Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to Isaiah, chapter 52, we'll be looking at one verse, Isaiah 52, verse 7. Historically, education of children, which in the early days of the church and certainly in the Middle Ages was all church-based religion and church-based or what we would call Christian education, had a book end to it. At the end of the year, which was really called the commencement, sounds funny that at the end of the year you call the service of graduation the beginning, but it is the launching of people as graduates out into the world. There was a spiritual service proceeding that known as the baccalaureate in which there was a charge given to the students about what they had learned and what God would have them do with what they had learned. The beginning of the year had a convocation, a convoking, a calling together from the Latin words convocare, to call together, to be with one another. And that was a spiritual start to the academic year. We have a convocation here, have had so for decades, because this is the spiritual beginning of an academic year. But it's a reminder that what we're doing at Covenant Day School, or at a public school for that matter, or in our homeschooling, is not simply educating our children to live in the world, but educating them, training them, to serve the living Lord and the great king himself, Jesus Christ. Each year, our headmaster chooses for the school a theme verse. In some years, that theme verse has been the verse for both the church and the school. And this particular academic year, that theme verse comes from Isaiah 52 verse 7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says desire your God reigns. It was this past Monday that Mark Davis met with a faculty and staff, and commended them to this verse and to its powerful truth. And he began by asking them a question, asking them, are you in danger of becoming weary of God? It sounds like a strange question to become tired of God, something we would never really admit. But he went on to press into the faculty's life and into their thoughts by asking them some questions. Was their life controlled by what he called a functional power that was Christ-oriented or something else? He rightly brought before their minds and hearts the truth that whatever we pursue, most avidly, whatever we think about all the time, whatever becomes the operative principle in our life. And that can be education, career, success, wealth, fame, whatever. That very thing becomes the idol, the God with a small G that shapes our life. And it's easy to start off in a Christian school with a Christian curriculum at Covenant Day School, at home schooling and another school. And soon lose track that this curriculum is meant to drive you to Christ rather than be an end and a means in itself. He challenged the faculty to move towards the awesomeness of God, something that's difficult to totally explain. In fact, I maintain that God is so incomprehensible and so awesomely wonderful that he cannot be known except through what he chooses to reveal in his word and in his son and in the creation. But to move towards this awesomeness of God, because Mr. Davis said it is the all God that puts everything in its proper place, it brings to us humility, tenderness, joy, enthusiasm, rest, true discipline and a proper sense of confidence in Christ and us, the hope of glory. Years ago, Dr. J. I. Packer wrote a book that has become a classic in our own time. The name of the book is Knowing God. In that book, he said, if we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake only, it is bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceded. Now Dr. Packer was not the first one to say that, actually Paul was. The Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians, now concerning food offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. What a radical statement that is more important to be known by God than to know about God. And that the very knowledge that gives us spiritual understanding of Christ in the Christian life can go bad. It can puff up rather than build up. Why will because in the process of pursuing that knowledge, we go right past the very subject matter we ought to be studying, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
So I want to look at this little verse tonight. It tells us three wonderful things about Christian education. I use that in the broadest sense of the term but I also use it specifically for the enterprise that is before Covenant Day School as a sacred charge from the people in the session of this church. There are three things in this little verse that we would like our children to know. And here's an easy way to remember it young people. Beautiful feet, good news, a great God. Going from the bottom up, the beautiful feet that bring good news about a great God. Look at the verse again. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says design your God reigns. The first thing we want our children to appreciate are the beautiful feet that bring them this good news. Now we don't have to wonder who possesses these beautiful feet. Although this passage is an introduction to the famous song about the suffering servant, the beautiful feet does not refer to Jesus Christ. But to those who bring us news of Jesus Christ. Look how this verse begins, how beautiful upon the mountains. Now why would he say that? Well, because if you look over in chapter 40 and chapter 40 verse 8 he says, God does, to the prophet Isaiah, get you up on the mountains and say to my people, behold your God. It is from the mountain tops in the prophetic picture that the prophet shouts forth the idea that God is the God of a great kingdom and that God reigns your God. Paul would tell us in Romans chapter 10 that these beautiful feet continue to be the feet of those who bring the message of Jesus Christ through the preaching of the Word of God. Look in Romans chapter 10, if you will, for just a moment turn there, to find how the New Testament interprets this Old Testament verse. Romans chapter 10, beginning in verse 11, for the Scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, or literally will not be disappointed. For there is no distinction between you and Greek, the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him, for everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But how are they to call upon him, whom they have not believed, and how are they to believe in him, whom they have not heard, and how are they to hear without someone preaching and how are they to preach unless they are sent, as it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. Here is a sure far away to determine whether the knowledge of God is going bad in you, whether you're tired or weary of God or not. And that is to ask yourself, do I appreciate the people who bring to me the message of Jesus Christ? In our context, it means do I appreciate the faculty and staff of Covenant Day School, the chapel speakers, the youth pastors of the churches that interface and work with Covenant Day School, do I appreciate the beautiful feet of these people, as they teach me the good news about Jesus Christ. That is the unique thing about a Christian school, and in particular Covenant Day School, is that every single subject from algebra to literature and everything in between has a Christ-centered application and a God-serving focus. Now, it is a stretch of faith if you like me to think that algebra could somehow direct you to God, but if nothing else, it would call you to steadfastness and patience, and how to learn how to suffer for the Lord, if you were the kind of mass student that I was. But our faculty, really, I know because I'm married to one of them, they work through their lesson plans every Monday to present for the whole week to their supervising principles about how in the subject matter they're teaching, they're going to expose people to the wonders of God and to the beauties of Jesus Christ and His grace. There's something inherently sinful because it is awfully ungrateful to be disrespectful to our teachers, our faculty, staff, our principals. And it's the easiest thing in the world to do. It's easier to be disrespectful, I think, of the principal of the high school or the headmaster of the whole Shabbang or the literature teacher and the sixth grade that it is to be disrespectful to a pastor. There's something about church that you realize is inherently spiritual, but it's easy to go to Covenant Day School as a consumer. This is a message, by the way, not just for children, for their parents, maybe more for the parents than the children. It's easy to think that because I'm paying this tuition, they owe me this particular product, which is this particular grade, or this spot on the cheerleading squad, or this playing time on the team. And if I don't get it, I'm going to let them know in a rather discurdious and unkind way, if I have to, just how much they owe me. And I'm here to tell you, brothers and sisters, someone who is disrespectful of the feet that bring him the good news of Jesus Christ will not know God very well. There's something we've lost in our age. It's the loss of what I call the sacred, including sacred people in sacred positions, not perfect people. Where has there ever been a perfect set of feet who brought the good news of Jesus Christ other than Christ himself? But people who are set aside for this wonderful calling, I can assure you that all of our faculty and staff at Covenant Day School could make a whole lot more money and have much easier jobs doing something other than what they do, but they have a calling as I do. And just as sacred is mine and the pastors and elders of this church to walk with the beautiful feet of those who bring glad tidings of the good news that God reigns. This is a call for us to be grateful for the people who preach and teach and disciple and coach and train and tutor and work with us as we try to grow in the knowledge of the Lord and the joy of the awesome God. The second thing this little passage tells us is not about just beautiful feet but good news. It's the good news of our curriculum. It's described as the good news of peace, of happiness, and of salvation. I imagine that if we had to say one of the three core values, what do we want out of all of our graduates? This will be a grand summary. We would want all of our students to have peace with God to be reconciled through Jesus Christ to God and therefore reconciled to one another. We want people who possess the peace of the Holy Spirit inside of them, as young people, who are able to live at peace with one another, which is commended and even commanded thousands of times it seems in the New Testament alone. And to have a relationship with God where there are no longer strangers and aliens and enemies with God's friends at peace with him, we would want them to be happy. Not in the pursuit of happiness, the American Constitution now thinks. But in the way that Jesus Christ described happiness, which means to be blessed, blessed are those who fear the Lord. Blessed are they who inherit the kingdom of God, blessed are the righteous who know God. We want our young people and their families to be blessed and to know the joy of the Lord and we want them to be saved. It is a message of salvation. The word in Hebrew, as in Greek, means primarily to be rescued or to be delivered from danger. It has translated many different ways in the New Testament to be ransomed, to be redeemed, to be delivered. It talks about being brought out of a bondage, to false gods, and being brought into an understanding of the true God and serving him. Paul describes salvation, John Stott says, most comprehensively in the New Testament, in this one verse, where he's talking to the Thessalonians about the report that came from them and he said, how you turn to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. That is what salvation is about. It's about repentance, turning from idols to the true God. It's about learning how to serve the living and true God and how to depend and faith upon Jesus Christ who listen to these words, will deliver us from the wrath to come. It's a little bit more than asking Jesus into your heart, which is an effective way to describe a relationship with Christ to a five-year-old. And is the common way that high school ministries describe how to make a decision for Christ on some retreat? But it's not the full essence of what it means to be saved. To be saved means to be captivated by the awesomeness of God and the wonder of Jesus Christ so that you put down the idols of your heart, which could be your education? Your desire to have this kind of career and go to this kind of school and make this kind of money and turning from that idol to serve the living and true God and to wait for Jesus Christ to totally transform your life so that when the wrath of God comes in judgment, you are delivered from the domain of evil and transferred to the kingdom of light, the love of the beloved son, Jesus Christ. That's what our faculty wants more than anything else. I know. I live with one of them. I hear her prayers for young people. I see the things that she gets into that come out of their families and out of their parents' marriages, the struggles of their own souls, the temptations and bondages that they're already in as young people. And how they are yearning for something better in life than what they have known and what they're yearning for even though they may not be able to express it is this salvation that comes through Jesus Christ alone. Here's the third and last thing. We are here to communicate through beautiful feet, a message about God. We're here to give them the good news about salvation, but most of all, we're here to bring them into the principal study of the greatest subject on the face of the earth, which is a subject of God Himself. Your God reigns. That is how Jesus Christ describes both His message and His ministry, His first words in public. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent. Turn away from those idols and believe this good news. What good news about the kingdom of God, the good news that God reigns? How beautiful upon the mountains or the feet of Him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news and happiness, who publishes salvation, who says, design, your God reigns. You would think that we would be excited by that and at times we are, but at times that little sentence, three words, your God reigns is a grand imposition. It reminds our students, our faculty, our parents, our church, our staff, that our young people's lives do not belong to them. They never have and never will. They belong to God. The great plan of their life is not what their parents or they script out for them for the next 15 or 20 years, but what God decrees for their lives. That their chief end in life, and do you know this answer, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I would say that in those three words is a worldview. That's the difference between us and the pagan. Our God reigns. The pagan's worldview is, I reign and appease my God. Our view is that God reigns and we live to please Him. It's a whole different way of looking at everything. It's what we mean as a church in school that Christ and everything is preeminent. Why? Because Christ is how the Bible ends in this great picture, almost like out of a fairy tale of a handsome heavenly prince on a great white stallion riding onto the scene of a great battle and ending it all for the glory of his father and everyone says he is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. He sits on a great white throne and he reigns forever and that's the end of the story, end of history, end of the Bible, end of it all. Unless our children are taught that the glory of a great God who reigns is the greatest end in purpose in life. They will end up somewhere down the line, very disenchanted, very unhappy, very broken people. Mark Davis concluded his message, which I'm reflecting back to you in different form, by reminding us that in classical education there were three statements that constantly brought us under this wonderment of God. He gave them to us in Latin as they originally would have come to students. The first one is in Namanai, Yezu, in the name of Jesus. It tells us that our educational pursuits must be in the name of Jesus Christ. In other words, they must be Christ-centered or they will end in failure. So that can phrase, it's Yezu Yuva, Jesus' help or Jesus' deliver. It talks about salvation that our education is to be redemptive, grace-oriented because unless the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ enters into the lives of our young people, all we do is quite frankly for virtually nothing. And finally, the phrase you are well familiar with, solely Dale Gloria to God alone the glory, which is the chief end of everything we do. That may be the difference between us and the Medieval saint. That we live today for our own glory and God is our servant who's here to glorify us and make us happy rather than for us to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. This is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith, the Christian religion, that in pursuing God's glory we find our only true enjoyment. That we are never happy unless God is glorified in who we are and in what we do. And that is why we ask the parents to bring their children here at the beginning of the year to bless them. That they might learn how to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. You're familiar with the singer Twyla Paris. He's written many songs that we sing in many churches. One that we don't sing because only someone with her vocal command could reach the notes is perhaps her greatest hymn, her greatest song, for the glory of the Lord. For the glory of the Lord we have been created, living texts of written word, mercy demonstrated. We are made a channel where His grace is poured, witness of salvation for the glory of the Lord. For the glory of the Lord willingly we suffer, laid upon this holy cross dying with our brother, His defined fulfillment, our complete reward, crucified rejoicing for the glory of the Lord. For the glory of the Lord we advance united, following Christ blazing sword, His dominion cited, all that has been taken, it shall be restored. This is our eternal anthem for the glory of the Lord. We want to bless your children and you as a family tonight, to that great end. We hope that this year you will be captured again with a sense of the wonderment of a God who reigns, a son who saves, and a spirit who sends through weakened vessels, this good news, these glad tidings of peace and happiness and deliverance. As Evangelical Protestants, we are not familiar with, this is one of the things I hope we change. We are not familiar with being touched by other people by being blessed, and yet it's in the Bible, it's in the early chapters of Genesis where these great patriarchs blessed their children and grandchildren, it's at the end of the New Testament when the elders are called upon to lay hands upon people and pray for them in times of distress, sickness. There's something spiritual and profoundly intimate about someone laying their hands on you and blessing you in God's name. Happens when we baptize a child or bring a young person or a confessing adult into the church and be still upon them the entrance right into the communion of the saints. It happens at the end of our lives, usually when we're lying on a deathbed and someone comes to lay hands on us and pray for some sign to the physician, more than not our pastor, but it's in between those two bookends of life, that we have the opportunity for someone to lay hands upon us and bless us. I grew up with this in the Roman Catholic Church. The priest was always having me kneel down and give me a blessing for, I went off to some great venture. I remember as a young man, 22 years old and newly graduated, newly commissioned in my brand new lieutenants uniform going to church for the last time before I went into the army. And I went up to the pastor of the church and said, Father Crosser, I'm leaving for the army and I have orders to be at the arm. And he said, Well, there's only one thing to do, I need to give you a blessing. So I knelt down there in the church and he put his hands on me and prayed for me and prayed that my orders would be changed. And they were, I had the dangerous assignment of sitting in an office in Chicago for two years. But even as a young man, I felt a surge of God's love and a great mantle of protection over me and a piece of heart as my pastor laid his hands on me and blessed me as he did when I was 14 days old and was baptized. That's what we want to do tonight. We invite you to come down here and let us touch you and your children and ask the Lord to bless you for one reason. Because your God reigns and that indeed is good news. Amen?