Kids Are the Future
There are a lot of things that kids will “grow out of” as they grow up but what they will grow up into is where a people are headed. That process of maturing will be driven by their experiences and a lot of that will be shaped by the adults in their lives. Eventually, they will be the adults shaping the next generation. That is the trajectory of a family, a community, and a nation.
I doubt there are many who would deny that it is a powerful thing to be an influence in a child’s life, and that it can be for good or ill. Not only does God instruct us to take that process of raising up children seriously, but Christ later made an even more serious comment about the importance of spiritually nurturing children well.
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
Matthew 18:5-6
The Importance of Marriage
If it is so serious to train children up well in matters of spiritual life, what can we do to point them away from sin toward their savior? One thing that is often ignored in modern culture but still obvious even now is the power of symbols.
Much of our decision making in life is based upon comparing a situation to previous situations. Without the ability to recognize patterns, we wouldn’t be able to practically apply most of what we learn. In Ephesians 5, Paul explains how marriage is a pattern of a believer’s relationship to Christ.
A Witness of Trust and Obedience
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Ephesians 5:22-24
Children raised in a household with a godly mother, submitting herself to her husband, will have a pattern of obedience to Christ enforced in them every day of their childhood. We live in a society that undermines the idea of a submissive wife and it should be no surprise that the church has likewise become confused about what submitting to Christ should look like (or if it’s even necessary).
How many people criticize the idea of a believer being humble before Christ and his commands as “Lordship Salvation”? How are they to understand humbling oneself under authority when the patterns of their life teach them rebellion and pride rather than submission and humility?
A Witness of Selfless Love
It’s also common to see people speaking as if it is possible to fall in/out of “love” based upon what a relationship is providing for them. While it’s true that positive interactions with others will lead toward affections for another person, that’s not love according to God. Instead, love is giving up of one’s self for another. Again, marriage can be a great example of that to our children.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
Ephesians 5:25-30
When you love another, their interests become your interests. As husbands, that means placing the wellbeing of our wives over our own, protecting her even to our harm. Does that sound like the sort of love that we can “fall out of” if we’re just “not feeling it”?! While we will undoubtedly fail to be a perfect representation of the boundless love Christ has for his people, we will still be building a foundation for understanding it by faithfully loving our wives.
The lack of a loving father has also had a massive impact upon how believers understand their relationship to Christ. Many in the church today are trying to understand a personal relationship with a loving Lord without having the patterns of sacrificial love to refer to.
Change the World
If marriage is such a powerful witness to the relationship between Christ and his church, how important it is that Christ’s people take marriage seriously! It will be the first, best witness most children can have growing up. While missions to reach unreached people and church planting to build a foundation for the faith in communities is important, imagine the impact for Christ we can have by raising children in marriages that are faithful witnesses to the most important relationship they could ever have!
It will take throwing off the prideful, selfish attitudes of our times and submitting ourselves to the God given roles that are distinct for men and women but it is the most powerful blessing we could give to future generations.
I’m so grateful that my parents were an amazing representation of what a faithful relationship looks like and their pattern has made it easier to develop my faith and represent it for my own children. Faithful family life is a blessing that lasts for generations.
