Titus 2:3-5 Doctrinally Sound Women Part 3: Godly Mothers

Intro

Raising children is one of the most important tasks for anyone that has a child.

We are responsible for them and who they grow up to be.

But here’s the problem. None of these totally depraved sinners comes with a training manual.

So we have this infinitely important work to do, but barely any clue or direction for how to go about doing it.

And this is especially challenging for moms because moms are with the kids the most. Dad leads the home, sets the direction for the home, but mom is the one that carries it out.

And because of that, you moms are maybe the greatest influence on who your children grow up to be.

So we need to ask, as Christian parents, bought by the precious blood of Jesus...

What does it mean to be a Godly Mother?

And here’s how we are going to answer that question.

We are going to start by looking at what the Bible says about parenting in general. Both mom and dad and what it looks like to raise our kids biblically.

Then we are going to look at moms specifically and how God calls moms to raise their children in the Lord.

Let’s start with point number 1...

I. God Calls Parents to Steward the Children He Entrusted to Them

Titus 2:3-5 Older women…are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

This is our third week looking at these three verses trying to answer the question what does a godly woman look like.

And this week I want to focus in on one of the most important callings a woman can have. Raising children.

Paul says one of the things that Older women need to train younger women in is loving their children and working at home, why? That the word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ may not be reviled, blasphemed, belittled or looked down upon.

And we are going to take a close look at exactly what it means for Godly Mothers to love their children and in particular what precisely the Holy Spirit means when he says women are to be workers at home, because their aren’t many live wires hotter than that one in our culture today.

But before we do that I want to talk about children and raising children in general. Think of this first point like a theology of parenting.

Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 127:3.

Psalm 127:3-5 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. 4  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. 5  Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!

The Psalmist says children are a heritage, an inheritance, a treasured reward or great blessing from God to parents.

Children are a gift. The Scriptures consistently teach that every time a child is conceived it was God who opened the womb.

That in the womb he knits us together as image bearers of God who are fearfully and wonderfully made.

In Ezekiel 16 God says that Israel had no right to sacrifice their children to false gods because God had given them those children for himself. He even says in verse 21 you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire (Ezek. 16:21).

Our children are a gift from the Lord and they ultimately belong to the Lord. Parents are stewards of the children God has given them.

And every good steward wants to be found faithful. We know from Jesus’ parables how God judges wicked stewards who squander the Master’s gift.

So that should make every single one of us blessed with the gift of children ask, What does it mean to be a faithful steward of the children God has given me?

And the answer is simple. If our children belong to the Lord. And if God has entrusted to us his children as a gift and a blessing, then being a faithful steward of our children means we need to do all that we can to raise them up in the Lord.

To see our children grow in holiness and worship God through Jesus Christ.

As God’s image bearers, our children are called to glorify God. To worship him and celebrate him for all that he’s worth.

So faithful parenting is not a passive activity. It won’t just happen on its own.

It takes real, determined, sacrificial work and effort.

I think some Christian parents just assume that because they are good and moral, go to church, and have a Christian home, that’s enough.

And listen, that’s important. Those things are necessary. But there is an intentionality behind biblical parenting that goes beyond just having a Christian home.

So here’s the temptation for every Christian parent. We start slacking. We fall victim to the grind and we take our foot off the gas of raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

We lose our drive and determination and will, settle for surviving, and just assume that is enough for our kids to walk faithfully with the Lord.

And yes. Ultimately their salvation is not up to you. Its up to God. But that doesn’t mean your stewardship is unimportant or not necessary.

God’s normal pattern for life is Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it (Prov. 22:6).

So by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, we need to push. To make every effort, every day, and every moment to faithfully steward the children God has entrusted to us because their salvation and the glory of God is at stake.

Now the question you might be asking yourself is how? How do I parent biblically and raise my children up in the Lord? I want to be a faithful steward, but I just don’t know what that looks like.

In his grace, God gives us clear instructions for raising children to worship Jesus.

How

Ephesians 6:1-4 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

So in a Christian home, God calls children to obey their parents for this is right.

But to parents, God gives this command. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Now the word Fathers primarily means dad, but it also includes mom who’s following her husbands lead to raise the kids.

