Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
Look at this wonderful family. Isn't this awesome?
And you're very color-coordinated. It's beautiful.
And look, David has his special dedication outfit on.
He looks snazzy. Who picked it out? Oh, it was yours.
Wow! Praise God. That's awesome.
Oh, I'm scaring him. But this is just awesome.
I would like to honor the family that has come out today.
Can you guys stand up and just give a little wave to the folks?
This is the family I came out to join.
Al, of course, is part of our family here.
But this is so awesome. You know, I was thinking quite a bit about this morning.
And how, as a parent, the greatest thing we can do is introduce our kids to Jesus. Amen.
I mean, they are his kids. He has foreknown them before they're even in Erica's womb.
He already knew them, right?
And as parents, we're merely stewards for God the Father's children.
I mean, that's a big responsibility, isn't it?
And that's why they're up here now to receive prayer from us
and also to publicly say we are going to raise David to know Jesus,
just like they did all their other children to know him.
And you could pray into that.
And even at times, I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you occasionally said,
how are things going? Don't be too nosy.
But you could just say, hey, how are things going?
And just encourage them. I mean, this is an amazing, amazing family.
And guess what? Erica has another one in the oven.
So we're on number five.
Praise God. And, you know, it's just so awesome.
When I was reading in John 10 this morning,
and it says how the Lord is the good shepherd who comes, you know,
and his sheep know his voice.
And then it speaks of a doorkeeper who opens the door for the sheep to leave
and follow the true shepherd to great pastors, abundant pastors.
And I always saw myself as a father and even as a grandfather
as really being a doorkeeper saying like, here comes Jesus.
He's the one you want to follow because we're merely guides
leading them to the true Father in heaven. Amen.
So it's a great responsibility and a true joy.
I mean, this is such an amazing couple.
We've known them for many years.
And just to see the way the Lord has grown you spiritually,
but also grown your family to know the Lord.
I mean, it's just a beautiful family.
So I'm going to ask Austin and Erica to share a little bit
before we all pray together. Austin.
Do you mind if I just go into a prayer? Yeah.
Or do you want to say anything before we pray?
Sure. I'll let you go there.
One of the things that we take really seriously in our house
is naming our children and the declaration and the prayer
that their names are over their life
and their relationship with the Lord.
And so this is David Oakland.
And it is our prayer for him that like the king of old,
he will worship the Lord with all his heart,
that he will have courage and faith in the face of the impossible.
Don't call it stone.
Excuse me.
And Oakland, it is our hope that he will grow to be an oak of righteousness
and so many deep-rooted seeds for the kingdom of God.
So that's his name, David Oakland.
Hey, David.
So, Father, we just come before you
and we are so grateful that you gave us another little child
to take care of.
That we have David to bring to you Jesus,
to reveal your heart to him
and to show him the love of God.
And, Father, we understand the responsibility
that you've placed in our hands
and we come before you to dedicate David to you,
to raise him up in your ways,
to keep him accountable,
and to just reveal to him the way of life
and the way of love that is Jesus.
And, Father, we thank you for David.
And, Father, I just pray that you would,
even now, Father, just...
Reveal yourself, Father.
We don't want our kids to have to wait until they're 10, 12, 15, 20 years old.
We believe that Jesus Christ died for even an infant.
To know you now, to know your love now,
to be with you now,
to be sanctified in relationship with you now,
to not have to grow up with decades and decades of trauma
untouched by your love,
but that we can step into your grace and your mercy today.
That we can step into your love today,
that he may walk with you hand in hand,
even as a one-year-old and a two-year-old,
like the rest of our kids.
Two, three, four, five, six, Father,
that they would know you always, even from now.
And even this baby in the womb, Father,
we're grateful and we dedicate David to you
and we commit ourselves as his Father and Mother
to walk him down your path to his destiny
in your kingdom, Father.
And we thank you, Father, and we pray this
in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Before we depart, let's all also just
put your hands out to them, just laying a blessing on them.
And let's all pray together for this family
that the angel of the Lord will encamp himself around them
and protect them, right?
And wherever they step, it's the Lord's kingdom, amen.
So let's just all pray out once out loud
for this amazing cyberlic family.
Yeah, Father God, we thank you for this family, Lord.
And they are building a legacy, Lord,
to the third and fourth and beyond generations, Lord.
