Raising Children Who Hope in the Triumph of God...Continued from page 3
John Piper
Most of us are so afraid of a little resistance from our children that we set very small goals by the standards of our ancestors. After years of reading systematically through books of the Bible, we are working on memorizing verses this year at the breakfast table. We have memorized 29 verses so far this year.
We need to help our children feel what Eugene Nida just wrote this month in a summary of his life as a Bible consultant for Bible translating around the world. He said,
Another important privilege [of this work] was to realize that the message of the Holy Scriptures is certainly the most important and meaningful message for the modern day. [Do our kids see this conviction in our use of the Bible?] To see how an intelligible, clear translation of the Scriptures could have a transforming effect upon a psychologically distraught hippie, upon a self-satisfied and smug intellectual, and upon a depressed and oppressed Indian community in the Andes made me realize that there is no real substitute for this good news. ("My Pilgrimage in Mission," IBMR, Ap 1988, p. 62)
We must show our children that this book is the most important book in our lives and that it contains the answers to life's greatest questions and that it is the battle plan for the triumph of God.
There is so much more to say about what we must be as parents if we are to raise up children who hope in the triumph of God and who throw their lives into the great cause of Christ.
4. Be Living Examples of Faith
If we had time, we would talk of the need to be living examples of faith and hope for our children in very practical ways. And I would tell you stories about how my father was totally dependent for our livelihood on invitations from churches to preach, but how he said, when there were big holes in his schedule, that God would provide for those who trust him. He believed it. And it never occurred to me as his son to doubt God's word or my father's faith that God will always triumph.
5. Be Happy
We would talk about the need to be happy lest our children get the impression that the triumph of God would be the triumph of gloom.
6. Discipline
We would talk about the need for firm, no-nonsense corporal discipline and recall what it did in the life of Amy Carmichael to fit her, as Elizabeth Elliot says, "for the buffettings she would have to endure" on the way to the triumph of God.
7. Be Humble and Willing to Apologize
We would talk about humility and the willingness to apologize to our children, and show them that the cross can triumph even over a dad's mistakes.
8. Worship Together
We would talk about the need to worship together so that the children can see mom and dad praise God and bow in reverence and cherish the preaching of God's Word, and get a foretaste of what it will be when the Lord comes in triumph at the end of the age.
9. Uphold Standards of Everyday Holiness
And we would talk about standards of everyday holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Standards of sexual purity, and financial integrity, and rigorous truthfulness, and self-control, and hard work—what it means in practical everyday terms to be on the side of the justice and grace that will someday triumph over all evil.
10. Love
And finally we would talk about love. Parents loving children and children learning to love—learning that in the end everything is in vain without love, that in the world love is the visible expression of faith in the triumph of God, that in the soul love no matter what it costs is the way of joy.
Article taken from Sermon delievered by John Piper May 8, 1988
By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.