Parenting and the Propagation of God's Kingdom

The goal of parenting (from The Faithful Parent, Scott & Peace): “The goal for Christian parents is to be faithful to God’s Word by His grace and for His glory" (p. 4).

Main idea: Four basic principles of faithful parenting from the lives of Lois, Eunice, and Timothy.

1. Pursue your own faithful personal walk with God (2 Timothy 1:5a).
2. Model and teach your children what that personal walk with God entails (2 Timothy 1:5b).
3. Appreciate the precious and powerful nature of God’s Word (2 Timothy 3:15a).
4. Trust God’s purposes for using the Word in your children’s lives (2 Timothy 3:15b).

• Automated Transcription

• 0:13
  if you will, stand with me for the reading of God Word, God's word, turn to Second Timothy. Second Timothy. Chapter One, the two letters to Timothy, of course, are written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy, who was a co laborer of his, a younger man they had equipped to serve in the church. And Second Timothy, chapter one, I'm going to read verses three through seven this morning there, Paul writes, I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers, night and day, longing to see you even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy, for I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, Timothy, which first dwell in your grandmother, Lois and your mother, Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well. For this reason, I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands, For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. This is God's Word. God help us this morning to see what your word has to say to us about being faithful parents as Lois and Eunice a faithful grandmother and mother. Were We ask this in your name. Amen, you may be seated. I do want to mention I think John might have forgot that Dan and Linda are newly grandparents, so Brenna and Hayden, yeah, Brenna gave birth to a small toddler. The men come large in that family. So and last I heard, they had not named him yet. So I might be mistaken. If anyone knows a name, shout it out, but I haven't heard a name yet. So congratulations to Brenna and Hayden especially, and to the Jarms as well. I have been rescued by John Gardner's good judgment and wise suggestion that we do not spend Mother's Day in Genesis 16, talking about the Old Testament theological concept of circumcision. Thank you, John for that suggestion as staff meeting instead and quite appropriate for Mother's Day, as you just heard me read, we're going to discuss some parenting matters. There are really some observations and applications from the life of these two women mentioned in this letter that Paul wrote to Timothy, two women, a grandmother and a mother, who were instrumental in raising Timothy to be a stalwart of the faith his grandmother, Lois and his mother, Eunice, Paul refers to Lois and Eunice as two women who lived out a sincere faith, and they passed on that sincere faith to Timothy despite Timothy having an unbelieving father, acts 16. Verse One says the family was from Lystra. His mother, Eunice, was a Jewish background believer in Christ, the Messiah, but his father was a Greek and presumably an unbeliever. This message will be a little bit different. You heard me calling it observations and applications, not our typical exposition, verse by verse through a larger section, a little topical, to be sure, but consistent with the content and the purpose and the meaning of what Paul wrote in his letter, and appropriate today as we honor mothers, this text illustrates the tremendous impact that mothers and grandmothers can have on the work of the Kingdom of God, and I'll say it up front. Mostly I want to look at the power and the purpose of parenting in general, but in Timothy's life, those purposes were unknown and unimportant to his father, who had no relationship with Christ, probably did not care what the Bible said, but his mother and his grandmother were believers, And even without his father's support and help in parenting him in the faith those those two women women had a profound impact on Timothy. So there's hope and encouragement to be had here, even even if your spouse is unbelieving, or perhaps you are a single parent, or perhaps a. Worst parent, and I'm not obviously diminishing the role of fathers or suggesting it'll work out just as well if, if there's an absent father, families are designed by God to work most ideally with mom and dad engaged together in the process, and yet, look how amazingly blessed Timothy was just because of the Ministry of his mother and grandmother. Don't underestimate the importance of the impact and role you can have in your children's lives, mothers and grandmothers, let's talk about parenting in general, what is the daunting task of parenting? All about what is the basic aim that you should have as a parent and as a mother and grandmother, the women from our text from the book The faithful parent, by Stuart Scott and Martha peace, I love the simplicity of their statement that the goal of parenting is to be faithful to God's Word by His grace and for His glory. Very simple. The goal for Christian parents is to be faithful to God's Word by His grace and for His glory. I think it's important to recognize your goal is to be faithful to God and to follow His Word. As a parent, your duty is to depend on him in the process and pursue his glory as the aim not your not your own, not your own glory. And anybody who's been a parent for any length of time knows the embarrassment of being a parent, do we? Not? We've all been embarrassed as parents. If our kids are, I don't know, even had a blowout diaper in public at three months, right? They embarrass us early and often. That's that's kind of what they do. The goal is God's glory, not not our own. We can become so very focused on the process of parenting or on the outcomes that we want, that we miss the greater aim of God's glory, just through simple faithfulness and utter dependence, depending on God in the process, no matter what the outcome is, because God is always working for His glory. Now that there's literally 1000s of scenarios and decisions that Christian parents have to make when raising their children, 1000s literally Stuart Scott, Martha piece, they say in their book faithful parent, the scriptures don't give us step by step details on every decision a parent makes, it doesn't so we can back up beginning to end, feeding schedules, bed Times, chores, sleep overs, schooling, eventually, driving and dating. There are principles to apply from the Scripture, maybe some facts to consider, but very little is said in the Bible about any of those things, at least directly and specifically. So what we are given are general principles and responsibilities, and two in particular, from Ephesians, six, four parents are to bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord, those two primary responsibilities outlined in the New Testament. Bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord, I would say training and teaching. Those are, those are a very decent summary of the meaning of those two terms, discipline, instruction, training and teaching.
  
  9:18
  That is what we have just witnessed the heising is and in first service the other four families commit to I'm committing to bringing up my children in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord, and we have resources to help you with that. As Ian said, continue to watch your faith weekly for upcoming classes. We want to help you in that process, and perhaps you could give voice to your own commitment to do the same as they have in the parenting material. I'll whet your appetite for that. I'm going to read. I'm just going to read these to you and make a little bit of reference to them later. But some. Key principles for parents to remember from the Scripture, some key principles. One, you must always pursue a faithful walk with Christ. This is about you first and foremost. Being a good parent is first and foremost, you striving to be a faithful Christian. Number two, parenting provides a lifetime of opportunities to glorify God, a lifetime of opportunities to figure out, how do I bring glory to God by being a faithful parent and and depend on him, it's going to be a lifetime. You're not actually going to stop being a parent when your your children move out, as I've learned more recently, but a lifetime of opportunities third, parents grow and learn, and children should be instructed, but salvation is God's work alone. Parents, you, you need to grow and you need to learn, you need to be faithful, you need to instruct your children, but ultimately, you cannot save your children. We're going to talk about that a little bit more. Salvation is God's work alone. And number four, parenting reminds us we are all imperfect. You will sin as a parent. I have sinned as a parent. We have all we will all sin as parents if you're a parent, and therefore you need to depend on God fully. Depend on God to help you be a parent. Depend on God for the forgiveness you need as you try to be a parent now, all of that, I mean, it has a and so those are right out of our parenting material. I I'd encourage you, you want to, you want to hear those ideas unpacked, and have your heart encouraged how to be faithful. Then I'd encourage you to to go and take that parenting class. All of that has a has a very personal emphasis, as though what happens in our homes and what we pursue as parents relate primarily to personal outcomes in our own little family with our within the walls of our home, and it's not wrong to Think about the impact that your parenting has in your own home. It's not wrong to want to help your children learn and grow and obey and to be faithful in that personal context, but it is also true that God has grander, more long, lasting purposes for you, being a good parent, that relate to the global cause of the kingdom. And that's what we're going to see this morning from this text. God is right now doing the work of making and calling a people to Himself, God is building an everlasting kingdom, and it is not hard to see as you look at just some simple details in Second Timothy, how Lois and Eunice contributed to that work of God by raising a young Timothy in the faith. So we're going to look at four basic principles of faithful parenting this morning, which I'm going to trust. Are going to encourage you to be faithful in your own parenting, or perhaps in your grandparenting, or perhaps in your Surrogate Parenting, or perhaps in your Sunday school, teaching or babysitting for these lovely families who need a date night, and whatever contribution you can make four basic principles of faithful Parenting from the lives of Lois Eunice and Timothy. And notice we're going to talk about principles today, we're not going to talk about practices. So I'm, I'm trying to touch on some overarching principles that should that should help motivate you to pursue all the right practices, which then Walt will teach you in the parenting class. But I'm Bucha. Okay, so again, keep your eye out for that number one, first basic principle of parenting, pursue your own faithful personal walk with God first, pursue your own faithful personal walk with God. First, notice how Paul describes these two faithful women in verse five, he says, I am mindful of the sincere faith within you. Timothy, which first dwell in your grandmother, Lois and in your mother, Eunice, you can't give what you don't have. What Lois and Eunice had was a sincere faith that they were able to pass on to. Timothy, and I'm confident, I'm sure, that it is in you as well that word sincere, it literally means without hypocrisy. The faith, the life of Lois and Eunice, wasn't fake. It wasn't pretending. There was not acting or insincerity. It was a faith that was genuine and real and sincere, and you simply can't overestimate the importance of personally and genuinely walking with God through life in a way that your children, over time will see and know that a Christian is who you are. It's not just what you do, it's who you are, and that your life before God and life with God is of the highest importance to you, that nothing is more important to you than the reality of you being a Christian and walking with God, and then desiring to pass that sincere faith on to your children, I think you see here how prevalent and consistent a parent's walk with God should be in Deuteronomy, chapter six, starting in verse five, says there Deuteronomy. 65 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Is that what your children see you striving for verse six, these words, which I'm commanding you today, shall be on your heart, and you shall repeat them or teach them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as a sign to your hands and as frontlets on your forehead. Write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates everywhere you are, he says, and everywhere you go, and everywhere you you see, or what your children see, they're to see a God, saturated scripture, informed life of loving the Lord, your God with all your heart and soul and strength your children should be learning to see the world and to understand life in general and to understand their life specifically as you speak into it, sitting, walking Lynn down as you speak into their relationships from the Word of God, and that's only going to be able to happen right as we keep the Word of God in front of us and in front of them. These words shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your sons. We need to take the time and again, when we're sitting, when we're walking, or whenever, to explain it to them, help them to see the wisdom and the truth of God's word. It is far too easy in our culture to give the impression that what is most important is achievement of achieving something at work or having a big house or making an all star team or getting a scholarship or having a certain vacation, living some kind of lifestyle, Perhaps because so many Americans are affluent and prosperous, and the rest of us want to be right. We've lost the skill of teaching children how dependent on God we are and how important it is to see God and His kingdom as the most important thing. I mean, some of it is just what we commit our time to and what we're willing to neglect, the pursuit of Christ and His Kingdom and of corporate worship. For
  
  19:15
  Jesus said in Matthew 633, Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will provide be provided to you. Everything else that you truly need in life will be provided to you. Just seek, first His kingdom and His righteousness into your children. No seeking God's kingdom and God's righteousness is my parents most important pursuit. Do they know that there's there's a reason. James, James, chapter two, verse five, he says, Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he promised to those 11. The Bible doesn't advocate poverty as a means of spiritual growth. I'm not encouraging poverty. What I'm encouraging is, do you. Communicate to your children that the most important thing in life is his kingdom, and do they understand how dependent on him? You know that you are. We depend on God, even if we're affluent and the fridge is full. We need to teach our kids what it means to pray. Give us this day our daily bread to help them understand the dependence that we we have on him for everything. It needs to be modeled, and not just in a material way, but in how we feed our souls, how we make our basic relationship with God and regularly feeding our souls on on God's word, expressing our dependence and thanks to God in prayer. Individually, as a family, we're dependent upon Him always and ever and constantly. Deuteronomy, I think, is telling us that when, when is it appropriate and timely to communicate those things right when you sit down that might be at meals or just casually at home, when you walk in the way in the midst of all your activities, whether it's whether it's work or recreation, when you lie down so many rich times talking to our children late at night, from the time they were Two and and three to the time when they're 17. Austin, bless his heart, it's 1130 Hey, mom and dad, he flops on the bed. I'm like, It's 1130 Yeah, I know. I just want to share some things from my heart. He was the late night flopper. Just loved to come and talk to us late at night. Don't miss out on those opportunities. You'll probably be most most of you probably already asleep. But those were rich opportunities, sweet times, pursue your own faithful, personal walk with God. And then when you get those opportunities, number two, the second basic principle model and teach your children what that personal walk with God entails. It was a sincere faith in Lois and Eunice, but they passed it on. As Paul says, I am sure that it is in you as well, Timothy, and I'll say it again, and maybe not for the last time, only God can save your children. Lois and Eunice didn't save Timothy, but they did fulfill their responsibility to be faithful to God's Word by His grace, depending on him for both the process and the outcome and and did it for His glory. Remember what I quoted from the parenting material, right? It's a lifetime of opportunities. Those opportunities include things like Parents Learning patience and long suffering, right? Patience when our kids disobey us, long suffering when they embarrass us, confessing our own sin. A lifetime of those opportunities, bummer, but real, right? Every parent should know the reality of confessing your own sin to your children. I I'm heartbroken that I was so harsh. I'm heartbroken that I was selfish and didn't think of how that would make you feel. My wife just for Christmas, Christmas, I forget it might have been a random gift. My love language is sarcasm. She bought it for me to wear on vacation, knowing that my children would be like, No, that's your sin pattern. Obviously it was. It was tongue in cheek, right? Confessing the sin of hurtful sarcasm to my children had to happen at some point, because it was, it was hurtful the way I spoke to him. You can be a faithful parent, by His grace and for His glory, and still have children who reject the faith, though, and I know parents, some of you even, who know that pain and please, know the outcome that you want, a saved, believing child. That is not how God is measuring your faithfulness. The measure of faithfulness is not the outcome that you want, even if what you want is wonderful, the measure of faithfulness is whether you followed, lived sincerely and communicated the truth and modeled the truth as best as you know how the truth about sin, God, salvation, the world, all those things. Please don't. Don't hear this as a trite and imperfect parallel, even though I kind of feel like it is. But God, God. Is a perfect Heavenly Father, but his children often reject Him. Do they not like we're all God's children is a true ism in the sense that He has created us all, and nobody could be more faithful than him, and yet millions reject him, right? Also don't, don't hear me encouraging you not to evaluate or not to confess or not to acknowledge your failings and shortcomings. Because you've you've heard me encourage you to do that. Parenting does remind us we are all imperfect. Michelle and I have made more mistakes and I want to number and the ones we've had revealed to us. We've we've tried to confess to God and even confess to our children and sought their forgiveness. You make mistakes. No one is more aware of your mistakes than your children. You might as well not hide them, because when they get older, they're going to point them out anyway, but they also might learn to appreciate you as they get older, as they mature, especially as they start having their own kids, right? A quote that is famously attributed to Mark Twain. When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21 I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. That's a pretty, pretty funny way to express the gap that sometimes get it gets made as we're trying to navigate life and a house with multiple sinners. Michelle and I can remember a Thanksgiving, and I think it was maybe five or six years ago, we were in New Hampshire visiting my my son and all of our children were there. We all Rendezvous in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving, and we were sitting around the table, and we literally listened to our children criticize our parenting for an entire hour. It was painful, right? There was we confess some things. And I mean, Michelle might have been crying. I might have been rolling my eyes because I didn't have my sarcasm t shirt. Yet, it was painful we had given Austin. It was in his home. We had given him one of our favorite parenting books. It was sitting on the table, and one of the children said, We will not be discussing those principles. And they took it and sat on it during the entire discussion, like I wanted to just like, pull it out there. And no, no. Page 40 said, no, no, not gonna happen. We bore up under that. You know what happened? In April? We all had a little vacation just a few weeks ago, and we're all sitting around a different table. They're asking us parenting advice. Yeah, their children are getting older. We don't seem so dumb anymore. They're making their own mistakes and thinking maybe, maybe Brian and Michelle, maybe mom and dad knew more than we thought. So we're thankful. We're thankful that our children are all professing faith and pursuing Christ now. They all profess faith pretty young, like eight to 12,
  
