Psalm 78

Let us pray together.

Father, would you open our eyes and our ears, our minds and

our hearts, that what we hear from your word may speak to us and

may propel us to action through Jesus Christ.

We pray.

Amen.

Well, as I said earlier, I've never preached in Psalm 78, and I

see that as a real bad thing, probably in my ministry, because

this is a great psalm with a lot to teach us, but it has 72 verses.

So I thought if I was to read them all, you'd lose the will to

live.

And I thought if I was to preach through the whole psalm, we'd

probably be here till 4:00 this afternoon.

Well, I might be.

You might have gone home by then.

But what I want to do is to try to be faithful to the whole psalm,

but pick out some verses relevant to this.

Talk about remembering the goodness of God as we go along.

So if you have your Bible there, you may want to open it and

follow the psalm with me.

If you wanted to sum up the psalm in six words, I think it would

be God's people keep forgetting his goodness.

And if you want to put it into three words, Christians forget God.

God's people keep forgetting his goodness.

It seems that we have a tendency towards a kind of amnesia,

if you want to put it that way.

And if you see the Scriptures as portraying human behavior as it

actually is, then we have an inexplicable, persistent ability

to experience the goodness of God and then act later on as if we'd

never found that happening to us.

So this morning I'm going to look at the idea from this psalm

that memory matters, even though we keep forgetting, and to

think of what God has done in response to it.

And here's the first thing.

Remembering is a command.

I thought it would be quite helpful to try and understand what

we think when we talk through biblical remembering and kind of

unpack it, what it really means.

Now, there are many inherent dangers with AI, but I have to tell

you this, I find it a great tool.

I sat in the study and I thought, lord, how do I use an illustration

of looking at the difference between biblical remembrance and

reminiscence?

And so I typed into my Google AI assistant and I got what I thought

was quite a wonderful answer.

Let me quote some of that and then another bit will come up on

screen.

The biblical command to remember means to act on past events.

While reminiscing is just quiet, emotional thought about the

past.

That's what my AI assistant said.

And then I read this in Google and I hope It'll come up on screen.

Active obedience versus passive reflection, Covenant loyalty

versus personal nostalgia and transforming the present versus escaping

into yesterday.

And I thought, wow, that is a really helpful way to understand

the difference between biblical remembering and reminiscing.

Active obedience versus passive reflection.

We have the Ten Commandments, and I've often said that the commandments

of God are like a fire guard that we put round our fires when

our children are younger.

We don't want them going in when the fire is blazing.

And we put fire guards around the fire.

And to me, the commands of God are like a fire guard that God has

given us so we don't get burnt.

And it's to protect us, not to limit our freedom.

And so when we begin to think of active obedience to the commands

of God, then we're obeying the commandments.

We're living in the light of the commandments as opposed to passively

reflecting.

Well, they're good things to have covenant loyalty versus personal

nostalgia.

And the Bible is full of covenants and of course the greatest

covenant, the covenant of salvation.

And when God enters into a covenant, he has his part to play

and we have our part to play.

And so we need to remember what God has promised.

We need to remember what we have promised.

And that is more important than personal nostalgia.

Wasn't God good to us?

Hasn't he done great things?

And transforming the present versus escaping is into yesterday.

God wants us to make a difference in our homes, in our communities,

in the world in which we live.

He wants us to be a people of transformation who are transforming

society and the world, rather than escaping into the nostalgia

of yesterday, which brings nothing but stagnation.

Ah, remember the good old days.

And you remember the good old days and moan about them and moan

about today, but you don't actually do anything.

So biblical remembrance leads us to active obedience and transformation.

The Bible isn't talking about a nostalgia that talks of the good

old days, whatever they were.

It's about understanding what obedience to the Lord means.

It's about understanding that through Christ Jesus, God has entered

into a covenant of salvation with us.

And that requires a daily obedience and the daily transformation

of our lives by the working of the Holy Spirit within us.