And we thank you for that, Lord.
And we thank you that they are going to demonstrate
what it looks like to have a kingdom family, kingdom mindset.
So, Lord God, we bless them and we thank you for them
in Jesus' name, amen.
Make sure you say hello to them.
You know, you're sticking around for a while after church
and just say hello and what an amazing outfit.
Second generation, it looks like it's brand new
and the Lord has really maintained it
just like the Israelites in the wilderness.
Praise God.
Thank you, guys.
Love you.
Thanks so much.
I love that outfit.
I got to get one.
Well, maybe not, but anyway.
Yeah, so all of you know Jamie Alabak
and he's preached here on Sundays.
He speaks regularly on Wednesday nights
and teaches through the books of the Bible.
He's just an amazing man.
You got to get to know him.
He's so talented and gifted in so many different ways
and has a testimony that will just rock your world
and we're just so blessed to have him here
and you may not know it,
but he has started years ago a ministry in Honduras
and so I'm going to ask Jamie Alabak to come forward
and bring his brother, Eben, who also is from Honduras
and I believe he's going to introduce Eben a little bit more
and he's going to share.
Is that the right order, Jamie?
Do I have that down?
And he's going to share and we're going to learn a lot,
but praise God.
Thank you.
Let's give the Lord a round of applause.
All right, so like Chris said,
we started the ministry in Honduras in 2003
and we met about five years after that,
somewhere around there, maybe sooner than that.
I don't know.
I think so.
But we were having all kinds of issues with the ministry
and I was actually just kind of ready to close up shop on it.
We had people steal and it was just hard
not having somebody there
and just through God's way,
Eben and I just came in into contact.
We met each other and we just kind of connected
and after, I don't know, a year or so,
I said, boy, this would be a good fit for you
to run the ministry and Eben and his wife
and he's built an incredible team down there.
They've done awesome work
and it's been a blessing to work together.
So I'm going to let him just kind of share
a little bit more about that
and I think you just give that a shot
and see how it goes.
Thank you.
All right?
Good morning, guys.
My name is Eben.
Nice to meet you.
My wife is right there.
She's a little bit shy.
So thank you so much for being here.
So I would like to tell you a little bit
about GIPHOPE 200s, as you can see.
Our ministry, where is the rock,
we have like actually a school
for kids that can afford to go to even public school
and you're asking why?
It's because in a really poor community
where even to buy food for the table is so hard
so it would be even harder to even buy like, you know,
a uniform or school books or everything.
So what we do is we use kind of like a homeschool program
to use another school, the rock,
and what we do is like we teach like kids.
Ones are like a pre-K and the other ones are kids
that have never been in school in their whole life.
And if you ask me why, it's because they're parents,
they don't care.
And the kids are pretty much like a lot of times
in the street or just they don't go to school.
So we go from pre-K and then we go from first grade
to sixth grade.
That is divided into three levels.
First level is first and second grade.
Second level is third and fourth grade.
And third level is fifth and sixth grade.
And Honduras, after you finish sixth grade,
kids can go to a trade school.
There's something called involved where they can go
to be a carpenter, mechanic,
and it's been awesome that one time actually I went to,
with my car, I have a problem and I take it to the shop
and I saw one of my boys doing an internship
to become a mechanic and that was really like so awesome.
So those, as you can see, those are the kids on the rock.
Then at the same time, those little kids,
we provide like a whole meal at the school as well.
They run from 7.30 to 12.
Then in the afternoon, three times a week,
we have a ministry as well, as you can see,
it's called Hop in the Field, soccer school.
So what we do is like in the neighborhood where we are,
happened the government and some organization,
they built this beautiful soccer field.
But as you can see on the side,
it's like really in a really poor community,
but the government came and built this beautiful,
as you can see, it's an awesome soccer field.
So what we do there is with the kids,
so we help them to prevent them to join the games.
So through soccer, soccer is a big deal in Honduras.
Actually, we, unfortunately, we're the team that never make it
to the World Cup a lot of times,
but when we make it one time, it's not a joke.
The president called it Holly Day the next day,
so everybody, nobody went to work.
So that is how big deal is soccer in Honduras.
So through soccer, it's the best way to outreach to the youth.
So the youth, they're losing to the games
and, you know, to go to the street and stuff like that.
