Tell the Coming Generation | Psalm 78:1-8
Brian Hedges | January 7, 2018
I want you to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 78. While you’re turning there, let me remind you, of course, that today is the first Sunday of 2018, which means that this year we will be celebrating the 501st anniversary of the Reformation. You thought that when we ended 2017 I’d move on (maybe you didn’t think that), but we’re not moving on at all. We want to inhabit, very much, the Protestant Reformed faith that is ours, and so I want to begin with a quote from John Calvin.
This is a brief quote, and one that might puzzle you at first, but it sets the stage for what I want to talk about this morning. John Calvin, in a letter to the protector of England in the 1540s, said, “Believe me, the church of God will never be preserved without catechesis.”
Catechesis. You might be thinking, “What is catechesis, and how in the world can something that I’m not even sure what it is be so important that John Calvin said the church cannot be preserved without it?”
Well, catechesis is simply the process of instructing through the use of a catechism, instructing children or new disciples or young disciples, or really all Christians, instructing them with the use of a catechism. The catechism was so important to Calvin that he said that without it the church would not be preserved.
When I first moved here about 15 years ago, I talked about catechism. I think I mentioned it on a Sunday morning, and then shortly after (I don’t remember who this was, and I don’t know if you’re still in the congregation or not) someone came to me afterwards and said, “I thought that was a Roman Catholic thing.” That is, I think, what a lot of Protestants, especially in Baptist and lower church traditions, tend to think. They think about catechism and they think, “Well, I know the Catholics do that,” but we’re not as familiar with it.
Well, that may be your first impression, but this morning I hope that by the time we’re done you’ll see that the idea of catechism is rooted in the Scriptures, it has developed in history in a way that can be very helpful to us, and it’s a practical tool that we can use ourselves.
In fact, let me just cut to the chase and just tell you: my practical goal this morning is to persuade you to pick this little book up (there’s a stack of them on the table there in the foyer. Pick one of these up, one per family), and persuade you to memorize the New City Catechism with me this year, 52 questions, one for each week; to not only memorize it but to train your children, if you have children, and to use it in family worship and family devotions. I’ll talk a little bit more about how this is structured and how this can work, but that’s the aim. I want very much for us as a church to take seriously the task of passing on our faith to the next generation, and indeed, the process of learning the faith well for ourselves.
Most of us have never memorized anything like a catechism before, and if you never have, this is a great catechism to start with. So that’s the goal, but I’m not going to just ask you to do this; I’m going to give you some explanation and some reasons and hopefully motivate you for it, motivate you for it in the process of the sermon this morning.
I want to start by taking us to Psalm 78. So if you want to read along in your Bible I’m going to look at verses one through eight. This is a very long psalm; we’re just going to look at the first eight verses, because I think it establishes the basic biblical principle of passing along our faith to the next generation. Psalm 78, verses one through eight; let me read it to us.
“Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.
“He established a testimony in Jacob
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers
to teach to their children,
that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children,
so that they should set their hope in God
and not forget the works of God,
but keep his commandments;
and that they should not be like their fathers,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
whose spirit was not faithful to God.”
This is God’s word.
I want to ask three questions: what, why, and how? What, why, and how? [I’m going to] try to give some definition to what catechesis is, what a catechism is; then some motivations, why we should do this as a church, and I am very much asking us as a church. This doesn’t come just from me, but from our elder team. We spent a lot of time talking about discipleship in the past couple of years, and this is one of the strategies that we feel would be good for us to use as a church, to work through a catechism together. So some why, and then finally, briefly, at the end I’ll just kind of lay out the program, how we can do this together.
I. What?
So, first of all, what? What is catechesis, what is a catechism? Let me give you a definition. A catechism is a series of questions and answers used for instructing people in the basics of Christian faith and life. That’s what a catechism is: a series of questions and answers used for instructing people in the basics of Christian faith and life.
The word “catechesis” comes from the Greek word katecheo (κατεχεω), which is the word “to teach,” or “to instruct.” So the very word, actually, is used in the New Testament, and I’ll show you a couple of verses in a moment. It really just carries the idea of instructing. As catechisms and catechetical instruction has developed over the history of the church, the form that has been most commonly used, especially since the Protestant Reformation, is a series of questions and answers.