And Paul says, Dad, Mom, do not make your children angry.

Hold on a second. Everything makes our kids angry. That’s half the reason why I have to discipline them.

Every time I try to make them obey the get angry. Is Paul saying we should be parents that allow these little Tyrants to rule the house.

To walk on eggshells and make sure that we don’t ever make them angry for any reason? No.

In the parallel passage of Colossians 3:21, Paul says don’t exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart.

The idea here is to not burden your children so that they just want to give up because they can never get it right.

So how can we exasperate our kids? These are in no particular order but these are common ways we can provoke our kids to anger and make them lose heart so that biblical parenting becomes counter-productive.

Control

First, being overbearing. Controlling. Dominating.

Suffocating them with arbitrary rules and inordinate punishments that say I don’t trust you, and I need to control you.

Comparison

This is another way of playing favorites. You probably don’t have a favorite kid, but when you say, “Why can’t you be more like your brother or more like your sister?” What you are saying is I would love you more if you were better.

This causes division in your family. Not just division between you and the child, but between them and their sibling.

And a house divided will not stand.

Unrealistic Expectations

What about unrealistic expectations?

They need to be perfect. The best at everything. Perfect grades. Perfect at sports. Perfect behavior.

This crushes a child because all it tells them is they will never be good enough no matter how hard they try, and so they lose heart.

We need to just let them be kids and engage with them as children. We need to play with them. Laugh with them. Sing with them. Be silly with them. So that they know they are loved, and cherished and wanted.

Nagging

Nagging our kids can provoke them to anger. Just constantly being on them.

And you know this is true because how do you react when your kids are constantly on you? You start to lose it!

And you’re an adult that can put things in perspective and push through. Our kids can’t thrive in that kind of environment.

Criticism/Embarrassment

Criticism and embarrassment.

Ridiculing them or shaming them in front of other parents or children. Telling them how they aren’t good enough.

This destroys our kids. Out of all the people in the world, we should be their greatest cheerleader, and when we mock them and ridicule them, all that child hears is “I am all alone. There is no one for me."

Selfishness

And finally selfishness. Putting our wants and desires over our kids.

Parents are called to sacrifice for their children to make them happy.

Yeah you’re tired. But if your kid comes up and says will you play with me? The majority of time, your answer should be an enthusiastic, “I’d love to.”

All these things destroy our relationship with our children and tears down the bridge of love and relationship that makes biblical parenting possible.

If we exasperate our children all they will believe is that we don’t love them, care for them, and we are not to be trusted.

We will lose the opportunity to speak wisdom and truth into their life because they will only see that wisdom and truth through the lens of that broken relationship.

And if you were convicted about anything I just said, then repent to your kids and ask their forgiveness. They need to hear it.

But Paul doesn’t just tell us what not to do. He tells us what to do. Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

To teach our children what God commanded Israel to teach their children in Deuteronomy 6. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

God calls us to teach our children that there is One God and all of their life is for glorifying him. Of loving him with all our heart, soul, and strength.

Now if you’re like me, that’s a daunting task. How do I get everything about our faith from here, and here, into them?

Where do you even start? We know we need to raise our children up in the Lord. How do you actually go about doing that?

Well the first thing you need to realize is that biblical parenting is both reactive and proactive.

Reactive

First its reactive. That means your intentional to bring the gospel and God’s Word to bear in the everyday circumstances of life.

This is the everyday stuff where we discipline them and look for teaching opportunities to have intentional conversations and bring the Word of God to bear on their life.

And this reactive parenting, is made effective by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That as we are filled with the Spirit, we follow his lead and prompting to faithfully raise our children in the Lord.

He shows us, through the principles of the Word where to push, what to say, how to parent in any given situation, and when we fail he convicts us so that we can repent and faithfully parent next time.

Proactive

But biblical parenting is also proactive. And this is the hard one. How do you teach your kids the faith?

Where do you start? What do you need to cover? How do you know if you’ve done enough?

How can we pack all of this theology into those little brains and hearts?

