MEMORIAL MOMENTS

Memorial Day 2023

“The Majesty of Memories”

Joshua 1:9

Happy Memorial Day weekend. You could have been many places today, but you chose to be here. For that I say congratulations and good job. I do not believe there is any better place to be on a Sunday morning than in God’s house with God’s people.

I am going to be reading one simple verse from Joshua 1 this morning to get started, and I will be preaching from the simple title “Memorial Moments.”

Joshua 1:9

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

PRAY

Unfotunately, too often in life, we take important moments and important monuments and we discount them into unimportant experiences.

We take the extra-ordinary, and treat it as ordinary.

We excuse the supernatural as natural or give credit to human reasoning and wisdom when the reality is… GOD!!!

Unfotunately, Memorial Day is one of those instances. Something that was meant to honor those that gave it all to unite and liberate a nation is often turned into a good excuse for a BBQ.

In too many cases, it’s just an excuse to get drunk in the middle of the day.

I came from a military family, and as many of you know, Connor (our youngest son, ships out Tuesday morning headed to Ft. Leonardwood MO for boot camp.

So, days like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Independence day mean a lot to mean, but too often folks don’t know how what the purpose is, or where it got started…

On May 5, 1868, Major General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization made up of Union Veterans) set aside May 30th as Decoration Day to commemorate fallen soldiers by adorning their graves with flowers. General Logan’s order declared: “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance….Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

That year, 5,000 gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to attend commemoration ceremonies presided over by General and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant. This was the nation’s first major tribute to those who fell in the Civil War, and at that time small American flags were placed on each grave (a tradition that continues today).

However, the decoration of graves actually began before General Logan’s official order, and some two dozen locations claim to be the site of the first Memorial Day observance. The majority of these sites are in the South, where most of the casualties of the Civil War are buried.

For example, both Macon and Columbus, Georgia, as well as Richmond, Virginia, each claim to have begun Memorial Day in 1866; and Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, claims that it held the first observance in 1864. However, one of the first documented sites to hold a tribute to the Civil War dead took place in Columbus, Mississippi on April 25, 1866. A group of women who were placing flowers on the graves of Confederate soldiers (casualties of the battle at Shiloh) noticed the destitute graves of the Union soldiers and also decorated their graves with flowers. The first community-wide observance occurred in Waterloo, New York, on May 5, 1866, with a ceremony to honor local Civil War veterans. (A century later in 1966, President Johnson and Congress declared Waterloo to be the “birthplace” of Memorial Day because of that earlier observance.)

By the end of the 19th century, the observance of May 30th as a day to honor the Civil War dead had become a widespread practice across the nation, but after World War I, the tribute was expanded to include all American military men and women who had died in any war. Memorial Day has been acknowledged as a national holiday since 1971, when an Act of Congress established its observance on the last Monday in May.

In 2000, Congress passed the “The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” asking all Americans to pause at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for a minute of silence in remembrance of all those who have died in military service to America.

Since that time other have been included in the list of those we should pay our respects to during Memorial Day. These include First Responders that have lost their lives in the line of duty.

Even saying all of that, Memorial Day, or days like it have been around for millennia.

According to some historians types of memorial days have gone back as far as 430 BC when Pericles -a Greek Statesman- honored soldiers that had fallen during the Peloponnesian War with a public funeral and a speech.

As people we have a need to remember those that have sacrificed everything for the benefit of the masses. We have a duty to pass on to our children the stories of those that gave everything.

Let me repeat that, “WE HAVE A DUTY TO PASS ON TO OUR CHILDREN THE STORIES OF THOSE THAT GAVE EVERYTHING.”

It all comes back around to the remembering.

It comes back to recognizing that our life experiences and our stories are IMPORTANT.

It comes back to being diligent and intentional about sharing those stories with our friends, our kids, and our grandkids.

In Revelation 12:11 the Apostle John wrote, “and they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony for they loved not their lives unto death.”

In Acts 1:8 Jesus instructed the disciples that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came on them and they would be WITNESSES…”

So, when we look back to the verse I read earlier, “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid, do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you whereever you go.” We have to ask the question, WHAT DO THIS MEAN TO JOSHUA, and HOW DID HE RECEIVE IT?

I would guess that maybe Joshua had some hesitations.

This very statement (or VERY similar statements) were repeated in Joshua 1:6,7,9, and 18

Be strong and Courageous!!!

If you think back over Joshua’s life, we see first see him in Exodus 17. He isn’t the hero of the story, but he is mentioned. This is the battle against the Amalekites where Aaron and Hur had to hold up Moses’ hands. As that story began it was Joshua that was given the order to pick the army.

Where we really see Joshua enter the story in a big way is in Numbers 13. Joshua and 11 other Israelites are given the order to go and spy on the land GOD WAS GIVING THEM!!!

As I am sure you all know, it was Joshua and his buddy Caleb that came back saying, “Yeah, those are some big dudes, but those were some big grapes, AND we serve a BIG GOD!”

Not everyone agreed and as punishment for not believing God the Israelites spent 40 years wandering, waiting for the last of the generation to die, so they could go in and possess the promised land.

Now the time had arrived, and judging by the order to BE STRONG AND COURAGEOUS, I have to assume that Joshua has some anxiety.

For 40 years Moses has led these people

For 40 years they griped at Moses.

For 40 year Moses caught the flak for lack of water, lack of sustenance, the wrong kind of sustenance…the list goes on

NOW, it’s Joshua’s turn!

How many of you would be excited about “LEADING” a group of problem children?

