Taught To Teach

Well, that was enjoyable. Enjoyed that music very much. I want to welcome anybody who's joined us online. Also, Bobby, Caitlin, Teresa, Kathy, great to have you with us. And everybody there who I haven't had a chance to slide in here, I got away about five or ten minutes too late in Fort Lauderdale. So let's go right to this. Fifty minutes. No longer, right? This is all working fine? Good! I'd like to hear it.

Tell me about your great teachers. Have you had some? You remember their names? I remember my name of great teachers. Thing is, I remember lousy teachers too. Did you have any of those, or was he the only one? You've had lousy teachers. Hope I'm not one of those, but yeah, that's because you were bringing up about building inspectors. Of course, when I was in building, there was only thing worse than self-righteous Pharisees were building inspectors.

So no, wasn't my favorite. But I had this incredible teacher. Her name was Mrs. Hutchison, my sophomore year in high school. And when we came into the class, she goes, if you're an introvert, you won't be when you leave.

We're going to bring you out of your shell. We're going to do things in this English class, literature class that you've never experienced before. Everybody kind of looked. Okay? She got everybody involved, everyone involved. And she played to your strong points. She got you wrapped up in everything that she did. There was passion. And I just really bought into that. I really loved it. The same year, there was a class that I signed up for because I wanted to go to a college, and the college I wanted to go to required one year of a different language.

So I signed up for Spanish. I walked into the Spanish class the very first day. His name was Mr. Robertson. Mr. Robertson said, after everybody had to introduce themselves, he goes, within 90 days you will walk into this class and you will not speak English. You will only speak Spanish. I opted out of that class the very next day. Ampe, I wish I had taken it now, but he intimidated me because I was like, I can't do that because I have all these other interests.

And learning Spanish and spending that much time is not one of them, and I don't want to look like an idiot in the class. I find out later, another year later, that hardly anybody 90 days later spoke Spanish. So teachers matter to all of us. The title of my sermon today is, Talk to Teach. Talk to Teach. Do we have any teachers here today? You never taught Caitlin anything? Oh, oh! Now that's called throwing you under the bus Caitlin, but she still loves you. Okay, we all do what? Teach something. We taught somebody something, sometime, somewhere, even if it's a minor detail. But you get a good feeling when you know that something that you presented to someone, they learned it, and you feel like you had some accomplishment.

One of the things that we will do in seven days for the next seven days is we will be taught to teach. We will be taught to teach, and you may say, how? How? For any Indians out there, no. How? How is we are going to learn something? First thing we need to learn is God loves to teach. God loves to teach. Jesus on earth would teach all He could to His disciples, and thankfully, because it's preserved to us. And Christ relished in the role of teacher, or as He was called once, rabbi, because that's what roboni means, teacher.

You might remember the story in Mark 10, Mark chapter 10 verse 17. The rich young ruler comes to Christ and says, what? Good teacher! Good teacher! What must I do to inherit the kingdom? Are you a good teacher? Christ was, wouldn't He? He was pretty good at it. A few weeks ago, or I can't remember now, we had a sermon, an interactive sermon, that went into John 3.16. And one of the scriptures we read was John 3 and verse 2. Remember that sermon?

Nicodemus said, when he met Christ that night, he says, we know you are a teacher come from God. A teacher come from God. Had to be exciting. Wouldn't you like to say, I met this guy? I know he's a teacher come from God. Christ even talked about it that last night in human flesh, that 14th of Nisom, in John 14 and verse 26. He talked about sending the Holy Spirit.

And he said, it will teach you all things. Teach you all things. How about you? Do you use yours? Do you use the Holy Spirit? I like if you go with me now. Isaiah 2. We all know this. We usually hear that it's the Feast of Tabernacles, but I think it's a time that we think about it because God is thinking not only now. He isn't thinking in the past.

He's thinking in the future. And He shows us what it's going to be like in the future when we don't have to worry about some of these problems like masks and various things that surround us. Isaiah chapter 2 and verse 3, I'll read from the New King James Version.

It said, Many people shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways. The world's going to be that way. How refreshing that will be. He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His past, for out of Zion shall go forth the law. And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. That's inspiring that teaching is going to be done. He's going to teach, but there will be other teachers. Are you prepared to assist in a job?

David understood this in Psalm 27 verse 11.

Psalm 27 verse 11. He said, Teach me what? Your way, O Lord. Teach me your way.

Do we want to learn that way? Holy Spirit teaches us. The Word teaches us. We learn a lot from experience, though, don't we? We learn a lot of our problems from experience of going down the wrong road.

God just wants us to go down the right road, so we have less of those troubled roads.

So David is pleading to God, Teach me your way. In the New Living Translation, it actually says, Teach me, Lord, how to live. Teach me how to live.

Isn't that great? You know, I have a lot of people call me from, they're in the church or or they get my phone number or whatever, and most of the time, or I run across neighbors or across somebody, they will most of the time have a problem with how they're living.

And that has brought on problem after problem after challenge after challenge, and they want help. Now, sometimes I can help them by times, mostly with the Word of God, give them some of that, not because I want them to come into my church, but at all. I want them to have a relationship to know where to go, to have a relationship so they can dig into this. I'm supposed to go this week to someone I just met one time in a hospital, and she had come across. Faith A. Hick had given her a magazine or booklet from us while she was taking care of her in the hospital. No anything, so I got involved. As Faith said, she needs some help. She didn't have any family, she didn't have any family, so I was able to go and help her. I haven't seen her since, until she called and said she's out of quarantine and she's going to be eight weeks still in rehab. But she wanted me to come down and talk to her about this God thing.

I'm happy to talk about the God thing with her, and she said, could you bring an extra Bible so you could lend me one? I said, I'll bring you one. If you'll read it, I'll bring you a Bible. And she says, well, I want to read. This woman, 72 years old, had never had a Bible in her life. And she's asking to be taught. She said, I'd just like to ask you about stuff. I said, well, I'm all about answering stuff. I can get the answers. My answers come from the Bible. So yes. So Tuesday, I plan on going down. Don't really know her that well. But this is what we do. This is what I do, and it's also what you really do, too. If people are hurting, or they need your help, I don't know anybody in here who would go, I'm not helping them. Go help yourself. No, it's what we do. It's one of the reasons God calls who He does to help other people. It's just not about us. It's about helping other people in any way, shape, or form.

The theme or thread all through God's Word and we must be taught and we must experience something being taught. Not just academics, because I've had classes in this that all we did was do the academics. I had, oh, Caitlin, you did too, Kathy, you did too, just classes on read, read, read, read, doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, to where it's just like, ugh.

Okay? And that's necessary in some aspects. I very seldom use that, because most of it is, involves this and this and trying to work with people's hearts.

As God is working with mine and He's working with yours, so that this no longer seems the words in here can be academic. Go with me, if you will, to Ephesians. Let's go to Ephesians 4.

Ephesians 4, verse 11. Paul's teaching what God is doing with a church. And he says in verse 11, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors. That's me. Oh, but it doesn't end there, does it? Because it's got a big and there, and teachers. I like to teach, but I also like to preach. I like to preach and teach. I had a minister tell me one time, well, I only teach, I don't really preach. Well, I feel sorry for you, congregation, because Christ both would teach and preach. And we're told, preach the word.

But there's teachers who teach, and that's what God has put in the church, is teachers. And I see them, I hear them, I talk with you.

And why would he do that? He says in verse 12, doesn't he? For the equipping of the saints.

Saints. We're all trying to help each other. That's what it's about. Go to Colossians 1. Colossians 1.

Colossians 1 is in verse 28. He said, Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom. We should teach. Help people. But can you imagine having a algebra teacher that taught you? You opened up the book, and he says, I don't really know this, but we're going to go through it anyway.

I don't think you're going to learn very much algebra or anything else. And with people today needing so much help in life, we can help people. And it's not my knowledge. I just got it from here. Not my wisdom. I got it from here. And that's how we can help a lot of people. Turn one over, one other verse. Acts 5.

Acts 5. The disciples had been out doing this stuff after Christ had passed, and they were doing the work. And they got thrown in jail. They got chastised and told to shut up about this Jesus fellow. And they couldn't do it. And so let's go in chapter 5 and verse 42. And daily in the temple and in every house they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. Hmm. Now that's commendable. Especially when you go up to verse 40 and it says, they agreed with Him and when they had called the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, then let them go.

They were that sold on teaching. They felt like they needed to teach.

You know, teaching is used almost 400 times in the scriptures. Teach, teacher, teaching. So, you know, it's pretty much something that God believes in when He puts it in there that many times. The week starting from tonight for seven days, we will be taught by God's Word for seven days. We will be taught by God's Holy Spirit for seven days. Hopefully we use it. But then we will be taught by this piece of unleavened flat bread.

We will be taught by this bread. It will help teach us many things so that we can teach others, so that we will know this bread.

It's a tool, really. If God had a toolbox, this would be in it, because this is something He uses every year. And you know, this will be my 40th Passover. And it's a tool that still works 40 years later for me, for most of us. As we look at this flat piece of bread, usually tasteless, but it's a great teacher. Bread is used in the Scripture almost 500 times, 492 times bread, as mentioned. Unleavened bread is mentioned many times, as it was used as an example. But unleavened bread, contrary to how some ministers preach, is not the body of Christ.

It's a symbol. It represents the body of Christ, this unleavened bread that we shall partake of every day, as the Scriptures say. A little bit. Does anybody know what this is? A flag! Very good. Oh, I knew these guys. You guys are sharper than most.

What's a flag to? You know what country that is?

They care to guess?

Sweden. No, think South. Warm. More South. It's a Caribbean country. Looks strange, doesn't it? Caribbean?

Barbados. This is a flag to Barbados.

This is not Barbados, is it? It just represents Barbados. Just like the American flag, it represents us. We recognize that flag. It's a symbol of the United States of America.

This is a symbol of the country of Barbados.

Now, one of the reasons you've not seen this wave very much is that in the whole history of Barbados, they have gone to the Olympic Games every year, and only one time in all those years did they ever win a medal. That's why you don't see it very much. And it was a bronze.

But this is their flag. This is their symbol. Brethren, this is Christ's symbol.

He could have picked anything.

He could have picked Chateaubriand and made us eat it every day. I would have liked that.

How about some snapper that we could have every day? But he didn't. He picked bread, and he picked it to be unleavened. I don't see many people getting excited and going, looking to have unleavened bread. No! Unleavened bread represents Christ's body, but also it represents what Christ was all about, and that is not puffed up thin. Humble, humble. Not impressive to look at. And this is what he's wanting us to do. Turn with me to Matthew 26.

Matthew 26, verse 26. This is at Passover, and he said, verse 26, as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, take, eat, this is my body. Now, when he suggested that about six months before, people, he lost a lot of disciples. He said, you're going to drink my blood, and you're going to eat my flesh. And they're going, this guy's a cook.

With us. This, this is what Christ is using to teach us.

And he says, you're going to be taught for seven days.

Go with me to John 6. Go with me to John 6.

John 6, verse 48. Jesus proclaims, I am the bread of life. No question. I am the bread of life.

It's amazing nobody said, no you're not. Because they knew he was different. Just like this is different.

They knew, here was a teacher who didn't act like a teacher, who didn't just stand over them and go, come let me teach you. He was with them. He was humble. He accepted those who were poor, and he allowed them. He had little children come and sit on his lap. Okay? And the disciples going, get those kids out here. Get, get, get it, get it. He goes, no, no. Then come, because of such is the kingdom of God. Anyone who wants to go. How shocking that must have been to the Pharisees. What do you mean? You're talking to a prostitute. You're eating with a tax collector.

What's wrong with this man? Who wants to follow a guy like that? One who will eat this.

One who looks and says, I can learn. And it's not bad to have a reminder every single day of what Christ is trying to teach us. And this bread is what He is using to teach us for seven days. Let's go on down. Verse 49, your fathers ate the manna in wilderness and they're dead. He said, wait a minute, you're talking about this? Yeah, God fed the manna, but guess what? It was physical food. They ate it and they're dead because we're talking physical. He was talking spiritual.

Part of His body. We eat in that. He said, this is a bread which comes down from heaven. That one may eat of it and not die. It means Him taking part of eternal life. He gets us eternal life. He gets us now the Holy Spirit in a small measure so that we can try to grow it because eventually that's what we're to be. It is a destiny. And for 51, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh which I shall give as a life for the world.

It's all going to be represented by this small little thing like this.

But it's about having part with God, having part with Christ. What He really, really wants us to be is part of the family of God. That's so important to Him. Is it important to us that we look at this and say it's not much to look at? And you know, it's amazing because by the end of the Days of Unleavened Bread, none of us go, man, I'm going to go back and see if I can get some more unleavened bread.

Do we?

Gotta have me some of those matzos. Didn't have enough. No. We kind of look at it and go, okay, wow, can I have something that's not so flat? Maybe it's got a little more flavor.

But for seven days, He wants us to do this.

He wants us to learn. So I want to give you, as I wrap this sermon up, because I have 50 minutes, I just have 25 minutes to go. As anybody knows, if you're watching out there or you're watching in here, I'm a time Nazi. And I stay on time, and my sermon is 50 to 55 minutes alone.

And I've almost trained my wife to get up and leave if I go longer than that, but she hasn't had to get up and leave. But originally, when I first started speaking, I had to have a signal because I couldn't keep time very well. And so if I saw her get up, it wasn't going to the bathroom. It was letting me know, shut up, or tune it down, or wrap it. Oh, yeah, she had this. Sometimes she will do this. Wrap it up. You're on that point too much. What? I like it because what? She's like, it's great. She's teaching me. She has taught me well. She doesn't have to do this very much.

And she doesn't have to go, get up and leave. I appreciate it because I want to be taught so that I can be the best I can be. And no matter what I do, whatever your hand finds to do, we're supposed to do it with all of our might. Because we represent Him in Christ.

So how will this bread teach us? For seven days, we're going to talk.

For one, it reminds us of putting out sin. Reminds us we need to be putting out sin.

Not that a rich cracker is sin. People go around, oh, a rich cracker, I can't have that much. No.

It reminds us that we need to be putting sin out of our lives for seven days.

Easy. It should be really easy for us. But occasionally, what happens?

We forget. And you're halfway through that Wendy's burger when...

You think about it. Does God take a lightning bolt and go, gone? Oh, but that's teaching us. And so we catch ourselves and go, I'm trying, trying to be like Christ. Trying to be working at putting out sin. Oh, wait a minute. Yep, I ate that. Well, I also had some thoughts I should not have had.

Looked at something a little too long when I didn't need to look at it. That's why it reminds us of putting sin out. It reminds us to, hopefully we do this, stay humble. Stay humble. Don't we enjoy being around humble people compared to the opposite?

I do. I've met no at all. In fact, I've been one before.

But it's nice to be around people who show humility. It's nice to be married to someone who shows humility. It's nice to live in the same house with someone who shows humility.

It's a lot easier to get along that way. They make movies about humble people, and people flock to the movie.

What's the name? Tom Hanks did that. Forrest Gump was not a smart man, as he said. But no, what was he? Humble. Humble. And you see these movies, and people want to go to them because it's so refreshing to see somebody in front of us that we can aspire to be like.

Your parents, your grandparents.

We have an incredible example in our lives from people that make a difference in us, in who we are, just like this bread. You know, when you're a parent, you have to kind of, you know, play hardball a little bit more, so forth. You're always finding something, and then you look at your parents. But the grandparents, boy, that's a different ballgame, isn't it? Your grandparents always seem to have more patience with you. Always seem to have this. Always seem to not get bent out of shape over something goes wrong. The one thing you learn in age that I have is the things I thought were so important 20 years ago are not very important. And that being with humble people trying to be a humble person, I can buy into that. And that's exactly what God wants us to do.

To buy into that for seven days so that we can stay humble. Another one.

It reminds us to have the mind of Christ. It helps us to have the mind of Christ, being that same mindset was in Christ. And you say, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. May be the hardest scripture to ever keep in the Bible, but it doesn't mean we don't try.

But I want to be like him.

Do we all want to be like him? Take a seven-day Jesus Christ diet. A seven-day Jesus Christ flat unleavened bread diet.

It will help. Not only that, this bread helps us to study. It helps us to study. Study this Bible, where we sometimes read the Bible every day.

But do we study the Bible? I had someone call me one time and ask me, pastor, what do you study?

And I told him, and he said, only four verses?

Yeah, it's going to take me all week to study those four verses.

Well, I can read that in 10 seconds. So can I. And Christ knew a word.

Matthew 4, 4 says what? Man shall not live by alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is what we do. This is who we are. Is it always easy? No. That's why this, having to eat this every day, says, you know, I probably need to study a little more.

Another way it reminds us who we are and who we will be.

Remind us who we are. We're followers of Christ. This is what we do. We do it because it's in here. We don't do it because somebody in Cincinnati, Ohio tells us to do it.

You read a book and you go, that sounds good. I think I'll adopt that.

One book, one source, as I talked about in my sermon this morning. Do we go to the source?

That's why it's so important. Not only who we are, as we will gather here in this room on Friday night, and we will partake of the bread and the wine.

It will remind us, it's a yearly reminder, yearly rededication that for most of us, we get there and go, I could have done a lot better job than what I did.

I want to do better.

I was watching before sunset yesterday a NCAA basketball tournament going on. I didn't watch the basketball game and I don't know how long. It sure didn't this year.

I just watched for a moment and I saw just how important the end of two games. One lasted six minutes and the other lasted three minutes, which means they both lasted 30 minutes.

You know how that goes. But it was amazing how the coaches were working so hard to teach their players what they had been taught all year long. Just follow through. Just do this.

Just cut off the baseline. Move that pick and roll. All the things they've been taught. Those guys that heard it, I don't know how many times, but now is when it counts.

Brethren, the analogy is Friday night, what you've learned all year, what you've worked at, it's when it counts. Because you're rededicating your life to God. You're saying, you got me, I'm yours.

It's a pretty big deal. It is to Him and it is to us.

Let's go on. This teaches us to think.

Sometimes it's nice not to think, isn't it?

It is for me. Just let my mind go. Just like, oh, I've had all this stuff, phone calls, e-mails, and other things. Just like, don't think about anything.

But this, during the days of Unleavened Women, for seven days, we have to take action.

We have to take action because most of us eat at least three times a day. Some in here may eat four, five. Let me suck that in.

So we cannot just go through the day, can we?

Because we're going to eat three times, seven days, 21 meals.

Plus, somebody may go and offer us something that we've got to...

Right?

It teaches us to think and realize this is not an ordinary week because we can get caught up in that. It also prepares us to teach the word because when we study it, we're more prepared to teach.

And I am always amazed at how, during the days of Unleavened Bread, I will run into someone who asks about it. Oh, you're Jewish. No? You're not Jewish. No? You live near Boca. Still not Jewish.

But they may ask, what is this?

I had a chaplain. I had to go down to the prison a week ago. A new chaplain came in. So my prisoner down there, Le Maisoulette, they had stopped us from ever taking any matzos in and grape juice and everything that I had to do there for him in the prison. And so I hadn't been able to do that for a couple years. Well, now there was a new chaplain there, a chaplain park.

So he... I went down to meet him because I knew just calling him on the phone probably wouldn't do it. So I met him. Nice guy. Everything. He asked me if I'd come down and work in the prison.

I didn't commit.

But I explained that I need for you to give Le Maisoulette some unleavened bread and some grape juice. They won't allow alcohol, so you have symbolic anyway. It's important for us, but it... And help us hopefully reflect back on a time when we are too closer to God because it's what he wants, not just what we need.