And his job, the job of the Holy Spirit, is to fashion us into

the likeness of Jesus.

That's an amazing thing.

So at the beginning of this psalm, let's read verses 2 to 4,

Psalm 78.

2.

I will open my mouth in parables.

I will utter hidden things, things from of old, what we have

heard and known what our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children.

We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds

of the Lord, his power and the wonders he has done.

The Psalm's author, Asaph, doesn't use the Psalm to say it would

be good if we remembered.

He doesn't say it would be nice if we remembered.

A great hobby for the sentimentalists to engage in remembering

is, if you want to put it this way, a job.

It's a command, it's a responsibility placed upon would

be followers of Jesus.

And we can so easily drift into forgetting that we need to recognize

the need for intentionality when it comes to remembering.

You see, what I was trying to say to the children, probably quite

inadequately, is that a house without pictures is a house without

memories.

Maybe your walls at home are completely blank.

I hope they're not.

But a house without pictures is a house without memories.

And in our spiritual lives, we need to have those things that help

us to remember the goodness of God, picture hooks, if you like,

on which we can hang the memories of what God has done that

help us to be able to tell out our soul the wonderful things that

God has done.

It means telling the story of God's goodness aloud to any who will

listen.

If no one listens to the story of our lives or knows the story of

our lives, it can disappear.

Now, I don't know about you, but I find that quite a challenge.

Many of us are quite reticent when it comes to sharing our faith

with others.

But how often it is that we should tell aloud the goodness of

God and the things that God has done for us and not to be ashamed

to tell our family, our neighbors and our friends what God

has done.

If the story of our lives is not spoken aloud, it can disappear.

And here's the thing.

Now, of course, there are many translations of the Bible, but my

understanding is that the word remember and its derivatives appear

around 200 times in the Bible.

So it must be important.

And the reason for it is often described in terms of one generation

telling the next the goodness of God, who will then tell the next

generation the goodness of God?

I was speaking to a man who was involved in a mission this summer

that went very well.

They had quite a lot of people attending, quite a lot of children

and young people attending.

But he was actually shocked at what he said with the biblical ignorance

of the children.

Some of them, many of them, in fact the majority, he said, had not

heard of who Daniel was or who Joseph was, or who Deborah was.

They did not know about the heroes of the Old Testament, the

stories of God that didn't even know about Jonah being swallowed

by the whale.

And I think it highlights for me one of the issues of today that

I think is that we have a huge biblical illiteracy, that too many

of us have lost a sense of what I call a family altar.

When I was younger, that's what I called it.

And we had family time.

And it was time when we spoke together of Jesus and of his Word

Word.

And we tried to do that with our children.

I'll say a bit more about that in a minute, but let's read Psalm

78, 5, and the second part of that verse to 7.

He that is God commanded our forefathers to teach their children

so that the next generation would know them.

That's God's laws.

Even the children yet to be born.

And they in turn would tell their children.

Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget

his deeds, but would keep his commands.

And there's a kind of parallel passage, if you want to take a note

of it, then look it up later in Deuteronomy 6, 4:9.

Deuteronomy 6, 4: 9.

Let me ask you a question.

Where do you think the primary responsibility for teaching the Christian

faith lies?

Sunday school teachers?

With other youth leaders in the church?

With what's taught in religious studies at school?

No, no and no.

For no matter how good your leaders in church may be or in school,

and not as much as taught in school today as it was in my generation,

of the goodness of God and the commands of God, the reality is the

primary responsibility lies with parents.

And if parents don't have faith, there may be grandparents

or uncles or aunts who have a responsibility to help the young

generation learn about the goodness of God and the grace of

God and the mercy of God, and to tell the next generation, and

I wonder whether we need to build or rebuild family altars, maybe

you could think about some way of learning to read the Bible together.

Maybe you could make sure those of you who have children or

grandchildren that you provide stories of the characters of the

Bible and help them to understand them in the context of

Scripture.

Maybe you could find something that works for you.

But don't just pray for your family, pray with them.

We used to have a very chaotic mealtime.

And this is going back.

As I said earlier, it was a bit of a dinosaur with PowerPoint

many years ago.

The phone would always go at dinner time, and my wife and I with

our four children would be around the table.

And I would leave and answer the phone and come back and, you

know, dinner sometimes was cold and sometimes in the oven.

People had moved on.

Then we discovered an answerphone.

Do you remember those old answerphones, like a rectangular

box you got and plugged into your phone and it took the messages

for you.

And we took time around the dinner table to turn off tv, to turn

off radio, and we just began asking questions to the children.

What about your day?

Anything bad happened?

Anything happened that made you glad?

Anything that made you sad?

And we would talk about them, and then we would pray, and we would

pray for the children in the next day.

When our children were young, we used to read with them every night,

try to encourage them to read the Scriptures, children's Bible,

and to, you know, when they're very, very young.

Things with more pictures than words, perhaps.

But we taught our children the things of God.

And telling the story of the goodness of God isn't about nostalgia.

It's providing the soil in which faith may grow from generation

to generation.

Remembering is a command.

But why is it important?

Well, because secondly, we quickly forget.

Now, we're not going to take time reading the next 55 verses of

Psalm 78.

But it would be lovely if you determined to make time today, or

whenever you can, to read through it all.

Because here's where the psalm begins to make for very uncomfortable

reading.

You read the story, and story after story, you find that the people

of God kept forgetting the goodness of God.

It may seem incredible to us, but it's so, so very sad.

God parts the Red Sea, and the people forget.

God gives them a cloud in the day and a pillar of fire by night

to guide them.

And later on, the people forget.

God provides water from a rock in the desert, and the people forget.

God rains down bread of manna, the food of angels, every morning

without fail.

And the people forget.

God provides quails for them to eat meat, and the people forget.

What a pattern.

Again and again, God provided miraculously for his people.

And here's the thing.

Perhaps no nation or generation had more tangible signs

of God's presence than the people of Israel in the Old Testament.

You see, you can know all the facts and all the details, but lose

sight of their meaning when manna gets boring.

When it ceases to be a miracle because it's provided every day without

fail, you can be tempted to wander away from God, wander away

from the miraculous part of it all.

And when you lose sight of the giver and you take your eyes off

the gift and you Recognize that you need to remember God more

and more.

You see, you can let me make that a little bit more clear.

We can take our eyes of the giver and concentrate on the gift.

Too much.

I guess most of us here this morning are not skeptics wondering

if God exists, but we may be forgetters who need reminding.

Look at Psalm 78 and there's a selection of verses here, 11, 32

and 41, which I'm going to read.

Hopefully they come up on screen.

Psalm 78, 11.

First of all, they forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown

them.

You can hardly believe that.

You know, the wonders of God parting the Red Sea, providing Mannathey

forgot what God had done, the wonders he had shown them.

And then verse 32.

In spite of all this, they kept on sinning.

In spite of his wonders, they did not believe.

And verse 41, again and again they put God to the test.

They vexed the Holy One of Israel.

An interesting statement I want to pick up on in verse 41.

They vexed the Holy One of Israel.

Asaph says the sins of the people tested God.

How?

Because you need to understand that there is this idea of God's

wrath and holiness that needs to be assuaged.

And on the other side of that wrath and holiness is God's love

and mercy.

And so it's as if a holy God is full of wrath and holiness and

justice and righteousness.

And if he were only to apply all of that to us, none of us would

stand and none of us would be alive.

And so it's wrapped up in love and mercy and grace that tests the

Lord.

And Asaph says it vexed the Lord.

Interestingly, the King James version of the Bible that doesn't

use the word vexed but talks about limiting.

And I think it's an indicator that when we begin to take our eyes

of God and we begin to take our eyes of the goodness of God,

then we begin to put lines around what God might do.

