Generational Impact - 2023 Ohio Grace Family Conference

[0:00] Okay, well, we are going to jump this evening into the book of Psalms, and if you would open up to Psalm 78, and while you're turning there, I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about, you know, why we're doing this.

[0:18] You know, there's going to be some sessions this week. We're going to do five speaking sessions, and then one, what do you call it, a panel session. But, you know, we could just maybe do a recording of that and put it online, and you could listen and enjoy that.

[0:36] But there are three things, really, I'd like to see as the fruit, or really the purpose of this conference. One is for people to be encouraged, for families to be encouraged.

[0:49] Don't you think families need encouragement today? Yeah, without a doubt, right? Just seeing the board family up here singing praises to the Lord is a tremendous encouragement to me.

[1:01] And I'm expecting to see lots of that throughout this week. Number two is instruction, right? And we're going to hear from different speakers. But not just those up here.

[1:13] There might be opportunities throughout this week where you'll be having a conversation over a meal or whatever it might be, just sitting around talking. And you'll receive some instruction, some also encouragement.

[1:27] But instruction, something maybe you never thought about before. Maybe a scripture passage or something like that. Now, the third thing is building relationships. God came up with this great idea called the body of Christ.

[1:42] And we need to be purposeful about building those kinds of connections with one another, especially when it comes to things like those who have the same kind of emphasis and focus and values that we do when it comes to family and God's message of his amazing grace.

[1:59] So, ultimately, we want families that are going to be thriving, not struggling. Families that are going to be faithful. We want our families, like the Bible talks about, God talked about with Israel, what his hope for Israel was, that they would be a light shining on a hill.

[2:20] And that is what I would love to see, not only with my family, but all the families here, that we would be lights shining on a hill. So, what I'd like to encourage everyone this week, as you're here, to be intentional about these things.

[2:36] You know, it's not just listening to the messages, but building relationships. Meet somebody new you've never talked to before. Build relationships that maybe you haven't had, you know, you haven't seen somebody in a long while.

[2:50] You know, have conversations that are, you know, not just about the weather, but intentional conversations about how are you doing and how's your family. Hey, we've been having this kind of maybe problem in our family.

[3:02] How do you handle this? Maybe look to the older generation. Look for wisdom. Those kinds of things. So, I hope you'll be intentional this weekend when it comes to those things.

[3:14] All right, hopefully by now you've gotten to the book of Psalms. And while I'm talking, I should have opened up to the book of Psalms. Psalm 78.

[3:29] And we'll read through the first eight verses. A contemplation of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

[3:40] I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known. And our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children.

[3:53] Telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done. He has established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children.

[4:09] That the generation to come might know them. The children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children. That they may set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.

[4:24] And may not be like their fathers. There's a stubborn and rebellious generation. A generation that did not set its heart aright. And whose spirit was not faithful to God.

[4:35] I really like what you said, Tim, there about Jesus is coming one day, right? He's coming. And it might be tonight. That would be awesome to hear that trumpet sound.

[4:50] But it might not be tomorrow. It might be a year from now. It might be 10 years from now. It might be 100 years from now. It might be 1,000 years from now.

[5:01] We don't know for sure. But with that in mind, we need to be looking towards the future. Not just focused on our generation and what's going on here, but looking to future generations.

[5:17] We need to have plans. Yeah, have anybody ever gone to a work interview and they ask you, well, what's your five-year career goals or plan? I hate that question. But, you know, they're looking for where you want to be in the future.

[5:33] And for our families, I think we should have plans and goals for our family, right? We want to look into the next year. What are we going to do? What's our calendar going to look like for the next year? Where do we want our kids to be in the next five years?

[5:48] What do we want to see for their growth, for their education? Those types of things. What about 20 years? The kinds of people they'll marry, right? And sometimes I think we stop there.

[6:03] What about looking out to 50 years? Where do we want to see our grandchildren? What do we want to see our children teaching and doing to raise our grandchildren?

[6:15] And those grandchildren doing and teaching to their grandchildren. We need to be looking to the future. There's a neat saying out there that says that God has no grandchildren.

[6:28] We have grandchildren. God doesn't have any. Right? So, if we are faithful to the Lord, if we trust in Christ, that doesn't necessarily mean that our children will.

[6:43] They need to have their own relationship with God. Faith of any kind doesn't get passed through osmosis or genetics. So, passing our faith to our children requires intentionality.

[6:58] Modeling things to our children, instruction, encouragement. Really, passing our faith to our children requires leadership. And that's what leadership is.

[7:10] It's being intentional and purposeful about where we want our family to go. In the book of Judges, it talks about what happened after Joshua passed away.

[7:24] In Judges 2, verse 7, it says this, So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, which he had done for Israel.

[7:37] There's two generations there. The Bible says here, they served the Lord as a nation. But then if we go to verse 10, it says this, When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them, who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel.

[7:58] Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they served the Baals. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them.

[8:13] And they bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. And we see this, unfortunately, as a regular theme among the nation of Israel.

[8:24] There's kind of highs, highs and lows, right? Some highs of faithfulness, and then some lows of, really, rebellion and unfaithfulness. Unfortunately, I think we see more lows than we do highs.

[8:38] And is it a lot different today when it comes to God's people? Unfortunately not. I was looking at the latest polls this last week about young people, Christians who grow up in church, and what happens to them after they leave home.

[8:58] And the latest statistic is that it's about 70% of children who grow up in church on a regular basis. After they leave home, they just stop attending church.

[9:12] And they may still hold on to their faith. There's different numbers and all that. But they stop going to church. And that's a pretty good indicator of, not a complete one, but a pretty good indicator of faithfulness to the Lord.

[9:31] But over the centuries, you know, since the time of Israel, we've seen this same thing. There have been highs and lows of generational faithfulness. And every generation, every believing generation, has this battle where there's the pull of the world on your children.

[9:51] And we have to fight that battle. And it's going to be this way until the day Christ does return. But what I want to say today is this doesn't have to be the way for your family.

[10:07] It may be that way for some other families. It may be that way for, you know, the Christian world in general. But we can do something. And we're going to look at these scriptures here that we read today and some others.

[10:20] To look at ways that we can provide a better opportunity. There's no guarantees that our children will follow the Lord or be faithful to Him.

[10:35] But that doesn't mean that what we do does not matter. What we do matters and has an impact. What you do makes a difference.

[10:45] So I'm going to get into just a few things. What can we do? What can we do as parents? I'm just going to look at a big picture.

[10:57] There's lots of details that we can get into. But this evening, I just want to look at the big picture. Four broad categories of what we can do to promote faithfulness to the next generation.

[11:09] As we read here in Psalm 78, verse 4 says this. We will not hide them from their children. It says this. Telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done.

[11:25] The first thing that I want to bring up is tell your children about His wonderful works. About all that God has done. You know the best way we can do that is to open up this book.

[11:40] It's called the Bible. The Bible is full of accounts, stories if you will, of God's faithfulness to us. We should open up this book regularly.

[11:53] Not just for ourselves and our personal Bible reading, but to our whole family. That they would know day in and day out. And they would hear and read, even for themselves, about the wonderful works of God that He has done.

[12:08] His creation of the world. His commitment to justice and truth. His goodness, even to those who don't always deserve it.

[12:19] His mercy. His loving kindness and tender mercies. His faithfulness to His people. His trustworthiness to keep His promises.

[12:31] His deliverance of His people from bondage. Like Israel being delivered from Egypt. His care and His concern to those who are oppressed and downtrodden.

[12:43] These are all things, if you continue to read through from Asaph here in Psalm 78. Things that He points out. Things that He brings up. And He tells.

[12:54] He says, Tell the next generation about the wonderful works that He has done. But you know, there's other things that Asaph could not point to.

[13:06] Right? And the most wonderful work that God has done. For Asaph was still in the future. Today we look back.

[13:18] Asaph didn't see it in his day. To that wonderful work of the cross. Where the creator of the universe humbled himself. And he died.

[13:31] Not for the righteous. But for the ungodly. For sinners. And you know, this is a story. That we tell. Well.

[13:43] Maybe not all churches. But we tell regularly in church. Right? We talk about the cross. The wonderful work of the cross. And it can come across maybe as repetitive. Oh, we're talking about that again.

[13:56] Jesus died on the cross for sinners. But we need to keep telling the story over and over and over again. We can't let that story.

[14:11] What God did. For a sinning world. We can't let it grow old. Makes me think. There's a couple of songs. Sing it over again to me.

[14:25] Anyone know the rest of the song? Wonderful words of life. Sing it again. We can't. We can read it in the scriptures.

[14:36] We can talk about it. We can sing about it. And then there's that one. I think it's the Gathers. I love to tell the story. Right? I love to tell the story. What's the rest of it?

[14:47] Will be my theme in glory. Okay. Some of you know it. And we should love to tell the story over and over and over again. And point our children to that story.

[14:59] The wonderful work of God that he did through the cross on Calvary. Not just talk about that work and our salvation through it.

[15:13] But also talk about what was accomplished through that work on the cross. Because of the work on the cross, we have an inheritance that is beyond our imagination.

[15:26] And sometimes I find it difficult to even comprehend what Christ did for us on that cross. There's a lot of details. As you read through the scriptures, especially Paul's epistles, he talks to us about all the things that we have in Christ.

[15:44] In him. In whom? In him. That he made us through the cross, the righteousness of God in him.

[15:58] Do our kids know what imputed righteousness is? What that means? They should. That we have been adopted into God's family. That we are accepted in the beloved.

[16:10] We're not rejected. We are accepted. That we are seated with him in heavenly places. And that we have been sanctified, set apart in him. Those are the kinds of truths we need to be passing on early and often to our kids.

[16:28] Telling of his grace and what he accomplished for us. So, number two. So, that is telling of his wonderful works.

[16:41] What he's done for us. The second thing I'd like to look at is instructing our children in righteousness. Instructing our children in righteousness. In Psalm 78 again, verse 5, it says this.

[16:56] For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children. And what is this talking about?

[17:06] This is talking about the law. The law of what? The law of Moses. Testimony in Jacob. A law in Israel. That's talking about the law of Moses. The law is instructions in righteousness.

[17:21] What is good? What is evil? What is righteousness? What is sin? And I think the law is important to a household.

[17:32] Children need discipline. They need to know right from wrong. We need to teach them. A household needs order. There needs to be rules and regulations. There needs to be lessons in obedience and honesty and sexual purity.

[17:45] There needs to be punishments to enforce the rules against rebellious behavior and bad attitudes. And Paul even tells us that we ought to use this law in giving instructions in righteousness.

[18:04] 2 Timothy 3.16 says this. All scripture, Old and New Testament, is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instructions in righteousness.

[18:17] But we need to be careful, right? We need to be careful, right? We need to be careful, right? When it comes to this instruction in righteousness that comes from the law.

[18:29] The Bible says that the law is weak. That the law, it can do something for us. It can tell us what sin is. But what the law can't do is it cannot change our hearts.

[18:43] It can't make us righteous. The law can't make our children righteous. We could tell them over and over and open up the scriptures, the proverbs, and point them what is good and what is true.

[18:59] But those words, in and of themselves, will not make us righteous, will not make our children righteous. Romans 8.3 says this. For what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

[19:17] On account of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. The law wasn't sufficient. It wasn't enough. And so we need to keep that in mind as we read Asaph, right?

[19:31] When he talks about, you know, going to the law and reminding that generation of the law. You know, David in Psalm 119, verse 11 says this.

[19:42] Your word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. And knowing right from wrong is helpful.

[19:52] But we know from what Paul said, does that law hidden in your heart really help you? Does it really do what it takes to keep you from sinning?

[20:06] Actually, Paul tells us in Romans that that law, which one? Thou shalt not covet. What did that law do? What made me feel like I want to covet?

[20:19] It actually became counterintuitive. Or counterproductive, I should say. And so David said, your word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.

[20:35] But today, in Christ, we can put God's word in our heart and we should. But do you know what else that we can put on our heart that will actually help us?

[20:48] It's God himself, right? He takes up residence in us. In Romans 7, 4, it says this. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

[21:08] He paints this marriage relationship. You've got the law and you could be married to that. But there's another who we should be married to instead. And if we are married to him, if we have our life in him, if we have him hidden in our hearts, we will see our lives bearing fruit to God.

[21:29] But the law also has another important role to play. You know, the law is a great teacher. It says in Galatians 3, it says this. Paul says this, but before faith came, he's talking about it under the law in Israel.

[21:45] Before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. The law was good.

[21:57] It did something. It was like a preservative. It kept us. Verse 24, Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

[22:10] But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. And so the law for Israel, which many thought would make them righteous, it turned out didn't.

[22:23] It didn't work that way. But it did point to something. The law is a mirror. Remember, we look in that mirror and we see what? Do we see righteousness? No, we see a lack of righteousness.

[22:35] We see all the things that we ought to be doing that we don't. We see all the things that we are doing that we ought not to be doing. And the law is like a tutor. It's a teacher. And the law can be that way for our children and our families.

[22:49] When we set up rules and regulations for our household, when our children fail to uphold those rules, to obey their parents, that law is teaching them something.

[23:02] It's not making them righteous. It's not making them better. It may be bringing some compliance, some outward compliance. But one thing it is doing is it's showing them where their heart is.

[23:13] It can point them to their need for a Savior. And every generation needs it. Without really the work of the law, grace seems irrelevant to someone.

[23:29] And I've seen households where there is no order, regulation, and expectations for living upright and obedience and those kinds of things.

[23:43] And when you don't have that, grace comes in and it's like, well, what's the big deal? Well, I don't really need that. I'm fine. I'm a pretty good person. So number two, instructions in righteousness.

[24:00] Number three is teaching our children to live by grace. Because of the cross, we have a new way of life.

[24:15] We live differently under the cross than those who came before us. We don't keep just religious conformity to a set of rules and regulations.

[24:31] We don't seek to earn a reward. We don't seek to earn God's approval. But instead, we walk by grace.

[24:42] Walking by grace is simply this. It's walking with God. Walking by grace is walking with God.

[24:55] If you live in the Spirit, which we do, also we ought to walk in the Spirit. And who is the Spirit? It's God.

[25:06] It's Him. So in this topic of living by grace, I want to look at just two things, which I think really bring out what it means to walk by grace.

[25:17] Number one under living by grace is knowing Him. We want our children to know Him. Not just to know about Him, even though that's a part of knowing someone, right?

[25:28] Knowing about them. But we want them to know their God intimately. You know, His love and His grace for us is greater than we can even comprehend.

[25:43] But sometimes I think we kind of get the idea that, well, we've read through the Bible a few times, and we've read all the stories, and we know everything that Christ has done for us. But there's always more to grow.

[25:55] There's more depths to plumb, more deep waters to draw out. In Ephesians 3, if you've got a Bible, go ahead and open there, because I think this is an important one to look at.

[26:08] This is a prayer. There's two prayers in the book of Ephesians that Paul prays. He shares a prayer that he has for the Ephesian people, the believers in Ephesus. And this is his second one.

[26:21] Ephesians 3, verse 14, he says this. For this reason, I bow my knee to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.

[26:44] That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and the height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

[27:08] You know, Paul could have prayed for the Ephesians. These people are pretty messed up, you know. They just came out of idolatry and paganism and all these things.

[27:19] God, I pray that they would get their act together, that they would improve their moral behaviors. That's what he could have prayed. That wouldn't have been wrong.

[27:31] But instead, this is what he prays. The first prayer that we read in Ephesians chapter 1 is similar, that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened, would be opened, that they would see all the things that God has done for them.

[27:43] You see, his prayer goes right to the root of our need, to know him, to be filled with him, to be rooted and grounded in love, not just any love, his love, to know the full scope of God's love for them.

[28:05] They might be filled with the fullness of God. You know, this is a prayer. Have you ever stolen a prayer? You could totally do it, especially from the Bible.

[28:17] You just steal Paul's prayers. It's great. We can pray this prayer for our families, right? Paul was praying this for the church at Ephesus. This is something we can and we should be praying for our children on a regular basis.

[28:33] That they would know the height and the depth and the breadth and the width of God's love for them. And you know what? You know what comes with that when you understand God's love for you?

[28:47] There's fruit comes out of that. Your life is changed. And you don't do things, you don't do the right thing because, well, I'm trying to earn a reward or, well, I'm trying not to get punished.

[29:00] You end up doing the right thing because you love him. You want to be like him. His love has been shed abroad in our hearts. And our children, knowing the Lord, will make all the difference.

[29:16] And the second part of walking by grace, number one, knowing him, and number two, I'll just call it communion with him. Communion with him. Ephesians 5.18 says this, And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[29:48] First, this is talking about how we ought to, ways that we can just love God. You know that each and every day, we can take time and we can thank the Lord.

[30:01] You know, a lot of times we do that at dinner time, right? We thank God for the food, those types of things. But we can take the time any day and just tell the Lord how grateful we are for the things that he's done for us and our family and model that to our children and teach them gratitude to the Lord.

[30:24] We can sing to him. Now, for some people, singing is a little embarrassing. They don't feel like they don't have a great voice. But you know what? The Lord loves it when we sing to him.

[30:37] Did you know that? He does. He loves it when we sing to him. Are there any, well, I'll ask the wives. Any wives here? Has your husband ever sang a song to you? Okay, I hear a few.

[30:52] Even if his voice is totally off pitch, does that matter? No. Does it melt your heart anyway? Yeah. The Lord loves it when we sing to him.

[31:06] He's the one that came up with the whole idea of music anyway. He likes it. We can try our best. But whether it's in church or in our homes with our children.

[31:19] Singing just when we have special music at church, right? Or can we sing while we're doing chores around the house? I don't know, hanging out outside around the campfire, whatever it might be.

[31:34] Sing songs to the Lord to let the Lord know that we love him. And just expressing our love for the Lord on a regular basis.

[31:46] You ever get up in the morning and just tell the Lord that you love him? That you're so grateful for all the things that he's done for you? This is the walk of grace.

[31:56] This is walking in the Spirit. And like it says in Galatians 5.22, it says this, The fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

[32:11] Against such there is no law. The next verse says this, If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. We want to teach our kids their position in Christ, who they are in Christ.

[32:23] That's living in the Spirit. Their life in the Spirit is who they are. And the next step is how to walk that out. How to live that out.

[32:33] How to walk with God in light of what God has done in them. And out of that comes what Paul calls fruit.

[32:45] Out of them will come love and peace and joy. And our children won't just get along with their siblings because dad's going to come home and I'm going to be in big trouble if I don't.

[33:05] That's just compliance to an external law and rule. Which is maybe good enough for a while, right? But is that what we really want for our children? Is that what's going to make the difference for the next generation and the generation after that and the generation after that?

[33:21] What we want to see is our children who love their siblings because God first loved them. They avoid fights and bickering because of their love for one another.

[33:36] Our children, when they get married, they don't just avoid adultery because it might get them in trouble.

[33:46] But in their marriage, they actually lay down their lives for one another because of what God has done in their hearts. Not compliance with external rules, but God changing their hearts through their relationship with Him.

[34:06] So that was number three. Living, walking by grace. The fourth one that I want to look at, and this will be the final one, is being part of a faithful community.

[34:20] As we raise our children and are looking, not just to this generation, but the next one and the one after that, you know, we need help. I don't know, maybe you don't, but I need help.

[34:31] We all have weaknesses and weaknesses and strengths. Things where we have blind spots that we don't see things. Sometimes we get overwhelmed with life, the cares of life, all the things going on.

[34:46] And we need encouragement from others. And we need to see examples. You know how encouraged my kids get? They'll come home and they'll meet another family and they'll be all excited and they'll say, Dad, you know, they're like us, you know?

[35:03] Isn't that neat? And it's so exciting and encouraging to them. In Hebrews 10, 24, it says this, And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the day approaching.

[35:25] We need to regularly be getting together with those who are of like faith, who are of like mind, who are raising their children with purpose and intentionality, with values that come from the Bible, and on a foundation of grace.

[35:42] That's what I want for my kids. And I want them to be able to see examples in other families of them doing the same thing. It's encouraging, not just to me, but to them also. So, I'm going to end with this.

[35:57] Really, what does it take to see this kind of vision come to pass? This, you know, we might have something that we want to see in our children's lives, but what does it take to bring it to pass?

[36:09] And I just want to talk about leadership. It takes somebody who's willing to lead the way. In Genesis 18, 19, God says this about Abraham. He says this, For I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him.

[36:32] God said, I trust Abraham. He's going to command his children. He's going to be faithful. He's going to teach them, the next generation. And I know I can build a nation from him because he'll be faithful.

[36:51] And so we, as small little families, if we're faithful, we can also build a nation if the Lord tarries. And I've seen families where I see not just one generation, not just two generations, sometimes to the third and fourth generation where there's just tremendous faithfulness throughout all those years.

[37:16] And it's so encouraging to see that. So the question is, can God count on you as well? You know, somebody has to lead the way. And I'll focus the rest here on fathers.

[37:30] God has designed a father to be the leader of families. There's a book I read, what's the guy's name? John Maxwell. Well, he's a big leadership guy over the years.

[37:42] And I think it's 21 irrefutable laws of leadership that's a book that he wrote. And one of the ones of the first, in the beginning of the book is he says, everything rises and falls on leadership.

[37:58] If there's no leadership, the whole thing comes crashing down. You know, we have this scientific law called entropy, the second law of thermodynamics. It says everything kind of tends towards disarray and order.

[38:10] And that's how it is with any family. Unless we order it with the Lord pointing the way, it's not going to happen.

[38:20] Things are going to go towards this order. And our families cannot thrive unless dad is leading. But it doesn't just stop there.

[38:32] because a dad leads his family and if he leads his family and that's where it ends, it just ends with that generation.

[38:45] Each and every generation must pick up the baton, if you will. Take that hand off from the previous one. And I'll speak to the young men here. You know, there are families here where there are fathers who have been very intentional with their families.

[39:01] and these young families have a pretty nice Christian life that they're enjoying and experiencing.

[39:14] And it might be a temptation to kind of ride the coattails of your father's faithfulness to raising everybody up to love and serve the Lord and to just kind of sit back and relax and enjoy that.

[39:26] but there is work to do. It doesn't end there. You need to pick up that baton and do the same thing with the next generation and teach the next generation to do the same thing with the next generation and that generation to do the same thing with the next generation.

[39:45] On and on and on. We need to invest in our families. It's work but hey that's what God created us for right?

[39:56] To do work. So I'm going to summarize and then I want to share a book that I think might be helpful to those of you here. Number one we need to constantly set before our kids the cross.

[40:11] What Jesus has done for us. Christ laid down his life for them. Never let that story grow old. We need to teach them their position in Christ. That they are the righteousness of God in Christ.

[40:25] They are accepted in the beloved. They have peace with God. They're seated with him in heavenly places. That they know where they stand with him. Because there will be temptations along the way to think well is that really true?

[40:39] Is it really true that I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus? And then we need to demonstrate to them a life of goodness joy and peace by walking by living by grace and walking in the spirit.

[40:56] Surround our families with other families that are faithful. And then the last one we need to lead. And that takes work and perseverance. I'm going to I've got a book here that I've read recently.

[41:10] Actually this is something recommended to me by my son. My oldest son Ethan who's out of the house now. It's called Stepping Up. And it's a book it's a popular book by Dennis Rainey if you're familiar with Dennis Rainey and Family Life I think is the name of his ministry.

[41:26] Written 15 years ago I think so it's not a brand new book. But really great content in here about especially geared towards a father's but any man whether you're a father or not.

[41:38] about the kinds of things that we need to be thinking about when it comes to manhood leadership taking the reins passing on the torch to the next generation mentoring people our children yes but also maybe those who didn't have a father or those who need help in ways that maybe their father couldn't help them.

[42:01] and so these books are available I have them out on the table they're just five dollars which is less than what I bought them for but I want to make them pretty accessible. The other thing that we have is I found in fact I didn't I'm going to tell a dirty little secret here I actually didn't read the book I listened to it but there's a great audio version of this that's totally free and so I printed out these things I think this will be a great encouragement to you men and there's a little website you can go to if you're really good with technology you can just pull out your phone and put your camera on that thing and it'll take you to the website I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring that out so anyway take advantage of that we've got I think a dozen of those books and then if you just want to listen to it for free just take one of those sheets and take a listen let's end here in a word of prayer

[43:05] Father I thank you for families this is your idea and families are just one of the most amazing things as a part of your creation mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and grandparents and uncles and nephews and aunts and the whole thing it's just absolutely wonderful we pray today that you would work in us that we would be faithful that you would count us faithful to do the work that's required to lead our families not just to salvation but to growing in grace to knowing you more to communing with you to having a life that is like a light shining on a hill for the whole world to see that we would be an example of your faithfulness to us to all generations we pray these things in Jesus name amen