Telling the Next Generation the Praises of the Lord 1

Telling the Next Generation The Praises of The Lord
Part One: The Body
Ephesians 1:1-13

With autumn fast approaching and the return of Sunday School on September 17th, I have decided to start a 3-part series on Discipleship that I am calling, “Telling the Next Generation The Praises of The Lord.” Today I will talk about the role of the church in discipleship; next week I will be preaching on the role of men in the home and at church and the week after I will preach on the role of women.

Let me explain what I mean by this title: like Missions, the goal of discipleship is worship- the praises of the Lord. I say this because the product of discipleship is missionaries who produce more disciples who worship and praise God. This isn’t my opinion, it is taught in the scripture,
I will utter dark sayings of old, Which we have heard and known, And our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from our children, Telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, And His strength and His wonderful works that He has done…. (Psalm 78:2-4).

This last week, if you were watching the news, you would have heard about the international AIDS conference in Toronto. According to the stats, 15 million children around the world have watched at least one parent die of Aids. That’s an inconceivable ocean of grief.

If that heart wrenching fact were not enough anguish to make you want to give away everything to go help in African orphanages, consider this staggering fact, there are also another 2.3 million children worldwide who themselves have AIDS. And they’re usually the last to receive treatment because they’re too poor and their cries are seldom heard.
Last week the CBC aired a documentary on a Canadian women in her 70’s who had put her retirement money into running a shelter for AIDS infected women with children in Cambodia. Her story was inspirational.

But that kind of sacrifice is rare and it makes you wonder if anyone has told the overwhelming majority of children in the world, both with AIDS and without, of the praises of the Lord and the wonderful works he has done so that they might set their hope on Christ.

Things here at home may not seem as catastrophic, but they’re equally tragic. This week we heard that police in Thailand arrested an American man on charges of having murdered little JeanBennet Ramsey. Did you know that most child homicides in Canada are committed by the parent of the victim?

John Piper calls America one of the most violent countries towards children in the world and I think Canada is not much different. Piper says that 1 out of every 4 girls under 18 years has been sexually abused by someone close to her; 30% of all mental retardation may be the result of fetal alcohol syndrome and about 10% of pregnant mothers used drugs during their pregnancy.

In Canada, about 313 children die every year from Assault. 1 in every 5 children in BC lives below the poverty line. Many of them live in this city; they surround our church. They live in single parent homes, blended families, living transient lives often exposed to drugs and alcohol; women are oppressed and children are voiceless.
Who will tell them about the praises of the Lord and the works he has done so that they might set their hope in Christ. Will it be the Church?

That hope seems fading; according to Stats Canada, over the past 15 years,
…attendance at religious services has fallen dramatically across the country…. Nationally, only one-fifth (20%) of individuals aged 15 and over attended religious services on a weekly basis in 2001, compared with 28% in 1986.

This is in spite of the fact that nearly 70% of Canadians claim to be Christians and believe the Gospel claims of Christ’s death and resurrection. Why does it seem like our country, in spite of our wealth and technology and education system, is in such moral and spiritual decline? It has become a very dangerous place for children. What is wrong?

Maybe the solution is not technology, or science, or education. Maybe the solution is worship, which is produced by discipleship. Let’s see if our text can shed some light on the problem (Read Ephesians 4:1-13)

John Macarthur writes,
Discipleship is the ministry of developing deeply spiritual friendships focused on teaching biblical truth, applying Scripture to life, and thus learning to solve problems biblically. …discipleship involves time and personal involvement with people. …The church must provide an environment that encourages that kind of discipleship at every level, from the pastor to the newest convert.[1]
But how does discipleship and Paul’s Command for unity in the Body solve the problem of AIDS, child abuse and poverty?
During a time of reformation and spiritual revival in Israel, the psalmist warned parents to teach their children the testimony of Jacob and the Laws of Israel, lest their children become like their fathers, “a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright and whose spirit was not faithful to God” (Ps 78:8).

In Ephesians 4:1 Paul wites, “I beseech you to walk worthy of the calling….” To beseech means to admonish, to command, to pray…. Paul is like Christ, in this exhortation, In John 17, Jesus prayed, “Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are one” (v.11).

Maybe Christ’s prayer is what Paul had in mind when he wrote in v. 13: “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man….” Because Jesus prayer sheds light on what Paul meant in verse 13: “I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

The aim of Jesus’ prayer for unity in the church is that the world will know that Christ came from God. Because in knowing, some will believe, and believing, they will be able to worship. This is Discipleship right? Teaching the gospel, the whole counsel of God. But, here is what Paul is teaching in Ephesians 4, it must be done in unity and as a body- it’s not lone ranger work.

Verse 2 tells us the attitude we must have in carrying out this work and I believe that this attitude is essential to maintaining the unity and thus the efficacy of the work: “with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Doesn’t that description of how Christians should behave toward one-another fly in the face of how our culture tells us to behave? The world tells us to indulge ourselves, seek our own preferences, advance our opinions over others to suit our advantage, get what we have coming to us, esteem ourselves better then others…. But God’s word tells us to behave with lowliness, gentleness, longsuffering (that means not simply putting up with people whose behaviour irritates us, but it also means seeking the best for those we don’t like by laying aside our own likes).

You know, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be great in the church. In fact there is nothing wrong with wanting to be the greatest in the church. But greatness is not achieved in the church the way it is achieved in the world.

Look at Mark chapter 9 with me…. Jesus has just predicted that he would be betrayed and put to death, but his disciples didn’t understand it. Instead, all the prediction did was to incite a long running debate among the Disciples about who would be the greatest in Christ’s Kingdom.

(v. 35) And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them,  “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Notice what Jesus does not do? He does not say, “hey, there are no positions in the Kingdom, There’s no ‘I’ in team; we’re all equal- no one is greater then anyone else.” Instead, Jesus seems to encourage them to seek greatness. And in other places he promises greater rewards to those who store up treasures in heaven. Look what he does (v 36):
…Then He took a little child and set him in the midst of them. And when He had taken him in His arms, He said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me.”

It seems to me, that Jesus is agreeing with Paul regarding lowliness and self sacrifice: to be great means to serve the least and the least in the church are the children because they can’t pay you back, and they usually take your service to them for granted. Notice Jesus is telling the men to serve the children for in serving children, it is as if they were serving God the greatest being in the universe, by making themselves subservient to least of all society.

It would seem to me that the greatest in this church, are not the ones with the most education, the best paying jobs, or the highest positions in the church or the world; the greatest in this church, according to Jesus, are the ones who serve the children, in the nursery, in Sunday School, Jr. Church, during fellowship, children’s corner, or wherever. We must never let them down or break a commitment to them.

Serving children is radically countercultural. It’s revolutionary!
That’s why I think that the best way that the church can respond to the crisis of AIDS and poverty and the abuse of children is by serving children in Sunday school right here at Gateway. It makes us great and it teaches the praises of the Lord to the children so that they don’t end up like the world around them, stubborn rebellious.

We do this as a church, one Body, together in the unity of the Spirit. Each serving as he or she is gifted. “[Jesus] ascended on high… And gave gifts to men. …some to be Apostles, some to be Prophets, some to be pastors and some to be teachers. Verse 12 says all that is “for the equipping of the saints
for the work of ministry” and Paul wants us to do in the unity of the Spirit.

John MacArthur writes that the point of vv. 11-12 is that,
The church is not an arena where a professional minister is cheered on by lay people who are nothing more than spectators. The church should be discipling and training Christians for ministry. Church members, not just staff, are supposed to be ministering. [2]

The point is that there is a variety of gifts, not everyone is a pastor, not everyone is an Apostles, some are also prophets and some are teachers. We all perform a function in the Body- whether teachers, or ushers, or the guy who works the powerpoint projector. Each gift is like a part of the Body and Christ is our head…
16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

And if you are not a part of the Body (knit together like the various ligaments and sinews of the flesh); if you are not serving according to your gifts; then you are not connected to the head- Christ. Christianity does not exist in isolation (except in rare circumstances where the church is under heavy persecution). And Christianity only grows when the Body is working as one, when all the parts serve with lowliness and gentleness and longsuffering. When the greatest is the one who serves the least.

Conclusion:
So how does the unity of the Body and discipleship in the service of children solve the world AIDS epidemic, and empower children against violence and poverty and host of social ills both in Canada and around the world?

I don’t think for one moment that if our church became a powerhouse for discipleship and Christian ed. that we would solve all of the world’s problems, much less make a dent in them- but that is not our purpose. Our purpose is to touch the lives of people we come into contact with, to declare to them the praises of our Lord, so that, whether in sickness or in health, whether in riches or in rags, they will learn to do all things through Christ who strengthens them, to the praise of His glory.

Do you want to be a part of that? A part of changing the direction of peoples lives? You can, through discipleship. Teaching children in Sunday School. Lift up your eyes, see the harvest?
[1]MacArthur, J. 1993. Ashamed of the gospel : When the Church becomes like the world. Crossway Books: Wheaton, Ill.
[2]MacArthur, J. 1993. Ashamed of the gospel : When the Church becomes like the world. Crossway Books: Wheaton, Ill.