On the long drive home from our Louisville conference, the Truth78 team listened to “One Generation Shall Praise Your Works to Another,” a sermon by John Piper during the early years of David and Sally Michael’s ministry to families and children at Bethlehem Baptist Church. This message by John beautifully communicates the heart and soul of the vision and mission of Truth78.
Please make time this week in your busy schedule to listen to it! Whether you are a parent, ministry leader, volunteer, or simply a member of a local church (in other words, every Christian), I believe this message will instruct, inspire, encourage, motivate, and challenge you.
Here are a few quotes from the sermon to pique your interest:
“One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts.”—Psalm 145:4
- It is the Biblical duty of every generation of Christians to see to it that the next generation hears about the mighty acts of God. God does not drop a new Bible from heaven on every generation. He intends that the older generation will teach the newer generation to read and think and trust and obey and rejoice.
- Let praises carry the truth to the next generation, because the aim of truth is praise. The aim of education is exultation. So let education model exultation in the way it is done.
- What we want from the next generation is not just heads full of right facts about the works of God; we want heads full of right facts and hearts that burn with the fire of love for the God of those facts…
- Foundational to all our ministry to children and young people is that God's ordinary way of shaping children into radically committed, risk-taking, countercultural, wise, thinking, loving, mature, world Christians is through parents who teach and model a God-centered, Bible-saturated worldview to their children.
- The Church Is a Partner With the Parents in Educating the Children—There are lots of reasons why this is important. Practical ones include the facts that 1) some children don't have believing parents; 2) some single parent homes are so stressed and overworked that they need all the help they can get; 3) there is a whole range of competencies in moms and dads that may need supplementing in the world the way it is (if not the way it should be); 4) even the best home-teaching will benefit from reinforcement in a corporate setting; and 5) some aspects of God's character may be caught better in a larger corporate setting than at home.
- When children grow up and become adults, they don't cease to learn and grow—at least they should not (see 2 Peter 3:18; 1 Corinthians 14:20). And as some of them move toward parenting and teaching children, they must continue to be taught and shaped Biblically, and the church has a high calling to see this happen.
(John Piper, Copyright ©Desiring God Foundation, www.desiringGod.org)
