Teaching and Learning

Good morning, Good News Church. So today we continue our series,

Church Unpacked. So this is Church Unpacked, part five.

The sermon title today is Teaching and Learning.

Now, if you are someone who pays close attention to the church newsletter,

you might say, Mario, this was not the topic that was announced for this week

in the church newsletter.

Teaching and Learning was actually scheduled to be taught on Sunday,

October 11th, according to the newsletter. And if you think that,

I just want to let you know you are correct.

I bumped it up. This was something that we had to preach in October,

and I moved it up to today.

Just so you know, when we send out the newsletter with the sermon topics,

we aren't trying to lie. When we send it out, we think that that's probably

what we're going to teach on at the time that we send it out.

And then in the meantime, life happens, and we make changes.

In this particular case, I thought that the topic teaching and learning would

fit better this week, earlier in the series, rather than putting it off more toward the end.

I think it's a good fit because we began this series by talking about what a

church is. Do you remember that from week one?

And then we talked about what a church member is and our role with one another.

And then we moved on to baptism and Lord's Supper because those activities are,

they are activities that are exclusive to the Christian church.

Remember that? No one else does them, right?

And so today we move on to the first of many topics that are essential to church

life, but not exclusive to church life, okay?

Not exclusive meaning like their teaching and learning happens like outside

of Christianity as well.

So, I thought it would be good for us to focus this, like, take this time to

focus on the concept of sermon, okay?

In fact, I think this is going to be a first for me, okay? I've been pastor

of church here for 15 years, and I don't think I've ever done a sermon on sermons

before. This is my first one.

Baptism happens in church, Lord's Supper happens in church,

sermons happen in church, and in fact, for some of you, sermons might be something

you associate with church even more so than baptism and Lord's Supper,

because in a lot of churches, they happen more often than baptism and Lord's Supper do.

So here is the question that I want to answer this morning.

Does a sermon have to be in the church service?

Is this mandatory? This thing that we're doing right here, is this something we have to do?

Or is this just sort of like a bonus activity that we add to the things that we have to do?

You get the question? All right, so does a sermon have to be in the church service?

Okay, I'm going to give you my answer. You ready for it? All right, here's the answer.

Does a sermon have to be in the church service? Technically no, but mostly yes.

That's my answer, okay? Technically no, but mostly yes. And in fact,

that is not only my answer, that is my outline this morning, okay?

So point one is technically no, and point two is mostly yes,

okay? And so I'm going to spend the first part of the sermon explaining why

technically no, and the second part of the sermon saying why mostly yes.

So let's start with technically no, okay?

Does a sermon have to be in the church service? Technically, no. Why would I say that?

First of all, I say that because the Bible does not include an order of service

for the church's meetings.

Okay, I don't know if you know this, but there is no book of the Bible,

there's no verse of the Bible, there's no paragraph in the Bible that gives

the church, like, this is the order.

When you gather together, you do this, and then you have to do this,

and then this, and this, and this activity, and this order, and that's how you

know it's a church service, because you did these five things,

or these seven things, or these three things in this order, okay?

Like a liturgy, sometimes it's called there is no there is no list of a liturgy in the bible

that it would say like you know you have the organ prelude and then there's

the welcome and the announcements and then you have the opening hymn or the

opening song or the whatever and there's a we read the apostle's creed or you

have an old testament reading a new testament reading

uh you have whatever it's an offering a sermon and then a closing song and then

you're dismissed like that's just not in the bible the bible doesn't describe

church meetings that way so that being true,

i don't see how a sermon could become like definitional to a church meeting

or a worship service in the sense that like it wouldn't be one,

a legitimate one without a sermon, okay?

In fact, we have had worship services here at this church that did not include

a sermon, okay? Did you know that?

I don't think we've ever had one on a Sunday morning, but many times on Good

Friday and on Christmas Eve, we have had church services here that include no sermon.

In those cases, sometimes we had something extra, We did Lord's Supper,

or we had extra Bible readings, or we had extra music, or we had an extra light

your neighbor's candle time, or whatever it might be, and we didn't actually

have a sermon in those gatherings.

And I would consider those to be real church services that didn't have a sermon in them.

Okay, so that's the first reason why I would say technically no.

The second reason I would say technically no to the question, is a sermon mandatory,

is that even though the Bible highly values gospel preaching and teaching,

it does not mandate that a sermon has to be the way that that teaching is accomplished.

So let me show you this in the Bible, because there are examples of different

teachings and different styles and methods in the Bible.

So let's go ahead and start with Acts chapter 19. If you have your Bible with

Acts 19 · chapter mention

you, turn to Acts chapter 19, I'm going to read you an account of what happened

Acts 19 · chapter mention

when the Apostle Paul went to a city called Ephesus and he wanted to teach the

Ephesians about the gospel.

He wanted to teach them about Jesus and the kingdom of God. And so he shows

up and this is what happens.

He goes to Ephesus, Acts 19, verse 8.

Acts 19:8

Then he entered the synagogue, the he is Paul, and spoke boldly over a period

of three months, engaging in discussion and trying to persuade them about the

things of the kingdom of God.

But when some of them became hardened and would not believe,

slandering the way in front of the crowd, which just so you know,

the way is basically the word that they were using for Christianity at this point.

The word Christianity had not been invented, okay? So at this point,

it was being called the way.

So basically saying when they would not believe and they were slandering what

would become Christianity in front of the crowd, he withdrew from them and met

separately with the disciples. Now notice this, conducting discussions every

day in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

So he shows up, starts with the synagogue, starts talking to the people about

Jesus. And when they said, we aren't interested in that, he goes and rents or

borrows this lecture hall called the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

He uses that particular building in order to teach the people in Ephesus about Jesus.

And what method did he use? Did you notice what he does when he goes to the

lecture hall? It says he met separately with them and he was conducting discussions.

That's interesting. The Greek word there is the word that we get the word dialogue

from in our language, okay?

I think it's very possible that Paul did not do a monologue on this occasion,

but rather discussed, like had a back and forth discussion with the people who

showed up at the lecture hall of Tyrannus, that it may have been a question

and answer, that he was like talking with them about,

like as they were coming in, he was telling them about Jesus.

I think it's very possible that there were times where he was talking about

Jesus and he did not know what he would be saying 15 minutes in the future because

he didn't know what the next question was gonna be or he didn't know what the

next thing that was gonna be said, right?

And so he was just like this back and forth talking to people.

I think it's very possible that's what happened here.

That's a method of teaching. Now let me show you a different method of teaching.

Go to Acts chapter 20. So in my Bible, it's just one page over,

Acts 20 · chapter mention

okay? Same character, he just

goes to a different city. So Paul is in Ephesus, now he goes to Troas.

This is fascinating what happens in Troas.

On the first day of the week, we assembled, right? We had this gathering,

that's what the church is.

On the first day of the week, we assembled to break bread. Paul spoke to them,

and since he was about to depart the next day, he extended his message until midnight.

There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were assembled,

and a young man named Eutychus was sitting on a windowsill and sank into a deep

sleep as Paul kept on speaking.

When he was overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was picked

up dead. It's okay. So just so you know, like this is in the Bible,

okay, there was a time where the Apostle Paul preached so long that someone died.

Here's what happened next, verse 10. But Paul went down, fell on him,

embraced him, and said, don't be alarmed, for his life is in him.

And as the story goes on, you're going to see, he brought the kid back to life.

Verse 11, after going upstairs, breaking the bread and eating,

Paul conversed a considerable time until dawn, and then he left.

They brought the boy home alive and were greatly comforted.

Now, the significant thing in this story is that God authenticated the ministry

of the apostle Paul by allowing him to bring someone back to life who had died mid-sermon, okay?

But the thing that I'm reading this to you for is not the usual reason that

people bring this passage up.

I'm bringing this up just to point out to you, that had to be a monologue,

right? There's no way that was a dialogue. That had to be a one guy talking

for a long time, and then someone dropped dead, and then he's like,

I guess we'll take a break for this one.

And then he took care of that, and then went back. And so I guess what I'm saying

is, it just seems to me this probably was not a discussion, this was like a

sermon, this was like a long sermon.

When you read the passage, it looks like Paul's the only one talking.

It says he sank into a deep sleep, not as they were talking,

but as Paul kept on talking. So I think this is a monologue,

this is a long sermon that happens here.

But that's not the only method, let me show you another one.

Let's go to 1 Corinthians 5.

1 Corinthians 5, I'm gonna start reading to you in verse 9.

So this is Paul, he's talking to the Corinthians, which is a church.

And he says, I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

I did not mean the immoral people of this world or the greedy and swindlers

or idolaters. Otherwise, you would have to leave the world.

But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer

who is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive,

a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person.

So at this point, Paul is teaching them, and he is referring back to a teaching

that he had done earlier, right?

And so he's referring back to, hey, I told you back in the past,

don't hang out with sexually immoral people. And he said, so now what I'm going

to have to do is I need to clarify what I meant by that, okay?

When I was saying don't hang out with immoral people, I was not trying to say

that you can't hang out with any sinner, anytime, anywhere, for any reason.

You would have to leave the world in order to live that way.

What I am telling you is, what I meant was, when you gather together as a church,

there can't be people among you, there should not be people among you that you

all know that they're like, yeah, I believe in Jesus, and they're living the opposite way

that someone would if they were living for Jesus. He was saying,

you cannot tolerate that.

Like, that is not good for the group. That is not good for the church.

So as that person comes in, if they keep saying, yeah, I'm a believer in Jesus

Christ, right, there's a point which you're going to have to say,

like, no, you've got to stop showing up drunk here every single time,

or you've got to stop whatever it is.

This can't be tolerated. We're not allowed to hang out with you if you keep

saying you're a believer and living the opposite. He was saying,

you guys do have to police yourselves. You do have to look into that and make

sure that you're doing that. That's what I meant. I didn't mean avoid every

sinner everywhere for every reason.

Now, in that teaching, he's referring to teaching that he did earlier.

How had he taught them the first time? It wasn't a sermon.

It wasn't a discussion. What was it? He says it at the beginning.

I wrote to you in a letter.

I didn't get up and have a big monologue. I wrote it down on paper and gave it to you.

A sermon is not definitional to a Christian gathering because there is no order

of service that's included in the Bible, and different methods of teaching are

appropriate for different situations.

If you have a church that is less than 20 people, I would imagine that probably

dialogue would be the primary method that you would use for teaching.

If you go, can you even have a church with just 20 people? Yes, you can.

In fact, I think all over this world, there are many villages where the number

of Christians in that village is like less than 20 people.

So when they come together, that's the church.

And in a group like that, I would think dialogue is probably going to be your

best bet for how the people are going to teach and learn God's word.

However, once you get to a church that's like maybe over 50 people,

I would think probably a monologue is going to be your most effective method

of teaching when that many people are in the room at the same time.

I also thought about it this week. Like if for some reason I lost my vocal cords

due to injury or disease, like what would I do? I think God has called me to

teach his word, and I guess I would just continue to do it by writing.".

Okay, so different methods, no order of service in the Bible.

Now it all makes sense, Mario. So then why did you say that the answer is mostly

yes? You said technically no, and I get that, but then you said mostly yes.

Like you said that as if there does have to be some sort of sermon or teaching

in the Christian gathering. I did, I did. Here's why I said mostly yes.

It's important for you to understand the reason I'm saying mostly yes is because

Christianity itself is a set of truths.

Okay, did you know this? Christianity is a set of truths. Now it's more than

that, but it's not less than that.

Christianity is more than just a set of truths, but it is not less than a set

of truths. Christianity is a religion of doctrine that was given to us in words.

And those words must be passed on from believers to unbelievers and from believers

to other believers. That has to happen.

When I was a teenager, I came across a quote, and I'm going to guess many of

you have heard it, okay? A lot of people in the first service had heard of it.

I think the first time I ever saw it was on a bulletin board at church,

and then I think I've seen it many times since then. Tell me if you've heard this before.

The quote is, preach the gospel always, and when necessary, use words.

Have you heard this? Okay, how many of you have heard it before?

Okay, yeah, all right. So, I'm about to ruin it for you.

I once heard a preacher, and I think he's right. I think he said this.

He said, preach the gospel always, and when necessary, use words.

It's like saying, feed the homeless always, and when necessary, use food.

Yeah, that's the only way to do it, okay? The only way to preach the gospel would be to use words.

They may go, Mario, Mario, why do you have to ruin all of our cute Christian

quotes? I've been here before when you've done this.

Okay. I had to go home and throw away the mug and I'm just, you know,

and I really liked that one, Mario. Why would you mess with that one?

And so I'm telling you, I liked it too.

I like it too. Listen, the first time I ever heard it, I agreed.

Like I, like I understood the sentiment when people use it.

I think the best way that that quote is used is when someone is trying to say

our lifestyle must back up the message that we preach, that you cannot just

preach the gospel with words alone, right?

Like there has to be actions that back up the words that you're saying.

And when someone uses that quote for that purpose, it's like, yes, I totally agree.

Our lifestyle must back up the message that we preach. I love that idea.

But it's also important to note, you can't preach the gospel without words.

So let me show you several Bible passages this morning that highlight the importance

of Christian teaching and Christian learning.

We're going to start with 2 Timothy chapter 2.

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

If you have your Bible, you can go to 2 Timothy chapter 2. I'm going to start

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

reading the first verse of that chapter. And just so you know,

for the context of this book, Paul is the one writing this book to Timothy.

So basically, this is an older pastor talking to a younger pastor. And this is what he says.

You, therefore, my son. So Paul was like a mentor to Timothy.

You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses,

commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

So this is interesting. He says, this is the plan. This is what you need to

do. You need to take the stuff that I taught you and you need to teach it to others.

And you can see what he's referring to. He says, what you have heard from me

in the presence of many witnesses, right? My public teaching,

like the stuff I've been saying about Christianity all these years.

He's in the presence of many witnesses. He's not saying every private conversation

we've had, every joke I've ever told you on the side.

He's saying like the teaching that I've been doing out loud in front of everyone.

I want you to take it and you need to teach it to people. In fact,

he doesn't even say you need to teach it to people, does he?

He says, you need to teach it to people who will teach it to people.

That's the strategy for Christian doctrine. The maintenance of it, the spreading of it.

The strategy for Christian doctrine and Christian living is that someone teaches

it to someone who teaches it to someone who teaches it to someone who teaches it.

That's how the next generation knows the content of the Christian faith, right?

Like Paul is saying, you got to teach this stuff to people who will then later

teach it to someone else.

I think the idea is it could be that one day it's being taught to people that

like after Paul's dead, it's being taught to people.

That's how the next generation knows the content of the Christian faith because

it is taught and then taught and taught.

This idea is also found in the Old Testament. Jenny Stanley,

who is the director of our KidZone program here and does the youth Bible study on Wednesday nights,

when she heard that this was going to be my sermon topic this week,

she said, oh, she said Psalm 78 is about that also.

And I did not remember that. And then I looked it up and she was right.

So I'm going to read it to you.

Psalm 78, this is like in the midst of like Israel's history, this song was written.

Psalm 78 says this, my people, hear my instruction, listen to what I say,

okay? He's saying like, there's some words that I need to give you.

I will declare wise sayings. I will speak mysteries from the past,

things we have heard and known that our fathers have passed down to us.

We must not hide them from their children, but must tell a future generation

the praises of the Lord, His might, and the wonderful works He has performed.

How in the world are people, generations from now, going to know what God did?

Well, we're going to have to say it, and then they're going to have to say it to the people then.

He established a testimony in Jacob and set up a law in Israel,

which he commanded our fathers to teach their children, look at this,

so that a future generation, children yet to be born, might know.

Like God cares about his word and what he has done, like spreading to people

who don't even exist right now, right? He cares about them and they're not even there yet.

They were to rise and tell their children so that they might put their confidence

in God and not forget God's work, but keep his commands.

And so the psalm goes on to explain things that happened in Israel's history,

particularly things that God did among them that had already been recorded,

that had already been spoken to them, okay?

And so I'm not going to read you the whole thing, but let me just read you so

you can see, like, what happens next. Like, as the psalmist is explaining,

like, this is the stuff God did. Let me read you some of them.

I'm just going to skip to verse 24.

It says, he rained manna for them to eat so that he here is God and the them,

is Israel when they were in the wilderness before they got to the promised land.

He rained manna for them to eat. He gave them grain from heaven.

People ate the bread of angels. He sent them an abundant supply of food.

He made the east wind blow in the skies and drove the south wind by his might.

And he rained meat on them like dust and winged birds like the sand of the seas.

Earlier in the Bible, we know, this is actually referenced to quail that he

caused to fall on the camp.

He made them fall in his camp, all around his tent. They ate and were completely

satisfied, for he gave them what they craved.

Before they had satisfied their desire, while the food was still in their mouths,

God's anger flared up against them, and he killed some of their best men.

He struck down Israel's choice young men.

And this goes on for 29 more verses. But I just want you to know,

like, this section that I just read to you is, it's the story of the book of Exodus.

They re-said, re-taught, re-explained to people hundreds of years later so that they would know.

They knew that they had a message from the Lord and they passed it on to the next generation.

Well, we see this in the New Testament. When we look at like,

what is the church supposed to do? And when the church gathers and they are

amongst each other, what is it that we're supposed to do?

