The Jordan Memorial

If you were to take a trip to our nation's capital, you would have the opportunity to see some great memorials there, ringing the mall there in central DC. You might see memorials to some of our great presidents like the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial or the Lincoln Memorial, all three pictured for you on the screen. You'll also see memorials to different veterans groups, veterans who served in different wars, I should say, that our country has fought. I think the one displayed there is probably the Vietnam Veterans Wall. And so you'd see great, great memorials there that remind us of important people and important events in our nation's history. You would see the same thing if you went to Israel. If you went to Israel, you'd see a lot of memorials scattered around the country. The Yad Vashem is a memorial to the Holocaust, one of the most sobering and intense opportunities I ever have had in my life was to tour the Yad Vashem and to see how Israel has reminded us so graphically of the Holocaust and portrayed the historical facts behind that event. But you would find memorials to the 1948 War of Independence, the 1967 War, the 73 War, you'd find lots of memorials across Israel. So today we're going to visit one of those Israel memorials, not one that you would see today necessarily if you were to go there, but one that is found in the Word of God. We're going to visit the Jordan Memorial. It's found in Joshua chapter 4. And as we pick highlights out of the book of Joshua and Israel's transition into a new land, a new life with a new leader, as we chronicle their transition and look to our own transition, we find ourselves today talking about memorials, talking about how God wants us to be reminded of certain things. And that's what a memorial is all about. Before we jump into the text, I want to just highlight the story of Joshua chapter 4, and then we will be pulling verses out of that story to see what the text says about memorials. But just to summarize the story of Joshua 4. People of Israel, as we saw last week, are on the verge of the land. They're ready to cross over this major obstacle that is at flood stage into the new land that God has promised them and Joshua was leading them into. Before they cross the Jordan, back in chapter 3 and verse 12, Moses was, or Joshua was instructed to choose 12 men who would have a special job once the nation crossed the Jordan. Chapter 4 is about that job. Chapter 4 tells us that the people of Israel cross the river Jordan. The priests step into the water, the waters roll back, and the Israelites go across on dry ground. The priests carrying the ark of the covenant stand in the middle of the river, and once the whole nation gets across on the other side into the land of Canaan, those 12 selected men, one representing each of the 12 tribes of Israel, turn around and in the sight of all of Israel, walk back into the river, right to the middle where the priests are still standing there with the ark of the covenant on their shoulders, and each of those 12 men picks up a large stone, puts it on their shoulder, and carries it back up to the river bank. And those 12 stones are then arranged into a memorial. Joshua was commanded by God to stop and memorialize the crossing of the river Jordan to do something visible, tangible, and immediate that would remind them of the great work that God did there that day. And I think as we think about that, these stones becoming a visible reminder of God's working, we are reminded in our own lives and in our own testimony as a church that there is value in establishing visible reminders of God's working in our lives. There really is value in establishing some visible, tangible reminders that remind us that memorialize for us the great working that God's done in our lives. Sometimes God does something very special in our lives, maybe an answer to prayer that something has been on your heart, has been a burden for you for a long time. It may be a great blessing that God sends your way, a way that he provides for you in an unusual way. It may be a time of conviction in your life where God moved in your heart to respond and give a part of your life to him that you've been holding back for a long time. It may be some great work in your life or in your family that he does that's just truly the hand of God and cannot be explained in any other way. For many of you, many of those events have happened on this property in this location, in this building, maybe somewhere on this property. Certainly true for me in this property across the road as a child and then as an adult and as a pastor over here. But as we look at this passage and how Israel erected this memorial of a great work of God. This passage highlights for us, first of all, the need for memorials. Why do we need this anyway? Why can't we just remember what God's done? Go on. Why do we need memorials? Why do we need something visible, tangible to remind us of God's great works in our lives? I want you to look at verses 1 through 7 as I read them and this kind of lays out what happens in this story. When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, choose 12 men from among the people, one from each tribe that actually had already been done back in chapter 3 and verse 12, but he reminds them again of this. Verse 3, and tell them to take up 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you will stay tonight. So Joshua called together the 12 men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe and said to them, go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, each of you is to take a stone up a stone on a shoulder according to the number of the tribes of Israel of the Israelites to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, what do these stones mean? Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off these stones. Notice this statement, these stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. The word translated memorial here in our English version is a Hebrew word which means to remember, but not just to remember with a fleeting thought, oh yeah, I remember that and then move on. Don't remember with concern. This word means to remember with concern, to have a loving, careful, focused reflection on something that then leads us to a place of deeper commitment to Christ. This is not a fleeting remembrance, a passing memory. This is a deliberate remembering of something. That's what a memorial does. It forces us to deliberately with loving concern and additional commitment, remember the great things that God's done in our lives. And so why do we need that? What's the need for a memorial? Well, the Bible, as a whole, indicates two reasons why we need these kinds of tangible reminders of God's goodness. The first reason is this, God wants us to remember His goodness. God wants us to remember His goodness. This is scattered throughout the Word of God. And I want us this morning to catch the feeling from the lips of our great God and from His heart. I want us to see the passion as God speaks to this. So we're going to put up several verses on the screen just to give you an overview of how God Himself speaks to this issue, of how passionate He is about us remembering His goodness. To the children of Israel, before they would cross over into the land, He said this in Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 2. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these 40 years to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands. In Psalm 103, the Psalmist reminds us, praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits. The prophet Isaiah said very passionately to the nation of Judah, remember this, keep it in mind, take it to heart you rebels, speaking to a rebellious nation. He's reminding them passionately to remember. He says, remember the former things those of long ago, I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I can just sense and feel the passion of our great God reminding a rebellious nation who has forgotten Him. Don't forget, remember, take it to heart, keep it in mind. Same thing is true in the New Testament. Jesus Himself speaks to seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. These are the words of Jesus. He says to the first of those churches, the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2, He says, consider the word litamies to remember how far you have fallen, repent, and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. In other words, I will take away your light, your testimony, your influence to your neighborhood and community and world. I will remove your work and your ministry. If you don't remember where you once were and get back to that. Then He says to another one of the churches in Sardis in chapter 3 and verse 3, remember therefore what you have received and heard. Hold it fast and repent, but if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know what time I will come to you. So we see the passion of our God and of our Lord and Savior as He speaks of our forgetfulness as though it pains Him. I believe it does. It wounds Him. He is grieved when we do not remember Him and remember the good things He has done for us. Again, I want you to see and feel the heartache in the way our God addresses this back in Deuteronomy chapter 32. He has said to the nation of Israel, is this the way you repay the Lord? You foolish and unwise people? Is He not your father? Your Creator who made you and formed you? Think of it. He is our father. Those of you who are fathers may understand a little bit of this and mothers as well. You may understand how when a child forgets, turns their back on you, forgets all that you did for them, the pain and grief that brings to your heart. It does the same thing to God. He feels the same pain down in verse 18 of that same chapter. He says, you deserted the rock who fathered you. You forgot the God who gave you birth. The same pathos and passion is found in Psalm 106 when He addresses the nation of Israel and what they have done in the wilderness. He says, but they soon forgot what He had done and did not wait for His plan to unfold. In verse 21, He says this, they forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt, miracles in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea, and then the weeping prophet Jeremiah, God himself weeping through the weeping prophet and tells the nation of Judah in Jeremiah 2. Does a young woman forget her jewelry? A bride or wedding ornaments? Let my people have forgotten me. Days without number. Do you sense the grief in the heart of God when His people forget Him? God wants us to remember His goodness. Let that sink in. God is grieved when we forget all He's done for us. So that's reason number one. Why? We need memorials, tangible reminders, but there's a second reason. And it's a corollary. It goes right along with this first one. It's this, we are too prone to forget. God's goodness to us. God wants us, passionately wants us to remember, but we are too prone to forget. God's goodness to us. And I can think of at least three reasons why that's true. Three reasons why we tend to forget God's goodness to us. The first is because we have poor memories. Don't we? We have poor memories. Because some of you have great memories, I'm sure, can remember about anything. I don't see any takers on that yet. No nodding heads. Okay. So all of us have poor memories, right? We have a tendency to think when certain significant things happen to us that we will never forget them and yet we do. If you doubt that, pull out that big box of pictures in your house. And start looking back at the old pictures. If you did not label them carefully, you will forget which kid was in that baby picture. You will forget where you took that picture and when you took that picture and why you took that picture and who is that anyway? You have a tendency to forget. A number of years ago, we celebrated our youngest daughter, Missy's 16th birthday. And so we made a cake for her and it was one of those cakes. I don't know how you do this, but you can take a picture somewhere. I think they sprinkle pixie dust on it or something and it shows up on the icing and the cake, a picture. And so Jeannie had done that with a baby picture. And so there's the cake and it's the baby picture and our family is coming in and it's a really neat and cool party and Amy walks in our oldest. And she walks by the cake and takes a double take and she says, Mom, that's my baby picture. That's not Missy's baby picture. And we said, No, I can't be. That's Missy. And then Amy pointed out that the clothes were from a generation before. Sorry, Amy. She's a little older than Missy, you see it. So by that time we recognized, you know, that is. That's not even Missy. We had to own daughter and we didn't get the baby picture right. I mean, you probably ought to be put in prison for something like that. It's awful, but we didn't remember. The same thing happens when God does special things in your life. He moves in your heart. You make a commitment to Him and you think, I will never forget that sermon. I will never forget that night. I will never forget this day and you forget it. Ten years down the road, it's ancient history and you've forgotten it. So because we have such poor memories, we need visible, tangible reminders of God's goodness in our lives. But there's a second reason why we're prone to forget God's goodness and that is the pressures of daily living. Think about Israel. They're crossing the Jordan River. This is no small task. I mean, God's already done the big work by rolling back the water and so they've got dry ground to go across on. But think about it. There are some people that are ill. I don't firmly think about what's going on here. That's what God says, is some angels. Heto what's written here? Everything and God says no, stop. Take time. I want you to stop. Watch these men go back into the middle of the river. I know you're concerned, you're busy. You got a lot to do. You're wondering, okay, is everybody here? Is everything okay? Stop. You need to watch these men go back into the middle of the river. Pick out these 12 stones. Now watch what happens. And Joshua builds this memorial. We're all busy, aren't we? We're all busy. One of the difficulties of life is that God does something special, special provision, a special way. He's convicted us or worked in our lives or given us a special blessing with our family or whatever. And then the next day, we plunge right back into the rat race. And we got this next project to work on, this next crisis that we face. And we tend to let what God's done slip. And it's gone before long. I've been doing something the last few weeks that has opened my eyes to this. I'm very soon gonna be moving out of my office. And I've got five filing cabinets in there. Absolutely chock full, not a room hardly for anything else in them. Of 45 years of accumulated ministry stuff. And so I'm going through all those files. And it's been quite a journey. It's been emotional at times. It's been puzzling at times. What was this? But something hit me the other day. I'm pulling out whole file folders on ministry projects we had done and things we had worked on and all the work it took to get that up and going and running and staffing it and making sure it was okay and surveying to make sure we were meeting needs and all of that. And I don't even remember that ministry. I pulled out one the other day. I'd completely forgotten about. And that was, remember when we used to do the Wednesday meal? We used to have a meal on Wednesday evening. Some of you were, remember that? Before the evening service, we'd have a meal. And I pulled out a file folder a couple inches thick on how that was all put together and how it was planned and the menus. Well, I was looking at those menus and I was, you know, salivating a little bit. That was pretty good stuff. And we surveyed after a few weeks as to how it was going. And is this meeting needs your family? And do we need to adjust the menu? And we had to staff all the people to do the cooking and the cleaning. It was a huge endeavor. I had a file folder of that thick on all the work I took to put that together and I'd forgotten all about it. Why? Because after we got that up and running, there was the next ministry to get up and run and there was a next hill to charge and there was the next crisis and the next sermon and the next person in the hospital, the next surgery and next family issue. And so you just forget about those things because we're all too busy. We tend to forget because of the pressures of daily living. We forget the good things that God has done. And then there's the third reason why we're prone to forget God's goodness. And this probably is the most serious and damaging of all. And that's because of our sinful hearts. We have sinful hearts at the core. We are all sinners. That affects our hearts and affects our minds. It affects the way we think. It even affects our recall of things. Think about it now. Is this not correct? When we start thinking about the past quite often, the first thing that comes to mind is a slight from someone, an injury from someone, a hurt that someone caused us, a betrayal, a painful situation we went through. And those things will easily flood our minds and crowd out the blessings and God's provision and God's great works. And that happens because we're sinners and it's affected the way we think. Now the Bible has a lot to teach about that. The Bible has a lot to teach about how to renew our minds, how to deal with our thought lives. Romans 12, 2 Corinthians 10, Ephesians 4, Colossians 3, lots of passages where Paul teaches us how to deal with that kind of thinking and how to deal with the forgiveness and the hurts and dealing with just remembering and focusing Philippians 4, thinking on those things that are good and remembering and focusing our minds, the Bible has a lot to tell us about that because our natural tendency is not to do that. Our natural tendency is to bring up and dredge up all the hurts and the pain and the betrayals and everything else that has gone wrong. That's our natural tendency because of how sin has affected our thinking. We had a story about a couple that celebrating their 50th anniversary and there were families having a party for them, you know, and it was a special occasion and the wife looked over at the husband, and he had tears coming down his cheeks. And he's not a sentiment only emotional kind of guy and so she looks at him and she says, why I'm touched, I'm deeply touched that you would be feeling such feeling that our 50th anniversary and he said, well, it's not really that that I'm thinking about. He said, you know, 50 years ago your dad caught us kissing and he told me, you either marry her or I'll make sure you spend 50 years in prison and I was just thinking I would've gotten free today. Oh! Sorry, sorry about that. Oh. But in a little more lighthearted way, I know it's been a little intense up to now in a little more lighthearted way, doesn't that in the true that we have a tendency to remember the hard things, the hurtful things and even over 50 years of blessing of marriage, you tend to think about all the hurts and everything, that's just the way we think and God wants to change our thoughts and listen, visible, tangible reminders that we go back to and reflect on with meaning and fresh commitment, help us overcome this pronest to forget God's goodness, that's the need for memorials. So okay, we talk about the need for memorials and how Israel did, so what does it mean? What, how do we do memorials? I mean, do you get a bunch of power rocks and stick them out in your yard or what are we talking about here? Well, let's look at how Israel did it. Let's look first of all at Israel's memorials and then we're gonna talk about ours, but let's look at Israel's first, verse eight. Remind us again of what they did. I think it will help us a little bit here. Verse eight, so the Israelites did, as Joshua commanded them, they took 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites as the Lord had told Joshua and they carried them over with them to their camp where they put them down. Joshua set up the 12 stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood and they are there to this day. Now think about this for a moment, about Israel's memorial, and by the way, Israel had been given lots of memorials through the years. Even before Israel was a nation, God gave Noah the rainbow to memorialize the fact that he would not again flood the earth or destroy the earth with water. God gave Abraham the right of circumcision to remind them that they were a separate people from the other nations. God gave to Moses the Passover to institute in Israel as a memorial to remember the coming out of Egypt and the freedom from bondage. We saw a memorial last week in chapter three where we saw the ark of the covenant and the three things that were in the ark of the covenant, all of which reminded the nation of Israel of God's provision and power and blessing on them in the wilderness. And so that was a memorial, a visible reminder. And so now he's giving them another one. So a memorial has to be something visible, something tangible or something that is so concrete in your mind, you don't forget this. The stones were also from the very spot where God did this miracle. Actually, the Israelites watched as these 12 men went right back to the middle of the river where the priests were still there holding the ark of the covenant and the waters piled up up north of the river. And they go right back to the middle of the river, get the stones from the very spot around which the priests are standing. So there's something significant there. Often memorials are tied to a place where God's done something special in our lives. And then notice also they had to do this immediately. If they didn't establish the memorial immediately, it lost its impact. So God didn't say, okay, we gotta take this land. It's, we've got a lot to do right now. We gotta get in, take Jericho, next city, next city. We gotta walk through a couple of years later after we've mopped up everything, we've got the land. We'll come back and have a little ceremony here. Now he didn't do that. He said, you gotta do this now while the image is tied to the event. So you see what that means? That means if we're gonna have a visible reminder, it's got to be done immediately while the, while what God has done in our lives is fresh and we're still experiencing and remembering exactly what God's done. So what are our memorials? Well, obviously the place to begin, Jesus told us, commanded us to observe two memorials, didn't he? One of them we just saw a little earlier, baptism. And regardless of whether or not the water's cold or hot, baptism is significant because it's a visible, reminder to that child or that adult, to their family members, to the whole congregation of visible reminder that that individual has placed their faith in a crucified, buried, and risen savior. And by faith in Christ, they have experienced new life because of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection, not because of their baptism as was so carefully explained, but because of Christ's death, burial and resurrection. This is a visible reminder of that powerful reminder of that. And it's something that probably, especially those children will always remember, we had an adult baptized in the first service this morning. I think he will always remember that too. And maybe the cold water will help the vivid imagery, a little bit, that would be okay. Communion is the other one. And communion is a visible, tangible reminder, right? Jesus instituted it the evening before he died on the cross. So the imagery, the symbolism was immediate for the disciples. The next day they would be seeing it played out. They wouldn't put all the significance of it together till later, but they would. And for us, we have to think a little more and pray and prepare our hearts and examine ourselves to make sure we remember well what that piece of cracker represents and that little bit of great Jews represents. The broken body and shed blood of our Lord as he died for us. So those are two memorials that Jesus commanded. We as a church observe. But let me get a little more personal now. And let's talk about you, let's talk about me. And I don't know, maybe this is not the best way to do it, but I'm just gonna become a little confessional in my preaching this morning. I wanna share with you some of our memorials, mine personally, ours as a family, just to give you examples maybe of how this can be done. Maybe a memorial for you relates to a place, a place that you'll go back to and you'll remember fondly. I remember the place where I was saved. It was a little classroom and the little white building across the road, the first building that we had over here as a church. And I remember where it was downstairs, that place is no longer there. It's covered up by the garage. And so I can't go to the actual location, but I still remember the room where a VBS teacher asked all of us kids, do you know for sure that you're going to have and raise your hand we had our heads bowed and I couldn't raise my hand. I would just started coming to the church. I didn't understand anything about the gospel. She pulled me aside afterwards and explained to me the gospel. And a short time later, I made that public profession of faith. I still remember the flagpole at the camp at Patrick Springs where God answered a very specific prayer and a surprising way for me where he was dealing with me about whether or not to go into the ministry. And I put all kinds of fleeces out. You know, we got all these preachers from the churches here that run the camp. And I said, God, if you really want me to go into the ministry, then give me an opportunity to preach this week. And I'm thinking, okay, that's not gonna happen. And that very next day, Sammy Shove came up to me and said, would you speak at the morning devotions tomorrow? And God just took the innocent prayer of a 17 year old boy and said, this is not the way to find out the will of God, but I'm gonna show you, this is what I want you to do. I'll never forget where that place was. I remember places where we lived and we've had the privilege of going back to them. Sometimes you might catch me walking around one of the parking lots out here near where the soccer field is now. And I really haven't lost my mind, not wondering, you know, cluelessly, that's where the person is used to be. And we lived there longer than anywhere else we've ever lived in a house, 14 years. And that's where our kids grew up. And that piece of ground is special to me. I have lots of memories of significant things that happened with our family there. I can walk into this auditorium and look up here at this pulpit and lots of memories come back of the tremendous privilege. God's given me to preach to you the Word of God. And even some good things he's seen fit by grace to do as a result of that. And I can go back to, as I had the privilege to do back in August, to the first church I passed in the 70s back in North Carolina, a hundredth year anniversary, not of my ministry there, but of the church. And they asked me to come back and preach. And I remember walking in that auditorium and looking at that pulpit up there. And thinking back is how 20 something year old young man cut his teeth on preaching the Word of God in that place in that pulpit right there. And I remember the one in Indiana and I've had the privilege to go back there and it's those places are so vivid in my mind. Maybe it's a place like that for you. Maybe it's a person, a family member. A former pastor like for me, preacher Jimmy, a Sunday school teacher, the Deacon, another person in this church you looked up to. So maybe it's a person, maybe it's an experience that you had. And hopefully you've got a momentum to go with that. Something that reminds you 34 years ago, this June, it's hard to believe it's been 34 years ago. I was in seminary at Grace and I was pastoring in Indiana. And I had the opportunity as the capstone of one of my classes on historical geography and history to go to the land of Israel and study for a month at the American Institute of Holy Land Studies. And so 16 of us from Grace seminary, 16 from Dallas, seminary, and six from a smaller seminary in Philadelphia traveled together and studied intensely for a month in Israel and went all over the land and studied the history and geography. It was an experience I'll never forget, but there's one thing that stands out more than anything else. And that was a Sunday morning where I was asked to preach to that group in June of 1984. And it was on the place where we were going to have our service was on the Mount of Beatitudes. And it was the place where Jesus had to preach the sermon on the Mount. And I cannot ever forget the feelings that went through me as I looked down from that mountain at the sea of Galilee and at the field spread out below us and thinking of the thousands of people there. Listen to that sermon. And I had to preach in that place. And you know what helps me remember that? One of the deans of one of the seminaries snapped a photograph of me preaching and I didn't even know what had happened until we got back to the States and a couple of weeks later I get this photograph in the mail with a letter and he's explaining it took this picture. And I've got it in my office. I'll keep it. Rest in my life because it reminds me of one of the most glorious privileges I ever had in my life. And I look at that photograph and I think about that and remember it and praise God for that opportunity. I have a clay pottery piece of pottery from our first church in pottery rich North Carolina with the picture of the church on the inscription of our time there. Same thing of a pencil drawing of our church in Indiana. I have a picture of a shepherd in my office, a shepherd, right across from my desk a large picture on the wall that you gave me back in 2008. And often I look up from my desk and I look at that picture and I see that shepherd and I'll think about ways that I'm not being as good a shepherd as I could be and how we commit myself to being a good shepherd. Because of that visible reminder, I have a Bible that my dad and mom gave me in 1970 when I went away to Bible college and my dad I have his own handwriting of a note he wrote in the front page of that Bible to always preach this book. See my dad's handwriting. I'll never forget it. I'll never, I still have that Bible and I'll never get rid of it. I've got my dad's Bible. Jan, sister, it's the Bible he would never get rid of. The one he kept having rebound. His Thompson chain reference that has all of his notes in it on every page of that Bible. There are notes that he took from sermons and Bible studies and his own teaching and I opened that and I look at his handwriting and how God was speaking to him. I'll never, I'll never. I'll never get rid of that Bible. That's a memorial to me. I found another precious memorial just this past week. I didn't know I had. Jeannie's going through all these pictures. The box of pictures we're talking about, you know, Jeannie's going through all that stuff now. It's time. We're trying to downsize and figure out what we're going to get rid of and what we're going to keep. And so she's going through all these pictures and she finds this packet in that box. I didn't even know it existed. I'm sure I saw it when it was given to me, but I never opened it to my shame. So I opened it one night this week. And it was