Dear BPCWA worshipper, God answered His own question regarding why He instituted marriage wherein two become one flesh, “ . . . And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed . . .” (Mal 2:15). The Hebrew word “seek” means God not merely desires but He requires and expects to find and secure godly children in His people’s family for Himself. God gives us children in our families to bring up godly children which He seeks for Himself.  It’s not just about baptising them as infants and then neglecting the godly nurturing and godly living that God expects as well. We thank God for the young lives that He has blessed us with in BPCWA. At the same time, I also wonder, as He looks down at BPCWA, does He find the godly seed that He seeks? Many look at the children in our church and say that God has blessed the church with many children. But each parent must be deeply concerned about how many of these children are godly now and will continue to be godly for His use in His church for the coming generations. To bring up godly seed, we must cultivate in the child’s heart a spirit of loving response and duty to God. Nurturing the spirit of the child is an important part of bringing them up for the Lord.  Godliness must stem from the heart for it to last. Without this, we may eventually find our grown-up children stopping attendance in church once they are adults, or at best, just doing the very bare minimum of attending the Lord’s Day Worship Service to call themselves a Christian.

Nurture and admonition in the Lord are needed. Ephesians 6:4 requires us to bring up our children “in the Lord”. This tells us that godly child rearing is and must be very different from the worldly mindset that influences families around us or even how we were brought up. Like a tender plant, the heart needs careful cultivation. It needs the right environment for growth, like that described in Deuteronomy 6. Parents often desire for their children to be in the best schools – the best environment to help influence them to excel. Yet, many seem unaware or uncaring that they may be introducing into their children’s lives snares that hinder instead of help their spiritual growth. We are familiar with the parable of the 4 soils, one of which was sown among thorns, where “the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (Mr 4:19). We cannot defy God’s laws and think that our children will still learn to love God supremely despite it. What environment are you putting your children into? You need to take honest stock first regarding the necessity of your choices for them.  Let us now consider the spirit that you need to build into your child’s heart as you lead them to obey God’s commandments. You must aim at the spirit of the commandments while you teach and get them to obey the commandments. As I mentioned last week, do not just see the trees and miss the forest.

“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain” (Ex 20:7). We often think that this is simply about not having blasphemous speech. However, the spirit of this commandment is about having the highest regard for everything associated with God, in name or deed. And it is deep-seated. It brings forth a non-hypocritical life, holy profession, good testimony for God’s glory, and rejection of all that opposes God’s truth. This is what we need to cultivate in them.  From this stems a life that backs up their true faith when they call themselves Christians. When we instill in them the highest view and reverence for God, they will not be upset or ashamed when they live a life different from the world. And their lives will become befitting that of Christ, whether they are in church, at school, in their leisure, and in their thoughts. This is the “true holiness” that Eph 4:24 speaks of.

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (Ex 20:8). This certainly has the expectation of coming to worship God in person every Lord’s Day, but it is more than that. What you are to be cultivating in them is a spirit of loving to spend time with God and spiritual exercises more than anything else. When they have a delight in spiritual things, they will do what the WCF describes – to separate for God one whole day in seven and not profane it by idleness, sin, needless words, works, worldly employments, and recreation. The child’s spirit should be yearning toward loving the one day a week which he can spend wholly for God although every day is lived for Him. To build such a spirit, you have to ask yourself what kind of environment and activities you put them through by your choices for them. Increasing sweet snacks will reduce their hunger and thirst for proper meals. Is their lack of delight for the Lord due to your parenting choices?

“Honour thy father and thy mother” (Ex 20:12). This speaks of honour to all superiors that are over us in places of authority in the family, church, or government. This commandment is categorised under the loving duty to God because the honour that we give to such authorities points us to the honour that is owed to God. The spirit of the child is to honour the authorities that God has put over him. When you teach your children to greet others and be respectful, remember what you are building into them. Are they too proud to do so? Instead, do they find it fun to mock or take jabs at their superiors whether it is at home, in school, or in the church? Do you just let them off? If you do, you may be teaching them that honouring superiors is a waste of their time. They will not have a spirit of honouring God whom they do not see if they do not honour superiors they can see. It would do us well in our families to reflect on who is the god in our families, and who is most honoured and feared. Instead of honour toward parents, many families have inverted the model to honour and please their children the most. What the child wants, the child gets. What God wants is pushed to the 2^nd place if that’s not what the child wants. We must be careful not to build a mindset where children think that they get the priority in choosing what they want or how they want it. Even Christ, who is the Almighty God, was dutifully subject to Mary and Joseph as a young child.   

Parents must first be godly seeds. We can teach with our lips, but our children will learn from our lives. Parents are the children’s models of what is considered godly. They will learn to love what we love, esteem what we esteem, do as we do, and value what we value. Parents can live hypocritical lives, and children can see through it and learn it for themselves. What parents are will teach them more than what we say. A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. Because we emphasize the need to be godly, they will assume that how we livemust be what is meant by godly. Our family models will be theirs. Our choices will influence them. What the father and the mother do in the family will be learned by the child who will inevitably follow. Sadly, if what we do is sinful, they will inevitably take the parents’ sin to a worse level of sinfulness as we see so often in the Bible. Even when we live godly lives, they will typically not reach our standard. So, we need to live a far higher standard of holiness. Worse of all, when we fail to care, they will also fail to care to be godly, since in their minds they will think “Well, my parents still turned out ok”. How you live matters.

As we bring up our children in ever increasingly perilous times, we must constantly remember that we are in a covenant with our familial LORD who sets the family of the believer apart. Parenting is a great privilege because we serve our God in bringing up the next generation to be useful for His kingdom’s work. With great privileges come great responsibilities too, not to mention accountabilities. But they will only be useful for Him if they have godly spirits that delight in fulfilling their duties to God. To the children who are brought up in BPCWA, you must realise that you have the special privilege of knowing the LORD from a young age. You have the responsibility now to live up to that privilege He extends to you, and you can overcome the world, by His grace. These pastorals will not be able to sufficiently cover what was taught, and I hope that anyone who did not attend the session will make the effort to view the videos on bpcwa.org.au/youtube or our audio sermons from bpcwa.org.au. May we be stirred in our souls to do our duties to guide the hearts of the young ones in our midst to love the Lord we love.  

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind.” (Mt 22:37)

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor