Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome and announcements

Call to worship (Ps 105:1-5)

Prayer

Song (When I Survey the Wondrous Cross)

Song (What a Friend We Have in Jesus)

Responsive Reading

Memorial Ceremony

This morning, we will continue a long tradition in this church of remembering and honoring church members and friends of the church who have passed on during the previous year.

I know that today we have with us some family members visiting of those we will honor.

In a moment, I will begin reading the names of those we are remembering.

When you hear your loved one’s name read, please have a representative of the family come forward to light a candle in his or her memory.

You may then be seated, and we will read the next name.

If there is no family member or friend of the deceased to come forward, Deacon Michael Harris will light the candle in that person’s honor.

NAMES/CANDLES

Beverly Smeltzer

Aug. 16, 1933-July 17, 2021

Rev. Allen Lancaster

Sept. 20, 1939-Aug.

13, 2021

Mary Duke

Oct. 8, 1932-Oct 12, 2021

Pat Kirtz

June 28, 1956-Oct.

25, 2021

Ivan San Andres

April 24, 1996-Jan.

25, 2022

Jeanette Dunn

Sept. 28, 1922-March 20, 2022

Ruby Hunter

July 3, 1930-March 30, 2022

Prayer (Memorial and offering)

Offering

Thanksgiving

Release children to children’s church

Eddie Rickenbacker was a U.S. fighter pilot during World War I, known as the “ace of aces” because he shot down 26 enemy aircraft, more than any other pilot in that war.

And he did so during only a six-month period of 1918 that included a three-and-a-half-month hospitalization.

A highly decorated veteran with a name that was legendary in America during the first half of the 20th century, he was pressed into the service of his country again during World War II, advising the British and American air forces on bombing strategies.

In October of 1942, Rickenbacker and a crew of eight were sent up in a B-17 bomber on a mission to deliver an important secret message from President Roosevelt to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea.

An equipment failure caused the crew to fly far off course, and, running low on fuel, they ditched the airplane in the middle of the South Pacific.

The crew was able to get into life rafts, and they began to drift, thousands of miles from land.

By the third day of drifting, they had run out of emergency rations, and by the eighth day, things seemed hopeless as they prayed for deliverance.

Rickenbacker had pulled his hat down to ward off the glare from the sun, and he soon dozed off.

Here are Rickenbacker’s own words about what happened next: “Something landed on my head.

I knew that it was a sea gull.

I don't know how I knew, I just knew.

Everyone else knew too.

No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces.

They were staring at that gull.

The gull meant food...if I could catch it.”

Somehow, that’s just what he did.

The men slaughtered the gull and ate what they could of it.

The rest became bait for fishing.

In the end, after 24 days adrift, seven of the eight men were rescued alive.

And from the time he returned home to Florida, until his death in 1973, every Friday evening, Rickebacker would take a bucket of shrimp to a nearby pier.

There, he would be surrounded by seagulls, and he would feed them until his bucket was empty as a memorial to the one that had been sacrificed for him and his crew.

[http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/m/memorial.htm]

It seems especially appropriate to share this story on this Sunday when we take time to remember loved ones we have lost and when we will remember — through partaking in the Lord’s Supper — the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made of Himself so that we who follow Him in faith might have eternal life.

The communion observance — as we will discuss a bit later in this service — is, indeed, in part, a memorial.

But it is far from the only memorial we see in Scripture.

The Passover feast, which our Lord was celebrating with His disciples when He commanded us to remember Him in this way, was itself a memorial to the divine deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt.

The breastplates worn by the priests of Israel were a memorial to the 12 tribes of Israel, whom God had set aside as a people of His own.

Twelve stones were set up at the Jordan River when Israel had crossed into the promised land as a reminder of how God had delivered His people.

The great Patriarchs of Israel had set up altars as memorials when God had provided water in the wilderness.

And God provided His own memorial — a rainbow — after He had delivered Noah and his family from the Great Flood that had wiped out life across the globe.

Today, we are going to take a break from our study of the Church to see if we can gain a little bit better understanding of the concept of memorials in the Bible.

I hope that by the time we are finished, we will all recognize that there’s more to memorials — at least biblically speaking — than memories.

Turn with me, if you would, to Genesis, chapter 8.

While you’re turning there, let me remind you of what I’m sure is a familiar story.

After Adam and Eve had sinned in the Garden of Eden by eating from the one tree whose fruit God had forbidden them from eating, they were banished from the Garden.

They went forth into the land and began to do at least a part of what God had commanded them to do: They were fruitful and multiplied.

They had children.

But it wasn’t long before the curse of death that resulted from their sin became apparent in their own family, as their son Cain killed his brother, Abel.

And from there, things just got worse across the land.

Sin was rampant, and evil was everywhere.

In fact, Moses paints a stark and terrible picture of the world at this time in chapter 6, verses 5 and 6.

Look at all the qualifiers Moses uses there to describe the evil upon earth at this time.

EVERY intent of the thoughts of man’s heart was ONLY evil CONTINUALLY.

Things were so bad that God was sorry — He was grieved in His heart — that He had created mankind.

And so, God decided to destroy what He had created.

He would send a flood to wipe out all of mankind and all of the plants and animals on earth.

But He would save Noah and his family and two of every animal that walked or flew over the earth.

Of course, you all know the story.

God shut up Noah and his family and two of every animal in the ark that Noah had built according to God’s instructions.

And then the rains came.

And it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and the whole earth was covered in water.

But Noah and his wife and their two daughters and sons-in-law were safe in the ark with all the animals.

And

Genesis 7:24 (NASB95)

The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days.

But then, look what happens in verse 1 of chapter 8.

Genesis 8:1 (NASB95)

But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.

Now, this is the first place where the Hebrew word that’s translated as “remembered” appears in Scripture.

The first appearance of a word in the Bible is often important, because we can discover much about how to interpret that word elsewhere by its usage the first time it appears.

It’s also significant that, much as in English, the Hebrew word for “remember” comes from the same root as the words for “memory” and “memorial.”

All of those words are connected, both in Hebrew and in English.

Now, don’t let it slip past you that we’re talking about an all-knowing God here, the all-powerful God who spoke the very universe into existence and who formed man out of the dust of the ground and then blew into Him the breath of life.

So it’s pretty unlikely that Moses means God had forgotten about Noah and his family floating on the waters above the earth and then suddenly slapped his forehead and said, “Oh my gosh!

NOAH!”

What seems to be going on here, instead, is that God turned His attention back to Noah and the travelers aboard the ark.

And notice what happens.

God doesn’t simply “remember” that they are floating around out there and then go on about His business.