Now Joshua will be the one to lead the people on a 7 year journey of taking ALL of the lands that God promised them.

HERE’S what Joshua had going for him.

JOSHUA REMEMEBERED!!!

Everyone say this with me…

I REMEMBER!!!

What do you remember?

Do you remember the day you gave your heart, soul, and body to Jesus?

Do you remember when He baptized you with the Holy Ghost and fire?

Do you remember when He touched your mind, your body, your finances?

Do you remember when He delivered that child you had spent so many sleepless nights praying for?

I REMEMBER!!!!

JOSHUA REMEMBERED!!!

Joshua had REMEMEBERED the 10 plagues. He saw the gnats, the lice and the frogs, He watched the water turn to blood, the hail, and the Locusts. He remembered waking up the morning after the death angel came across the nation of Egypt fulfilling the 10thplague that would ultimately lead to the nation being liberated from over 400 year of slavery.

Joshua remembered!!!!

Not only did Joshua remember, BUT Joshua ACTED!

It’s not enough to KNOW that God can, we have to TRUST that GOD WILL!!!

That’s exactly what Joshua did! He took the commands that God gave him, and he allowed the MEMORIES to overshadow the anxiety.

I can only imagine that Joshua had some anxiety…remember he was just a man.

YES, He had faith in God.

YES, he knew what God was capable of, but even in that, I believe that Joshua probably had some natural emotions., BUT GOD!!!

Even if Joshua had those negative emotions of anxiety and fear, HE ALLOWED HIS FAITH TO MIX WITH HIS MEMORIES WHICH DROVE HIM TO ACTION.

Too often we try to just “HOPE” our way into success. We “HOPE” we can accomplish this or that, one thing or another.

But one definition of HOPE says that Hope is “The confidence that, by integrating God’s redemptive acts of the past with trusting human responses in the present, the faithful will experience the fullness of God’s goodness both in the present and in the future.”

Joshua looked back at the Plagues, he remembered the walls of water as they crossed through the dry seabed of the Red Sea, he celebrated the Passover (which was a memorial), he saw God’s protection and provision in the wilderness, AND HE TRUSTED THAT GOD COULD AND WOULD DO IT ALL AGAIN!!!

That’s where we mess up too many times!!!

I know WHO and WHAT I was when God saved me!

I remember the healings (spiritual, emotional, and physical)

I’ve seen relationships restored.

I’ve watched people miraculously liberated from addiction.

That list could go on, but the crux of it is this, IF I WILL REMEMBER THOSE MOMENTS, AND TRUST HIM NOW AND FOREVER, HE WILL KEEP DOING IT!!

Brent’s Sunday School Class

Francis Chan, “Don’t try to explain this away”

GREATER WORKS THAN THESE SHALL YOU DO!

BUT, we don’t just step into GREATER WORKS! It starts with little things.

Here in Joshua 1 when God is telling Joshua “Be Strong and Courageous,” God knows what He’s about to do. He knows what Joshua is going to face.

Joshua knows he is about to lead a bunch of hard-headed, whining, crying, complaining people into a land flowing with milk and honey.

God knows it’s going to be 7 years of battles.

God knows that in spite of everything the nation has been through, someone is going to disobey, keep some of the spoils of war, hide it, and cause the nation to lose a battle.

God knows that ultimately, they will take the land, go through several cycles of apostasy, be taken captive in foreign lands (Not once but twice), God knows everything Joshua would face, BUT HE WAS STILL GOING TO BE THERE WITH HIM THROUGH IT ALL!

GOD KNOWS WHAT YOU’VE BEEN THROUGH.

HE KNOWS WHAT YOU’VE GAINED AND WHAT YOU’VE LOST.

HE KNOWS WHERE YOU’VE BEEN AND WHERE YOU’RE GOING.

HE KNOWS THE VICTORIES YOU’VE FACE AND THE STRUGGLES THAT ARE COMING.

HE KNOWS YOUR FEARS AND YOUR CONFIDENCES.

ULTIMATELY, ALL HE ASKS IS THAT YOU TRUST HIM IN THE HARD TIMES AND THE EASY TIMES

EVEN THOUGHT THAT IS HARD SOMETIMES, IF YOU WILL LOOK BACK AND REMEMBER WHAT HE HAS BROUGHT YOU OUT OF…FOR SOME OF US MANY TIMES… IT IS A WHOLE LOT EASIER TO TRUST HIM IN THE PRESENT AND TRUST HIM WITH OUR FUTURE.

Don’t be Skreered, Be strong and courageous, KNOW that God is on your side!

Joshua hears these words, and he takes action.

In Joshua 2 he sends spies to Jericho. (anxiety of past experiences)

Joshua 3 they cross the Jordan.

White River Flood

Joshua 3:15

They cross the river, but after they have finished crossing, “The LORD said to Joshua… get some rocks and build an altar.

Make a monument that will cause people to ask questions.

AND WHEN THEY ASK…TELL THEM!!!

God instructs Joshua to take stones from the river and build a monument…

JOSHUA 4:7 then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel aa memorial forever.”

WE ALL HAVE THESE MOMENTS IN OUR LIVES.

SOME OF THEM ARE GOOD, SOME OF THEM AREN’T.

THE BAD – MEMORIAL DAY - SPIRITUAL FAILURES OR FAILURES IN GENERAL

THE GOOD - INDEPENDENCE DAY – SALVATION, BAPTISM, BAPTISM IN THE SPIRIT

THEY ARE ALL WORTH REMEMBERING

ALTAR CALL

FORGIVENESS FROM FAILURES

SALVATION

a Ex. 12:14; Num. 16:40