Sermon Tone Analysis

Don’t forget to remember

Faithfulness is love

!!! /19-02-06am/

!!! Announcements

!!! Bible presented

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Call to worship

Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.

For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

(Psalm 36:7-9)

!!! Doxology Hymn:       /“We will give Thanks” (Mission Praise 308) with “AMEN”/                                  

!!! Blessing

Grace to you from God our Father, Jesus Christ our Lord and the Holy Spirit

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The Law of the Lord

Mark 12:28-34

!!! Prayer of Confession of sin

!!! Forgiveness

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

(1 John 1:8-9)

!!! Hymn:                            /“There is a Redeemer” /

!!! /(Mission Praise 673 – 4 verses)/

!!! Prayer of Adoration, Thanksgiving and Lord’s Prayer

!!! Scripture Reading     /Hebrews 2:1-4      /               

!!! Tithes, offering and dedication

Remaining seated, all sing:

!!! Hymn No 365:            /“We give Thee but thine own”/

!!! Prayer for others

!!! Baptism of Dae-Hun Kang

Hear the words of our Lord Jesus Christ:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

God said:  I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

Baptism is the sign and seal of God’s promises to this covenant people.

In baptism God promises by grace alone: to forgive our sins; to adopt us into the Body of Christ, the Church; to send the Holy Spirit daily to renew and cleanse us; and to resurrect us to eternal life.

This promise is made visible in the water of baptism.

Water cleanses; purifies; refreshes; sustains: Jesus Christ is living water.

Through baptism Christ calls us to new obedience: to love and trust God completely; to forsake the evil of the world; and to live a new and holy life.

Yet, when we fall into sin, we must not despair of God’s mercy, nor continue in sin, for baptism is the sign and seal of God’s eternal covenant of grace with us.

Dear Dae-Hun, you stand before us to receive the sacrament of baptism.

I ask you, therefore, before God and Christ’s church to reject evil, to profess your faith in Christ Jesus, and to confess the faith of the church.

; Do you acknowledge that the Bible, that is the Old and New Testaments, is the inerrant Word of God and the only rule for life and faith? 

; Do you believe that the Westminster Confession of Faith is a faithful summary of its doctrines as they are taught in this Christian Church?

; Do you profess that you believe in the Creator of the universe, the Triune God who is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as He reveals Himself through creation in general and the Holy Scriptures specifically?

; Do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Do you love Him and trust Him and embrace Him as Lord of your life?

; Do you accept the gracious promises of God which are sealed to you in your baptism as a sign of the Covenant of Grace and promise to live a holy Christian life in obedience to that Covenant?

; Do you promise to do everything to your ability, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to share faithfully in the life of the church and its means of grace, submitting to its supervision and discipline, and do you promise to share with the people of God in doing the work of the Lord wherever you are?

!!! Aaronic Blessing (Hymn 352)

!!! Scripture Reading     /Deuteronomy 8:1-20/          

!!! Sermon                          /“Don’t forget to remember”/

My dear bothers and sisters and children in our Lord Jesus Christ, in my hand a have a few things I like the children to identify.

(Hold out one shoe, next an ice cream cone, empty ostrich egg).

I want to ask the children what these things are used for.

Next, what’s wrong with what I have in my hands?

Of course one shoe for two feet will not be of much help to me.

And an empty ostrich egg is only a shell, good for nothing.

And look at the ice cream cone – what’s good about an empty cone?

We want the ice cream in it!

We see things here which do not mean anything, because we have only half of it, and that is not how they were designed originally; we need the other bits to go with it so it can mean something.

This reminds me of the title of the sermon this morning.

“Don’t forget to remember”.

These two things, /forget/ and /remember,/ go hand in hand, because if you have forgotten something, you have not remembered it.

And once you have remembered it, you have forgotten it.

But to stress the importance of remembering something, the Bible this morning tells us not to forget to remember.

And when we really want to get the message, we can say:  ; forget to forget, and remember to remember.

; Or of course this can also go like this, “Remember to forget and remember to remember.”

But the funny thing about the words /forget/ and /remember/ is on itself these words are like the empty shell of the ostrich egg, or the one shoe or the empty ice cream cone.

; It needs something else, and that is we need to forget /something/ and we need to remember /something/.

In the case of the Bible this morning we are instructed that ; forgetting /the great deeds of God/ leads to destruction; and remembering /the great deeds of God/ will lead to life.

So to forget how God saved you is disastrous; constantly remembering the great deeds of God leads to life.

To help us understand these truths for the Bible this morning we will try to understand what it teaches what forgetting God is, what the effect of forgetting God is; what remembering God is and what the effects of remembering God is.

!!!!!! ; Forget and the Bible

First of all an illustration: There was a wise man who brushed his teeth twice a day, wore his rain boots in cold wet weather, did his daily dozen push-up’s, slept with windows open to get fresh air, was careful with his diet, had a medical examination twice a year, never smoked, drank or indulged in any kind of excess.

He was set to live to be one hundred years old.

The funeral was held last Wednesday.

He is survived by eighteen specialists, four health institutes, six gymnasiums and numerous manufacturers of health food and antiseptics.

He forgot to look out for a train at a crossing.

General Metaxas of Greece was once invited to try out a new hydroplane.

He decided to pilot it himself and did so masterfully until the commander, his host, noticed that they were about to make a landing at an airport.

“Excuse me, Excellency, but it would be more suitable to come down on the sea as this is a hydroplane.”

“But of course,” laughed the General, “What am I thinking of!”

The General thereupon made a perfect landing on the water and turning to his host he remarked, “I must compliment you on the task with which you drew my attention to the incredible blunder that I nearly made.”

Upon saying which, His Excellency opened the door and stepped out into the sea.

Forgetting can be disastrous – forgetting God, forgetting his decrees and laws leads to destruction.

The instruction from the Word of God is found in Deuteronomy 8:11

Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.

(Deuteronomy 8:11)

Forgetting is not simply a psychological act of having a thought pass from one’s consciousness, a temporary or permanent lapse of memory.

Right through the Scriptures the verb forget is followed with an action.

;To forget God according to our texts is to /ignore/ his commandments.

It is a positive act of choosing the wrong instead of the right.

This is what we read about in Hebrews 2:4.

;To forget God according verse 19 is to /follow other gods and worship them and bow down to them/.

; To forget God is to stand in fear of harm and danger, to live fretfully and timidly:

Who are you that you fear mortal men, the sons of men, who are but grass, that you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, that you live in constant terror every day because of the wrath of the oppressor, who is bent on destruction?

For where is the wrath of the oppressor?

(Isaiah 51:12-13)

; To forget God is to challenge him: