word extensively about remembering what has gone before and what has been provided to us. So this isn’t a new thing, and the reasons aren’t new. So let’s look. The Bible places some great importance on honoring and remembering the things that God has done.
He talks about it a great deal, the celebrations that went on in the Old Testament. There are many celebrations, festivals, and many celebrations that are sanctioned in the Old Testament. Not as options. These aren’t optional things. It’s not. Well, you could take the day off, or you could not take the day off and you could decide to work. These were holidays that were mandated by law by God for remembering. The reason that Jesus was celebrating Passover in the days before his death was because it was mandated.
The reason that we know that Jesus sang, and I gave a whole talk on this once we know that Jesus sang, We do, because he celebrated Passover. And I believe, if I’ve got it correct, there are 14 things that have to be done to officially celebrate Passover, and one of them is the singing of a hymn. So we know Jesus sang, but these celebrations were mandated and there were big reasons. God repeatedly calls his people to Remember his faithfulness. It’s not about us being faithful to Him. It’s not about our honoring Him. These remembrances are us becoming aware, bringing to our awareness, to our remembrance, the faith of God. So we go back to Memorial Day and we talk about the faith of the people that sacrificed for us.
We go back and we look at that and the faith they had that what they were doing was, was a righteous cause and what they were doing would benefit us was why they did it. This is why we have in the Bible. God says, I want you to have these celebrations. I want you to have these events because I want you to remember how faithful I am to you. It’s not about you being faithful to him. It’s about you remembering how faithful he is to you. And that’s huge. It’s foundational to remember how faithful God is.
Because if we don’t remember how faithful God is, we won’t walk out what he gave us. So it’s super important to remember that God is faithful. There are miracles all throughout the Bible. He wants us to remember those because if we don’t remember them, then we don’t put them into practice in our everyday life. One of the things that Mark Batterson says is we thank God for the last miracle by looking for the next one. If you don’t know and if you don’t bring to your remembrance the miracles of the past, you won’t look for them in the future. We need to be looking for miraculous signs and wonders here in the future. And the only way that you know that’s possible is if you look into the past and you say, remember what God did.
Remember what God did. The reason the Israelites got in so much trouble is they kept forgetting what God did for them. Big walls of water. I don’t know how you forget that. I think that would make an impression. But they forgot and they did not remember that he was going to be faithful in the future. They didn’t remember that he was God. And God does not have the same kind of economy that the world has.
God says, I always have for you. More and better than yesterday. Part of us remembering what happened yesterday is looking to tomorrow and knowing there’s more. God doesn’t say, I did that for you yesterday. And so now I’m all done. Or, you’ve only got, you know, two more things left. You gotta pick. God says, I am constantly more.
I’m constantly better. This just gets better. Going back and looking at what he’s done helps us to remember that it’s Getting better. So remembering prevents forgetfulness and disobedience. Had the Israelites remembered that they had just come out of Egypt through the water, through the walls of water, and turned around and watched the water close in on all of Egypt and its chariots and the pharaoh, if they’d remembered that, they probably would not have been disobedient. So Deuteronomy 8, 11, 14 says this. Beware. God says, beware.
You do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments. So keeping his commandments is part of honoring him. Lest when you have eaten and you are full, your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. We cannot forget to give credit where credit is due. And it’s not for God. It’s for us. It’s to help us be better. The remembering is not God going, hey, remember me.
Tell me how great I am. The remembering is, hey, remember how great this was for you. And I want to do more. When we forget God’s goodness, we are more prone to pride, rebellion, and fear. We hear so much about anxiety and fear. Anxiety and fear have been around forever. The enemy is going to use anxiety and fear all the time. But when we remember God’s goodness, it has an antidote effect to anxiety and fear.
Remembering God’s goodness is the antivenom to the bite of fear. It’s not necessary to go through it. It’s not necessary to feel it. It is not necessary to feel that anxiety. Because if we can remember what God has done, we’ll convince ourselves that it’s not necessary to feel fear. Next time you feel fearful, feel fearful. Go take what I call a blessings inventory. Go write down all the things that you are thankful for.
