“I Will Not Forget”

February 27, 2011

Isaiah 49:8-16a Matthew 6:24-34 1 Corinthians 4:1-5

We grew up hearing phrases like “An elephant never forgets.” When we heard that, even in a Saturday
morning cartoon, we knew that not forgetting was a good thing. We are all human and one of the
problems that we have as humans is that sometimes we forget stuff. Even worse, sometimes the things
we forget are important things that we wish we hadn’t forgotten, car keys, reading glasses, our driver’s
license renewal, various birthdays and anniversaries and all sorts of other things. Despite our unwanted
tendency to forget things we still struggle to remember. For some experiences in life however, our
experiences are more shocking or even horrific than where we left the car keys and for some of these
experiences, we find ourselves completely unable to forget even when we wish we could.

There are moments in the lives of our nation when we have sworn that we would never forget. After
thirteen days of fighting in 1836, between 182 and 257 Texans lay dead at the hands of Santa Anna and
the Mexican army and we swore that we would “remember the Alamo.” After the sinking of the USS
Main in Havana harbor in 1898, the rallying cry was “Remember the Maine.” After the terrible events
of December 7th, 1941 our nation swore that we would never forget Pearl Harbor and after the attacks on
the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an attempt to attack the U.S. Capitol building, today we still
hear the words, “Never Forget.”

Each one of us has certain events of our lives, both good and bad, that are burned into our memories so
that we can never forget them. For me, I will always remember the day that President Reagan was shot,
as well as the day that our University marching band played during his reelection campaign stop in
Lima, Ohio. I remember watching the television footage of 9/11, the explosion of the Space Shuttle
Challenger and I remember the moment in a Chinese hotel when an orphanage worker handed me a tiny
little baby girl. For each of us, there are moments that we cannot forget and there are moments that we
have promised ourselves, and others, that we will not forget.

This morning we discover that the God who loves us has promised the very same thing. (Isaiah 49:8-
16a)
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This is what the LORD says:

“In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
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to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

“They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill.
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They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.
He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.
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I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up.
12
See, they will come from afar— some from the north, some from the west,
some from the region of Aswan.”

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13
Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains!
For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.
14
But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”
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“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
16
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.

God tells us that he loves us so much, that it is as if he has engraved or tattooed our names onto the
palms of his hands. It is more likely that a mother with a baby nursing at her breast would stand up and
leave without her baby. Simply put, it just not going to happen.

God does not proclaim that everything in our lives will always be perfect. In fact, in the passage we just
read, there are “desolate inheritances,” captives, darkness and those who are afflicted, there is hunger
and thirst and desert heat but God has not forgotten his people. What God proclaims is that there is a
day when all will be made right. There is a day coming when God will comfort his people. God’s
promise is not that our lives will be free from trouble but that God will not ever forget us.

So what good is that? What good is it if God remembers us but we still have to travel through dark
times in our lives and experience captivity or affliction or hunger or thirst? These are difficult, but fair,
questions and we can find a part of our answer from the lips of Jesus in Matthew 6:24-34…
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“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be
devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
25
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body,
what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of
the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are
you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your
life?
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“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or
spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is
how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he
not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What
shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your
heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all
these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will
worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I believe that there are at least two messages here. The first is the one that many of us heard when I read
through the scripture passage, and have likely heard preached about several times before. The first
message is that we cannot worship money. By that we mean that we cannot allow our desire for money
to become stronger than our desire for God. We cannot allow ourselves to reach a point where we trust
that money will take care of us instead of trusting that God will take care of us. Even though we’ve
heard it before it remains a really easy thing for us to do. It is easy for us to sit and calculate how much

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we will need for retirement or for our daughter’s wedding or to send our kids to college or for little
Billy’s braces. Where we get into trouble is when we not only calculate but we begin to believe that if
we can set aside enough money then we can do it all by ourselves and we won’t need God anymore.
Most of us wouldn’t put it just that way but the end result is the same. Once we start down that road, we
begin to focus less on what we should do to honor God, and increasingly upon what we need to do to
reach a certain bank balance. What Jesus tells us is that once we have focused on our bank balance, we
have already forgotten God.

The second lesson that I find here is that money isn’t the only idol that we can serve instead of God and
this second idol can trap us more stealthily than most of us could ever imagine. Jesus starts by saying
that we cannot serve God and money but spends no at all time talking about how we might serve money.
Both then and now, it is not difficult for most of us to think about how we can fall into the trap of
serving money. Practically all of us know people whose lives are wrapped up in serving money. Jesus
spends most of his time warning us about something else and I think it is because this second thing is far
more insidious in worming its way into our lives.

Jesus tells us that we should not… worry.

We worry about our lives, about food, about our bodies and about clothes. It is easy for us to worry
about all sorts of things but the message of Jesus is that worrying is a result of losing our focus. When
we focus our attention on our bank balance we lose our focus on God but if we look at that another way
we see that as soon as we being to lose our focus on God, we immediately begin to… worry. For us,
worry is like chest pain. Most people today know that when a person is experiencing chest pain, it is
likely that they are having a heart attack and we need to seek immediate medical attention. I believe that
Jesus is telling us that worry is the first symptom to watch for when we begin to trust money instead of
God. Worry is the symptom that tells God’s people that they are losing their focus and need to seek
immediate spiritual attention.

Jesus says plainly, “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has
enough trouble of its own.” Remember that God has your name tattooed on the palm of his hand. He
will not forget us so what we need to do, is to do a better job of not forgetting him and keeping our focus
on God.

Still we might be asking, "What good is it if God remembers us but we still have to travel through dark
times in our lives and experience captivity or affliction or hunger or thirst?" Everyone who has read his
letters knows full well that the apostle Paul was a man who was well acquainted with darkness and
affliction and hunger and thirst. Paul suffered arrest, prosecution, jail, beatings, shipwreck, snakebite
and many other afflictions during his ministry and in his first letter to the church in Corinth he said these
words… (1 Corinthians 4:1-5)
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This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the
mysteries God has revealed. 2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove
faithful. 3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge
myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5
Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light
what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their
praise from God.

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Paul, after all that he has been through, even after being criticized by the very people to whom he has
preached, cautions believers not to judge before the appointed time. Paul reminds us that when Christ
returns he will unveil all that was hidden and reveal the inner motives of every heart. For many
followers of Christ, this time of judgment before God is the moment when we will finally hear God’s
praise. Many believers will endure affliction of one kind or another throughout the entirety of their
mortal lives. They will not ever, on earth, receive the blessings of God and live lives of ease and
comfort that are free from trial and difficulty but they will, on the Day of Judgment receive their praise
from God.

The message for today is that in the course of our lives there will be moments like 9/11 and Pearl Harbor
and the Challenger explosion. It is practically certain that we will live through times of difficulty and
darkness and affliction but through it all we can be absolutely sure that someone is keeping score. We
can be certain that there is a record being kept of how we react to every situation and what things we
allow to motivate us.

We know that God always keeps his promises.

God tells us that he loves us so much, that it is as if he has engraved or tattooed our names onto the
palms of his hands.

God proclaims is that there is a day when all will be made right. There is a day coming when God will
comfort his people.

We begin to worry when we forget that.

God’s promise is not that our lives will be free from trouble but that God will not ever forget us.

What we need to do, is to do a better job of not forgetting him.

What we need to do, is to keep our focus on God.

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
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