(1) Biblical basis
Now, is it biblical for us to do this? Let me give you some biblical basis, why I think it’s biblical for us to do this. Here’s the basic principle, that we should instruct the next generation, and you see that here in Psalm 78.
Just look at verses four through six, and I just want you to see here the priority of passing on truth from one generation to the next. The psalmist says, “We will not hide them,” that is, the sayings and these words, these things that have been passed down from their fathers. He says, “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.”
He goes on to say that God has established a testimony, and he has given a law. So these are two terms, testimony and law, that refer to a definite content that is to be passed down. He’s “established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children.” You could go to lots of places in the Old Testament where you see this.
One place that maybe would be a good follow-up for you to read after this message is Deuteronomy chapter six, where it was a very clear part of the instruction that Moses gave to the children of Israel, that they were to teach their children what God had given to Moses. They were pass along these commands and these statutes to their children. That’s what the psalmist is referring to here: “...which he commanded to our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children.”
So, the idea here is generational, multi-generational, passing along the truth that has been given and has been revealed. Again, I think it’s important to just note that there is a definite objective content that is to be passed on. It’s emphasized with the word “teaching” in verse one, “the words of my mouth,” verse one; “things that we have heard and known,” verse three; “deeds of the Lord, his might, and his wonders that he has done.” This is referring to the redemptive acts of God and the salvation of his people, in verse four; and then the testimony and law in verse five.
Now, if you want New Testament grounding for this, let me just give you one passage, and this kind of refers back a few months ago to a short series we did through the book of Second Timothy. Really, the whole book is about Paul passing along to Timothy and Timothy passing along to others the pattern of sound words, the good deposit of the gospel.
In Second Timothy two, verses one and two, this is what Paul says: “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” There you see the pattern. Timothy learned it from Paul, now Timothy is to pass along to faithful men, and they are to pass it along to others also. It’s, again, a multi-generational passing along the faith to others.
So, the mandate is there, that we must, in some way, pass the faith along. Now, catechisms are just one way to do that, but it is a way to do that, it’s a very effective way to do that; it’s a way that has been proven to be effective in the history of the church.
Now, along with that there are also passages in Scripture that actually use the word catecheo, from which we get our word catechesis or catechism. Let me give you just a couple of passages.
In Galatians chapter six, verse six (you see, I can’t even get out of Galatians!), this is what Paul says. He says, “One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches.” Now, when we were working through Galatians last year I just passed over that verse; I think I made one or two brief comments about it. But here’s something important to note: the word here, “taught,” along with the word “teaches,” those words come from this Greek word katecheo. So you could literally transliterate the words and it would read like this: “One who is catechized the word must share all good things with the one who catechizes.”
Now again, this word really carries the idea of teaching or instructing. Paul doesn’t have in the mind the New City Catechism, which we’re going to use; it wasn’t written yet. He doesn’t have in mind the Westminster Shorter Catechism or the Heidelberg Catechism. But Paul definitely does have in mind some kind of process of teaching Scripture and teaching the content of Scripture and passing that along. You can’t do that without some kind of plan. You can’t do that without some kind of systematic unfolding of Scripture. There are lots of ways to do that; catechism is one way.
Here’s one more verse, Acts chapter 18, verse 25, describing for us Apollos. It says he had been “instructed in the way of the Lord,” or catechized in the way of the Lord, “and, being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.”
Let me give you one more series of texts for establishing the biblical basis for catechesis. These are those passages that emphasize the objective content of the faith, which we must learn and obey and devote ourselves to and abide in and fight for and pass along to others. There are many of these passages; here are just a handful of them.
You remember in Acts chapter two, verse 42, that the early church following the day of Pentecost “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.” They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.
In Romans chapter six, verses 17 and 18, Paul is writing to these mostly Gentile believers, this is a Jewish-Gentile church, the church of Rome. He’s writing to them, he’s reminding them of their union with Christ and how they have come into a new relationship to Christ, and this is what he says: “But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.”
Now just notice that: standard of teaching, or pattern of teaching. There’s a definite teaching here; there’s a definite system of truth, a body of truth. Paul says, “You became obedient to this standard of teaching, to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”
In Second John, verse nine, the apostle John says that “everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.” Again, the teaching of Christ, emphasizing objective content, and we are to abide in this. The word means to dwell, to live in this teaching.
In Acts chapter six, in verse seven, Luke gives us one of these progress reports. In the book of Acts he does this every so often, a progress report of the church, how the church is growing. He says it in this way: “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.” They became obedient to the faith. What is the faith? It is this body of truth.
Two more texts. In Jude’s little letter, in verse three Jude says, “Beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” In other words, he wanted to write them a tract about the salvation they shared, but because there are threats, there’s false teaching, Jude says, “I’m writing to you to plead with you to contend for, fight for the faith.” Faith must be fought for.
And then, again, the whole book of Second Timothy. Maybe I should just say that when we looked at Second Timothy last year - and I know you probably don’t remember that right now. You can go on the website, I think there were four, maybe five, sermons on Second Timothy; they would be worth listening to again, just to emphasize what I’m talking about this morning. When I was preaching through that I was very intentionally, in my mind, laying the groundwork for this message and for this project, and just trying to build a case for why we need to pass the baton on to the next generation, we need to care about discipleship, we need to be serious about guarding the good deposit of the gospel, learning the Scriptures, and this is largely what I had in mind in doing it. So read the book of Second Timothy, or maybe check out a couple of those sermons.
(2) Essential content
So, what is, then, the essential content of a catechism? We’re still answering the “what” question. I’ve given you a definition, I’ve given you a biblical basis. What is the essential content?
I just want to give you a chart that just mildly adapted from J.I. Packer. J.I. Packer and Gary Parrett have written a really great book on catechesis [Grounded in the Gospel], and it’s all about growing up in the faith and building believers. They talk about "building believers the old-fashioned way."
Packer breaks this down brilliantly, and it’s a helpful way for just understanding the systematic approach to catechesis. He does this by giving five ways of thinking about catechism.
a. He says, first of all, that there are five founts, or frames, for the catechism and for catechesis. These five founts or frames are five aspects, or avenues, into the truth. So, first of all, the Trinity, the Triune God, God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You might just think of how the apostles’ creed is broken down into three basic segments, the first of which begins with, “We believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth,” and the second begins with the Son, and the third with the Holy Spirit. The trinitarian structure of our faith; that’s first. Then the Scriptures themselves, the faithful, trustworthy record of God’s revelation. Then the story that is unfolded within those Scriptures. The Bible, as you know, tells us a story. It tells us the story of God’s dealings with humanity and then zeroes in on God’s dealings with one man and his family, Abraham and the children of Israel, and then how all of that culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and then goes out to the nations again. It’s a story, the story of redemption, creation, fall, redemption, restoration. Then there is the gospel itself, which is both the apex and the summary of the story, the good news of Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and risen again. Right at the heart of the gospel, in First Corinthians chapter 15. And then the faith, which includes the gospel and its implications.
Again, what I’ve just emphasized, the objective content of Christian truth.
b. Then Packer says there are four fixtures of the catechism. These are four summaries that are often used in catechisms historically, and indeed, you find this in the New City Catechism, which we’re going to use this year. Those four fixtures are the apostles’ creed, which gives us a summary of the gospel; the Ten Commandments, or the decalogue, which gives us a summary of basic Christian ethics; the Lord’s Prayer, which gives us a pattern for prayer and a summary of basic Christian devotion; and then the sacraments, which gives us an understanding of the church and the use of baptism and the Lord’s table in the church.
You read, for example, the Heidelberg Catechism; it’s structured in these four ways. In fact, if you go much bigger and you read Calvin’s Institutes, it’s largely structured along these four ways. Something as brief as the New City Catechism does this as well, and these become very helpful for us in giving us four buckets in which to understand these basic categories of Christian doctrine; a category for understanding the basics of the gospel, a category for understanding basic Christian living, and a category for understanding the church, and then one for prayer and Christian devotion.
c. Packer then further summarizes this as three facets of the faith, and he adapts the language of John 14:6 and says we are to teach people the way, the truth, and the life. The truth, there’s the gospel; the way, that’s how to live, the ethics of Christianity; and then the life, there’s the devotional element to it.
d. Or, here are two fundamentals of the way: loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. You remember the two great commandments given by Jesus.
e. All of this, Packer says, boils down to one focus, and it is the central focus of catechetical content, which is proclaiming Christ. Now that’s really what we’re about. We want to communicate to others, to pass along to others, our faith in Jesus Christ. But it’s not enough to simply say, “I believe in the name of Jesus,” if there’s no content behind that. We have to ask ourselves, “Who is Jesus? What did Jesus do? What does Jesus require of us? What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? That’s why these other aspects funnel into our understanding of who Jesus is.
Now, let me give you just one quotation from J.I. Packer, and I’m going to read this and you can follow along on the screen, because Packer draws all of this together in a way that I think is very helpful.
He says, “We come, finally, to the one focus of all our catechetical content. It is simply this: we proclaim Christ. This was Paul’s stated content in his own ministry of teaching, a ministry which aimed at presenting everyone mature in Christ (Colossians 1:28). Luther was convinced that what every Christian needs is to learn Christ. If Christians must learn Christ, then we who catechize and preach must faithfully and fully proclaim Christ.
“Each element of the five-fold fount points to Christ. The Triune God has revealed himself in Christ. The Scriptures testify to Christ. Christ is the central character in the redemptive story. The gospel is the proclamation of what God has done and does now in and through Christ. All of this is at the heart of the faith that we pass onto others.
“The four fixtures of the catechism, likewise, lead to Christ. The creed focuses on the person and work of Christ, the decalogue is the grounding, guardian, and guide that leads us as needy sinners to Christ (Galatians 3:24), who alone has completely kept these commands. The Lord’s Prayer is the pattern of praise and petition which Christ himself taught. It looks ahead to his coming return and the final establishing of his kingdom. And the sacraments are signs and seals of Christ’s saving work in our lives.
“By naming the three facets of the faith as we did, the way, the truth, and the life, we were reminded that in all our teaching it is really Christ himself that we proclaim. The two fundamentals of the way, love of God and love of neighbor, have been fully obeyed by Jesus alone in all of human history. Only from his example, which elucidates his teaching, do we learn what this double love really means, and only through his grace do we find forgiveness for all our wanderings and power to begin walking in the way of Christian love ourselves.
“The content of our catechesis, then, if we may so put it, must always be Christ-obsessed. It must ever be relayed and received as the expression of minds and hearts, the horizon of whose outlook is wholly filled from every angle by the figure, indeed the face, of Jesus Christ the person.”
The reason I want us to adopt a catechism and learn it together is because I want us to know Christ better, and I think this is a tool that can help us.
II. Why?
Now, let me ask the question, why? Why do this? Why not just memorize Scripture? Why not just preach through the Bible? Why not just continue doing the things we’re doing? Why add this into the mix?
That’s a legitimate question to ask, and obviously, without Scripture catechism would be of little value, and catechism should always be subordinate to Scripture. Still, catechisms can be useful, and I want to give you five reasons, five answers to this why question.
(1) Number one, to instill hope in God. Again, look at Psalm 78. You see in verses seven and eight the reason why these fathers are to pass on to the next generations the testimony that God has established, the law that he has appointed. Look at the first part of verse seven.
He says, “So that they should set their hope in God.” That’s first. That’s what we want. We want our children, we want one another, we want new converts, we want disciples to set their hope in God, and catechism can help us do that.
Matthew Henry, the Puritan, said that catechism functions sort of the way John the Baptist did in the ministry of Jesus. He came preparing the way for Jesus. And Matthew Henry says catechisms prepare the way for the Savior. They make the path straight. The catechism can then lead us to conversion, those who are not Christians, and they can establish us in our faith if we are.
Now, here’s one reason why I think it’s so important for us to do this. The church in America today is losing its children. I’m sure you’ve read some of these statistics, and I’m sure you’ve noticed this in our fellowship and family. Children are raised in the church, and then often they wander.
Now, sometimes they come back, and if this is where you are, you have a grown child who is not walking with Christ, I just encourage you to keep praying, tell me and I’ll be praying. I’m praying for many right now, but if there’s a specific prayer you want, I want to pray. I don’t want this to be discouraging in any way to some whose children are not walking with the Lord right now, okay? Pray; God is able to bring them back. Let’s pray hard that God would do that.
But I’m asking this question as a pastor. I see this happen. I see it happen in the church, I see it happen in the church at large, and I’m asking this question: what do we need to do? Something’s not working, because we’re not keeping a lot of our young people. What do we need to do?
Here are some of those statistics. This comes from an article, “Top 10 Reasons Our Kids Leave the Church,” from churchleaders.com. “Seventy per cent of youths stop attending church when they graduate from high school.” Seventy per cent! Seven out of ten! Now about half of those, according to statistics, come back about ten years later, but still means a 35 per cent attrition rate. Thirty-five per cent of kids raised in the church end up not in church.
This guy, who wrote this article, is asking, “Why?” Why is this happening? He gives ten reasons. I’m not going to go through all ten reasons, but let me just give you four of them really quickly.
He says one reason is because they never attended church to start with. He said we’ve put them in Noah’s Ark-themed nursery and “jumbotron” summer camp-ish kids’ church. We’ve basically kept them sequestered from real church so that they’re never acclimated to it. That’s one reason that when kids get a certain age I want them in this room. I don’t want them down in children’s church after they’re able to sit through the service. I think it’s great; we need them down there up to eight years old. It can be a really useful ministry to help kids get things on their own level. But sooner or later, if we want them to be in church as adults they need to be in church here, right? This guy says this is one reason we’re losing kids.
Here’s another reason, he says: they get smart. He says, “It’s not that our students got smarter when they left home; rather, someone actually treated them as intelligent. Rather than dumbing down the message, the agnostics and atheists treat our youth as intelligent and challenge their intellect with deep thoughts of question and doubt. Many of these doubts have been answered in great depth over the centuries of our faith; however,” here’s another reason, “you sent them out unarmed!”
We’re sending kids out in the world without the tools necessary; they don’t understand the faith. They don’t have the tools to defend the faith, they don’t deeply embrace it. He says, “Let’s be honest: most of our churches are sending youth into the world embarrassingly ignorant of our faith. How could we not? We’ve jettisoned catechisms, sold them on deeds, not creeds, and encouraged them to start the quest of finding God’s plan for their lives. Yes, I know your church has a ‘What We Believe’ page, but is that actually being taught and reinforced from the pulpit?”
Then here’s another reason that he gives: we’ve given them hand-me-downs. The hand-me-downs are not full-orbed faith; it’s trying to pass on our feelings, our subjective feelings about God, without giving them content. This guy says we need to give them content. We need to give them the doctrine. We need to teach them what the Bible actually says.
Well, all of that is reason for catechism, just to instill hope in God in our children. I want my kids to be believing when I’m dead in the grave, and ten years from now, and 30 years from now. I don’t take it for granted that that’s going to happen without me being intentionally involved in the process of discipling them, and without the miraculous work of God’s grace in their hearts and lives.
So, first reason, to instill hope in God. Four more, [with] these I’ll be a little briefer.
(2) To furnish our memories with the truth, also Psalm 78. “...teach these things to the next generation, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God.” Teach them so they won’t forget. Implication: if you don’t teach them, they will forget! It’s not going to be in their memories if you don’t teach it, so we have to find a way to teach it. How do we get it into our memories. Well, one way is to memorize, to actually use your memory, fill the memory with something.
Now, some of you are thinking, “I can’t memorize anything. I’m too old. I can’t memorize anything.” First of all, you’re probably selling yourself short. You probably can remember more than you think you can. I don’t care; if you’re 75 years old and you’re like, “I don’t want to memorize a catechism,” can I just say, give me a little here. Give it a shot, and if you only end up memorizing ten of the 52 questions, that’s ten more things that’ll be in your head next year that’s not in your head now. But I think you can do this! I think you can do this. I think all of us can do this.
So, furnish your memory. We remember a lot of things because we spend a lot of time thinking about things; we don’t spend enough time thinking about truth, so we don’t remember it well. So, furnish your memory with the truth.
(3) Number three, to build us up in our most holy faith. I’m taking that language from Jude 20. Catechisms help us do this. It helps us build up our faith.
Catechisms are sort of like ABCs. You know, children, before they learn to read, they have to learn the ABCs. Now, learning the ABCs, the sounds of the various letters of the alphabet and how to put words together, that’s not in and of itself reading. And learning a catechism is not in and of itself Christianity, but it’s the grammar of Christianity. It’s giving the framework, it’s giving the structure, it’s giving the category, it’s giving the language. So it’s like ABCs. It’s like a road map to the faith.
You say, “Well, why not just have my kids read the Bible?” Yes, have your kids read the Bible, but give them some tools so that they can understand the Bible when they read it! The Bible is a tough book, folks. The Bible is hard to understand.
Now, there are places that are simple enough for anybody to understand, and I’m thrilled when I see my children picking up things from the Bible. But we need to equip them so that they can actually get from the Bible what’s there, and a catechism can help them with that. So, building us up in the faith, that’s number three.
(4) And then number four, to foster genuine devotion, discipleship, and doxology. This is the language of Michael Horton. He talks about these four Ds: doctrine, devotion, discipleship, doxology.
It all flows out of the doctrine. It flows out of the doctrine. The devotion, that is, real love for Christ; discipleship, actually becoming like Jesus; doxology, worshipping our Triune God. In other words, there’s a practical end to this. It will actually help us become better Christians; not merely more intellectual Christians, but it will actually help us become better believers, better disciples, more devoted to Jesus.
C.H. Spurgeon said, “Those who do away with Christian doctrine are the worst enemies of Christian living.” He said, “The coals of orthodoxy are necessary to the fires of piety.”
You say, “I just want to love Jesus more!” Well, I want you to love Jesus more, too, but for you to love Jesus more it’s going to help you if you know more about Jesus. So a catechism can help you in that process.
(5) And then number five, to lead us into deeper obedience. This isn’t only to help us learn, intellectually, doctrine; it is to help us actually practice the faith. Again, it’s right there in Psalm 78. This is verses seven and eight, “So that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.”
Now, we’re new covenant Christians, not old covenant Christians, so the law comes to us not directly from Moses but we’re under the law of Christ; it comes to us through Christ. But listen, folks: we still have a mandate to obey. Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” We still have a mandate to obey.
As Christians, we live under grace. We’re not saved by our obedience, we’re saved through faith in Jesus Christ and what he’s done for us and the sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives. It’s all of grace, but grace does not cancel out obedience. You must obey Jesus! You must! It’s not optional. How are you going to obey if you don’t know what to obey? How are you going to know what to obey if you don’t know his commands? A catechism can help you learn those commands and learn the implications and applications of those commands.
III. How?
So, final question, how? How are we going to do this? It’s really simple. It’s not going to be necessarily easy, but it’s simple. It’s not easy because it’s going to require some intentionality, it’s going to require some discipline in your schedule and in your family, it’s going to require some regular follow-up; okay? So, not necessarily easy, but it’s simple. It’s a simple plan. Let me tell you what to do.
First of all, get the New City Catechism. It’s on the table; we’re giving this away to you. This has everything you really need, okay? It gives you all the questions, all the answers, it gives you Scripture references for those questions, and you can just use this; this alone would be sufficient.
However, here’s another resource. If you are technologically prone to these kinds of things, get the New City Catechism app. There’s a link in the bulletin where you can follow the link; it’ll show you where to go where you can get it for either your iPhone or your Android or whatever.
It’s free, and the app has more than the book. The app has also devotional readings that you can use for your family devotional times, your own personal devotion times. I read through all of those last year; they’re really good. It has prayers so that you can turn these questions into devotional prayer towards the Lord. You can also set it in children’s mode, and it has songs. My five-year-old is already learning using the song; really, really helpful. Frankly, if you have a hard time with memory, I know you’re not kids, most of you, but you might just try listening to the songs, because it might help you. It might help you to memorize it by listening to the songs. So it’s fine to put it in children’s mode if you’re, you know, 50 years old or whatever.
Use the catechism, use the app. Do one question per week. Do one question per week. Now, this is the first Sunday of the month, so the first question is this week, so you may want to work on two for the coming week. I will use the second question next Sunday; we’ll use that in some way in our worship, and we’ll often do that. Don’t know if we’ll do that every week, but we will often do that so that we’re regularly being reminded of the questions we’re working on together.
So what I want to challenge you to do is just work on one question a week. You can work on it daily, you can review it regularly, and then I would encourage you: with your family, would you aim for at least two or three times a week some kind of family devotions or family worship? Now, some of you are probably already doing this more often, and that’s great; keep at it. Some of you are probably not doing it at all.