It will dispel all of that fear and that anxiety. It will take it away. It has that antidote effect. But no antidote is effective if you don’t consume it. You can get bit by a snake and you can have the antidote right here. And you can be suffering and you can be hurting, and you can be meeting your demise. But the antidote’s right here. You have to consume it.
And when we remember what God has done, we are consuming the antidote to fear. God commands us to teach his works to the next generation. Often in tribal nations, everything is passed down verbally. The remembrance is a verbal remembrance. First of all, because they didn’t have paper and pen, right? And even in Jewish tradition, when the rabbis were teaching the young students, they didn’t have paper and pen. It was all auditory, but they would start out and not being able to remember what was taught them that day. But as they gained more and more skill at being able to remember, at programming their mind to be able to remember, they would get to the point where they could regurgitate word for word, what the rabbi had taught that day. It’s a matter of training your brain.
We’re taught to renew our mind. The recalling of all these things in a memorial is part of renewing your mind to the great things that God has for you. So you have to have it in your mind to be able to teach it to someone else. We’re commanded to teach this to our children. And if we don’t remember it ourselves, it’s going to be real difficult to teach it to our kids. Joel 1:3 says, Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children and their children another generation. When we tell it, we learn it even more.
The teacher becomes the student. As you teach it, you get better at it yourself. And we are commanded to teach it. We cannot hold these things dear to our heart and not share them. We work with Tom Zigler a great deal, and one of his favorite sayings is, the sin of the desert is knowing where the water is and not telling anyone. You know where the water is, and if you’ve forgotten where the water is, you go back and you remember by rehearsing what God has already said to you and done for you. And then it’s fresh and it’s new again. Sometimes you can.
We think about a smell, right? That takes us right back into a place or a time. When I was a kid, most kids went to museums and things at school. We went to the wonder. I mean, the Mrs. Baird’s Bread Bakery. We don’t have Mrs. Baird’s bread anymore, but we did in Dallas. We went to the Mrs.
Baird’s Bread Bakery. It was the coolest thing. It smelled so good. And still. Fresh bread, white bread, not good for you, but, you know, tasty and smells great, can bring back that memory of trotting through the line and looking at all the conveyors and talking to all the people at the Mrs. Baird’s Bread Bakery. So smells bring us back, right? But remembering things can bring you right back into that place where. That place of joy where you remember exactly what God did for you.
So talking about it makes it fresh, makes it new. Talk about it, share it with your kids, make it new again. It makes an event, not just an event. It makes it a lifelong lesson that can be learned Anytime. We will not hide them from their children, says Psalm 78, 4 through 6, that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they might arise and declare them to their children. We’re commanded to pass this on. We’re not supposed to keep this to ourselves. Rehearse it.
It’s good for you. Remembering is not personal. It’s generational. It is generation. And we have a responsibility, and it keeps legacy and faith alive. We’ll talk a little bit more about that. In the Bible, memorials were built as markers of God’s power. Gravestones, headstones, memorials, towers, statues.
They’re not new. It’s not new. And some of them were commanded. Joshua 4, 6, 7 says, when your children ask in time to come, saying, what do these stones mean to you? Then you shall answer that the waters of the Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall be for memorial to the children of Israel forever. God wanted them to remember that he provided for them that the waters were parted. There needs to be a stone memorial there so that you can point to it and go, that’s what God did for us. It’s amazing. And God will do more.
Make it real, make it now. Physical reminders like memorial stones were used to keep miracles front and center in your life. If in the Jewish faith, there’s a little about that big, I don’t know, 3 inches, it’s called mezuzah, and it holds scripture from Torah. It. And the mezuzah is put on a doorpost on an entrance to a home. In some houses, they have them on every doorpost, but it’s an answer to scripture. And when you walk by, you’re supposed to remember that scripture in Torah that says what God did for you. So any small altars, any small remembrances that you have that remind you of what God’s done for you can be a memorial stone.
