Remembrance (Part 3)

Who is making a new years resolution?

Give

Babylonians

Ancient Babylonians are the first to create the first New Year’s resolution. They were the first to hold recorded celebrations in honor of the new year.

Akitu

12 day religious festival celebrating the new year

Crowning the new king or reaffirming the current king

They made promises to their gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. These promises could be considered the forerunners of our New Year’s resolutions.

If the Babylonians kept to their word, their (pagan) gods would bestow favor on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the gods’ favor—a place no one wanted to be...

Rome

emperor Julius Caesar tinkered with the calendar and established January 1 as the beginning of the new year circa 46 B.C.

Janus (January) [Show picture]

two-faced god whose spirit inhabited doorways and arches

Janus symbolically looked backwards into the previous year and ahead into the future, the Romans offered sacrifices to the deity and made promises of good conduct for the coming year

we make promises to ourselves

Instead of making promises to the gods, most people make resolutions only to themselves, and focus purely on self-improvement (which may explain why such resolutions seem so hard to follow through on)

The focus becomes how I need to be better and how I can do this based of my own efforts. Like the Roman’s making promises to their gods in order for self improvement, our world today makes promises to ourselves that will always be broken

Most people try their hardest in the first month to be successful but by their efforts only last for so long

According to recent research, while as many as 45 percent of Americans say they usually make New Year’s resolutions,

only 8% percent are successful in achieving their goals

In one 2014 study, 35% of participants who failed their New Year’s Resolutions said they had unrealistic goals.

33% of participants who failed didn’t keep track of their progress.

23% forgot about their resolutions. About one in 10 people who failed said they made too many resolutions. The other 92% fails because like most of humanity, resolutions rely on our own efforts to make this happen

Children

When we turn to the stories of our early development as children and when we were kids, our minds are awakened to what God has been up to from before the foundation of the world

Kyle

Talk about how kyle as a kid has great memory. Especially specific moments in his life. Mention about golfing with Kyle and metnion Remember when we went golfing? Can we go golfing again? He’ll always bring up random events that were memorable to him. These moments might not matter to me as an adult, but to a kid that meant everything.

We Remember to

Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”

Philippians

Paul writes to the church of Philippi knowing that he wants them to be rest assured that even though he’s in prison, the spirit of God was with him and he has confidence in the race.

Think of this letter as a form of encouragement. He wanted to encourage the church that despite what’s going to happen to him, he wants them to fix their thoughts on what is true in that present moment.

Mediate = Fix, Look Intently At

Genuine

Worthy of Respect

righteous

innocent

pleasing

well spoken of

excellent of character

praiseworthy

excellent

In the midst of suffering, we Remembe

 Moments when the well of your soul is empty—these are the times when you need to remember God’s power and times in the past when He has sustained you.

Lois Evans

Remembrance of the past

Remembrance for the future

Psalm 105

The ESV Study Bible Chapter 105

celebrating God’s faithful dealings with his people

The ESV Study Bible Chapter 105

The tone of Psalm 105 is one of gratitude (vv. 1–6): each member of the singing congregation should recognize that he is an heir and beneficiary of all these great deeds that God has done, so that each one will embrace his calling to live as a member of God’s holy people

Psalm 105:1–4 “Oh, give thanks to the Lord! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; Talk of all His wondrous works! Glory in His holy name; Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord! Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face evermore!”

Psalm 105:5–8 “Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth, O seed of Abraham His servant, You children of Jacob, His chosen ones! He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers His covenant forever, The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations,”

the Bible is a book of remembrance

journal entries of reflection of where God was in peoples worst and greatest moments.

Its to remember Christ’s fulfillment of what he did for us It’s remember about his promises never change It’s to remember to not be like.

Vows Framed and talk about the day that i was struggling and going through a sad day, talk about how i viewed the remembrance of our vows showed me a timeline of my wife’s commitment to me for the rest of my life. I had a deeper respect and a renewed sense of gratitude toward her. 

Psalm 105 reads like a record of God’s faithfulness to Israel—a framed picture of His work in their lives. To help them remember, the psalmist details each memory, beginning with the great patriarchs with whom God initiated and renewed His covenant—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God didn’t choose these men because of their spotless lives. He was true to Israel, protecting, guiding, and reprimanding them when they were unfaithful and forgetful.

Psalm 105:42–45 “For He remembered His holy promise, And Abraham His servant. He brought out His people with joy, His chosen ones with gladness. He gave them the lands of the Gentiles, And they inherited the labor of the nations, That they might observe His statutes And keep His laws. Praise the Lord!”

Remembrance causes us to

Believe the He has made for us

Obedience toward His Word

1 Samuel 17:37 “Moreover David said, “The Lord, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine…”

1 Corinthians 11:24–25 “and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.””

As we remember God through what he’s done in the past, we discover two things:

Who He is

Who I am in Him

#3 Reflection for the future

Context

Joshua is the future generation that carried after moses towards the land of canan. After Israel crossed the Jordan river, they needed something to remember

Calling the 12 tribal representatives together Joshua instructed them. They were to return to the middle of the riverbed and each one was to bring back one stone. These stones would be a vivid reminder (a memorial) of God’s work of deliverance (cf. v. 24) and an effective means for the Israelites to teach their young

Joshua 4:20–24 “And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal. Then he spoke to the children of Israel, saying: “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land’; for the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over, that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.””

2094Remember Jesus till you feel that he is with you, till his joy gets into your soul, and your joy is full. Remember him till you begin to forget yourself, your temptations, and your cares. Remember him till you begin to think of the time when he will remember you and come in his glory for you. Remember him till you begin to be like him.—54.320

Charles Spurgeon