Pastor Sherry’s message for August 2, 2026

Scriptures: Gen 32:22-32; Ps 17:1-7, 15; Ro 9:1-5; Matt 14:13-21

Recently, including this morning at the Church door, I’ve heard a number of folks—and not just those of a certain age—bemoan the fact that they forget a lot. People worry they are showing signs of dementia because they forget the time or date; their phone; their keys; the day a certain bill or a library book is due; people’s names; or the vocabulary of a foreign language, etc. At one point, when I was in college, I began to think in French and I even dreamed a few times in French. Now I can hardly remember any of it due to rarely having ever used it since. 

Back in 1885, A German psychologist named Herman Ebbinghouse (1850-1909) studied the phenomenon of forgetting. He experimented on himself, testing his ability to remember a series of words and also a series of nonsense syllables. He quickly decided we remember meaningful things like words much better than random syllables that convey nothing but sound. In 1885, he came up with what became known as “The Forgetting Curve,” which has been authenticated numerous times since. He determined that when we are trying to learn/remember a body of content or a number of facts, we tend to forget about 58% of it within the first hour! Within a day, we have lost about 68%; and after 5 days (a work week) we have lost 75% (3/4ths)! He discovered that if we review the material at repeated intervals–spaced out over time–we can hold things in memory longer than the Forgetting Curve predicts. We still forget some, but the rate of forgetting decreases. In other words, material stays with us longer if we practice remembering it over several time periods.

Interestingly, our God never forgets anything—unless it is our confessed sins. Corrie Ten Boom would say He drops our forgiven sins in the deepest part of the ocean and plants there a “No Fishing” sign. He does not intend to revisit them, and neither should we. We tend to easily remember very significant events (joyful or traumatic ones) without much rehearsal, practice, or repetition, as though they have been burned onto the retina of our mind. But for most other things—grocery lists, where I put my keys, the day my neighbors go on vacation and want me to water their plants, the Bill of Rights, a code of ethics–we need to either write it down or say it over and over in our heads, several different times.

I bring this forgetting phenomena up because I want us all to remember that our God does not forget us. This is an important and a comforting concept for us all to keep at the forefront of our minds.

A. Consider this morning’s Gospel, Matt 14:13-21. Jesus hoped to get away to mourn the death of His cousin, John the Baptist. He set out to sea, but the crowds followed Him around the Lake and caught up to Him. Scripture says He had compassion on them and healed them. Since the place was far from a town, He also multiplied food, in a miraculous way, to feed them (5,000 men plus women and children). He didn’t forget or overlook their needs. His compassion for them led to His healing, teaching, and feeding them, physically, cognitively, and spiritually. This reminds me of a praise song (based on Psalm 78:23-29) from the early 2000’s: “My God shall supply all my needs, according to His riches in glory. He will give His angels charge over me, Jehovah Jireh [The Lord will provide] cares for me.”

B. Speaking of psalms, our Psalm this morning (17:1-7) appears to be a prayer from David during those days when jealous King Saul and his army chased David in the wilderness. David knew he was being pursued to his death, yet he trusted God both to hear him and to answer him. He was asking for protection; he was counting on God’s mercy; he knew that God had anointed him to become king one day, and that his coronation hadn’t happened yet. He must have figured that that meant that God had not forgotten him or given up on him. Instead, believing God was not finished with him, David could trust that God would not allow Saul to kill him. When I was in seminary, my school sent me and two others to represent them at a Preaching Conference in Jackson, Mississippi. As we intended to fly back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, our place was forced to wait on the tarmac during a deluge of rain and lightening. Even once we were airborne, the plane bounced around during the less intense but still terrifying storm. We would suddenly drop who knows how many feet and many passengers would scream. My seatmate, a woman who frequently flew for work, grabbed onto the bag supplied for vomiting. She was worried and said she had never experienced a flight so rough. I had been praying all that time, but looked at her and told her we would get through the storm and land safely because I was midway through seminary and God wasn’t finished with me yet. I wasn’t bragging because I had the same blessed assurance that David did.

C. We meet the Apostle Paul again in Romans 9:1-5 today. After having asserted in Chapter 8 that nothing can separate us from God’s love, he begins Chapter 9 by bemoaning the fact that his Jewish brothers and sisters have rejected Christ. Now, let’s be clear that in the early years of the 1st century Christ’s newly founded Church was mainly composed of Jewish believers. Most of the Apostles, but particularly Paul, then turned their attention on bringing Gentiles into the fold. Paul was zealous about his mission, as we all know, but also brokenhearted that so many sons and daughters of Israel rejected Jesus. As we will see as he continues beyond today’s passage, he reassures himself that the Lord has not forgotten Paul’s countrymen. Perhaps he exaggerates for effect when he says he would gladly trade his relationship with Jesus to have all Jewish people come to Christ. That’s a very pastoral and a loving thing for him to say, but he knows that would never be necessary, that God will never forget them because… 

1.) Verse 4–>They are God’s Chosen People (we gentiles are grafted into their line as children of God).

