Last week, we had our Sunday school kids sing for us in church. We hope to do that once a month or so. It’s always wonderful to hear the kids sing. A lot of times, it’s even more fun to watch them while they’re singing.
Like most churches, we put an emphasis on youth programs. We have Sunday school every week, of course. We have youth groups. We have Vacation Bible School. We have a children’s message every week. We do a lot of things to try to encourage our young people in their faith.
I think we all kind of know, instinctively, why we do that, but it’s not something we actually talk about much. It’s not just because it’ll help these kids during their lives, although that’s part of it. It’s also because the future of our faith depends on it. It’s been said that, at any point in time since Jesus came, we are always just one generation away from having the Christian faith die out. If we do not bring up our children in the Christian faith, it does not just affect their lives. It will affect the lives of their children, and their children’s children, and all the way down the line.
We’re nearing the end of our sermon series called “What is the church?” One very important thing we need to talk about, as we look at what the church is, is that the church teaches.
That’s clear all over the place in the Bible. Choosing scriptures was hard this week because there are so many good ones about teaching that we could have chosen. You do a word search for “teach” in the Bible and you get three hundred sixty-one responses. Teaching is something that’s clearly an important role of the church.
That’s something that was true even in the early part of the Old Testament. Our lesson from Deuteronomy makes clear how important it is that faith be handed down from one generation to another. God, speaking through Moses, tells the people of Israel that there is never supposed to be time when they are not teaching their children to love God. Listen again to these words:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Think about how it would be to live in a society that did that. There’d never be a time when we would not be reminded to love God. We’d be talking about the love of God to our kids no matter whether we were at home or on the road. We’d be talking about the love of God to them from the time we got up until the time we went to bed. We’d have those words about the love of God on our hands, so that every time we went to do something, we’d be reminded about it. We’d have those words on our foreheads, so that every time somebody looked at us they’d be reminded about the love of God. Those words about the love of God would be on our doorposts and on our gates, so that every time we walked into our home, we’d be reminded about the love of God.
In our society, as we go about our lives, how often do we think about the love of God? How often do we talk about the love of God with our children, or with our grandchildren? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that no one here ever does. I’ll bet, though, that none of us does it as often as Moses told the people of Israel to do it. I’ll bet none of us has the love of God as much a part of lives, and does not make it as much a part of our children and grandchildren’s lives, as we’re told we should in Deuteronomy.
Why not? Do we not really think it’s that important? Do we just get distracted? Are we afraid people will think we’re weird? Why do we not always have the love of God as part of our lives, and always make it a part of our children and grandchildren’s lives, the way God, through Moses, told us we should?
Here’s another question: How different would our lives be if we did? How much better, how much happier, would our lives be if we really did make the love of God as much a part of our lives as God, through Moses, told us we should? How much better, and how much happier, would our children and grandchildren’s lives be if we constantly told them about the love of God, so that love was always a part of their life, too?
Jesus told us how important this all is, too. We’ve talked before about a couple of the things Jesus said. Jesus said that the most important thing is to love God and to love the other people God created. Jesus said that we are to go out and make disciples. When we’ve talked about that, though, there’s something we’ve left out. You heard it during our scripture reading, but let’s hear it one more time. Jesus said:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
Teaching them to obey what he commanded us. Teaching them to love God. Teaching them to love each other. That’s our job as Christians. That’s what those of us who claim to follow Jesus are supposed to be doing. So, if we look around us, and we see a world in which people don’t love God, and we see a world in which people don’t love each other, what does that mean? It means were not doing our job very well. It means we’re not doing what Jesus told us to do.
Again, I ask the question, why not? Do we not really think it’s that important? Do we just get distracted? Are we afraid people will think we’re weird? Why are we not out there, teaching people to love God and to love each other, the way Jesus told us we should?
Again, here’s another question: How different would our world be if we did? If the world seems to big a goal for you, how about just our local community? How much better, how much happier, would Onida (Agar, Gettysburg) be if this church went out and taught people to love God and to love each other the way Jesus told us we should? How much better, and how much happier, would our community be if we went out and taught people to love God and love each other the way Jesus told us to?
In our reading from First Timothy, when Paul was advising his younger friend, Timothy, about what to do, what did he tell him? He told him to teach. Listen to what Paul said:
Train yourself in godliness…Training in godliness is valuable in every way…These are the things you must insist on and teach…Set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity…Give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching…Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Maybe, in what Paul said there, we find the answer to our questions about why we’re not doing these things. The first thing Paul said is that we should train ourselves in godliness. Is that the problem? Is the reason we’re not teaching others about loving God and loving others because we’ve not been properly taught ourselves?
If so, we need to do something about it. But what can we do? I mean, God is so big and seems so complicated. How can we understand enough about God to teach others? If only God's word was written down somewhere. If only God had given us, say, a big book where we could find all of God's advice on what to do and how to live.
Luckily, that's just what God did. One of the many incredible gifts God gave us is the Bible. That’s God’s word to us. We can read it. We can study it. We can do that in all kinds of ways. We can do it by ourselves; if you don’t have a Bible, they’re available lots of places, including free online. Lots of free Bible studies are available online, too. We can do it together. We already have some Bible studies going on here; we can have more. I’ll be happy to help organize them and even help lead them if you like. If we don’t feel like we know enough about God to teach the love of God to others, we can take care of that problem now.
Luckily, that's just what God did. One of the many incredible gifts God gave us is the Bible. That’s God’s word to us. We can read it. We can study it. We can do that in all kinds of ways. We can do it by ourselves; if you don’t have a Bible, they’re available lots of places, including free online. Lots of free Bible studies are available online, too. We can do it together. We already have some Bible studies going on here; we can have more. I’ll be happy to help organize them and even help lead them if you like. If we don’t feel like we know enough about God to teach the love of God to others, we can take care of that problem now.
In our responsive psalm today, we said:
Good and upright is the Lord; therefore the Lord instructs sinners in the way, and leads the humble in what is right, and teaches them their way.
God wants to teach us how to live with God’s love in our lives. Let’s learn how to do that. Then, let’s go out and teach others how to live with God’s love in their lives, the way Jesus told us to. Let’s especially teach our children how to live with God’s love in their lives. The people of God teach about the love of God. When enough people are taught about God’s love, we will be closer to seeing the kingdom of God come on earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment