Preacher: David Uth, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Orlando, Fla.
Text/title: Psalm 137:1-6 – “Remember”
Uth told the story of his father coming to Christ and telling his own father that he had quit his job and was going to be a preacher. His grandfather was an atheist and told his father that he was a fool.
Uth said he told the story because he never wants to forget where he has come from. He always wants to remember.
There is a danger for us who hang out around holy things. It is the danger that the holy becomes common.
1. Sooner or later we are all going to be in a foreign land (137:1-3)
Uth told the story of his college roommate driving and wife driving back to Arkansas to meet him one Christmas break. Uth was a seminary student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and his friend was a student at Southern Seminary. On the trip back to Arkansas, his friend’s wife was driving and she was getting sleepy. Uth’s friend told her to pull over and he would drive. She did, but when she did she didn’t pull far enough off the road. An 18-wheeler hit the car from behind and the car burst into flames. Uth’s friend was able to get out, but he could not get his wife out in time.
When Uth and his friend arrived in Arkansas, Uth’s friend looked at him and said, “Life really is fair. Sooner or later it breaks everyone’s heart.”
Sooner or later we will all suffer. We will all go to a foreign land. What will we do when that happens?
2. Will we get angry and quit singing (137:4)?
When life gets hard – when our marriage gets harder than we thought it would be, when the report comes back and we learn we have cancer – what are we going to do? We will be tempted to get angry at God. We will get angry and be tempted to stop praising God.
But we must keep singing. Down through church history, many martyrs for the faith died singing. They died with the praises of God on their lips.
How do you sing the songs of the Lord when your world changes?
This year has been tough for me. I lost my father this year. I also lost my father-in-law, who I had become very close to. As I was working through those losses, the Lord challenged me to remember. To remember the cross and to remember His love extended to me in Christ and the hope that He gives me in Christ.
I worship God because He is good, not because life is good.
3. Remember (137:5-6)
Remember what God has done for you. Remember the sacrifice of His Son. If God never sends me another blessing, I should remember what God has done for me and I should sing His song forever. I will sing His song forever not because life is good, but because God is good.