Siloam Baptist Church – Cardiff, Wales, UK
Note: My recorder failed halfway, so the audio quality drops considerably around the 10-minute mark.
Good morning, friends.
It’s been a year since I was last with you. Thank you for your welcome and hospitality, as always.
A year ago we said good-bye to our dear Necia. It’s been a year of firsts for all of us. Those firsts without our loved ones are always hard.
Today, we remember as a community.
As some of you may know, I am the director of the Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People in the United States. CMJ, among other things, teaches Christians about Judaism and its links to Christianity.
I learn a lot from listening to our Jewish neighbors. Something they are really good at is remembering.
They have a tradition called yahrzeit. Yahrzeit is the anniversary of someone’s death. They observe it by magnifying God’s name in a prayer called the kaddish and by lighting a candle.
The kaddish is an amazing prayer that praises God and calls for the Messiah to come. I’ve prayed it at synagogues, at Holocaust memorials, and with Jewish believers in Jesus.
The kaddish resonates with the Our Father, in which Jesus teaches us to magnify the name of the Father before we ask for anything.
So, before we continue, let us pray the Our Father together in an act of remembrance:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Remember. It is one of the most repeated commands in the Bible. It’s one reason our Jewish neighbors take remembering so seriously. And we should, too.
Remember comes up 234 times in the Bible: 184 in Hebrew Scriptures and 50 times in New Testament.1
In looking at all these times ‘remember’ comes up in the Scriptures, I saw three main ways in which the verb remember is employed.
- The first several mentions are God saying “I will remember.” It is a proclamation of his faithfulness.
- Next comes the command, You remember God’s faithfulness. It is a call for us to worship God by remembering his lovingkindness.
- Then there’s the plea or prayer: God, please remember. ‘God, remember me!’ is a cry for help, our calling on and relying on God’s faithfulness.
So, let’s look at ‘remembering’ in the Scriptures and hear what the Spirit is saying to us this day.
I was struck that the first use of the verb remember is by God in the Flood story. The first three uses are in the flood story.
- “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided” (Gen 8:1).
After 40 days of rain, of cleansing the earth from corruption and sin, God remembered that Noah and his family still living in the floating zoo.
So God stops the rain and lets the water drain away. And he makes a covenant promise to never again destroy the earth by water. And then he says the rainbow is – not a reminder to us but – a reminder to him!
14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” (Gen 9)
The first three mentions of remember are all about God remembering his love and faithfulness to humanity and to all creation.
- “God remembered Noah” (Gen 8:1)
- “I will remember my covenant” to you (Gen 9:15)
- “When the [rainbow] is in the clouds… I will remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature” (Gen 9:16).
And we see God continuing to remember in the rest of the Bible narrative:
- God shows Lot mercy because God remembers Abraham (Gen 19:29)
- God remembered Rachel and opened her womb (Gen 30:22, cf. Hannah)
- In Exodus, God heard groaning of the slaves and remembered the Patriarchs (Exod 2:24)
So, we said in the Bible remembering has three functions.
- First, God remembers his promises to us.
- Second, God’s people are told to remember.
The first time we see the command ‘remember’ is in Exodus.
- Remember the Passover day, when God saved you from slavery (Exod 13:3)
God calls us to remember the day of our salvation. When did you say yes to God? When did he save you from the mess you made for yourself? When did you say to him, “You are my savior and Lord”? Remember that day.
That’s why share bread and wine together. To remember Jesus’s death til he comes. To remember the day that he ransomed us from hell, when he wiped our sins away.
And what is the communion meal but a shorted Passover meal?
Moses told the Hebrews to remember their Exodus with unleavened bread. Then Jesus takes that meal of remembrance – the Passover seder – and tells us to remember his death. We remember Israel freed from Egypt and remember that are freed from slavery to sin and death.
But if all that is new to you, the most foundational command is “Remember the LORD your God” (Deut 8:18).
Remember God. Remember that he loves you. Remember that he died to save you. Remember he is with you always, even to the end of all things.
Jesus and Paul, in the New Testament tell us to remember.
Paul tells us to remember we were once separated from God and his people (Eph 2:11-12).
Jesus tells us to remember His miracles and answered prayers (Matt 16:9). Let us remember the miracles we read about in the Bible. But let us also remember the miracles and answered prayers we’ve seen in our own lives.
Remember his promises to us. Today, as we remember Necia and others that we have lost to illness and death, remember that Jesus promises resurrection life. Jesus promises us eternal life.
Remember those who preached the Gospel to you, those who ministered to you in your need, those who showed you mercy (Heb 13:7).
For my part, I will always remember how Necia and Richard took me in as I was waiting on the LORD about my call to Israel. I’m still waiting. Necia and Richard taught me a masterclass on how to live by faith, how to trust God even to the very end.
And you all, I will always remember how you greeted me that first Sunday 15 years ago as if I was someone returning to you. You’d never met me. Necia was reading to you the blog of some crazy American who took a flying leap into Jerusalem and an apartment found on Craigslist. You’re welcome to me as a stranger in 2009 may never be surpassed. That’s God in you.
So remember in the Bible shows up in three main ways:
- God remembers his promises and love for us
- God calls us to remember His love and faithfulness to us
- Then there’s the plea or prayer: God, please remember.
‘God, remember me!’ is a cry for help, our calling on and relying on God’s faithfulness.
This third use of ‘remember’ is most clearly seen in the Book of Nehemiah.
Seven times Nehemiah asks God to remember something. Nehemiah asks God to remember
- Our good deeds. Our good deeds do not save us, but they are an expression of our love and faithfulness to God. Nehemiah wants God to acknowledge his good deeds. Nehemiah wants to be seen. “Remember me, O my God, for good” (Neh 13:31).
- Nehemiah also asks God to remember the deeds of his enemies and the wicked. These prayers of remembrance are a cry for justice. We can cry out to God for justice when wrong is done to us or when we see wrong in the world. We can cry out to God, “Remember the wicked!”
We can pray for mercy and we can pray for justice. Then we must leave how that plays out in the hands of our sovereign God.
Job also prays ‘Remember me!’ (Job 14:13) as he cries for mercy and for justice. The Psalmist calls on God to remember his mercy and to remember not the sins of our youth (Ps 25:6-7).
Last recap. “Remember” in the Bible shows up in three main ways:
- God remembers his promises and love for us. He even gives himself reminders. The rainbow is a reminder to God. But the ultimate reminder is Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father. Jesus – the divine human enthroned in Heaven – is the eternal reminder that God loves us and is eternally faithful to us.
- God calls us to remember His love and faithfulness to us. We remember by coming to church, by seeing the cross and the nativity, by having communion, by recounting our testimonies of God’s goodness to us.
- And we are also able to remind God. We can pray and cry in good times and in bad, ‘God, remember me!’ He loves that we come to him for help. He loves when we come to him as little children calling “Abba, Father.”
God remembers. God hears.
Exactly a year ago, the day Necia died, we all came back to Llanrumney from hospice. I walked in the rain to pick up Charlie from Valmai’s. As I headed back to the Rogers’ house, a huge rainbow lit up the cloudy sky. God was telling us that Necia’ was with him and that he remembers us left behind.
There was also a rainbow the day the family took Necia’s ashes to Tintern Abbey.
And just this Friday afternoon, as I left Valmai’s to take a walk, I saw the strangest thing. A rainbow… not in the sky, but on the pavement. Somebody had left a small rainbow umbrella in the driveway. It was on the same street where I saw God’s rainbow in the sky one year ago today.
It is strange to be here without her. I was doubting whether I should have come.
But that rainbow umbrella reminded me of God faithfulness to me here and always.
God is faithful to you, now and always.
Whatever is happening in your life – good and bad – remember that God remembers you.
Let us pray.
Almighty God, we remember this day before you your faithful servant Necia, and we pray that, having opened to her the gates of larger life, you will receive her more and more into your joyful service, that she may win, with you and your servants everywhere, the eternal victory;
and
Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Yeshua the Messiah our Lord. Amen.
Footnote
[1] English Standard Version, BibleGateway.com.