The End Game: Raising Children to Seek God’s Kingdom First

Pr Kevin Swanson
27-10-2018

Success is seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It is seeking the glory of God. Life is worship. We want to see our children glorifying God in all things, in all aspects of their lives.

Many people seek success in more narrow terms eg. successful homeschools, college, job, an opportunity to make money.

As parents, we need to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first, and all these things will be added unto us.

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The Kingdom of God is righteousness, joy and peace. It tends to be our relationship with God and our relationship with others and bearing out the righteousness of God in all various aspects of our lives.

So the Kingdom of God needs to be first and foremost in our minds. It is not about money. It is about our relationship with God and the inculcation of His principles into our lives where ever we go. It is also about replication. God has assigned to us the discipleship of the nations. That was Jesus' last commission to us. So let's be sure that that plays a part as well.


2 Timothy 2:2 English Standard Version (ESV)
2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men,[a] who will be able to teach others also.

Paul wanted Timothy to disciple others in order that they would be prepared to disciple others as well. There is this replication that is so essential in the Kingdom strategy.

The same thing applies to our children. God wants us to raise our children in the nurture and admiration of our Lord. And they need to be prepared to raise their children in the nurture and admiration of the Lord as well.

The basic need for every family is to raise up the children in the Lord.

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That's essential for the church as well. We're not going to have pastors for the church unless there are fathers who are shepherding their own families as well. If they don't, then they are not qualified to be elders in the church. The basic social programme for any church is to always begin at home. It always begins with the way we are nurturing our children. That family life is so essential.

If we set out to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first, those values are going to be above and beyond the other values that are always impinging on us. The world is always pressing on us to tie our children up to the next academic programme and to sign them up to extracurricular programmes and so forth. 

If our values are set by the Word of God, then our day, our schedules and priorities are set by those values as well. We're going to have time for family worship and time to go out and do some family evangelism on the streets. We're going to have an interest in disciplining others and the discipleship motive is going to be more central. We are going to have more focus on character than academics, for example. We're going to be more interested in our children's pursuance of their gifts in the church than we are in the pursuance of their gifts in other context. We are going to have priorities and our lives are going to look different. We are not going to emphasise on entertainment as much as the world does. We are not going to emphasise on economics and the money thing as much as the world does.

One of the reasons why we are going to be interested in family economies--that is having our children around and engaging in certain projects together as a family--is because we are going to want more opportunities to interact with our children and to disciple them as we walk by the walk as we rise up and as we like down.

God's principle of discipleship found in Deuteronomy 6, 7, 8 and 9 was displaced by all of these cultural systems and traditions of man that impinge upon our schedules and rearrange our priorities. As we receive the Word of God and realise that God wants us to prioritise the discipleship of our children, that's going to rearrange the way that we want to interact with our children in terms of how we do our entertainment and how we interact in church and how we interact in a work environment.

Go into the Word of God and identify the principles, values and vision that God has for our sons and daughters. What does God want for our children versus what the culture demands. That's going to rearrange the ways that we are going to want to educate and nurture our children. There isn't an egalitarian approach to the development of young men and women. God's Word brings out a different vision for our sons and daughters.

For example, raise our sons to be shepherds of their own families such that they would be prepared as fathers should be to raise up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We want our sons to be dominion takers and to be responsible for the material well-being of the home.

1 Timothy 5:8 English Standard Version (ESV)
8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

But if our young men are not raised with the concept that they will be the ones materially responsible for providing for the sustenance of their home, then they are probably not going to be ready to be married at 20 to 30 years of age. That's where we are today. Young men aren't prepared with the biblical vision in mind to be material providers for the home.

1 Timothy 2:8 English Standard Version (ESV)
8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling;

Our young men should be spiritual leaders in the home. So often in the communities of Christians we find that the women are the first ones to lift up their hands in worship and in prayer. Because we are not raising our sons in this way, we find that so many families are lacking in spiritual leadership. Train our young men at 16 or 18 years of age to be prepared to teach and to share the Word of God and to pray and to be the spiritual leaders in their groups so when they are married, they would be prepared to do just that. These are examples of how young men may be trained with the biblical vision in mind to be ready to lead in their homes.

