"Don't Forget to Remember" - Matt Woodward (Audio)

0:00 buddy and it's great to be with you guys and and as I said last week may not we're starting a brand new miniseries it's two parts maybe you saw it on social media man I had a title slide all ready to go and work on some media and I came out to test it and it's like I think the power supply went in that computer I mean it's pretty old it's older than some of you guys are so it's not unexpected but it's still kind of annoying but but anyway a brand new just kind of two-part miniseries this week and next week this week's lesson it's entitled did anybody remembered anybody see it today don't forget to remember don't forget to remember and you know I was a had an opening verse but I decided

0:46 to kind of move it towards the end I don't have a text to open this message with tonight but I think it's always in order to open up every time we go into the Word of God to see what it might have to say to our hearts I think it's always in order and appropriate to pray and just invite God to speak to us individually you know we're here in a corporate setting and it can be easy listen to me for just a moment before we get into I hope you listen the rest of the message but but hear me tonight it can be very easy to just let the individual thing that God wants to do in your heart get missed and bypassed in the collective and corporate setting and so don't miss what God would do in you you know just because you're here amongst a few dozen people tonight let God speak to you and why don't we just open up our hearts and let's pray one more time and let's ask God to do that

1:33 can we do that ask God to speak to you because I believe he wants to you lift up a hand one more time and we worship but now let's just pray and ask God to have his way tonight Lord Jesus God we thank you for this opportunity to look into your word Jesus I pray that you'd help us and not ever take moments like this for granted God we look around our world today and it's a a sick place it's chaotic and it's confusing here in North America yes for certain reasons but God we look around other parts of this globe in this world people are not even allowed to own a bible let alone much less here at preach to them and so God we are we are so grateful tonight for this opportunity and I pray that it would it would help change somebody's mentality

2:19 and I pray that would tear down strongholds in our minds and God that as we look into this perfect law of Liberty God ultimately that we would be hearers and doers of your word got anoint not just my lips to speak and preach but gotta knowing every ear to hear and anoint every life to do what you would have them do in the name of Jesus we're saying Jesus name Amen you can remain seated don't need to tell you to sit down again so don't forget to remember that's a title for tonight I just want to take a few moments and i'm just going to warn you up front i'm not going to end on a super spiritual note i'm going to end on a very practical practical

3:06 notes let me say practical how many love it when the word of god it's not something that's elusive or ethereal and above your head but you can walk away and walk out of a service like this how and you know you you can actually do something with it how many love it when it kind of gets to your level and it's practical and you can do something with it anybody like that I like that and so I'm going to warn you up front and on a practical and open I think it will help you I really believe it will now i'll start by by kind of enlightening you guys a little bit because obviously when we talk about remembering something that is going to come up is also forgetting because of course forgetting is the opposite of remembering makes sense and i don't know about you but I struggle

3:52 sometimes to remember certain things but I read some some articles the past couple of weeks and I did a little bit of research and it was enlightening to me because it gave me hope for my state of forgetfulness did you know that that everybody here you so we say me did you know that you are a walking breathing hard drive well not really but you know sort of there's a whole lot of information on this subject and there's a whole lot of information that's actually stored inside of your body right now you probably already know this and understand this if you've been in any form of science class in grade school but but basically all of the data that dictates everything about you

4:39 everything that makes you unique your hair color your skin tone your vocal range some of you have a quite hit you know that low tones but yet it's all right young man you're getting there but your vocal range you're hiding all kinds of things it's stored on microscopic strands of DNA which are located inside of each cell in your body you probably understand this already but just one cell from your body contains all of the information needed to hypothetically create another you if cloning was legitimate impossible and ethical I could take one strand of your hair and from that one strain in fact just one cell from that one strand I could make another you and that would be quite miserable now I'm just kidding we love

5:24 you whoever you are we love you we love all of you and this is just a bonus question I have a little prize if anybody can tell me what DNA stands for anybody oh my god I didn't think anybody was going to get that so uh okay that's not a good practice I'm sorry anybody want it okay sorry sorry okay we need to move on a little bit that's going to be tempting me all service now anyway started beyond your genetic information DNA it has the potential to store much much more than just that some neuro scientists they have conducted experiments this is fascinating to me

6:09 and they've actually used synthetic DNA it's not the real stuff found in your cells but but a synthesized deoxyribonucleic acid and they've used these strands of DNA to store computer files literally it's amazing to me Mick Goldman is one of these scientists and he along with a partner of his they were able to store all of Shakespeare's sonnets a recording an mp3 recording of Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech a photo of his lab and a research paper oh in just one strand of microscopic DNA all of that just one strand and the fascinating thing to me is that he was able to then play all of this stuff back these digital files on a computer from this strand of DNA how did he do this what is this magic well basically

6:57 computers if you're in CS or anything at University you understand that computers read binary code to operate binary code is just a long string of ones and zeros which is fundamentally the language of computers zeros mean that bite is turned off one's Minister ones mean it means it's turned on excuse me and if you're in computer science again you understand all of that but every file that you've ever saved every digital picture you've ever taken every video you've ever streamed on YouTube in reality it's just a unique string of binary code ones and zeros and DNA is also a long string of data but instead of being made up of ones and zeros it's made up of chemicals now I really will give the sucker to somebody if you can tell me the four chemicals made that makes up DNA anybody

7:45 I'll tell you and I'll leave the sucker later guanine cytosine adenine and thymine you got it gcat now putting it plainly I need to move on quickly but Nick Goldman and his team they just made each of these chemicals one of these four represent either a one or a zero g and c they represented one's a's and T's represented zeros and now they were speaking the language of computers and they were able to take these files in this experiment and store undie on this DNA strand it was amazing and so this kind of intrigues me and I got to ask the question if we really are in this sense a walking hard drive how much data are we really talking about here how

8:31 much memory could we store in one person for example oh really it depends on how many doughnuts you eat how much DNA you have the bigger the person the more DNA you follow me it's a bit difficult to estimate but in almost every cell in your body there's about six micrograms of DNA that's a very small amount if you multiply that by the roughly 10 trillion cells in your body you get about 600 grams of DNA that's about a pound and that's quite a bit i watch the video the other day that estimated that every bit of internet activity that takes place in one month 30 days okay not for one day not for a minute but for one month every video streamed every file downloaded every page you've ever loaded that ever was loaded in a month

9:18 for the whole world it can be contained in about two pounds of DNA you've got about one and so that means there's enough potential storage into you guys you and the person sitting next to you to contain all of the world's internet internet activity for a 30 day period isn't that amazing that's like every video streamed and some videos are stream like a million times in one month or more and it's all in just you and a person beside you another scientist they estimated that just one gram of DNA and again you have about 600 one gram of DNA potentially could hold up to 450 5 exabytes of data just in one gram and for reference there are about 1 billion gigabytes in just one exabyte this

10:07 fascinates me I'm probably putting some of you to sleep here a billion gigabytes one terabyte is a thousand right a thousand gigabytes 1x bite is a billion and you have about 450 5 exabytes in one gram of DNA if you multiply that by your roughly 600 grams you get 273,000 exabytes of potential storage the computing company the cloud computing company EMC they estimated that there were 1.8 zeta bytes of data in the world in 2001 you know how many eggs of bites there is in 10 bite a thousand this is like climbing all the time so here's here's the bottom line in just four grams of your DNA you can store all of the data that has ever been created

10:53 digitally from the time of you know the digital age onward every bit of data every video every created every song ever written and recorded everything that's been archived from Plato and Socrates Aristotle ins and shakes everything four grams of your DNA and you got 600 that amazing isn't it amazing how god made us that's our DNA and i'm going to move quickly here but but really we're talking about memory and we don't remember things in ourselves we remember it in our brain and i won't even read the details but there's a scientist they did this math and they figured out that your brain potentially if all your synapses we're firing on all cylinders you could remember about 100 terabytes between 10 and a hundred terabytes of memory isn't that amazing that's in your brain but here's my point you know i got

11:42 i don't know 273,000 exabytes of potential storage in my DNA I've got about a hundred terabytes of potential storage in my my brain but I find it so ironic that with all this potential storage space inside this body of mine I can barely remember someone's name ten seconds after they tell me it I'm full of memory but really struggle with my memory at the same time if you know what I mean I don't know if anyone here is like me it just has a hard time remembering things anybody concur with that it's just the struggle is real struggle is really real just a couple of weeks ago my wife calls me or text me from work and she says hey can you just

12:27 you know for after work could you put some rice in the rice cooker please I don't mind doing that sure she says okay put this in and this in and and put some mushrooms in we just got mushrooms at the store and so literally like within 10 or 15 minutes i'm making this rice and mushrooms they were not even on the the foggiest corner of my radar i never even gave it a second thought and this is not hours later this is minutes later forgot she gets home she eats a rice she's like where are the mushrooms ice oh my gosh I forgot the mushrooms so I forget I'm learning that if I don't write things on a to-do list or set reminders for myself on Siri on my phone there's a good chance i'm just going to forget to do them and so i'm probably like some people here tonight i need to

13:14 be very intentional about remembering and if you're honest with yourself and with everybody you admit that you're forgetful in certain ways too we all have a tendency to forget which is why we must all not forget to remember you know it's no wonder that the Bible contains the word remember 344 times from cover to cover Old Testament and New Testament it admonishes us to remember now admittedly a good portion of those times it's referring to God remembering things you know like God remember my calamity or or God you know remembering our sins no more so some of those words refer to God remembering things but basically the

13:59 rest of those occurrences there verse is instructing us to remember things and to remember God remembering is important but here's I've come to learn about remembering things and this is what you need to realize it's very simple tonight but but if you are not intentional about remembering you are doomed to forget and somebody said amen if you are not intentional about remembering you are doomed to forget just like I forgot the mushrooms and a multitude of other things that my wife is asking me to do I'm sorry I'm so sorry please forgive me she could prob she probably has a list somewhere cuz she's good you know putting stuff down and remembering what I've forgotten to do now I'm just kidding but if I'm not intentional about

14:45 remembering I'm doomed to forget I'll spare reading you the verses but many times in Scripture God commands his people to remember him and to remember his Commandments and to remember his ways I mean come on people remember me remember what I've told you however God knew that this was not easily achieved by fickle and forgetful humanity and so throughout the Old Testament on top of commanding them to remember him he also implemented laws and other methods to help his people remember him here's just three examples of how God actually helped his people in the Old Testament remember what he told them to do in numbers 1538 it says this speak unto the children of Israel Moses and bid them that they make them fringes in the

15:30 borders of their garments throughout their generations in that they put upon the fringe of their borders a ribbon of blue and it shall be unto you for a friend so understand what God's saying here they had these prayer shawls they'd wear them on their heads and there's that was called a tallit and then on the corner of the tallit the corner was called a Knopf and then on the corner the Knopf there was a seat seat which is the tassel or the fringe and God said I want you to put fringes on your prayer shawls on your garments verse 39 I wish you could see it tonight that you might look upon it look upon the fringe and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them and so God made it a part of their culture and custom these tassels these fringes all because he

16:16 wanted them to remember it wasn't enough to just say hey remember what I told you he actually gave them some sort of a device to help that process do you understand another thing that God commanded his people to do on top of just simply remembering him he commanded them to read the law every seven years in a solemn assembly Deuteronomy 31 and ten Moses commanded the people these are his last words before he dies saying at the end of every seven years in the solemnity of the year of release and the Feast of Tabernacles when all Israel has come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose thou shalt read this law the book of Deuteronomy before all Israel in their hearing goes on to say you know gather everybody together make sure everybody hears that you know why because it's important to me your God that you

17:02 remember my laws and when I've written to you what I've said to you it's not enough to just say hey remember me he actually implemented these customs in their culture to help them remember in Joshua chapter 4 they're about to cross over the Jordan River into the Promised Land I mean this is a big deal and here's what God said to Joshua to say to his people it came to pass and all the people were clean passed over Jordan the Lord spoke to Joshua and he said this take you 12 men out of the people out of every tribe one man and command you them saying take hands out of the midst of the Jordan River out of the place where the priests feet stood firm take 12 stones 14 you carry them over with you and leave

17:48 them in a lodging place where we're going to lodge tonight then Joshua he did with the what God told him to do he called the twelve man and he told them pass over before the Ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan every one of you take one stone on his shoulder and according to under the number of the tribes of the children of Israel that this may be a sign among you that when your children ask their fathers in time to come what mean ye by these stones you're going to answer them verse 7 at the waters of Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord it was an impenetrable impassable situation we couldn't get over the river but God stopped up the waters just like he did for Moses and the Red Sea he did it for us the waters

18:36 of the Jordan were cut off and these stones shall be a memorial and what that word comes from memory these stones will be a reminder under the children of Israel forever he said build a statue build a memorial build an altar it will help you remember what I've done and so God did all of these things and many more because he knew that if people are intentional about remembering some things they're doomed to forget them and so that's the children of Israel he had specific commands for them some of them carry over to us tonight but there's some things and God's word that that we also need to remember one of the shortest sermons that Jesus ever preached you know it is three words

19:22 sermon remember Lot's wife Jesus was always encouraging his followers to remember things from their nation's past and things that he told them jesus said when you take communion you know why we're doing it he said to take me to this do in remembrance of me time after time after time God's Word admonishes us to remember and so I just want to give you a couple things here's some things that we need to remember and I could go I could spend all night here but two things I want to talk to you about and I'm going to end kind of practical note first thing is we need to remember the dark side of sin numbers 11 this is when Israel they're already out

20:08 of Egypt God's delivered them you know it's a wonderful time but they're wandering in the wilderness and all they're eating is manna and they're getting sick of it numbers 11 4 it says in the mixed multitude that was among them felt a lusting and the children of Israel also wept again and they said who shall give us flesh or meat to eat they were hungry for me because all they had eaten was bred falling from the sky I mean it was a supernatural miracle every morning that it fell but they got tired of it nonetheless when are we going to have meet again verse 5 and this is amazing to me God delivered them out of Egypt at a bondage out of slavery but then they start reflecting and reminiscing about Egypt verse 5 we remember somebody say remember we remember the fish which we did eat in

20:55 Egypt freely the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic but now our soul is dried away there's nothing at all besides this man before our eyes see when Israel remembered Egypt they only remembered the high points they only remember the good things that they experienced in Egypt they reminisced about the fish the melons the cucumbers the garlic all the food that they ate nevermind the fact that it was probably rationed very small never mind the fact that they were slaves never mind the fact that their taskmasters whips would beat on their backs repeatedly day after day after day

21:43 they never thought about all of that they only looked back at Egypt with Rosie coloured glasses and they said we remember all the good stuff but they forgot to remember the dark side of where God brought them from if we are not careful we can do the exact same thing we can begin begin looking back where God has brought us from a lifestyle of sin an addiction a lifestyle of hopelessness and so on and in spite of all that we can remember only the highlights we can remember the high that we experience perhaps or the buzz we can remember the social scene we can reflect on all the friends that that we made nevermind most

22:31 of them were deadbeats most I'm wasted all their money on drugs or whatever alcohol we can remember the social status and we can remember whatever else we want to never mind though that we were in bondage to that lifestyle never mind the fact that we could barely sleep at night because we felt so alone and so shameful and solo never mind all of that you see there are some good things to remember about the world and there are some good things to remember about sin but when we only remember those things we do ourselves a disservice we can't forget to remember the dark side of the world and sin it might look like a party out there too maybe the friends you go to school with maybe friends he used to

23:16 hang out with it might look like you know sunshine lollipops and rainbows but there's a dark side to it there's a dark side to it David had a similar experience in Psalm 73 and I won't quote the passage because it's long but he looked out at the world he's a he's a god-fearing man David was a king of Israel he's just a man after God's own heart that's what the Bible says great man but he looking at the world and he said I I got thinking about the prosperity of the wicked I got looking at how they were all successful they were making all kinds of money and things look good in the world and he was even very transparent in that passage in that chapter he said my foot almost

24:02 slipped I almost back slid and I went back to Egypt to the world Psalm 73 17 until I went into the sanctuary of God and then understood I their end he said I got into the sanctuary I got into the house of God and I began remembering some things that I kind of forgot when I was just looking at the world I was only remembering the high points and the highlights and all the good things about what was going on out there but I came into the house of God and suddenly my mind was open and I remembered the dark side of sin and Davidson then I understood their end then I remembered that that broad way that wide path that that people walk on at least a destruction and it might not always be

24:50 easy walking the narrow way for God there might be difficulties and struggles you got to push through but can i remind you that that what you get in the world it might seem pleasurable for a season but there's a dark side to it and it's worth walking this path you're going to remember that you got to remember that even in moments when it seems like everybody in the world has got it going on and the best way to do that so I don't best way to do that is to make church a priority David said it happened when I went into the sanctuary of God I began remembering some things that's one thing we need to remember we need to remember there's a dark side to this world it's not all daisies and roses whatever other euphemisms you want

25:35 to add in there it's not all that another thing that we need to remember especially in the day we live in we need to remember that jesus is coming back for his church jesus said in Matthew Matthew 24 40 for the Son of Man he's coming in an hour when you think not in other words it it's going to happen in a moment when it slipped your conscious mind and you've forgotten you forgotten can anybody be honest tonight and just say as you as you live your everyday ordinary life going to school doing assignments run-of-the-mill stuff mundane sometimes boring life but you

26:22 know just the coming of the Lord it kind of set the back your mind by and large as a culture even in the church we have forgotten about that you don't hear very many preachers preach about the coming of the Lord anymore but nonetheless we need to make sure that we don't forget to remember that jesus is coming back for his church John 14 and 28 this is the new living translation but Jesus to his disciples he said remember when I told you I am going away but I will come back to you again remember he said it's going to be easy to forget so make sure you don't forget to remember this I'm going to go away but yes yes I'm going away but but in like manner i'm going to come back for you he's coming back for his church this is something important to

27:09 remember but everyday life as a way of crowding this fact and this truth out of our minds in the early church they desire to always keep this at the forefront of their thinking and so you know what they did like God would Institute customs into the culture of Israel the early church instituted a culture into their doings and business and whatever when they would greet one another you know what they would say they would say this word maranatha you say that word maranatha you know that means it means our Lord cometh and so every time that they would greet one another in a house meeting in a prayer meeting on the street they were saying

27:58 jesus is coming back our Lord is coming and this is a way to help them not forget to remember maranatha I could go on for hours literally I mean Yuri through the New Testament and the Old Testament mean it's just a wealth of examples commanding as people to remember and so coming back to music I'm almost finished and you're ready for a practical bomb okay you ready it's important to remember i could go on i could tell you example after example after example really the question isn't where the rubber meets the road tonight is how do we remember you know if it's

28:44 so important what can we do to facilitate that end I believe the answer is actually really really simple tonight and simple mind simple simple bottom line tonight whatever think about Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai this is a momentous occasion for Moses God speaking to him the Bible says the mountain it's on a smoke it's on fire that's what the Bible says I don't there was a literal fire or a spiritual fire but nonetheless it was a powerful moment powerful moment and in this moment you know God wanted to give Moses some

29:30 Commandments the Ten Commandments primarily but also like you know hundreds of Commandments and God could have given Moses these ten primary Commandments orally but but God's not dumb and God knows that even with the best intentions even after moments of intense inspiration and power and glory I mean that's what was happening we can still forget the things we hear and think and so God bypassed humanity's tendency to forget and got to wrote them out Moses promptly smashed them mind you go to the bottom of the mountain he was so mad about the golden calf he went smash them on the ground broke them into pieces but you know even then God didn't just trust that he would remember the

30:16 first tablet no God said okay Moses I gave you the first tables of stone but now get some more tables of stone and I'll carve the commandments in them again because it's important to God apparently evidently that these laws were written out right now and here's a simple practical truth bomb tonight writing things that you want to remember on paper or if you're inclined to do so in your phone or on tech it's one of the best ways to remember and not forget one of the best ways if you want to remember something in your life write it down put it on paper is anyone lost here tonight am I going

31:03 too fast just kidding write it down her back to and to the prophet in the Old Testament God would speak to the prophets and he would give them these divinely inspired messages straight from the throne room of heaven I mean surely surely a prophet like a back I mean he's just a minor prophet he didn't even have that much to remember he was a shorter book in the Old Testament but surely you know these moments of intense inspiration I mean Habakkuk should be able to remember every detail of what God said oh no no no God said to him in her Beck Habakkuk two and two the Lord answered me and he said write the vision so we say right write the vision

31:49 furthermore make it plain upon tables as tables of stone not tables like you breakfast that ok tables of stone permanent write it down that he may run that readeth it you know that means it means to me that the person that reads it can run with it they can carry it on they can go with it people can't get behind vision and run with it if it's not written down on paper in this case stone and furthermore written plainly hey you got to write it down please stick with me I know this is so simplistic but I'm getting somewhere and almost finished I think the scripture applies on a you know a corporate level in a church or in a youth group like

32:35 this one it's important that when we we want to get somewhere and we want the collective to run with something it's got to be something written on paper and it's got to be playing and I stand before you tonight I promise you this fall I'm working on that we're going to do that better we're going to have a submission statements some goals very plain very clear that we can all push towards together it's important we write things down if it's important okay so it applies on a corporate level but i believe that applies on a personal level you can't focus on goals and you can't pursue dreams in life if they aren't written down somewhere do you think that you're always going to be able to remember every single thing that you've ever wanted to do in no no there's just something about writing stuff down did you know that even the king of Israel was required to

33:21 write out the entire Torah which is the first five books of the Bible the law of Moses he was required to to get an original copy and then meticulously copy it word for word in the Hebrew like we would dash T's and dot eyes they have Johnson tittles every jot and every tittle every dash and every dot you'd have to do it by hand Deuteronomy 17 18 and it shall be when the King sits upon the throne of his kingdom that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests of the Levites and it shall be with him this copy that he's made and he shall read there in all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them only

34:09 reading the law or probably in his case as a king only having it read to him it would have given him a rough understanding of God's commandments but writing it for himself internalized it on a whole other level there's just something powerful about putting things on paper first of all it in a sense it immortalizes your thoughts how many know that as soon as a thought pops into your brain it pops out anybody wave your hand at me if you agree some of you guys are really firing on all cylinders you've got all 100 terabytes working for you not me I forget I forget and so here's

34:59 the practical application there's some things I want you to start doing I'm asking you to do them not because it will benefit me I mean it will benefit the group and the body eventually but this will benefit you it'll change your life three things I want you to start doing when you start taking a pen if you don't already so taking a pen a note had to prayer with you prayer service sure but your personal prayer time I know that some people already do this how many prayer journal we raise your hand really high I want some other people to see your prayer journal as you pray you're right out your thoughts you write out what God speaking to you and that powerful doesn't help you stay

35:44 focused when you take a pen and notepad to prayer with you and you're thinking oh lord i'm just about to go back to school and they're gonna make me write notes all day and now he's asking me to write more notes you know in reality i mean school is important but what you write in in this notepad I mean it's going too far out live the square root of 178 or whatever else you're going to write down in school okay make it a priority take it to prayer with you write down number one needs that you want to pray about let me just be real with you okay do we have a couple more minutes can I just be transparent with you okay I'm trying to trying to help you trying to pass to you as your youth pastor right now so please just give me a few more minutes okay high five your neighbors say you okay you okay you all

36:31 right you got a couple more minutes when I went when I would go to pray you know just me and the Lord I mean oh what a powerful time this is going to be I would find myself so very often just freezing in prayer not even knowing kind of what to pray and you kind of get into this rut in this routine of vain repetition almost as the scripture calls it anybody been there before you just kind of you you've carved out the time it's like man god I'm going to have the most powerful prayer time ever this is gonna be great it's gonna be awesome and you get there and it's like yeah god yes I don't know if that happens to anybody else but me but it's happened to me it

37:20 probably happened to you too and so write out some needs that you're praying for take you know if something comes to you beforehand ride it out and take it with you to person if something comes to you while you're praying you can write it out and here's something cool you could do as you pray over those things repeatedly because you're going to be reminded of their reminded of them every time you open that journal or notebook as you pray for those repeatedly you're going to be able to cross them out and move them to another column the answer prayer column you can't do that if you're just kind of operating in your brain or it's not effectively at least okay so write down needs write down things that God brings to your mind thoughts you know sermon thoughts perhaps even if you're not a preacher write them down in sight and also write down things that pop out of out to you in the scripture that's the

38:07 first thing I want you to do that was like three and one okay take it to prayer take it to prayer second thing I want you to do is I want you to start bringing something to church now if you like to have this big leather bound book that you know you need to wheel in on a trolley or something you know that's your preference you can keep that at home if you want if you want to take notes on tech I don't care okay the only thing is I'm trust I'd have to trust you because some of you play flappy bird during service and that's not the will of God okay God is not pleased when you play flappy bird in church somebody say Amen if you're if you're in you then you still play you know Nintendo DS and and your phone in church here or out there you're too old for that okay put it away and somebody say Amen please Amen you're

38:52 too old but whatever whatever format you want to use bring a notepad to church something you can write stuff down in church how many remember what I preached last week anybody gotcha I had to think for a moment what did I freeze last week free about two questions 2 questions what meaneth this and what shall we do remember now you remember don't know why you remembered because I reminded you reminders are helpful right when you write stuff down things that jump out to you when the preacher is preaching or when your youth pastors teaching her or Alex in high school is teaching that class or Russ is teaching in bridge boys or Kelly I believe in bridge girls rice up down you

39:40 know journaling and prayer and writing stuff down in service it might seem a little bit girly and a little bit nerdy but really it's gonna it will really really really really really help you and the final thing I want you to do is every once in a while take that book take that notepad and read back through the things that you wrote can't expect to remember everything meaningful that pops into your brain as I said thoughts leave as soon as they come and so it's important you write stuff down came across this quote today and I really liked it I have no idea how to say her name it's like a niacin een or something probably Asian but anyway she wrote this we write we say we write we're talking

40:28 about we write to taste life twice in the moment and also in retrospect when you live life you get to without you know writing stuff down or documenting your experiences you you live at once when you write stuff down you live those moments a second time when you go back and pour over them and there are some moments that you have with God we've all had them in an altar perhaps something that has said from a pope with the challenge and convicted us and we're like god I'll never go there again I'll never do that again god I'm going to be the most passionate young person that I could ever be for the kingdom of God we leave and then we go get ice cream we forget I mean was kind of there for a little while but but by the next day

41:14 we've forgotten a lot of it and that's where riding it down comes in very handy we can relive those moments with God going to conclude with James 119 ok James 1 19 through 25 and I'm done I'm done after this wherefore my beloved brethren let every man be swift to hear slow to speak and slow to wrath for the wrath of man it anger and stuff like that it doesn't work the righteousness of God wherefore leia part all the filthy innocence of blue fur sur superfluity of naughtiness it's a hard word and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls verse 22 be doers of the word

42:03 we say doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves for if you're only a hearer of the word and you're not a doer you don't put it into action you're like a man that'd be holds his face in a glass or in a mirror and but whoso excuse me for he beholdeth himself and he goes his way and straightway immediately forgets what manner of man he was and so he looks at himself he sees all the imperfections he's like wow I'm a mess I need to comb my hair I got stuck in my teeth but oh well and he walks away and in a few minutes he's forgotten okay and everybody else that day they're like dudes got something in his teeth and this is really you know bugging me out

42:49 his hair is a mess what is wrong with this guy everyone else can see but we've forgotten that's what it's like when we come to a service and we look into this law of Liberty and we say man I could really improve in this area and and I'm kind of a mess over here and I need to really work on that and then we leave church we're like okay and then we forget we do nothing about it and we leave the junk in our teeth as it were we leave our hair a mess we leave our lives at a low level and so James he said in verse 25 but whosoever looketh into this perfect law of Liberty and continues therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed

43:35 and so I conclude tonight by saying one of the keys to moving from being just a hearer of the word to being a doer of the word is to not be forgetful it's to be a person that doesn't forget to remember we remember one of the best ways to do that i believe is when we're in the presence of god in moments when we're challenged we ride it out we documented we put it on paper and we immortalize those moments with God and those thoughts and so tonight we're going to pray and you know some of you because of whatever you don't like writing or you think it sounds a whole lot like school you've already dismissed

44:20 me and I hope that that I hope you change your mind about that because this really will help you really really will help you I've been doing this sort of thing for a while off and on but I've been trying to use my phone it just wasn't working for me so if I went and I bought the cream the creme de la creme of notebooks how about some some mole skins yeah fancy right but some old skins I really like this one I mean this is like we're getting like right down to the nitty-gritty of practical i mean i was writing out some stuff about this last night already filled three or four pages right now some stuff for the fall that we're going to be doing saved

45:06 myself about 20 pages at the end put prayer focuses in there i'm not saying this to you know oh look at me i'm so spiritual but but i found that even in the past 24 hours i mean putting it on paper even as opposed to putting it in technology it's really helped and so i wish i could give everyone some old skins I can because do they're like 10 bucks a piece but not cheap okay I can't afford to buy each and every one of you one but you not to buy almost can go to go to dollar Rama by a campfire notebook if nothing else some of your like man I know me some good campfire notebook so things are legit yeah I love me a campfire notebook get a hill r I don't care they're like a dollar you can obey your youth pastor

45:52 for a dollar ninety-nine or two easy payments of 99 cents you have those cups ready to draw want to give these away and I prayed over these a little bit today I'm gonna give one away to a girl one away to a guy because we believe in equality here maybe want to draw this Joktan do i draw this ball what is this this is for a girl okay Eve you've won a moleskine will you use it okay I'm gonna give it to you you're gonna obey your youth pastor right she's hesitant

46:38 do you want do you want it come on up and gun put her on the spot she's nervous she's like what if I disobey Him you won't trust you there's a mole skin for you it's a good is a good notebook all right dudes I need a girl to draw for the dudes he's really have expensive notebooks you guys should be more excited than this yeah oh this is the girls again what I thought you out of this one okay guys who I need a girl to draw for the guys Carlos I'm just going up anyway Carlos I don't care go ahead draw it Carlo no I'm just kidding aunt yeah Dan wanna get your dick in my hand

47:25 I didn't give you mine did I eat in the front and say please return to Matthew Woodward okay good that would have been awkward you go buddy you're welcome let's give it up for even aunt let's all stand together I'm done again some of you might just so easily dismiss this and you're saying I'm Way too I'm above this I'm so smart I remember everything you don't okay you just don't and so to some degree in one way or another make this a priority start writing some stuff down write down some five-year goals

48:11 write down some things God speaks to you God if God has given you a word or calling maybe I calling to be a missionary and give her things like this I mean some of those things there's easy to remember but write them down pray over them it's powerful what are we just kind of join with the person next to us let's pray and let's just ask God to go with us as we leave this place it's been a very different message from even very kind of down to earth but I think that's okay every once in a while let's pray that says God to go with us as we dismiss the service Lord Jesus God we thank you tonight for for your word that that you took the time through holy men of old as you moved upon them by your spirit god you took the time to cause them to write out this book and the

48:56 things that they felt Lord Jesus it it may have seemed insignificant at the time to them perhaps or but God they obeyed and they and he wrote out what they felt they wrote out what they heard your spirit saying and because of that we have a Bible tonight or Jesus got them thankful we've had the opportunity tonight to look into this word to be challenged and i hope to be changed I pray God that the simplicity of the message would not keep people from heating the Word of God tonight and to put into practice some of these very basic simple things or Jesus I pray that we would all deeper in prayer God if somebody struggles in this area and it's just

49:42 surface praying and praying that they would see the the merit and the value and what we've talked about tonight speak to them and through this allow them to be people that never forget to remember Jesus we love you we thank you we give you the praise tonight in Jesus name Amen high five your neighbor now and say it's been great to be in God's house now next week it's going to be a little different next week we're talking about forgiveness please remember to forget and so we're talking the other side of this subject okay bring a friend it's going to be great we love you or thankful that you're here find somebody that you don't know okay tell them your name and introduce yourself maybe hang

50:29 out with them tonight if you're going to DQ or something bring them along have a great time we'll see this weekend god bless you Oh sfc pledges if you if you made a pledge and you haven't made the payment get that in if you want to give to sfc that's due this sunday even if you didn't make a pledge god bless you and we'll see you this weekend