Word of Salvation – February 2011
THE CHALLENGE OF TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATION
By Rev. Peter Abetz
Text – Psalm 78:1-8
(Rev Abetz preached this sermon at the opening of Synod 2009)
Congregation I have to admit that thinking about what to preach on for a synod prayer service, there are lots of different things that come to mind. But I’ve decided to entitle the message tonight, the Challenge of Teaching the Next Generation.
The Challenge of Teaching the Next Generation:
Back when I was pastor in Dandenong in the 1980s, the minister’s fraternal was asked each year by the RSL to provide a minister to say the Lord’s Prayer at the ANZAC day service that was held in the main street. Not one of the ministers was prepared to do it and so I sort of tentatively put up my hand and I said: “Well, I’m happy to do it as long as the RSL is happy about that.”
They said: “Why is that?” I said: “Well, I’m happy to be there and to say the Lord’s Prayer because I think it’s important that we’re there. As long as the RSL is happy about it. You see my Dad fought on the wrong side of the war as a German.”
So anyway I rang the RSL and they were more than happy for me to do it. But the interesting thing was that in those days we were lucky to get 150 people turn out for an ANZAC day service in the main street in Dandenong on ANZAC day.
Just a little while ago was ANZAC day and I was over in Perth and in my electorate I was invited to the dawn service that the RSL organized and over a thousand people turned up for that dawn service, not to mention over forty thousand that turned up for the main one in Perth itself. And you might ask yourself: What has happened in the intervening time?
I think what’s happening in the intervening time is that Australians have come t realise that the values that they’ve lived with in terms of fairness, honesty, integrity – all those things that we thought were normal, and that everyone in the world would accept as normal – are perhaps not normal for everyone. I think with the advent of terrorism and the advent of Islamic migration particularly into our country, there’s sort of come a realization that the values which our culture is built on – which are basically Judeo Christian values – and which we think are normal – we have come to see are actually not so normal for millions of people around the world and so there has come, I think a realization that these values which our forefathers fought for militarily to maintain the freedom that we have in this country – that this is something that we DO want to celebrate – that we don’t want our children to forget about what has happened in the past.
What amazed me at the ANZAC day service that I went to there – it was a pretty chilly morning there at Gosnells in Perth – and there were so many young families, little kids in pushers with Mum and Dad. Why would Mum and Dad bother to get up on a day off to get their kids out before it’s even light to come out there on that cold morning to be part of an ANZAC day service. I guess we can sum it up in the words “Lest we Forget”.
And I think that was the issue that the psalmist was concerned about too, who put together Psalm 78. His big concern was: Lest we forget! Will the next generation actually be faithful in following the God that he knew that he was so thankful for, and for all that his God had done for him? Would the next generation even remember the things that their great God had done?
Unless we keep the stories alive of what God has done in our lives, the psalmist realizes the next generation won’t remember. For those of you who perhaps wonder why would a pastor who enjoys being a pastor – why would he be crazy enough to want to get into parliament? It’s because I saw very much the undermining of those values that are grounded in the Judaeo-Christian ethic which have formed the foundation for our society – that these values are increasingly being undermined. These are things that are actually important to maintain if we are going to maintain a context in which the gospel can actually go forth in our land.
Imagine how difficult it is – well you don’t have to imagine but I’m sure you can, you’ve read enough about it – how difficult it is for the gospel to go forth in Saudi Arabia. It’s illegal to own a Bible there. One of the people in our congregation at the Grace Church, who does fly in- fly out work in Saudi Arabia told me that it’s only because the Saudis need non-Muslim people there, they turn a blind eye to the fact that he’s got a Bible in his luggage. One time he thought he’d take an Arabic Bible with him and see what would happen. He was pulled aside and it was confiscated and he was warned that if he ever were to bring an Arabic Bible into the country again, he would never be allowed to enter the country again.
We so easily forget the freedoms that we have in this country. And as a church as we are seeking to plant more churches, let’s not forget that the cultural context that exists within our country is actually critical because the cultural context can either make it easier or more difficult to actually spread the gospel. Let’s never forget that.
And so as we focus on planting churches – a wonderful thing to be doing and I’m not saying in any way it’s not important, for by God’s grace I’ve had the privilege of being involved in the Gateway or Yangebup church plant, in the Grace Church plant and now most recently the Kalgoorlie Church plant. So I love church planting. I think it’s a wonderful thing to be doing but let’s not forget that as we seek to train up people to spread the gospel as church planters and leaders in our churches, let’s make sure that we also encourage some of our young people to enter some of the key professions that help to shape public opinion, and shape our society.
Let’s encourage some of our yong people to become journalists. I would suggest to you that some of the key journalists in our country have more influence on the way our society functions than most parliamentarians because if the journalists don’t report it, the politician can say what he likes and nobody will know about it. As John Howard once said “The media have more power than I do because I can say what I like. If it’s not reported, it has no impact anywhere.” So let’s remember that in seeking to make sure that the gospel is passed on to the next generation that we don’t underestimate the importance of actually challenging young people to pursue careers in journalism, as policy advisers in government, to become public servants, to become professionals in their own right in the field of education or history.
Let me give an example of just how important it is to have our young people pursue careers in education and history: Currently so much of history in our country is being re written by the Politically Correct Brigade.
I wonder for example what you learnt when you went to primary school. When I went to primary school – I realise that was last century so that makes me sound very old – you know, when I went to primary school in the 1960s we learned lots about the Australian explorers. But one thing that we didn’t learn was that virtually all of those explorers like Charles Sturt, John Eyre, Ludwig Leichhardt and the others, were actually men of prayer; they were men of faith. If you read their journals you soon realise that you are reading the journal of a believer – for they write of their dependance on God; of how rescued them from danger, and how they prayed in times of trouble and all of that. How many of us know that men like Alfred Deakin, who was one of the key authors of our federal constitution, and how he himself fasted and prayed for 7 days and got a whole lot of his friends to do likewise, to help get that wording right for our constitution.
I’ll guarantee you that even in a lot of Christian schools the teachers don’t even know those facts and yet that’s the reality. But why don’t they know these things? Because it has been written out of our history books. And those books are shaping our culture. Many people think Australia’s culture has always been very secular, but it actually hasn’t been that way. Historically there is a very powerful, very strong Judaeo-Christian foundation that our forefathers laid in this country and it is important for us as we consider the challenge of passing on the baton of the faith to the next generation that we don’t forget that it’s not only about planting churches; it’s not only about teaching our catechism classes, but it’s also the need to be a salting salt in our culture so that we will continue to be able to freely spread the gospel message.
As we look at our text, it’s interesting how the psalmist puts it together for us. His concern was that the next generation would actually know God. This weekend I had the privilege of being with my wife Jenny’s family. Jenny’s father passed away quite a number of years ago and Jenny’s Mum turned 80 late last year. So Jenny’s brother and sisters, plus their husbands and wives, all got together in Adelaide for a few days. We stayed in a holiday house and one of the things we did was spent time in worship this morning and one of the things we praised God for was God’s faithfulness and the faithfulness of Jenny’s Mum and Dad in having done their part – under God’s grace for sure – to instil faith in the hearts of their children that all 5 of their children are walking with God.
They passed the baton of faith on to the next generation. You know Jenny’s Mum’s 80, getting quite frail and enjoying good health, but what a blessing that was for her to be able to be with her family, and for her family to be able to affirm to her and for her to see as we prayed together, that there had been a real passing on of the faith from the one generation to the next.
At this Synod we’re going to be talking about training new leaders in the church for work within the church, training church leaders, pastors. What’s the best way of doing those things? They’re all real important things to be talking about. We will talk about what are the important things that do need to be taught.
Very early on in this psalm the psalmist actually talks about what it is that we need to teach the next generation. What is it that needs to be taught? He leaves us in no doubt! He doesn’t leave us guessing at all! He makes it very clear that what he’s going to focus in on is what needs to be taught in order that this generation will pass the gospel on to the next and they in turn to their children. The psalmist sketches it out for us and as he talks about that I’d like to perhaps just widen it out: The psalmist was focusing on the responsibility of the covenant community of God’s people passing on to the next generation of the people of Israel the baton of faith and trust in God.
But I’d like to just take a little liberty here and just widen the application out a little further: It’s not only about what needs to be taught to our covenant children but also what is needed for them to reaching those who as yet do not believe in Jesus Christ.
Note the order that he speaks of. If you’ve got your Bibles there, have a look at verse 4: He says – let’s start in v 3 – we’re going to tell them what we have heard and known what our fathers have told us, we will not hide them from our children, we will tell the next generation now. What are we going to tell them? The praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power and the wonders he has done.
Congregation what are the praiseworthy deeds of God? The psalmist doesn’t leave us in any doubt as to what that is. We haven’t read the whole psalm, but if you have a look in your Bibles you will see it’s a pretty long Psalm – it goes to 72 verses – but basically after where we left off, he traces Israel’s history and he talks about how God has interacted with his people, he gives an account of Israel’s history how the sea divided to let the people through, the manna, the water in the desert and yes he even tells them about his covenant, that they were sinning – that they had sinned against God.
He didn’t paint a glossy picture of Israel at all. He talks about that God even brought punishment on the people and that then God forgave them. He atoned for their iniquity in verse 38; he paints a picture of a God who is faithful to his covenant promises even though the people were unfaithful. Then the psalmist goes on to tell them about how God led the people into the promised land. The psalmist wants the children to be familiar with these wonderful things – both the merciful, wonderful, powerful things that God has done but also his divine judgement.
The Psalmist doesn’t want to paint a glossy picutre and present only the nice parts of God’s being – the things or aspects of His being that we feel comfortable with, but also that God is a God of judgement. Don’t forget to pass that on to the next generation as well because if we don’t, if we don’t take sin seriously we’re fooling ourselves. We’re fooling the next generation and in the end they won’t even see that they need a Saviour.
Then he tells us the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power. Tell them about the power of God because they need to learn who this God is and that he is the God who is the very creator of all things and that he is worthy of respect, of honour, of worship and there’s no better way than to tell them the stories where God has acted with power for his people, which is of course tied in with the wonders that he has done. They need to know the wonders that God has wrought, yes in terms of the creation they need to know that God is the Creator. They need to know we haven’t evolved out of some primordial soup from somewhere.
In the Old Testament context the psalmist here speaks in terms of the wonders God has already done by painting a picture of Israel’s history. But for us who live in the New Testament, what are the wonders that God has wrought? You know we don’t want to have kids growing up to think that God stopped doing wonderful things back about 2000 years ago that that’s where the action stopped. Our kids need to learn that our God is a God who is God today, a God who still works wonderful miracles. I’m not talking here about miracles of healing because quite frankly I know God can heal people of all sorts of things, of cancer or whatever God chooses to heal. But those kinds of miracles pale into insignificance in comparison to the wonder of God rescuing a sinner destined to an eternity in hell itself, turning their heart around that they now love God and have a passion for serving him and have a destiny of spending eternity with God himself. That is a wonder!
And those of you who are parents: It’s important to teach your kids the things in the scriptures. That is absolutely essential. But don’t forget to teach your children your experience of God – that God is the God who saved you. Tell them how you came to faith or if you are blessed like me that I grew up in a Christian home, tell what that was like. My parents were converted just after I was born, so I grew up with the things of God. I was surrounded by that. For me it was not so much a conversion experience, but for me it was kind of, as I grew older it just became more and more wonderful – as I began to understand the riches of what Christ had won for me more fully. We need to share with our children, what does it mean to me, how precious was it in this or that situation to know that I’m a child of God. Talk to your children about that.
You know one of the things that I’ll never forget in my first congregation: I went to a gentleman, a lovely gentleman in the Dandenong congregation. It was his 70th or 75th birthday. I asked him: “As you look back over the years (and he’d been through the Second World War and all of that), what are some of the highlights of your life? And he shared that. Then I asked him if he had any real regrets. I said to him: You know, things that, if you had life over again that you’d want to do different. With tears in his eyes he said to me, “Peter, if there’s one thing I could do different, if there’s one thing I could give away everything I have in the world to do over again it would be to tell my children what it really meant to me to know the Lord”.
“See I grew up in a cultural context of where faith was intensely personal and we did our Bible readings at the table and all of that thing. Our kids went to catechism classes, youth group and all of that, but you know I never shared with my children just what it meant to me”. He said, “Now all 5 of my children have grown up, they’re model citizens, they’ve done well for themselves. But not one is walking with the Lord”. And he said “if I could change that, I would do it”.
See we need to teach our children, we need to let our children hear the great, the mighty acts of God that we’ve experienced in our own lives. As I look around, some of you perhaps look old enough to perhaps have been part of the Second World War in Europe. Some of you may have stories to tell your children how God has spared you. Grandparents, don’t forget to tell those stories to your grandchildren. Let them know that the God that you serve, the God that you come to church for every Sunday again, the God who’s Scriptures you read at home is actually a God who didn’t stop acting 2000 years ago but he’s a God who is mighty, who is powerful, who is gracious and merciful but also a God who’s not to be trifled with. A God who longs for people to come into a living relationship with him! One of the marvellous things of this psalm that strikes me every time I read it again is that the order in which he talks about the things that we should teach.
He says first: “Tell the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, the wonders he has done”. And only then, only then does he say to go on to teach the commandments. Interesting order isn’t it? Why is that order there? He’s following the same pattern that we find in the Old Testament in the book of Exodus when God gives the 10 commandments through Moses. He doesn’t say to the people of Israel in Egypt: If you’re good boys and girls, if you serve me for a while then I might liberate you from slavery in Egypt; I’ll just suss you out; how good you really are! NO!
They didn’t really know who God was and God takes them out of the land of Egypt, works these wonderful mighty miracles of parting the waters, giving them manna, and works all those other miracles, and at the foot of Mt Sinai, He says to the people: I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt…. because I’ve done all these things for you, this is how I want you now to live because that’s good for you to live that way, because I want the best for you.
You see if our children know what God has done in your life, in Grandma’s life or that uncle or aunt or whoever, they’ll be so much more interested in knowing how that marvellous God would have them live in this world. Our children need to know that our God has a personal interest in their lives, in who they are. And the psalmist incidentally, the psalmist talks about that in the covenant context. That’s what we ought to be doing. But I would suggest to you that also in our evangelism that the focus needs to be first to talk about the mighty things of God before we try teaching the commandments because if we start with the commandments we end up with legalism. We need to start with grace, the God of grace. Look at what verse 6 says in Psalm 78: Basically it is saying if this is what we do, in that order, then the result of this is that the next generation would know these commands, and even the children yet to be born and they in turn tell their children that they would put their trust in God and not forget his deeds but would keep his commandments.
They will put their trust in God, will not forget his deeds but would keep his commandments. See our kids need to learn that our God is trustworthy, absolutely trustworthy even though we’re not exactly trustworthy with what God’s entrusted to us and likewise the unbeliever needs to learn from watching us and talking to us that our God is a God who is absolutely trustworthy.
So in response to all of this, what’s going to be our action plan? We need to be faithful in passing the baton onto the next generation. Having been in pastoral ministry for 25 years or thereabouts, and now having moved into parliament, I still miss the ministry side very much and so I guess I’m very conscious of this thing of passing the baton, of moving on in one sense.
But brothers and sisters, in many ways our culture and our churches are at a real crossroads. Where would the future take us, where will the future take us?
Will we be a church community that’s absolutely committed to doing what the Bible tells us to ensure that the next generation will indeed know the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, the wonders that he has done. Will the next generation be a generation that’s taught the commands of God in that context? Will we be a people who go out to the market places and convey that wonderful truth, that wonderful good news or will we retreat to the walls of our communities? Will we feel comfortable, will we feel safe? We can do things the way we’ve perhaps always done it and that gives a sense of homeliness.
But brothers and sisters there is a challenge for us and that is to ensure that by God’s grace that we do pass that baton to the next generation. Exactly how we’re going to do that – whether it’s more formal kind of theological education or an MTS type training – exactly what kind of church planting methods or funding opportunities we should put in place, all of those things will keep changing with time, depending on what’s appropriate to the circumstances and we need to pray for God’s wisdom and guidance in all of that. But ultimately, ultimately the goal must be to pass on the faith to the next generation.
I want to challenge every delegate to synod, every elder, every pastor: make sure that in your prayer and in all your decision making as you consider the future of our churches and of your local church and indeed your own family life, don’t forget the challenge of passing on the faith to the next generation because unless we pass it on, where will the glory and honour be for our Lord Jesus Christ? It’s only as more and more people bow the knee to Jesus Christ that more praise, more glory will actually flow to him. May our synod have that effect that more people will bow their knee to our Lord Jesus Christ and serve him for all eternity.
Amen.