Heavenly Reunion

I started to teach Sunday school at church a few years ago when our youth pastor asked me whether I’d be willing to help out with the 8th grade class.  I agreed, thinking that it was only a temporary assignment, and, as they say, the rest is history.  The youth pastor recently offered me to teach the 12th graders, and I am very eager to take on this challenge, not only because my son happens to be in the class, but also because I became a Christian 30 years ago, during the summer prior to 12th grade, and my first Sunday school teachers, Tien and Cheryl, were both medical students. This therefore is an opportunity for me, now a full-grown physician, to give back all the life-changing ministry which I received back then.

One of the great joys of Sunday school ministry is that I get to see many of my students continue to grow and mature in the Lord. I remember hearing testimonies of people with near-death experiences recalling being at the threshold of Heaven and being greeted by significant people in their lives, including parents, grandparents, other loved ones, and Sunday school teachers. Hopefully, if I get there first, I’ll be among the ones to greet my students. It will be sooooo exciting to see them saved by grace, justified by Christ's righteousness, sanctified, and with glorified, imperishable bodies.

Unfortunately, I am also tormented, knowing that many of my students will not be there, because they have rejected the faith of their parents and the Gospel message. I know, because at least once a year I would ask my students questions like, "Raise your hand if you are a Christian", "If you die tonight, do you know for certain that you are going to Heaven?", "Do you believe the message of the Gospel?", and "What is the Gospel message?" The responses have unfortunately been very disappointing. Many highly intelligent, academically, athletically and musically accomplished children of God-fearing parents either do not care about God, do not have any desire to live under God's presence (as if we even have a choice to hide from God), or openly reject the message of the Gospel. I often ask myself whether it is because of something I said or shouldn't have said, and am afraid that I might have caused some to choose Hell rather than Heaven, to choose temporal, sinful pleasures instead of eternal life under God's presence. I feared for my own soul, as teachers are admonished by the apostle Paul that they would be judged more strictly. Woe to me if I cause one of these young ones to fall!

Thankfully, the Lord addressed my anxieties via the words in John's gospel. For many years I didn't like the book of John as much as the other gospels, because it seems so tedious, and Jesus' words and prayers just went on and on and on through those really long verses and chapters. However, as I studied God's word more, those words came alive and became so meaningful.  It recorded these words of Jesus:

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of the Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  (John. 6:37-40)

Jesus came to earth in order that every person that God the Father ordained before the creation of the universe to be saved would be saved. Christians are the Father's gift to the son, and Jesus promised that not even one of those that the Father gives to him would be lost. Not even one! That is great assurance for me, because whether my students believe depends not on my providing convincing arguments about the Gospel, or being clever and funny, or being a good salesman for Jesus. It is God's work and His doing. When I teach, I am only an instrument in the Master's hand. It matters not whether I am a paintbrush, a pencil, a chisel, a shovel or a sledgehammer in God's hand, I need only to do my job faithfully. If my students truly understand the depravity of their condition, truly repent, truly believe that Jesus came to earth to die for sinners, that he rose from the dead, and that Christ's righteousness is imputed to those who believe and call him both Lord and Savior, all the glory belongs to God. It is nothing that I have accomplished.  Conversely, if they do not believe after I have given my best efforts, I need not despair of my performance. To paint a picture you need the canvass, a bunch of paint, brushes, solvents and all sort of stuff. If God meant me to be a pencil for the first sketch, I may be indispensable, but also be totally invisible in the end. The important thing is not me, and it is not people. It is God. I only need to worry about being the best pencil or sledgehammer that I can be, to be used for His glory.

And, I look forward to having the most joyful Sunday school reunion when we the Lord calls us home!