Learning God's Way

Introductory Comments

1. Today is the day when we celebrate what we have learned in the past year in Sunday School. Many of you have studied hard and have memorized many verses from God’s word. You have been taught by teachers who have spent hours preparing to teach you those things that are most important for you to know. You have learned about God, about Jesus. You have learned about God’s people in the Bible. And you have learned how you can be and live as a child of God.

2. For the next two months you will not be having Sunday School. A summer break just like you get from school.

3. Does that mean that you will stop learning during the summer? Of course it does not. Because we are always learning. Even those of us who are much older than you are still learning.

4. We learn when we read or when we are taught by a teacher. But that is not the only time we learn. Every time we see something, hear something or do something we are learning.

5. Not all the things we learn are good things for us to learn. We learn bad things and good things. We may learn to say or do bad things. We may learn to lie, we may learn things that are not true.

6. From whom do we learn those things that are good for us to learn? From God and His word. The apostle John says "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth." Psa 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

7. The apostle Paul was a teacher. He taught people about God, about Jesus. He taught them the word of God. He told them how good God’s word was.

Phil 4:8-9 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice.

8. But today we learn many things that are not good. Things that are against God’s word.

9. Are these things we learn true or false? Good or bad?

1. Take care of yourself before you take care of others?

2. You can do whatever you want?

3. If it makes you happy, go ahead and do it?

4. You don’t need to believe in God?

5. The earth is millions of year old, dinosaurs lived millions of years ago?

10. Whether we know it or not, we learn good and bad things everyday. No matter how young or old we are, we need to be able to decide if what we learn is right or wrong. Whether it is from God or against God.

Teaching

1. Today we look at a young man, a boy who shows us how we can make decide what is rtight and wrong. And how we must deal with the wrong things we are taught. What he teaches us is something that we can use to make sure that we live the way God wants us to.

2. The young man was probably 13 years old, the same age as some of you here this morning. His name is Daniel. You probably remember him best for the time he was thrown in the lion’s den and how God rescued him. It is one of our favourite stories in the Bible.

3. But today we look at how he was able to know what God wanted him to do and how he was able to stand up for God.

4. Daniel was an Israelite, a member of God’s chosen people. But the people of Israelite had not lived the way God had wanted them to. They stopped trusting in Him. They learned bad things from the world around them and had begun to worship false God and had also stopped caring for the poor and the sick amongst them. They had stopped loving God and loving one another. And so God allowed them to be taken captive and sent to Babylon. Just like if God allowed people from some other country to come here today and take us to live in their country.

5. That would have been hard. Different ways of doing things, a different language, far away from home with no freedom.

6. But Daniel was special. Because he was handsome, strong and very smart, he was taken with some other smart boys to live in the kings palace. He would live in luxury - eat the best foods and learn from the best teachers. He would almost be treated as a king. It seemed like a good opportunity for Daniel to become a very rich and important person.