Sermon Redux

As so often happens, the point I most wanted to emphasize in a sermon got short shrift because time ran out Sunday.

I was preaching on fathering from Proverbs 4:1-9 about how Solomon attempted to pass on to his children the wisdom he had received from his own dad, King David. This wisdom was probably both practical and spiritual in nature, and Solomon wanted his kids to know how valuable it was and how crucial it would be to obtain it.

I attempted to say, from verses 8 and 9, that it is absolutely essential for us as parents to plant positive images in the minds of our children about Christianity and church and for us to paint pictures of success in their thinking about the future. I was talking about cultivating their spiritual imagination. About scripture-based visualization. Solomon used beautiful poetic imagery to do that. The Genesis patriarchs would accomplish that with their words in passing on a blessing to their sons.

Rather than transmitting to our kids by our statements and our actions that our faith is a drudgery and a duty, we need to speak and live before them the reality that knowing and walking with God is a joy and a privilege beyond measure. If they never hear us pray and never see us reading the Bible and only catch us bemoaning the negative stuff that sometimes happens at church it shouldn't surprise us that they possess no real desire for the Christian life or for congregational involvement.

Instead of belittling them or dashing their hopes or telling them that they'll never amount to much, we ought to be using our words to encourage our kids. To lift them. To inspire them toward great exploits. To cast mental pictures and visions of possibility for them if they will seek the Lord and His ways(Proverbs 3:5-6). Even in these dark days of economic distress and international tension we need to lay out for our children a positive view of the future that calls them to rise to the occasion and be leaders and shapers who will step up to the plate and interact with our crumbling culture and be a powerful influence for good. Jesus did that. He said we are to be salt and light in the midst of our pagan environment. He was both a realist and an optimist.

Solomon's passionate paternal counsel to his sons reminds us that we can't just leave our children to themselves and hope for the best. We must pass on to them critical life skills like etiquette and how to handle money and build quality relationships. We need to teach them how to make decisions and the steps to take to avoid temptations. We should model for them the value of hard work(not overwork, though) and the rewards of diligent study. Perhaps using Proverbs as our manual, we should instruct them in developing a godly character by practicing all the traits described there. Above all else, we must gradually lead them to understand that the most important thing in life is being connected to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. There can finally be no real fulfilment if we remain lost, dead in our sins, and unrelated to our Creator.

Our confidence in our kids will help build their self-confidence. Say what you will about Jacob's parenting skills(Genesis 37), he must have done something right with at least one of his sons, Joseph, in order to foster within him an inner picture of how his future would make a difference in the lives of others. With our love and attentiveness and wise counsel we can have that kind of formative impact on the destiny of the little ones God has entrusted to our care. By daring them to dream big dreams and by pointing out to them how to methodically take the preparatory steps to get there we can leave an incredible legacy. And by the way, grandparents can get in on this molding business, too. Solomon's tender reference in Proverbs 4 to his father proves that!

There are a lot of things we have to tell our children that they can't do. Let's be sure that we also instill in them an exhilirating sense of all the wonderful things they can do. Let's try to say "Yes!"even more often than we say "No!" to our boys and girls who, in a few years, will be running this world and need to be courageous and unafraid and willing to take some risks to bring about productive results.