The Things God Says to Remember

Today I wanted to bring a subject. I I've really wrestled with the with the title, but I've I've given it a simple title, the things God says to remember. The things God says to remember. I was doing some doing some Bible study on the idea of, you know, we have commands. You can think of commands easily, right? Remember the Sabbath day.

That's pretty obvious. Other commands where God says, "Remember this or remember that." And I thought, how often does God say to remember something? It turns out that there are about five categories where God says, "These are the kinds of things I want you to remember." And so, I would just call them broad categories of what God says to remember.

I want to walk through these five categories for you today to help you to see why God says there are things you need to remember. The first of those things is what God has done through history. He wants us to remember and he specifically asks us to remember. I'm going to watching the uh the Bible management from Mr.

row and from the song leader. I'm going to just stick with my notes here, but turn, if you will, please turn to Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 2. And I'll try to be patient here while you turn over there if you are going to be turning in your Bible. Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 2. God repeatedly told Israel to remember what he had already done for them.

You know, their history gave them a lot of evidence of the things that God could do because he did a lot of things. But it wasn't just so that those things could evaporate into into time and history and never be remembered again. God said he wanted them to remember. Verse two says, "And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness, for a reason, to humble you and test you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

" When we contemplate the idea that God certainly wanted Israel to remember the things that he had done, that hopefully helps us to realize he wants us to remember what he did for Israel as well. There are plenty of lessons for us to learn as we walk through Israel's history. Many of the lessons that they failed to learn, we certainly can learn.

[snorts] And so, this is what God asked them to do. This was obviously instruction near the end of their 40 years journey in the wilderness before they were to enter into the promised land. Obviously, he wanted them to remember the whole road that God had led them through to get them to where they were on the threshold of entering the promised land.

And of course, that included the testing. It included the lessons. Israel needed to remember that God had been present with them throughout that whole time. Obviously, there's an obvious to me an obvious lesson in that for us in looking back at where God has been in our lives. But in in this particular case, we're looking at at how God had been there for Israel and that he had been there for reasons.

He wanted them to see the ways in which he was there for them to teach them in particular to test them to find out where their heart was. Would they learn those lessons? This is what he wanted them to be remembering. Think about the history. What lessons did you learn? In that sense, the wilderness was a sort of classroom and God didn't want the lessons of the classroom to be forgotten.

verses 3 and 4, still in Deuteronomy 8, verses 3 and 4 says, "So he humbled you. He allowed you to hunger, and he fed you with mana, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you to know that man shall not live by bread alone. But man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. Maybe it strikes you as it does me just here in the moment. But as we read through this passage here and we see where Christ himself quoted this very passage when he was being tempted, we are not to live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

So we see that there were many ways in which God was there for Israel. They had been hungry and obviously he fed them and he fed them with food they have never seen before, never was offered before, never, as far as I know, never again has mana been offered. And yet you remember their attitude later about that.

This, you know, sort of stinking bread idea. And uh God's like, "That's that that wasn't the lesson I wanted you to get from that. When you needed to be fed, I fed you. When you needed to be clothed, I kept your clothes from wearing out. When you needed to make sure that your body would endure, I made sure your body endured. What an amazing thought that is that God is certainly capable of doing that even today for us. What he had done for them.

In other words, he gave them every reason to trust him. He wanted them to remember that. over in Exodus 13 verse3. Exodus 13 verse3. It says here in verse three, "And Moses said to the people, remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place. No leaven bread shall be eaten.

" Their deliverance from Egypt was another event God wanted fixed in their memories. You know, he it says that by a strong arm, it says that on the wings of an eagle, God delivered them out of Egypt. There's no possible way they could have escaped the most powerful army that was known on the earth at that time, the armies of Pharaoh of Egypt.

Only God could have delivered them. He wanted them to remember that they could not have delivered themselves. This was God's opportunity to make himself known to the world. And he did through their deliverance, through the plagues, as they crossed the Red Sea. Nothing in recorded history matches that story save the flood.

An amazing thing God did through the Red Sea for Israel. What they should have remembered as they thought back on all those things was how God had indeed provided protection for them. That's a great lesson for us today to remember to trust God for our protection. over in Psalms 105 verse5. Psalms 105 verse5. It's one short verse.

So if you don't mind, I'll just read it briefly here. It says, "Remember his marvelous works which he has done, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth." This repeated call for us to remember what God has done throughout [snorts] history. He has made himself known. He has protected. he has provided. How does he prove himself? If if we doubt God today, how does he prove himself if it isn't through what he did to prove himself repeatedly in dramatic ways that cannot be denied? He wants us to remember what he has done throughout history to help us with our

faith and trust in him. 1st Samuel 12:4 Samuel connects remembering God's works with what we do right now 1st Samuel 12:24 only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart for consider what great things he has done for you obviously he's talking to Israel Well, but the point is impossible for us to make to miss.

We also need to be remembering all the great things that God did. It is how he established himself as a known being who g who set himself a record for us to look back on to trust him because of that record of proof that he leaves for us. So God wants us, the first point then is God wants us to remember the things that he has done throughout history.

Those things are recorded for us in the pages of our Bibles. The Old Testament covers all of that history, all of God's faithfulness to his promises. The second area that God wants us to remember, he wants us to remember what he has commanded. We know he's given us commandments. He wants us to remember what he has commanded because we need to keep those commands in mind when we have to make choices today.

Just as Israel had to keep was supposed to keep those commandments in mind as they were making choices in real time. So he wants us to essentially embed those commandments so that we can remember them. Exodus 20 and verse 8, you know this is the first place we see the commandments of God provided for us. And verse 8 tells us simply remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

You can't remember something you've never known before. If you've just learned an algebraic formula, you're not told by the teacher, remember how you learned this before. I'm just reminding you of it. In this case, God says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. He had long ago given this day. He set it apart at the very creation.

He rested himself on it. So he gave us this command and it is a part of his 10 commandment. It is the fourth. Every week the Sabbath comes. Every seventh day there is a Sabbath rest. There's a Sabbath during the holy days when the holy days are a week long. There is never not a Sabbath every seventh day.

It would be impossible for us to forget if we're keeping the Sabbath every seventh day. That God set this day apart for us exactly to do that. Which means if we're really thinking about the Sabbath as a command and God asks us to remember his Sabbath day, that we ought to treat that Sabbath then with a mind of preparation, with thinking ahead about it. It's coming.

Every single seventh day, it comes. And if we're going to worship God on the seventh day, then we need to remember that it's coming. Take ch take the time to prepare for it. It is God's commanded assembly. Over in Numbers chapter 15, Numbers chapter 15 verses 39 and 40. I'll let you turn over there with me. God does something else as a as a command.

Now, this one was specific to ancient Israel. I want to be very clear about that. This was a command for ancient Israel. But he gives us a clue about why he gave them this command. [snorts] In numbers 15:39 and 40 it says, "And you shall have the tassel that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and to do them that you may not follow the harlotry which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined and that you may remember to do all my commandments and be holy for your God.

" Israel did didn't have the advantage that we have today. that God did not offer them the indwelling of his spirit. He wrote all the commandments on two tables of stone and those stones were a symbol for the hearts of the Israelites because it is virtually like those stones that they received the commands of God.

A people who the only people on the planet had God, the [snorts] only God as their God. All of the other nations had false gods, invented gods, madeup gods. Only Israel had the God. They never really appreciated that. And ultimately they paid the final price for that when God sent them into permanent captivity and removed them from the promised land.

So God says, "Okay, because you have this stony heart, here is an outward symbol for you to look upon. Tassels that would be hemmed that would be sewn into the hem of their garments, the very bottom of their garments." But when when they saw this, they could see it. And then it was supposed to trigger in them not an advertisement for their nation.

It was supposed to trigger in them a remembrance of the commandments. Now, we have an advantage today, don't we? No longer do we have the spirit outside of us. We have it inside of us where God writes his commandments on our hearts. All we have to do is turn to the pages of our Bible and remind oursel of what those commandments are.

Our hearts because of the Holy Spirit no longer rejects God's commandments simply because we don't like them. If we're yielding to that spirit, we're changing and we are turning and we are adopting and we are clinging to those very commandments. Tassels and seats for us shouldn't make any difference because of the Holy Spirit which dwells in us doing that work which the tassels never effectively did for Israel.

John chapter 14 and verse 26. John chapter 14 and verse 26 reminds us, "But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, it will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." It doesn't get much plainer than John's words here.

Why do we have God's Holy Spirit? It does the remembering for us, the help that we need to be able to remember the commands of God. So, back to Deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse 9. Deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse 9. Verse 9 says, "Only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life, and teach them to your children and your grandchildren.

" So God not only tells them to remember the law, the commands that he had given, he tells them, you have to teach these. You've got to teach them to your children, to your grandchildren. This is the harder part in some ways because we don't have the authority of the parent as a grandparent, but we do have the ability to live and to teach as they will let us teach them.

So kids that are not in the church still have a chance. Grandkids, my grandkids, which are not necessarily in in the church. My oldest is not in the church, but yet we still have an opportunity to show him how God's way works by living it for him, setting the example for him, nudging him in the correct directions. It's being gentle with him.

It isn't the force of a parent. The the force I would have as a parent's different. As a grandparent, we come alongside to help them to see. As a parent, you instruct. That is the duty. It is the job. Our job as grandparents is to help. How can I help? It isn't my job to do your job for you.

That will never be the right solution. I'm here to help. So, we are to help. We can and should help our children to raise their children with the same knowledge to the extent that we can. You know, I was thinking about something Ronald Reagan said years ago. It I think you'll catch the connection. He said, "Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction.

" If you think about that, if we stop talking and walking and living this way of life, how quickly in our generations will God's words was his way of life just evaporate? our family wouldn't within just a generation or two your families won't even know what the holy days are anymore. And so it's important for us to remember that this is why we live what we live and this is why we take passionately our obligation to help try to teach our children and our grandchildren this same way of life. All the lessons we have of

ancient Israel should teach us what happens when a people forget. when they fail to teach from generation to generation God's laws. Over in Deuteronomy 11, this just reemphasizes the point. Deuteronomy 11 18 and 19. Deuteronomy 11:18, it says, "Therefore, you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul.

" So it begins with us embedding those things deeply in our hearts, and we bind them as a sign on our hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children. But here's here's the hint. Here's the nudge. How what how are we supposed to do that? And he says, "Speaking of them, when you sit down in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, it's just saying all the time.

There's plenty during the day of opportunities for us to teach our children, our grandchildren how God's law works, what's different." I remember one one time years ago when my son was very young. I think he was four maybe and it was before Halloween and we were walking through Fred Myers and I think we were living in Anchorage at the time and he wanted to go through the toy section as every four-year-old is duty bound to do.

So we walked through the toy section and it was you know we're hardcore Halloween time right now and it was amazing because it is the scariest of all masks and outfits in this section. And I looked at him and I said, he I said, 'What do you what do you see here? And he said, "Looks kind of scary." And I said, 'Would you want to wear some of this stuff? You know, he kind of thought about it.

He's like, "I don't think so." But I says, "What's wrong with it?" And he goes, "I'm not sure." And I said, "It's Halloween. One of the reasons we don't keep Halloween, and you're looking at what it celebrates. There's nothing good here, is there?" And he says, "I can't." You know, in his little four-year-old mind, he didn't see anything good there.

Let's go to the Lego section. he wanted to get out of there. We don't raise our children up with that. And so they don't look at that when they're when they're estranged to it. They don't look at that and think this looks wonderful. When you maybe when you're a baby, when you're, you know, and the whole time you grow up, maybe day after day, year after year, when this is what your family does, maybe it becomes some way you you're anesticized to it.

