Psalm 78:1-8
“We Will Tell the Next Generation”
I am not really qualified to give parental advice. I don’t have a child of my own. In fact, I don’t even have a younger brother or sister. Some of my friends are starting to have children, but I haven’t had much exposure to them at this point. I have nephews and a niece, but I only get to see them once or twice a year, and when they were quite little, when and if I got to hold them, they had that look on their face like, “I’m not a football, don’t hold me like one,” and I had to give them back to their parents before they started to cry. I would be the last guy that you’d ask to baby-sit your child. I’ve never even changed a diaper before—and I’m not really asking for tutorials. Being here with the Child Care Center this year has helped, but I still have trouble communicating with the little children, simply due to lack of experience. I openly admit that. And I’m not that much better with the older ones either at this stage.
My point in telling you this is that today, as we examine our lesson—the first 8 verses of Psalm 78, I will be talking about Christian upbringing for children. I’d imagine the temptation for you at some point would probably be to say, “Hey, wait a second, this guy has no idea what he’s talking about. What does he know about child rearing? He hasn’t encouraged his apprehensive child to be brave enough for the first day of school. He hasn’t had to deal with a child who’s been repeatedly picked on. He hasn’t had that helpless feeling of a parent at the bedside of their child before surgery. Who is he to tell me how to raise my children or grandchildren?” But I think that’s what makes me a good candidate to preach on this lesson. I am incapable of giving you my personal, experiential advice on being a Christian parent or grandparent, because I have no personal, experiential advice. All I’m able to do is give you objective exposition of the Christian parental advice that we find here in God’s Word. So take me out of the equation, because I don’t really have much to say about parenting. But the Lord certainly does. He spends no small amount of time and space in Scripture instructing believers on principles of how to raise their children, as is evident by today’s lesson. In this lesson we will find the motivation to echo the psalmist’s words,
“We Will Tell the Next Generation”
The Children of Israel were a frustrating people. You have to believe that when God looked at all the pagan nations of the world and saw them worshipping their false idols, his anger was definitely roused. But, when his own chosen people, the Children of Israel would fall into pits of idolatry and immorality, it had to be that much more personal. It’s kind of like when you see America’s youth fall into drug problems, it’s discouraging, but when it happens to your own kid, you think, “Man, I spoke to this child myself and told him not to get mixed up in this. What could he possibly have been thinking?” This is what God must have thought when looking at the nation of Israel. “After all I’ve done for you. After all the love I’ve shown to you—The the miraculous deliverance, the endless provision, the unwavering protection, and this is thanks I get?” We find the Children of Israel throughout the Old Testament constantly whining and complaining in the Wilderness. Once they settled in the Promised Land, they were often jealous of the sinful lifestyles of their heathen neighbors. So they got involved in idol worship, and sexual immorality, frequently taking heathen neighbors as their spouses, which led to all sorts of problems. Israel just didn’t seem to get it. Perhaps the best synopsis of the fickle faith of the Children of Israel is taught in the book of Judges, where we see a repeated pattern: 1) A new generation of Israelites neglects God and worships other deities; 2) God punishes them through foreign oppression; 3) the people repent and beg God to save them; and 4) God delivers the people militarily through a judge. But then it all starts over again, back at square one! Israel would once again neglect God and worship other deities. Our lesson gives evidence to this in verse 8, talking about the Israelites’ forefathers—a people the psalmist describes as “a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.” Why didn’t they learn their lesson?! That’s really one of the main questions we want to answer today—why did Israel keep falling into unfaithfulness?
The psalmist from our lesson tells us what one of the main problems was—a lack of proper Christian Education. Israel didn’t learn from its mistakes—they did not make it a priority to tell the next generation what had happened, and consequently, what would happen to them if they repeated the errors of their ancestors. But the inspired writer of Psalm 78 has a message from God that says, “Enough. Never again will we forget what happens when we disobey God’s commands to follow our own ways.” And yet, his message still sometimes falls on deaf ears. Every one of us has at some point forgotten or simply not cared about God’s Will for our lives. Sure, you’d probably be hard pressed to find someone who has bowed down before a pagan idol or practiced sexual immorality with a shrine prostitute here. But every last one of us has been guilty of prostituting ourselves to the gods of this age. Each of us has sold a part of our souls for the pleasures of this world. And each of us as individuals knows better than anyone else what that idol is that has at some time or maybe many times come between us and our God. These sins have led many Christians over the years astray, into unbelief. And you think, maybe, just maybe if they had known better about the dangers of these sins by studying the errors of God’s people in the Bible, maybe they could have avoided whatever it was that was their downfall. Maybe they just needed a better Christian Education. Maybe if they had known a little more clearly God’s overwhelming love for them, they would have been more inclined to live lives in accord with his commands. If only they had been told a little more by the previous generation.
We, as a body of believers, are God’s chosen people just as the Children of Israel were. We have the same amount of opportunity and responsibility for Christian Education as they had. But we know what happened to many of the Israelites. Although some sins may have different names now, we face the same root temptations of pride, lust, envy, greed, hatred, apathy, discontentment, and so on, that Israel did. But specifically today, we realize that we face the same temptation they did of failing to instruct future generations.
