After the Fairy Tale Fades, Part 4
Serkes: After The Fairy Tale Fades
Sermon: Thanks for the Memories
🗣️ Speaker: Pastor Tom Van Kempen
In today’s message, Pastor Tom took us on a journey about the power of memories, especially how we choose to remember the positive over the negative. He shared insights from Philippians 1:3, highlighting how Paul chose to focus on positive memories despite difficult experiences. Pastor Tom encouraged us to foster gratitude and anchor our thoughts on God’s goodness and past victories. He reminded us of the fragile nature of memories and the importance of cultivating a mindset that chooses to remember God's faithfulness. Let's strive to cherish our memories and pass them down as a legacy of gratitude and faithfulness to future generations.
Additional Info
The info below was generated by an AI from the audio recording of the sermon.
Introduction to the Gift of Memory
Do you realize that in the Book of Acts, it's recorded that an angel appeared to a Roman centurion, who wasn’t one of God’s chosen people? The scripture notes that the centurion’s prayers and generosity ascended to God like incense. Each time we come together in worship, we, too, have the chance to make our offerings rise before Him, highlighting the importance of our praise and attention to the divine.
The Significance of Memory
As we celebrate Memorial Day, it prompts reflection on memories. Many of us experience memory lapses, but it’s crucial to appreciate the gift of memory. Memory allows us to recall past experiences and learn from them—good and bad. Unfortunately, humans tend to gravitate towards negative memories, which can impact our attitudes towards life. However, choices can guide our thoughts; we can opt to dwell on the positive. In Philippians 1:3, it says, "I thank my God every time I remember you," demonstrating the impact of choosing gratitude in our memories.
Memories Are Fragile
Memories, however, are fragile. It’s essential to be proactive in recalling events that shape our perspectives. In the Old Testament, God cautions His people not to forget the mighty acts they witnessed during their journey. The Israelites saw miracles firsthand—like water from a rock and manna from heaven—but God still instructed them to teach these memories to future generations. Forgetting often leads to repeated mistakes, proving how vital it is to reinforce memories.
The Reality of Forgetfulness
Interestingly, forgetfulness is a human characteristic. Research shows that within an hour of learning something new, most people forget about 50% of the information. After a week, that number can skyrocket to as much as 90%. This natural tendency can be humorous in daily life, like forgetting grocery items or losing track of one’s keys. The average person experiences multiple instances of forgetfulness daily.
The Importance of Long-Term Memory
While short-term memory is useful for tasks like navigating to a restaurant, long-term memory is essential for retaining experiences, skills, and knowledge. These memories often define who we are. Furthermore, as we grow older, retaining memories may require more effort. Thus, intentional recall and reinforcement of significant memories become crucial in our lives.
Building a Foundation of Truth
Establishing a strong foundation of truth is vital for lasting memories. Just as a house built on sand will inevitably collapse, memories lacking a solid truth base can lead to falsehoods. Getting to the crux of the matter, truth in various domains—be it historical, scientific, or personal—helps shape understanding and offers pathways for progress in life.
The Role of Remembrance
God emphasizes the necessity of remembrance over 250 times throughout scripture. It's a reminder that our past experiences do shape our present and future decisions. Additionally, remembering our blessings prevents arrogance and fosters humility, allowing us to acknowledge that no success is purely self-earned.
Consequences of Forgetting
There can be real consequences tied to forgetfulness. Failures to remember lessons from the past—like economic bubbles or personal relationships—can cause us to stumble. Understanding the lessons of history helps avoid repeating past mistakes, reinforcing the significance of remembering the essential things in life, including God’s commands and promises.
Remembering Is Hard Work
Memorization requires practice and intentionality. Efforts to reinforce memory should involve repetition and active engagement. Practical steps can include writing lists or using visual reminders to strengthen memory retention—applications such as consistently reading scripture or focusing on uplifting content can foster deeper connections and awareness of one’s spiritual journey.
Establishing Traditions and Family Stories
Creating family traditions can also foster collective memories within families. Sharing stories and experiences ties generations together by reinforcing relationships and family identity. Whether these traditions are established intentionally—like special birthday rituals—or born from spontaneous moments, they all contribute to rich memories that are cherished through time.
Conclusion: Celebrating Memories
Ultimately, memories shape who we are and reflect our life’s journey. The act of remembering becomes a powerful tool not just for personal growth but for nurturing relationships with those we cherish. Engaging with memories actively can lead to renewed appreciation for life’s moments and a deeper understanding of one’s purpose in God’s greater plan. May we celebrate the memories that define us, while remaining vigilant in how we choose to remember.