  28:18
  and we told them we're so thankful. We're so pleased rejoicing with you that you want to follow Christ, but just know God will test your faith. Yeah, we told him that really early, God is going to test your faith and the genuineness of what you're claiming to believe and professing today, the genuineness of that is either going to be proven true or proven false based on whether you persevere in that faith you're professing. And sure enough, there was a stretch in every single one of their lives where they seemed to turn their back on the Lord, where they had doubts, and we certainly had doubts, a time in all of their lives where they had to decide if they were going to love their sin and reject God's grace, or if they're going to turn from their sin and their selfishness and follow Him. So our responsibility at that stage, when we were confused and hurting and doubting, our responsibility was to continue to love them by speaking the truth into their lives to the degree that we could, because there's, you know, there's times where they're just like, No, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. And we prayed and prayed and prayed some more, because we could not change them. Only God can do that work, even in that though, in that time when they were wandering, we're striving to model the love and the patience of God toward wandering children, don't, don't we have the parable of the prodigal son and picture of God's grace and. Uh, trying to model that all of that said modeling and teaching it should. It should start at a very young age, simple, regular reading of God's word, praying together, whether that's meals, bedtimes, regular devotions, whatever is needed. Model and teach your children what that sincere faith looks like. Michelle was so faithful when our kids were home being homeschooled, to sit down and read through the scriptures. They they probably read through the book of Proverbs 50 times over the course of many years, they would read a chapter a day, almost every day. I know she read through the entire Bible with them at least a couple of times through like a one year Bible reading plan, and I'm being attentive to that, but that was mostly her. I mean, I wasn't absent, but that was, that was mostly her. My attention was usually in the I like to call it the walk in the way discipleship, trying to bring the truth of God's Word into the daily problems of life and the daily relationships of life, how does, how does God's word shape the way a young person should be thinking about this responsibility or this relationship, teaching them how to try to reconcile with others, maybe even admonish others. That included a biblical perspective of work, biblical perspective of stewardship of of our home, and even teaching like, what does the Bible say about those things that so easily distract us and that we don't think are a God word issue, like all star teams and scholarships and vacations and lifestyles and goals and dreams and gifts and what has God called you To be for the rest of your life, because I'm not supporting you. That's not how I put it. Hopefully, some of it stuck. I think it did. We tried to be faithful, and I think that's what we're called to do, and that's kind of the point. Just Be faithful by God's grace, for His glory, and the dependence comes out in our prayers. Every parent then hits the empty nest stage, and then they say this, I wish I could start over parenting, knowing what I know. Now. Have any of you ever said that, older people in the crowd, you don't have to raise your hands. I'm raising my hand because I've said it. I'm not sure I've ever met someone in the empty nest stage who hasn't said it. I wish I could start over now knowing what I know now, and that is an understandable sentiment of which I am guilty, but it also betrays a little bit of trust in your own ability to do it right. I might, I might know all the principles and still mess it up, because I'm a wretched sinner, right? And I, again, I could do all the right things even, and it not be God's will for my children to be saved young or even older. It's an understandable sentiment, but it discounts to some degree, the sovereignty of God and the reality that you can't change people if you knew how to do every single thing right? So don't get stuck regretting the past God God's grace. This is why we need the gospel as parents too. Right to cover the sins that we'll confess to our kids, to cover our failures as parents, our inability, our weakness, our lack of wisdom at times, or just plain selfishness. We need God's grace from the gospel to cover that. So don't get stuck regarding the past, the better thing to dwell on is to strive for what is faithful today with what God is calling you to do today, and whatever stage that you're in, which certainly means modeling and teaching your children what a faithful walk with God entails, no matter what stage they're At or you're at number three, a third basic principle of faithful parenting, appreciate the precious and powerful nature of God's Word. Now Lois and Eunice are not mentioned by name again in the book, but their influence is referred to generally again in chapter three. So turn over to chapter three, and you see here Paul is admonishing Timothy. It's the last days, difficult times will come, all kind of messy stuff happening. Evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. Verse 13, so he says to Timothy. Verse 14, you however, Timothy, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ, Jesus, he. And I'll notice something here, Paul, at one point, refers to Timothy as his own son in the faith, meaning Paul was, in some sense, his his spiritual father. That's another reason why we're pretty sure his biological father was Greek and unbelieving. No doubt, no doubt, Paul was extremely influential in training and equipping Timothy in his work for the Lord. But notice what is the source and the foundation of Timothy's life and ministry, according to Paul, the things Timothy needed to remember and to continue in that he had learned and become convinced of were not the things Paul taught him, he says, it's the things he he had known from childhood, the things where he says, Remember from whom you have learned them, not him, but Lois and Eunice, that from childhood you've known the sacred scriptures, that's pretty amazing. I mean, the great apostle, Paul the equipper of equippers, did not consider what he had taught and trained Timothy to know and be, to be the most important, most foundational, most heart shaping truth that he had received. That category belonged to what Lois and Eunice had taught him from childhood. They understood the faith. They passed on that faith Timothy. They understood the precious and the powerful nature of God's Word, the message of the gospel and how to teach God's word to shape the heart and the mind of young Timothy, mothers, grandmothers, the work you do can train up the next generation of ministers to continue in the things They learn from you so that they might, as Paul goes on to say in chapter four, they might preach the word in season and out of season. If you were here at our last members meeting a couple of weeks ago, Maggie Myers
  
