Lutherans Schools Week 2006
Lutherans Schools Week – 150 Years
March 5, 2006, Ephesians 4:15-16
Lutheran Schools: A Great Place for Growing ...
"People of Purpose" after D. Belasic
Children's Message: Theme "Growing ... Developing ... Maturing"
Main Idea: God gives life, love, faith, gifts, abilities ... and God wants us to grow, develop, blossom!
Materials: Things that grow, change, develop, become more useful-a child and an adult; seeds and growing plants; a toy, stuffed, baby penguin and adult Emperor penguin (or different stuffed animal).
Good morning! It is good to be with you worshiping God today. We are celebrating National Lutheran Schools Week in our congregation today because we believe this school is a good place to grow in our life with God and with each other.
We all know that boys and girls-and adults too-change, grow, and mature. We start out like this baby penguin (show stuffed toy). Small. Fuzzy. Hardly able to walk. Needing help and lots of care.
Like this little one, we also learn from our parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, pastors, principals, and friends. We change. There are some things we can't do or even understand when we are little babies, but God helps us grow and develop the skills He gives us. In our families, the bigger, older kids can do some things sooner and faster than the younger ones-like run, play sports, and even drive a car.
We all know that to grow and develop our abilities, to become mature, we need good food, nutrition, vitamins, rest, and exercise.
That happens in our life with Jesus too. He wants us to grow ... and we do. He helps us learn what is right and wrong. His Word shows us when we sin, and the cross of Jesus shows us how great and forgiving His love really is.
Now look at this penguin (stuffed animal). This is a grown-up penguin, an Emperor penguin. His mom and dad penguin helped him grow. His friends did too. He can do a lot of things now that he couldn't do when he was younger. He learned from the wisdom and example of others. We call them "teachers."
Our Lord gives us people to help us grow, develop our abilities, and become mature ... just as this big penguin helps the little one. In Eph. 4:15 in the Bible, God's Word says, "Speaking the truth in love, we grow up in every way into Christ who is our Head" . . . our Lord Jesus. The truth we want to speak in our homes, in our school, in Sunday school, in vacation Bible school, is the truth of the love of Jesus for ALL His children .
We believe that Lutheran schools are great places to grow in knowledge and understanding, in skills for living, in getting along, in developing our God-given abilities ... and also in faith and life with Jesus. We change and grow and mature so we can serve Him by being a blessing, whatever our job may be, to all the people God puts into our lives.
Sermon
I want to share again the inspired words of St. Paul in the Bible. Paul gives us a direction and a purpose for our faith and life as believe in and follow Jesus. In Ephesians 4:15, Paul says, speaking the truth in love, we will grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ."
Growing is a life-long process. It takes effort. It has purpose. Sure, some people would say that it takes no effort, given time and a little food everybody grows up. I don’t think that this is true. In the end you just have large people with the minds of children going through life aimlessly, without purpose. To grow up properly does take effort and it has to have some kind of purpose in mind. The purpose of life for all of us baptized into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is to be what we are in Jesus Christ – God’s people with the mind of Christ, or, in other terms with Christ like thinking. What is the mind of Christ? It expresses itself in love and faithfulness towards God and love and service towards all people. That is what we are about. In our families, with our school and in this church, we want to help young and old alike grow, develop, and mature to live faithful, purposeful and eternally significant lives.
In 2 Corinthians 5:15, Paul says, "He (Jesus) died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again." That is the purpose of our Church and Lutheran school. As partners in our church and school, we are about the business of "growing, developing, and maturing people"-sinners of all sizes, shapes, colors, and backgrounds. Our Lord Jesus wants us to become agents and instruments of His blessings in everyday life ... and by His grace forever!
Growing ... developing ... maturing ... involves a continuing process of becoming more and more of what our Creator and Redeemer intends us all to be. It is part of His call to repentance and change: To forsake the sinful ways of our "old nature" and to grow in our new life with Christ ... to "put on the new nature" (Colossians 3), as Paul encourages us.
Growing up maturely as the children of God takes purposeful effort. It begins in the family. With great effort parent raise their families. They work, provide a home, a place of safety in an uncertain world. They provide food and clothing. Most importantly they provide emotional support with the greatest ingredient being love, even unconditional love. Unconditional love is expressed not in the love of if – that is, “I love you if” you do what I say or are who I think you should be, but it is expressed in a love that says, “I love you because”, BECAUSE you are mine and always will be, no matter what. With this love parents take the time to sit and listen, to guide and direct so that children grow up maturely and responsibly. All these things we want and intend for our children. Unfortunately we aren’t perfect, we fail often. We don’t always give our children what they need. We don’t love them as we should. But even here we can teach our children the greatest lesson of life. That is the lesson of forgiveness. We can teach them about our own weakness and God’s great strength. That though we fail Him and each other, because He loves us, he offers His unconditional love and forgiveness. All these lessons take purposeful effort.
For our children to grow to maturity, so that they can lead lives of purpose, we send them to school. Growing as faithful followers of Christ involves the discovery, development, and deployment of the God-given gifts each of us has received. God does not want them to be wasted. Our Lord wants the children in our school, the youth and adults in this congregation, to learn everything we can about His Word and will, about families, and about loving and caring ... and also about reading, math, history, computers, science, relationships, serving, living ... and lots more ... and do it all in the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
It takes great effort to maintain a Christian day school. Here at Immanuel we have maintained that effort for 150 years. 150 years of God’s blessing, 150 years of blood, sweat and tears…and growth. At our school the blessings of mind and body are embraced in the context of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ our Savior. One of the greatest lessons our children learn is forgiveness. Do they talk about forgiveness in public schools? I don’t know and I can’t remember from the time I went to public school. Here our children are taught that even as we are forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ, and His death on the cross for us, we too forgive those who wrong us. They are taught that their great purpose is to share their faith in their Savior with the people that they meet, so that all people might know the unconditional love of God.
Our principle and teachers work hard teaching and growing our children into mature Christians. And they do this with great effort and with purpose. Our children will leave here and they will be faced with a hostile world. They will be faced with teachers that laugh at them because they don’t agree about things like human cloning or abortion. They will be scorned by those who profess to be wise yet teach evolution and the absurd notion that man evolved from an ape. They will be chastised for believing in God and practicing their Christian faith in Church and around their friends. Frankly the world is out to get them and to destroy their Christian faith. Our teachers are preparing them for battle. So it is with great effort that we maintain our school. It is more important now than ever.
Growing up maturely as the children of God takes purposeful effort when it comes to church. It involves the continuing use of God's Word and the Sacraments for direction, encouragement, and persevering faith. Did you hear what I said? It takes purposeful effort. It is not easy to regularly and faithfully attend church and Bible study. Everything seems to be opposed to this. Satan certainly opposes any contact with God’s Word. The world always presents new and better options than going to church. And finally, our flesh would really prefer not getting up and going somewhere on a Sunday morning. But with purposeful effort comes the rewards of Spiritual maturity, of a life that rejoices in what God has done through Jesus Christ. Faith is strengthened, families are strengthened and we are able to serve our neighbors with Christ like love.
All or our purposeful effort comes from the one that purposely, and with great effort came to save us. God created all things with beauty, like a symphony working together to make wonderful music. Then the noise of sin entered into the world and with it death. Because of God’s unconditional love, a love that says “not if”, but “because you are mine” He came into our world through His Sons birth. With great effort, Jesus Christ lived and died to restore His creation, to make it beautiful again. He did this through His death on the cross and in His resurrection from the dead. His purpose was that through faith in Him we would live forever. As we understand this our lives begin to have true purpose…the reason that we live is because God’s desire for us is to have a relationship with Him. With Him we know, no matter what, that He loves us…now and always!
Baptized into the name of Christ, we belong. We trust Him. We believe. Our purpose is to fulfill God's purposes. As Christians, you and I are the instruments of Jesus! God wants us to continue growing, serving, learning, developing, and maturing in all areas of faith and life. We want that for all our children and every adult too, so that we can be the hands, feet, voices, the agents and instruments of Jesus, people privileged to fulfill God's purposes in daily life.
Have you at sometime watched a symphony orchestra as a performance is about to begin? The musicians sit and stand about, strumming on strings, blowing into horns, beating on drums. There is a lot of noise, but no music. Then the conductor enters. He walks to his podium and steps up onto it. His eye sweeps the scene before him - all the musicians and all their instruments. He lifts his baton, pauses there for a moment. Then he gives the downbeat. Instantly there is music, all instruments blending into one harmonious whole.
You know we are like the individual instruments of a symphonic orchestra. Within us there may be discordant elements, we may not want to play together, and from time to time we are out of focus, out of tune - we are just not together. As an orchestra needs a master control, so do we.
Jesus is our master. We are at worship now. Here we turn the whole focus of our attention to our Lord. Acknowledging that he is in command, we yield all our instruments to him. He has formed us as His instruments through our families, in our school and here in church. And together, using the gifts He has given us we make a symphony that no one could create alone. And it is the kind of music that only the Master can make. That music is the music of forgiveness, life, salvation, and purpose. This music gives God all the praise and glory and honor, forever and ever.
