Memorial Fellowship

Josh. 4:7, 19-24

Memorial is a reminder of some event, place, or person that we have experienced.

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. is a reminder of Abraham Lincoln and his greatest accomplishment in my eyes is the Emancipation proclamation, the abolishment of slavery.

Why did God allow Israel his chosen people to be in slavery for 430 years?

Why did God allow Africans to be in slavery from 1619 to 1863 in America some 245 years ago?

The Bible answer is to leave some memorials; to remind Israel and black people of everything God has brought us through.

God tells Joshua to take twelve men from the twelve tribes of Israel, to take a stone out of the Jordan River to remind them where the LORD has brought them from.

The stones were to be sign, that when their children ask what does these stones mean? They are a reminder that God brought us over this Jordan on dry ground.

Well, that’s Israel's journey from Egypt to the Promise Land.

Well, 2024 has been a difficult journey for some of us as it were for Israel.

As we have come to the last Sunday in 2024, let us expand the scope of the memorial to reflect on 2024, that serves as a memorial to remind us where we were and how we got here.  

A day, event, sickness, death, family crises and so on and on, can serve as a memorial.

Out of all the bad things that may have happened in 2024, if you are a child of God, you were not alone and not alone now. That is where our topic “Memorial Fellowship” comes from.

When you think about your challenging struggles in 2024, think about how God brought you through it.

Principles to note about our Memorial Fellowship with God

 
  1. We will always come up and out of whatever we are in- vs. 19-20.
  2. Our struggles are to build our testimonies- vs. 21-23.
  3. Our struggles are for God’s glory- vs. 24.

David’s fellowship with God led him to utter in Psalm 27:13,I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of living.”

Asaph uttered in Psa. 73:2, “But as for me my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped." Vs. 17, “Until I went into the sanctuary of God then understood I their end.”

 
  1. We will always come up and out of whatever we are in- vs. 19-20

“And the people came up out of Jordan on the 10th day of the first month and encamped in Gilgal in the east border of Jordan.”

  1. The people came up, suggests they were down in Jordan.
  • Jordan River blocked Israel from going into the promise land, flowing with milk and honey.
  • Jordan also was dangerous crossing this time of the year.
  1. Fellowship with God always will bring us up and out of whatever binds and hinder our progress.
  2. The 10th day of the first month suggests God has a time table for our stay in our troubles.
  • Sometime our trouble seems to last so long but there is an expiration date
  1. Obedience and worship are in order when God brings us up and out.
  • Gilgal means God rolled away the reproach of Egypt.
 
  1. Our struggles are to build our testimonies- vs. 21-23.

“Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the LORD your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us until we were gone over.”

  1. A watershed moment is a moment that changes your life forever.
  • When God does something great in your life that’s a memorial fellowship
  • When you can see the hand of God moving and directing your life.
  1. God brought Israel through Jordan’s raging waters and their clothes didn’t ever get wet or shoes muddy.
  • Twelve stones were to remind them of what the LORD had done.
  1. God brought someone here through sickness, pain, and suffering in 2024, that’s your memorial to remind you of God’s grace and His mercy.
  • Somebody lost their job in 2024 but didn’t miss a meal, that’s your memorial. 
  • Somebody’s loved one died in 2024 but you are still here, that’s your memorial.
  1. God allowed all that to happen to you, not to hurt you but to build your testimony, to tell your children and children’s children that God is a way maker.
I know it seems like all of our hardship and heartache were all about us but it was really about God.
 
  1. Our struggles are for God’s glory- vs. 24.

“That all the people of the earth may know the hand of the LORD is mighty: that you may fear the LORD your God forever.”

  1. God brings us into His work of evangelism.
  • God uses our struggles to show Himself to the world.
  • Paul said when I am weak then am I strong.
  1. In your sickness and your hardship in 2024, God showed the world that God is powerful and mighty.
  • You had a bad doctor’s report, they did not think you would make it out but look at God.
  • You got laid off but God gave you a better job.
  • Your child went astray but God brought him back home
  1. God let it all that happen just for us to worship HIM more and better

“That you may fear the LORD your God!”

Fear the LORD is to worship Him!
The LORD your God is our relationship, our fellowship with Jesus!

What better way to spend the last Sunday in 2024 than to worship the God that brought you from where you were to where you are right now!
 
All the bad things that happened to us in 2024 is our memorial of fellowship with God.