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Use the questions listed below as a launching point to discuss the sermon points together as a family. These are great for dinner table discussions and small groups.
Discussion Guide: Cherishing and Choosing Memories
Reflect: How have your memories shaped who you are today? Share a memory that has positively impacted your life.
Connect: Philippians 1:3 talks about Paul’s gratitude whenever he remembered the Philippians. How can gratitude impact our present circumstances?
Explore: Pastor Tom talked about how memories can fade and get distorted over time. What steps can we take to preserve our cherished memories?
Apply: How can we intentionally choose to remember the positive experiences and victories God has given us?
Share: Pastor Tom reminded us to share our faith stories with the next generation. Share a story of God’s faithfulness from your life that you want to pass on.
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Historical Context of Philippians 1:3
The Book of Philippians was written by the Apostle Paul around 62 AD during his imprisonment in Rome. The church in Philippi was one of the first Christian communities established in Europe. Philippi was a Roman colony in Macedonia, Greece, a significant center for early Christianity.
Paul's relationship with the Philippians was notably affectionate, and they supported him both emotionally and financially throughout his ministries. As Roman citizens, the Philippians lived under a distinct set of laws and enjoyed specific privileges, which shaped their community's development.
The letter to the Philippians emphasizes joy, gratitude, and unity among believers. Paul's background as a Roman citizen, a Pharisee, and his encounters with persecution provides a rich perspective in his writings. Being a church that also faced trials, the Philippians' resilience reflects their understanding of Roman citizenship and loyalty to God, which Paul commends and encourages in his letters.
In this cultural and political nuance, Paul's message to "remember" carries weight. It pushes beyond their struggles, urging them to focus on their blessings and the centrality of Christ in their lives.
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Introduction
Hello, kids! Today, we're going to talk about something really special: memories! Memories are how we remember the good things that happen in our lives. Our memory helps us learn, and it reminds us to be thankful to God for all the good things He gives us. Can anyone tell me what a memory is?
Scripture
Philippians 1:3: "I thank my God every time I remember you."
Let's remember that Paul was thankful for the people in his life, just like we should be thankful for our friends and families!Craft: Memory Jar
What you’ll need:
Empty jar or container
Small pieces of paper
Colored markers or crayons
Stickers (optional)
Instructions:
Decorate the outside of your jar with stickers or drawings.
On each piece of paper, write or draw a happy memory or something you are thankful for (like your family, friends, or favorite toys).
Fold each piece of paper and put it into the jar.
Whenever you feel sad or forget the good things, you can take a memory out and read it to remind yourself of all the blessings you have!
Game: Memory Matching Game
What you’ll need:
Cards (you can make your own or use a standard deck)
A table or flat surface
How to Play:
Create a set of memory cards (pairs) by drawing simple pictures or using stickers.
Place the cards face down on the table.
Take turns flipping over two cards at a time to find matching pairs.
When a player matches two cards, they share a happy memory or something they are thankful for!
The game continues until all pairs are found. The player with the most pairs wins!
Discussion Questions
What are some of your favorite memories?
Why is it important to remember the good times in our lives?
How do you think God wants us to remember the good things He has done for us?
Can you think of someone you want to thank for being in your life?
Wrap Up with Prayer
Let’s all bow our heads and close our eyes.
Dear God, thank You for the wonderful gift of memory. Help us to remember all the good things in our lives and to be thankful for our friends and family. May we always keep You in our hearts and think of the blessings You give us. In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen.
Now, let’s go and make some joyous memories today!
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Do you realize in the Book of Acts that it says that an angel showed up on the scene and there was a Roman centurion? He wasn't even one of God's chosen people, but this is what the scripture says. Your prayers and your generosity have arisen like incense to God. So we have an opportunity every time we come to church to have incense rise in our hands through our worship, through our praise, through our. Through our attention, through our listening.
Why don't you just give the Lord a round of applause right now? Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus.
Glory be to God. That is an amazing thing that angels sometimes are dispatched because of the way we're praising, because of the way that we're lifting God up. It's a glorious, glorious thing. Today we're going to be talking about our memories. Uh oh, uh oh.
It is Memorial Day. We're gonna be all right. Tomorrow's Memorial Day. It's Memorial weekend. A wife says to her husband in an accusatory manner, you don't remember things that are important to me.
For example, I bet you don't even remember my favorite flower. Well, her husband's put on the spot, and he's starting to bumble just a little bit, and he goes, I know your flower. Your favorite flower's Pillsbury.
If you answer that way, you need today's message greatly. We've entitled it thanks for the Memories. It's kind of a play on words in that we should be thankful that we have the gift called memory. Without memory, we'd be in a whole lot of hurt. But God has given us the ability to recall information and to remember things from the past, and.
And we can build our knowledge on things that we've learned, but also we need to remember in a attitude of gratitude. There are many people, and this is a negative bias that we have in life. Human beings are more attracted to negative information, and so it's much more likely to have negative memories than positive memories. But Paul tells us that we have a choice. Say, choice.
We have a choice when it comes to our memories. We can remember the positive or we can remember the negative. And in this verse from Philippians, chapter 1, verse 3. Paul is saying, I thank my God every time I remember you. On the surface, that just seems like introductory information.
On the surface, that doesn't appear to be that much revelation. But when you dig a little bit deeper and you realize that what he's saying is that every time he thinks about the Philippians, he has a thankful memory, you realize this is a miracle right here in and of itself. Because if you read the Book of Acts, you find out that Paul, while he was in Philippi, was confronted on a regular basis by a demon possessed girl. It vexed him, it hurt him, it pained him every time he saw this girl. Until one day he cast the demon out.
And as a result of casting out the demon, he was beaten, he was whipped, he was thrown in jail, he was thrown in the inner prison. And yet every time he thinks about the Philippians, it is a thankful thought, it is a positive memory. It is something that he has chosen to do in his life. I'm not going to dwell on the negative. I'm going to dwell on the positive.
Who can say amen? Now, here's another problem when it comes to memories, and that is they're fragile. Memories are fragile. And so we've got to understand that we need to be proactive in memorizing different things or remembering different things. This is what God says in the Old Testament.
Be careful, watch out, and do not forget. He wants to make sure that we do not forget what? The things that you have seen. Now, if you remember, this is right after they got through wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. So they have seen water come out of a rock, they have seen manna come down from heaven.
They have seen quail show up out of nowhere and feed them every single day. They have seen victory after victory after victory after victory. And God is saying, I don't ever want you to forget what you've seen. Don't forget them as long as you live and teach them to your children and your grandchildren. How many of you have grandchildren?
Let me just see your hands. Oh, that's a lot of us here. So my grandchildren are coming in July. They're going to be here for three weeks and they. Yeah, it's going to be glorious.
They think it's going to be fun.
And there are going to be fun elements, no doubt about it. But I have got my own buzzer system. They're going to be sitting in front of me at the kitchen table and they're going to be answering Bible quiz questions. Who was the first man? Who was the first woman quote to me, Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6.
I'm going to be drilling them over and over and over again because the Bible says, as a grandfather, I have a responsibility to teach them what I've seen and what I know. Who can say amen? That's a job for us grandparents. But the truth of the matter is forgetfulness is a constant problem. The average person has four forgetting events every day.
I must be above average because I have a lot more than that. I forget my passwords to my computer devices on a regular basis. I think every single time I hit that little line that says forget your password, I hit it every time and I put a brand new one in and I try and use the same one and I get this response, you cannot use an old password. So I have to add something to it. I have to change it in some way, shape or form.
Dan was trying to think of a new password for his computer when his wife said, don't use your anniversary. You'll never remember it.
Have you ever gone to the grocery store and you only have like four or five items to get? That's it. You get on into the grocery store and you remember the bread, you remember the milk, you remember the butter. What was that fourth one? Or do you get home from the grocery store and you unload two or three bags and I forgot the frozen TV dinners or I forgot the milk or whatever it is you do.
You ever come out of the grocery store and don't know where your car is?
I'm just telling you I'm having these problems now, remembering where I put my keys, my cell phone, remembering your name. Remembering my name. Sometimes it's becoming a challenge. But here's the good news. Forgetfulness is a part of the human condition.
There's the forgetting curve right here. This diagram is actually 150 years old. And this diagram made me happy in one level and it made me sad as a pastor. Because what this diagram teaches us is that after one hour most people forget about 50% of what they've heard. So you're going to hear the best sermon in the world today.
And even if you don't agree, you'll forget in an hour anyway. So I guess that could be a good or a bad thing. But as a teacher, where I'm trying to teach the word of God, this is disconcerting that the Average person forgets 50% in one hour. And if you continue on this graph, at the end of seven days, 90% of the information is lost. So what you're hearing is that forgetting is natural.
It's the way we were made. Because so much of our information goes into that short term memory area. And life is busier than it's ever been. So my brain is crowded with information. There's an onslaught of commercials and billboards and stuff coming at me from so many different directions.
I was listening to something on TV recently and all of a sudden I heard this. Flintstones meet the Flintstones. They're a modern stone age family from the town of out of history. How does that stick in my mind? I'm trying to memorize scriptures and I remember the Flintstones.
And even if you didn't watch the cartoon, which is now 65 years old, you probably know them as chewable vitamins or Fruity Pebbles or something like that. Everybody knows who the Flintstones are. Probably because of that cute little jingle. On top of all of this, I'm getting older. I found that out that once you hit 60 and I've hit 60, that your brain begins to shrink.
My brain is shrinking, it says up to 10%. There are physiological changes. The brain reduces its volume, there's decreased neurogenesis, there's medical conditions. And so I was watching the news the other day and I saw you can order ginkgo bilboa for your memory. So I ordered some of this stuff, but it didn't do me any good because I kept forgetting to take it.
Of course, not all forgetting is bad. We are made on purpose to have a short term memory where we only need memories temporarily. If you're going to drive out to a restaurant today, you might have to take a left hand turn. And so it's important to. When you look to the left, if there's no cars and then you look to the right and there's no cars.
It's. It's important that you remember that there's no cars, right? And so you can take your left hand turn and you're safe. But you don't want to remember that experience for the rest of your life. So it's just there in short term memory and then you can forget it within a couple of hours.
The next day, you don't even think about it anymore. On the other hand, this is a saying that I believe is true. The secret of a long marriage is a short memory, right? And so there are things that we purposely should choose to forget. I'm not going to remember that you acted that way.
I'm not going to remember that you said that. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. So long term memory is what I'm focusing on today. Long term memory is our ability to recall and information, ideas, experiences, skills. Anybody under 30 know how to type?
I'm not talking with two thumbs, all right? I'm talking. Can they actually type? That's a skill that I learned a long time ago, and I still use it every single week because I'm typing up sermons and teachings and all kinds of things. So I'm glad that I don't have to relearn to type every week.
My memory has built it to a certain skill level. The same with driving a car. I don't need to take driver's lessons on a regular basis. I've learned, and every day my knowledge builds on itself, and hopefully I become a better driver and a better driver every single day. So there are some memories that are really, really important, and we need to understand and learn how to keep these near and dear to our hearts.
Al was wandering through the drugstore aimlessly when a manager asked him if he needed help. Al said, yes, please, I'm trying to find the acetyl. Acetylsalicylic acid. And the manager goes, you mean aspirin? He goes, oh, yes, thank you.
You never remember that word, aspirin.
Listen, listen. It's important that you remember the names of your medicines, right? It's important that you remember when to take your medicine, right? So there are some things that are crucially important, and memory is the foundation of that learning. And for the foundation to be strong, we must learn the truth.
The truth is the most important thing that you can learn. Truth can be stacked on top of itself like Legos. Kindergarten truth, first grade truth, second grade truth, fourth grade truth. It's supposed to build and build. And the wider the foundation of truth, the higher you can build the structure, the higher you can build your life, the more success you can have in your life.
We never have to fear truth because all say all. All truth is God's truth wherever it's found. So if truth is found in science, we don't have to fear it. Let me give you some examples. Mathematical formulas and equations actually hint to God's design and God's order.
Historical truths, if they're analyzed appropriately, will help us to avoid making the mistakes that our forefathers made. There's a saying, those who don't learn from history are destined to repeat the mistakes of history. That's right. Scientific truth built upon itself will heal sickness and disease. However, if memories are not reinforced properly, they start fading and disappearing unreinforced memories can be romanticized.
Memories from the past. Remember the story of the children of Israel. They get out of Egypt and they've been whining for hundreds of years. Slaves for 400 years. God save us.
God deliver us. God send a deliverer. So God sends a deliverer. Moses shows up and says, follow me and takes them out of the land of Egypt and across the river and they're in the wilderness for a while and literally within two or three days, they're whining already. Listen to what they say.
Remember all the free fish we ate in Egypt? What? There is nothing free about it. They gave their blood, their sweat, their tears, their sons, their daughters, their lives for that little bit of scrap food that they were given. And yet for some reason, their memories started fading and they started seeing that as better than what God was calling them to.
We need to make sure that our memories are not filled with lies. If you learn and remember lies and untruth truths, ideas that are false, it will lead you to a life of disappointment, frustration, spinning your wheels, and even death. Look at all the false things we believe in this world today. Abortion is built on the lie that a human being inside of her mother is not a human being. It's a lie.
