Your Children’s Children

Would you turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Proverbs,

Proverbs 13:22

chapter 13, verse 22? If you can't get there fast,

it's OK. It's very short.

I'm going to say it a million times this morning.

And so you might even have it memorized by the time we're

done. Proverbs, 1322.

This is the word of the Lord. A good man leaves an inheritance

to his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up

for the righteous. I'll read this to you again.

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but

the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous.

This is the word of God. Let me pray for us.

Father in Heaven, we thank you for this morning.

And Lord, we do thank you for the mothers that you have

stacked our church with. We thank you for for the

mothers, for the grandmothers. We thank you, Lord, for all of

the good gifts that you have given us through those who

brought us into the world and those who nursed us and, and

raised us into adulthood. And so I pray, Lord, that our

mothers would feel honored today as we turn our attention to the

men in the congregation. And I pray, Father, that you

would you would help the men here to here without, without

any semblance of discouragement, some of the high standards that

your word has for us. But that we as dependent men,

men that are solely dependent upon you to do all of the work

that you require in and through us, that this would be a sermon

that excites us to the possibilities that you intend

the fruit that you intend to bear through us.

And that we would that we would run to you daily for for

empowerment, for direction, for clarity on how to carry these

things out. And so would you bless our time

thinking about your word. We ask it in the name of Jesus,

Amen. OK.

So many, many years ago, I was thinking and praying about what,

what to preach on Mother's Day. And where I landed was I, I was

originally thought, well, I'll preach on biblical femininity.

And the concern was, as you know, sometimes when you see the

standard that God calls us to, and it's a really high standard,

there is no more important vocation in the history of

mankind than being a mother. I dare you to find one it it

doesn't exist. It's a very, very high calling.

And so I thought, man, if I, if I call robustly for what

biblical femininity is biblical motherhood is, I might bring

inadvertently a discouragement on Mother's Day.

And I don't want to do that. So on Mother's Day, I'll preach

at the men in an effort to give our mothers the gift of a

better, more sanctified, more Christ like husband, father and

such like that. And then on Father's Day, we'll

turn about his fair play. Good for the goose, good for the

gander. We'll talk to the ladies on

Father's Day. OK, so my, my desire today is to

talk to particularly the men of the congregation.

Doesn't mean you should check out if you're a lady.

It should mean you should you should be listening close to see

the type of things you ought to be praying for your husband,

praying for your father, praying for your future husband.

And also if you happen to be a wife in the congregation.

That these are the types of things that when you see even an

inkling towards these things in your husband that you would tell

him so that you would put your arm around him and say thank you

for these things. I see what God is doing and help

him to see that because the reality is a lot of us are going

to see these things and think, oh, like, I wish it were me help

him to see these things. OK, so a wise man once said that

we all of us, we kind of see our lives as a movie and that we are

the, the A Lister actor in the movie.

We're the we're the we're the lead in the movie.

And the the problem with that is when we when we see our lives as

a movie that everything revolves around us.

So congratulations everybody. You guys are cameo extras in my

life movie. Congratulations.

Doesn't that just edify us? All right.

The problem with that is when we see our lives as a movie and us

as the main character, we could really discourage because if we

were honest and you saw yourself as a character, the center of a

movie, you would either be despaired because it's like,

man, this guy stinks, or yeah, you, you would, you would be

despairing because your your character is not what you want

it to be, or you would just be frankly bored.

It would be like, I don't, I don't want to watch this movie.

He's doing the same thing again and again and again.

And it would be discouraging. Now if you if you flip that

script, though, and say, maybe if your life is just as a

metaphor, your life is is a movie, but you're not the main

character. Maybe your job is to be the cool

cameo here for just a blip on the screen of someone else's

movie, which are always the most fun when you see people you love

as a cameo. You're like, Oh my gosh, that's

the guy from whatever. Well, this man said we need to

start seeing our own our own lives as like we want to devote

our lives to be the the really significant influence in the

hero of the stories life in the first like chapter or two.

That's what we want to be as we want to be people who who

influence those around us, those that are going to come after us.

So that 100 years from now, 50 years from now, someone who's

leading, someone who's bearing fruit in the world will say,

men, if I had to look back and think back about how I became

the man that I became or how I became the woman I became, that

they would look back on you and God's grace to them through you

and say they had a they were just really significant in a

turning point in my life. And so that's what I want to

think with you on this morning from Proverbs 13 again, Proverbs

1322, listen to these words. A good man leaves an inheritance

to his children's children. A good man leaves an inheritance

to his children's children. Now let me give you a warning

before we labor through this. The warning is when we, those of

us who believe God's Word, and all of us do, when we hear a

good man leaves an inheritance not just to his kids, but to his

children's children, here's what we, here's what we tend to do.

We will, we will say, OK, well then I want to rate my goodness

as a man because a good man leaves an inheritance to his

children's children. So to rate my goodness as a man,

what I'm going to do is get a blank sheet of paper, put

liabilities on this side and assets on this side and compare

those numbers. And whatever that number is that

comes out, that's my rating, that's my goodness rating.

And so if it's like all black and there's a whole bunch of

zeros, I feel like I'm great. If it's all red and a whole

bunch of zeros, I feel like I'm, I'm failing.

That is a terrible, terrible way to look at this text.

OK. It is your, your goodness as a

man. The inheritance that you leave

to your children's children is not just a financial

inheritance. I don't know if you guys know

saw this, but years ago when Jimmie Johnson got elected to

the the NFL Hall of Fame, all of these grown men, it's the, it's

the monsters, the greatest monsters in the world, right?

They're the toughest men in the world.

And they see their coach go into the Hall of Fame and they're all

weeping. They're all happy.

His ex-wife is there, their sons are there.

And he gets up and he starts talking about how his life as a

as a football player, he was a national championship.

He was a great player on the national championship team at

Arkansas. Then he went on to win to win

the national championship in Miami.

Then he goes on to win 2 Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys.

And he gets into the to the to the Hall of Fame, the NFL Hall

of Fame. And as he was talking about all

of these things, you would think, right, Jimmie Johnson,

like any, any, all of his sons with the last name of Johnson

say, yeah, my dad is that guy. My dad is Jimmie Johnson and

everybody knows him. And as he's talking about his

his induction into the end of the Hall of Fame, one of the

first things he did is to to apologize to his ex-wife and to

his children. Because he said I was, I was so

hell bent on getting here that I was willing to sacrifice you for

me. And so he was like, I, I never

missed, even if I was sick, I was watching film on our next

opponent. I never saw my son throw a

football in a football game. I never got to go into the

actual football game and see and see my son.

So he's got all sorts of wealth and honor and fame to pass on to

his kids, but they would trade it in a heartbeat for just

having had their their dad around.

So your legacy to your children is not just a financial legacy.

So what I want to do is I want to think of about seven ways

that we leave an inheritance for for our children and for our

wives. And again, the the whole scheme

is that we would not that we would honor God as as men, as

husbands, as as fathers, and that we would give our wives the

gift of a husband that is aiming at these things with his life.

OK. So first of all, that we would

aim at giving a covenantal inheritance to our children and

to our children's children, a covenantal inheritance.

So by God's grace, by God's covenant keeping grace, this is

the inheritance of a Christian man who has built his house upon

the rock, a Christian man who says, Lord, I want to, I want to

get married, I want to have children.

I want to build everything on the foundation of the Lordship

of Christ and loyalty to Him, and I want to, I want your

covenant keeping grace to be on me and on my people forever.

OK, so the covenant promise of God is promised to 1000

generations. I want you to listen to this.

This is Deuteronomy 7. The Lord says to his people, you

are a people holy to the Lord your God.

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured

possession out of all the people who are on the face of the

earth. Now let me just pause and remind

you, Simon Peter. And first Peter takes these very

verses and says it to a bunch of Gentile Christians.

But this is you. This is your inheritance because

of your relationship to Christ, that out of all the peoples, you

are a chosen race of royal priesthood.

You are a people for listen to this, for God's treasured

possession out of all the people in the face of the earth.

That's you and that's me. Peter says it was not.

Now this is humbling. We don't want to see this, but

it's there. It is not because you were more

in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on

you and chose you for you were the fewest of all the people.

Why did God love me? It's because I'm so handsome and

I'm so great. No, no, why?

Why did he love them? But it's not because you were

the most, but it is because the Lord loves you that watch this.

He is keeping the oath that he swore to your father's that the

Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you

from the House of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of

Egypt. And then he gives this

imperative command like you need to remember that it wasn't you.

It's not your love ability. It's the covenant keeping God.

He promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and therefore you saw

his mercy on you. And so Moses says in Deuteronomy

7. Know therefore that the Lord

your God is the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast

love with those who love Him and keep His commandments.

Listen to me to 1000 generation, think about how precious that

would be. If God comes to me and says Will

Martin I knew you before the foundation of the world and I I

covenant myself to you, I will be gone to you forever.

That would be the an amazing promise.

But if I am worth half of a turd, what am I going to say to

God when I'm married and I have 8 souls that have come from my

loins? God, thank you for being my God.

What about my people? Is there any hope for them?

That's the promise of the old and the new covenants that that

is realized in Christ, that God promises to be God to us and to

our offspring for 1000 generations.

This, brothers and sisters, is where we get the notion of

infant baptism, right? So we have, we have this idea

that that in the Old Testament you would ask who was

circumcised? And in the old covenant there

were two types of people that were circumcised.

There were children physically born in inside the covenant,

born 2 covenant members. They were circumcised

immediately. And then you had this open

invitation to any stranger who wanted to come in.

If you want to come in and be a part of the covenant community,

you believe that God is God and you come into the community and

then you're circumcised. And then there's one rule for

everybody. And it's the same in the new

covenant that we baptize, we put children of Christians into the

covenant when they're born, we baptize them and we, we put them

in, in the covenant of the covenant community.

And we welcome outsiders who've never known Christ to believe in

him and be baptized. And so this, this idea of a, of

a covenant tool, a covenantal inheritance that we're passing

on to our children and to their children that we're putting the

name of the triune God on them before they ever knew that he

was around, because God intends to be their God.

And so I'll just say this as well in passing, and it's, it's

really helpful. Think about for a moment, think

about the difference between the old and new covenants, the new

covenant that the New Testament says repeatedly that we have a

better we have it better than the old system.

Would you guys yes and Amen that does anybody want to go back to,

to blood and goats and calves and all that stuff or do we have

enough in Christ? Christ is very much better.

OK, better covenant built on better promises with better

oaths the the book of Hebrews tells us.

And so let me ask you something. Let's say you had a health

insurance program that cost you quite a bit, but it was really

good coverage and it, it covered you, your wife covered your,

your children and it's, it was really expensive.

It was really costly. It was all you can do to pay for

it. But everything, everything is,

it's covered. It's great insurance, you know,

really small deductible, really small copay, all of those.

And then your insurance agent comes to you one day and he

says, listen, I've got great news.

I've got a better system for you.

This system is going to be all the coverage that you've ever

had before, but it's going to be free to you.

There's no co-pay. There's there's nothing annexed

to you. There's no there's no

deductible. It's just everything is free and

it's all yours. Isn't that a great deal?

And you would say, man, that's amazing.

And then he says, but here's the catch.

The in the in the in the old system included your children.

This one does not. So it's all free to you, but

your kids are now not covered, you would say.

In what possible world is that a better covenant?

Is that a better insurance program?

Well, when the new covenant comes to us, it is given to us

and to our children. That's what Peter says at the

very first Christian sermon to Christian people.

Repent to be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.

You will receive the Holy Spirit.

The promise is for you and for your offspring and for as many

as the Lord will call to himself.

And so they understood and we understand a covenant

continuity. And This is why we baptize our

children. And so gentlemen, we need to

think in terms of the covenant succession of God to his

faithfulness to, to us and to our children to 1000

generations. I was thinking about this this

week and I'm, I'm glad my dad is not here because it would be

hard for me to talk about it. But my, my parents got a divorce

when I was in 3rd or 4th grade and there's a lot about my

upbringing that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

OK, so some, some things were, were not great, but I want you

to understand that I am the, the reason I love Christ, the reason

I love God's word, the reason I've, I've devoted my life to,

to, to teaching and explaining God's word is directly because

of my dad. I got no, no money from my dad.

But when my parents got a divorce, he moved to Bonham,

mom's in Denton. And so when they would drive

halfway and hand me off in the worst place in the world, I wish

I could burn it to the ground, but it's Jack in the crack in

McKinney. It's jack-in-the-box in

McKinney. That's where we would, we would

drive up and my dad, whom I love, would be with me in one

car. And my mom, whom I love, would

be in another car and I would get out and I would go get in

the car and they couldn't talk to each other because it had all

fallen apart. And it was just no, no child

should see that. And it's hot.

But as hard as that was on those drives, it's one of the greatest

childhood memories that I, that I have that I can, that I can go

back to is being in the car with my dad and saying, Hey, tell me

a story. And he would say, do you want a

football story or do you want a Bible story?

And it was almost always no, tell me a Bible story.

And he would just pour the scriptures into me and I from

from as early as I can possibly remember, I just loved God's

word and it and it was not despite my dad.

It was because of him. That is a covenant inheritance

that is mine. And so if God if God gave me the

opportunity, look, I'll rewind and I'll give you door a you you

will come to know Christ later in life, but you won't know

anything about the word. You won't have been raised on

the things of God, but from your dad you'll get a billion dollars

cash. Or you can just go back and redo

and get a love for God's word, a love for Christ.

When you were tiny, which would you choose?

I would not have to hesitate for a moment.

He gave me a much greater inheritance by giving me a love

for the Word of God than any finances he could have ever

bestowed upon me. And so, brothers, you give your

children and your children's children a spiritual inheritance

by being in a covenant with Christ, by honoring him as Lord.

And so man, for the sake of your for the sake of your children's

children, trust the Lord, honor him, obey him, grow in the

knowledge and obedience to his word and pass that central

passion onto your children. And your children's children

will reap a reward because God has promised and he will keep

his word. And I would just say, man, we

we're in this sweet moment in our church where we can look

around and like some of you are like coming into those the

beginnings of the grandparent years.

And you we get to see, you might not see it, maybe you do, but we

get to see the covenant legacy of God's grace upon your

children and their children. And it's just beautiful.

Shoot for that, brothers. OK, Second kind of inheritance

is a relational inheritance. OK, so let me ask you.

And again, don't get discouraged.

Just like allow. Allow the Lord to to to invite

an examination of your home. How is the atmosphere of your

home? Is your home a place of like of

of like grinding stress where there's attitudes and and mom

and dad are not on the same page where where everybody's

frustrated? We Roy read you from from the

book of Colossians like the the command to husbands is to love

our wives and to not be harsh with them.

And so brothers, are you being are you being tender with your

wife? Are you being loving with your

wife? You can be tough for your wife.

Scratch that, you must be tough for your wife.

But are you being harsh with her or are you being tender?

Are you being kind with her? Do your kids get to see you

flirt with her, open her door, compliment her, take care of

her? Or do they always hear you being

harsh with her? Second, from from Colossians,

don't exasperate your children, Christian men, we are bad about

this. And listen, it takes one to no

one, OK? Requiring things of my children

that I want for them because I know it would be good for them,

but things that I don't do well, right?

How is that for an exasperation? Stop yelling at each other,

right? You just can't do that.

It doesn't work. It's exasperating.

So your marriage first, that your children second, just

thinking about the atmosphere of your home.

And then and then just generally when when people come into your

home, is there the aroma of Christ, is it able to be

discerned in your home? And praise God, a lot of us,

most of us are, are there. I can't, I can't think of a

single instance where I came into one of your homes and I

thought, oh man, this place is like terrible.

There's there's always this, this Christ centered unity

there. OK, so how do you talk about

husbands wives? How do you talk about each other

in your home? And I'm just this is a

parentheses. I know I'm coming at the guys,

but I want to say this to wives. Somebody said this to me the

other day. It was it was profoundly wise

that sometimes wives when, when, when a couple gets married early

on, that's where they form their best habits and their worst

habits. And one of the worst habits that

wives will will with a good intention will inadvertently

fall into is that they will, they will convince themselves

that like they look at their their husband and they say, man,

he's got two or three things that he does really well that

I'm so grateful for. And then he's got about 29

things that just really stink that he really needs to grow up.

He really needs to quit being a turd.

He really needs to get this stuff together.

And wives will start to think, especially young ones, But then

it becomes a habit. They'll think that, look, if I,

if I thank him for working hard to provide for us, what he's

going to think is that I've signed off on all of his vices.

If I praise his virtue, it he's going to interpret that as like,

hey, all of your vices are like no big deal.

And so they withhold any gratitude, withhold any praise.

And so husband just says, man, I'm, I'm doing the best I can

and I get like no feedback, no gratitude from my bride.

Again, a wise man once said that a husband slouches towards

criticism, but he will rise up to affirmation.

And so so wives, are your children hearing you speak about

your husband in an honoring way? Do they get are you giving them

that legacy of like men? Every, every time my mom opened

her mouth, it was to praise my dad.

There's been two or three times in the in our school where like,

I'll pepper kids with questions behind a pulpit.

And then on occasion I'll stick the ladies, Kelsey and Laura and

Gracie up behind the pulpit and I'll pepper them with a

question. And it'll always be something

like, you know, if you could change one thing or whatever.

And all of them are like, they go back and speak as though

their husbands are the standard of all human goodness.

And it's beautiful. It's beautiful.

And their kids get that repetition of like, man, my mom

thinks my dad is the cat's pajamas and it's amazing.

So husbands, do your do your children.

So wives, do your children hear you speaking well of your

husband and to your husband? Husbands, how how are we

treating our children and our wife?

Are we setting a good example there?

Listen to me, brothers again, your marriage is this important

because it's a lived parable of the relationship between Christ

and his church. And the people that most need to

see that message preached truly are your own kids.

Kids need to grow up in a home where where the, the husband

reeks of Christ and the wife reeks of the church.

And they just are on the same page.

And again, I hope you understand I'm preaching to the choir.

I, I feel like I know that none of us are perfect, but, but I

see this worked out in so many of your families and homes.

And it's, it's a treasure. So thirdly, you can leave your

children a theological inheritance, a theological

inheritance. And please don't think in terms

of systematic theology. It doesn't matter if you ever

talk about the transcendence of God and the imminence of God or

the omnipresence of God. That doesn't matter that you use

those words. What matters is that it's there.

What matters is that you, you demonstrate to your children

that you have a personal God. You delight in his sovereignty,

you delight in his Tri unity, you delight in his covenantal

care for for yourself and for them.

You delight in his wisdom, you delight in his goodness.

There's a theological inheritance is optimism about

the world and the things have gone.

So you think about this when you follow and when you when you

spend time with the Martin kids, you will hear them singing

Psalms. You'll hear them talking about

great reads and you'll hear them cussing taxes.

That's what you'll hear from Martin family.

And there might be a good reason for that, right?

Because they picked that up. They picked that up from me.

Would that they I hope they do. I hope they pick it up for me

that there's a that there's a consistent imperfect desire to

just live in the presence and in the power of the Lord that when

when I'm coming up insufficient for something that I would stop

and pray aloud so that they get to hear those things.

So brothers, this is the theological inheritance.

Don't be some Armenian whack job that that that paints the

picture of God as a distant Father in heaven who's just sort

of watching you do the rat race and waiting to ZAP you when you

take the wrong turn. No, God is with you that he's

near, He's sovereign, He's guiding, He's instructing, He's

close, He loves. Trust God's promises to you and

then start living like they are true.

And as you try and seek to leave a theological inheritance to

your children, I would just challenge you to ponder a new

what the Almighty can do if with His love, He befriends you.

What would it look like to be a friend of God in front of your

wife and in front of your children?

Beautiful. Fourthly, leave them an

ecclesiastical inheritance. And again, I'm preaching to the

choir. Think about the type of church

that you go to is, are are you going to A to a church that

wants more than anything to exalt the name of Christ, to

preach the standard of God's word so that we can all repent

and be and be be transitioned to that standard?

Are we going to a church where the, the people in leadership

are the type of people we want our, our daughters to marry, we

want our sons to be like, Or is it like, are we going to the

type of church that just always tells us what we want to hear,

that always wants to, to make us comfortable and never wants to

challenge us on anything, never wants to disagree.

The, the type of church that you go to really matters.

And then listen, the, the, the way that you go to that church

really matters. We, we are a very simple church.

We get together basically consistently once a week.

And so and, and that's on purpose.

We don't want you to be here at the church building seven days a

week. We had a season of that early on

and it was not very fruitful. We want you to, we want to

gather together and worship and renew the covenant with God.

And then we want to scatter. And so any involvement in the

families of the church is going to be like kind of on us to, to,

to, to pursue. And so we need to be, we need to

be demonstrating that to our children that we have a, that we

have a covenantal ownership of the body of Christ.

And so I was trying to think about a good way to articulate

this. And I was, I was telling Scott

like right before he, he said, and then our, our church is

growing and praise God, it is. And I saw, I saw some pictures

the other day of the, of the renovation of our sanctuary,

right? And it was awesome because like

there's pictures of virtually everybody in our church at the

time doing, you know, doing work.

And, and I, there's a, there's an overwhelming absence of my

presence there. I was just like not, not a, not

a part of it, but and, and, and didn't even see what all you, oh

man, they showed up and stand before I didn't even know.

That's amazing. And so you, you watch, you watch

all of that. And, and I was telling Scott

like in one of those pictures, there's a picture of our worship

service when we used to be, you know, more lightly attended.

And then it was an off Sunday for that.

And it was just like, they were like 8 of us here.

That's what I felt like. OK, But but here's what's here's

what's marvelous. It's like those those that were

here had this idea of a family involvement in the church that

like good or bad, we're just here, this is our this is our

place. And, and what's really, what's

really interesting is I remember when, when Cody and Rimley and I

can't remember what stage of his, of his, you know, doctoral

program he was in, but he had an option to go.

Like he had an option to, I could go here, I could go here.

And I was asking him when he came, like, what are you

thinking? And what was so cool is he was

like, well, we're just really involved in our church here.

And so we're going to go, do you guys remember this where he's

like, we just man, we love the community here.

And so we're going to, we're going to be here.

It was like, who, who? What a strange and glorious

thing, right? To say we're in a culture where

any of us say, hey, we got a, we got a we got to pick up roots

and we got to move to where the work is.

Nobody bats an eye at that. But it's rare to have somebody

say, you know, we're going to be here because of our involvement

in the church here. And I think again, it's that

legacy. It's like what they grew up

with, right? We just were a part of, we're a

part of the church and it's beautiful.

And so I might ask, where in the world did Cody get that

mentality? And we know ecclesiastical

inheritance 5th is a political inheritance.

Notice it's on the 5th. It's not.

This is not top of all things, right?

This is not the most important thing.

This is not where we should start.

But listen to me. Faithfulness will always, always

land here. It'll impact this eventually.

So September 17th, 1787, when the Constitution was ratified,

the story goes that Ben Franklin steps out of the meeting and a

lady who I think was very famous, I always heard it as a

story of just some some rando lady who asked a great question

like man, how did she have that one loaded?

But she was very sharp. She was very well known.

And she yells out, well doctor, what do we have?

A Republic or a monarchy? And Ben Franklin chuckled and he

said, and I quote, a Republic, if you can keep it, you've got a

great form of government, the best form of government

available to sinners, if you can keep it.

And that's a big if. Like can we guard the things

that that are part of our political inheritance from our

forefathers and can we guard them so that we can pass them

on? So there are a couple guys

running local guys that are running for office 1 for, for

state, state Congress and then one for county judge.

And we were talking to the county judge candidate about

he's, he was a army. What are those things?

Chopper, chopper pilot. He was talking about how he got

into politics. He said I had no intention to

run, but Goosky Eastman, the guy running for for Congress, he

said he we were talking and I was lamenting the leaders that

we have and Goose Gisman told Mr. Holman, He said, hey, if

only idiots and evil men will run for office, then your

children will be governed by idiots and evil men.

That's a pretty great way to look at it.

Like if the only people that will run are idiots and evil

men, then that's all we're ever going to have.

And so part of faithful Christian men throughout

history, part of that has been this reluctant but willing idea

that, you know, we we really should stand up and take

responsibility for political evils, especially in our local

area. And so one of the, one of the

reasons our country is the way it is, is that good men have not

thought, thought deeply about political inheritance that

they've received and the one that they owe to their, to their

children's children. And so we need to resurrect this

idea that we're supposed to count.

And what we're doing now, it really does impact that whole

$90,000,000 bond thing from LaGrange ISD.

That was, you know, we're all talking about like, we, we got

it, we got to bless the children.

Our children are the future. And it's like you're talking

about saddling them with debt for, for 30 years, they're going

to be grandparents before they pay it off.

That's not, that's not forward thinking.

OK, so, so let me just briefly say abortion has to end for the

sake of a political inheritance that we could pass on.

And we can't make all abortion in the whole world.

We will one day because Christ is Lord and he's going to bring

his Lordship everywhere. But we could absolutely start at

home and make sure that in our county and in our state that

this evil cannot be done. We need to make sure that

property tax ends in our state. And I know that's a huge ask,

but as Roy told us before he prayed for us, God is more

willing to give us big things than we are willing to ask for

big things. But property tax has to die

precisely because that is a sin against the inheritance that

we're giving to our children's children, right?

The, the, the property that God gives men belongs to men, not to

governments, not to states. And so there's all sorts of

biblical taxation that is fitting, that is OK.

That we should pay and gladly pay the property tax is not one

of them. We should fight that staunchly.

We should fight state-run education staunchly.

All of these things have brought about the apostasy of nearly 8

of 10 children raised in Christian homes.

That has to end, right? The, the statistics are out.

It's, it's between 70 and 80% of Christian, of Christian kids

punt the faith two years after leaving home for college.

And so we would ask whose job is it to fix all these things when

we are a Republic, We're a Republic as long as we can keep

it. Whose job?

Well, it's our job. It's our job.

And if we don't do it, it ain't going to get done.

I heard a a man preaching to Eli's, the students at Eli's

college. And he was talking about these

very things, the Constitution. And he said, listen, guys, if

you don't knuckle down and study here, nobody's going to do this.

Nobody is requiring even just a cursory reading of the

Constitution anymore. And so if you guys don't do it,

if y'all don't endeavor to rebuild what we have lost, it's

not going to get done. So we are Christian men.

Our job is to disciple the nations so that we can leave our

children a political inheritance.

I have two more and I'm almost done.

Sixthly, we need to leave our children an economic

inheritance. And again, it's not just the

dollar sign that's it's the, it's a bad way to look at it.

We need to leave them things like a cheerful and a diligent

work ethic that we would understand and teach our

children that work existed before sin into the world,

right? Not that life in the garden was

just a continual Sandals resort, right?

Where it's all inclusive and you don't have to do anything.

You just lay there in the hammock and as the man said,

drink your Mai tais. No, they had to be fruitful,

fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion, right.

And so teaching our our children that that they're to have a

cheerful and a diligent work ethic.

So I am in the next couple of weeks, I'm about to get

hopefully my first daughter-in-law.

And I say hopefully it's going to go through.

She's obligated. She can't get out of it.

Now I'm saying hopefully in that Judah finds one that's as

awesome as Grace's. But I asked her one time try to

put her on the spot because I think the world of her dad and I

just like I keep waiting for the shoe to fall.

Like where where's the chink? Like where is he?

Where is he? Where's he hiding all of his

sin? So I'm like, Hey, tell, tell me

about your dad and I I wasn't asking about his his vices.

I was asking about his virtues. I said, you know, what do you I

think the question, if I remember right, I asked her,

what virtue have you seen in your dad?

Have you grown up with that? You hope Eli bears well?

And she thought for a moment and she said, I have and I quote, I

have never heard my father complain about work, not one day

in his life. Now that's wild to me because

work is the work, right? I mean, like he he's but he's

never complained about work. And so Lord willing that that

woman who grew up in that home with that man, seeing him never

complain about work is going to is going to be raising up humans

that will call me grandpa. And she's going to be telling

them, Hey, when you when you bellyache about work, you're not

being like your grandpa Roy. That ain't, that ain't going to

fly, right? It's a, it's a, it's an

inheritance, it's an economic inheritance, this idea of, of

the preciousness, the God glorifying aspect of work, it's

talents and it's tools, right? It's like, what, what do you,

what do you teach your kids how to do?

What kind of tools have you have you given them?

And so again, like there there are especially I said at the

beginning, we're in this sweet spot in our, in our church where

we're seeing the, the kids that that used to be in diapers and

we get to see them rising up and, and bearing and bearing

fruit, the real good fruit. And so just, I mean, I, the, the

list could go on and I'm not going to keep you long.

But we had, we had Joe Sampson came in and fixed our red truck

the other day. The other the other week it

broke again, by the way. So but but it, he did fix it.

He did figure it out and fix it. And then Josh and Justin and Joe

and Braden and, and I'm not even sure who else came, but they

came over and they were working on my on my tractor.

And they did, they did get the weed eater going and tractor

parts are, are on order. But you just, you look at, you

look at the, the, yeah, just that idea of, of a, of a work

ethic that you see and the, and the kids.

And that is a real, that is a real inheritance.

The the idea of imagination and longing and an entrepreneurial

spirit that like, we want to, we want to count, we want to put

our hands to work and we want to, we want to earn, we want to

build families. We want to build, Yeah, an

economic inheritance. And so those are those are part

of what it means to leave as a good man, to leave an

inheritance to his children's children.

And lastly, and I'm done with this, a Sacramento inheritance,

that we are a church that is built upon the rock of the

covenant whose name is Christ. And if we let Christ speak for

Christ, we will, we will hear him say like in Mark 10 when

Jesus saw it, he was indignant and he said to them, let the

children come to me, do not hinder that word.

For hinder means do not lop, do not clip, do not prune, do not

prevent, do not cut off. Don't cut them off.

Those children don't cut them off, do not hinder them, for to

such belongs the Kingdom of God. Wise men once said that children

are faith factories. They trust the word of their

betters and they pick up on things really quickly.

In the old covenant, children receive circumcision and they

partook of the covenant sacrificial food.

So why then, why then do we get the get to the new covenant,

which is broader, which is more inclusive, which is so much

better, and somehow think that things have changed.

There is explicit command from the Lord not to hinder the

children, but to let them come. And without a shred of biblical

evidence, we somehow think that we should withhold them from

baptism or from the Lord's table.

And listen, I'm, I'm, I'm this was, this is my view for a very

long time. Took me a really long time to

see it, but I'm telling you, once you see it, you can Unsee

it. And, and you realize how, how,

how wrong it is when, when we bring our children to church

and, and we sing with them and we pray with them and we, we

affirm them when they come and when they're joyful here.

But then when it comes to baptism or when it comes to the

Lord's Supper, we say, Hey, this is, this is not for you.

This is the very thing that unsettled me on that position is

Judah saying like, take me to the table.

And I'm like, no, come and welcome, welcome to Christ.

And my son says let me come. And I'm like, no.

And I remember sitting down like, alright Lord, you got it.

You got to show. You got to show me, 'cause I'm

really uncomfortable with this. So brothers, I love you.

Put your children in the covenant through baptism and

then welcome them to the table. Give them the inheritance that

Christ has commanded you to give them.

Baptism is first. Like circumcision, baptism is

first and then comes the table. But don't attempt to be more

holy than Christ. Raise them up in the faith and

they will not depart from it when they are grown.

This bread is the body of Christ, broken for you and for

your children. This cup is the blood of Christ

shed for you and for your children and for your children's

children to 1000 generations. The table is by the Spirit's

power working through faith, a real participation in Christ

together. So when you come here, you are

coming to Christ, and when you take and eat from this table,

you are receiving Christ himself in a mystery, and so are your

children. So come and welcome to Jesus

Christ. Let me pray for us, Father, we

we pray that we would be imitators of God.

Lord, you like the psalmist says the lines of my inheritance,

they have fallen to me in pleasant places.

Lord, you've chosen these things for us.

You have you are a God who gives an inheritance to your children,

your child who is Christ and then threw him to your

children's children to us to 1000 generations.

And Lord, we want to imitate that and we want to be a part of

a, part of your covenant, keeping grace to our, to our

children and to our children's children.

And so, Lord, we just in, in seeing these things and the

possibility and your intention in these things, my, my gut is

to say, man, I could never accomplish that.

And that's the point. We can't, but you've promised.

And so help us, Lord, to, to, to stand on those promises and to

act on those promises to live as though you are a covenant

keeping God. For you have always been and

ever will be a promise keeping covenant keeping God.

And so, Lord, I pray God, for the men in our church, that our

grandfathers and great grandfathers and and fathers and

future fathers, Lord, I pray that you would do everything

necessary in US so that as good men we could leave an

inheritance to our children's children for your glory and for

our joy. Lord, would you meet us at the

table? And would this be a table that

strengthens us in that endeavor? We ask it in your name.

Amen.