Sunday sermon review - Train up a child

There are two things that absolutely terrify me. First and foremost I fear and revere the LORD my God. When I contemplate his awesome holiness, my conviction of my own sin threatens to overwhelm me. Thanks be to God for sending his Son to take his righteous, divine wrath from me when I believed in his Son as my Savior and LORD.

My other greatest fear is that I will not raise my son well. Before Meredith and I were married I knew that I wanted to have children. They are cute as babies, fun as toddlers and keep you young as teenagers. The only problem with my thinking back then is that as much as I wanted to have children, I had no real concept or desire to BE a father. Those were two mutually exclusive ideas for me.

When God decided in his infinite wisdom to give Asher to us, reality set in: I am now responsible to raise this child, God’s child, in God’s ways. As excited as I was on that glorious day, December 5, 2006, I feared for my son’s future. Of course I trust that God is sovereign and that He ultimately guides my son’s path, but God had now given me the task of discipling this little boy. Even now, my heart still skips a beat.

But I need not remain in my fear. It is healthy to have a certain trepidation about the weighty things of God. I should feel the significance of what God is calling me to do as a father, but that does not mean that I should feel hopeless or helpless. For God is my Hope and my Help. He has gifted us through his Son to have the grace we need to fulfill his calling. In fact it is the very righteousness of Christ that God has already accepted in my stead. So now my responsibility is to display the righteousness of Christ for my son.

My job is to point him to Christ always. That means every day I must trust in Christ for my own sustenance and satisfaction. By modeling for my son what it means to be dependent on Him I am training him in God’s grace.

But a mere wordless example of following Christ is not enough. I must also teach Him about the LORD, my God. I must declare his mighty works. Asher needs to hear the lofty requirements of the Law. He needs Paul to explain to him that he is a sinner who cannot attain salvation by his own merits. He needs to hear Jesus proclaim clearly, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He needs to be taught that it is only by grace that we are saved through faith, and that we are to live by that same faith in God’s grace every day.

I must teach him the Bible. I must teach him the gospel. I must teach him the way of God’s grace.

God has given me the responsibility to train up my son in the way he should go. He has given that responsibility to all parents.

This Thanksgiving I thank God for my son. But more than that, I thank God for giving me the privilege of discipling my son. I am so unworthy, but by God’s grace I will obey His commands and trust in Him to see it through.