The other night, the Schlueter family was confessing the Apostle's Creed as a part of our evening prayers. After we were through, Will in the sincere honesty of childhood looked up at me and asked, “daddy, why does Pilate punch us?” . (He was probably wondering if Pilate had it in mind to punch him, and if so that was certainly a legitimate question) We straightened out the misunderstanding – Pontius is simply a Roman name, a form of the Latin word pons – the word for bridge.
The important thing about Potius Pilate, however, is not his name or the origin of his name. It is not who we call him or how we know him. The important thing about Pilate is the part that he played in the salvation of the entire human race. Pilate was the man who held the fate of Jesus in his hands – he was the judge who represented every man from every age and from every corner of the earth who pronounced the order for the death of the innocent Jesus. Knowing him to be innocent Pilate sent him to die the death that he himself deserved, indeed the death that even you and I deserve. Pilate gave that order and so therefore in our creed, we mention his name, I believe in Jesus Christ... suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified died and was buried. And so pontius became a topic of discussion at the Schlueter house.
In addition to being a good example of the cute things that kids say, it also happens to be a good illustration for the sermon this morning. Will's question born in childlike innocence, provided a wonderful opportunity for his parents to teach him the Christian faith, to teach him something that relates to the history of his salvation and the salvation of the entire humans race. That is the job of parents. God gave to us parents because it is his desire, it is his design that parents – especially fathers – teach their children the one true faith.
Our text this morning is about how that faith comes to be – how it is formed and where it comes from. Elsewhere, in Romans 10 Paul tells us that “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.“ God puts faith in your ears. Your ears are like a laundry shoot that God opens up, He dumps in his Word, his Word slides down your ears, through your brain and into your heart where it settles in and becomes faith. God gives his word into you and once he has put it there it does exactly what he wants it to do. It fills you up, it grows, it nourishes and strengthens you and then it produces a harvest.
That is essentially what was happening the other night in our living room following the confessing of the creed. We were teaching our children the Christian faith. We were teaching them what to believe. Namely that God, the god they are to trust in and have faith in, the god who saves them and cares for them and protects them is the god of the Apostles Creed. The one true god, the only god is the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Occasionally parents will say that they are not raising their child to believe any particular religion. They plan to let them grow to the age where they can decide for themselves. Their reasoning is that they do not want to force their children to believe – they do not want to turn them off to Christianity by making it an obligation. Underneath all of this is the hope that their children eventually grow up to be believers in the one true God. But it is a naïve hope.
Children are sinful. If they are left to themselves they will do what every sinner does – they will worship themselves. They will make themselves into god, either in choosing the god that works for them, that fits their lifestyle and their preferences, the god who lets them be who they want to be, or they will deny god all together.
Children need to be taught. Because of their inborn sinfulness, they need to be taught the Christian faith, they need to be taught to attend church and Sunday School or Bible Study. They need to be taught to read and study the bible.
Teaching this is not as hard as we sometimes assume. I like the game of soccer. My kids know that I like to watch soccer on TV. I like to go watch the Crew play in Columbus. I am in a soccer league and I look forward to being able to play on Sunday afternoons. When we signed the kids up to play soccer in the spring, kids, being great imitators were excited to follow in their daddies footsteps and to actually have the opportunity to do the thing that they saw their daddy loved.
Dads, shouldn't we love to attend God's house where He comes for us in His Word and in His Supper to forgive us for all of our sins and to be with us – shouldn't we love coming here at least as much, and even more, than we love soccer... than we love football... than we love golf... than we love auto racing... Wouldn't our kids be that much more excited and willing to attend church if they saw a positive example from their parents?
Certainly they would.
But part of the problem is that we as parents often don't really want to go to church. We know we should go. We know that it is good for us to go. We know that God blesses us if we go and when we go. We know that we have a better week after we have gone to church. But still we don't want to go. Our sinful flesh wants to stay home, sleep in, go somewhere else, do something else, do anything else. Its not fun when we have to confess that we are poor miserable sinners. It's not fun to acknowledge and admit our unworthiness and our sinfulness. Our sinful flesh resists going to church!
We often become like those different types of soil that Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew: The well worn path – the hard hearted sinner who refuses to let the word of God penetrate his soul so that the host of devils that is always lurking around can easily steal the seeds of the the Gospel away. Or the rocky soil, that initially receives the Word of God with joy, yet when the Holy Spirit seeks to enter in to the private recesses of our hearts – we suddenly become hardened and attempt to keep him out so that when trials come we easily doubt and our faith is plucked out like recently sprouted seedling. Or the soil that is overgrown with weeds, that is - with the many distractions of worldly wealth and power so that the seed of the Gospel that has been sown suffers under the competition and is eventually choked out.
Yet God sends out the workers into the field – God sends out His pastors and preachers who proclaim his saving gospel of Jesus who died on the cross to save sinners. God sends out His people into the world who speak the gospel they have received so that every sinner receives the seed. The seed is thrown out recklessly and without reservation. We might think it wasteful to sow seeds on the highway or among the rocks, yet the Heavenly Master wants the seeds of faith, the seeds of the Gospel, the seeds of the Word of God to be thrown out, risking that they be wasted, because he knows where the cracks in pavement are. He directs those seed into those cracks where he waters them and makes them to grow. We always marvel when we see trees that grow up in the most unlikely of places, that somehow find nourishment on rocky cliffs and old parking lots and we wonder how they survive. Even more miraculous is the hardened sinner whose heart is changed so that it receives the Word of God in faith, so that it believes the Gospel, so that its roots are sent down into the deepest places of that sinner's heart to create a believer, to create a Christian.
God has done that very thing with you. As the rain and snow comes down from heaven and does not return without watering the earth, making it to grow and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so is the Word that goes out from the mouth of God. IT does not return to Him empty. It has gone where He has directed it. It has gone to your heart, it has created faith in your heart. It has caused you to believe.
At times this parable of Jesus can cause us some stress – what soil am I? I at times resist the Holy Spirit. I often refuse to allow Him access to my heart. I am easily distracted by the cares of this world. I think I will loose my faith. Your master gardener will not let you go so easily. He will water you. He will till you. He will fertilize you. He will produce a harvest from within you. So keep returning to the well. Keep placing yourself here where you will be watered. Keep coming back to the place where God offers his gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation and you will bear fruit for salvation. Not because of your work, but because of the work that Jesus has done in you.
No comments:
Post a Comment