4 essential elements of stewarding the next generation
I. It Begins with Our Own Ears
Psalm 78:1 - Listen, O my people, to my instruction; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
A. Seek out wise teachers
Matthew 15:14 - Let [the Pharisees] alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.
B. Listen to biblical wisdom
II. It Requires Us to Speak
Psalm 78:2, 4a - I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark sayings of old… We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generations to come…
A. Cultivate a heart for the next generation
i. Thanksgiving for those who have gone before you
ii. Concern for those who will follow you
Titus 2:3-5 - Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.
B. Speak the truth in love
i. Teach the next generation
ii. Pursue the next generation
III. What We Say Matters
Psalm 78:4 - We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.
A. Our focus must be worshipping the Lord
B. Point to His strength and not our own
C. Recall all He has done
IV. What We Do Matters
Psalm 78:5-7 - For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that they should teach them to their children, that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments…
A. Is my confidence in the Lord?
B. Do I know the works of God?
C. Do I keep His commandments?
Proverbs 23:26 - My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.
Have you ever considered the fact that you are constantly teaching those around you?
Sometimes you teach your kids to be wise – like loving the Cubs (insert picture of the boys at the Cubs’ game).
Other times you teach your kids how to relax (insert picture of Hroarr in the recliner).
Other times you teach your kids how to love the snow (kids loving the snow).
But the reality is that you are always teaching. Expand on this even more with a humorous illustration that is relevant.
We are continuing our series for Stewardship Month by talking this week about the Stewardship of the Next Generation.
Please turn in your Bibles to Psalm 78 – that is page 425 of the front section of the Bible located under the chair in front of you.
We are in the middle of our Stewardship Month that will end next Sunday night with a Stewardship Celebration at the Fair Grounds. Make sure that you are getting your tickets for this great night of worship.
Let’s review the 4 Principles of Stewardship.
God owns everything, you own nothing.
God entrust you with everything you have.
You can either increase or diminish what God has given; He wants you to increase it.
God can call you into account at any time, and it may be today.
Today let us think about the responsibility we have to steward well the generations that are coming behind us.
Let’s Read Psalm 78:1-7.
Listen, O my people, to my instruction;
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings of old,
Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
We will not conceal them from their children,
But tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord,
And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.
For He established a testimony in Jacob
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers
That they should teach them to their children,
That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born,
That they may arise and tell them to their children,
That they should put their confidence in God
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments,
Let’s look at 4 essential elements of stewarding the next generation.
I. It begins with our own ears.
I have learned after several years of communication that the way that someone starts a conversation is of utmost importance.
For instance, when my wife approaches me and says, Buns I really think we should … I know that conversation is going to be better than getting a call from a boss or a seminary professor that simply says, Could you please come to my office.
Or as a child if someone called you by your first name then it was probably ok, but the second that they dropped in that middle name with it, you knew it was not going to be a fun conversation.
So look at the way that Asaph starts our passage today.
Psalm 78:1 – Listen, O my people, to my instruction; Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
The emphasis right from the beginning is to listen.
Shhhh! Don’t talk.
Don’t jump up and go do something.
LISTEN!
In order to be the most effective teacher than you can possibly be you have to be an effective listener.
The expectation of the teacher is that they have learned the material well enough to teach it.
On every Monday our preaching team meets to talk through the things we have learned from our study of the passage.
Then on Tuesdays the preachers from our various services write out the lessons that they have been learning about the passage for the last several days.
WE start by listening to what God’s Word is teaching us and then we prepare to teach others.
Have you ever been in a situation where someone was teaching you about something they clearly had no clue about?
It does not work well.
So how do we do this?
Seek out wise teachers.
We live in a day and age where everyone gets to have a loud voice and they get to sound like an expert.
Get a social media profile
Post a few cool pics or videos
Get an audience
Talk about whatever you want to.
People start believing you
Pretty soon people start believing Lebron James is better than Michael Jordan.
Here is simple truth to consider. If you want to teach truth you have to listen to true teachers.
Jesus talked about this in Matthew 15.
Matthew 15:14 – Let [the Pharisees] alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.
In your life what are the voices of influence that you allow to speak into your thought processes.
Are you regularly ingesting humanistic philosophies that are teaching you a me first approach to life?
Guess what?
If you are then those things will come out in the lessons you are teaching the next generation.
Even if you say all the right things, but your life shows something else.
Remember you were never fooled by the person who said one thing and did something else.
Are you allowing yourself to be entertained by things that would be contrary to what you would counsel a younger person to do.
I am always amazed by the people who will encourage their children to live a pure life leading up to a Christ honoring marriage and then allow entertainment that screams a very different philosophy to sit in their living rooms night after night and preach a message that will end in destruction and sorrow.
Are you regularly ingesting a message that says you believe what you believe and I will believe what I want to believe.
Your truth is good for you
My truth is good for me.
Yay, US!
Our verse tells us we need to be actively seeking out the good message.
“incline your ears to the words of my mouth”
Be looking for it
Be straining to hear every last bit of it
How do you know the teacher is teaching Biblical truth?
Listen to biblical wisdom.
Biblical wisdom is not just listening to opinions, it is listening to truth that is anchored in the Word of God.
Look at the text for a minute. We are called to incline our ears to…
Instruction
Parables
Dark says of old (we will discuss this more in a bit)
Teachings of the father
A testimony in Jacob
A law in Israel
Commandments to our fathers.
What are all of these things referring to?
The Word of God.
When you look for wise teachers make sure that are not just spouting out the philosophies you want to cling to in life, but rather that they are talking about the truth of the Word of God.
How do you do this?
Mom to Mom
FCI
ABF
Point man
Men of Faith
Coffee
So we start by stewarding the opportunity to grow personally in our godliness.
II. It requires us to speak.
What good would it be for me to develop some sort of amazing world changing thing and then never share it with anyone else.
Let’s say I worked really hard to develop the perfect chocolate chip cookie.
I mean I spent 4 years of trial and error – and weigh gain.
I was looking for the perfect balance of chocolate chips to batter.
I was looking for a dough that was delicious without the chocolate chips.
It had to be crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
It had to be big enough to say you only need one to be satisfied.
It had to be just as delicious when it is warm right out of the oven as it is after 2 days of sitting in its package.
And then let’s say I made it one time, never made it again and never told anyone the recipe.
What good would that be?
When I went away so did this amazing chocolate chip recipe.
And someone else would have to put all the work into developing it again.
The same is true if you learn all kinds of wisdom and knowledge about how to live your life for the Lord and then you do nothing with it.
Psalm 78:2, 4a — I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark sayings of old… We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generations to come…
When we teach what we learn then we are helping the generations to come.
You might be able to explain the nuances of the process of justification, or sovereignty versus free will, or the incarnation.
However, how much more impactful is it when you are able to teach that to the generations to come.
And I realize that at this point some of you may be thinking, I hope all the Sunday School teachers for the little kids are paying attention, or I hope all the youth group leaders are listening.
But I am actually talking to you. Yes you the person in your clothes in your chair.
This applies to all of us!
It will be impossible to teach the next generations though if you have not first…
Cultivated a heart for the next generation.
How do we get to this point?
First, you have to have a…
Thanksgiving for those who have gone before you.
Our passage has a tone of gratitude directed towards the “fathers”—a thanksgiving for the men and women who had taken the time to pour into them
If you have nothing but bitter contempt for the generation that came before you, what are you sure to display?
Contempt for the generations to follow you
AND, what are you, O teacher, instilling in the next generation?
Suicidal scorn (*explain?)
Conversely, when we cultivate genuine gratitude for those who have sacrificially instilled biblical teaching into our hearts, our focus will naturally turn to do the same
Our thanksgiving for the previous generation will result in…
ii. concern for those who will follow you
This takes sacrificial humility—the kind that isn’t natural to us
How much effort should be given to raising the next generation even in your own home?
In a passage that could have been our foundation for this morning, Paul instructs Titus that…
Titus 2:3-5 – Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.
We very much live in a society where the most important things we do tend to revolve around the jobs we have as opposed to those within our own household.
So we go to work all day and bring home the leftovers of our energy and strength to our families.
So we come home and have no energy left to do our most important job of the day. Training the next generation.
We should develop the habits that will tell our jobs and hobbies no instead of telling our kids we do not have enough time for them.
Do you have a passion for the next generation?
If we do then we will…
Speak the truth in love
It’s easy to say easy things (“we’re having cake for dinner!”)
It’s hard to say hard things (“we’re no longer having cake for dinner…”)
Regarding more serious matters, it’s even more difficult to say hard things in a loving manner…
I doubt I’ve struck the perfect balance in this message, alone!
But that trepidation shouldn’t stop us from…
i. teach the next generation
They will be learning—ensure it’s TRUTH they’re learning
Necessary to “speaking the truth in love” as Ephesians 4:15 phrases it, we must SPEAK!
That’s how truth is imparted to the next generation
Let me ask you: do you speak truth to the next generation?
If so, what evidence would you give to this end?
Would anyone point to you as being biblically influential in their life?
“I love Jesus more because of her…” “He taught me how to live like Christ…” “She led me to the Lord four years ago…”
And if the answer is “no,” is it too late for you?
Certainly not—but DON’T WAIT!!
Imagine a fisherman out on his boat, waiting for a rock bass to hop into his boat
What would you say to that man?
Grab your pole, and get to casting!!...
ii. pursue the next generation
With your ears attentive towards biblical knowledge and your cultivated heart for those who would follow, lovingly engage with them!
Teach God’s Word, and do it in a loving manner—because as our text makes clear…
III. What We Say Matters
Verse four says it all:
Psalm 78:4 – We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.
There are three main points that Asaph draws out—let’s walk through these points sequentially:
A. Our focus must be worshipping the Lord
What good is it if you’ve taught your child how to be a faithful steward of his or her finances, time, abilities, intellect, and so forth—but you’ve never connected the dots back to the gospel?
Anyone can teach a college student not to spend their stipend on lotto tickets and nightly take-out
But do they know WHY?
Everything comes back to God’s glory and our role as BRINGERS of His glory
So why, O teacher, should the college student not spend all his or her money on lotto tickets and nightly takeout?
Because foolish and frivolous spending will not… bring God glory
The gospel has implications for all aspects of life—it’s our goal to connect the dots for the generations to follow
Why should I speak in a respectful manner?
Because Christ paid a high price for my wayward tongue—He wasn’t crushed on the cross so I could berate my coworkers
He bought my freedom so I could glorify God with my tongue
For whatever the situation, our central focus must be “the praises of the Lord,” as our text phrases it
And this isn’t accomplished through white-knuckled labor—we must…
B. Point to His strength and not our own
Remember that this is a Psalm of Asaph—one of the most common examples that the Psalmists use when talking about God’s strength is… what?
His mighty strength against the Egyptian oppression
How were the Israelites removed from enslavement to the Egyptians?
Did they form a labor union and demand better working conditions?
Did they reason with Pharaoh, and he eventually came around to their side of things?
Did they rise up and kill the slavedrivers?
No—God had to send Moses to begin freeing them against their will
His strength redeems, His strength sanctifies, His strength sustains
But whose strength do we point to when training the next generation?
This begins with a humble admission of our utter inability to free ourselves from the slavery of sin
When someone relies on their own strength for salvation, it is one slave telling the other about how to attain freedom, it’s the blind leading the blind, it a false sign language translator
Each person must first admit their own inability to be made right with God on their own strength (*invitation)
But then, our conversations need to be infused with HIS strength—that looks like inviting men and women to embrace this gospel: especially those who are still seeking to live life on their OWN strength
And while bringing glory to Him and existing on His strength…
C. Recall all He has done
This one’s incredibly simple to measure and very easy to do
How often do you open the Word of God with anyone—literally or metaphorically?
You can’t recall “His wondrous works that He has done” with the next generation unless you… recall His wonderous works that He has done…
It’s never enough to simply know a lot about God
That must translate into what we SAY and DO, because…
IV. What We Do Matters
Let’s briefly catch up to where we find ourselves…
In order to steward the next generation, we must first
(1) incline our ears towards biblical teaching
Once we’re filled up with God’s Word and living it out, we then…
(2) Open our mouths to train the next generation
This requires a heart that values those who are going to come after us as MORE IMPORTANT than ourselves
As we train the next generation, we’re reminded that…
(3) what we say matters
We aren’t called to teach fuzzy platitudes, but (a) the praises of the Lord, (b) His strength, and (c) His wonderous works that He has done
This all leads us to the conclusion of our passage for this morning
Asaph makes the PURPOSE of God’s law clear:
Psalm 78:5-7 – For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that they should teach them to their children, that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children, that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments
He can hardly over-emphasize the essential purpose of teaching God’s character and His Word to the next generation
To no surprise, this requires ACTION—complacency leads to capitulation
In other words, when we don’t apply any effort towards stewarding the next generation, we open them up to other teaching
And since this world is filled with teachers, any other person seems pleased to fill that role
This last section serves as a self-assessment: we can’t presume to be teachers of the next generation (or argue that we care about them) if we don’t LIVE in a way consistent with the calling
The saying goes—more is caught than taught
God’s Word is arguing that we should do both: teach by modeling godliness, and teach by peaching godliness
Since we’ve already talked about the latter, let’s look to modeling godliness based off Asaph’s final charge in our passage for this morning (v 7)
First…
A. Is my confidence in the Lord?
Each of us know where the Lord chooses to test this in us: the crucible of TRIAL
How I respond to difficulty shows where my confidence is placed
If my life is overwhelmingly characterized by anger or anxiety—where is my confidence?
It has to be in myself or something other than God, because why would I be perpetually angry unless things aren’t going MY DESIRED WAY, or why would I be constantly worried unless I can’t see MY DESIRED OUTCOME?
But if your confidence is in the Lord, you trust in His sovereign control over your life
The next generation will see your confidence placed in Him, and know that He’s worthy of their confidence
How bout his second point…
B. Do I know the works of God?
Asaph warns about our forgetful tendency here—we are to teach others to “not forget the works of God”
Quick—what did you have for dinner last night?
Though it was only 18 hours ago, it takes a minute for most of us to remember something so simple
God’s Word is always reminding us of foundational truths
Thanksgiving is coming up—the time when many of us will see extended family that we don’t get to see that often
And what’s gonna happen?
Uncle Fred is gonna share that same story, of that one time, when that one thing happened—and everyone around the table is gonna groan because…
they’ve heard it every Thanksgiving leading up to this one!
Why does God repeat basic truths over and over again—is he a divine version of your uncle Fred?
He doesn’t do it because HE forgets—He does it because WE forget
But there’s another factor at play: you can’t forget that which you never knew
If you can’t recall God’s works, it may be because you haven’t taken the time to learn them for yourself
Incline your ear to solid teaching and make sure you are filled with His Word
But this last point really hits home…
C. Do I keep His commandments?
As you learn, do you do?
The very truths you’re instilling in the next generation—do you walk in them?
Nothing undermines teaching quite like hypocrisy
When stewarding the next generation, how important are actions?
The author of Proverbs said it well…
Proverbs 23:26 – My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.
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