How will you remember?

I use “Tiles”

electronic things that I put with things so I won’t lose them.

I need help to remember things.

Sometimes in sermons, I try to give you ways to remember things but today I’m not going to tell you how, I want you to do that work, I just want to tell you what you need to remember.

I’ll say what to remember you figure out how

I use tile

What are some ways you remember?

If you remember these things than they will bless your life. They will give joy to others. They will give you hope when things are dark. But you have to remember them. You have to remember them otherwise you can’t lose them but you can forget that you have them and that makes it worthless.

DO you know how many times I go to the hardware store because I can’t figure out where this thing is because I don’t understand that organization that was used to put it away.

I’m going to give you spiritual reality to all who follow Jesus, but you have to remember it otherwise it will sit useless on your spiritual shelf.

I hope you can remember why we are talking about these things and what we have talked about.

We are talking about the eternal things that matter because this pandemic shows us so many things that don’t matter.

WE have learned about the

Eternal word of God

Eternal Treasurers of God

Eternal Church

Eternal Purpose

Eternal Promises

Here is one of those Eternal Promises

We talked about the other stuff before and I today I want to focus on the last phrase.

You are in a marvelous light.

light is always a metaphor for God, always a metaphor for what God is doing in our world

1 John 1:5 CSB

5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him.

This is a metaphor, it doesn’t work that light is God.

If you think that it was in the late September 14, 1891 just 130 years ago was the first time the white house had electric light

If you’ve gone camping or lost power you realize how much cannot be done at night and how dangerous it is to be without light. If power goes out you realize how much life changes.

John 8:12 CSB

12 Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”

Even though we have electric light and so much fun and joy we can now have when our ancestors couldn’t see we still describe things that are miserable in life as hard to see.

Some who are suffering from poor trouble thinking because of the pneumonia from Covid say that there thinking is foggy or in a haze.

Sometimes we say we can’t see clearly about the future or in how someone explains something.

Yesterday was a clear day for me though, I got the honor of attending the Takin’ It to the Streetz annual meeting.

Pastor Raymond shared about how honored he was to be where he then and not like he was in the past living on the streets of San Francisco, not being allowed in his home because he was stealing from his own mom, his wife, and now 10 years sober he stood ...

A life transformed, a life brought from darkness into a marvelous light

Some of you may have that kind of story.

Some of you can’t remember what it was like to go from darkness to light you are more like everyone with electricity right now, you have a hard time remembering that you live in the light.

Remember: You are in the light, the marvelous light of Christ.

You have access to something different, something easy to appreciate but really difficult to explain. You walk in the marvelous light of the Lord

I wrote a comment to someone on a newsletter I read often about how important church is to me. It is a powerful connection in my life.

Tonight we have connection small group

atheist is moral, while I might challenge the atheist on how they come up with a standard definition of morality outside of a theological framework, I can say that atheist can be nice, generous, kind, and loving people

So what does it mean to live in the light?

What do you have that those who do not follow God don’t have.

Knowing what you have is incredibly important isn’t it?

I’m nervous about how well I will do as a teacher as students return but My wife reminded me of a time back in 2019 before she began her choir job

Others you have spiritual gifts, you have things given to you by God to build others up; you have other blessings of God: beauty, intelligence, strength, wisdom, love

But there’s more there is that you have been brought into the marvelous light.

In the light there is still more, our scripture, the eternal word of God goes a little bit father and says things you have because you are a follower of Jesus.

1 Peter 2:10 CSB

10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Weird right?

I greet my friends, family, and spouse like this often.

Once you were not my wife, but now you are my wife. Once you were not my kid, but now you are my kid.

No but.

To understand this verse we have to think about the way that the first people thought about it. Which means we need to think about prostitutes

I shockingly tell you that way because God hundreds of years before this time was dealing with his people who he made a deal with, if they would be loyal and worship him than he would protect, bless and guide them.

They did not, they worshipped other gods, did other spiritual things because they were afraid or wondered if this would help them or if their God, our God, was really the right God. People still do this today right? I got a little bit of Jesus, some astrology, some new age stuff, some humanism, some Buddhism, etc. Basically unfaithful to the one God they chose to worship.