But when you isolate your kids from this, they don't handle it the same way. They don't think it looks cool and awesome and great. So, it was just an opportunity in real time to talk about why we don't keep Halloween. What does God say we should keep? What are the holy days? What is this day about? Why don't we keep it? An opportunity in real time to teach.

God's truth, his commands are precious. It feels to me like today, maybe more than any time in history, we need to really be thinking about that. This world is turning its back real quick on on its roots founded in Christianity. It's it's just it's at lightning speed. I'm worried about the effects that it has on us, the enesticizing effects.

I I've been thinking about doing a message. We are all frogs in Satan's pot. the temperature keeps going up and if you're not paying attention, before you know it, you're cooked. That's what I worry about. Maybe we get cooked a little more than we realize. But I see our young families in God's church, and I see how hard this is.

I see both parents more often than not today having to work to make ends meet. And I see real exhaustion in God's people, fighting the fight every day. I'm empathetic to that. That means that we have to be intentional. We've got to be deliberate, mindful, and thoughtful about how we go about preserving the truth for the next generation and the next generation.

We remember God's commands by reading them, by hearing them, by talking about them, by using them, by living them. The more often we bring God's words to mind, the easier it should be to remember them when a real choice has to be made. So God wants his commands to guide what we do. That's why he wants us to remember his commands.

The third is remember how God has been with us. This is different from the first point. This is specific because no one can tell you what you have experienced. The third point, God says to remember how he has been with us specifically. We can look back and remember times when he's answered prayer, when he's strengthened us through a trial, when he's been merciful to us when we should have endured consequences.

God wants us to remember these things. Those memories give us real reasons to trust God when we have to face something difficult again. Over in Psalms 77, Psalms 77 11 and 12, Asaf makes this really profound comment. He says, "I will remember the works of the Lord." This is specific to him. "Surely I will remember your wonders of old.

I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds." So he would pause and reflect on what God had done for him. This is what we need to do. Every once in a while, it's really cathartic to just stop and look at what God has done for us. Remember what he has done for us. The trials, the challenges, the difficulties, the mercies he has given us when we cried out and he was the only solution.

And he comes through. He wants us to remember that. We all have experiences that we ought not forget. All of those things become a part of our history with God. Psalms 143:5, this is a short one, so let me read it to you. Psalms 143:5, he says, I remember, this is David, I remember the days of old.

I meditate on all your works. I muse on the work of your hands. But David led an incredible life as we know persecuted for a long time by Saul before God gave him the throne. When he was under pressure, he looked back on what God had done and how God had deliver him delivered him time and again. So while he was waiting for deliverance in the presence, he was reflecting back to when God had done this before.

This is why God says he wants us to remember what he has done for us. That should build faith in us, strengthen our trust in God. That whatever our present problems are, they're not too big for God. He has proven that to each of us, I believe. You know what? He also tells us to learn from the experiences of others.

If you think about that, you don't have to make all the same mistakes as everyone else. It's okay if you learn from someone else and don't make those mistakes. Deuteronomy Deuteronomy 32:7. This is this is worth you turning and reading with me. Deuteronomy 32:7. We can and should be doing this in the church right now.

It says here in verse 7, remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you your elders and they will tell you. This is where I think I I find real enjoyment with sitting down with our seniors. Not to talk about how this week was, to talk about how they were called, what was their journey like in those first years.

What were the challenges? Where did they get tested the most? What did they have to overcome? What was the most difficult? These stories should affirm our belief and our faith in God because many of these people have been doing this for decade after decade after decade, and they're still faithful. They're there for us to remember. Things that we might not have experienced yet, but things they surely did and that they would, if they made mistakes, almost assuredly prefer we don't repeat those mistakes.

Mistakes are not happy things, are they? Do do any of us enjoy the consequences of the mistakes that we make? I doubt it. They are lessons for us for sure. But here we have an opportunity to get in front of that by simply talking to other people about what they've went through. How did they handle things? Maybe they've experienced something that we might be currently experiencing and their wisdom might provide us guidance that we desperately need.

Hopefully their stories help us remember our own calling and some of our own journeys. This is why it's enjoyable to sit there and to share in genuine conversations with another human being. You share. You can be talking with an older member who's sharing their stories, but I guarantee you they're going to ask you story.

They're going to ask you questions about what your experiences are. And you get to relive things like your calling when you first made the choice. You know, at camp this year, as a sidebar, I asked a number of our campers through the excellence in living class the same question. What's your earliest memory of choosing this way? It was remarkable.

All the way down to our G1s and B1s repeatedly they could remember being four, five, six, seven years old making deliberate choices. I would say, "Why did you choose that? Was your mom and dad there to make you?" Nope. Joshua 4:es 6 and 7. Joshua 4 6 and 7. Here's when Joshua says to set up these stones as a remembrance in the Jordan.

I'm going to turn over to this in my own. I want to make sure I get this correct. Joshua, what did I say? Chapter 6. See how bad my memory is? I just told you where to turn and I'm like, what did I say? Yeah. Four verses 6 and 7. If I can just keep three things in my mind at the same time. 4 verse 6. All right.

Okay. Verse, actually, let's pick this up a little earlier. Let's turn up. Let's look at verse four. He says, "Then Joshua called the 12 men whom he had appointed from the children of Israel, one man from every tribe. And Joshua said to them, cross over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder.

" So, this isn't a small stone. Then this is as big as you can carry according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel. He says that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come saying what do these stones mean to you. Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord when it crossed over the Jordan.

The waters of the Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever. A remembrance of what God had done for them and a way to make sure they would remember it. Joshua said, "Well, here's a way we can remember this. Let's set up these stones as a reminder." So the children of Israel would look upon that and then later ask, "Well, what are these stones about? Who's asking?" The ones who were there don't need to ask.

They know what they're there for. It's the children and the grandchildren who don't know, maybe who weren't there, who weren't even alive, but maybe they see them now and they're like, "What's that all about?" And an opportunity to then explain it to them. All right, got to find my place again. Now, I guess what I'm thinking of is is that you might not set up stones to everything that God has ever done for you in your life as a remembrance to him.

But it does indicate the attitude that Joshua had about the importance of remembering. And this is recorded for us in the pages of our Bibles that when God does something incredible, it's worth figuring out a way to remember it. One of the things that I did, and I'm not suggesting that I have the way to do this, but I started doing this years ago, and then I I kind of go back to it every once in a while, but I started recording for myself all the big rocks of life, all the things that had happened to us, where we'd moved to, when we'd, you know, when we'd moved,

where we'd moved to, any, you know, marriage, first kid, second kid, all the big rocks of life. And then, you know, you can just add to that. What is that? I'm not saying you need to journal every single day, but maybe figuring out some way to be deliberate about remembering what God has done for us would be a good thing.

Okay. Number four, God wants us to remember where we have failed. God wants us to remember where we have failed. We need to remember the choices we've made that led up to the failure. We need to think through the consequences that we didn't consider before we made the choice that led to those consequences. Failure has to be meaningful for us, but it's only meaningful for us if we actually use it.

You have to look carefully at your failures. I've been going through this once again recently myself where you just you have to stop, pause, look back on the thing, analyze it deeply. Analyze it and be honest with yourself. Where did I go wrong? Did I make a mistake? What was it? What led to me making that mistake? These are all important things that we ought to be doing every time we have a failure.

>> [snorts] >> For example, God tells Israel over in Deuteronomy chapter 9 and verse 7, God wants and he gives us this. We'll start here where he's talking to ancient Israel and he's basically telling them the same thing I'm just now saying. He wants them to remember where they failed. Deuteronomy chapter 9 and 7, he says, "Remember, do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness.

From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. How do you change something that you don't realize you're doing? I mean, assuming we're not that category that Mr. Row was talking about about don't care and don't want to change. Assuming that we're in the category of do care and want to change, then we ought to be looking at, well, how have we failed and why did we fail? And God says, "You need to be thinking about this.