You'll see this all over the New Testament. Let's go to Acts chapter 11.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

Acts 11 verse 25. Then he went to Tarsus. I guess we need to explain who the

Acts 11:25

he is. The he here is Barnabas.

And the backstory is Barnabas was sent to a particular city called Antioch to

check what was going on because they heard that like some Christian stuff was happening.

He showed up. There's all these Christians there that have all been Christians

for like five minutes. Nobody knows what to do.

And he just sort of becomes the pastor of the church. Like he just thought he

was visiting and then surprise. And so now he's a pastor.

So he's a brand new pastor at a brand a new church, doesn't really know exactly

what he's doing, trying to figure out how to handle this.

So he went to Tarsus to search for Saul. And when he found him,

he brought him to Antioch.

And for a whole year, they met with the church.

Now remember from the first week that we learned, right, the churches,

the people gathered, right? So they went to these gatherings and they had these meetings.

And what did they do? As these pastors met with this church,

okay, as they gathered, what did they do in their gatherings?

For a whole year, they met with the church and what's the word? Taught.

They came together and had meetings. Well, what are we going to do in these

meetings? This is what they did. They taught large numbers.

The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.

So very early on in Christianity, it was called the way and the people that

followed the way were called disciples. Eventually it got called Christianity

and the people that are part of Christianity were Christians.

That transition starts right here in Acts chapter 11. They start to,

Acts 11 · chapter mention

it starts to move toward, okay, we're Christians.

When did the people first become Christians in this city where they met together,

and taught over and over again.

In my Bible, it's like one page over.

Acts 13, you'll see more about this church being talked about.

Acts 13, verse one says, in the church that was at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers,

Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius, the Cyrenian,

Manan, a close friend of Herod, the Tetrarch, and Saul.

Like, okay, what's special about that verse? That's just a list of five people.

No, that is not just a list of five people.

That is a list of the five men who were doing the proclaiming and the teaching

at this particular church.

If you go to Romans chapter 12, you'll see it's implied again.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Romans 12, starting in verse four.

Now, as we have many parts in one body and all the parts do not have the same

function, in the same way, we who are many are one body in Christ and individually

members of one another. Let me pause here. Do you remember?

You remember this from the second week of the series? Can you remember back to three weeks ago?

We're all part of the same body, do you remember this?

Okay, so if you remember it, I'm hoping, what does the word member mean here in this context?

Body part. Very good. It's not like I'm a member of Costco.

It's not like I'm a member of the country club. It's there is a body and the

body has individual parts and the individual parts don't all have the same function.

We talked about this three weeks ago, right? So the nose does something different

than the eye. The eye has a different power than the ear.

The ear has a different function than the hand, right?

And we are all individually members, body parts, of the body.

Now that's important. The fact that we are different parts with different functions

is going to matter because that's brought up in the next verse. Romans 12, verse 6.

Romans 12:6

According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts.

And this is like parallel to the body part. The body parts have different functions.

The humans in the body of Christ have different gifts.

If prophecy, use it according to the standard of one's faith.

The idea here being if prophecy is your gift, then you're supposed to use that in the church?

If service in service. If service is your gift, then what are you supposed to do? Serve.

If teaching in teaching, if exhorting in exhortation, giving with generosity,

leading with diligence, showing mercy with cheerfulness, right?

He lists spiritual gifts here.

So you can tell what this is teaching is there are going to be some people in

the body of Christ who do more leading than other people do, right?

Because that's their gift. That's their function. There are going to be some

people that do more showing mercy than other people do, right?

Because that's their gift. That's their function. There are going to be some

people who teach, right?

Not everybody will teach the same amount. There'll be some people who would

teach because that's their function. You following? That's what it says.

And the assumption here is, if there are some people in the body who are leading,

then that just assumes there are also going to be some people who are doing what?

Following. And if there are some people who are showing mercy,

some people are receiving said mercy.

And if some people are teaching, the assumption is some people are going to be learning. Yeah.

You see this again in Ephesians 4. Let me show it to you there.

Ephesians 4, starting in verse 11.

And he personally gave, that he here is Jesus, and this is given to the church.

He gave gifts to the church.

He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,

some pastors, and what's the word here? Teachers.

Well, why? Why did he give teachers? For the training of the saints in the work

of ministry to build up the body of Christ.

There's the training of the saints, this is a word for Christians here,

in the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ.

This passage assumes God's people will be trained to do the work that God has

for them by teachers, among others.

By teachers, that's how the people will do what God has called them to do.

Do you see that this is all over the New Testament?

Okay, not enough people said, we'll do one more. Hebrews chapter five.

Hebrews chapter five. I'm gonna read you verses 11 and 12. This is an interesting

passage. It's different than all the other ones.

The writer of Hebrews is writing to this church. I think it's primarily Jewish

Christians in the first century. And he says, we have a great deal to say about this.

And it's difficult to explain since you have become too lazy to understand. Oh, sick burn.

Okay, so he's saying to this, These people, I know, that's like five years ago,

but you know what? I lived my whole life five years ago, it's wonderful.

So, he says to them, you have become too lazy to understand,

like there's a problem you're in, there's stuff I wanna explain to you,

but you guys aren't really learning at the rate that you ought to.

It's difficult to explain since you've become too lazy to understand.

Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you

the basic principles of God's revelation again.

You need milk, not solid food.

I think this one is interesting because it not only talks about the Christian

responsibility toward teaching, but it talks about the Christian responsibility toward learning.

Okay, so back to our original question. Does there have to be a sermon as a part of church?

And the answer is, there has to be a something.

Because we have good news. Like that's not just a church name.

That's what God has given us, good news.

We don't just have good vibes or good feelings or even good deeds.

He gave us news, like words that must be proclaimed and passed on to the next

generation of believers.

You need to understand this. we are not going to nice our way into the future of Christianity.

And when I say that, she knows, that when I say that, I'm referring to the quote

earlier that I said, preach the gospel always and when necessary use words.

I talked about the good way that it can be used, but let me tell you the negative

way that that quote can be used.

When someone, preach the gospel always and when necessary use words,

sometimes can be like, hey, those people, they don't know gospel.

You go over there, Like, don't use words. Like, don't tell them the gospel.

Be nice to them, right? Just, I mean, use words if necessary,

I guess. But like, really, you don't want to use words. Like, it might offend them.

You might say something that they disagree with. So just like,

just be nice. I think you're safe if you just go and be nice.

Just think about this. The idea that by my lifestyle alone,

I could proclaim to someone that Jesus is the son of God come from heaven to earth and lived among us,

and lived the righteous life that God required of humans that we haven't lived

up to so that he could credit his righteousness to us and died on the cross, a death that we deserve.

Like took, he did not deserve to die. We deserve to die. He took our punishment

on himself in our place so that we could escape judgment.

That he came back to life after he died. And that shows God the Father accepted

his sacrifice on behalf of humanity.

And he has power over life and death. Like he has eternal life to give out so

that we really can be credited with righteousness, forgiven of our sins,

and live with God forever.

And the way that that happens is we have to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior.

Savior meaning there's no way I can save myself. There's no way I can do this

on my own. It has to be something he's done for me, but also he's my Lord, so he's the one I obey.

Like, how could we possibly proclaim that by handing a thirsty person a bottle

of water and pat him on the back nicely?

Like, there's no way. We're going to have to use words.

Now, don't hear me wrong. Kindness is good, okay? Kindness is great.

In fact, kindness is part of the character of God.

Like God is kind. And so the way that we know kindness is good is because God

is kind and God is good. So we want to be good like God and we should be kind like God.

Kindness is listed as one of the fruits of the spirit in Galatians.

Like it is a result of the spirit of God being in our life. Spirit of God comes

into your life. What's supposed to come out of you is kindness.

So kindness is important.

But kindness by itself will not be the way that Christianity is passed on to the next generation.

Christianity has always been a gathering of people. Remember week one?

Christianity has always been a gathering of people around a message,

the message of Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for this opportunity. I think it's crazy that it's

been 15 years and it just now dawned on me to teach why we do this portion of the service.

I've done it. I've done it the whole time we've been here. I mean,

because I believe all this. So I've just, I've been acting like it's true without,

explaining why. And so I thank you for this opportunity.

I pray that you would be our teacher. I pray that you would use me week after

week and other people in this congregation who also are teachers.

And we would speak your word and proclaim your word.

I pray that there would be people in here who would not be lazy to understand,

but would be learners of your word. And many of the learners of your word would

then turn around and be teachers of your word. I just pray that you would make

us a teaching and learning church gathered around your message.

We thank you for the gospel. We thank you for Jesus. It's in his name we pray, amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word. This is from 2 Timothy.

It's Paul talking to Timothy and he says, but as for you, continue in what you

have learned and firmly believed.

You know those who taught you and you know that from childhood you have known

the sacred scriptures which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through

faith in Christ Jesus that is good news.