1 Timothy 2 and 5, Titus 2 and Genesis 2 give a picture of what the normative role for young ladies to be as they are married, the Lord wants them to be a helper appropriate for their husbands like somebody ready to be an economic aid.

The egalitarian approach presents husbands and wives as an axe's head. The feminist approach is everybody's created for the same thing. That isn't true. Societies and economies are languishing now because young men aren't ready to be responsible for the material well-being of the home and young ladies are not being prepared to be suitable help mates for their husbands in the economic task. We need to recapture this. We need to encourage and envision the idea of being a helper appropriate for their husbands. Let's prepare them with the biblical vision in mind. The feminists, socialists, humanists don't have the right vision.

Titus 2 refers to the lady as the keeper at home or manager at home. That also involves the ability to oversee and manage, children, especially, but also household economy. The whole idea of household economy is lost in the modern world. People are thinking of individual economies.

Proverbs 31:11 says the heart of her husband trusts in her. It doesn't say the heart of her corporate boss trusts in her. So the household economy is really essential. We need to teach and prepare our daughters to be managers of the hosuehold economy, to be keepers of a home as well as helpers for their husbands. These are the sorts of things that the Bible presents as a vision for young women but have become largely lost in a total secularist, feminist, egalitarian culture.

1 Timothy 2 also touches on a meek and quiet spirit--a certain silence in the church--and a certain receptiveness to teaching and the importance of childbearing. All of them are rather offensive to the modern feminist mind but does God know more than feminists. We have to trust that God has a really neat vision in mind for our young ladies.

God wants our children to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first. He wants our children to be prepared according to this biblical vision we find throughout the Scriptures.

So many young people today lack that direction. They see themselves as cosmic dust floating around the universe of pure chance with no real meaning and purpose to life. We don't need to approach life that way at all. We know our purpose in life is to glorify God, to enjoy Him forever, to express our gratefulness to Him for the good gifts that He has given to us and to seek His Kingdom and His righteousness first.

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The world gets out of bed to make a buck, to play games, to escape and have a good time. But all of these is meaningless. It leaves them with a sense of purposelessness.

We get the ultimate purpose and the ultimate eternal and infinitely valuable purpose of all, and  that is, God has created us to be His vessels of honour and glory. Jesus has saved us and we can be His servants to pass His Word and the gospel on to others and we engage the ministry of ambassadorship and reconciliation for the heavenly country down here in the world. We have a reason for why we are here. We've got a purpose for life. Anything that a millennial generation needs right now is a sense of an absolute purpose--that God has created us for a valuable purpose and for an important reason. We live a significant life and He has an important task for us that will have an infinite and eternal implication.

Let's convey this tremendous vision for life to our young people.

It seems that oftentimes we lose the importance of the church. We don't see our children or even ourselves as an important part of the local body. But so much of the New Testament is dedicated to the part that we play in the body. Every joint supplies the necessary gifts in order for the entire body to be functioning and growing together in love.

All of these is such an important vision of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came to die for His church, to grow His church and to prepare His church for heaven. We lose the importance of the body, especially in modern lives in our all busyness and economic and family endeavours.

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Both the family and the church are critical. Both hinges on the other. We have to bring in the significance of the both of them and empower and encourage our children to be stronger in their family and church relationships. They are all important. Our children need to understand that they play a part in the church and they have gifts to share in the church. And the body absolutely needs them. We're only as strong as each of the members of the church. As we participate in the church, we need to be those that are in the Word and prayer ourselves in order that we might be able to contribute to the body and build up the body ourselves.

So on a Sunday morning, encourage our children to find out where they play in the church in edifying and encouraging brothers and sisters in the body. Start with the basic generic gifting. We are all to contribute love and prayer to the body. We are all to encourage and engage in one another. Let's start there. Eventually our kids will be able to identify where they can best fit.