So start small with two or three times a week, and it’s pretty simple. This is what we try to do with our kids. You know, it’s kind of like Mark Twain; when he talked about smoking, he said, “Stopping smoking is the easiest thing in the world; I’ve done it hundreds of times.” That’s kind of how I feel about family devotions. Starting it is easy; I’ve done it hundreds of times. And then we’ve dropped off and we have to come back around and say, “We have to get more serious about doing this.” Here we are again. We’re doing it again this year; we’re trying to get more serious about family time together around the world and using a catechism.
So, what we do is we sit down with the kids and we’ll have all of them together, and we just go over the question a few times. We will read some Scripture together, maybe read some kind of a devotional reading together. We will spend a few minutes praying together, often we use the Lord’s Prayer, and then sometimes we’ll sing a song together. Twenty minutes.
Dads, it’ll be one of the hardest things you will ever do. It’s easier to prepare to preach a sermon than it is to consistently do family discipleship. It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do: no substitute for it. It’s one of the most important things you could ever do. So I want to encourage you, dads especially, take leadership. If you happen to be a single mom or you happen to be a mom who is kind of leading the charge spiritually in your family, then step in and do it. Step in and do it, and pray that your husband will come along.
Now, some of you are not married or you’re married but don’t have children. If you’re married, do it with your spouse. If you’re not married, then here’s what I would encourage singles to do: why not pair up with at least one other single person in church? Meet together about once a week and quiz each other on the catechism. It’s a fairly simple thing you could do. You could meet for coffee before work one morning a week where you go over this together, so you’re not doing it alone.
That’s the plan. It’s a pretty simple plan, but it’s a plan that we obviously are going to have to work hard for this to happen. So, I hope you’re persuaded.
Calvin says without this the church will fail. Now, if we don’t do this next year this church is not going to fail in the next year, I don’t believe, by God’s grace; but I want us to be thinking beyond one year. I want us to be thinking 20, 30, 40, 50 years down the road. Will there still be a witness to Christ in Niles 50 years from now? There won’t be unless we pass the faith on to our children. So let’s take it seriously and let’s do it together. Let’s pray.
Our gracious Father, when we think about this priority of passing along the faith that has been given to the saints, passing that along to our children, it really is a huge task that’s beyond us. I’m reminded of Paul’s words in Second Corinthians: “Who is sufficient for these things?” And we’re not. We’re not sufficient in and of ourselves. The truth of the matter is that our spirits our weak, our flesh is strong, and our tendency is to move towards ease and comfort and to resist anything that interrupts that. Our tendencies are not to move towards intentionality and discipline.
So we need to grace. We need your grace to help us to do this and to do it consistently, to do it wisely, to do it well. And even, then, in doing it we need the grace and the work and the ministry of the Holy Spirit to make it fruitful. We don’t assume that merely going through the motions of memorizing a series of questions and answers will, in and of itself, produce faith. What we believe, rather, is that these are seeds that, under the blessing of your Spirit, can germinate and can grow and bloom and become fruitful. So we pray for that right now.
We pray that in our own hearts and lives we would embrace the content of Christian faith more fully this year than we ever have before, that it would bear fruit in our lives in ways that it never has before, that we would begin to see it bearing fruit in the lives of our children and our families in new and fresh and encouraging ways, and that you would keep us prayerful and dependent on your Spirit throughout the process. In all of our efforts, may your Spirit be the one who motivates it and blesses it and causes it to bear fruit.
Father, as we come now to the Lord’s table we come again to furnish our memories with the truth of who Christ is and what he has done. We do this in remembrance of Jesus. We do it remembering that Christ is our sinless substitute who gave his body to be broken on our behalf. So, we pray that as we come to the table we would come with hearts alive to Jesus, with hearts sensitive to your Spirit, that we would come repentant of any sin that you convict us of and show us. Help us, even in these moments, to let it go, to purpose to turn away, to put sin to death, and to live to righteousness. And we pray that as we come we would be able to lay hold of Jesus himself, to really feed on Christ, who is the living bread. We pray this in Jesus’ name and for his sake, Amen.
Brian G. Hedges
