Title: Reminders!
Text: Numbers 15:37-41
Date: September 8, 2024
Introduction: Forgetfulness is a reality in all of our lives! Regardless of how hard we try, we cannot simply remember all that we want to remember. When that happens, we often complain about bad memories or memory lapse. However, we could not exist for a single day without this God-given ability to forget. To experience the accumulated pain of our previous days would be overwhelming. To experience the intensity of all our past failures and trials would be more than any of us could bear. Our ability to forget, therefore, is one of the blessings of life. Like most blessings, it is a mixed one. The ability to forget also creates some problems. There are some things we need to forget. Other ideas, lessons, and teachings need to be remembered. This is where our forgetfulness creates problems for us.
It is the negative side of forgetfulness that God addressed in our text. God had richly blessed the Hebrew people and had invited them into a special covenant relationship with Him. He would be their God, and they would be His people. On His side, He promised continued protection. On their side, He demanded obedience to the stipulations which He had carefully outlined for them in the Ten Commandments. God knew, however, that they would easily forget these laws. So, He ordered Moses to put tassels on their robes and a blue cord around the tassel, “Then you will remember to obey all my commands and will be consecrated to your God.” (Numbers 15:40) The tassels were to be reminders of the love of God for them and the demands of God upon them.
When Jesus left His disciples, He knew that they too would soon forget His offer of grace and His call to discipleship. Therefore, He gave them reminders. These reminders are before us as we observe the Lord’s Supper. The Bread and the Juice, like the tassels on the robes of the Hebrews, are to remind us of our Savior. Jesus told the disciples that as often as they partook of the Lord’s Supper, they did this “in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:24).
What do the elements of the Lord’s Supper remind us of?
I. The
II. The
Larry Gipson
First Baptist Church Oneonta