I have this on my desk. It says, God’s Skittles. It’s just. It’s. Quite frankly, it’s Skittles. There’s Skittles in there. And it’s my reminder to give God my Skittles. Because so often we want to hold on to our Skittles.
We’re little kids who want to hold on to our Skittles. And we. And God says, I need you to give me your Skittles so that I can bless you. You’re like, but, God, I love my Skittles. I like my Skittles. And I really like the purple and the red ones. Those are my favorite. And I’ve got lots of purple and red ones in here.
And I really don’t want to give you my Skittles, but this is my reminder that whatever I give to God, he takes it and he multiplies it back to me every time. And I’ve forgotten that before. We give God our Skittles and he’s got Disney World. There’s lots of Skittles in Disney World. It’s about remembering that God is more and that when we trust him with what’s in our hands, there will be more back. So this is my memorial right here on my desk all the time, every day. God’s Skittles Remembering. And we talked about this with Memorial Day.
It fuels our faith, our worship, and our gratitude. Psalm 103, 2:3 says, Bless the Lord, oh my soul. That’s a pretty powerful statement. Oh, my soul. And forget not all his benefit. Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. Remember, you’re feeding your soul. He’s healed us.
But you’ve got to remember it or you won’t walk it out. You won’t walk in faith. So often we see people who experience healing in one way or another, whether it’s somebody laying hands on them, whether it’s their conviction, whatever it is. But then they forget that God healed them, and they go back to doing what they were doing before. And the healing doesn’t hold. The illness comes back on them because a door’s been open. Gratitude closes the door for all that negativity to come back in and keeps you remembering how great God is, which has an effect on the body. The brain affects the body.
90% of most general practitioner visits. The ailment has something to do with what’s going on in that person’s mind. So remembering fuels our worship, our faith, and our gratitude. When you start remembering, you’re more likely to praise. When you remember that God did that thing for you, you’re more likely to say, thank you and praise him for all that he is. And praise God inhabits the praise of his people. That brings God front and center right back into your life. Even in moments of doubt, even in moments of darkness, you can bring God right back in by remembering what he’s done for you.
And the last symbol that I wanted to talk about is communion. God said, Luke 22:19, do this in remembrance of me. That last supper wasn’t just for that particular day. That last supper is an enduring symbol of what Jesus did for us. He gave the ultimate sacrifice. And every time we take communion. That is a memorial of what Jesus did for us. It’s the most sacred act that we have.
It’s our most sacred act, the memorial of communion. All he did for us is symbolized in that breaking of the bread. And the bread is his body and the drinking of the wine and the wine is his blood. That brings back to our remembrance his sacrifice, which brings back our faith, our gratitude, and our worship. So make sure you stay humble and obedient. You build your faith in hard times when you take your communion and you can take your communion anytime. You know, you don’t have to wait till church passes out welches and a little cracker to take communion. You can take communion anytime in your own home.
Remembering the sacrifice that Jesus made and giving him praise and glory for will build your faith in the hard time. It will help you pass down a spiritual legacy to those around you. And it will keep your heart aligned with the truth of all God has done for you. We’re going to talk some more about what all this means, because there’s more. I haven’t even gotten to the first thing that I thought of when we talked about remembering and Memorial Day. So now that we’ve got the history, now that we know why we remember things, we’ll get into how we can walk that out next week. Let me pray for you guys. Father, thank you.
Conia [00:33:41 – 00:34:23]
Thank you for this process of remembering. Thank you that you love us so much, that you want us to remember all the time how good you are to us. Lord, we give glory and we give honor to those who have gone before us and made the ultimate sacrifice to keep us free. Father, may we honor them with the way that we walk our lives out each and every day. And may we honor you by keeping this faith in Jesus name, Amen. Pastor David’s coming. He’s going to wrap it up.
