Friday, May 10, 2013

A Prayer for our Covenant Children



Our great covenant-keeping God who shows steadfast love to thousands of generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments (Ex. 20:6) and whose righteousness is upon our children’s children who love Him and remember to keep His commandments (Ps. 103:17-18), we come before You to pray for the children whom You have graciously given Your servants (Gen. 33:5).  May You find the godly offspring You seek from our marriages (Mal. 2:15)!  We plead Your promise to circumcise our hearts and the hearts of our offspring that we might love You with whole hearts (Deut. 30:6).  Grant our children to remember their Creator in the days of their youth (Eccl. 12:1), trust in You at their mothers’ breasts, be cast on You from birth (Ps. 22:9), be children of promise, not merely of flesh (Rom. 9:8), as we faithfully teach them the Scriptures from their infancy in order to make them wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:15).  According to Your covenant mercies, may Your Spirit and Your Word never depart from the mouth of our offspring or our children’s offspring (Is. 59:21).  Give us one heart and one way that we may fear You forever, for our good and for the good of our children after us (Jer. 32:39).  Grant us that we might train up our children in the way that they should go so that they might never depart from the right way (Prov. 22:6).  May we love our children enough to discipline them rather than hating them by sparing the rod (Prov. 13:24).  Strengthen our fathers to command their children and households after them to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice (Gen. 18:19).  Help our fathers to teach diligently Your commandments to their children and talk of them when they sit at home, walk by the way, and when they lie down and rise (Deut. 6:7).  May they not provoke their children to anger but raise them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).  Keep us from hiding Your truth from our children but grant us to tell to the coming generation of Your glorious deeds and the wonders You have done (Ps. 78:4) so that they should set their hope in You and not forget Your works but keep Your commandments (Ps. 78:7).  Turn the hearts of our fathers to our children and our children to our fathers (Mal. 4:6).  Grant our mothers to look well to the ways of their households and not eat the bread of idleness (Prov. 31:27); Grant that their children call them blessed and husbands praise them (Prov. 31:28).  Although they are federally holy (1 Cor. 7:14), may our covenant children not presume that though they walk in the stubbornness of their hearts that they will not perish (Deut. 29:19) and may they never say, “We have Abraham as our father” (Lu. 3:8) in the presumption of unbelief and sin.  Bestow upon them Your grace so that they might become the sons of Abraham through faith (Gal. 3:7), as You produce a spiritual seed from our physical seed (Gen. 17:7).  Make them members of the covenant of grace in inward reality as well as outward form (Rom. 2:28-29)!  We pray for these things believing that Your promise is to us and to our children forever (Acts 2:39).  Hear us as we pray in the name of Jesus Christ Your Son, Amen.     

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The Covenant Family as a Means of Blessing



“For 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 that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”

Genesis 18:19



          When God called Abraham into his covenant of grace, he promised to bless all the families of the earth through him (Genesis 12:1-3).  God planned to accomplish this universal blessing by making his covenant with Abraham and his offspring:  “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Genesis 17:7).  Keeping in mind that God’s promises come to fruition in the lives of God’s people through the use of divinely-appointed means, Genesis 18:19 tells us that the means for making Abraham’s family a blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 18:18) is his leading his family in the ways of righteousness as a faithful head of his house. 



To put the matter succinctly, God’s choice of Abraham was both for the sake of his family (“that he may command his children and household after him to keep the way of the LORD”—Genesis 18:19) and for the sake of all families (“all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him”—Genesis 18:18). 



Thus we learn that the God-ordained means of blessing both our families and other families is for elect heads of houses to command their families to keep the ways of the Lord.  God chose Abraham and his family to be set apart from cities like Sodom and Gomorrah which were known in those days for their wickedness (Genesis 18:20-21).  Abraham and his family were to be known for righteousness and justice.



God loves making his covenant of grace not merely with isolated individuals but with whole families in successive generations.  And it is worth pointing out that this continues in the New Testament.  One example is the godly heritage of Timothy.  Paul writes, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well” (2 Timothy 1:5).  In this case, Timothy’s faith was the result of successive generations of faithful mothers (Timothy’s father was a Greek, but his mother was a Jewish believer—Acts 16:1).  Timothy had been trained in the Scriptures even from his infancy (2 Timothy 3:15).  

It is without question that God has saved many individuals apart from any connection to a covenant family, but God’s ordinary way of working is through the covenant family where heads of houses deliver the faith from one generation to another.  Many Christian men bewail the sin in society today, especially among our rebellious youth.  But if Christian husbands and fathers abandon their role to lead their families in righteousness, then what right do they have to deplore the wickedness of the surrounding society?  God’s plan for reaching our youth for Christ is not a youth group but a holy father.    



Although God’s dealings with Abraham were unique in many ways, as the father of the faith, his leadership in the home is instructive for Christian husbands and fathers today.  God has chosen men to lead their families in the ways of righteousness and justice.  Christian husbands must love and lead their wives in order to sanctify them as Christ loves and leads the Church in order to sanctify her (Ephesians 5:25ff).  Christian fathers must assume responsibility for the covenant nurture of their children.  “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). 


God has told us plainly how he plans to bless our families and all the families of the earth.  He does it through faithful covenant families whose homes are ruled in the ways of God.   

God’s plan to bless all the families of the earth is ultimately realized in Jesus Christ who is the offspring of Abraham (Galatians 3:16).  Thankfully, even if God did not plant you in a covenant family from your earliest days, he is able to plant you in Jesus Christ who is the source of all the blessings of Abraham.  And if God places us into the family of Abraham through faith in Jesus Christ (for you are all sons of Abraham through faith in Christ—Galatians 3:7), then let us continue to walk in the footsteps of our forefather and command our households to walk in the ways of righteousness, holiness, and love.  The world and the next generation of believers will be the better for it.