And I'll come back to that in a moment.

I have not a very big family.

I'm a father of four in law to two.

I am a grandfather of four.

I have siblings in a wider family circle, not a huge family

circle.

I love my family circle.

I'm very grateful for them.

They're a blessing and a privilege.

But if I'm honest, I see some in the family rejecting God.

I see some making shipwreck of their lives.

And it grieves me, vexes me greatly.

So I understand, dare I say it to a Very minuscule degree, very

miniscule.

What it must be like for our heavenly Father to see his people

sin.

How does God feel when we deliberately disobey Him?

How does he feel when we ignore the Scriptures?

How does he feel if we live lives that deny the power and grace

of the Gospel in it vexes him, just as a parent is vexed by the

child's persistent rebellion and distrust.

So let me come back to the King James version that says limited

instead of vexing.

You see, even when we've seen God parting the sea and providing

manna, we still doubt that God can meet our next need, don't we?

I think we need to be honest about this.

We have experienced the goodness of God.

The children of Israel experienced the goodness of God.

And we know as we look back into the past that God has turned

up for us in the past faithfully and regularly.

And yet somehow we doubt if he can meet us for the next problem

and difficulty that's coming our way.

We forget the goodness of God.

And what I was saying a moment ago about the King James saying that

instead of vexed to use the word limited, here's the thing.

When Jesus was seeking to minister in his hometown of Nazareth,

there's a wonderfully interesting and very sad statement

that was made by Mark in his gospel, Mark 6:5.

Mark 6:5

He could not do any miracles there except lay his hand on a few

sick people and heal them.

And he was amazed at their lack of faith.

Prophet is without honor in his own country.

But they limited him.

They limited the work that he was able to do because they rejected

Jesus.

One of the hymns that we might have sung today is the old hymn,

Count your many blessings, name them one by one.

I want to challenge you this morning and encourage you.

If you haven't done so for a while, go home and sit down and count

the blessings of God in your life.

Write them down and the hymn.

It might sound like a cliche, but when you begin writing down all

the things that God has done for you, it will genuinely surprise

you what God has done.

And you see, in writing down and in thinking through and in understanding

all the things that God has done for you, counting your many

blessings, you end up remembering and not forgetting.

So remembering is a command.

Because secondly, we quickly forget that.

Thirdly, this morning God's faithfulness outlasts our forgetting.

Now, I understand that a common theme that your minister has

been exploring with you in the Psalms is the concept of waiting.

Perhaps we see that concept in verse 65.

Then the Lord awoke as from a Sleep as a man wakes from the stupor

of wine.

Then a very descriptive way to talk about God as being asleep.

Remember Jesus was asleep in the boat that on the lake was going

through the storm and the water was coming in.

The disciples were worried the boat was going to sink, and Jesus

was sound asleep.

And then he woke from the sleep and he speaks to the storm,

and he calms the storm and he calms the waves.

And the disciples were amazed.

But sometimes we think God is asleep.

Sometimes we think God has forgotten about us.

Sometimes we feel that God is absent.

And sometimes we get very frustrated with our prayers.

I have been praying for some people in my family for decades,

and we have yet to see God's answers to prayer.

And sometimes when it comes to praying, we say, lord, I want you

to answer my prayer.

But yesterday would be really great.

God encourages us to persistence and to obedience and

to trust and to faith and to keep on going on.

But sometimes it may seem that the Lord is absent, and then he comes

and does something rather wonderful.

And sometimes you then need to understand that it is God who needs

to be far more patient with us than we have to be patient with Him.

And in spite of forgetting the goodness of God, here's some wonderful

things from Psalm 78.

I'm going to read verse 38.

First of all, if you have your Bible open.

And then 70 to 72.

So verse 38 of Psalm 78.

Yet he was merciful.

He forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them.

Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his

full wrath.

Goodness, isn't that amazing?

Can you picture a God who is so vexed by our sin that his holiness

wants to destroy that which is on unholy and on anything of his?

And it says that God restrained his anger and did not

stir up his full wrath.

And then verses 70 to 72, he chose David his servant and took

him from the sheep pens.

From tending the sheep, he brought him to be the shepherd of

his people, Jacob of Israel, his inheritance.

And David shepherded them with integrity of heart, with skillful

hands he led them.

God is the forgiver of sin.

God is the giver of hope.

He is the ultimate paragon of patience with us, even when we vex

him, even when we limit him.

And he has provided care and protection for us.

For Asaph and the psalmist's contemporaries, David was the shepherd

God had provided for us.

It's even better because God sent Jesus, the good shepherd, to

be our shepherd, our protector, our guide.

Through this life to the next.

But there's something rather remarkable and possibly even slightly

bizarre, because on the one hand, while God says to us, remember

my goodness, remember my commandments, remember to live out

my commandments and to be transformative in how you live and

to actively live for me to tell out loud my story, to tell out

loud the goodness of God, in spite of all that emphasis from God,

to remember, to remember, to remember.

He chooses not to remember.

Isn't that bizarre?

But also rather wonderful.

And not in the psalm, but one of my favorite verses, Jeremiah 31:4.

Jeremiah 31:4

This is what God says, for I will forgive their wickedness and

will remember their sins no more.

I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins

no more.

I choose, says God, when you confess your sins, when you turn

to me, I choose to no longer remember your sins.

Those things God says that vex me, that stir up my wrath, that stir

up my anger, that make me feel I have to restrain myself.

I choose, says God, to remember your sins no more.

David, one of the great men of God in the Bible, was also somebody

who sinned greatly.

And yet he was able to write, blot out my transgressions.

Now I don't think any of us are old enough to remember school,

when it was a slate that you put chalk on and then wiped it clean,

or blackboards like that.

But of course, in David's time, people wrote on wax tablets.

And when the tablet was full and they wanted to write something

more, they just smoothed over the wax tablet.

Every trace of the writing on it was gone.

And a new page, as it were, was able to begun.

That's what God chooses to do for us.

I choose to remember your sin no more.

What a wonderful God to remember.

So this morning, as we finish, let's remember that remembering God's

goodness is a command.

It's a command of scripture.

I don't know what's written on your communion table, but in the

church I served for 32 years, we had printed in the communion table

etched into the wood, do this in remembrance of me.

And I love that.

And the table and the baptismal font stand as reminders

to us every Sunday when we come to worship the Lord's table

and.

And the baptismal font, the sacraments that God has given us,

to remember him and to remember his covenant of salvation,

and to not forget.

So remembering God's goodness is a command.

Secondly, let's be honest, we forget faster and more than we admit.

But thirdly, we rejoice that God's patience outlasts our forgetting

and he chooses to remember our sins no more.

Let's join together in prayer.

Let's pray, Father.

It's maybe been hard to get ahold of this very long psalm, but

we thank you that as you have challenged us to be people who remember

your commandments, who remember the stories of scripture

and all that you have done for us, and help us to be people who

intentionally take steps to remember all that you have done,

it may be that you challenge some of us this morning, Lord, to

restore or begin family altars.

Help us to examine how we might do that practically with the

kind of families that we have in every family different.

Maybe some of us need to ask, Lord, how do we help our children

and our families remember the stories of scripture?

For some of us, it may be to take out things like scripture, union

notes, or some other form of helping us to read the Bible regularly

so that we do not forget.

Lord, help us to remember, but help us above all to remember that

you're infinitely more patient with us than we are with you.

And we thank you for that wonderful promise that when we trust

you, when we commit our lives to you, you choose to remember our

sins no more.

So we thank you that you're in that business of choosing not to

remember, but help us to remember the goodness of God and

these things we pray in and through the name of Jesus.

Amen.