So through that, what we do is like a lot of times,
we do like a little devotional, like 15 minutes each time.
So we have like two hours, three days a week,
and then on Saturdays, actually four days,
because on Saturdays, it's the games.
And you can see that is part of the team.
He's Marshall and the other coach,
and we do it like on Saturdays,
we do training, and Monday, Tuesday,
and Wednesdays, the training,
and then on Saturdays are the games.
We have a little uniform.
But in the games, as you can see,
we're celebrating over there, Children's Day,
but a lot of times, you will see the boys,
they will come, and it's not a joke,
they will be playing very good with flip-flop.
I saw a guy who was wearing flip-flop.
I'm like, that guy, you know, like that,
just with flip-flop, a lot of times,
they will take off their shoes,
because they don't want to ruin their shoes,
so they will play barefoot.
Believe it or not, and they're pretty good, some kids.
So we had a team from Denmark that came,
and they were doing a sketch with the kids at The Rock,
and they were like doing, you know, like a little drama,
because at the same time, what I was telling you,
we have like the time to have a little devotional,
so they were doing like a little drama,
and it was really cool.
As you can see, that's the soccer field in the back,
you can see little houses there, a little bit turned out,
and that soccer field is right in front of The Rock,
so that's why we're able to do that ministry there.
Then, as well, we do a lot of evangelists in high schools,
where we go with a good group of volunteers.
Thank goodness we've been building up the ministry,
and right now, in my WhatsApp group,
for GitHub 200 volunteers, we are around like 150 contacts,
because there are volunteers,
where there's a lot of kids that are passionate to share the gospel,
and we do ministry in high schools, as well.
So we go, we would go to a high school,
talk to a principal, and then they give them ready,
and that would be there, like that.
So we get them in whatever the gym is,
whatever, they get all the kids outside,
and we have like an hour and a half to two hours with the kids.
So we have like a whole, you know, like a whole band,
sometimes just the two speakers, it depends,
and we play music, you know, like Christian music,
we share testimony, we make the calling,
people come into Christ in high school,
so it's really impacting.
These past three years,
we've been having a little bit of struggle with that,
because the government is socialist,
so they don't allow us to go to public high school.
They've been blocking our, to go in.
Sometimes we find, you know, this way over here to get in,
but we've been having a lot of rejections
for government orders, they don't want to be talking about God
and the public high schools.
As you can see over there,
then we have a ministry that actually,
ministry of the city dump,
it's like a whole mountain of garbage,
where all that garbage of the whole seat of two million people
go there, it's a whole mountain, you see.
Let me show you this.
So in that place, you will see kids,
elderly, you know, people,
and where they go, it's like go pick up garbage and stuff like that,
and pick up plastic bottles and stuff to recycle and sell.
So what we generally do is like we go with our group,
we share with them a little devotional,
the gospel with them, like about five to ten minutes,
and we bring a meal, food, and we bring bags of water.
So we share with them, we're able to look at them.
And also, sometimes if we have a team,
that team was crazy, they were doing the whole sketch
and the dump, they were failing, they were doing like a lot of,
like I'm telling you, they were a bunch of young kids.
So yes, you can see in the bag, you know,
you see a lot of birds over there always.
So that is in the dump.
But people, we're sharing with them,
and the team that we have are really passionate
to share with the lease of the lease.
And if you ask me why,
it's because some of my guys came from a really, from the street.
I have guys who came from ex-game members,
all the guys who were the street kids,
all the guys who grew up in the community where actually,
where the rock is.
The school, the rock that is the community,
where like three of my guys are from there, you know.
So we are in the community.
And then a lot of times we do evangelists
and different areas in the city.
So you can see in the back.
And then we have the Hope Farm.
So the Hope Farm is still, we're working on that.
Jamie brought a team and we stayed there.
We're working on that team.
So we're getting up to date,
eventually still in the beginning, beginning stage
because we need a lot of resources.
We need people to come and, you know,
work alongside with us.
And a lot of times bring good ideas,
good knowledge of farmers.
I don't know if like that one that you can do like fish farm
that you do like all that kind of stuff.
So many things that a lot of times,
like people are gifting.
So feel free to come and work alongside with us.
And that's the Hope Farm.
That was doing like an activity in the Hope Farm.
We've been able to,
still it's like a lot on the rustic area in some areas,
but sometimes we've been taking like a whole group of youth group
from in some church.
We go there and we kind of like do a camp and everything.
And man, this like all terrain guys that you just slip over there.
And, you know, like, so we've been able to use it recently
through that as well.
And so with that,
I'll be ending our presentation.
One of the things I would like to invite you guys
that give hope to Honduras is no ministry.
It's not our ministry.
This is God's ministry in Honduras.
So I always just invite you guys to be the plus one,
because the only main guest on this ministry is Jesus Christ.
The rest were just plus one, plus two, plus three,
whatever you want to name it.
But that's one of the thing.
And thank you so much for having the opportunity
and the time to share with you our ministry in Honduras.
We met through the dump ministry.
So I had been going down on doors for about, I don't know,
four, five years.
And I read this article online called The Children of the Dump
who actually lived in the dump and survived in the dump.
And I'm asking all my friends down in Honduras,
I said, can you take us to the dump?
I want to go there.
And everybody said, no, we don't go to the dump.
We don't go to the dump.
I asked a dozen or more people.
And finally, somebody knew somebody that knew somebody.
And somebody knew him.
And that's how we connected up.
So the first time we met, we started going to the dump,
and it was just, I can't even put in the words what it was like.
I mean, it's just, it's a horrible, horrible place.
But we are planning a trip for early October
and would love to see some folks from Lansdale I've represented.
It's going to be primarily a work project,
but we will do some ministry aspects
like David was going through up at the school and the soccer
and all that kind of stuff.
But you don't have to be a super high-end construction guy or whatever.
There's tons of stuff to do.
We're working on a dorm right now
that we're trying to get outfitted where kids are going to come
and come and live and stay there away from the city, away from the gang.
So thank you.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Now I got to get my happy Memorial Day, everyone.
It's tomorrow, actually.
So Memorial Day was kind of a big deal when I was growing up.
But it wasn't a big deal in the way we celebrate it now.
My dad, that's my dad right there.
He was in World War II along with his brother Ken and Charlie
and my aunt Sis.
Her name was Arlene.
And they were all in the war together.
And my dad was a B-24 Liberator bomber.
My uncle Ken was a navigator.
He actually went to be a fighter pilot.
And at the end, he went through that G-force thing and just passed out.
That was the end of it for him.
So he had to re-sign up and he became a navigator.
But he was in a B-17 right in the thick of it.
And my uncle, they used to like to tease my other uncle Charlie.
They called him a pencil pusher.
But he was on the administrative side doing tactical work behind.
And my aunt Sis was in the waves.
And they had two younger sisters that were too young to be in the war.
So my dad graduated high school in June of 1943.
And less than a month later, he left for boot camp.
So he was 18 years old.
And that's a picture of him sitting where he dropped bombs from.
So my dad did 36 missions over Germany.
And the average life expectancy was 10 missions.
So he did two full tours and had two crews.
This guy's name is Hank.
And that's John.
And they reunited and kind of got together in their latter part of life.
And this is a picture of them that was taken.
That was 25 years ago.
And they were the three last remaining out of their entire both crews.
So it was serious to them because what they went through.
It was, you know, they saw a lot of people die.
They had friends die.
You know, not just people they were with,
but, you know, they would tell stories of people from their hometown that died.
We were going through my, when my aunt died, my aunt's sis died.
We were going through all of her pictures.
And we kept seeing this reoccurring picture of her with this guy who was not my uncle.
Now we're there.
Who is this guy?
He's a very handsome guy.
And I can't remember what his name was, but my mom said, yeah, he went off the war and died.
He was killed.
So it was, sorry.
It was very meaningful to me growing up.
So it's a lot different than how we celebrate now.
And it was a lot different to them.
But, you know, when I started thinking about this, you know,
I started thinking about, you know, as believers, we're, you know, we're called to remember, right?
Memorial Day is super important in remembering those who sacrificed their lives,
but it really should prompt us to a much more deeper meaning of remembering,
a deeper level of remembering.
You know, I know we are not to dwell in the past.
Certainly we're not to dwell in the past, but God calls us to remember.
And you could even make a case that he commands us to remember.
And it's not just in the language that's used, it's not just this casual, nostalgic recall.
It's a deep, active reflection of faith in what he's done, you know,
and the gratitude that we should have when, you know, when we think about it
and then this compulsion that we should have to share what he's done.
So it is a command and it's repeated all throughout the Bible, this idea of remembering.
Psalm 105 reads,
Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name, make known among the nations what he has done.
Sing to him, sing praise to him, tell of all his wonderful acts, glory in his holy name,
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Look to the Lord and his strength, seek his face, remember the wonders he has done,
his miracles, the judgments he's pronounced.
You, his servants, descendants of Abraham, his chosen ones, the children of Jacob.
Remember, if we forget what God has done for us,
it's so easy to fall into thanklessness and, you know,
it can even lead to depression and remorse
and we can slowly slip down that slope of losing our faith, you know.
So we need to value that heritage of what God has brought us through.
If we forget what he's done in our lives, you know, it's that deep,
it's a well that we, it is a continuous well that is there for us to tap into,
you know, as we reflect on that.
So we're to remember where we came from, so we must never, ever forget.
And I think I've said this before once when I spoke that I used,
you know, I got to a point in my life where I just,
I wouldn't really even talk about my testimony because it just,
to me, it was so irrelevant for who I was.
I mean, who I am, it was just like, it doesn't even seem, you know, real anymore.
I just really stopped.
I just felt there were so much more meaningful things.
And I got rebuked by a close friend of mine that said, you know,
you need to always remember and you need to always share, you know,
where God has brought us from and what he's redeemed us from
and how his grace found us.
So remembering our past isn't about getting tangled up in the guilt and the fear
and the condemnation and all the time.
It's about gratitude.
It's about the humility of what he's done.
It's about perspective.
It's about being able to share that with someone who might be going through something.
And, you know, when we forget these things, it can lead to this pride of,
well, okay, you know, really, you know, maybe it wasn't God that did this.
Maybe it was really, really me instead of the faithfulness of God.
You know, the Old Testament talks often about this physical deliverance,
like where God has brought you from.
Deuteronomy says, remember that you were slaves in Egypt,
that the Lord your God brought you out of there with his mighty hand
and his outstretched arm.
And that's just powerful because, you know, they would forget, right?
And we forget, often we forget.
You know, God gives us warnings about even just simple things like,
you know, there's another scripture in Deuteronomy,
Deuteronomy 8, 10 through 14,
this talks about how prosperity can lead to forgetfulness.
He says, when you have eaten and are satisfied,
praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God,
failing to observe his commands, his laws, his degrees,
that I have given you this day.
Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied,
when you build fine houses and settle down,
and when your herds and flocks grow large
and your silver and gold increase
and all you have is multiplied,
then your heart will become proud
and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt
and slavery.
So he's saying, be careful of this.
You know, we read in Ephesians 2, 11 through 13,
you know, once you were far from God,
but he brought you near to him.
Romans 6 says, once you were slaves to sin,
now you live in righteousness.
You know, we were rescued for a reason
and we can't forget these things, you know,
that God did in our lives, and it fuels us.
It fuels our worship.
It fuels how we relate to God.
It fuels how we connect with others.
We all have a testimony.
I reflect a lot, you know, where I come from.
I love history and I love family history.
I keep this on my wall at work.
This is a mural that's on my wall,
and it helps remind me that I have a 300-year history here
in this country from my ancestors
that came before me.
Back in the 15, 16, early 1700s,
Christians were persecuted at a level.
We don't really quite understand.
You know, my ancestors, they were, you know,
an Anabaptist, Mennonite,
and they were over in Germany,
and they were beyond being marginalized.
I mean, they were being tortured.
They were not allowed to have their church services
the way that we have them today.
They were not allowed to baptize as adults.
They believed that, okay, well, baptism is a decision.
It's not something that you do with infants,
and this really brought persecution on them,
and they were marginalized and shut down
and tortured, and they had a, you know,
were forced out of areas,
and my original ancestor, Christian Olibach,
he fled that and came here in 1718,
and there was only one Olibach that came over,
so all this Olibachs are related somewhere down the line.
This is, would be my great-great-grandfather's brother,
who is the, I don't know, I can't even,
I can't do math too well,
but he was about three generations after Christian,
and he was named for Christian Olibach,
and he was a pastor at Talmenson Church for years.
This would be my great-grandfather's,
this is my great-grandfather here,
and this would be his brother, Harvey Olibach,
who was a, he was an artist and a traveling pastor.
