Remember What He Has Done

1 Corinthians 11:23-26
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

Joke:
Once there were three old sisters who lived together. One sister got up to go to bed and half way up the stairs she stopped and asked, "Was I going up or was I coming down?"
One sister replied with a hint of aggravation, "You were going up to bed."
A second sister headed into the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. Once in the kitchen she hollered back to her sister who was still down stairs, "What did I come in here for?"
The sister responded again but this time a little more annoyed than the last, "You went in to make yourself a sandwich!”
"I’m so glad I am not as forgetful as the both of you are," she said as she knocked on the wood of the end table.
Then she got up, walked over to the door, and said "Who is it?"

Many time’s we forget to remember don’t we?

Another Joke:
Maybe you heard about a guy named John who had a really horrible memory. One day John ran into a friend whom he had not seen in a long time. He greeted him & said, “Bill, do you remember what a bad memory I had?” Bill answered, “Yes, I certainly do.” “Well, it’s not bad any more. I went to a seminar that taught us how to remember things. It was a great seminar, & now I have a wonderful memory.”
Bill answered, “That’s great! What was the name of the seminar?” “Well,” John said, “wait a minute, my wife went with me. I’ll ask her.” He turned & saw his wife nearby. Then he turned back to Bill & said, “What’s the name of that flower with a long stem & thorns & a red bloom?” “Do you mean a rose?” Bill answered, “Yeah, thanks,” John said, “Hey, Rose, what’s the name of that seminar we attended?”




Memorial Day is a day that we set aside to remember the price that was paid for our Freedom here in the United States. It has been set aside for those men and women who have given their lives for this country. It’s a day for us to remember the price that these men and women paid for our freedom. They died for our country so that we can have the freedom to live, freedom to make our own decisions, and freedom to worship. But tomorrow as we celebrate Memorial Day. Let’s remember more than just those soldiers.

This is Memorial Day weekend. There will be many memorial services and events held around our country to commemorate the men and women who gave their lives to gain and protect our freedom. We should never forget the price they paid. I want to build off… of this idea to speak of another sacrifice. In addition to remembering their sacrifice I want to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made to gain our freedom. In addition to memorializing our military we want to memorialize our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Let it also be a reminder of what Jesus did for us. Let it be a reminder to us of the cost of freedom for our Christian life. If you are free from sin today, it’s because a Man named Jesus… became one of us and gave His life so we could have ours spared. If you are saved today you owe it to your Lord to give Him glory and praise for what He did for you. Don’t take for granted the great salvation that we have today!

Jesus’ life here on this earth serves as a memory to us of how much God loved us and that memory of the life of Jesus does 3 things.

1: HIS LIFE REMINDS US OF THE PAST.

This Memorial Day you and I need to remember what Jesus did for us over 2000 years ago. He left His home in heaven to come and live on this earth, just so He could suffer and die a cruel death on the cross so that you and I could have eternal life. So, you and I could have a way to get into heaven. Because without Him there is no other way into the gates of Heaven. This Memorial Day should remind us what Jesus did for us in the past, which was dying in our place. He took upon Himself our punishment.

It’s a shame how some of us act today when it comes to God. For some of us we act like God is dead. We often live as though He’s not worth praising or worth living for. This is one of the main reasons why the lost have no need for our God. Take the Israelites for example, remember what God had done for them by delivering them from the Egyptians. However, later on, the Israelites had forgotten what God had done for them and they began to live as if God was dead. The Israelites began to live as the gentiles and when they began to forget how great their God was and what He had done for them they began serving false gods.

Often just as we do. Many of us have begun to live like the world and for the world and we have forgotten what Jesus Christ did for us. Every time we come to church to worship or read our Bible or pray we need to remember how lost we were and how the Lord saved us and if we do that then it won’t be so hard to praise Him and to live for Him!!!

2: HIS LIFE REMINDS US OF THE REWARD OF THE PRESENT.