2.) They have seen God’s glory (fire, cloud) while on the wilderness wanderings, received His Law from Mount Sinai, were recipients of His Covenant Promises, and built a huge and glorious Temple in which to worship Him.

3.) And he goes on to assert in verse 5 (NLT)-→ Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are their ancestors and Christ Himself was an Israelite as far as His human nature is concerned. Paul will spend subsequent chapters in Romans assuring us that God has not forgotten the Jewish people and will bring many of them to Christ before all is said and done.

D. Let’s think through how the Lord works on Jacob in today’s Old Testament lesson, Genesis 32:22-31. Our passage today sees Jacob and his huge family (two wives, two concubines, eleven sons, one daughter, and a huge number of servants and livestock, slowly making their way back home. He has essentially been indentured to wily Uncle Laban for 20 years, but leaves him as a wealthy man. We remember he had to work 14 years to be allowed to marry his true love, Rachel. But meanwhile, Leah, the less favored wife, bears him six sons and a daughter; then two more sons by her servant surrogate. Leah is the mother of 8 sons who will become the leaders of eight of the 12 tribes of Israel. Rachel, on the other hand, is beloved by Jacob but barren. Mightily frustrated, she has two sons by a surrogate; then finally—when the Lord takes pity on her– she gives birth to Joseph, his father’s favorite. (Once back in the Promised Land, She will die giving birth to Benjamin, her fourth son.) The ladies then retire from childbearing, with Leah credited with 8 sons and a daughter, and Rachel with 4 sons by the time of her death.

Jacob has been out of the Promised Land for 20 years. The trickster or fraudster has been conned by a greater trickster, a master fraudster. We have to credit Jacob, however, for having been a hard worker, and for persisting through his time of testing (We could say that Jacob has developed “grit.”) The Lord has called him to return, but he’s not yet home free: Just prior to this passage, he had to contend with a jealous and angry Laban who pursued him. They work things out by agreeing not to venture into each other’s territory again. But next he knows he also has to deal with his vengeful brother, Esau. He’s no doubt exhausted, harried, and burnt out.

Having deepened his faith during the twenty years, he prays a powerful prayer to the Lord: (1) He acknowledges how God has blessed him; (2) He reminds God that it is the Lord who has called him to return home; (3) And he asks God to save him from his brother’s wrath. He then sends his wives and children to safety, across the Jabbok River, intending to bed down for the night. Suddenly, though, he is grabbed by the Lord Himself (the preincarnate Jesus), Who wrestles with him. The prophet Hosea later wrote about this event: (Hosea 12:3-4)-→Even in the womb, Jacob struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even fought with God. Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won. He pleaded for a blessing from Him. There at Bethel he met God face to face and God spoke to him! Weary and worried Jacob wrestled with Jesus all night! At the conclusion of this encounter, the Lord changes his name to Israel-→He who contends with God and men and overcomes. Jacob has learned to persevere. And he has also learned he cannot bend God to his will; rather he must yield his will to the Lord

Jesus leaves him with a reminder of this: a dislocated hip. Jesus is letting Jacob know that He will not let Esau overcome or kill him. He does not need to fear because the Lord has not forgotten him. Uncle Laban has worked most of the deceptiveness out of him; but Jesus will protect him.

Lord, please give us all the faith and trust in You that Jesus, David, and Paul had, and that Jacob developed over time. It can be argued that since Jesus knows the Father intimately, He doesn’t really require faith—He just knows! But He always models obedience for us. And He Himself is never forgotten by God. Even when He became sin for us on the Cross, God turned His back on Him, but was no doubt very grieved for and aware of Him.

David and Paul both demonstrate the fact that the Lord is with them, hears them, and responds to them. Neither of them believes—even while running for his life or when being beaten or imprisoned—that the Lord ever forgets them! Neither one is perfect, either, but they both do an exceptional job of modeling for us unfailing faith and trust in our Lord.

Jacob has come a long way, but he is still—like us—a work in progress. God did not abandon him in Haran. God told him to leave Uncle Laban and return to his father Isaac’s land in the area of Mamre and Hebron. The Lord goes on to engineer Esau’s forgiveness. However, Jacob does still try to manipulate his brother by buying his forgiveness with very generous gifts.

  Let me leave you with one final point: I have probably preached today’s lesson about Jacob 4 or 5 times over the years of my tenure here at Wellborn Methodist Church. Ebbinhause would predict we should all know the story (and the morals of the story) well by now—repeated reviews over several different time periods. That’s one of the points of preaching through the Bible. The Lord wants us to learn what He has to say in it, and to remember, not forget it. It is as though He is saying to us, This is My Word for you: Don’t you forget it!” Amen!

©️2026 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams