It’s difficult to overstate how important the idea of remembering is in the Bible. When the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt, killing the firstborn of the Egyptians, God declared that his people would eat a meal. They would have a feast as a memorial. It was so that they might remember, and every generation would know what the Lord had done for them. In fact, the Lord intended for this feast to serve as a means of parents telling their children. The Lord declared, “And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this serve?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses’” (Exodus 12:26-27). Similarly, when Israel was ready to enter the promised land, the Lord charged them to remember what the Lord had done for them and not to forget it. Exhortations to remember and warnings against forgetting are found seven times in a chapter and a half in Deuteronomy 8-9. Then, when the Israelites actually crossed the Jordan River, passing over on dry land as the Lord stopped the water, God commanded them to take twelve stones and make a memorial with them. He told them, “When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell tem that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever” (Joshua 4:6-7). And, fast-forwarding to the New Testament, when Jesus gave the elements of the supper to the disciples, he told them that they were to eat the bread and drink from the cup “in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24-25). This is a meal we get to celebrate each week, and Lord-willing, our children are asking us, “What does this mean when we eat and drink of this meal?” so that we might tell them that we are remembering and delighting in the truth that Christ gave himself for us.
Clearly, then the Lord places a premium on his people stopping and setting aside a time to remember what he has done for them. Negatively, there is a great danger in forgetting, failing to remember, and failing to pass along to a generation the stories of what God has done for his people.
Now, a number of churches today are remembering what God has done for his people in the Reformation. Today marks nearly 500 years since Martin Luther nailed ninety-five theses on the church door at Wittenberg, setting off something bigger than he imagined. And we join with these churches in remembering and thanking God for his work of preserving the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
But for us, this weekend holds particular importance and a special cause for remembering and giving thanks. It was ten years ago this weekend that we ended the service by calling out the names of sixty-two church members who came forward one-by-one and signed a copy of our church covenant. It was actually a much more moving service to me than I thought it was going to be, as I found myself choked up, thinking of the love that I personally had for these people, and I was not the only one thinking this.
I also want to acknowledge that few of us were actually here on that day. I believe there were fourteen of our 175 members who signed a copy of the covenant then, including Doug and Dianne Watson who just moved and will be joining another church soon. And yet unless the Lord had kindly lavished his grace and mercy upon us leading up to that day of October 29, 2000, we would not be gathering here today as we are, celebrating the Lord’s rich grace to us.
Therefore, my intent this morning is simply for us to remember together what the Lord has done for us in his grace as we celebrate the ten-year-anniversary of this day that marked a recovery of meaningful membership for those who make up this church. However, before doing this, I want to note a few things from a psalm that was written in order that God’s people might stop and remember what the Lord had done in Israel’s history. That psalm is Psalm 105. It is a psalm which breaks down into a number of stanzas, but for our purposes can be divided into three sections: 1) a first stanza which calls God’s people to remember (vv. 1-6); 2) a second stanza which reminds God’s people of his covenant faithfulness (vv. 7-11), and 3) the rest of the psalm which recounts God’s gracious work in Israel’s history (vv. 12-45). And in looking at this psalm, I want us to note a few things concerning the issue of remembering.
The first is that God commands his people to remember what he has done for us.
There are a number of commands in the first six verses of this psalm. The psalmist commands the reader to “give thanks to the Lord,” “call upon his name,” “make known his deeds among the peoples,” sing to him,” “sing praises to him,” “tell of all his wondrous works,” “glory in his holy name,” “rejoice,” and “seek the Lord . . . his strength . . . [and] his presence continually.” But I think all of those commands are summarized in verse 5: “Remember the wondrous works that he has done.”
That is to say, I think in the psalmist’s mind, remembering entails action. To remember the Lord’s wondrous works should lead us to give him thanks, call upon his name, make known his wondrous deeds, sing praises to him, etc. And this isn’t a foreign concept to us. When we charge a man to remember his marriage covenant, doesn’t that entail keeping the vows he made to his wife. Remembering someone’s birthday seems to minimally suggest that you told them “Happy Birthday.” For my children to remember what I told them to do means obeying what I told them to do. And we could go on and on. To remember means to do something. And to remember the Lord’s wondrous works means to do all the things commanded in verses 1-4.
But there’s something else I want us to see as well. Because all the Scripture is inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, then these words reflect the very words and intention of God for us. That is to say, Psalm 105 is not only the psalmist telling God’s people to remember God’s wondrous work, but it is God telling his people to remember his wondrous works. And because God still has a people who are his chosen ones and has continued to do wondrous works for his people (in fact, the most wondrous of them had not yet been performed at the time this psalm was written), it is easy for us to conclude that God commands us to remember what he has done for us.
Therefore by setting aside this day as a day of remembrance and thanks, we are not only doing something that is a good idea and helps all of us to hear and remember what God has done for us, we are doing something that is commanded by God.
For Union students, this is something this university will do on Tuesday as they remember the Lord’s kindness and grace as he spared the lives of the students when a tornado ripped through the campus a few years ago. It is a special day set aside to make sure even those students who weren’t around them might hear and remember together the Lord’s kindness to the university. There is a building on campus named Providence Hall so that the coming generations might ask, “Why is this building not just named after a person like many others?” and the story might be told of how the Lord’s gracious providence was evident on this destructive night. Why do that? It is because the Lord commands his people to remember his wondrous works.
And let me pause for a second just to ask each of us if this is a practice in our lives. I know that we need little urging to cry out to God in desperate circumstances. There are several times when we know that the Lord is our only hope. But do we also pause and remember his wondrous answers to our prayers? Do we as parents tell our children the wondrous works of God so that they might know what he has done in our lives and give thanks with us for these things and learn to trust him? Let me encourage us to make this a practice, not just because it is good and helpful but also because it is commanded by God.
Now, someone might note that remembering can be an empty and purposeless task. As a student, remembering how well you did on your last test or paper doesn’t guarantee how you’ll do on this one, does it? Plenty of sports teams start a season on a great note only to end the season in a downward spiral. Remembering the past has little effect on the present for them. Sure, we might say, remember how you were in first place then, but recognize that you’re in last place now. So, why is it that it is valuable to remember things that the Lord has done in our past?
The reason this is helpful for us is because God acts with grace toward his people because he is faithful to his covenant.
Now, that statement and its connection to what we’ve just asked might not be immediately clear, so let me spell out a bit what I mean by this. There’s a reason why God acts graciously toward his people. That reason is because he made a covenant with them and is faithful to his covenant. We see a hint of this already in verse 6 as the psalmist declares who are blessed, writing, “O offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones!”
If we ask ourselves why Abraham’s offspring are blessed people, the answer is that though Abraham had done nothing deserving of this, God made a covenant with Abraham to bless him, multiply his offspring, and give them an inheritance. There was nothing that made them special. Abraham was not a follower of the true God. But God in his grace chose Abraham, entered into a covenant relationship with him, and promised to bless his offspring.
This is why these mentioned in verse 6 are highlighted. They are recipients of God’s covenant promise. So, if we ask ourselves why God did such wondrous works in the lives of people, the answer is because God is faithful to his covenant promises. We see this clearly in verses 7-11. There we read: “He is the LORD our God; his judgment are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, is sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.’”
You see, since God’s wondrous works were grounded in his faithfulness to his covenant promises, remembering what he has done encourages us in the present. The reason this is the case is because God is still the God who is faithful to his covenant promises. And, we are the recipients of those covenant promises. As we heard read earlier from Galatians 3, when God promised Abraham that all the nations would be blessed, Paul tells us that he was promising to justify anyone who would believe in the crucified and risen Lord so that they might be Abraham’s offspring and heirs of the promises of God.
So this morning, since we are believers with Christ and therefore Abraham’s offspring and heirs of God’s covenant promises, we can remember what God did with his people in the Old Testament and be encouraged that God will continue to show that kind of covenant faithfulness toward us. God’s past actions, because they are grounded in his character which is constant and true, remind us of how God is acting in the present and will act in the future. John Piper has rightly noted that “confidence in someone’s future reliability is grounded in a history of past faithfulness.”1 This is why it’s helpful for us to remember and tell others of God’s mighty deeds so that they too might be encouraged to trust him in the present and the future.
Finally, remembering God’s past actions reminds us always of our need of him.
Verses 12-45 tell the history of God’s care for Israel in their past. Verses 12-15 remind them of God’s unmerited favor. They were few in number, of little account, and sojourners, but God cared for them and even stopped kinds in their tracks in order to protect them and care for them. Verses 16-23 remind them that God was always working for their good. When there was going to be a famine, God did not sit idly by and watch his people be destroyed. Rather, he sent Joseph ahead of them to Egypt. That is, even through the evil actions of Joseph’s brothers, God was working good. And Joseph went through much suffering, even having his neck put in a collar of iron until God’s promised word came to pass, Joseph was exalted as a ruler in the land, set up storehouses of food, and provided for Israel when they came to Egypt for food.
Verses 24-38 remind them that God exalting his own glory, greatness, and power fits hand-in-hand with his care for his people. It recounts how God made Israel great so that the Pharaoh turned against them, hated them, and made them his slave. Therefore, God was setting up on the world stage an opportunity to demonstrate his greatness over the world’s rulers. Every god that Egypt worshiped he showed his power, making the land dark, turning the river to blood, sending swarms of frogs, flies, and gnats, sending hails and locusts, and eventually killing their firstborn, even as the Pharaoh had murdered the Hebrew boys. In all of this, we know that God was showing his power over the Pharaoh. In fact, the Lord led Israel to the Red Sea not only so that he might deliver his people and demonstrate his power over Pharaoh. We read in Exodus 14:4, “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.”
But these verses in Psalm 105 not only remind Israel of God’s demonstration of his might and power over Pharaoh, they also remind them of the Lord’s blessing to them, bringing them out with silver and gold, delivering his people. It’s a reminder that God’s glory and the good of his people go hand-in-hand.
Finally, verses 39-45 remind them that God continued to care for them, even though their sinned. When we read verses 39-45 we hear of God’s grace in providing a cloud for covering and a fire by night to give light. We’re reminded of the Lord feeding them with quail and manna from heaven and of giving them drink with water from a rock, of bringing his people out of Egypt with Joy and giving them the land of Canaan.
But what is noticeably absent here? One glaring omission is Israel’s sin. Yes, he gave them water, but they griped about it. Yes, he delivered them from Egypt, but they were so stubborn that they wanted to go back. Yes, God led them into Canaan but only after an entire generation had to die in the wilderness because of their rebellion.
Why doesn’t the psalmist mention these things in Psalm 105? I think the reason is because this psalm is dedicated to remembering the Lord’s wondrous works, not the sins of his people. But I do not think that the psalmist imagines us reading these verses without Israel’s sin coming to mind. Rather, I think he knows that their absence will catch our attention, and then we will recognize that though their history was filled with sin, God kept on working, kept on delivering them, kept on providing for them, and kept on showing them grace.
This is our God. The God who shows us grace we don’t deserve, the God who has promised and continually works all things for our good, the God who exalts himself in ways that brings us the greatest blessing, and the God who continues to forgive us and work with us even though we are prone to sin.
Why do we need to remember this God and his works? I think it is chiefly so that we might see our need for him, love him, and walk according to his commands. That’s why Psalm 105:45 tells us God delivered his people “that they might keep his statutes and observe his laws.” In the same way, he has delivered us so that we might demonstrate what it looks like for God’s people to live under the reign of our Lord, Jesus, the Christ.
So, this morning, let me give a very brief account of the history of this church leading up to October 29, 2000, the day of our first covenant signing service. Cornerstone Community Church began in 1995 in what is most clearly understood as a split from Woodland Baptist Church. No doubt in these situations there is always sin on both sides, but what was clear in this community was that there was a tense relationship between these two churches that dishonored Christ. When I came here to visit the church for the first time, individuals in the community would tell me that I really needed to look into how this church started. That is, it was no secret in Jackson that Cornerstone only existed because of disharmony among members at Woodland.
Early on the growth of the church was tremendous, numerically. One hundred people in attendance was eclipsed by two hundred in attendance in a matter of weeks. And this trend continued to the point that soon there were soon a few hundred people on our membership roll. But those who cover their sins do not prosper, and Cornerstone would continue to undergo disharmony and people splintering off again and again until by God’s grace the Lord brought a man named Don Lemaster to be the interim here.
Don Lemaster was one of the greatest gifts this church has known because he led the church through public repentance. Don simply noted to the congregation that Jesus tells us to be reconciled to a brother whether we’ve sinned against him or he has something against us. He then noted that if this should be done on an individual level, it should also certainly be done on a corporate level. Therefore, this very month twelve years ago the members of Cornerstone wrote a letter to the members of Woodland Baptist Church. The letter was specifically addressed to the pastor, Bob Ervin, and it read as follows:
Dear Brother Ervin,
Sunday, October the 4th, the family of Cornerstone Community Church went before the Lord seeking forgiveness, cleansing and release for our sin against the Woodland Baptist Church family. Brother, we are now asking you and the family there for the same.
We have an intense desire to go on with the Lord and feel this matter must be addressed. Thank you in advance for your understanding and forgiveness.
The Cornerstone Family
This letter was welcomed with unanimous note of forgiveness from the members of Woodland Baptist Church, forgiving us of our sins against them and asking from us the same forgiveness. Because of this I do not mind this city knowing that this church has sinned. To hide from it would be hypocrisy. But I also want to declare that in addition to being a people who sin, we are a people who repent. And thank God that he gives grace to the humble.
He did indeed give us grace after this. When I was asked to become interim in May of 1999, we still had about 300 plus members on the role and about fifty in attendance. Needless to say, membership didn’t mean a whole lot to this local church. And about the same time, I was reading a little booklet published by the Center for Church Reform in 1998 called “9 Marks of a Healthy Church.” Soon, we were on our way to tracking down members, seeing where they were, and attempting to think of membership not just as having your name on a roll but committed yourself to invest in the lives of your brothers and sisters so that they might grow toward greater maturity in Christ.
This led to us putting together a church covenant and having all of those who wanted to commit themselves as members to this local church signing it. That happened Sunday morning, October 29, 2000. As noted earlier, on that day sixty-two individuals came forward and signed a copy of the church covenant, as the Lord brought about somewhat of a rebirth of this local church. And since then, though we have walked through some deep valleys and continued to battle our own sin, the Lord has shown us such grace.
So, what is Cornerstone Community Church. We are a church who doesn’t even deserve to exist and yet a church that the Lord has forgiven. We’re a church who took membership as so light a commitment that though the church only existed for four years, in 1999 we had hundreds more members than those who attended our services. And, yet, we are a church whom the Lord guided, cared for, and directed us toward his Word.
As we, therefore, remember and celebrate the ten-year anniversary of our covenant signing service, I pray that we would all pause and thank God for redeeming and preserving his people here. We are no better than anyone else. In fact, our history may be filled with more and greater sin than other local churches. But by God’s grace, we are a people whom the Lord has led to repent and has blessed. He has been so kind and gracious to us, and he has continued to show his grace to us over these last ten years. Therefore, let us not forget the Lord’s grace.
On October 29, 2000, as we had our covenant-signing service, the text I took up that day was Nehemiah 9. I thought it was a fitting text because the chapter ends with the writing of a covenant and the signing of it by the princes, Levites, and priests. What’s interesting for us today about that chapter is that right in the middle of it we read that Israel stiffened their need and did not obey “because they were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them” (Neh 9:17). Let this not be us. Let us be mindful, that is remember, the wonders that Lord performed among us so that we might not be stubborn but humbled, knowing our need for the Lord and walking in his ways. Let us today therefore take some time and thank the Lord for his grace to us, remembering what he has done in the history of this church, and then let us remember what God has done for us through his Son as we come to the table, eating and drinking in remembrance of our Lord. Amen.