Scientific distortions and manipulation of statistics are used to support a philosophy called climate change, which is nothing more than controlling human beings and human behavior. Anti Semitism is being taught in our universities and young couple just lost their lives within the last week. This is an abomination to God and it's being taught as truth. And people are growing up believing these things and it is ruining their lives, ruining our country. That's why we need to make sure that we understand that memory in its essence is who we are as human beings.
Memories literally make us who we are. My experiences and my memories with my family make me a Van Kempen. My experiences in high school and the things that I was taught in my high school formed my identity as a golden eagle. That's what we were called. My experiences with God and the things I learned in church and in Sunday school formed my identity as a Christian.
And this is why God commands us to remember Him. You would think it wouldn't be that hard to forget God, or it should be easy to remember him. But for some reason, God over 250 times says, remember me, remember my word, do not forget me. That tells me that remembering God as a Christian is not some minor doctrine. This isn't some little tiny thing that Pastor Tom reserved just for memorial Day.
This is a sermon that needs to be heard, embraced and understood in Jesus name. And it needs to be remembered. Who can say amen? We need to remember God. Relationships, all relationships die gradually.
If they're going to die at all. You don't wake up one morning and say, you know what? I'm going to forget my wife today. You don't wake up one morning and say, I think I'm going to forget God today. No, no.
It happens real slowly. Charles Darwin said this. I gradually came to disbelief in Christianity as a divine revelation. Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress.
Remembering is what God wants us to do. And remembering has many benefits. Practically speaking, remembering helps you get better grades in school. Remembering helps you get the promotion at work. Remembering things that are important to your spouse makes for a smoother relationship.
God says, remember I am with you. That would alleviate fear if we remembered that. Remember today. And he's referring to the day that the death angel passed over them. And they realize that God is our Savior.
He's our provider, he's our deliverer. He says to never forget that the Lord is God. That's so that you don't think you are God. He is God and we are not. That should keep us from self reliance.
A powerful motivation for believing God in our present is intentionally remembering how he's worked in our past. Can anyone say Amen? I have a testimony. I don't know about you. God has delivered me before.
God has healed me before. God has set me free before. Can anyone say Amen? I mean, that's the kind of God I serve. I remember him.
I remember his word.
Ah, the Bible, the Bible. There is stories in the Bible, you know what I'm talking about. David and Goliath, where you learn that nothing's impossible or you learn that there's no giant that can stand against you. How about the story of Hannah where she prays because she's not able to have a child. And she says, God, I want to have a baby.
And this story teaches us that God is answers, even individual prayers. Who can say amen that he cares about us, that he hears us, that he knows what's going on in our lives. There's commandments in the scriptures and you know, I wrote down the word expectations because I don't like being commanded. I don't think anybody likes being commanded. There's something about it in us that we want our way, we want to do our thing.
And when we Hear, oh, the Ten Commandments, or God commands us to remember. There's a part that wants to rebel against that. But we need to understand that God only commands us what he knows, what is good for us. Who can say Amen? So there's a little cartoon called the Family Circus.
And Dolly is the older sister, and she's like 8 years old. That's it. And she's talking to her two younger brothers. And this is what she says. She goes, remember, no running in the house if an adult is watching.
No. Remember, no murder, no adultery, no lying, no coveting, because God is watching. Amen. He's always there. He's always around.
There's promises in the Bible, Jeremiah 29:11. For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord. Their plans for good and not for disaster. To give you a future and a hope. I love.
I live on hope half the time because my life isn't always the bed of roses. There are difficulties that spring up all the time. And hope doesn't remove all the pain in the present, but it does give me confidence for how the story's going to end. Who can say amen? I hope for the future?
And then I realized that forgetting has its consequences. Consequences.
When you forget past mistakes, you're condemned to repeat those same mistakes. In 1637, there was a tulip bubble. Did you know there was a tulip bubble? The first economic bubble that ever happened in the world that is recorded is in the Netherlands. Tulips got hot.
Everyone wanted tulips, and they were shipping tulips around the world. Back in the 1600s, they were selling tulips for thousands of dollars apiece. Think about this. This is craziness. And then the bubble exploded and people all over the world lost their fortunes because they started investing too much money in tulips.
The stock market crashed in 1929. There was a dot com bubble in 2000. So you would think, you know, now in the 2000s, we've got it all together. We're gonna learn that bubbles are not good. And then in the early 2000s, I lived in Las Vegas, and there was what is called the real estate bubble.
Anybody experience the pain of that? I had people in my church who were unemployed, who were going to the bank and saying, I want to buy a house. There was no documentation required. They would sell them a brand new house. The price would go up by $50,000.
