Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] So my mother got pregnant with me when she was 19.
[00:00:14] So she went to be with the Lord when she was 29, died of cancer. I was 7 years old.
[00:00:22] And I know nothing of my biological dad really, outside of a handful of stories that were told to me as I got older.
[00:00:30] But one of those stories that was told to me was that when he found out that she was pregnant with me, he wanted to end the pregnancy.
[00:00:37] My mother, who was not a Christian at the time, I remember the day that she was baptized. So as is the case for all of us in the room, probably most of us in the room probably don't think about our childhood in a linear way. They're just pockets of memories that kind of stick out in your mind. You guys resonate with that. Yep. So that's certainly true with me.
[00:00:57] And I remember very vividly watching my mother get baptized right before she passed away. It was an amazing moment. I wasn't a Christian at the time. I hated going to church, but I went that day and got to see her get baptized. It was just. It's amazing.
[00:01:12] And when I think about her, and I think about a 19 year old who is experiencing an unexpected pregnancy, who the man that she desires to marry, doesn't want to marry her, doesn't want her to keep the baby, she ran away from him, ran to my grandparents house, and in many ways the rest is history.
[00:01:33] I bring that up to you to say parenting matters.
[00:01:39] Parenting matters. And that might go without saying for some in the room, but I don't think that it always does. Even for those of us in the room who are by God's grace, parents, it's easy for us to kind of get caught up in a kind of worldview that's taught, not just taught by the culture, but that many of us in the room were born into.
[00:02:06] When you're born into a culture and that culture is dictated by a worldview, you can't help but think, according to that worldview, none of us can.
[00:02:17] So deconstruction isn't always a bad thing.
[00:02:22] Okay. For all of us in the room. We're all in this process, if you're a Christian follower of Jesus, of Romans 12, that we are, by the grace of God, being transformed, okay? He says later in First Corinthians, into one degree of glory to another. We are, by the Spirit, becoming more like Jesus. This is the main thing that the Holy Spirit does, does a lot of cool things, spiritual gifts, awesome. Okay, all of those things. But the main thing he does the most beautiful, significant, wonderful Thing he does is he makes you and I more like Jesus.
[00:03:03] He's transforming us. And the way he's doing that, friends, the way he's transforming us to be more like Jesus in our person is by the.
[00:03:14] By the renewing of our mind that we all need to learn to think differently.
[00:03:22] And the objective, one of my objectives as a preacher is not to get you to think like me, because that's irrelevant.
[00:03:31] Okay? So I could spend, you know, whatever trying to persuade you to think the way I think, but that's not.
[00:03:37] But for us to think from a biblical, God centered, gospel centered worldview.
[00:03:46] And this is necessary when it comes to the value of parenting, because we do live in a parenting crisis.
[00:03:56] And that's not the point of the sermon today.
[00:04:00] Fatherlessness, all the kinds of things that we see going on in the culture. In many ways, I think you could pinpoint back to this fatherless epidemic the way that we view parenting. And not just what parenting is, not just what parenting is according to the Bible, but the beautiful significance of it. And that's really what I hope that the spirit of God would do in all of our hearts this morning, is to cause all of us, parent or not, to really reckon with this question of what worldview do I live my life from?
[00:04:38] How do I think? How do. How do I see the world?
[00:04:41] And it's the way that I see the world. Does it bend more toward the worldview as wonderfully, beautifully spoken to us by God or not, or the culture? Right.
[00:04:56] So here's what Proverbs 22, verse 6 says, and many of us have heard it, and maybe if you grew up in church, this verse is like infamous to you because you read it and you just feel super discouraged by it. And so maybe we'll kind of again, deconstruct some of those things into what it is saying and what it isn't saying. But Proverbs 22:6 says, Train up a child in the way that he should go or she should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it. All right, so let's talk about what that verse means word by word. Okay, you guys with me so far?
[00:05:34] Excellent. Yes, sir. All right, first word. Train.
[00:05:41] Okay, so what are parents to do?
[00:05:44] Okay, what have fathers and mothers been called by God to do? Well, in many ways, friends, what we've been called to do by God can be summarized in this word.
[00:05:56] Train.
[00:05:59] Train. What does it mean to train?
[00:06:02] Well, the initial context that our author is giving us by the power of the Spirit, seems to be in Proverbs 22, a series of seemingly random wise sayings.
[00:06:14] And this one in particular, they're not random, they do go together. But this one in particular, he hones in.
[00:06:22] And if you remember from the previous weeks, if you've been here, if you haven't been here, we've talked about this kind of juxtaposition that Solomon lays out in the book of Proverbs between wisdom and foolishness. If you were to summarize foolishness and really get at the heart of what drives foolishness, it's Psalm 14 that the fool says in his heart there is no God.
[00:06:46] So that's really at the root of foolishness. And what the Bible talks about when it uses that particular word. And then if you were to get to the heart of what the Bible talks about when it talks about wisdom, it would be the fear of the Lord. And remember, the fear of the Lord, for the Christian is not a judicial fear of punishment, because your punishment and mine has been completely taken away in Christ over 2000 years ago at the cross. Our hope this morning is the cross. We look to Christ in his perfect life, his death on the cross, his glorious and triumphant resurrection from the dead, his ascension to the right hand of God and. And his return to rule as king and establish his kingdom on the earth. That's the gospel. That's our hope this morning.
[00:07:26] And so the fear of the Lord then is not a fear of judicial punishment, because our punishment has been taken away. And one John says, perfect love, cast out fear. That's the fear of punishment. So the fear of the Lord then has to be something else. And we've said that the fear of the Lord is a filial fear.
[00:07:43] Okay? It's a fear that's directly associated with delight. It's like the husband who's waiting at the end of the aisle on his wedding day as his wife walks down the aisle. And he trembles, but he trembles with delight.
[00:07:58] That's the kind of fear that's associated with a Christian, that we're to grow in the fear of the Lord. And Solomon says that that fear, that delight, is the beginning of wisdom. This is how we learn to live a skilled life. Living a skilled life isn't just about living a moral life or not doing certain things and other things.
[00:08:16] For to learn how to live a true, good and beautiful life, then in our heart, we have to delight in God. That's what all of our actions flow from.
[00:08:25] And so to train, then what does it mean to train? This is what he kind of locks in, on.
[00:08:31] In verse six.
[00:08:33] To train, then, friends, means to dedicate, to consecrate, or to discipline.
[00:08:41] And those are kind of three different things. A little bit. To dedicate and consecrate is one thing. When Jesus in John 17 is praying to the Father before he goes to the cross, he says, father, sanctify them. In truth, he's talking about his people, all who would believe upon him. From that point on, he's praying that the Father would sanctify or consecrate according to his word. That means to set apart for God's holy purpose. So on one hand, what we're told is to train is to dedicate.
[00:09:15] And we'll come to this more at the end when we start talking about the sovereignty of God in parenting. And what a delightful piece of news that is for all of us in the room. My kids are still very young. I don't know how they're going to turn out.
[00:09:26] And so one aspect of this is that we are, as parents, to dedicate our children.
[00:09:33] But another is discipline is what this word train means.
[00:09:39] So think about the context of a gymnasium.
[00:09:43] This is where training happens. This is where athletes are trained and coached to be the best they can be at a particular thing. This is training.
[00:09:54] Training requires initiation, not passivity or fatalism.
[00:09:59] And we'll talk about more on the sovereignty of God. Like I said in just a little bit.
[00:10:07] If you think about this idea of training, this goes beyond just what parents are called to do for their children. We are called to train our children because this is what God the Father does for us as followers of Jesus.
[00:10:21] God is in the process of training you and I.
[00:10:26] He uses discipline to do this, to conform us more into the image of a son. And he's always done this. Genesis 41:39 talks about Joseph. It says, then Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. So God had used discipline sovereignly in Joseph's life, not because Joseph had sinned or done anything wrong, but he was training Joseph to get Joseph to this particular point where he could be used by God in this specific way.
[00:10:58] See this in Psalm 78 with David. It says, he chose God, chose David, his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds, took him from the sheepfolds, from following the nursing ewes. He brought him to shepherd Jacob, his people, Israel, his inheritance. Israel needed a shepherd. So God chose a shepherd, and God chose one who, by God's grace, he had trained and disciplined through the act of shepherding so that he could prepare David to serve in the way that God was calling him to serve for the good of his people and the glory of his name. We read this about Jesus in Hebrews chapter 2, verse 10. It says, in bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation. That's Jesus perfect through suffering. That doesn't mean that God the Father was making Jesus more morally perfect, because Jesus was always morally perfect. He is God.
[00:11:58] Right, but it says that through the suffering and the trial that Jesus experienced, he might be made perfect in the sense of being our perfect high priest. He is fully able to sympathize with us in all of our weakness because he himself has suffered those things as well. And then Hebrews 12:1 7 says, this is what God the Father does in our lives. God disciplines those he loves.
[00:12:23] And if anyone is without discipline, the author of Hebrews says, then he's an illegitimate child.
[00:12:30] And so we can often. And maybe you don't do this. I don't know. But I think we can often think about the discipline of the Lord in the negative sense and think like, gosh, well, if God's doing this in my life, if this is happening in my life, this hard thing as a result of maybe my sin or whatever, whatever the case is, then somehow we only view that in the negative lens. And the author of Hebrews is saying the opposite. He's saying this actually proves the legitimacy of your adoption.
[00:12:58] The hardship and the suffering and the pain and all of these things that God is using actually proves the legitimacy, not just of your adoption, but it shows his love for you. He only. He disciplines the ones that he loves.
[00:13:11] And so Christians, all of us, are all being trained, so to speak, by God.
[00:13:18] God's sovereignly using all of the different things that he ordains in our life, the good things and the bad things, to conform us into the image of Jesus, to prepare us for heaven, but also to put us in a place to minister to other people. Right? So Paul again in 1 Corinthians, says that the God of all comfort comforts us in our affliction so that we might be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.
[00:13:45] Okay, so one of my neighbors passed away this week. This is the second neighbor we've had since we moved there. Passed away randomly, and his adult daughter lived with him. And so, anyway, so I'm outside and I'm talking with her and just, you know, there was just A specific moment in time where I felt tempted to say something. And then I felt a check in my heart remembering when my mother passed away, when my grandfather passed away, while I was home, and just thinking, like, that's not. I don't. That's not what she needs right now.
[00:14:20] And so it's kind of a moment of clarity a little bit. Not like, I know exactly why God did the things that he's done in my life. That's not true.
[00:14:28] But in those moments when you and I have the opportunity to minister to somebody who's going through something that we've been through, it is a moment of clarity, of like, oh, man, does this make sense?
[00:14:40] God, he comforts us in our affliction, not just so that we're comforted, but so that we might be a comfort to those who are in any affliction going through similar things that you and I have been through. It's an amazing thing that God does. And we said this last week, like, none of our suffering is meaningless.
[00:14:58] Not just in our own lives and how he uses it to make us more like Jesus and grow our joy, but in the ways that he uses us to love other people.
[00:15:07] You and I do not love other people super well on our own.
[00:15:12] And a life that's void of pain, we're really bad at it then.
[00:15:18] But the pain that we experience in our life, it's like, it's just so wonderfully used by God to soften our hearts and make us more gentle people.
[00:15:28] And so God is always training us, and he says in return that we are to train our children.
[00:15:35] All the parenting cues that you and I need in life come from God.
[00:15:41] He is the great parent.
[00:15:44] He is the perfect parent. He's the perfect father.
[00:15:49] So how are parents to train their children?
[00:15:52] Okay, so again, I would be a fool to get up here and give you five or six things that I think you need to know about how to train your children. We're trying to figure it out, too.
[00:16:00] But what does the word of God say in terms of how you and I are to train our children? Well, this is what the text goes on to say. It says, train up a child in the way that he should go.
[00:16:13] Train up a child in the way that he should go. It requires wisdom to know how to train up a child in the way that he or she should go. And this really speaks to two realities. This is interesting for me to study this week, but the first sub point to be made of the kind of wisdom we need to train up a child, the Way that they should go is number one, to recognize that our children are individual persons.
[00:16:44] Recognize that our children are individual persons.
[00:16:48] Again, maybe it goes without saying, but it needs to be said again. Children are people like children are people made by God in the image of God for the glory of God.
[00:17:06] Every single child in the world has intrinsic dignity and value and worth because they are made by God.
[00:17:16] How easy it can be for us to see them as something other than that.
[00:17:24] Children are people, they are born persons. They're not a means to an end.
[00:17:33] Children feel.
[00:17:35] And gosh, anyways, children feel things like they feel pain and they feel fear and they feel disappointment and they feel shame and they feel joy.
[00:17:54] Children are human persons, individual human persons.
[00:17:59] A more literal reading of this text, which is really interesting, a more literal reading of this text could be dedicate a child according to the dictates of his way.
[00:18:14] So think about it from that perspective.
[00:18:16] Dedicate or train a child according to the dictates of his way.
[00:18:24] One commentator says, this verse implies that parents should discern the individuality and special strengths that God has given to each child.
[00:18:42] This is how, again, the Father sees each one of us in Christ, not just as a group of people.
[00:18:51] It's not just that God so loves the world.
[00:18:54] Paul says in Galatians 2:20. I was reminded of this yesterday, says, for I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me.
[00:19:08] He loves you. Luke 12:7. Jesus says, Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.
[00:19:21] Psalm 139, 13:14 for you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that.
[00:19:34] And why do I share these things with you? Because it's the love of God, it's the love of the Father that flows through you and I into our love for our kids.
[00:19:46] How do you and I, as parents for those in the room who are, grow in our recognition of their individual personhood? It's for us to remember that the Father loves me.
[00:19:57] He loves you.
[00:20:00] And out of the overflow of a heart that's receiving the love of God in Christ flows love for other people, including your kids.
[00:20:11] So my encouragement to us.
[00:20:14] What if we took the approach of genuine curiosity when it came to our children, recognizing that each individual Child is an individual person created by God, made in the image of God with dignity, worth, and value. So that's the first part of what it means to train up a child and the way that he should go is recognizing that children, boys and girls, are individual persons.
[00:20:42] The second is recognizing that there is a way, and I italicize that, those two words, a way to just remind us that objectivity in life is true.
[00:20:57] Reality is an actual thing. We don't live in relativism.
[00:21:01] You guys understand what I mean by that? Like, the world is not just what you think it is.
[00:21:08] My truth is a fallacy.
[00:21:13] My truth is irrelevant.
[00:21:16] The truth is what matters.
[00:21:18] This is what God used to lead me to himself, to make me a Christian. Truth is a thing.
[00:21:25] The sun is actually real. And we live in a world of conspiracies. There are some things you can know for certain are true.
[00:21:33] Okay, so there is a way we're to recognize the individual personhood of all of our children.
[00:21:42] And by the way, you don't have to be a parent in the room to do this.
[00:21:46] Every single child at Redemption Hill is an individual person.
[00:21:50] Do you see them that way? Do you talk to them that way?
[00:21:57] But then the second is to recognize that there is a way that he or she, the child, ought to go, that those of us who are parents are called to train them in, to train them in the way that they should go.
[00:22:15] While children are gloriously created in the image of God with inerrant dignity, worth, and value, children also, as all of us are friends, are born sinners, born in the image of God with a sin nature.
[00:22:32] Proverbs 22:15.
[00:22:34] Just a little bit later, in the proverb, he says, folly is bound up in the heart of. Of a child.
[00:22:44] Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.
[00:22:51] Okay, so I want you to kind of carry the word picture for a moment.
[00:22:57] Folly, foolishness is bound up.
[00:23:01] That means that's like imprisoned with the doors locked, bound up in the heart of a child.
[00:23:11] Proverbs 29:15.
[00:23:13] He says, A rod and a reprimand impart wisdom.
[00:23:18] But a child left undisciplined disgraces his mother.
[00:23:25] Okay, so if folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the word of God is telling us that it's discipline or training that's going to drive it out. Do you see how this already sits in contrast with the cultural messaging of the day?
[00:23:43] If you believe, if your worldview, friends, is that humans are born innocent, that will seem anathema to you.
[00:23:53] But if you believe what the Bible's saying, and I invite you to, I invite you to argue with me practically about this as to whether or not you think a child was born just holy and innocent.
[00:24:04] My kids are five of my favorite people on the planet. I would die for any of them. I love them deeply. They are sinners and they've always been sinners.
[00:24:17] Oh, it was the loudest point of the whole congregational feedback. Was that so the Bible is practically true. It's wonderful when the word of God does this. Just validates what you know is true to everybody, if we're honest. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. And it's discipline, it's loving discipline. And some of us have had such terrible, horrific experiences with discipline over the course of our life that we don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. And I get that.
[00:24:47] I totally get that.
[00:24:50] And so we need our view of discipline to be redeemed on the basis of how does the father discipline?
[00:24:56] Well, he doesn't do it abusively.
[00:24:58] He doesn't fly off the handle. The word of God says he's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He is the embodiment of patience.
[00:25:08] He's gentle and lowly in heart. And none of those things means he doesn't discipline. It just dictates the way that he does it and why he does it.
[00:25:19] And so it's training, it's discipline that's going to, to drive the foolishness out of the heart of a child.
[00:25:30] And this, I think can mean two things.
[00:25:34] On one hand, it's erroneous.
[00:25:40] And I believed this for a long time.
[00:25:43] It's erroneous. To think that all this means train up a child in the way that they should go is to preach the gospel to your kids.
[00:25:53] That's all we have to do, is just preach the gospel to them. Because at the end of the day, it's not about behavior, it's not about moralism, and ultimately it isn't about that. But this verse, along with many, many others, the word discipline in and of itself teaches that it's our job as parents to teach our kids right and wrong.
[00:26:13] It is our job as parents on one hand, I've got two hands here, on one hand, to teach our kids manners, to teach our kids that, hey, it's a good thing to look at an adult in the eye when they're talking to you.
[00:26:28] It's a good thing to say, maybe this is my Southern sensibility coming out to say, yes, sir. Yes, ma', am. When you're talking to an adult, it's a good thing when you're at the table to not eat like you're something other than a human being.
[00:26:45] We must do this.
[00:26:48] It's a fallacy for us to say, well, because folly is bound up in their heart. And me teaching manners, right, wrong. Morality being, you know, the law of God. For me to teach these things is irrelevant because folly is bound up in the heart. And so they just need the gospel.
[00:27:11] On one hand, it is necessary for you and I to teach these things. Do we not see societal collapse? By and large, that in many ways comes as a result of parents neglecting their responsibility to do this.
[00:27:28] It is not serving children to teach them that the whole world revolves around them and they can do whatever they want to do anytime they want to do it. Nobody can tell them any differently. That's not helping kids.
[00:27:41] Why?
[00:27:42] Because folly is bound up in their heart.
[00:27:48] And so this is our responsibility on one hand as parents. But it doesn't end there, does it?
[00:27:57] So if out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, we can't just settle for teaching, right, wrong. God's law, morality, manners. We can't just settle for that.
[00:28:08] They need a new heart, and so do we.
[00:28:13] So the law in any form is never an end in and of itself.
[00:28:20] What's the law? What was the law given by God to Moses to give to the people of God for?
[00:28:26] It's a means to an end.
[00:28:29] We view the law and the law serves as a mirror to show you and I that we are sinners and that we need rescue.
[00:28:39] We need a new heart. This is what Jesus tells the religious leader Nicodemus in John, chapter three. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
[00:28:56] He cannot enter the kingdom of God, he says, do you not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again?
[00:29:02] The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world, to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. So what is the foundational responsibility for moms and dads with their children? It's to point them to the Savior.
[00:29:44] Because it's only through the Savior, by looking upon Christ and what Christ has accomplished on our behalf, that God in His grace imparts to us not just his righteousness, but a new heart.
[00:30:01] So we don't neglect friends, teaching our kids right and wrong. That is our responsibility.
[00:30:08] You must do that. I must do that. We must, in love, hold one another accountable to doing that.
[00:30:15] It's a good thing. It's good for the kids.
[00:30:18] It pleases the Lord.
[00:30:21] It doesn't save them.
[00:30:23] It doesn't meet their greatest need, which is the need for a new heart. But it is part of us training up our kids in the way that they should go and in all of those things, and not settling in for external moral behavior, but pointing them to the Savior of their soul.
[00:30:45] Titus 3. 3:8 says, at one time we too were foolish.
[00:30:52] Foolishness isn't just bound up in the heart of a child. Foolishness was bound up in all of our hearts.
[00:30:59] And for some of you friends who are here, and you're not yet a Christian, it is still true that the greatest need that you have is not different external moral behavior. It's not merely church attendance. It's not all of these external things. It's not different circumstances. The greatest need you have is the need of a new heart, he says at one point.
[00:31:27] We too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior, appeared, he saved us not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
[00:32:01] This is a trustworthy saying, and I want you to stress these things so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone. So when Paul says in Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21, he's speaking specifically to fathers, doesn't mean it doesn't apply to mothers. But it starts with the Father.
[00:32:24] Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the ways of The Lord, he's echoing what Solomon's saying in Proverbs 22:6.
[00:32:42] I want to tell you a quick story before I close about John Newton's mom. If any of you are familiar with John Newton wrote Amazing Grace, arguably the most famous hymn of all time.
[00:32:52] So I want to tell you a little bit about his mother, Elizabeth, as we close.
[00:32:56] Before I do that, let me just finish the verse here. Okay, so we've talked about how the Christian parent is called to train.
[00:33:06] We're called to train. And this is both proactive, loving instruction in right and wrong, in the law of God and ultimately in the Gospel.
[00:33:16] Okay.
[00:33:18] We're to train up a child in the way that he or she should go. That involves knowing their individuality as persons and also for us to recognize that there is a way.
[00:33:28] And now we get to the final part of the verse, which for many is the most confusing.
[00:33:34] Train up a child in the way that he should go.
[00:33:36] Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.
[00:33:40] What does that mean?
[00:33:43] I, as a new Christian, when I read this, and then after we had kids, read it as a promise.
[00:33:51] Train up a child in the way that he should go. And even when he is old, he will not depart from it. It's not a promise.
[00:33:59] That's not the way the Proverbs read the proverbs, friends. It's wisdom, literature, wise sayings that speak into the general truths of reality.
[00:34:12] And so what Solomon isn't saying is if you train up a child in the way that he or she should go, if you point them to Jesus, if you raise them in church, if you are a near perfect parent, it does not guarantee that that child will not walk away from the faith.
[00:34:33] Here's how we know this.
[00:34:35] The greatest parent ever, God the Father, gave his first children instructions that they did not obey.
[00:34:48] It is not. It's not a promise. It's not intended to be a promise. And so some of you in the room, I would imagine this is the case for a room as diverse as this one, maybe do have adult children or growing children in their upper teenage years or whatever who are not currently following Jesus. And you look back at your time as a parent and you think, what the heck did I do wrong?
[00:35:11] I don't know the answer to that question. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't.
[00:35:16] Maybe it wasn't about what you did wrong. Maybe you prayed for that kid, you love that child, you invested into that child. You taught the Bible that child, you pointed that child to Jesus, and for some reason they still walked away.
[00:35:31] I just want to encourage you this morning that this verse is not implying that you did a bad job. If that's the case for you.
[00:35:40] This is not given to us by God as a certainty, as a promise.
[00:35:46] Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. It is not a promise, but it is a proverb. And it's meant to be an encouragement to us.
[00:35:54] It's meant to be an encouragement to us for two reasons. And this will be my close with the story of Elizabeth Newton.
[00:36:00] Number one, it's meant to be an encouragement that you and I, friends, can trust God with our children.
[00:36:07] We can trust God with our children. God is sovereign. And at the end of the day, one of the greatest pieces of news that you and I have to rest all of our life on is that salvation belongs to the Lord.
[00:36:20] We plant and we sow and we water by the grace of God, though imperfectly, we do all of these things. And at the end of the day, we pray that the Spirit of God would apply all of it to the hearts of our children.
[00:36:33] And we trust. We don't just pray that. But I would encourage you, for those of you who are parents, to pray it expectantly.
[00:36:39] God could have put your child in any family in the world who wasn't Christian, but he put your child in your home.
[00:36:48] A Christian home.
[00:36:50] I did not grow up in a Christian home. And by the grace of God, he saved me. And I get to be a preacher. That is crazy.
[00:36:57] So God can do that with anybody in any circumstance, but he put your child in your home.
[00:37:04] What an amazing gift of grace that is. He loves you so much. He loves them so much. He put them, he entrusted them to you.
[00:37:14] God desires to save your child.
[00:37:17] And so I say that just to encourage you to pray, trusting that only he can, but to pray expectantly.
[00:37:24] God, I believe you're going to save my child. Would you do it?
[00:37:29] Would you do it at an age that's so young? Matt, And I say this all the time that they're not able to look back and not know a time they didn't love Jesus.
[00:37:39] So you and I, we can trust God with our children.
[00:37:43] And then the second thing that this encouragement, even when he is old, he will not depart from it, reminds us, is that, friends, your labor is not in vain.
[00:37:53] You and I can trust God with the outcome of our children. We can trust God with the salvation of our children. That's his work.
[00:38:00] You and I are not responsible for that.
[00:38:05] But what a joy to be able to enter into A work like this.
[00:38:10] I mean, I think I said this to somebody earlier this week.
[00:38:16] What a dignified calling to be a parent.
[00:38:23] What a wonderful thing.
[00:38:25] What a lie it is to believe that there's. For those of us who are parents, there's greater value outside the doors of your home for kingdom work than there is with the little persons inside of your home.
[00:38:43] Matthew 28.
[00:38:45] For those of us who are parents in the room, Matthew 28 starts with your kids.
[00:38:52] Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. What a terrifying thought it is to me to think about pastoring a church and neglecting my kids.
[00:39:02] That would be horrific and sinful.
[00:39:10] It's a wonderful, dignified, glorious thing. Your labor is not in vain. The education of your children and the ways that you do it is not in vain.
[00:39:24] The devotion, the time that you spend devotionally with your kids, reading the Bible, praying with them, is not in vain. Your repentance to your kids is not in vain.
[00:39:33] I mean, maybe some of us in the room today need to go to our children and say, I'm sorry for the way I acted this morning.
[00:39:43] Your kids need to hear you say that.
[00:39:47] They need to hear me say that I'm sorry.
[00:39:51] When dad raised his voice like that, that was wrong.
[00:39:54] Please forgive me.
[00:39:56] That doesn't look like Jesus. This is part of recognizing that your children are persons, not little machines walking around.
[00:40:06] It's them seeing this. Education, devotion, repentance, play. You get on the floor with them and man, you play with them.
[00:40:15] One author said that our kids knowing and believing that they're enjoyed by us is equally as important as the words we say to them.
[00:40:25] We could say all the right things, all the true theological things, and them instinctively not believe that you actually enjoy them as people.
[00:40:35] So we play with them and we pray for them.
[00:40:41] Elizabeth Newton had tuberculosis.
[00:40:44] She couldn't get out of bed.
[00:40:46] She died when she was 27, similar to my mom when John Newton was 7.
[00:40:52] And he writes later in life, after he becomes a Christian, he writes later in life as to how impactful those times were when he would sit at her bedside because she couldn't. She didn't physically have the ability to get up and play with him and do different things. But she would call him into her room and while she laid in bed, she would teach him the Bible and she would teach him about science, and she would teach him about math, and she would teach him about literature, and she would pray with him and she would do all of these things. She dies at 27.
[00:41:20] Newton's father, who's not a Christian, he's a sailor, which is where John eventually kind of follows his life trajectory into being a sailor and being involved in slave ships and doing all sorts of horrific things. His father immediately remarries a woman who takes a little bit of a vested interest and in John for a little while, but then begins to have her own children and neglects John. And so John leaves the church. He leaves any semblance of faith. He lives a debaucherous, dark life for a long time. And then God in his mercy, gets a hold of his heart, gets a hold of his heart. He saves him. He gives him the gift of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. And Newton's life is radically changed. And as he ages and he pens the song Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now I'm found Was blind but now I see Think about him writing this song out of his own experience. We sing it because we've heard it a million times. He writes this out of his own experience. Like I, God has opened my eyes to see the reality and beauty of Jesus. And as he's thinking about all these things later in life, do you know who he credits most of this to outside of Christ himself? His mother.
[00:42:33] He remembers those times at her bedside.
[00:42:38] He remembers the investment that she put into his life and the prayers that she prayed for him and the way that she modeled for him, though imperfectly, what it looked like to trust God in the midst of physical limitations.
[00:42:50] Your labor, friends, is not in vain.
[00:42:54] It can feel like one of the most underseen, undervalued responsibilities you have.
[00:42:59] It is not in vain.
[00:43:02] So we trust in the sovereignty of God and we recognize that our labor is not in vain. Train up a child in the way that he should go, that she should go. And even when they are old, we pray by the grace of God, they would not depart from it. I want to pray for you, and then I want to give an invitation before a band comes back up.
[00:43:20] Father, we love you.
[00:43:22] And God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for the opportunity to.
[00:43:26] To gather together in your name. Thank you for the parents in the room.
[00:43:31] Thank you for those God in the room who are not yet parents, whether they are single or are married.
[00:43:37] The ways that so many adults within our church invest into the kids of Redemption Hill. Thank you for these things.
[00:43:45] What a joy it is to see it. I pray that by your grace, you would always make us a People who Love children I I pray God for vacation Bible school this week I pray that by your grace you administer to the hearts of all of our children.
[00:44:04] I pray for parents who feel discouraged this morning that this verse both the call to action and the rest that we can take in knowing that salvation belongs to you alone would would be both excitement and an encouragement.
[00:44:26] I pray for those God who desire to have children and for a variety of reasons do not yet I pray that you would comfort them pray that your spirit would comfort them.
[00:44:41] No words I say no sermon I preach can do what only you can do Holy Spirit in the heart of one who's in pain.
[00:44:59] Father we love you. We thank you for all of us in the room who are in Christ parent or not we can celebrate that you are our Father in Christ.
[00:45:08] We love you. Lead us to worship you in this moment in Jesus name Amen Sam Sa.
