The Cost of Unbelief

We are probably familiar with the phrase, familiarity breeds contempt, but today we are going to look at something else that familiarity can breed, and that is unbelief. We have seen that as Jesus arrives in Capernaum after visiting the other side, the country of the Gadarenes in the region of Decapolis, the Galileans are overjoyed at His arrival. Jairus, one of the elders of the synagogue in Capernaum, rushes to Jesus to beg the healing of his daughter, a woman with a chronic hemorrhage is healed by Jesus on the way to Jairus’, and ultimately, Jairus’ daughter dies, but Jesus raises her from the dead.

Capernaum is happy that Jesus is there, but now, Jesus is about to travel about 40 miles from Capernaum southwest to Nazareth, the city where he grew up. The people of this town have known Jesus since he was little. This seems to be His last visit to Nazareth, and when He arrives, the sentiment about him is very different from that in Capernaum.

The events that we will see today are found in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We will be jumping in and out of Mark and Luke, so if you’d like to follow along smoothly, you can text the word NOTES to the number on the screen, and it will lead you to the sermon notes where you can see all the verses and take notes as well, if you so desire.

As it goes, Matthew’s account is the shortest of the three, followed by Mark’s and then Luke’s.

Because the Gospel of Mark gives all the details that Matthew’s account gives, then we will focus on Mark’s and Luke’s account of this event. If you are still interested in reading Matthew’s account, you can find it in Matthew 13:54-58.

But right now, I’ll ask you to turn in your Bibles to Mark 6:1-2

Mark 6:1–2 KJV 1900

1 And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. 2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?

Amazed at His Wisdom

The first thing we note here is that when Jesus comes into his own country, and Luke makes it clear to us that this is in fact, Nazareth, that Jesus goes into the synagogue on the sabbath day to teach. This had become, as Luke 4:16 puts it, Jesus’ custom. When in a town on the sabbath day, it seems that Jesus regularly would go into that town’s synagogue and use the space as a place to teach from.

Even being in his home town, Jesus does not alter his custom, and begins to teach. We see in both Matthew and Mark that after Jesus preaches, the people are astonished. They marveled at His wisdom. But those two gospels do not tell us exactly what Jesus preached. We know through the context of studying Jesus’ life that He would have been preaching something to do with the kingdom of God, but we do not know what his words are… that is, until you come to Luke’s Gospel. Luke 4:16-21

Luke 4:16–21 KJV 1900

16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

Jesus reads out of the book of Isaiah, though then they did not have chapter and verse markings, we can find these passages in Isaiah 61:1-2

Isaiah 61:1–2 KJV 1900

1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; Because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to them that are bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all that mourn;

I underlined this last part because Jesus does not read this. He stops after the first phrase of Isaiah 61:2 “2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord…” And there is a reason.

Let’s go back to Luke 4 and break down exactly what Jesus is reading and what it means, because He makes the claim that that prophecy from Isaiah is fulfilled in that day.

Luke 4:18–19 KJV 1900

18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me [Jesus is making the claim, once again, a claim that those who witnessed Jesus’ baptism had seen physical representation of, and that claim is that the Holy Spirit was upon Jesus. This is what Jesus has been claiming all along, and what the Pharisees have directly contradicted when they said that Jesus was casting out demons with the power of Satan and not the power of God. And here, once again, Jesus claims that He has the presence and power of the Holy Spirit of God upon Him. But then He continues to read:], because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor [Anointing was the method by which prophets, priests, and kings were consecrated or set apart to fulfill their offices. This prophecy is of One who would be appointed to preach good news of salvation to the poor (not necessarily the poor people, but the meek, as the original Hebrew word says, those that are poor in spirit); he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, [The prophecy is about the things that Jesus would be doing both in the physical and spiritual realms. His words would bring people deliverance -deliverance from evil spirits, as we have already seen on a few occasions, and deliverance from sin; healing of the blind, which He has done several times now; and setting at liberty those who are bruised, and this speaks more to the spiritual condition of being crushed in and by sin than any physical deliverance.] 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. [This acceptable year of the Lord is referencing something that God had instituted with the Israelites in the Law, and it was a year of liberation, forgiveness, and fresh starts. This is a typology of Jesus’ ministry. How many people, already, has he given forgiveness to and fresh starts?! This is the acceptable time of the Lord as well for salvation to come to Jews and Gentiles through the sacrifice of the Messiah as well.

