What does it mean to faithfully remember?
The focus of today’s worship and the next two Sundays is on the three spiritual disciplines that form and transform life for followers of Jesus Christ. These three disciplines are the three acts of faithfulness by which we live as Jesus’ disciples – faithful remembering, faithful equipping, and faithful encouraging. As we praise God today in worship, I invite us to consider the spiritual discipline of faithful remembering.
Faithful remembering connects the entire biblical story of faith through one common belief that the story of God’s faithfulness connects the stories of the Bible together. The book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, tells the initial story of God’s faithful remembering in Genesis 9:12-16 as God sets the bow in the clouds following the great flood:
God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 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. 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.”
God’s faithful remembering defines the pivotal event of the Old Testament as Moses leads the people of Israel through the exodus journey out of slavery. In Exodus 2:23-24, we read of God faithfully remembering the slaves in Egypt as they cry for help:
After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Out of their slavery, their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning, and God remembered God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
After God faithfully remembers God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the second chapter of Exodus, God calls Moses to lead the slaves out of Egypt in the third chapter of Exodus.
While faithful remembering is the biblical story of God remembering faithfully, it is also the biblical story of our call to faithfully remember God’s faithfulness.
Genesis 12:1-8 tells the story of God’s call for Abram and Sarai to remember faithfully as they traveled into a new reality and became Abraham and Sarah, the father and mother of faith.
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy- five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring, I will give this land.” So, he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord.
Did you notice how Abram faithfully remembered God’s call to travel to a land that God would show him? Abram worshipped God by building an altar so he could offer a living sacrifice to God as a faithful remembrance of God’s call. Praise of God is the consistent story of the Bible. It is the story of Abram and Sarai. It is the story of the psalmist in today’s scripture reading as we are instructed to “Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; sing the glory of God’s name; give to God glorious praise.”
Thankfully, the Christian practice of worship does not involve the sacrifice of animals on an altar (something for which I am grateful). The reason we do not offer animal sacrifices is because Jesus’ crucifixion is the pivotal event of faithful remembering in the New Testament. Hebrews 10:12 defines the reason we do not offer sacrifices:
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.
Romans 12:1-2 states there is no need for the ongoing sacrifice of animals because it is through the cross of Jesus that we offer ourselves as living sacrifices by faithfully remembering that the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection connects the stories of Jesus’ followers.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Every time Christians worship, we faithfully remember God’s remembering faithfulness as we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God. Every time Christians worship, we faithfully remember that the cross is the pivotal story of our salvation. Every time Christians worship, we faithfully praise God as we live into the future by remembering the promise of God’s faithfulness. This is why we pray the following when we celebrate the sacrament of Holy Communion:
And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith. Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.
Faithful remembering. The biblical story of faith in God. The story of faith in Jesus.
Praise God!
Praising God
by Pastor Marc Brown
October 9, 2022
Accompanying Scriptures: Psalm 66:1-4
Fort Hill United Methodist Church
Order of Worship for October 9, 2022
Scripture Lesson Psalm 66:1-4
The Good News “Praising God”
Music “How Can I Keep from Singing?” by Robert Lowry
Prayer
Blessing
Closing Music “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” arr. Gary Norian
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