If Jesus had not done what He did in the past we would have no present. Without Jesus dying
on the cross over 2000 years ago there would be no salvation for you & I today. There would be no forgiveness of sin for you & I today. Without any past there would be no present.

John 15:13-14
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.

Church when we begin to look back on what Jesus did for us, how Jesus died to set us free, it’s then that we begin to gain courage and faith to trust Him for today’s needs. Now listen to me it’s now time that this church begins to believe again that we serve the same God as Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peter, James, Paul and John and just as God led, guided and directed them in their days He will do the same for us if we just seek and trust Him.

Our God isn’t some weakling that can’t come through for us. He is the I Am, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Savior, Author and finisher of our faith, the chief cornerstone, the almighty, the everlasting Father, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Anchor and last but not least the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God will now and always come through for us if you and I will just seek and trust Him.

The reason so many of us live so defeated in the present, the here and now, is because we fail to remember the past. In our passage of scripture this ceremony, the Lord’s Supper, was set aside by God himself to remind us of how AWESOME our God is and How much God loved us (John 3:16) and that if He had to, He would do it all over again today!!

John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

In my opinion there are too many “Just In Case Christians” in our churches today. They go to church just in case the preacher is right, so they will have something to tell God one day when they stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Listen…. it’s a privilege and an honor for you and I to worship and praise and serve our God and the day that it becomes a job and burden is the day you will look for a god whom you will serve. ( Idols, career, money, luxury, self, so on)
DON’T SERVE HIM BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO! SERVE HIM BECAUSE YOU LONG TO BECAUSE YOU WANT TO. Because you have felt Gods love for you. Because of what Jesus has done for us in the past it makes our present, the here and now worth the LIVING.

3: HIS LIFE REMINDS US OF HIS PROMISES.

In the story Nehemiah Chapter 9 Nehemiah is praying about the work of rebuilding the wall and how they are under attack. In his prayer he retells the story to the Lord of how He took them out of Egypt for a purpose. Then he closes his prayer by saying that You (GOD) did that then and I know you will come through for us now because you gave us a covenant. In other words, God had given them a promise. Just as Nehemiah remembered that His God kept His word we too can believe the same. God doesn’t break a promise.

Church, need I remind you that Jesus didn’t just go through all that suffering nor did He die on the cross to save us, just to leave us to fend for ourselves for the rest of our lives!! The death and resurrection of Jesus was His promise to us that He will never leave us nor forsake us. The death and resurrection of Jesus promised us that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. Here is an everlasting promise…

Matthew 28:19-20
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

If you have been saved, forgiven, drawn to the Son…then this promise is for you as well!
And the list of promises keeps going and going and because God has made so many promises, we often need a memorial to remind us of those promises that God has made. (And this is where I will have to remind you, encourage you to read your Bibles. If you don’t, then how will you know Gods promises for you!)

That memorial is this book right here called The Bible. When you pray and read your Bible let it be a reminder to you of what your God did for you as well as what God can and will continue to do for you. Let it be a reminder to you of all the promises that God made for His children. Don’t take HIS PAIN FOR GRANTED. SERVE HIM WITH ALL YOU HAVE, WITH ALL YOUR HEART. HE IS WORTH SERVING ESPECIALLY AFTER ALL HE HAS DONE FOR YOU!!

In Closing:


Our country’s soldiers died that we might have a life of freedom, and Jesus died that we might have life eternal. In the story of the Passover, the blood of a lamb was marked on the doorposts and this caused the destroyer to pass over the households that were marked, thus granting them life. This represented the cross of Jesus Christ upon which the very Lamb of God would give his own life that we might live forever in God’s kingdom.

Our soldiers died for our country’s freedom, and Jesus died for our spiritual freedom for he said in…

John 8:36
Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

And then in…

John 10:10
10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Jesus paid for our spiritual freedom and gave us a crown in heaven when he died on the cross. There is no freedom without the shedding of blood. We should never forget our many soldiers who died for our freedom here in America, and most importantly we must never forget our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave his own life on a cross that we may have eternal life.

Let Us Pray…