God’s Kingdom Purposes For The Family (Genesis 18:19)
God’s Kingdom Purposes for the Family
A Teaching for Baby Dedications — Light House Church
You are the Father from whom all of us are named—everyone, every family is named by you. We all are your offspring. And Father, we want to know ourselves as your children. We want to see in this beautiful picture that you’ve created in the family what you want with us, this familial relationship, God.
And we also pray, God, that you would convict us and prepare us—father, mother, family units, everyone present—that we would have hearts that are zealous to multiply, to make disciples, because this is so your heart, Lord. So as we seek you this morning, would you just give us your heart for this world? Give us your heart for our kids. Give us your heart for our energy and all that we do in this life.
We invite your Holy Spirit to remind us of the gospel this morning. We all fall short of the glorious purposes for which you made us, so we need you to show us Christ again this morning. We love you, King Jesus. We love you, Father. It’s in your name we pray. Amen.
All right. So we’re going to dedicate kids, and we want his heart—his heart for kids, his heart for family. So this is titled “God’s Kingdom Purposes for the Family.”
And here’s an anchor text for us. This is from Genesis 18:19, and I was blown away by it. It says of Abraham, “I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.” So we’re going to come back to this verse a bunch. This is one of God’s expressed purposes for choosing Abraham and beginning that whole system. He says, “I chose you, Abraham, that you may command your children and your household after you to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.” This is the plan, and he starts it at the very beginning.
God’s Heart for the Family from the Beginning
Let’s look at God’s heart for the family from the beginning. Open up Genesis 1:26–28. It reads: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl. So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.’”
One thing that stands out right from the start is “Let us make man.” There’s this community in God that exists before he’s made anything. This is the familial relationship, the community from which all family comes. All creation comes out from the triune God. He is one, but he is three. And there’s this beautiful desire in him to multiply. This thing that comes out of God is multiplication: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens.”
Look at verse 28: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the ground.’” So God blesses them, he makes them in his image, and he gives them this mandate, this instruction.
What are the couple of things that he empowers them and calls them to do? Two things. First, multiply. Second, rule—take dominion, subdue. All those words really get at the same thing: the earth is put in your possession, and you are to rule over it. And that is as full an idea as you could possibly imagine—to be handed the earth and told, “Rule it. You’re now in control of everything.” God is going to give directions, but he says, “You rule it. You subdue it.”
So two things come from the heart of God for mankind. He is a multiplying God, and he blesses humanity—male and female, made in his image—to multiply. And then to rule: to instruct, to lead, to train. With the following generations and with the earth, it is to have a leading role.
God Makes a Marriage
Then God makes a marriage. Look at Genesis 2:18–25. For the sake of time I’ll summarize. God has created Adam and charged him to protect and to keep, giving him the authority to name the animals. But then God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” He forms the woman out of the man, and in verse 23 comes that cry: “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
So God makes male and female generically in his image, but the very first institution he forms is this family founded on marriage—on this covenant relationship between man and woman. Every time we read these things, I hope we can take them a little less for granted. We exist in marriages because God formed them. We exist in families because God formed them. This came from his mind. This is his heart for the world—that he would form a man and a woman, put them in covenant union, and take two individuals who would now become one flesh, one covenant unit. This is the foundation of the family. And it images God: God is one, and yet he is three, and out of that union the triune God multiplies. God does the same thing with marriage. He makes a covenant union and blesses it to do the good work of multiplying and filling the earth.
One other thing: this is the first social structure. There’s no church yet, no state, no government. This is the very first and most foundational social institution that exists on the earth, and it’s the one God charged to rule—to fill the earth and rule over it together.
Then Come Children
Out of this union come children. Part of the blessing is that God gives the ability to make babies—the craziest thing. The reason we make babies is because God blessed us. And blessing is a multiplying word. Blessing means you will abound in good works; something will come out from you when you receive God’s blessing. All over Scripture, we are blessed so that we can be a blessing. God’s blessing pours into the marriage union, and children come out.
Look at Psalm 127:3–5: “Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them; he shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. This offspring, this ability to multiply, is absolutely astonishing. Just look around at the kids in this room—heritage, blessing, good gifts, every single one of them. The reason they exist is God. He created a world in which this could happen. Let’s not take it for granted. We should marvel: he did that.
Psalm 128:3–4 says it again: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.” This was one of the primary blessings the old-covenant people understood—that God would give children. One of the biggest blessings you could receive was offspring.
Malachi 2:15 is a striking verse. There’s this charge from the Lord where he asks, in effect, “Is this not what I seek—godly offspring?” The people were being unfaithful to the Lord, and part of their unfaithfulness was unfaithfulness to their spouses; they were marrying women of other nations. And he says these crazy words: “I want godly offspring from you.” What they were failing to do was to be faithful to their one-flesh union and then to train their children in the Lord, continuing the pattern of ruling, taking dominion, and filling the earth.
So God loves kids. It’s a blessing he pours out on the covenant union. This is the family we experience right now: husband and wife, made in the image of God, blessed to multiply, with children given as a heritage of the Lord. Here we have the family, and here we have the system that is meant to continue generation after generation after generation.
He Wants Godly Offspring
But that word “godly” is key. Adam and Eve were charged to fill the earth under God’s rule. Unfortunately, very quickly they failed to do it in God’s way, and what multiplied in the earth was not the godly way of the family but sin patterns. Their kids followed in their footsteps, and sin entered the world. This is where we need the charge to Abraham—a new family set apart to teach the way of the Lord, because there are many who are not walking in it.
Jump to Genesis 18:19 again. When all the earth is turning away, when all the earth is multiplying sin, God sets apart a man named Abraham and says, “I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord.” God’s design—before the fall and in the forming of the covenant people, Abraham, Israel, and all who would follow—was that fathers would train up their children in the way of the Lord, and that generation after generation they would walk in that righteousness. The parents’ household would be a school: a school for the way of the Lord. This is where children are meant to learn it—not from the world, not from their peers, but from their parents. This is the school of the Lord. This is God’s design for the family.
The Family Points to Greater Realities
One last point. The family is meant to point to greater realities. In Ephesians 5:31–32 we’re told that marriage pictures Christ and the church. And in Ephesians 3, every family in heaven and on earth is named from the Father. So there are two greater realities on display, both imaging who God is: first, that we as his sons and daughters are his children, his offspring; and second, that marriage is a picture of Christ and the church.
Because the family was so broken and corrupt and twisted, one of the things Jesus wanted to do when he came was to redeem the family. He wasn’t trying to toss the family out with the new covenant; he wanted to redeem it, to restore the right image of family in the world. And even in the new covenant, when he speaks of disciples as spiritual children, he still has family in mind. It’s still familial language. We disciple children who are not our biological kids, and they become like our spiritual children. Jesus became the perfect prototype of a father to his spiritual children. He was the one who taught the way of the Lord perfectly, and this is what he came to do: restore the whole picture. He wants to restore our image of the Father and unite us back to the Father, and then to redeem the whole familial discipleship process.
Don’t skip over the actual household God has given you and jump straight to discipleship “out there.” One of the great purposes of Jesus’ coming is to redeem what’s going on right here in your home. He saved you so that you can train your kids to walk in the way of the Lord. He saved you so that your kids, your spouse, and everyone under the shelter of your home and your influence could walk in the way of the Lord. This is why God has chosen you and set you apart as holy and blameless—so that your teaching and instruction would fill that home and then go out from there. Discipleship is a familial reality, and it’s for our kids and for our spiritual kids.
So if you’re single—Beth, I praise God for you—you are not outside of this familial vision, because you are a spiritual mother. You get to celebrate family and walk in these same realities. We’re praying for God to bring a spouse and build a family around you as you desire; but right now you get to walk in these same familial realities. Jesus was not married, and yet he lived out these realities; he lived out the heart of God. I don’t think Jesus or Paul are trying to sweep the family aside and say it doesn’t matter anymore. No—it matters completely. We can’t even have life without these families existing. And yet he’s pulling it all together. The new covenant and the old covenant are training us in the heart of God: that we would be multiplying and raising up spiritual sons and daughters, and physical sons and daughters, who would become his children and know the way of the Lord.
The Father’s Primary Responsibility
Now, here’s why I want to go to this next point. As I was working through our document for the dedication, the language was all very generic—“parents, will you raise your kids in the Lord?” But as I reflected on the Scriptures in that document, a lot of them are addressed specifically to fathers, and some mention mothers in particular. The Bible doesn’t just speak generically of “parents”; it gives roles for the father and the mother that are uniquely good and that need to be trained, learned, and understood if we’re going to do this thing right.
So let’s look for a few minutes at the father’s primary responsibility as the head of his home. We’re told in Ephesians 5 that the husband is the head, even as Christ is the head of the church. In the home, God has appointed the husband and father as the head who sets the culture and is primarily responsible for making sure the way of the Lord is taught.
Open your Bibles to Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” It’s easy to skip over that, but I don’t think we should. That fathers are given that particular command is really important. There is a particular warning here for the father—“do not provoke your children to anger”—but it’s also part of a pattern throughout Scripture. All through creation and from the patriarchs, fathers are the ones with the primary responsibility for training up their children in the way they should go.
Look back at Genesis 2. The command to fill the earth and subdue it is first given to Adam, before Eve was even created. He first gives the command to the man. There’s a ruling, a protection, a leadership he’s meant to provide—even in training Eve in the command of the Lord. That’s implied: if she hadn’t heard those commands, he needed to train her. Maybe God spoke to her personally too, but that’s the pattern we have.
In Genesis 17, Abraham is the one who receives the covenant sign for himself and his household—not his wife, but him. He’s the head God looks to and says, “I want you, Abraham, and all the other fathers with you, to receive this covenant sign.” In Genesis 18, again, it’s the fatherly role of Abraham to train his children in the way of the Lord. In Job 1:5, Job offers sacrifices for his children continually. In Joshua 24:15, Joshua says, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” He is the one setting the spiritual culture in the home, saying, “We’re going this direction. I’m going to lead my children, my home, and anyone under my roof in this way.”
The Father Is Meant to Catechize the Children
There’s a recurring phrase, “When your son asks you…” — referring to the father. “You shall teach them diligently to your children.” At Passover, the fathers give the explanations to the kids. The children ask, “Why are we doing this? Why are we keeping this feast this way?” and the instruction to catechize them is directed at the fathers. Deuteronomy 6: “When your son asks you in time to come… then you shall say to him…” Joshua 4:6: “When your children ask their fathers, ‘Why these memorial stones?’” you train them; you tell them what’s going on.
So, dads, I want you to hear this. God has appointed fathers to be the primary trainers, heads, and teachers in the home—you have the primary responsibility. You get to encourage your wife, and there’s a call for kids to honor both father and mother, but ultimately your job is to be the culture center, the primary teacher.
In Proverbs, all over the place, the wisdom tradition is passed from father to son. Solomon recalls David’s instruction in Proverbs 4:3–4, where he says David taught him. On his deathbed, David charges Solomon to take on the duty of serving the Lord and building the temple.
A Couple of Warnings to Dads
There are also warnings. In 1 Samuel, Eli receives judgment from God because of his failure to restrain his sons, who were serving as priests and acting wickedly. This is one of the primary problems in Israel—all over the prophets, fathers are condemned for not training their children in the way of the Lord. In 1 Kings 1:6, it says of David and Adonijah that David had never at any time displeased him; I think David was passive toward him, and it ended up being dangerous for his family.
When you fail to walk in your responsibility to train your kids, the next generation doesn’t walk in the way of the Lord. We see this pattern in the kings, one after another after another, failing to train up the next generation. It cost David his entire household. The unraveling of David’s house—with Absalom and others—was the cost of paternal passivity. So, dads, we must not take this role lightly.
One more piece. Malachi 4:5–6 says that God will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest he come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. That’s the Scripture right before the New Testament opens, and I’m blown away by it: one of God’s primary desires in redeeming his people is to do this simple thing of bringing families back together—fathers instructing sons, fathers training their children in the way of the Lord, and the children receiving from their father. That’s where redemption leads. It leads to people willingly, happily being discipled, instructed, and trained. That’s what the gospel is trying to redeem in this world: patterns of passing down the way of the Lord from generation to generation. That’s our job, Dad.
The Shared Calling of Parents
Both father and mother are teaching. Jump to Proverbs 1:8: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching.” Father’s instruction, mother’s teaching. Proverbs 6:20 follows the same pattern: “My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching.” Both parents are called to this role of instructing and teaching. In Deuteronomy 21, both parents act together in correction. And of course there’s the call for children to honor both father and mother—a respect due to both parents.
In case you feel like you’re off the hook, ladies—no. You have a role within your house that is weighty and so important. Without mothers, we miss so much of the heart of God. We don’t understand the nurturing and compassion. Eve is called the mother of all living, and that plays out in the way you teach and instruct. Almost every kid knows the difference between a dad’s correction and a mom’s correction. We get the heart of God in both. In this one-flesh union, where we’re called to do this together as a family, your kids get to experience what God is like in both father and mother. He is a nurturing, compassionate God, the one who gives life to all, the one who wants to take you up into his lap to care for you. That’s what moms get to do, and they instruct in a different kind of way than dads do.
In Proverbs 31, Lemuel records “the words of King Lemuel… an oracle that his mother taught him.” Lemuel’s mom taught him what kind of wife to look for and what the mother of his children should be like. We desperately need the teaching and instruction of our mothers. Fathers, we can’t do it without our wives; it would be totally lopsided instruction without them.
Here’s what’s on the line. Timothy’s faith is praised as coming from his grandmother and mother, Lois and Eunice. It says he was acquainted with the sacred writings from infancy—little babies being taught the Word of God—because his grandmother and mother passed it down to him. There’s eternity on the line for these little ones, in both the father’s instruction and the mother’s. And we see beautiful pictures: Hannah consecrating Samuel, Mary treasuring up all these things in her heart—the mother’s care, spiritual instruction, and love.
Fathers, you have the primary responsibility as heads in your home. Your wives are essential and indispensable in training up the next generation. You are a team—you’re meant to be one flesh in this work. You have different ways of doing it, but it matters that both of you are doing it together.
The Household as a Missional Hub
As you foster this school of discipleship in your home for your kids, the goal is that they would become part of a team—a kingdom work. Not waiting until they’re out of the home or off starting their own families; your kids become part of the whole mission now. We love to say that the household is a generational family team on mission. We borrowed that phrase, but that’s the idea—not just inward, but a space where your kids are brought into the faith and then, as a whole team, become a missional hub: a place where hospitality happens, where missionaries are sent, where all kinds of mission flow out.
Household Conversion
First, there’s a recurring pattern of household conversion. The takeaway is that not just the adults but also the kids are included. Kids, God wants to save you too. He wants to put his Spirit in you too, so that you can be part of the mission of God. You are part of this kingdom work God has given to your family. You are a heritage from the Lord, a blessing from the Lord, so that you could be trained right now to do the very things your parents are trying to do. Everything your mom and dad have, they’re going to pass on to you so that you can keep doing what they’re doing. And then your kids, God willing, will be instructed by you. This is what we want to see happen generation to generation.
Listen to this. Acts 16:31: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Or Acts 10: Cornelius’s household together—they all fear God, they all hear, they all receive the Spirit, they’re all baptized. This is God’s desire when a family comes into the kingdom: man, woman, and child, everyone. “This promise is for you and for your children,” Peter preached in Acts. The same pattern continues with Lydia, Crispus, and Stephanas—whole houses brought into the kingdom together, showing that kids are part of this mission. So don’t ever diminish the role of your kids in the mission. Don’t think your job is just to be the disciple-maker of your kids, end of story. This is meant to be an inward and an outward flow happening all the time, with your kids watching and participating in the process.
The Home as the Ordinary Place of the Church
In the book of Acts, the home was the ordinary place where the church met. Acts 2:46—believers were breaking bread in their homes. Acts 5:42—from house to house, the apostles would teach. Romans 16:3–5—Prisca and Aquila, the church was in their house. Colossians 4:15 mentions Nympha, and Philemon, “the church in your house.” This was the normal thing. So the kids weren’t off somewhere else—they were experiencing this process.
We do this every morning, whether working or hosting: we say, “One, two, three—Simmons family team, go!” and “Love and serve—together.” That’s our job. The whole family team gets to do hospitality together; we get to do this gospel work together. This is the outward multiplication happening in the home. Romans 12 charges us to seek to show hospitality. What is hospitality? It’s opening your home. Your house becomes a refuge—a place for the neighbor or the unbeliever to come and hear of the works of the Lord.