Exodus 20:3 CSB

3 Do not have other gods besides me.

God warned them there is a consequence to being a religious playa, to going after any religious hook-up there is. He told them at the very beginning in the 10 commandments that it was only Him and then for more than thousand years warned them to worship him and him alone.

Finally he gave them a physical depiction of what they are doing and what was going to happen.

He told the prophet Hosea to go find and marry an unfaithful woman, a prostitute

Hosea 1:2–3 NLT

2 When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.” 3 So Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son.

They had three kids together. And the last one is name Lo-Ammi.

Does that ring a bell, probably not because your Hebrew might be rusty.

Hosea 1:9 CSB

9 Then the Lord said: Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not my people, and I will not be your God.

Now do you hear it?

Not my people.

God was rejecting the most rebellious tribes of Israel. They would be invaded, slaughtered and inter-mixed with other people by force of the invading Assyrian army.

The people who were not Jewish or earlier called Hebrews were the only ones who were God’s people. So by the time of Peter, when the Holy Spirit, God Himself, made Jesus salvation available to you and me we also went from not a people to God’s people.

1 Peter 2:10 CSB

10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

You are God’s people.

Wherever you are, as a follower of Jesus you are a part of God’s people.

Remember - You are not alone. You are part of God’s people.

You are God’s chosen person. And it’s not just you and God you are with God’s people. And not just God’s people in this church but God’s people out there.

It’s true. Look around you.

Loneliness is all around us. Depression is palpable right now.

Let us not forget what we are a part of, and let us share that.

I forget too often.

What can you do to remember, to remember that you are a part of God’s people.

I was reminded being in Pastor Dean’s church yesterday. ...

God’s people are around you. This is a good thing.

Because God’s people bring love because God brings love.

But the blessings, the traits, the gifts of being part of God’s family doesn’t stop there.

Let’s go back to Hosea and his prostitute wife, Gomer.

There was another thing that the disobedient people lost. Another child was born. A girl. - Lo-rummah

Hosea 1:6 The Message

6 Gomer got pregnant again. This time she had a daughter. God told Hosea: “Name this one No-Mercy. I’m fed up with Israel. I’ve run out of mercy. There’s no more forgiveness.

Yet this much time, after Christ, when our acceptance into our salvation is not based on how good we are but on how Great Jesus love is for us through his cross.

Peter said,

1 Peter 2:10 CSB

10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Mercy in the Greek here is the word

EleeO

You have mercy.

It combines the elements of “pity” “compassion” and “concern” but it means there will be some concrete action that has mercy. It isn’t just feeling pity or concern but doing something about it. There is only one source of the one who takes compassion, action on concern according to what Peter points out.

In reality. if you are a follower of Jesus you have something others do not, God takes action for you, on you.

Remember: God takes mercy on you.

You are not in darkness. You are in the light.

Do you know Jesus, then remember these things

You are in the marvelous light

You are part of God’s people

You are receiving God’s mercy.

No matter what you are feeling right now, these things are truth.

There are many things going on in life in this coming out of Coronavirus time.

Right now, I am scared.

I am scared because I don’t know how to teach my classes.

I am scared because I don’t know who is coming back.

I don’t know how things are coming.

But I was with some guys, this Friday, in God’s people, and God made me aware, God doesn’t tell me the future like that.

Shouldn’t that be what we realize from all this.

Even right now when everything may feel scary, the truth is, do you follow Jesus?

Then you’re in the light

You’re surrounded by God’s people

You’re in His mercy, he is acting for you.

How will you remember this?

How will you tell others of this remarkable excellent actions of God? This remarkable truths?

A writer Grudem wrote this powerful truth

I & II Peter, I, II & III John, Jude B. Beginning to Grow up Together (vv. 4–10)

The answer to our search for ultimate meaning lies in declaring the excellencies of God, for he alone is worthy of glory. Salvation is ultimately not man-centered, but God-centered. To declare God’s excellencies is to speak of all he is and has done … This purpose is too often thwarted by our silence or pride, but even brief associations with a Christian whose speech fulfills this purpose invariably refreshes our spirits (Grudem, 112).

You are in the marvelous light of God

You are in God’s mercy

You are God’s eternal people