I Chronicles 6:3 And the children of Amram; Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam. The sons also of Aaron; Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar
Have you ever read the book of I Chronicles in the Bible? If you have, you have to have a little patience because the first several chapters are basically a genealogy. It is a long one. There are a lot of old names. It is amazing how short our attention span and memories of people are. This morning I was with our staff at Bill Rice Ranch and I named three people who have served here in the last fifty or sixty years and asked how many people knew each name. Almost nobody knew the names even though we live in the houses once occupied by these people.
We have a hard time remembering names. When you get to I Chronicles, you are not talking about people fifty years removed, but people thousands of years removed. We did a quiz this morning by lifting out some names from I Chronicles 6 to see what we remember of these people.
For example, I Chronicles 6:3 talks about the sons of Levi, “And the children of Amran; Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam. The sons also of Aaron; Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.” And it keeps on going. Now, many people know Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. If I were to say, “Who are Nadab and Abihu?” Those are not quite as familiar. They were men who offered strange fire before the Lord and God judged them very severely. In verse 8 you find the name Zadok. He was high priest under David. Did you remember that? I am amazed how frail and poor my knowledge of Bible names is.
In Verse 15 you find a man named Jehozadak. Do you remember him? Maybe you remember him by his more common name of Jozadak. Well, probably not. You find a lot of names here that people do not remember. How about Hilkiah in verse 13? He was the man who discovered the book of the law that resulted in King Josiah’s reformation. In verse 22 Korah committed rebellion against God by complaining against Moses and Aaron.
Why do these people stand out? I have lifted out the more familiar of the names, and even these names are not very familiar to a lot of people. So, if they stand out at all, why do they stand out? By extension, will you stand out? Will anyone remember you in a hundred years, let alone thousands of years? The real question is, “Will God remember you?”
The reason we are reading these names today is although the world has forgotten, God never did. God knows you. God remembers you. Your story will be the story of your relationship to God. That is interesting because people won’t remember us. They don’t even remember fifty years ago, yet what do we spend most of our time worrying and thinking about? Basically, it is how we can have ascendency over other people, how we can be admired by other people, and how we can get rich off of other people? But people won’t remember us. No matter how great we become, nobody will remember in fifty years.
Do you remember the high points like Moses? Yes. Historically, do you remember Alexander the Great or one of the Pharaohs? Perhaps, but they are all dead and what they built is largely in a museum. So, why does God remember and why does that matter? The bottom line is your life’s story will be the story of your relationship to God.
What does that mean? First, that relationship is your standard for success. It is having a larger view than just how people think of you and what the culture around you says today. The standard for success is not how much people love you or remember you. It is your relationship to God. That is what matters in a thousand years or ten years. Your relationship with God is your standard for success.
Your relationship with God should be the governing principle for your decision making. So many times we make decisions based on a whim, feeling, or thought in the moment, but can you make good long-term decisions based on such transitory, trivial, changing things? The answer is no. Your relationship with God should be the governing principle of your decision making. Most people just live in the here and now and when that is gone, they are gone and nobody remembers.
Those who make a difference in this universe are people who make decisions that supersede them, go past them and their lifetime. Your story is the story of your relationship to God and that relationship should be the memorial of your life. I am reminded of Absalom who build a pillar so his name would be remembered, and then died in shame and they raised over him a pile of stones. Absalom raised a pillar and those after him raised a pile over him. The only way we remember him is because he is in the Bible. He is there because of David and the seed of David, the Messiah God would send.
Friend, the memory of your life is important based on your relationship with God. You are important and valuable because God has made you. Your relationship to God is ultimately the memorial of your life. That is what will be remembered in eternity. That is what will matter. I can name thousands of names from the last hundred years of history, prominent people who most Americans would not know. I can pull out forty names in I Chronicles 6 which not one of us remember, but God does.
Today, when you are making decisions and thinking about the value of your life, don’t be fooled into thinking you make yourself valuable by making money or a name or anything else. You are valuable because God made you and you live a life of significance because of a good relationship with God. Your story will the story of your relationship to God.