How can we make sure that future generations don’t suffer the same mistakes that we have and that Israel did? The answer is clear: faithfully instruct them in Christian Education. It sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? It sounds simple until the alarm goes off on Sunday mornings. At that point, a little extra sleep sometimes sounds like more of an immediate need. It sounds simple until we get home from work. At that point, paying the bills, exercise, or our favorite show seems a little more urgent. It sounds simple until we’re running a little late in the morning and we have to make sure everyone gets dressed, fed, their books together, and their teeth brushed. An activity that focuses the day on Christ like a prayer together or a brief family devotion falls down the priority list. Christian Education sounds simple until our children are bombarded with a million extracurricular activities that they enjoy. Who are we then to say, “No. If this is going to distract you from necessary time spent on Christian Education, it’s not worth it.” Well, we’re the ones God put in charge of instructing them. That’s who we are. To a young sinful nature that thinks at times that we are unfair, we as parents, grandparents, and guardians will proudly say with the psalmist, “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old—what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done.”
The words used in this lesson for “parables” and “hidden things” are interesting ones. The word translated as “parable” indicates something that needs to be carefully studied and compared with your own situation before it can be properly understood and applied correctly. The word translated as “hidden things” indicates something that is hidden because it can only be understood through revelation of the Holy Spirit. Keeping these things in mind, we see that if we want our children to understand God’s Word, they will need to carefully, thoroughly study God’s Word. That means that bringing them to church and perhaps dropping them off at Sunday School might not suffice when it comes to careful, thorough instruction in God’s Word. The truths of Scripture are “hidden” from us by nature. Only when the Holy Spirit works on our hearts through the Means of Grace, the Gospel in Word and Sacrament, can we be led to revelation and understanding of these truths. That means that the more exposure we have to the Means of Grace, the more time that is spent in spiritual revelation. As the guardians, we are the ones in charge of this time spent. God tells us the same thing he told our spiritual forefathers in Israel here in verses 5 and 6, “he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.” We are not just responsible for our children, but for their children, and their children’s children. But the best way to instruct those in coming generations is to instruct our children to such a degree that they are able to teach others.
Sometimes we might be tempted to think that we are unqualified to instruct our children. We know how sinful we are and so we think we are unfit Christian teachers. We might be tempted to think that we simply don’t know Scripture well enough and don’t want to do more damage than good to our child. The first point to mention would be that we are all probably more qualified than we think. If you know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, loved you enough to die for your sins, tell that fact to your child, and remind them regularly, because that’s a fantastic start. The second point would then be, if you don’t think you know the Bible well enough to instruct your children, well, the natural solution would be to learn it better.
There is a commonly taught principle in education known as “Hoag’s Learning Ladder.” “Hoag’s Learning Ladder” states that people remember: 5% of what they hear, 10% of what they see, 20% of what they echo, 40% of what they answer, 65% of what they discuss, 75% of what they create, and 90% of what they teach. According to this principle, the person who really is the one that will remember most from my sermon today is…….me. That makes sense. So if you want to take your personal understanding of God’s Word to a new level, teach the gospel message that you treasure to someone else. Pass it on from this generation to the next and you, the teacher, will gain new insight into Christian truth.
Here at Messiah we have as much opportunity for Christian Education as anywhere. We have the children and grandchildren of the congregation. These children have their friends from school. Not to mention, about 50 feet from us we have a Child Care Center. Support these groups focused on Christian Education. Pray for the families of the Congregation and pray for the workers and children at the Child Care Center. We have been given the privilege to help pass the good news of salvation to the next generation.
Make no mistake, the opportunity to spread the gospel is indeed a privilege. Pastor and I have remarked to one another several times how there is perhaps no more inspirational time in public ministry than seeing the Holy Spirit flip a light on in someone’s head in a Bible Information Class. “Wait a second……God wants to grant me salvation but he asks nothing in return but that I believe this? I am so important to God that he knew me and called me before I was even born? God has a room waiting for me in heaven that he himself prepared for me? God loved me so much that he sent his Son to die in order to make me his child?” The realization of forgiveness of sins and the promise of salvation that this Christian Education brings about has softened the hearts of men and children alike. Not a famine, or persecution, or an earthquake, or a snowstorm will stop us from teaching this message. But God says that even if something should stifle us, the rocks themselves will cry out in Christian Education, telling of the free forgiveness won by Jesus Christ. God has simply blessed us with the joy of participating in this act of telling future generations. And take these words of the psalmist to heart, those that we educate, “they will put their trust in God and will not forget his deeds but will keep his commands.”
I had mentioned earlier that God inspired many of the writers of his Holy Word to encourage Christian Education. Some sections of Scripture that come to mind right away are what we have recorded for us in Deuteronomy 4-6, Ephesians 6, and another perhaps more subtle point in 2 Timothy 1:5. Here Paul acknowledges Timothy’s Christian Education by saying, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.” It probably wasn’t just a coincidence that here you see three generations of faithful people. It was probably because faithful Christian Education went on between those generations and the Holy Spirit undoubtedly worked through that education. Likewise, he works through our continued education and will work through the education we give to those we teach, who in turn will teach it to those whom God entrusts into their care.
The Holy Spirit leads us to make Christian Education a priority in our lives. He leads us to know where we as Christians have been, not forgetting, but learning from the previous mistakes of God’s people. He leads us to rejoice in keeping the laws of the Lord. He leads us to fully appreciate the One who kept those commands perfectly and yet died as our Substitute for our failure to perfectly keep them. The Holy Spirit leads us to make the same statement as Joshua, God’s appointed leader of Israel right after Moses. During his farewell speech Joshua was encouraging the Israelites to make sure they didn’t forget all that they had been through and all that they were looking forward to. Joshua knew the only way they wouldn’t forget was through Christian Education. He made the choice that his family would be educated to remain faithful to the Lord. His confession was: “If serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15) As Joshua faithfully did before us, “We Will Tell the Next Generation.” Amen.
–Vicar James Hein