There is a long, long history in my family
of those who came before serving God
and preaching his word,
and I can never forget that,
I don't want to forget that,
but I also know that my dad's dad,
my grandfather, who I never met, he died in 1945,
they forgot and created a ripple effect
through my dad and all of his siblings,
and that's another story altogether,
we won't go there,
but we have to remember where we came from
and remind ourselves.
In Joshua it says,
so Joshua called together the twelve 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
in the middle of the Jordan.
Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder
according to the number of tribes 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, 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 are to be a memorial
to the people of Israel.
So this was to be a generational reminder
to those what God has done in their wake.
Memorials they matter, they matter to God.
God is very intentional about doing things in our lives
that we can either choose to experience and move on
or we can choose to put a rock there,
to remember it, to put a stone there,
to remember what he has done in our lives.
They're reminders of his faithfulness
and miracles that he has done that we can pass on.
When you think about the miracles that Jesus did,
they weren't just miracles in the moment.
They were miracles that transcended thousands of years
because they're remembered by those.
And they don't have to be big, big miracles like that.
He doesn't have to be raising Lazarus from the dead.
It can be the simple, everyday things,
stones and markers that we can show along the journey
that he has brought us.
My grandmother, who I never met,
she died the year I was born in 1963
when my dad passed away,
found this little tablet here.
It's like the size of the pile on my hand.
And in here she has all these notes
about Bud left for the army,
Wednesday, July 28, 1943.
All of the departures and the furloughs.
So she laid a stone down
so that she would remember this
and something that can be passed on.
God calls us to memorialize these things.
I love to journal.
So I journal a lot.
I have different types of journals where I write things down.
I have some pictorial journals
where I draw thoughts and write thoughts.
I have journals where I keep track of lyrics and things,
where I just chronicle things in my life, milestones,
how I feel.
I started little journals for my grandkids
and I want to be able to pass these things on some day.
It's kind of markers to show
this is what God did in my life journey.
As small as my life is, right?
And God wants us to do that
because this is how future generations,
you know, we talk about that.
There was a song we sung about,
how did it go?
Generation after generation,
after generation, something like that.
How do we pass this stuff along?
So markers are important.
Remembering God's faithfulness.
And as I've mentioned before,
biblical remembering is not just a nostalgic kind of feeling.
It's a faith-building thing.
And we need to remember his faithfulness
in all seasons of our lives,
but especially in the trials.
God wants us to know
that he's faithful through all of these things.
Psalm 77, 11 says,
I will remember the deeds of the Lord.
Sometimes we forget what God's done.
Sometimes I forget what God has done in my life
and I need to sit down
and really intentionally remember.
But the Israelites,
how God provided and delivered them in the wilderness
and how shortly in the wilderness did they forget, right?
Where they came from.
They didn't remember the harshness of Egypt.
In fact, many of them talked about,
hey, we ought to get back there.
We had three square meals a day
and it wasn't that bad getting whipped and beaten all day
compared to this.
But God is faithful to them
and he's faithful to us
even when we are unfaithful to him.
Time and time again,
God bridged the gap for the Israelites.
Nehemiah 9, 17 says,
you're a God ready to forgive a bounding and steadfast love.
We know that Jesus was faithful to forgive and cleanse
and Jesus remains faithful to his death for us.
Remembering God's faithfulness is critical for us.
We need to remember his promises to us.
The Bible is a storybook filled,
filled with stories of God's promises,
his covenants with the people,
remembering what he did and they're declaring it.
This is something that the Israelites had stories
that they would just tell generation after generation.
The story of God's faithfulness through Noah.
The promise never destroyed the earth again.
The story of Abraham and his faith.
These are stories that were told time and time again.
The covenants that God made with them,
they were just told all the time.
And that's the way,
sometimes we don't realize how fortunate we are
to have the physical word and the living word of Jesus.
This was all oral tradition back then.
They told stories, they recounted stories.
And scripture, this is how scripture was,
was partly from generation to generation.
And history says, and the Bible says,
that they forgot.
They forgot.
And during the Babylonian,
during the Babylonian captivity,
the leaders would say to themselves,
this is, you know, we fell captive
and we're here in these circumstances
because we forgot where God has brought us.
We forgot scripture.
We forgot this.
And that is why we're here.
And this gave rise to this idea that they said,
we don't ever want to see this happen again.
And they began to write down the word.
And this gave rise to the scribes and the scholars,
like the Pharisees and the rabbinic tradition.
And it deepened their commitment from writing the text
to memorizing the text, to copying it over and over again.
They set up this elaborate school system
for the young boys that they would go through
to the point where they would just have this embedded in them
so that they would never forget.
So this marked a shift from their temple-based religion
to the text-based faith, where they documented.
They said, we don't ever want to forget again.
But we know that Jesus came as the fulfillment of that text,
as the fulfillment of the word and the promise
because he's the living word, right?
Jesus brings the new covenant with his blood.
So he died and fulfilled all of that.
What was foreshadowed, what was a shadow in the Old Testament
that it was telling of this coming thing.
This is what Jesus did.
It was the final promise that Jesus fulfilled
for eternal life and his blood sacrifice that was shed for us.
God's promises are anchors for us in uncertain times.
Tammy's got this great CD of 90s Christian jam music.
It's awesome.
And when the grandkids come over,
I like to put the CD on and get them to jump in and dance in.
And there's this one song that the kids just kind of cling to.
I'm going to take God's promises and hide them in our hearts.
And they'll do this little thing.
I don't know all the signs.
I didn't grow up with that.
So I don't know all the lingo that goes with it.
I'm going to take God's promises and hide them in my heart.
That's not a kid song.
That's an us song.
We need to remember who we are, our identity,
our identity, whether you're a believer or not,
shapes how we live, what we think,
how we walk out in this world,
how we present ourselves to others.
It encompasses everything about who we are.
We can choose to see ourselves as victims.
We can let circumstances control our lives.
We can find our identity and our own suffering if we choose.
We can live in the past or worry about the future.
Or we can choose to live as redeemed children of God.
1 Peter 2, 9 says,
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, God's special possession,
that you may declare the praises of Him
who called you out of darkness into His wonderful life.
This verse directly connects the church.
That's not part of my notes.
It connects us to the whole story of God throughout time.
Deuteronomy 7, 6 says,
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.
The Lord your God has chosen you out of the peoples,
the face of the earth, to be His people, His treasured possession.
But we often don't think of ourselves like that, right?
Sometimes we let that old nature in us
kind of talk to us and whisper to it.
I once heard somebody describe Him as the imposter
that lives with us, the imposter who thinks He's that person,
but it's not really.
And you can allow the imposter within you to have that voice
that kind of drives you, but we know who we are.
We have to know who we are.
I had an Uncle John, but he wasn't really my uncle.
We found out later.
When I was a kid,
you weren't allowed to call adults by their first name.
They were either Mr. or Mrs.
If they were really close friends of my parents,
then they were an uncle and an aunt.
So this was Uncle John, and he was a cool cat.
This guy was just a cool, cool dude.
And he was a paratrooper in Normandy.
He dropped out of those planes
when they were just getting shot out of the air.
And he used to talk about it.
And he would talk about all the day that they did,
and he would remember, okay, this was the turning point.
So I participated in the turning point of the war
and lived to tell about it.
And he lost so many friends there.
And he would, every year, starting in the 60s,
him and his few friends that were left,
they would parachute onto the beach in Normandy.
And he did that up until he was in his 70s.
So it was pretty amazing.
But I think he would have times
where he needed to remind himself who he was
and memorialize what he had taken,
part of leaving that marker there
for his generation of kids, kids to come.
We can know all of the teachings of Christ.
We can have all the books memorized,
and we can know all the stuff,
and we can understand grace and mercy and compassion
and all of these things.
But if we forget the sacrifice that Jesus made,
none of that matters, right?
Because everything comes back to that sacrifice.
Everything hinges on the fact
that Jesus led this perfect life,
and he shed his blood, and then he rose for us.
You know, the groundwork was laid for all of this
going back to Abraham,
and all of the Israelite history
was being foreshadowed and laid Passover lamb in Egypt.
All of these were foreshadowing.
We learned about, if you missed it, we're done it now.
We went through the book of Leviticus,
where we learned all about the sacrificial and atonement system
that God had put in place.
All of this was a foreshadowing for the cross
and the new covenant.
John said, behold, the lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the earth,
the sin of the world.
So he was recognized immediately
as the final and ultimate sacrifice,
and God instructs us to remember this, right?
That's why we take communion, to remember
what he had did for us.
You know, the obedience.
We want to advance the kingdom through this.
So, you know, Christ died not just for us,
but for all of the unGodly in this earth,
which is everyone.
2 Corinthians 5, 21 says,
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.
It was this divine exchange.
We need to remember God's love.
Give thanks to the Lord for he is good,
his love, his endures, wherever.
In a world that we live in
that is just full of conditionally based love,
we need to remember God is love.
He is love.
God's love is constant.
It's unchanging and it's unconditional.
When we remember his love,
we remember who we are in that love,
how far he went for us,
and how deeply we are known
and cherished by him.
He demonstrated his love.
You know, Romans says that nothing can separate us
from God's love.
His love is perfect, complete.
1 John 4, 10 said,
this is love.
Not that we loved God,
but that he loved us and sent his son.
God's love is foundational to our faith.
Simply put, God is love,
and we are his beloved.
So when we think of ourselves as his beloved,
that's it, right?
I mean, his love is unchanging.
God loves us 100%, 100% of the time.
I think about how much I love my kids
and how much I love my grandkids,
but I don't think I love them 100% of the time,
all the time, like God does.
It's hard for us to really, really...
It's one thing to say it.
It's another thing to get.
And it's so hard for us to get
because it's just not how we love each other,
but it's how he loves.
It's this perfect love.
God won't love you anymore when you get better.
It doesn't matter to him if you become better.
Even if you don't have any plans at all
or even think about,
hey, I really need to fix these things in my life,
God is still gonna love you.
He's gonna love you.
It doesn't matter.
You know, God doesn't love you more on your best day
than less on your worst day.
His love is just constant.
He loves you all the way, all the time.
It's just who he is.
It's his nature.
And we need to really get that in our hearts
because what happens is we know.
We know this in our heads,
that God's love doesn't change,
that he loves us with this perfect pure love all the time.
What changes is my ability to receive that,
is that I think in certain ways,
in certain situations,
that I've become less in favor with God for some reason.
And it's just not the case.
And that's because I think that he thinks like me, right?
And he doesn't.
His love is unconditional and it's unchanging.
And it's this perfect love beyond what we can recognize
and we need to remember,
not only remember that love,
but we need to remember that we,
that you are his beloved.
Think about that.
His beloved.
So on this Memorial Day,
don't forget to remember.
Find ways that you can memorialize
what God has done in your lives.
Think about ways that you can pass
that spiritual legacy onto your children
and their children and their children
and their children and their children,
as the song said.
Remember the stories about his faithfulness in your life.
Start some traditions around those things.
Put down some markers,
lay down some stones for yourself
and for your family to remember.
And remember God's faithfulness.
Remember his promises.
Remember God's sacrifice.
Remember his love.
And remember where he brought you from
and where he's taking you.
The worship team can come on up.
God, we just, this Memorial Day, God,
we just pray that you just take us, God,
to a deeper level, God,
of remembering.
Remembering you, God,
and what you have done in our lives
and what you are doing throughout all of creation.
It's just before us everything.
It's so easy to get, you know,
sucked into the news vortex
of just believing all that's going on
and not look at what you're doing, God,
through all of this.
Help us to remember, Lord,
that you are a God of faithfulness, Lord,
and a God of promises,
and you are going to see those through.
That you are going to do the things, Lord,
that you promised we may,
our generation may not even see them.
We don't know, but we know it's going to happen,
whether it's our generation
or coming generations, Lord.
Help us to be a part of that, Lord,
part of what you're doing, Lord,
and advancing this Kingdom, Lord, on earth.
We pray that you build our faith
through what you've done in us over the years
and what we can see you're doing in others, Lord,
and help us to honor that
and to be bold, to share that with others.
We thank you, Lord, for your goodness
and grace and mercy, Lord, in our lives.
We thank you that you were the ultimate sacrifice
for our sins, Lord.
And you couldn't remember our sins if you tried.
You've cast them as far from the east to the west.
We thank you, Jesus, Lord, for your love,
for your unconditional, unending love.
Help us to go out today, Lord,
and just look at things in a different,
different perspective in a different way
and to look to you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church
as we praise God and discuss His Word.
Don't forget to join us for Worship Live Sunday mornings
at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.
Be blessed and have a great day!