Jani Ortlund: What an encouragement we’ve had so far, haven’t we!? Wow! Last night, this morning, my heart has been so lifted up in that wonderful truth that Heaven rules! And Heaven rules in each one of our families as well. I want you to see that.

I want to see that Heaven will rule in the legacy that you’re leaving, fearful though you may be that you may not be leaving the right sort of legacy. We’re gathered here today with a variety of needs, a variety of sorrows, a variety of desires and a variety of hopes.

Some of you may be single, some newly married, some grandmothers. We might have some brand-new mothers in here with babies in their arms. Some of you may be coming through those doors in the back with great heartache over a wandering child or a teen that might be gender confused. 

Wherever you are in your family life today, I want you to leave with your soul refreshed, because you will understand more deeply how Heaven rules in your personal family. I’m asking the Lord to refresh you, each one of you here today, in three ways.

I’m asking Him first of all, to refresh you with a cheerfulness, an awareness of how God desires to bless you. I’m asking Him to refresh you with a joyful eagerness to embrace three ways that you can begin living tomorrow when you go home with your family.

And then, thirdly, I’m asking Him to refresh you with a new desire to offer your family the best gift that any woman could ever leave her family! So let’s begin with: 

A Cheerful Awareness of How God Desires to Bless You and Your Family

You may not believe this, but you are a person of great significance! You might think, Oh, Nancy Wolgemuth . . . she’s a woman of great significance, but not me, little old me in my home. You might not see yourself the way God sees you.

This world trivializes us; this world wears us down every day. The messages coming through the cultural air we breathe make us feel small, anxious, inconsequential. But you—YOU—are unique! You are irreplaceable! Heaven is ruling in you and through you. You matter!

You matter today, and you will matter forever, because God created you with a purpose so big, only God Almighty could have dreamed it up! He prepared your very DNA over many generations for your time.

He arranged for you to be born in a certain place and at a particular time in history. He has invested in you every day along the way, both your joys and your sorrows, so that you can contribute to the better future that God Almighty is building through you. 

You are the only one on the face of the whole earth who can fulfill God’s mission for you. He has a plan, and His plan includes each one of us! He’s working that plan. In fact, Ephesians 1:11 says He “works all things according to the counsel of his will.” You are a part of that “all things.”

So you see why I’m so sure about this? Your life is not an accident. Your marriage is not a mistake. Your children are no accident . . . not even that surprise baby you hadn’t planned on. God has a beautiful and eternal purpose for your family. 

Here is why I am saying all of this: a great way that you can follow God’s plan is to build a legacy of faith that will endure into your family’s future long after you’re gone.

Now, for my husband Ray and me, this long-term thinking about our own family has been a change. Thinking out, oh maybe two weeks ahead, or maybe even two years ahead, well okay, we’ve done that before.

But thinking out decades ahead, centuries ahead? That was an unexplored thought. Here is what opened up that thought to us: several years ago I was reading in my Bible, just doing my morning devotions and enjoying my time with the Lord. I was just kind of minding my own business when suddenly something jumped off the page of Deuteronomy to me.

It was in Deuteronomy 23 that sparked this thought in my mind. It said, 

No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord. No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation. (vv. 2–3)

Whoa! I stopped reading there. It confused my view of God. I thought, Why should the generations suffer because their mama was an Ammonite or their daddy was a Moabite?Is generational exclusion even just? I had to ask myself that. 

And then I had to think, Well, if God’s Word is true and trustworthy, then I need to think this through. What insight could I draw from this little verse in Deuteronomy 23? Well, we do know this much: that Moses in Deuteronomy was preparing Israel for their future in the Promised Land. He knew they would be gathering all together for worship.

So, Moses explained who would be allowed in to worship the Lord God Almighty and who would be kept out. You see, no one can ever just barge into God’s presence, as if we’re all naturally qualified. Everyone needs the grace of Christ for sinners.

Whatever else is going on in the Old Testament passage, it prepares us for the New Testament's good news of the grace of Christ crucified. So even this verse could point ahead to Jesus Christ. Jesus can make anyone “kosher” before God. We see that in Acts 11 and Galatians 2.

As I kept pondering these verses in Deuteronomy 23, asking the Lord for help to see His heart more clearly, a new thought occurred to me: “If God excluded certain people to the tenth generation, how much more does He want to include people to the tenth generation?” How much more does God always long to bring blessing rather than a curse!

His eagerness to bless us is all throughout Scripture. His eagerness is all over the Bible; His eagerness to bless us! Let me read some verses to you; I’ll give you the references again. We won’t take time to look up all these verses. Just listen to the words “bless” and “blessing” in these verses.

