In Remembrance
My sermon a few weeks back for the last Sunday of 2025 was intended to be a forward-looking message to inspire us for the New Year ahead. It was based on the second shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus' words in Luke 17:32: "Remember Lot's wife." What we were to remember about her was that though she had been told not to, she looked back at her former home in Sodom and Gomorrah as it was being destroyed, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. (You can read that whole story in Genesis 19).
No doubt, that was a pretty direct reminder from Jesus not to live our lives in the past. And to be sure we made our application of that truth on that Sunday we looked at the words of the apostle Paul in Philippians 3:13-14: "...But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." And the message was clear, we should let go of the past and look forward to what God wants to do in our lives for the future.
I say all that because, well....we're not going to practice what I preached that Sunday, this Sunday, at least not entirely. We're going to look back, and just hope we don't get turned into salt.
This week marks a pretty significant milestone in the life of The Church at Shelby Crossings. It was Sunday morning, January 7, 2001 when our church held its first public worship gathering at Valley Intermediate School in Pelham. That means we are celebrating our 25th birthday this week, and we are going to do that this Sunday afternoon at 3 pm with a special time of worship and thanksgiving. Our focus will be to remember God's faithfulness in our past as we look forward to our future.
And just as a disclaimer, so you don't think I am contradicting my message from a few weeks back, I did say then that there are many times in the Bible that God instructs His people to remember, and even to commemorate the events of the past with intentional acts of remembrance. He just doesn't want us to live in the past, whether it is negative or positive. But it was common for God's people in Scripture to recount stories of His work on their behalf to remind them of His faithfulness and grow their faith. And many of the rituals we read about--like the Passover of the Old Testament or the Lord's Supper of the New--are intended for that purpose, to be done "in remembrance."
So this Sunday, we won't build any monuments, but we will take time to remember, and praise God for 25 years of His goodness and mercy in the life of our church. Even as we do so, we can admit that there have been some hard times in our church's past, but the Lord has been gracious to us through it all. He has pruned up, healed us, changed us, grown us and used us in our community and around the world, and for that I am grateful.
But I will say--back to the forward-looking faith--that I have no doubt that our best days are still ahead of us. So let me close with more words from Paul's letter to the church at Philippi, which speak to us today at the church at Shelby Crossings: "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil. 1:6, NAS)
What a privilege it is to pastor such a great church, and I can't wait to see what God has in store for us as we continue to serve Him together. I look forward to seeing you Sunday, morning and afternoon!
--Pastor Ken