And I know most of you are faithful parents. You want to be proactive in passing your faith onto your kids, but you just don’t really know how. Well I want to help you.

I think the best way to pass on our faith to our kids is by returning to the tools our forefathers used to disciple and train new Christians: Catechisms, Hymns, and Scripture Memory.

Now the first question you might be asking is, “What is a Catechism?” The root word of Catechism simply means “to teach.”

And how catechisms teach the faith is by asking theological questions, and giving theological answers.

And by learning the catechism believers are able to learn both the essentials and the distinctives of our faith.

They help us see the big picture about salvation and trains a person to read the Bible and think theologically.

Catechisms were long used over the course of church history and were so important and fundamental to Christian discipleship that John Calvin said “Believe me…the church of God will never be preserved without catechesis (Truth and Grace Book 1, 22).

But if you’re anything like me, you need a plan. You’re happy to put in the work, but you need a plan to carry out that work.

So knowing I want to give you a very practical resource, that can help you steward your children for the glory of God.

Founders Press has three great books that I would encourage every member in our church with children in the home to get.

They are called Truth and Grace Memory Books and they are available on founders.org.

Book 1 is for ages 2-9, Book 2 ages 10-13, and Book 3 ages 14-17.

And each book works through an age appropriate catechism and also has hymns and Scriptures to memorize to build our kids up in the faith.

And here’s the best part. In the back of each book there is a worksheet that lays out for you how to work through the book based on your child’s age.

We started doing this with Owen this week. And I will tell you it is one of the most joyful and blessed things I’ve ever been able to do.

To teach him Doxology and hear him try to sing along.

And when you ask him the first question of the catechism “Who made you?” and he answers back “Dod made me,” there is a sense of peace that I didn’t know we could have, where we just know, by God’s grace, we can do this.

We have plan. We can raise him in the discipline instruction of the Lord.

And this will be good for you. Because as you do this with your kids, you will be catechized and grow in your faith.

But I want to give gigantic qualification to all this.

The goal of raising our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord is not wrote knowledge or behavior modification.

We labor as parents in faith and in hope that our children will come to believe in Christ. The goal is not to have well behaved pharisees that are far from God.

The goal is disciples who love Jesus with all their heart, soul, and strength.

So in biblical parenting the gospel always has to come first. We have to teach our kids their need for Christ

The Law of obedience will not save them. The only thing that will save them is the grace of Christ.

As parents, we must steward our children well. We need to make every effort, as exhausting as it is, to not waste a moment and raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

So now that we’ve covered all that. Now that we’ve looked at a theology of parenting in general, let’s go to moms.

What does it look like to be a godly mother? Point number 2...

II. Godly Mothers Love their Children

Titus 2:3-5 Older women…are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children...

Now this might seem obvious, but one of the things godly mothers need to do is love their children.

And this might be so obvious that you could be tempted to think, “Well of course I love my children. Check that one off the list. What else does a godly mother look like?”

But hold on.

What’s the definition of love that you’re using?

You see, usually when we say we love someone what we are saying is that we would do anything in the world for them.

That we would sacrifice anything and do whatever we can to help them.

And that’s good. We should love one another with a sacrificial love.

But here’s the danger of defining love this way.

This definition of love can actually give us a pass for not actually loving the people closest to us.

We can justify anger, impatience, rudeness, nagging all because we think, “Well, I love them. There’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for them.”

So we can trick ourselves into thinking that we love someone without actually showing them love at all.

So when it comes to kids. We can nag them. Complain about them. Snap at them. Lash out in anger or take out our bad day on them all while thinking, “But I would do anything for them.”

That’s not love. I don’t know what you call it, but God’s definition of love is not one that lets you treat people rudely and still think you actually love them.

Let’s look at God’s definition of Love. Go to 1 Corinthians 13.

1 Corinthians 13:4-6 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Here’s the question. We might think love means that we would do anything in the world for our children, but does your love for your children look like this?

Patient

Are you patient with them?

Kids are going to mess up. They are going to do things that aren’t even sin, but can still set us off.

They are going to spill their juice at the worst possible time, and in the worst possible place at your house.

They will do it after you have been on hold with the cable company for 45 minutes and it will be all over your new couch.

How do you respond?

Or maybe this is a better way to ask it. How do you think your kid would respond? Do you think they will see how they messed up, and immediately get that pit in their stomach wishing they could just close their eyes and disappear because they are so afraid of how upset you’re going to be?

Kind

Are you kind to your children?

Do you tell and show your children that they are a delight to you? That you love getting to be with them and that they are one of your favorite people?

Is the normal environment in your home one of joy and life and love and happiness with each other or is playtime always, “That’s nice! Please go away now.”

Being kind is being welcoming, cheerful, gentle, and happy. Is that the relationship between you and you’re children?

It is not arrogant or rude, where we think our kids are getting in the way of more important things we need to do and so we treat our kids like a nuisance rather than a gift.

How often have you seen mothers behaving rudely with their children. Yelling. Blaming. Counting. Mocking. Belittling.

No one sees that family and thinks, I wish we were like that. No. Rudeness to any person, even our children, is unbecoming of Christians.

Instead kind mothers, and kind fathers encourage their kids. They build them up and celebrate them.

Irritable or Resentful

Are you irritable?

Are you sharp with your kids? Easily provoked. Constantly irritated?

Do you ever tell your kid “Can you just leave me alone?”

What about resentful?

You might think to yourself, “Oh that’s preposterous. I don’t resent my kids!”

But do you view them as a burden? Are they always getting in the way of what you’d rather do?

Are they inconvenient?

That’s not love. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Let me put it to you this way, Loving your children doesn’t just mean doing anything in the world for them on the big things.

It also means doing anything in the world for them, bearing all things, enduring all things, in the day to day broken parts of life.

Now no one wants to be this kind of mom. No one wants to be the overbearing mother nagging her kids where its obvious to everyone else at the supermarket that the kids themselves don’t feel valued or welcome.

And I know all of you don’t want to be this kind of mom and that most of you are great moms. You are trying your best to love your children the best that you can.

I only bring this up because I know, as a parent, how easy it is to slide here. We can get so wrapped up in ourselves and what we want that before we know it our natural impulse is to love ourselves before loving our children.

And you’ll notice a lot of this points back to earlier to all the ways we can provoke our children to anger.

So what’s the answer. How do we keep from sliding into the grind of work, errands, meals, practice bed time, and keep loving our kids on the forefront?

Look at Proverbs 14:1

Proverbs 14:1 The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.

Ladies. You build your house or you tear it down. When it comes to your kids and your family are you building or destroying?

Let me ask it this way: What family culture are you building in your house?

Is it one filled with joy and life or nagging and frustration.

Our children can easily lose heart. We can crush them with a word. And when they are young and impressionable, the culture that we build for our kids is the culture that is going to shape their identity of who they are.

Now this doesn’t you don’t discipline your children. Discipline is a foundational building block of a family culture.

But you don’t discipline in impatience and anger. Instead you discipline justly and kindly with restoration and forgiveness at the end so that the child doesn’t think they have to earn their way back into your favor.

Because that is obviously not how God disciplines us in Jesus Christ.

The home is a place where our children should feel secure. Should feel loved. Valued and cared for.

It should be home. A place of peace, rest, joy and life. The place you want to be after a hard day or when the world has hit you like a ton of bricks.

And this kind of culture only happens when Dad as the head, and Mom as the helper build this home together, and especially mom because she’s around the kids the most.

Here’s what you ultimately want a home centered on Christ.

Where the love, grace, mercy, peace, reconciliation of Christ permeates the house by the power of the Holy Spirit.

By everyone in the family saying, we belong to Jesus and our home is going to honor Jesus.

And how you do that is by building your house, your family, on the Word of God.

And the first step you might need to take in building your house is repenting to your kids.

Now no one’s going to be perfect. We are all going to fail loving our kids at one point or another.

And if that’s you, whether its one time, or your whole family culture is out of whack, that doesn’t make you a terrible mom.

There is grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ, and he can take your family where ever you are and change it, renew it, recreate it to honor him.

So if you have a poor family culture, repent to your kids. Say, “I have not loved you as much as I want to. I’m so sorry for being rude, impatient, and angry with you. You are one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, and from here on out I want to do everything I can to show you how much of a blessing you are to me. Will you please forgive me.”

And then every time we stumble we do it again. And by repenting to our kids we show them, that Jesus will always forgive.

So the first thing Godly Mothers need to do is love their kids.

Number three...

III. Godly Mothers Prioritize their Children and Home

Titus 2:3-5 They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home...

In this section I want to focus on working at home.

And immediately when I say that, everyone gets a little nervous, so let me just say at the outset precisely what I think God is saying in this verse.

I don’t think God is saying it is sinful for a woman to work outside the home.

In Proverbs 31 we get a description of biblical womanhood.

And the proverbs 31 woman is involved in real estate, agriculture, makes clothes, does charity work, and to cap it off it says she does not eat the bread of idleness. She’s not lazy. She’s a hard worker.

But what It does mean is that her priority is the home. Its the children and her family.

It doesn’t mean that she’s barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. But it does mean that she is responsible for the home, and the she takes that responsibility seriously.

Remember, the wisest of women builds her house (Proverbs 14:1).

Psalm 128:3 says she is a fruitful vine within her house and her children are olive shoots.

The idea being that her children are fruitful because she’s present. She’s in the home. Her priority is there. She’s invested. Diligently working in the home to build a godly house.

Here’s the point, whether you are working or you are a stay at home mom that even volunteers a lot or does side businesses, your priority should be your home.

You’re home and your family needs to come first. And if anything gets in the way of that from happening, it needs to go.

You are the fruitful vine within your house. No one can do what you can do in your home.

Your husband doesn’t have another wife and your children don’t have another mom. You are all they got, and that means you have a high calling because no one else in the world can be who you are and do what you do in your home.

So here’s the biblical principle. Wives and Mothers, in God’s Kingdom, need to prioritize the home.

Now that is a broad statement. And how any one woman applies it is going to look different from one home to the next.

So let me try to apply that statement to different types of women in our church.

Career Identity

The temptation for some women is to buy into the world and find their identity in their career and let their home fall by the wayside.

Not in terms of letting it crumble to the ground, but in the sense that their job, salary, career, and recognition from the world is more of a priority than their family.

And ladies, there is an incredible pressure on you to follow the way of the world.

Feminists and our culture believe there is nothing as degrading to a woman as a wife prioritizing her home and family.

Feminism is the lie that women are slaves when serving their family but free when slaving away for an employer.

The see it as oppression and bondage to your husband and children.

That the only way for you to be “somebody” is to be a man. To have a career, a salary, rewards, and accolades.

Now remember, I’m not saying its sinful to work or have a job. And you don’t need to feel guilty if you do. All I’m saying it is sinful to not prioritize your home.

There is a difference in working outside the home and prioritizing your career and working outside the home and prioritizing your family.

And it might look the same on the outside, and in fact its probably not even obvious.

But if that is you, I believe the Holy Spirit will convict you, and if he does, you need to listen.

That might mean you will lose a big chunk of your household income. But Christians have heavenly priorities. We don’t live for the things of this world. The rewards of this life. We live for Christ, and his kingdom.

Working Moms

But like I said. Working outside the home is not automatically sinful.

Some of you work outside the home but do everything you can to prioritize your family and not let your job get in the way of building your house.

In fact some of you might have to work because of bitter providence. That you long to be a stay at home mom, but its just not possible right now, maybe because of student debt or monthly bills.

And if that’s you, let me say two things. First, its ok. You’re not in sin. You’re not failing your family.

If you are trying to be as faithful as you can to what God has said, and are listening to the Holy Spirit’s conviction, all you can do right now is be as faithful as you can and trust God with the rest.

If you’re genuine desire is to obey and honor the Lord as a wife and mother then as a family, with your husband look to His Word and seek him in prayer.

Ask God to show you what to do, and ask him that he will give you the faith that he will provide for your family whatever you need as you seek his kingdom and honor his Word.

Our Lord said do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?...Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:25; 31-33).

If you are seeking to obey the Lord, he will show you what to do.

And that might look like making some sacrifices. Saving a little less. Downsizing the house. Eating out less.

But at the end of the day if your desires are homeward, if you are seeking to honor God and prioritize your home, then pray to God and ask, “What do you want this to look like?” and then follow the Holy Spirit’s conviction.

That might look like working still, cutting back hours or even leaving your job altogether.

The point is God when we seek the Lord, God promises to provide the wisdom and resolution to whatever we need to honor him.

Stay at Home Moms

Finally stay at home moms. The temptation for you is to feel guilty for being quote “Just a Mom.”

But being just a mom is not a small thing in God’s Kingdom. And in fact this applies to every single woman with children in our church working outside the home or not.

Being just a mom, prioritizing your home, and raising your children in the Lord is a glorious, Great Commission work.

You are discipling your kids in Christ.

No one in the world has a greater influence on your children than you and Dad.

Dad is setting the direction and leading the home, and you are carrying out that mission.

You’re preaching the gospel to the kids, showing them grace and justice, and helping them to learn how to obey the Lord.

Its hard enough to feed the kids, get them dressed, get them where they are supposed to be, pick them up. Just the practical logistics of raising kids is exhausting.

But the harder word of molding their character, cultivating their faith in Christ that is the real stuff of parenting, and it is not possible without making your home a priority.

Because at the end of the day, there is nothing more important, and no sacrifice too great, than to see our children walking faithfully with the Lord.

Not only for their sake of being saved and having eternal life with Christ as God wills.

But for the sake of God’s Kingdom.

God’s purpose for human history is to fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14).

For God to be worshiped by all people everywhere through Jesus Christ.

And how Christ is accomplishing that is through the Great Commission. The proclamation of the gospel to every tribe, tongue, and nation.

And our kids are the next generation of Great Commission missionaries. They are the ones, after we are gone that will take the gospel to the nations.

That’s why the Bible, earlier in Psalm 127, calls them arrows.

They are God’s weapons to advance his Kingdom over the earth and bring salvation to a lost and dying world.

That means you, Moms, are the armourers sharpening the arrows. Getting them ready for the Kingdom of God and the glory of Christ to be celebrated all over the earth.

Being just a mom is Kingdom work. All the sacrifice you’re making to basically give away years of your life for the good of your children is all a part of God’s plan to bring salvation through faith in Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth.

Without you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it wont happen. Children need their moms. And Christ’s Kingdom needs Godly Moms.

That’s why Godly Mothers must prioritize their children and their home.

Because the big idea of biblical motherhood is this.

Godly moms play an essential role in the Kingdom of God.

What greater work, or higher calling could their possibly be?

Conclusion

Now let me close with this. And this is for both moms and dads.

We live in a dark world. A world where it looks like the gospel is not winning. But it is. And it will.

But that doesn’t make this world any less dark, or any less scary for our kids.

It is normal to look at the world, and fear for our children.

I have thought and said, I am sorry that this is the world that my son will have to grow up in.

Will he stay faithful? Will he still love Jesus? Will my children and my great grandchildren love Jesus?

And I will tell you, the Lord convicted me. The Bible says God determines the times and places in which men live, and that includes our kids.

This is their time. And God has brought them into the world for such a time as this.

They are his arrows, and God has brought them into the world to serve his purposes.

What a privilege they will have to do incredible things for the Kingdom.

We don’t need to be scared. We don’t need to feel sorry. They were born for this and God knows exactly what he is doing.

Our question is, are we going to make them ready?

We need to think generationally. We need to understand that what we are doing now in our homes and in this church will have Kingdom effects 10, 50, 100 years from now.

What are we doing, now, today, so that our kids, and our kids kids, and our kids kids kids, will shine as a light for the gospel.

Biblical parenting has Kingdom consequences. Are we willing to get to work?

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Psalm 78:4-7 We will not hide them from their children,

but tell to the coming generation

the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,

and the wonders that he has done.

5  He established a testimony in Jacob

and appointed a law in Israel,

which he commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

6  that the next generation might know them,

the children yet unborn,

and arise and tell them to their children,

7  so that they should set their hope in God

and not forget the works of God,

but keep his commandments;