A Baton Passer Series

1. A great scholar was once asked about a young man who was in his class. The person said, "So and so tells me that he was one of your students." The scholar just smiled sadly and said, "Well, he may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.”

a. We’ve been talking about imitating Jesus as his disciples

b. Last week we talked about imitating him in and as a community; today in teaching, passing on faith

2. How many teachers are here today? School teachers and Bible class teachers raise your hands.

a. Actually, all of us are teachers in some way. Jesus came teaching people about the kingdom of God.

b. When their son left for his freshman year at Duke University, his parents gave him a Bible, assuring him it would be a great help. Later, as he began sending them letters asking for money, they would write back telling him to read his Bible, citing chapter and verse. He would reply that he was reading the Bible--but he still needed money. When he came home for a semester break, his parents told him they knew he had not been reading his Bible. How? They had tucked $20 bills by the verses they had cited in their letters.

• Matthew 4:23 “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.”

• Acts 2:42 “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

• Colossians 1:28 “We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.”

• 1 Timothy 4:13 “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.”

I. God Came Teaching

A. His Will to Adam – Genesis 1:28-30; 2:16-17

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

B. His Will to Abraham

1. Babel and establishment of Nations

2. Selecting Abram – he was a teacher Genesis 18:19

19 For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”

C. His Will to Israel at Mt. Sinai – Exodus 19-20

II. Jesus Came Teaching

A. Jesus Taught Crowds in Great Discourses – Sermon on the Mount – Matthew 5-7

Matthew 7:28-29 28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

B. Jesus Taught Individuals

1. Nicodemus – John 3

2. Woman at the Well in Samaria – John 4

C. Jesus Involved Disciples in his Instruction – Luke 10:1-3 (instructions followed)

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. 2 And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.

D. Jesus used appropriate methods such as

1. Personal Demonstration (Example)

2. Parables (Handles on the basket)

3. Everyday illustrations – “birds of the air”

4. Idioms that his audience understood (good eye; evil or bad eye; finger of God)

III. We Go Teaching

A. Jesus Taught So We Would Teach – Matthew 28:18-20

2 Timothy 2:1-2 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 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.

[In a relay race it is critical that the baton is not dropped. If it is, the team is disqualified. So it is with the baton of the gospel.

B. The Most Important Place to Begin – at Home – Deuteronomy 6:4-9

. . . 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. . . .