And Jesus stops there. Remember, He does not continue to read the part that says that it is the day of vengeance of God, because that is further out in the timeline. God’s vengeance will be poured out upon the earth at a time known as the tribulation, his vengeance upon Satan and his followers will happen at the end of the tribulation, and then again at the end of the millenium when Satan is finally judged for eternity. So He doesn’t read this part, because that part is not being fulfilled at the moment.

And hopefully, you will remember that a while back we studied about the incarceration of John the Baptist by Herod. After a while of being in prison, John the Baptist’s faith begins to waver. He begins to wonder if Jesus is in fact the Messiah that Israel has been waiting for, or if they are waiting for another person. So John sends messengers to ask Jesus, “Are you the one we have been waiting for?” And hopefully, you will remember that when Jesus answers, He does not give a plain yes or no answer. He says, “Go tell John the Baptist what you have seen: that the lame walk, the blind see, the lepers are cleansed, and the gospel is preached to the poor.” Jesus in that instance was quoting from two different passages in Isaiah, one of them being Isaiah 61:1, that we read just a while ago, and that Jesus has just finished reading. This is enough to reestablish John the Baptist’s faith that Jesus is the Messiah that they have been waiting for.

These passages are well known to the Jews to be prophecies concerning the Messiah. And because of this, and because of what they know Jesus has done and said, everyone is sitting at the edge of their seats.

Luke 4:20 KJV 1900

20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

Why? Because they are curious to know what Jesus is going to say next. When you would go to the synagogue to read, what you would do would be to request a scroll, or one was given to you to read, you would find where you wanted to read from, you would read a passage, and then you would comment on it. They had heard of His teachings and His miracles, and now everyone is waiting with baited breath as Jesus hands the scroll back and assumes the seated posture that lets everyone know He is about to teach.

So Jesus proceeds. Luke 4:21-22

Luke 4:21–22 KJV 1900

21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. 22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?

They were amazed at Jesus’ manner of speaking. Jesus spoke gracefully, confidently, and probably in a way that kept people’s attention.

Amazed at His Works

The Jews in the synagogue are amazed at his wisdom and also they are amazed at His works. Mark 6:2b-3

Mark 6:2–3 KJV 1900

2b … From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

Though they were amazed at his delivery and at his works, Matthew and Mark both state that they were offended at the words of His teaching.

Offended at His Words

Mark mentioned that the people asked, “From where does he have all this understanding? all this education? all this wisdom?” To them, Jesus was just like any of them, and if He had grown up in Joseph’s house, how then could he have this kind of teaching? And that is part of what offended them about Jesus’ teaching. “How is this man that grew up here going to come in and tell us these things?” To understand why they were offended at his teaching, we need to know what Jesus’ commentary on Isaiah 61:1-2 was. Let’s look back at Luke 4.

Luke 4:23 KJV 1900

23 And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

Here Jesus tells of two things. First, He prophesies of the Jews mocking Him during His crucifixion. As Jesus hung on the cross, there were those around saying, “He saved so many others, and yet he cannot save himself.”

But the next thing is, “Whatever things you did in Capernaum, do here in Nazareth. Jesus, we have heard of all the things that you did in and around Capernaum, why don’t you do things like that here?” These phrases were not being said of Jesus out of faith, but out of unbelief. It was mockery. And what does Jesus respond to? He responds to faith. Which means that he did not do many miracles there.

Matthew 13:58 KJV 1900

58 And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

Mark 6:5 KJV 1900

5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

And it is not that He had the inability to do the miracles, but Jesus is not a performing monkey that dances at the whim of the public. In all Galilee and Judea, Jesus was known as the “Prophet of Galilee”, but here in Nazareth, which was part of Galilee, he is only known as no more than a carpenter’s son and the brother of certain very common young men and girls. There is no faith in him.

But what were the words that offended the people so much?

Luke 4:24–27 KJV 1900

24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. [Speaking of Himself, Jesus declares that He will not be accepted by His home town.] 25 But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; 26 But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. [This widow woman was a Gentile. This instance that Jesus is referencing was a time of famine in the land of Israel as it was being led by wicked rulers. However, instead of sending the prophet Elijah to be a blessing to one of the Israelite widows, God sent him to a Gentile widow to be a blessing to her. 27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. [This is a reference to Elisha the prophet, when he cures Naaman the Syrian of his leprosy. There were plenty of lepers in Israel, but the one that God healed was Naaman.

