GOD’S GRANDCHILDREN

Scripture: Psalm 103; II Timothy 1:1-7

INTRODUCTION

I don’t know who coined the phrase, “God has no grandchildren,” but I first heard it said at a conference back in the 1970’s when I was serving as youth pastor of the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church. Some high school students and I went to the conference to hear a speaker from a local para-church ministry that focused on evangelism with teenagers.

The message which the speaker gave that night was about the road to Damascus conversion experience of Saul, who became the apostle Paul, helped to start a number of churches and wrote many of the New Testament letters. The speaker went on to tell us his own conversion story, how he had given his life to Jesus Christ, and then he concluded with an impassioned invitation to everyone in the room that sounded something like this: “It doesn’t matter if your parents are Christians or if your grandparents are Christians, because God has no grandchildren. You can’t inherit the faith – you have to make your own decision to follow Jesus.” With that said, he offered an altar call and closed the meeting in prayer.

A number of young people went forward in response to the invitation, and I remember going home that night to reflect on the speaker’s message. There was something in his conclusion that rang true but also troubled me, and all these years later, I think I now understand what it was. You see, I believe he was right when he said we all need to make our own decision to follow Jesus. That was the focus of my sermon last Sunday, and that is the most important decision any of us will ever make in life.

But to say that “It doesn’t matter if your parents or grandparents are Christians and that God has no grandchildren” is not only shortsighted – it is also Biblically inaccurate. Because, the truth is that most of us have come into the faith through the influence of our families, and according to the scriptures, God has more grandchildren than any of us could possibly imagine!

When the apostle Paul wrote to his young protégé Timothy who had become pastor of the church in Ephesus (I Timothy 1:3), he wanted to encourage him to continue in the ministry there. Some of the members in that congregation were bickering with one another and the dissension had taken its toll on Timothy. So Paul, who was no stranger to church conflict himself, sent words of comfort and hope to his young friend, praying that God would give him the strength and stamina he needed to go on instead of giving up.

That was the situation surrounding the text we just read recorded in II Timothy, chapter 1, wherein Paul tried to help Timothy recall the family background which he had come from: As I remember your tears (Timothy), I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and now, I am sure, dwells in you. Therefore, rekindle the gift of God that is within you…for God did not give you a spirit of timidity (fear) but rather a spirit of power and love and self-control. (II Timothy 1:5-7)

Notice please, that Paul did not say to Timothy that it didn’t matter whether his mother or grandmother were Christians, or that God didn’t have any grandchildren. To the contrary, the apostle reminded his protégé that it made all the difference in the world! Why? Because Timothy’s grandmother and his mother had laid down the foundations of faith which helped to lead him toward becoming a follower of Jesus Christ.

And so it is for many of us. Last month, our session and staff spent part of a weekend at Calvin Center talking together about our journeys in the faith. Each new elder stood before the group and reflected on the spiritual influences which had guided them down through the years. And over and over and over again, we heard personal testimonies about grandparents and mothers and fathers who had taught them to pray and brought them to church and led them to make a commitment to Christ.

In the midst of the conversation that weekend, I remembered a story which Dr. Will Willimon, chaplain of Duke University, once told about a similar meeting where people were giving their testimonies. He said, “One man got up and declared ‘I was a Methodist for 38 years before anybody told me about Jesus.’ Now what he many have meant to say was ‘I was a church member for 38 years before I really experienced my faith and decided to live it.’ I can understand such a delayed response.

But I cannot understand the attitude which I think this man meant to express – that he was just beginning to hear the truth about God. I wanted every person who had endured him all of those years growing up in Sunday School, every preacher who had tried to preach to him, every (grandparent and parent) who had tried to witness to him about Jesus, to rise up and ask the question, ‘What do you think we were trying to tell you for 38 years?’” (From an article entitled “Remember Who You Are” by Dr. Will Willimon, Upper Room Press, 1980).

In my own life, I can tell you that my maternal grandparents, who were Methodists in Long Island, my paternal grandparents who were Presbyterians in Brooklyn, New York, and my own parents, who stuck by me as a prodigal son through thick and thin and rejoiced with amazement when I finally graduated from seminary and was called into the ministry – all of them had a profound influence on my Christian faith and helped me to become the pastor and preacher and person that I am today.

That is precisely what Paul was trying to say to Timothy and to all of us ever since he wrote that letter in the first century A.D. And the essence of the message was and still is this: “Remember who you are, where you have come from and how those faithful grandparents and parents have shaped your life and helped you become a disciple of Jesus Christ”!

II.

But there is more to our story, and it goes back in time across the generations to those ancient days when God promised the people of Israel that He would bless them and all of their descendants if they remained faithful to His will and His way. The 103^rd Psalm proclaimed that promise with these words:

The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who trust in Him, and His righteousness extends to His children’s children, to those who keep His covenant and remember to do His commandments (Psalm 103:17-18)

That promise about God’s “children’s children” is quoted repeatedly in the Old Testament books of Genesis (45:10), Exodus (34:7), Deuteronomy (4:9,25), II Kings (17:41), Proverbs (13:22), Isaiah (59:21) and Jeremiah (2:9), and in every case, the promise is the same: God will bless all the generations who worship Him and call upon His name.

The New Testament picks up on that promise in the book of Acts, as Peter preached the first Christian sermon on the Day of Pentecost, saying, Repent and be baptized…in the name of Jesus Christ…for the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Him. (Acts 2:38-39)

Do you know what that means? It means that for almost 4000 years since Abraham and Sarah set out toward the Promised Land with a little baby named Isaac in their arms, God has watched over, blessed, guided and provided His children and His children’s children with love and grace and hope and faith every step of the way.

When we have forgotten the promise and wandered off into the wilderness of sin, God has come after us, received our confession and welcomed us back home with open arms and a forgiving heart over and over again. And in each and every generation, God has raised up leaders, faithful women and men, to remind us that we belong to a covenant community which is open to and inclusive of all of God’s children and grandchildren.

The African American author and poet Maya Angelou is such a person in our generation. In the winter of 1988, Bill Moyers hosted a program on public television which featured her and told the story of her life. The cameras followed her as she returned home to Stamps, Arkansas, a small rural town where Angelou had grown up as a little girl. As the program concluded, there was an unforgettable scene in which this well-educated, nationally renowned and inspiring woman met with some elementary aged children in the same school which Angelou had attended years ago. The school still had no computers, no overhead projectors and there weren’t enough books to go around for all of the children.

But as the TV cameras zoomed in for a close-up, Maya Angelou peered into the eyes of those little boys and girls and said to them: “When I look at you, I see who I was. When you look at me, I hope you see who you can become.” It wasn’t an arrogant or self-promoting statement. It was instead a humble, heartfelt and hopeful word of encouragement, just as Paul once wrote to Timothy, reminding him who he was, where he had come from and of those caring people, especially his mother and grandmother, who had helped him discover that he was a child of God.

CONCLUSION

As we conclude this sermon, I want all of us to remember two people in this congregation who are now with the Lord in heaven and who helped us, during their time on this earth, to recognize that each of us has a special place in God’s family of faith. Both of them were elders of our church who became leaders in the city and devoted their lives to all of God’s children.

Dr. Norris Hogans, who died yesterday morning after a long and valiant struggle, was an administrator and educator in the Atlanta Public Schools for many years. When I arrived here in 1990, he invited me to come over to Carver High School where he was the principal. As we walked the halls, visited the classrooms and sat in his office while he talked to the students, Norris knew every one of them by name, and oh, how they all looked up to him.

What I remember most about that day was the way he cared about those young people, and the desire, deep down in his heart, that they would become all that God had created them to be. And he helped us, in this church, to reach out to them and to the younger children and their families in the Carver Homes neighborhood. But most important of all, Norris Hogans taught us what we could receive from them – the gifts of friendship, faith, hope and love that bind us together in what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “The beloved community.” We will celebrate the life and love of Dr. Norris Hogans in a Memorial Service this Wednesday. I hope and pray that you will join us as we honor a truly remarkable Christian man.

So it was on the 13^th of March, just three months ago, when we thanked God in this sanctuary for the life and legacy of Dr. William Laurens Pressly, who died at the age of 92. He was the founding president of The Westminster Schools here in Atlanta, and during his 50 years among us, he touched and influenced more lives than we will ever know.

Like Norris Hogans, who was his friend and fellow elder, Bill Pressly helped to lead this city through the Civil Rights Era and the integration of our schools. He loved children, all of God’s children and grandchildren, and he embodied the life of a Christian leader who served others without caring who got all the credit.

When we laid him to rest at the graveside service in Due West, South Carolina, I discovered a portrait that day in the President’s Room at Erskine College. It was a portrait of Bill Pressly’s great grandfather, which gave the dates of his life, 1808-1860, and bore the following inscription: “Dr. Ebenezer Erskine Pressly, Principal Founder and First President of Erskine College.” And I realized at that moment that our friend and visionary leader, William Laurens Pressly, came from a long line of Presbyterian forbears who had influenced and inspired him to become the great man that God had called him to be.

My friends – that is exactly what the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy long ago – be thankful for those who have gone before you, rejoice in the faith that you have received, and then pass on what you believe to those who will follow after you, your children, your children’s children and all of God’s Grandchildren, down through the generations. So it was then, so it is now, and so it shall be forevermore!

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.