" [snorts] And Israel's case, God really wanted them to think about when they chose to disobey him. It's important because those choices always led to a consequence. And if you can't put the math together that this choice led to this outcome, you're doomed to repeat it. This is where we live today. People want to keep repeating the same mistakes of yester year as though they're brand new ideas. They're not.

There's no brand new ideas anymore. Mo, there wasn't any brand new ideas after Solomon. And he made it clear that we understood that nothing new under the sun. Where were some of their failures? Well, complaining, fear, impatience, idolatry, refusal to trust him. So many failures it would be difficult in a sermon to cover all of them.

1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 6. Paul reminds us, "Now these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. So, one of the advantages we have is the ability to look back at the long history of ancient Israel and to see all of their mistakes as examples for us.

What did they do wrong? What was the consequence? If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If I repeat those mistakes, what's the chances that I'm going to suffer similar consequences? Seems pretty high. might want to spend some time there kind of looking at what they did wrong asking ourselves, have I been sort of drifting in that direction because that wouldn't be a good idea.

Israel made choices. They suffered the results. God preserved that record so that generations like ours could learn from it. So God expects us to study their mistakes and to recognize the same kinds of choices that we are faced with. You know just same same chapter here in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 dropping down a few verses. Verse 11.

Now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Paul's actually really trying to personalize this for us. We can read about Israel and we could think I would never do that.

You know, I mean, modern times and all, they had it pretty hard back then, living on dirt floors and in tents. And we might think perhaps naively, I would never do what they did without putting oursel in their shoes. The advantage we have is that God has given us his spirit. That's it.

Because we have the same human nature they have. And if we were back there without God's spirit, high probability we make the same choices they make. So the purpose of remembering failure is to help us avoid making the same choice when we have to face the same test again. Think about how it happened last time. What choice did you make last time? Did you learn your lesson from last time? I I like to I like to remind myself when was Abraham tested with Isaac on the altar? How old was he? 114, I think.

How old are we? Well, I'm not 114. If Abraham is tested at 114, good chance Ken's going to be tested again a few times before I reach my end. And yet, at that age, God finally said of him, "Now I know one final test to validate what God thought." Okay, last the last category. Remember what we once knew was right.

remember what we once knew was right. You know where we find this these remembrances? We find these in Revelation. Turn over to Revelation chapter 2. I'll turn over here with you in my my reader. Revelation chapter 2. So, you might remember, but Revelations chapter 2 and three are where we have the letters to the seven churches.

And when we get to verse five, let's let's double check who he's talking to here. Revelation two and verse five. So he's talking here at the begins of verse one to the church at Ephesus, right? These things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.

Drop down now to verse 5. To these people, he says, remember therefore from where you have fallen. Repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. You might say, "Well, isn't this just about repentance?" And the answer is, it's certainly a part of it.

But God's instruction was to remember something. How do you remember something you weren't taught that you didn't know? They knew what to do. They just weren't doing it adequately in God's eyes. That is obviously a lesson for us. Remember what you know to do right and do it is another way to say it. Remember what you know to do right and do it.

The alternative is not good. He says if you don't repent, he's going to take away the lampstand. So, we need to ask ourselves, are we still doing those things that God has shown us he wants us to do? Hebrews covers this in a different way. Hebrews talks about drift. I think of drift as being something like being frogs in Satan's pot.

the longer we're in it and the higher the temperature and the less we realize that we've been cooking leads to drift. It leads where we've let some things go. Maybe we're not as intense about our Sabbath worship. Maybe we don't pay enough attention about other areas of God's life, way of life that he wants us to pay attention to and we've let them slip.

It's on us about slippage. Drifting is about us. It isn't about somebody else. It's about what we do to preserve and protect the truth that God has given to us. Life can wear us down. We have jobs. More people have to work more hours these days just to make ends meet. Distractions, entertainment, come on. Never been more distractions than there is today.

