Intro
Alzheimer’s is a memory-destroying disease. Yet, this disease isn’t merely content to take away a victim’s memory; it tries to take down an entire family with it. When one person in the family has lost his memory, the others have to pick up the slack. The family has to do what the victim has forgotten how to do. They even have to remember memories long-forgotten for the one inflicted with Alzheimer’s. So deadly is the disease, this loss of memory.
The Christian Church is a living reality, also with a memory. The book of Hebrews speaks of this collective memory, telling the Church not to succumb to a spiritual Alzheimer’s.
Yet, in many ways, it’s already too late. Spiritual Alzheimer’s has afflicted the Church for centuries. We’ve forgotten much of what we’re supposed to remember. And this remembering isn’t something optional. When the Church loses her spiritual memory, she has not only suffered something terrible, she has lost a large part of herself.
Main Body
Our sacred text for today tells us: “Remember your leaders, those who have spoken God’s Word to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace” (Hebrews 13:7-9).
Yes, even today, we are to remember our leaders, those who have spoken God’s Word to us. But today, I ask you to consider the Book of Hebrews and when it was written: In the 1st century. Even back then the Church was to remember--yes, their current pastors--but most especially the Apostles and those whom the Apostles taught, those in the past, “those who [had] spoken God’s Word” to them.
Even in the 1st century, as spiritual grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Apostles began to fill the Church, the Book of Hebrews told the Church to remember the Apostles and their first pastors. When the Book of Hebrews tells us to “remember your leaders,” it isn’t focusing only on me, your current pastor. No, Hebrews is hailing us back to the Church’s first pastors: The Apostles and their students.
In an important way, the ministry of those first pastors continues. As we remember what they taught, they are still teaching us today. When we forget what they taught, that’s when we get “carried away by all kinds of strange teachings,” teachings that do not strengthen us “by grace.”
Our memory, even going back to the Apostles and their students, is to be as a focused spotlight on their teaching of God’s Word. The Apostle Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians that Christ “Himself gave--on the one hand, apostles; on the other, the prophets, the evangelists, and pastor-teachers.” Why did Christ do this, this giving? So He could outfit His saints with spiritual armor and move them into works of service. But most of all, it was to bring and keep them in the Church, the body of Christ.
And what is the result of all that Christ does for us. He brings us into the fullness of the faith. He brings us into the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, into Christ’s full measure of spiritual maturity (Ephesians 4:11-13).
Now why do you think we are to remember all the way back to the Apostles? Ephesians 2:20 tells us the Church is built on the “foundation of the apostles.” That’s why, to this day, pastors are called to preach and teach apostolic doctrine. When today’s pastors do that, that’s when they proclaim Christ for our salvation. That’s why the Book of Hebrews tells us to remember. For when we forget, we end up forgetting Christ and how He comes to save us.
At critical times in Church history, when dangerous, false teaching was eroding the faith, the Lord raised up faithful pastors. They stood up to resist and refute heresy, teaching and encouraging the faithful.
In the 3rd and 4th centuries, even before the Church recognized what books made up the New Testament, the Church focused her energies on true and faithful doctrine. For many were teaching lies about Jesus. And the Church realized that if these lies about Jesus were not refuted, nothing else mattered.
It was only after the Church formalized the Creeds to refute false teachings about Jesus, that the Church even bothered to compile the list of books that make up the New Testament. Why? Simply knowing what books make up the New Testament is of little help if we don’t find the real Jesus within its pages. That’s why the Bible exists--to bring us Jesus for our salvation. And that’s why we still confess those Creeds to this day.
Remembering as the book of Hebrews tells us to do, we recite the Creeds. We do so, not only to remember, but to make sure that our faith is in the real Jesus. We don’t want to confess some newfangled Jesus that someone came up with based on his interpretation of Scripture.
Another way that we can be faithful in remembering is by singing the faithful hymns of the past. To remember, also means that we have to pay attention to what those hymns teach us, as we sing them and hear them sung.
I suppose it’s fair to ask, “Why do we even sing hymns?” The average churchgoer will tell you we sing to “praise God.” He may also say that through certain hymns, he “feels” the Spirit. That may mean that he likes a hymn because it makes him feel happy when he sings it.
But what does God’s Word say, and what do we mean by “praise”? Take a moment and consider how you would praise your husband or wife, or one of your children? No doubt, you’d mention some positive-character trait or something useful he, or she, has done. Perhaps, it would sound something like this: “Sheri, you are thoughtful and wonderful wife. You made my favorite meal, even when I wasn’t expecting it; thank you.” That’s praise.
Praising someone doesn’t sound like, “I just want to praise you Sheri…” That’s not praising Sheri. That’s me being an idiot. And it’s no different when we are trying to praise God that way. That’s because we’re not even getting around to praising God. We are simply stating what we intend to do--but never actually getting around to doing it.
The Apostle Paul tells the Church in Colossae: “Let the Word of Christ live bountifully within you, with all wisdom, as you teach and warn one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16). What Paul is saying is that hymns are to do more than praise God. God wants our hymns to correct and teach us. That means hymns are supposed to do what God wants them to do, even if you or I don’t happen to like some of them.
Ask yourself, “Does the hymn properly praise God? Does it tell me who He is and what He does to save me? Does the hymn teach me something? Is real doctrine being taught? Does it direct me away from my own wants and wishes?” If you can answer yes, then you sang a good hymn--even if you didn’t like the melody. A wonderful melody is wonderful, but it’s a side benefit, the icing on the cake.
We always need to learn what God wants us to know and believe. If we are going to worship God as He wants to be worshiped, we need substance-filled hymns, hymns overflowing with divine doctrine. The best hymn writers of the past set God’s Word to music for their generation--and ours! When we sing solid, doctrine-filled hymns from the Church’s past, we remember our leaders, those who have spoken God’s Word to us.
A congregation that tosses out the sturdy, doctrine-filled hymns of old and sings only what they want is a congregation that has lost its memory. Such a congregation is suffering from spiritual Alzheimer’s, wanting to sing only from a narrow repertoire of enjoyable hymns. Such a congregation has forgotten why God wants us to sing in the first place.
“Remember your leaders, those who have spoken God’s Word to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace.” That’s what’s at the core of this divinely commanded “remembering.”
We remember because we don’t want “all kinds of strange teachings” to pull us off the straight-and-narrow path. A teaching isn’t strange because we happen to think it’s strange. No, a teaching is strange if it doesn’t point us to the real Jesus for our salvation. That’s why we are to remember. “For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace.”
Conclusion
It’s all about Jesus and what He did, does, and will do to save us. We remember for a reason. If we lose apostolic doctrine, we lose Jesus Christ. We lose the perfect life He lived for us. We lose His death on the cross for us. We lose His resurrection from the dead for us. And when we lose all that, we lose the Christ within us, and we lose all the good works that we are given to do that please God.
That’s why we are to remember. It’s not optional. “For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace.” Amen.