Every child is different. Every family is different. They will begin to mature in their minds and spiritual lives and we can be the cheerleaders for that. Much of the giftings occur when we are together in prayer.

When we are talking about endgame, we are looking for fruit. As our children begin to demonstrate the fruit of love, joy, peace, long-suffering and the fruit of the Spirit, there is also the fruit of replication that God is looking for. There is a sense of completion as parents when they become those that begin to replicate and disciple their own disciples.

We need to introduce our children to Jesus ourselves. We need to reflect Jesus in ourselves. If you've been with Jesus, you've got the compassion of Jesus. If you've been with Jesus, you'd understand that a life is a life of faith. You've been walking out of boats, stepping on the water and walking across water. You've been studying Faith 101 all day. You're more interested in the life of prayer than you are in the life of algebra.

As the disciples were out there rowing their boat at sea, Jesus was up on the mountain praying. They'd never make it across the sea until Jesus made it back into the boat. Jesus made it into the boat and immediately they were at the shore. In other words, Jesus was more focused on prayer. Jesus was more focused on the life of faith.

The life of Christ is more of a life of dependence on Him, of realising that our lives are going to be more of those lives characterised by Mary and Martha. We're not going to be stressing out; we're going to be trusting in Christ. We're not going to panic when the storms hit and the waves rush over; we know that Jesus stills the storms and He's done it some many times in our lives before. We train out children in a life of faith. We don't train them in anxiety or panic; we train them in prayer and faith. If they'd been with Jesus, they'd know a life of compassion and they're involved in the lives of others.

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With Jesus, we're going to be persecuted for righteousness sake because Jesus was persecuted and He took it rightly and He took it the right kind of way. As parents, as we receive a little push back from relatives and as we receive a little persecution here and there, we respond with grace as Jesus responded with grace. We learn to be persecuted for righteousness sake as He was persecuted.

And we also serve as Jesus served. We wash each other's feet. Remember, a servant is not about his master. As we become more important in our economic ventures and as we become more important in the ministries where the church is, we need to become more of a servant and more like Christ. We need to be washing more of the feet of the saints even as Jesus did.

These are probably the best indications that we are the followers of the man from Galilee, the shepherd of Nazareth, the Son of God Himself who is our example, our prophet, our priest and our King. We follow in His footsteps and we reflect Jesus ourselves to our children. And if we do so, they will reflect Christ themselves.

Right now, more than any time in history, we want a faith continuity that can only come by being sure that the Word of God is at the front before our children's eyes. It's a completely Word integrated experience as our children are educated and discipled. We emphasise what Christ is doing above what the great dictators and great Caesars of the world had done. We think what Jesus has done in transforming the world was more important than Napoleon did in almost ruining the world.

Father in Heaven, You are powerful, sovereign God that has brought about a tremendous redemption through Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray for an application of that powerful redemption in the Holy Spirit working in our families' lives. We all deal with the problems of our sins and our children's sins and communication issues and all these things that sometimes tear us apart and bring us down. Father, we pray that by the power of the Risen Christ and His sacrifice on the cross and the work of the Holy Spirit that You would transform our lives and bring about miracles. You'd do something supernatural in our children's lives so that we see that they would become the disciplers of the nations themselves. Father, we pray that the endgame would happen in our families. The Kingdom of God would come about. We would seek Your Kingdom first. We would lift Your glory into Your enjoyment more and more. Father, we pray for multiple generations that multiple generations would be blessed with thousand generations because of the faith of this generation. Father, increase our faith, help us as we live by faith, as we teach by faith, as we disciple by faith, as we correct our children by faith. Increase our hope that You are the reward of those diligently seek You. Father, Your great salvation is there for us. We pray that we can remember that You can do above and beyond, exceedingly above all that we ask or think. Increase our prayer lives that we lead on on a daily basis by prayer. We pray that this discipleship that we bring to our families would be one of faith and prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.

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