Reconstructed | Romans 5:9–11

How do we raise our children to love and to rest in the reconciliation of the Lord. If we have the ministry of reconciliation, how do we reconcile our kids to the Lord?

Teach Them

"We are reconciled to God by the death of his son."

"Let no Christian parents fall into the delusion that Sunday School is intended to ease them of their personal duties. The first and most natural condition of things is for Christian parents to train up their own children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." - Charles H. Spurgeon

Paul’s assistant Timothy was a man called by God to pastor in some terrible situations. He pastored Corinth, that disfunctional church. And Paul reminds Timothy, as he instructs the young man in ministry, that it was the teaching given to him by his faithful mother and grandmother that kept him in Christ.

2 Timothy 3:14–17 ESV

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Timothy did not become a believer in a vacuum. He became a believer because of the faithful teaching of his mother and grandmother. We live in a culture that discourages the teaching of the truths of God to our children. I’ve been told that the only reason our children believe in God is because they have been brainwashed. To that I say, “AMEN!” God has revealed himself through His word, and the enemy would love for believers to not teach their children the truth of him.

God from the beginning of his dealing with men has encourage them to teach the truth of who he is to future generations.

Deuteronomy 6:6–7 ESV

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

The reason this is important is because God reveals himself in two ways. One is general revelation.

General revelation refers to the general truths that can be known about God through nature. We see things about God through the sun, moon, and stars. Through the seasons and through all of creation, but this knowledge is imperfect. A experts of fine wine called Master Sommeliers can tell you much about where and when the wine was made, the type of container it was stored in and other information just by the smell and taste of a wine. And in the same way we can know certain things about God through creation, but like a sommelier that knowledge is limited.

In a recent study, your average sommeliers were given tests and that when compared to average wine drinkers they were unable to tell that three wines they tasted were all the same wine from the same bottle given at different temperatures. Like wine tasting, general revelation is incredibly subjective in imperfect.

Special revelation refers to the more specific truths that can be known about God through the supernatural. The primary way that God reveals himself to us is through His Word, the Bible. The Bible is, according to Voddie Baucham, 66 books in 3 languages written by 40 authors, spanning 3 continents and over 1,500 years, and has been corroborated by 23,000 archaeological digs. It contained specific prophecies, and miracles written when eye witnesses to those miracles were still alive and it reveals to us everything that God decided humanity needs to know about Him, what He expects, and what He has done for us.

Our kids need that special revelation. They need the word of God. So how do we give it to them?

Read it To Them

I admit that I’m not perfect at this. We are terribly busy and we do not sit down every night with our kids like we should. But we read the Bible with our kids. Our children have gone through the Bible time and time again throughout their lives. We use books like Star Meade’s Training Heart and Teaching Minds, or Bruce Ware’s Big Truths for Young Hearts. We’ve used the Jesus Storybook BIble with our kids, and we encourage them as they get older by buying them devotionals and checking in on them.

Take Them To Church

Another way that we keep our kids in the word is by not making church optional. My kids are in church every Sunday, no questions asked. Church is a non-negotiable. I had one of my children one time tell me, “Dad, we go to church all the time, why can’t we miss one Sunday?” After laughing, I said, “God gives us his son, and died for our sins, and Jesus intercedes for us every day. He deserves our time.”

Dads, it is your responsibility to bring your family to church. If church is optional in your home it’s your fault. Repent of that and make a commitment from this point to change that. My 19 year old son knows that as long as he sleeps under my roof he will be in church on Sunday morning. He goes to church with his girlfriend sometime, but he is in church.

Take your kids to AWANA. Bring them to grow group. Take them to worship. They may say, “I don’t want to go tonight, I want to play fortnite.” But they should know that church is not an option.

It’s amazing to me how many parents would never let their child miss a sports practice or skip work, but they let their kids skip church because they are tired. And when you live like this you should not be surprised when your kids do not believe you when you say “Church is important” and “God is important”.

If church is optional in one generation it become extinct in the next.

Show Them

Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice. – Charles F Kettering.

But more than that, we should SHOW it to our kids. The best way for your kids to love Christ is for them to see you loving Christ.

Titus 2:7–8 ESV

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

Let your kids see you putting the things of God first. Let them see you stepping out of your comfort zone, taking risks for the kingdom, serving others. We have a growing generation of young people who do not share their faith becuase theyve never seen anyone share their faith.

Christians we must let our kids see the Christ in us.

One way we can do this is by GOING WITH THEM TO CHURCH. Don’t drop your kids off, go! But how else can we model Christ?

Be Submissive In the Home

One way we model Christ to our kids is by submitting ourselves to our spouses.

Ephesians 5:22–26 ESV

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

Notice the picture of submission. Wives submitting herself willingly, and husbands lovingly submitting himself to Christ. This is a picture of submission to Christ.

Husbands and wives, if you cannot be submissive in your life to your spouse then do not be surprised when your children do not submit themselves to Christ!

Be Submissive in the Community

Serve. The way we submit in our world is to serve those around us. Being good neighbors, loving others, serving in the community. These are all ways to show the love that Christ has for the world to our children. We think missions is going around the world, but true missions starts with helping an elderly neighbor in their yard, or helping a grandparent fix something in their home. Submission means loving others the way Christ loved us.

Matthew 5:14–16 ESV

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Be Submissive in the Church

Finally, we model it by serving the church.

Hebrews 10:24–25 ESV

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

As our children see us loving Christ in the church it models to them the need to be in church, to love the church and to serve the church.

Pray for Them

Acts 26:18 ESV

to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

On e of the most powerful things that we can do to lead our children in reconciliation ministry is to pray for them. Our children are born sinners. Their eyes, like ours once were, are blinded by sin. They are in darkness.

It’s hard to look at a baby’s little toes and hear its cooing laugh and think of it as sinful. We can call ourselves sinners, we readily admit that. We can proclaim the reality of the sin of strangers near us, but when cannot imagine any evil lurking in the heart of our innocent child. But Scripture clearly states that we are born sinners. Before Christ regenerates them they are lovers off darkness (John 3:19) & they do not understand the things of God (1 Cor. 2:14). Because of Adam’s fall into sin, mankind is corrupted by sin in every area of his life: mind, emotions, and will have all been tainted.

This does not mean we are as evil as we possibly can be and that we do not sometimes do good things, but it’s the reality that everything we do is tainted by sin.

Several years ago when Kristy and I first go married I left a pen in my shirt. The next day, when she pulled the clothes out of the dryer, everything in the dryer was covered in little blotches of ink. The whole laundry was corrupted.

Paul teaches that it is the death of His Son that reconciles us and saves us by His life. It is the work of Christ in us that brings about our salvation. He secured an eternal redemption for us on the cross.

2 Corinthians 3:4–6 ESV

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Christ’s completed work on the cross was sufficient to save all who would repent and believe. So with this in mind, if we are going to see our children come to Christ, we must realize that it is only by the work of Christ in their lives that they can be saved. While modeling and teaching are important, they are insufficient if we are not praying for their salvation and their continued sanctification.

So what should we pray for?

We Should Pray that Christ would Save our Children from their sins, giving them hearts receptive to the gospel

It is only when Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit, gives us a new heart that we are receptive to the gospel. God must first do a work in us before we can respond. We should pray that God would make our children’s hearts tender to the gospel, and that Christ would save them from their sins.

We should Pray that Christ would Sanctify them making them daily more and more like Christ.

Our salvation occurs when Christ justifies us, making us right with God, but it is also Christ that sanctifies us, making us more and more like Christ. The work of the gospel begins at salvation it does not end at salvation. The cross is the beginning of the new life. We must pray for our children’s sanctification.

We Should Pray that Christ would preserve them until he Glorifies them in Him at death or at the second coming of Christ.

Matthew 24:13 ESV

But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Romans 2:7 ESV

to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;

Hebrews 3:14 ESV

For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

Revelation 2:10 ESV

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

Notice the thread throughout these verses: Perseverance. If we persevere we will be saved. Pray for your children to persevere! Only God will make those who are his persevere.

John 10:28 ESV

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.