everything my parents had kept. And I'm sure, Jeannie, you've got one too. And probably our other three sisters have one. All my report, it was shameful. All my report cards from first grade, all the way up through 12th grade. And other things, newspaper clippings of Boy Scouts and stuff like that. And I opened that first grade envelope that had my report card in it. I won't tell you what was on the report card. But I found something else behind the report card. It was an envelope. And I have never seen this in my life until this week. I pulled it out. And I noticed it was a letter addressed to Master Jeannie King. And up in the return section of the envelope was my grandpa Hollensworth's name. I opened that letter for the first time in my memory this week. And it was a letter from my grandpa. Who by the time I started school, I really didn't know. I was six years old. He was already retired. He'd been the principal at Princeton High School and the principal at Welch High School for many years. And had retired and moved to Florida. And he wrote a letter talking about how important education was and how excited he was for me to start school. And hope and I would be just like Mary Beth and do well in school. And you know that existed till this week. But I guarantee you, I will not let go of that letter. Those are memorials. Those are things you go back and you remember in visible tangible ways, special people, special events, things that God blessed you with. And they carry such power to remind you of the goodness of God. Those are our memorials. Okay. Why do we do that? Why should we build memorials? Why should we hang on to things that are of importance to us like that? What's the purpose of memorials? Very quickly. Number one, this is not a fetish. That object is not a fetish. You know what a fetish is? A fetish is an object that is seen as sacred in itself and has power to do supernatural things. That's a fetish. Those objects that Bible from my parents, my dad's Bible, that picture of Israel, those are not fetishes. So power in themselves. We don't worship the place or the people or the object that reminds us. We worship the God who blessed us. But we remember how he blessed us with those objects. So we're not talking about a fetish. Secondly, this is not a museum. Okay. If you have a collection of things like I've talked about, it's not a museum. You know what a museum is? A museum is an effort to preserve the past. And with good museums to recreate the past, to make you feel like you're immersed back in that setting. That's not what we're talking about. Because God doesn't want us to live in the past. God doesn't want us to long for the past, to recreate the past. But He does want us to remember the past. He does want us to remember His goodness to us in the past. So we're not creating a museum here. We're simply reminding ourselves in a visible, tangible way that otherwise, we would so easily forget. We're reminding ourselves of the great God who has faithfully provided for us, who has so graciously worked in our lives. That's what we're doing. Not a museum. So it's not a fetish. Not a museum. So what is it? Three things. This text tells us. And clearly tells us, is the reason for a memorial, the purpose of a memorial. Number three, it is a tool for training. You remember it back in verse six? This is the service of sight among you in the future when your children ask you, what do these stones mean? Then he says, you tell them the story. And he repeats the same thing back in verses 21 to 23. You see it there in verse 21? He said to these rights. In the future, when your descendants ask their parents, what do these stones mean? Tell them. And he tells them the story. This is where God brought us across on dry ground. Just like he did at the Red Sea. He did it here too. And so they are to tell the story to their children. Memorials help us tell the stories of God's provision to our children. Years ago, we got rid of all of our fancy little Christmas decorations that we put on the Christmas tree. And what we are left with, which is so much better, is, number one, the handmade ones that our grandmother Hollinsworth made for us. Just out of those little styrofoam balls, but beautifully decorated. So we have those. We have things that our Christmas, none of it matches. It didn't matter. It's all stuff that people have given us, or that our kids made in school, or that represent places we've visited with our family. And my wife does an incredible job with our grandkids of when they want to see the Christmas tree and they ask, what is that? And she tells the story. And reminds us of what that symbolizes, that memorial, much better than some nice little light or thing on the tree. That memorial gives us an opportunity to tell the story to our kids and our grandkids. So it's for telling the story, a tool to train our children. Another reason for memorials is this. It's a testimony to others. Look at verse 24. He did this. They're still telling the story of the crossing of the Jordan River. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful. You say, on your dining room hutsh or on your table in your living room or at the end table, you've got one of these mementos and someone comes in your house, a visitor, a guest, a relative. Someone comes, what's that? And you have the opportunity to tell them the story. And to be a testimony to them of God's goodness in your life, what a great opportunity to share the gospel. I've kept little mementos from different mission trips. They're in my office now. But Jeanne and I have a plan to put them in our house when I move out of my office. And we're going to strategically locate them so that people who come in will see them. And we have an opportunity to answer questions. What's that machete doing up there? Well, that's from Papua New Guinea. We're going to tell you a story about PNG. So we have a chance to tell about missionaries in the gospel, penetrating dark regions of the world. That's what we're hoping to do. A testimony to others. And then lastly, number five, these mementos are a challenge to ourselves. I mentioned to you that painting that sits right across from my desk on the wall. It's large. It's beautiful. Every time I look at it, I think about this as a shepherd. That's what you are, John. Are you being the shepherd you should be? And so it's challenged to me. Whenever I see that, I have a mug collection. By the way, the scripture is more important than the mug collection. Look at the universe 24. And so that you might, some of you had already put up your outline because you filled in the last word, right? Shame on you. Shame on you. Verse 24 says, and so that you might always fear the Lord your God. Okay, the reason why you have these stones is to remind you that you need to fear the Lord your God because of what he did here. And so you, with that visible reminder, are challenged in yourself, your own personal life and your heart and your mind, to follow him better, to live for him in a more committed way, to the cause of the remembrance of how good he's been to you. I mentioned I had a mug collection. I have a great mug collection. Practically everywhere we have gone or visited since way back in the early 80s, I've gotten a mug of that place. And I've taken a lot of grief over that. From some of you, I've taken a lot of grief over that mug collection. And it's probably because they're an alphabetical order, which, you know, says something about me, I guess. But, but anyway, every morning when I go down to get a mug, there's a place. There's an event. There's a mission trip. There's a person identified with that mug that I remember. And I'll usually pray for them or I'll just rejoice in the goodness of God in being able to see his handy work in that place and being able to share time with my family in that place and being able to minister with a missionary in that place. And it's, I thank God for the coffee and for the place. And it's just a wonderful reminder, a challenge to me. That's what memorials are all about. That's a reason for them. And they don't have to be 12 stones in your backyard. Okay. You see that lots of different ways we can do this to visibly remind ourselves. So I challenge you, build memorials in your life that you can use as a tool to teach your children and grandchildren. That can you can use as an opportunity to witness testimony to others who may visit your place and, or and your challenge yourself also to a more committed walk with Christ. On close with this quick story. One of the things my dad did with me before he died and it wasn't long before he died is he took me with him to the railroad museum. I've walked through the railroad museum. I've seen all the displays and the artifacts and the implements of railroad life there. But this was different. This was my dad who spent 43 years on the railroad explaining to me why this piece of equipment was important and what that piece of equipment did and how he operated telegraph. He showed me how you operate telegraph. He was one of the last of the old railroad guys that knew how to do that. And so the railroad museum would have him come in two or three times a week and do demonstrations on the telegraph. And he showed me how he did the telegraph. I will never forget that visit. I've forgotten other visits I've made to the railroad museum, but I'll never forget that one because not only was it seeing objects, it was opening a window into my dad's life and his work and his soul. And so it really cemented to me whatever I go back there had a wedding there not too long ago and just looking through that place again. I will see in my dad all over that place. That's a memorial for me. I hope you have some of those not just for family, but especially to remember all the good things that God has done. Would you pray with me, please? Father, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for the opportunity to give us to reflect on your goodness. To remember, and Lord, we confess when we are so prone to forget. Our minds have been so affected by the fall. We forget so easily the good things you've done for us. Forgive us for that. May we never forget your blessings. And may we do whatever it takes to visibly remind our sinful, fall in hearts and minds of how good you are. Thank you for all the people you bring into our lives, all the events, all the places, all the blessings. May we remember them well and season our journey through life with joy and praise to you for your goodness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.