  37:14
  told a story, talked about teaching Corey Milken and Chris Mullins, two of our master seminary graduates are now pastoring, and one in California and one in Oregon. What a joy it was for her to remember those young boys who are now preaching the gospel in ministry. It was a great, powerful story to remind us that bringing the precious and powerful Word of God to children is a high calling, and it starts with moms and grandmothers, but it extends to to the Sunday school teachers. It extends to the whole family of God, as we all just kind of inherently committed to to to the highs, and goes into the other four families this morning, like we're all in this thing together. We are the family of God. So there are dozens of surrogate parents and grandparents in here called to help minister the truth in the middle of all of our families together, what Lois and Eunice knew was just how powerful and precious the Word of God was. Paul refers to them as the sacred writing. So some of you have heard me teach on that before. The word sacred here can be translated holy, but it doesn't mean holy in the sense of like purity and righteousness. It means holy is in terms of being set apart. It's sacred because of its intimate relationship to something else, and in particular, God. So Jerusalem is called the the holy city, or the sacred city, because that's where God chose to place. His name. The temple is called the the Holy Temple, or the sacred temple, because that's where God dwells, the sacred services, the sacrificial system of of the Hebrew people, that's that's sacred services, because it's how they related to God. And so when Paul says, how you have known the sacred writings, he's saying, These are the writings of God. When you when you turn to the Word of God, this is God speaking to you, and that's what they passed on to Timothy, not just the the truth of what it says, but the reality of what it is. If you teach your children anything about God's word at all, tell them that when you read the words of God's sacred book, it is God speaking to you. It is God speaking the truth into your life, into your heart, defining what is true and right and good. I was not raised in a Christian home. I'd like to say that's why my parenting wasn't so good, but I'm not going to say it out loud. Wasn't raised in a Christian home. But you know what? My parents grew up in cultural Christian. And they always told me the Bible is God's word. I don't know why they told me that. I'm not really even sure they believed it. An old lady next door picked me up, take me to Sunday school, had backyard Bible clubs. I learned the Bible is God's word when my life fell apart in college, I said, Where do I turn? I think I should turn to the Bible, because God has the answers to the problems of life, and I got some serious problems right now. That's where I turn. If you teach them anything, teach them that the Bible is God's word. The rest of the world isn't going to be telling them that they're just not. And these sacred writings, God's word are able. They are powerful. So we're dunamis, where we get dynamite. But it's talking about ability power. The Word of God is able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation. James 118 says, in the exercise of his will, he brought us forth by the word of truth, the very words of God can cause us to to have life, and that's why bringing the truth of God's word to our children is so so important and so vital. And the only way you're going to have God's Word on your mind, the only way you're going to be able to speak it into their lives is if you're saturating your own heart and mind with the truth as a way of life. So we're back to the beginning right. Pursue your own faithful walk with God so that you can model and teach it to your children, because you appreciate how precious and powerful the Word of God is. And then number four, the fourth basic principle that we can get from Lois and Eunice and Timothy's life is this, trust God's purposes for using the word in your children's lives. Trust God's purposes for using the word in your children's lives. What was the long term fruitfulness of the word that Lois and Eunice taught Timothy, if you look at the context, Paul's warning Timothy again, these are the last days, difficult times will come. Chapter Three, that's how it begins. Things are getting really ugly outside the church, really immoral, and inside the church, he warns Timothy in chapter three, verse seven, you're going to encounter people who are always learning, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. But Timothy had remained faithful, even enduring persecution with Paul, and now Paul's nearing the end of his life, and he's encouraging Timothy to remember what he had taught him and continue in the things that he'd learned from your mother and your grandmother and to preach the word in season and out of season. Chapter four, verse two, God's purposes. They they are potentially so much bigger God's purposes, long term plan for your children listen are potentially so much bigger than whether or not they obey today or whether or not your reputation is tarnished by whatever is about to happen out there in the foyer after church. God's purposes can be so much bigger than that. What Timothy learned in his childhood from his mother and his grandmother was now the truth that God was going to use to correct false teaching, to promote the gospel, to stem the tide of worldliness in the church to build His kingdom, you just gotta remind yourself, I don't know what God's doing in my child's heart, I just need to be faithful to His word, depending on Him for His glory. It's hard when your kids fidgeting and you're trying to teach them something about God's holiness from the Old Testament, right? It's hard to think I'm just going to keep teaching. I'm just going to teach being faithful, because I don't know how God's going to use this, how he might open his eyes to see the holiness of God one day for his own soul or for the sake of ministry. It's hard to think about God's great purposes when, when you're just showing them the fullness of God and the person of Christ, when you're reading the gospels, when you're maybe outlining for them what, what does life in the church look like? Why is it so important for us be committed to the body of Christ and to let the family of God be our our truest, deepest family. How might that inform the way your adult child, one day will think about life and think about ministry? Because those last days, those difficult times that Paul warns about, are. Still very much upon us. Are they not? They look so very similar, and what a privilege, what a privilege it is as grandmothers, mothers and as grandfathers and fathers to have a role in raising up the next generation of men and women who will defend the faith, it seems like such a small thing to read the Scriptures with our children, to teach them the truth about Jesus, to show them in his word, the loving, sacrificial death of Christ to point him to God's judgment and the coming kingdom. But be faithful. Don't lose heart even, even if the growth and the fruit isn't fully visible. Now remind yourself the word is sacred and powerful and able to save and able to equip. That's the word that does that. So point them back to that. Why? Because God is glorified, first and foremost, that needs to be your highest motivation. But also because God may choose to use you and use your children for grander purposes than you can imagine, certainly grander purposes than you can imagine when you're holding them in swaddling clothes or changing those diapers, right? How will God use this baby in my arms? So set the example number one, pursue your own faithful personal walk. Pass it on to your children, model and teach them what that walk with God looks like. Be dependent on God, but as you appreciate the precious and powerful nature of God's Word and anticipate God accomplishing His purposes through your faithfulness, amen, let's pray
  
  47:01
  God we are thankful for your love for us, and as a parent, on the back end of trying to be faithful, I am grateful for the truth of the gospel, for the forgiveness that's in Christ, for the sin and the imperfections. Grateful that you you have worked through Your Word, grateful for how you've blessed. I know there are probably hearts here that are aching, and I pray that you would give them confidence in you and in your word and trust in your purposes, whether they seem pleasant or not for the time being, that they would. They would trust in Your goodness and Your design. I pray for everyone here, perhaps singles or those who have not been able to have children, to see the beauty, even, even in what might be sadness, the beauty of being able to be part of the family of God and to be faithful in these ways in the lives of of people around them, as as Maggie has been and so many of our youth and children's workers are so we thank you for them and pray that you'd help us all Be faithful depending on you for Your glory. Amen.

Brian Sayers

Brian is the Pastor of Counseling & Equipping at Faith Bible Church. He is passionate about the local church, and equipping the saints to effectively serve one another. Before coming to Spokane, he spent 14 years serving God's people as a pastor in rural New England (Vermont & New Hampshire).

View Resources by Brian Sayers