You can be distracted in any way you want. And it's not hard. All you got to do is pick up your phone. If you open up a social media app, you'll be distracted for quite a while. We all know it. And it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be Facebook or Instagram. Open up YouTube, right? Or Tik Tok. Scroll away because that's what you're going to be fed is a non-stop stream of what that app thinks you want to see.

The more time you give it your eyeballs, the more it feels it's winning. That's what those algorithms are designed to do is to keep your attention. And so, yeah, we can be distracted and we can begin to drift and not even realize it. Over in Revelation chapter 3, we read about the church at Sardis. In verse one of chapter 3, it says, 'Ann to the angel of the church of Sardis, write these things, says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know your works, that you have a name and that you are alive, but you

are dead. What does it mean to be both alive and dead? They are a current church on the face of the earth today. They have some knowledge, but they can't see some things. I have sat with these people. They're they're wonderful people. This isn't an accusation about character or or any of that. This is literally can't see.

I sat with a Church of God 7th day member in their house. We had a lovely conversation. We went to Leviticus chapter 23 because they believe in the seventh day Sabbath. We read all the first part of Leviticus 23 together and we were in lock step. As soon as we moved to the first holy day, gone. I not saying it's hard for me to tell you this in what the experience was like. They could not see it.

It was like the scripture didn't exist. The words were not on the page for them. They are alive but dead. If you can't see that thing that God is trying to reveal, what does that say? God's description is alive but dead. We don't want to be in that category. This can be very practical for us. I think so.

Maybe prayer becomes I don't know an afterthought at the end of the day. You've gone all day long and you haven't prayed once. Maybe you've gone a couple of days, maybe even more than that. And you start to realize, when was the last time I actually knelt down before God and you might feel some shame, and I hope that happens for our own sakes, for all of our sakes, that we feel something because that means the spirit's working.

Think about where we could be drifting is the point. Remember what God says to do and do it. In the case of Sardis, he says, "Remember therefore how you have received and heard." Verse three, "Hold fast and repent." Repentance is the key. If there's been a little drift in our lives, repentance is the key. Just get on our knees and ask God to forgive us. Stop where we are.

Turn around and realize God is right there. It is us who have been walking away when we have been drifting. It doesn't mean that we have to solve every single problem from the beginning when we realize that we have been drifting. It means that we can stop the drifting and turn and face God and start addressing it.

That's the beautiful thing. Perfection doesn't happen overnight for any of us. So, we begin the process when we stop and we turn and we face God again and we ask him for forgiveness and for help. And guess what? The process starts again. And here we are a new before God as a repentant child that he is hoping and waiting for us to do to make these changes.

God's way does not stop working because the world becomes louder or it becomes faster or it demands more of our attention. God's way works. Period. It's us who forget. God gave us an amazing ability to remember. I was looking up the capacity of human memory. It's two It's estimated, they don't know exactly, but it's estimated to be about 2.5 pabytes.

Do you know how much that is? Here's one way I could explain it to you. It's the equivalent of recording some putting on a video recorder on HD and letting it run for 300 years straight, 24 hours a day. That's estimated to be our capacity for memory. So God gave us an incredible capacity to remember. But what I love about God is he doesn't try to over complicate things for us.

He gave us five areas of things he wants us to remember. He wants us to remember what he's done in history. How he has proved himself over and over and over again. He wants us to remember what he's commanded because he gave us laws and a way to live that if we would just do it, we would have happy, meaningful, successful lives in God's eyes.

Maybe not the world's, but in God's eyes. He wants us to remember how he has been with us personally to reflect on all the times God has been there in our lives proving himself to us. He wants us to remember our failures so that we don't repeat them. And he wants us to remember that he has shown us a way to live.

And if we've drifted from that, we need to get back to doing what he has shown us and that we know that we are supposed to do. These are the five areas of remembrances that God gives to us. As we move forward, we must not forget where we've been. We can and should carry all the right memories with us and let them help us make better choices, better decisions, develop wisdom and discernment in our lives.

God has given us much to remember, and every one of those memories can help us remain faithful until Jesus Christ returns.