They take 50,000 out, buy themselves a brand new car, the house would go up another 50,000. They would sell it. They would Take the proceeds. They bought two houses, then they would go on a vacation. Then they bought four houses.
They went on a bigger vacation and bought a yacht or a boat. Then they had eight houses, then they had 12 houses, and then they had nothing because of the bubble burst. Listen, my home that I bought in 1993 for $157,000 at one time was worth over $600,000. Twenty years later, when the bubble hit, it went down to under 15020 years later, and it was worth less than what I paid for it. Nobody learned their lessons from past mistakes.
When you forget your wife's birthday, is there a consequence?
God says, remember me when things go well. Because we're supposed to remember that we didn't do it ourselves. We can't take credit for what God has done in our lives. There's no place for arrogance. Jesus says, remember lots.
What? You remember the story, right? They were supposed to leave Sodom and Gomorrah and go to the mountains and not look back. And so they're running out of the city as brimstone and fire starts hitting it. And this is what Lot's wife does.
She turns around and turns into a pillar of salt. That's right. It's a tale of warning that when you look down, back to the past, it can paralyze you. It can end you. It can stop your progress in its tracks.
When you forget God's command, it paralyzes all progress. When you forget God's promises, you lose all hope. When you forget common sense, the results are desire. Has our country lost its common sense? Oh, my God.
I can't believe this. I mean, literally, in Clay County, Missouri. Listen, a guy was burning trash when it got a little out of control. So instead of using a fire extinguisher, he decided to jump into his van and he tried to run. The flames over the tires caught on fire.
He had a full tank of gas.
He had bought ammunition that day. Yes, your worst nightmare just came true. The car exploded. The bullets went flying in all directions. It created utter chaos.
This is how crazy some of the things that are happening in our country is. And it's all because we've forgotten God who can say Amen number three. Remembering is hard work. And this is what the truth of the matter right here. If you've tried to remember or memorize a scripture lately, you know what I'm talking about.
When I was 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, I could remember scripture in no time. I'm 64 years of age now, and I look at some of the scriptures that I used to remember. And it takes me an hour just to re remember something I'm supposed to have already remembered. I memorized like 12, 15 books of the New Testament. At one time I.
I was involved in Bible quiz. I could answer every single question. It gets harder and harder as you get older. But we cannot stop. We have to keep working at it.
We have to keep re remembering. You are responsible. Listen to this. You must steward your memories because you're responsible for what you allow to occupy your mind. Philippians, chapter 4, verse 8.
Finally, keep your thoughts on whatever is right or deserves praise. Things that are true, honorable, fair, pure, acceptable, or commendable. We have to realize that these memories are a gift from God. And in a flash, we can put ourselves back into some beautiful times in our life. I've got some pictures up here I want to show you.
The first one of when I was a little boy. Man, I was killing cute. Wow. I mean, look at that. Now here's the power of pictures.
Pictures can help you remember. Okay? Because to be honest, I don't remember that picket fence in the back there. I don't remember where I lived. I have vague memories of me being like three years of age.
That might have been two right there, I don't know. But I have a few vague memories of three, a few more of four, and then five on up is when I really have some more deep seated memories. This next one is something that I remember though. This is me playing basketball in high school right here.
My wife is laughing at my picture of me playing basketball. Is that because I've gained weight or, or, you know, the reason we showed this picture and not one from the back is because my hair was down to the middle of my back back then. This is in the 1970s when guys had long hair. And I probably need a haircut right now. It's getting so long.
But that's why we showed that picture. This next one is Robin and I getting married.
I mean, that was, listen, 40 years ago.
Anybody been married over 40 years? Let me see your hands. Now close your eyes. Can you remember the day of your wedding? Yes.
Isn't it amazing? You can retaste the cake. If you had cake. You can smell things again. You can remember some of the songs that were played at the wedding.
You can remember the vows that were said. It's a powerful, powerful thing to remember because memory is a gift and it requires focus and attention. I mean, I was at attention at this wedding because Robin made me be at attention in 1971. Herbert Simon coined the term attention economy. He was a psychologist and an economist, and he won a Nobel Prize for this idea.
And this is what it was that your attention has limited supply.
So if you go home and watch TV all afternoon or get on social media all day long, there'll be nothing left for God. God has to be the first. Say first. God has to be the priority. He's got to be the thing that you go to in the morning, whatever your prime sweet.
Maybe you're not a morning person, you're a night person. Then at night, the first thing you do is you read your Bible. You spend some time in prayer, in devotions. This is important. This is crucial.