And what are you welcoming them into? The school. They get to come and see the way of the Lord right there, where father and mother are united as one, faithful to one another, nurturing that relationship and then nurturing their kids in the Lord. They see how you act around the table. They see kids who are submitted to their parents, who honor them and listen to their instruction. And the world stands in awe of that in this generation—it’s become rare to see children listen to and respect their parents’ word. When we welcome neighbors into the home, the kids get to be part of that process, part of that mission. In 3 John, we’re told that the hosts are fellow workers for the truth—not just the missionaries, but the hosts of the missionaries. When you host Christians who are actively engaged in the mission, you get to be a fellow worker for the truth.
Mission Flows Outward from the Home
I love Mark 5:19. To the healed demoniac, who wanted to go with Jesus, Jesus says, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.” Go home. Out of that space where you have influence among a handful of people—your family members, your friends—there’s going to be an outward work of God.
Think about it. In John 1, Andrew finds his brother Simon; Peter comes to Jesus because of Andrew. Think of the brothers James and John. Think of Jesus’ own brothers and sisters, who came to be some of the most influential Christian leaders in the church because they grew up in the same home, instructed by Mary and by Jesus. As the household ministers to one another, and as the children grow up and start their own households, they begin to follow Jesus together. And Abraham’s house, in Genesis 12, is the channel through which all the families of the earth are blessed. So the household is not just a place for rest, where we do our inward thing and train; it’s meant to be a missional hub—where people experience the love of God and are sent out on mission. Think of Timothy, trained up by his mother and grandmother and then sent out as an apostle. There’s all this outward flow that happens in the household.
Both my wife and I feel burdened that so many of these kids would be missionaries and church planters. Join us in that prayer. I look at all these kids and wonder: how many will go overseas? How many will plant churches? How many will build a household of life wherever they live? The multiplying potential for these kids is so far greater than what we are able to do ourselves. What a thing to steward—25-plus kids; they outnumber us adults, and it’s so sweet. Pray that God would really multiply, convert, and mobilize them to the mission, however he’s made them.
Why This Matters: What’s at Stake
Everything we’ve been teaching about the design of father, mother, and mission comes together here.
The Next Generation’s Knowledge of God Depends on You
Psalm 78 says to tell the coming generation the works of God, so that they should set their hope in God. Our kids will set their hope in God because of the ways you tell them about him—his works, all he’s done for you. You give them the stories; you train them. Their eternity rests largely on how you instruct them. God is ultimately sovereign over this; I know that not every child will follow Jesus, and that is extremely painful even when we instruct faithfully. But it massively depends on what we do.
Judges 2:10 says, “There arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord.” May that never be true of our kids. May it never be. The passivity of fathers in training their children and setting the culture in one generation leads to the apostasy of the following generation.
One of the things we’re dealing with in this generation is that many parents were taught their job as spiritual leaders was simply to get their kids to sit in a pew at church—and that was about the end of it. I’m oversimplifying, but one of the failures of the last generation was something consumeristic and individualistic: we go to church together as a family, but then we go home and do whatever we want. That wasn’t everyone—many of us were blessed with families very different from that—but there was a generation that was passive in the daily, life-on-life instruction and discipleship of their kids. My dad was in town recently, and he was lamenting ways he failed during our high-school years—he stopped instructing us, lost relationship with us—and it cost us. God was merciful, but this matters so much. What we do with our kids matters—not just for their generation, but for the next, and the next, and the next. God wants the church to be full of families who love his design and live it out in the stuff of everyday life.
This is where I want to go to Deuteronomy 6. Verse 4: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you shall be on your heart.” How is the next generation going to do this? “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Your kids ought to hear about God and his ways and his designs multiple times a day—as you do the dishes, the laundry, as you discipline and correct them. They need to hear why work is good, why play is good, why rest is good. These things are all grounded in God. All of it is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. He is the center of this world. He designed all of it, and he is the one to whom we are all meant to bring our love and affection. Parents, that’s our job.
The Father’s Role Shapes the Child’s View of God
Dad, your discipline and your training are shaping your kid’s view of who God is. Hebrews 12 talks about how the Father disciplines out of love—“if you are a true son, your father will discipline you.” It speaks in a matter-of-fact way: you understand what it’s like to experience discipline from your dad. And then it points that same instruction, discipline, and correction back to God and says, “That’s what he’s like; that’s what he does.” So God’s image is really on the line in the way you instruct, lead, and love.
Society Stands or Falls with the Family
Psalm 128 extends the blessed home to “peace upon Israel.” In Malachi, the land lies under a curse if the fathers don’t return to the sons and the sons to the fathers. There’s a cultural witness here: society stands or falls based on the family’s strength. When Israel was flourishing, it was because it had fathers passing down the way of the Lord to the next generation. When that failed—through the passivity of parents and fathers—it all fell apart. That’s the pattern, over and over.
We are living in a day when the family is in shambles. The devil hates the family; he understands these things and is attacking it. He’s attacking marriage, and the very ideas of what male and female are and what the marriage union and the roles of father and mother are meant to be. Society is crumbling in many ways because of the breakdown of the family. So it matters.
Eternity Is at Stake for Your Kids
As Paul tells Timothy: “From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” We get to offer life to our kids; we get to offer them eternity in Jesus. And this is where we need the gospel so desperately, because every one of us falls short. We feel it. We sin against our kids, against the Lord, against our spouses. We are desperately needy for our Savior to wash us and empower us afresh by his Holy Spirit. That’s what he came to do.
Parent who feels like a failure: if you’ve been angry with your kids, short, impatient, passive, or domineering—whatever you’ve done—this is the stuff the Lord says, “I forgive you. I wash you clean. Get up and go. Keep training them in the way of the Lord. Repent.” This is part of the good news we get to share with our kids: “I’m a failure. I blow it all the time. I’m sorry for sinning against you, son or daughter. And Jesus is better; he forgives us; his mercy is more.” Amen.
Application: A Few Practicals
Dad, never give up leading family devotions. I want to call you to it every day. It won’t always be profound, but do something with your kids every single day, until they’re out of the house. Don’t let sports or anything else distract you from having your kids’ ear to instruct them in the way of the Lord. It’s a little easier when they’re little; when they’re older and a thousand things are begging for their attention, you have to be a culture setter. We will open the Word together at some point in the day; we’re going to hear the Word of the Lord.
Take the Lord’s Day seriously. Take time to be with the body of Christ, to rest from work, and to talk with your family about why it matters.
Catechize your kids. Answer their questions; let them ask questions. Use the New City Catechism to bake into them the truths and doctrines of God.
Practice loving, consistent discipline that aims at the heart. Never stop disciplining and training your children; they’re being molded into young men and women who will one day do the same with their own kids. It matters generationally.
Repent openly when you sin.
Dads, don’t leave the work to mom. That was one of the failures of the last generation—moms were treated as the spiritual heads of the home, taking the kids to church while dad was elsewhere.
Pursue regular hospitality. Open your home, and talk to your kids about why you’re having people in—whether they know Jesus or not. Let your kids be part of the mission.
Ultimately, our goal is that our household would be a school for the way of the Lord—that discipleship would be happening with our kids and with the spiritual sons and daughters beyond them, so that this multiplication just keeps going and going and going.
One Concrete Change This Week
Look back at Deuteronomy 6:4–9. Take a minute to pray and ask: What’s one concrete change to make this week to let this text be more of a reality in your home? Here are a few things others shared:
“Less rushed. So often we’re just trying to move our kids along like sheep. Slow down, to take advantage of the opportunities to teach the little things.”
“Consistency—especially at bedtime, and in my own personal time with the Lord in the mornings. It needs to start between me and the Lord in order for it to pour out. We can’t just jump into our day and start teaching; we need the Lord to instruct us first.”
“I can get so focused on the ‘teach and command’ part that I forget to be vulnerable about what he’s teaching me. It’s not just rules for them to follow; this is a way to live for me too.”
“Remind my children—and myself—that this is God’s heart, and that he’s in it and will empower us to train up this next generation. Let your children see you transparent, vulnerable, and honest in your walk with the Lord. It doesn’t always go as you hope each day, but you keep at it with consistency.”
“Tell your kids regularly, even when they’re little: ‘You guys are arrows. You’re going to do this next, my son, my daughter. You’ll be here when I’m gone.’”
“Get more diligent and prioritize guarding this time, before it gets away from me.”
“Use physical representations in the home—images and objects that point to Christ—for your kids and for you.”
So, as an application: we’ve sought the Lord for his will and his design. Now we get to see these parents commit to the Lord to walk this out in his power. Let’s bring the kids up front for the dedications.