The implications of this commentary is that Jesus had read Isaiah 61:1-2 and said, “This day is this prophecy come true. I am here doing all these things in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah.” The people of Nazareth rejected Jesus as the fulfilment of that prophecy because they did not believe Him.

So Jesus is saying that in the same way that Elijah and Elisha had been rejected by Israel, the Jews were now rejecting Jesus. Elijah was one of the most highly regarded prophets by the Jews so Jesus comparing Himself to those two prophets did not sit well with the Jews.

But Jesus is also comparing the people of His home town to the Israelites of those times. Not one widow in Israel would have received Elijah in faith, so God sent him to a Gentile. Not one leper ever had the faith to ask Elisha for healing, but the Syrian did, and he was healed. And Jesus would not perform miracles, except for a handful who actually did believe, in Nazareth because they did not believe in Him.

Driven by Anger

These words do not sit well with the crowd in the synagogue, and they get angry. Luke 4:28-29

Luke 4:28–29 KJV 1900

28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, 29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

Can you imagine being so offended that you would want to murder a man? They resented being called needy and unclean and faithless, which is what Jesus did with this application. They resented that Jesus would hold himself in as high a regard as Elijah and Elisha. They refused to believe that Jesus was there fulfilling Messianic prophecies. All this led to their growing anger until it finally came to a head. They took hold of Jesus, and were ready to throw him down to His death.

But it is not time for Jesus to die, so, Luke tells us

Luke 4:30 KJV 1900

30 But he passing through the midst of them went his way,

The Cost of Unbelief

What is the cost of unbelief? The cost is that there is no power experienced. Nobody believed Jesus in Nazareth. We know that this extends to his family as well, because there was a time when Jesus was sought by his family that they might stop him from teaching and bring him back home. They wished for Jesus to calm down a little bit. And now that Jesus visits his childhood home, he is rejected by them.

But Jesus is amazed at their unbelief. Mark 6:6

Mark 6:6 KJV 1900

6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

This is not an inconsistency with Jesus’ deity, the Bible references God’s surprise at the sin and unreasonableness and stubbornness of His people. So what does Jesus do? For those that come to Him in faith, he heals. Then he moves on to other villages where he continues to preach and teach.

Jesus was familiar to His home town. They had known Him growing up. They knew His brothers and sisters. To them, Jesus was nobody special to be saying things like this and calling them out. Though they had heard of the many mighty things He had done, yet they did not believe in Him and their unbelief limited the way Jesus responded and the way they heard Him.

His own family was close to him outwardly, they were related to Him, but they were far from Him inwardly. Because of that, they missed the power of Christ. Jesus did not cease to be powerful in Nazareth, but unbelievers were unable to experience that power fully.

This happens to people all the time. There was once a time when our nation experienced the power of God moving among it. During the times of the Great Awakenings, hundreds and thousands of people were being saved and returning to God. God moved around the country, and the United States became a beacon for the Gospel.

But now it is not so. We are a beacon for many things, but the light of the Gospel is being drowned out because there are many unbelievers. Not only that, there are many more people that have a head knowledge of Jesus and do not know Him personally or intimately.

Like the people of Nazareth, there are many “so-called” Christians with enough head knowledge of Jesus to talk about Him and appear to be Christian, but they do not know Him. And since they do not know him and do not have a personal faith, they do not experience His power.

There are many Christians that have not gone past knowing Jesus as their savior. They have had the faith to trust Him to save them and forgive them of their sins, they have experienced that power in their lives, but they do not trust Him for anything else. They do not have faith that He can direct their finances, their marriages, their future, their families, their friendships, or any other area of their lives, and thus, they too miss out on the power of God in them.

Leslie Weatherhead said this:

“The trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with small doses of Christianity which keep us from catching the real thing.”

There are too many people that know enough in their heads about Christianity, and that gives them enough false security that they will never listen fully to the whole Gospel and will die and go to hell, thinking that they are ok.

There are too many Christians that have exposed themselves to just enough of what the Bible says about true Christian living that they never venture any further and are woefully unaware of what it means to experience God’s power in their lives.

I see it all over the place, and I see it here at Good News.

How do we ‘inoculate” ourselves with small doses of Christianity? How does that happen? Every time you and I take God’s word, listen to it or read it, and apply it just a little - that acts as a vaccine, as an inoculation.

When we read about surrendering fully or when we hear preaching on fully surrendering to God every aspect of our lives, and we realize that there are areas that are not surrendered, we vaccinate ourselves against true Christianity when instead of fully fully giving everything over to God’s control, we decide to just surrender one or two areas.

We call it “baby steps,” but it is disobedience. It is rebellion. And every act of rebellion causes a callus to build on our heart, causes us to be more and more immune to what God is actually trying to say and do in us. And it will get to a point where I know Jesus as my savior, but have this thought as well: “What right does He have to tell me what to do with my life/my money/my time/my family/my future?”

Those that live this way, seldom experience God’s power in their life. But it isn’t just power. It’s everything. Those that live their Christian lives trying to compromise with Jesus at every turn, trying to maintain control over their own lives, trying to have a say so, those people will never fully experience true joy, true peace, true contentment.

These tend to be the miserable Christians, the consistently grumpy ones. The ones that claim to be Christian, but have no clue how to actually walk it, because they refuse to believe that He owns them and has full rights to their lives.

These are the Christians that eventually get dissatisfied with Christianity. Coming to church has not solved their problems, so they just stop coming. They get involved to a certain extent as long as everything goes well, but as soon as someone offends them they quit. They are unteachable and unreceptive to anything that may make them uncomfortable, but always ready to criticize everyone and everything else. They come to church when its convenient, but not if it is going to cost too much.

They have enough of Christianity to be saved. They have that much faith, but nothing more. They run their lives on a checklist instead of a relationship. They are the Pharisees of Christianity - self-righteous, proud, incorrigible, and miserable.

They are like the children of Israel. Asaph, a prominent musician and seemingly a prophet as well, wrote Psalm 78 during the time of King David.

Psalm 78 is a psalm that tells the story of Israel from Jacob to King David. In this Psalm, Asaph tells of the faithfulness of God despite the sin and unbelief in Israel. When he gets to verse 41, Asaph is about midway through telling about the Exodus and the time when the Israelites chose not to go into the promised land. So instead, God has them wander the wilderness for 40 years until that whole generation dies off and the upcoming generation can enter into the promised land. I want you to read with me the words that Asaph chooses to describe what happened with the Israelites the first time they had an opportunity to enter the promised land. Psalm 78:41-42

Psalm 78:41–42 KJV 1900

41 Yea, they turned back and tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel. [The word limited means to grieve, to scrape to pieces, and to place limits upon. The Holy One of Israel is God- God ALMIGHTY, the God who has the power to do all things. The same God that sent the plagues to Egypt. The same God that parted the Red Sea. The same God that fed them manna in the wilderness, the same God that caused them to have water from a rock in quantities that sated the thirst of a million plus people. They limited this God. How? with their unbelief, with their lack of faith. Faith remembers the things that God has done, because biblical, godly faith is based on God’s track record. But look what the Israelites did. 42 They remembered not his hand, Nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy.

They forgot. But this means more than just “they forgot.” The phrase ‘they remembered not’ as it is translated from the Hebrew actually means that they stopped intentionally calling back to memory the things that God had done for them. They stopped talking about the things that God had done. They stopped mentioning those things.

Because they stopped having faith in God, and because God has chosen to respond to faith, then God no longer responded to them. It wasn’t that God became less powerful, but the Israelites’ lack of faith limited how God would respond to them.

Faith recalls the faithfulness of God. Unbelief forgets. And because unbelief forgets, and because God has chosen to respond to faith, when we start to forget the faithfulness of God and what He has done, we begin to limit how influential God’s power is in our life. It even comes to a point that we stop praying, because we don’t believe anything will change anyway.

This is why David wrote in Psalm 103:1-5

Psalm 103:1–5 KJV 1900

1 Bless the Lord, O my soul: And all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all his benefits: [David understood the importance of remembering the goodness of God in his life, and he begins to list some things that are very important to not forget or take for granted.] 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases; 4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; 5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Psalm 103:2 KJV 1900

2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all his benefits:

What will unbelief cost you? What has it already cost you? What is faith? There are various definitions to faith, and various descriptions of faith. But I believe we can accurately condense biblical faith into this description - Biblical faith is a heartfelt belief that drives me to action.

Some people have stopped coming to church. They made a commitment to come Wednesday nights and be a part of the discipleship study. And they came as long as it was convenient, but then stopped. Why? Seven times out of ten it is probably due to unbelief. They believe in God, but don’t believe that it is worth sacrificing sleep or comfort or even a single evening to be with the body that He instituted as we seek to grow closer to Him, closer to each other, and learn how to actually do the mission of the church.

They have stopped actively reminding themselves of all the benefits, of all the blessings, all the rewards, all the goodness of God. The thoughts may come sometimes, but the thankfulness isn’t there, the remembrance isn’t there, and so the faith that once was present begins to wither and disappear.

I say it often, each of us needs to have something to remember the benefits and blessings and faithfulness of God. That may be a journal, a daily sticky note with something that you are thankful for stuck on the mirror, it may be a reminder in your daily prayer list to thank God for all the things He as done for you and others… I don’t know, but you need to have something that helps you actively recall the faithfulness of the Lord. Your continuing and growing faith depends on it. The power of God that you need to live the Christian life comes from faith.

Galatians 2:20 KJV 1900

20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

You cannot live a fulfilled Christian life if you have no faith beyond saving faith. You cannot experience the daily presence of the power of God in your life if you have no faith. And you cannot grow in your faith if you do not actively call to memory His faithfulness to you.

Invitation

If Jesus were to physically come and visit Good News Church, what would be written down about Him? Would it be written that He did many mighty works, or would it be written that He was astonished at our unbelief, and not much could be done here?

If He were to get up and preach, would we be offended at His words? Well, let me ask you this, “Do you already get offended when someone takes the Bible and tries to encourage, admonish, or reprove you?” If so, you are one of the ones that would be offended at His words.

With heads bowed and eyes closed, I want to ask just a couple of questions before we conclude today.

The first is a question for those that do not have a personal, faith-based relationship with Jesus Christ. If you are here without a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, the Bible says that you are lost and on your way to a lake of fire for the just punishment of your sinful condition. There is nothing and no one in the world that can change that condition of yours and forgive your sins besides Jesus.

The Bible spells out very clearly what must be done in order to receive forgiveness of sins, and it requires faith in Jesus as the perfect Son of God who came to this world and became flesh in order to die on a cross and shed His blood for the forgiveness and payment of our sins. Not only that, but He arose on the third day, defeating both sin and death. Because of His sacrifice, He offers salvation freely to all mankind if they would only put their faith in Him and cry out to Him to receive that salvation that only He can give.

If you have never received this gift of salvation, you are unsaved, and you are what the Bible calls an unbeliever. However, today is the day that you can be saved.

Is there anyone that would say, “Mike, I am not saved, but i sure would like to talk to someone about it,” and if that is you would you just put your hand up and put it right back down?

For the Saved. Again, I do not want to embarrass anyone here, and will not call you out at all, but i would like to pray for you. Is there anyone here that would say, “Mike, if I am to be honest, and if I were to look at the Biblical description of faith - meaning a set of beliefs that drives me to action - I would have to say that my faith has been decreasing. I am not experiencing God’s power in my life, I am not experiencing His guidance, I am dependent on my own wisdom, and I have been making my own decisions without giving God a second thought. I have forgotten to remember His faithfulness to me, and I can see my faith is withering and weakening.” Maybe you don’t actually see it weakening yet, but you do notice that you are just going through the motions in things. The “Christian life” is familiar, you’re in a rut. You read your Bible, come to church, give your offerings, and do all the things but it’s not out of heartfelt belief, it is out of routine. There is no faith behind the actions, and you’ve begun to notice that there is no power or influence in the actions anymore.

Is there anyone like that?

Home Groups

Warm Up Questions

Is there anything that stood out to you from the sermon? Do you have any questions or concerns?

1. Can you think of a time when becoming too familiar with something or someone made you “tune out” or take them for granted? What happened?

2. What are some healthy ways Christians could handle the challenge of “familiarity” in their faith journey?

Scripture Focused Questions

3. Take a closer look at Jesus reading Isaiah 61:1–2 in Luke 4:16–21. What does Jesus say about His mission and identity, and how do the people respond?

4. When you reflect on Psalm 78:41–42 and Psalm 103:1–5, what does it mean to “limit” God through unbelief or to “forget” His benefits? How does regularly recalling God’s faithfulness shape our heart?

Heart Focused Questions

5. Why might it be so easy for Christians to settle for “head knowledge” about Jesus instead of actively trusting Him?

6. What might be some causes and consequences of “small doses” of Christianity, as described in the sermon? How have you seen this play out in your own life or in others?

Application Questions

7. Is there an area of your life where you have “limited” what God can do because of doubt or routine? How could you begin to trust Him there?

8. What practical ways do you currently have to regularly remember God’s faithfulness in your life?

If you do not have any current methods to do this, what practical ways can you adopt to actively “remember” God’s faithfulness (journaling, sharing answers to prayer, setting reminders, etc.)?