This makes us who we are. What are you giving your attention to? The best and first must go to God. Deuteronomy chapter 6 has what's called the Jewish Shema. This is the basis of education in the Jewish community.
It's over 3,000 years old. And it teaches parents what they need to do in regards to their children. But it also teaches us pastors what we need to do. And the number one thing we need to do is we need to listen, pay attention to focus on the Lord who can say Amen. That's what we focus on.
Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God. He's number one. The Lord is the only God. Nothing should take his place. Nothing should get in the way of him in our lives.
No job, no problem, no challenge, no hobby, no nothing takes his place. And then it says, love the Lord your God. In other words, if we try and force this out of devotion or out of a lack of devotion, we just try and do it out of obligation. It doesn't work. We have to learn how to love God.
And God will teach us if we really want to know. God will teach us how to love him with all of our heart and soul and strength. And then take to heart these words I give you. Now watch the next word here. Repeat.
That is a learning thing that we don't want to acknowledge. But we have to have repetition on anything that's important. We have to hear it again and again and again and again. The more we hear it, the more we say, study it, the more it will occupy our thinking. Repeat these things to your children and to yourself.
Because while you're saying it to your children, you're reminding yourself, talk about them when you're at home. Talk about them when you're away. Talk about them when you lie down. Talk about them when you get up. This is a repeated thing, over and over and over again.
And this is so important because look at the learning curve number two.
Now, if you don't know what this is saying, what it's saying is that repetition is the key to remembering. Here is the first line. It starts right here, okay? And at the end of seven days, you only remember about 10%, maybe less. If after this afternoon, you go home and remember re.
Listen to this online. Or you look through your notes, all of a sudden, you start the memory curve all over again. Look at this. And now you double your retention. In the end of seven days, you go from 10% to 20% just by looking at the notes, rehearsing the message one time, you don't have to do anything else, and you double what it is that you've learned.
Now, if two days later, one, two days later, you look at it again, you start the learning curve all over again, and you double your retention, again you go from 10% to 20%. Now you're at 40%. You look at it again a couple days later, you're up to 60%. A couple days later, you're at 80 to 90% retention. That how you study for a test.
Who can say amen? And guys, every day is a test. Did you hear me? I'm not just talking about students. Students, this is the key to you getting an A in every single class.
But we adults, this is the key to us passing every daily test that comes our way. And we can do it in the name of Jesus Christ. Now, the scripture tells us that we're going to need some reminders. Okay? We need something to help us a little bit along the way.
So write things down. I write down my grocery list and tie them around your wrist. Have you ever put a string around your finger to remember something important? I was told to do that when I was a kid, and it worked. I'd look at the string and go, oh, I'm supposed to be home at midnight.
Midnight. I can't be late. Not rush on home or whatever it was. Wear them as headbands and as a reminder. Anybody got Christian T shirts?
They're reminders. They help us to remember. They make fun of becoming your parents in progressive commercials because you're not supposed to put words on signs. Those are beautiful reminders. Do not believe progressive.
Progressive is wrong. We need consistent scriptures on the wall, in our mirrors, in our cars. We need to see it every single day. Who can say amen? I need lists.
I need strings. I need signs. I need special days. I need rituals like communion. It helps me every Single day.
And I'm going to protect these memories as good as I can. How can I protect him physically? I need to sleep. I need good diets, I need to exercise. I can't drink alcohol or do drugs.
Who can say amen, guys? You don't not drink and don't do drugs just because it's a rule. It's bad for you. And I'm not talking about medical conditions and, and I understand all the arguments for drinking wine and all that kind of stuff. I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about the abuse that goes on in our culture when it comes to alcohol and drugs. It's over the line. We need to be smarter than that intellectually. We need to read every single day something, an article, a chapter from a book, something in your scriptures. You need to learn new things.
For our own mental health, we need to bust out of our routines, our comfort zones and try something new. I know that's hard. Robin and I are debating right now. We have a 40 year anniversary coming up. Are we gonna go to Carmel?
We've gone there 35 times. Or are we going to check in to the new hotel at Universal Studios and do Universal epic something new, scary, unknown to us. What are we doing? Robin boast. He said, wow, here's the last thing I want you to think about.
Mary just gave birth to Jesus and some shepherds showed up on the scenes and she listened to what they said and they left. And the scripture says Mary too pondered all of these events, treasuring each memory in her heart. Twelve years later, Mary goes to Jerusalem with Jesus and Jesus ends up with the scribes and the Pharisees, debating them about scripture. He's 12 years old. Bible says that Jesus went back to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.
His mother continued to store these memories like treasures in her heart. I wonder if, about the stories that Mary could tell about Jesus. Have you ever thought about that? There's almost nothing about Jesus childhood, it's his birth and it's this one story right here. We got nothing else.
The stories that Mary could tell and there were no shortcuts to these memories. This took time to build. It took interactions to build. It took experience, experience to build. I remember when we were first married, Robin would try and create a Norman Rockwell moment.
Anybody know what that is? Norman Rockwell was this, this painter and he painted ideal family situations like, like Thanksgiving and everyone loves the food and everyone's having a good time. There's never been a Thanksgiving like that in the history of the world. Okay? If you have a number of people over to your house, something's not gonna go right, all right?
And Robin would be disappointed when it wouldn't go perfectly. And then I said, let's just quit trying so hard. And I don't mean we're not gonna be hospitable. We still did all the work necessary to prepare, but we allowed spontaneity to rule the day. We allowed God just to do what God does sometimes.
I mean, we were at a fourth of July festival one time, and when I say festival, it was like 12, 15 of us on the sidewalk. And in Las Vegas, we're lighting our own fireworks. And one went off and it came back and my little boy was like 2 years old, and it landed on his blanket and started the blanket on fire. He was fine. It's a memory.
Okay? Something, something special can happen when, when you're not thinking about special things. So this is what I recommend, and we'll close with some of these things. Establish family traditions. Family traditions are nothing more than memories, customs, habits, or information handed down from one generation to another over the years that becomes time honored practices.
Traditions can give your family identity like going to church. Traditions can be established intentionally. On my children's 16th birthday, I took all of them on an adventure. Some went to NBA basketball games, Some went on shopping trips. On their 16th birthday, they all had an adventure.
Traditions can be established. Access accidentally. When you're in the ministry, it's really hard to celebrate Mother's Day. I'm just telling you, it's really hard because if you make a reservation and you don't show up for the reservation, you're going to be left out in the cold. And so we made a decision.
One Mother's Day, probably 20 or 30 years ago, we were driving down the road trying to figure out where we're going to go, because we had service at 6 o' clock on Saturday night, 8 o' clock, 10 o' clock, 12 o' clock and 2 o' clock. So we would leave church sometimes around 4 o' clock in the afternoon, and we were exhausted. Mother didn't want to do anything on Mother's Day. And so there was a hamburger joint on the side of the road. And Robin goes, let's just stop there.
There's nobody there. Nobody would dare to take their mom to Fat Burger, right? And so we went to Fat Burger. And that became our family tradition by accident. Every Mother's Day as long as we lived in Las Vegas, we went to Fat Burger.
And now where do we go this five guys. We went to five guys for some fat burgers this last Mother's Day, just for us. But remember, traditions need to be held loosely. And the reason I say this is because if you get married, your spouse's traditions are not the same as your traditions, and you have to be willing to compromise in that area. Also, many of you are now having the empty nest syndrome.
Things change as kids. Kids get older. We have to move with those traditions and change with them. The last thing is tell the family story. I loved sitting around the dinner table with my kids and telling them where Robin and I met, how we met at Evangel when we got married.
I love telling them about some of the stories about them when they were little kids. And we would tell those stories over and over again. My third child, Trevor, he was two years old, and one day we sent him up to take a nap and we went up there to get him, and he was sleeping with the vacuum cleaner.
He was fascinated with vacuum cleaners. He would literally take the vacuum cleaner to bed with him. It was the worst, weirdest thing in the world. And today he's not mechanical at all. I thought he was going to be a mechanic or something, and that didn't happen.
Funny stories Victories. I coached my oldest son to the state basketball championship in Nevada. We still talk about it today. I coached my daughter to the state basketball championship, and we lost the game. We still talk about that to this day.
My oldest son was 2 years old, and he was out by a swimming pool, and I was supposed to be watching him. And I was watching an NFL football game out in California with an eye on my oldest son. And unbeknownst to me, he fell into the swimming pool in the deep end, and he couldn't swim. I didn't know. I was watching the game, and all of a sudden I hear this knock on the door, and he's drenched, and the tricycle that he was riding is in the deep end.
And I go, thomas, what happened? And he's crying, he's sobbing, and he says, I fell into the pool. And I go, how'd you get out? He said, big men on horses pulled me out of the the pool.
Did you guys hear that? That's a miracle story. I'm going to tell that story for the rest of my life because God still does miracles today. Who can say amen?
Would you stand with me, please? And I just want you to celebrate the memories that you do have and remember that you have some control over how you remember things in the past. Would you sing with our team, please?
