St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church -- Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Christian Education Sunday -- September 22^nd and 25^th, 2005

Dear children of God who are a part of eternal glory. Amen

One of the important dates in the life of a parent and a child is the day that your teenager reminds you that they are now officially old enough to start Drivers Ed. Drivers Ed is one of those phrases that parents put into the far recess of their brains hoping that it will never rear its ugly head. Drivers Ed is the day that your child steps across the border into the land of driving the car. We as parents know that this day will eventually come and we still put it off thinking that our kids will never grow to be this old. Those parents who have already had kids go through Drivers Ed assure us that that this is a good thing. They tell us to not worry, because things will work out just fine. What’s funny about Drivers Ed is that we all know how to drive cars, but we soon realize that we need some assistance in teaching them how to drive. For this reason we send them off to people to teach them how to drive. They take them through the manual on all the rules and tec! hniques of driving. When they are done with the classroom portion of Driver’s Ed, we now have 6 months and at least 30 hours of driving time to refine their driving skills so that they will be able to pass their Drivers test. It is a good arrangement between the instructors of Drivers Ed and the parents. We work as a team. They take them through the manual and we get a chance to help them refine their driving skills by taking them on the road together with the Drivers Ed instructors. Its almost like a team

As we look at the words of our text for this Christian Education Sunday, we see the Psalm writer giving us encouragement from God to also work with our children. He wants us to work with our children so that they may know who Jesus is and that they may trust in him for eternal life in heaven. In simple terms, the psalm writer was writing down words that are wonderful words to guide every Christian family. With this in mind we also know that there are many other tools to help us as parents in the training of our children in God’s Word. We are in a team together with our TSL Day School, our Sunday School and our Christian High Schools and Colleges. We are a team but we want to always remember:

Sermon Theme: Christian Education Starts In The Home

The man who wrote Psalm 78 is a man named Asaph. The words which God led Asaph to write were to serve as a reminder to the Israelites of what could go wrong if you forgot about God and His Word. That is why most of the psalm is dedicated to reviewing for the people of Israel and us today what God had done for Israel throughout its history. God showed his power and might to Israel in many ways as he freed them from the Egyptians and led them to the Promised Land of Canaan. This psalm shows us how God was with Israel as they conquered the land of Canaan from all the heathen nations. We see so clearly how God was with Israel throughout this time in their history. Israel certainly had seen firsthand who God was and what power and love God had.

Many of us have a safety deposit box with all the documents for those left behind when we die. In this box are all the statements for our wife and for our children. In this box are some of the most important earthly documents that we owns. But what would happen if we died and didn’t let anyone know about this box or where it was located? What would happen to all those important documents? Most likely they would in some way return back to those alive, but there is an outside chance that it could be lost forever. But this is all hypothetical, because I’m sure that all of us have informed the people who need to know where the box is and what is inside of it. We realized that this was important.

Let’s think for a moment about our parents. As we look at the responsibility that God has given to our parents, we see something much like the things in the important safety deposit box. However, what has been given to our parents is far greater than any earthly treasure. Most of our parents have been given the gift of faith as God has worked in their hearts through the Holy Spirit and His Word. Most of our parents have witnessed God’s forgiveness and grace over and over again. Much like the people of Israel they know God and all of the power and love that he has promised them. But what if our parents had kept this wonderful message to themselves? What if our parents didn’t think we needed to know about forgiveness and God’s Word? What if our parents didn’t bring us to Church or Sunday School or a Christian Day School? If this was the case, then we may have missed out on the wonderful gift of heaven. God’s Word may not have come into our hearts. We could be los! t forever to hell.

That is what Asaph the psalm writer was saying, "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. [God] established the law in Israel which he commanded our forefathers to teach to their children, so that the next generation would know them…and they in turn would tell their children." Have you ever played with dominoes and tried to line them up in a special arrangement. You spend a good amount of time lining them up and then it comes time to knock down the first domino thinking that it will then knock down all the rest. The only problem is that one of the dominos was set up too far away from the next domino and the line stopped before reaching the end. There was a break. That is what God is warning us against. He doesn’t want any breaks in generations when it comes to teaching and preaching God’s Word. Just think if your grandparents didn’t shar! e God’s Word with their children. There is a good chance that your parents in turn would not have shared God’s Word with you either, and we can see how a break is not good.

Those who hear will be led by the Holy Spirit to trust in God as our text says, "Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands." Trust in the Lord is the same as faith in God and his promises. Christian families will take every opportunity to let God’s Word work in the hearts of their children and in the hearts of the whole family. Trust is the key point. Without faith or trust, which comes from hearing the message of Jesus, we are missing what offers to us the forgiveness that we all need. We have heard about this trust and how we as families in Christ will find this trust in God’s Word, but what more does God look for in Christian families?

As we think about everything that is important in a Christian family, we realize that a regular hearing of God’s gospel in the Word and sacraments is the most important thing in our lives. As adults we lead by example as well as our words. Adults -- As Christian parents we will do everything in our power to show how important God’s Word is in our life. You will show this as model your faith in your interactions with your children, your husband or wife and the people in your job or neighborhood. Do your children see the same thing from you during the week that they see from you on Sunday morning? Do your children hear from your mouths the same things that that heard from you on Sunday morning? Does the way in which you talk to and interact with your spouses show your love for one another – a love based on God’s selfish love for us? Are you a parent that is concerned with God only when it is necessary or are you a parent that realizes that God is always necessary? A! s sinful parents we see that there might be room for improvements in this part of our lives. As sinful parents we see there are many times where we need to humbly drop to our knees and ask that God would forgive us for falling short.

Children -- As children who have had the Word of God work in your hearts, what is God expecting from you? Are you too young to really live the life of a Christian? Are the times in which you live too difficult to let your faith be seen by others? Do you truly trust that God has put your parents over you for a good reason or do you feel that they were sent to make your life miserable? Do you always show honor, respect and love to your parents even during times of loving discipline? As we hear these statements we might crack a little smile on our face as we realize how far at times we have strayed from God’s command of perfection. We might think to ourselves that it is much to difficult to follow our parents as God intended. But as Children of God we realize that being children of our earthly parents is not a bad thing. It is good thing as we realize that God handpicked our parents and has a purpose and reason in mind for everything that our parents do. Praise be t! o our God who is willing to make sure that someone does love us like ours parents do.

As we have looked at families in Christ, we have noted that the most important thing is a regular hearing and learning of God’s Word. If God’s Word is absent or almost forgotten, then it is going to be difficult road. This doesn’t mean that every family that holds to the Bible is going to encounter no troubles. This would only be true if there was no sin. Yet, as we look around us, I pray that every single part of our families, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, husbands and wives realize what privileges that God has given to serve Him through their families. May the love of Jesus fill all our hearts from the smallest child to the oldest parent as we look with God’s help to make our families servant of Christ.

As we talk about Christian Education we would be missing one of God’s greatest tools if we didn’t talk about our Christian Schools and their teachers. At ST. Luke’s we have Trinity-St. Luke’s Day School where we have Christian Education from 4 years old through 8^th Grade. We have teachers and staff that not only teach God’s Word but also live God’s Word as examples and models to their students. We have our Sunday School. But Christian Education doesn’t end with grade school. We have our Luther Prep school to help train our young people to be Pastors and Teachers. We have our Lakeside Lutheran High School. And it doesn’t end there. We have our Martin Luther College for those who have decided being a Pastor or Teacher is what they want to do. We have Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee. We have Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, MN. Christian Education is something that will continue to be blessing for us in the present and into the future as we ! grow in our faith and one day share that faith with the next generation which will be our kids and grandkids. What a blessing this is. May we as parents never forget to take the lead as we stress Christian Education in our families. Amen.