Episode 206: November 10, 2024 - Jude and Doxology - Part 2

Eternity Church PodCast

A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. For the past several days I’ve had a special song on almost constant repeat. Making coffee to start the day. Driving to visit dear folks for lunch. Walking into the library with a hum in my heart. The Sensational Nightingales—seriously, is there a better band name!—gave a beautiful four-part harmony to Dottie Rambo’s "Remind Me, Dear Lord." With a slow measured pace, the song leads us down a country road between rolling hills covered with leaves. Beside our drum-like footfall comes a voice, “The things that I love / and hold dear to my heart / are just borrowed they're not mine / not mine at all / Jesus only lets me use them to brighten my life.” In a world corrupted by sin and clamoring for power, the sweet things we cling to can get lost in the scuffle, obscured from memory by growing layers of grief. This song encourages us to remember though Fall may cast our leaves to the ground, the promise of winterbloom waits on the unseen horizon. Beloved, all hope is not lost, even if a cold winter lies ahead. Born in the middle of the Great Depression, Dottie Rambo grew up longing for a wider view. A culture of greed which crashed the world’s economy revealed the hollowness of wealth and the tunnel vision of avarice. At the height of the revolutionary 60s, when a new generation was fighting to carve the path America is currently on, Rambo wrote the words to this song. Like Jude, she doesn’t call us to rely on dreams or wrestle for authority. Her song doesn’t incite us to rebellion or self-preservation at the expense of others. No, her words are a prayer for God to “Roll back the curtain of memory now and then / Show me where you brought me from / and where I could have been / Just remember I'm a human and humans forget / So Remind me, remind dear Lord.” Reading Jude 8-16 leads to a fork in the road, if we are to take Jude's words to heart. A divide between revelation and rejection. May the soundtrack for our reading be this prayer, asking Jesus to roll back the curtain of our biblical and personal memory to bring comfort and conviction, healing and hope, purpose and peace.