Genesis 12:2, way in the beginning: “I will bless you.”

Numbers 6:23–24: “You shall say to them, ‘The Lord bless you and keep you.’”

Deuteronomy 23:5 (that same chapter that I was reading in that morning) says this, “. . . instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you.”

Deuteronomy 28:2, “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you.” Don’t you love that? So many that they just roll over on us!

Nehemiah 13:2: “. . . yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.” 

Psalm 109:28: “Let them curse, but you will bless!”

Proverbs 28:20: “A faithful man will abound [in] blessings.”

Galatians 3:14: “. . . so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”

Ephesians 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”

The list could go on! We don’t have time to keep reading, but oh my goodness, blessing is all over the Scripture, much more than curses! The whole Bible keeps emphasizing the blessings of God freely given through Jesus Christ who we receive with the empty hands of faith! 

Our friend, Sam Alberry, was talking with us about this recently. He noted that God is disproportionately toward blessing over cursing. In a sense, God is asymmetrical in kindness over discipline. 

When we receive Christ, we’re repositioned for historic and eternal blessings from God Almighty! Do you believe that? Do you receive that? Ray and I began to think that through as a couple. It was really encouraging to us! What about us as a family?

If God excluded, say, the Ammonite people back then, how much more . . . Did you notice in some of the verses that I read some of the words: “abound with blessing, every spiritual blessing.” How much more would God joyfully be willing to bless our family today through Christ? Even to the tenth generation. That thought thrills us!

The generational blessing of God just stretching out over our family into the distant future left us almost breathless! We started daring to think about our family beyond our children and our grandchildren. We talked it through. 

So, if a generation comes of age about every twenty years, then it looks like the Lord is encouraging us to think out, oh maybe, about two hundred years into the future. We have been prepared by God for this purpose! You have, too.

So let’s accept the responsibility by grace to be flow-throughable as parents, as grandparents, as Sunday school teachers, as aunts, as neighbors, as teachers.nThat the Lord might set our families apart to Himself over the next two hundred years . . . and beyond!!

By God’s grace we can, and we must, think “future.” Let’s be women who think beyond today! All those precious people who will appear in this world according to God’s plan and through our marriages will be facing unimaginable challenges! They deserve, and they will need, the best that we can send on ahead. You see why I say you really are a person of historic significance? It changes how we all do family right now. It expands our categories.

For example, Ray and I have started to pray in a bolder way. Maybe you’ll join me in this prayer. Now we pray that the Lord would bless our family by setting each family member apart to Christ, not one excluded but all included in the family of God, with wholehearted devotion to Him.

Our audacious prayer lately has been that the whole world would hear about Jesus through our family! Is that crazy? Well, maybe . . . but maybe not! I believe the really crazy prayers are the small ones. We belong to a big God! Why not pray big prayers about our families?

Now, let me be clear: don’t think that when we pray that Ray and I are, and you should, ask God for an ideal or perfect family. No, we just want a saved family, a family who knows they’re sinners, who know they need Jesus, and they look to Him for their salvation, no one or nothing else.

And it’s through fallible, but saved, people that the whole world will hear about Jesus. Does He have any other kind of people to work with? We believe it is God’s desire to bless His people, so we pray these big prayers for our little Ortlunds. We pray for them every day. You can, too! 

This is God’s big, kind heart to bless our family, to bless your family, to bless any family that turns to Him. Acts 2:39 puts it this way: “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off [“to the tenth generation!”] everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.” So we pray, “Do it, Lord! Every member of our family called to Yourself, please!”

We have found that this way of thinking and praying and dreaming and caring for our family is thrilling . . . and sobering . . . and stretching! Often in our daily lives, our simple family rhythms rarely seem impressive. Our routines are so familiar, repetitive, non-dramatic. 

Why not leave this conference daring to believe that the future of the world is being shaped in our homes through all those unimpressive details? The truth is, nothing—however simple—goes unused by God. “. . . him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). He uses even the unimpressive details we have to deal with every day.

God loves to tell family stories that will matter for a long time, even to the tenth generation. Ray and I find that this long-term family vision fills our hearts, it raises our standards. It reminds us that the family God has given us is worthy of our all for the glory of Jesus. And, so is yours.

Now this breakout session is not a family management guide, nor a list of handy tips. So, if you want to get up and go to another breakout now, I understand. I do hope you’ll gain a few insights for guiding your family into their Christ-centered purpose, but I cannot offer you a fail-safe plan, because there is not one, at least not for your family’s amazingness.

God is not into grandiosity of any kind, but He does give grace to the humble in the ordinary lives that we daily live. So as we humble ourselves before Him, we can pray this. Think of this breakout more as an investment proposal. I believe your family can live together now in such a way as to build a lasting legacy into the future. There are no guarantees, but there are plenty of investment opportunities.

God has given us a great power for good: they’re called “families.” He has positioned you in your particular family for their long-term advantage and for your joy and Christ’s glory. You might feel small, as I often do. You might feel defeated, as I do at times. Oh, those day-to-day routines, they wear us down.

But the truth is, we do matter, and we will matter two hundred years from now as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ. So the first point I’m asking you to embrace is this: God desires to bless you and your family. It is God’s heart to bless you and your family!

Our generation is not a lost cause! You cannot control your family’s future, but you can invest in it in ways that can still be making a difference ten generations from now, and even beyond that, because God desires to bless your family.

Well, you might be asking, “What does it look like now to live with the future generations in mind?” So let me get a little more practical here, okay? Let me offer you:

 Three Ways That You Can Live Today Offering Your Family Hope for the Future

1. The first is by setting a gospel tone in your home. 
2. The second is through the attractive beauty of marriage: yours and other marriages.
3. The third is through your children’s cheerful obedience. 

We’re going to talk about those three points. There are many we could talk about, but these are the three the Lord seemed to set on my heart to share with you. Let me gently help you refuse to “settle,” but instead encourage you to reach for your enduring greatness in Christ. He will help you to pour wisely into your family with a commitment that will matter.

Let’s envision together the simple daily life of a home where the love of Jesus feels natural. Let’s think through three winsome, practical ways to build a family of generational faith.

The first, let the gospel set the tone in your home. I’m asking you to believe in the God who loves to save families. Is that hard for you? Maybe it feels impossible in your family with the way things are going today. 

Cry out to Jesus as that father did when he brought his little boy to him in Mark chapter 9: “Oh, Lord, I do believe, but help my unbelief!” (see v. 24). We can all cry that out to our Lord and Savior. Help the Bible become the center of your home, the most important possession in your household.

What does the Bible mean to you personally? Do the other family members see you treasuring it, reading it, learning it, meditating on it? (Didn’t you love how Dannah helped us learn to do that this morning in her walks? I love that!)

Can you bring it into your daily life in meaningful ways? Do your children and your guests see it written, framed, on the walls of your home? How is your Bible honored? How do your kids treat their Bibles? Do they just toss them on a chair or pile other things on top of them? Do you treasure the Bible in your home, and do others see that it is a treasure?

Teach your children from the Bible. I want to encourage you to have family devotions as often as is reasonable. “Reasonable” looks different at different stages in a child’s life. Now, those of you who are married, your husband will need your help here when your children are young.

I married a man who thinks in ancient near-Eastern Semitic languages. That was his doctorate, and you know, he just thinks, “Oh, of course the kids will get this if I read three chapters from Leviticus and ask them what they think of it.” (laughter) He needed my help.

And he was glad, after a while, to receive it. I would ask you, really do give it some thought. We tried—I suggested this and Ray picked up on it—we used to do it after our whole meal was finished. 

The kids were anxious to go play, and they didn’t really want to listen. They had homework, piano practice, soccer practice, whatever. So we tried to time it so that we’d have devotions over dessert.

And as we’d say, “Go get your Bibles; I’ll get dessert ready, we’ll put it on the table.” We would say from Psalm 119:103, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” And we would say, “As you grow, God’s Word is going to taste even sweeter than this chocolate chip cookie or this ice cream sundae,” or whatever we were having that day. 

And my kids survived without cavities, I just want you to know that. Don’t worry about that, okay? “A little sugar . . .” We won’t go into Mary Poppins. Let’s see, so I thought what I would do . . .

There are lots of resources. Go to the Resource Center and look at children’s books. When our children were little, we were on an extremely tight budget, and we didn’t have funds to purchase a lot of books. So I’m going to show you some things that we’ve used in our family with our kids and our grandkids. Some things we’ve purchased. You can start very young.

I did bring a book I’ve just received as a gift; it’s called Psalm 23. (Gina, will you come hold my mic so I can use both hands?) This is Gina again. Thank you, dear. Do you see the colors? It says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (v. 1). And you teach the color brown.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures” (v. 2). I don’t know if you can see this in the back, but you learn colors. You can start at six months with this, with a child, just on your knee. I wouldn’t recommend this with ice cream with a child that young. (laughter)

Every home should have a copy of this: Jesus Storybook Bible. Those of you who have it, when you go home read Daniel to your family and say, “Oh, we learned about this, this weekend!” I read through it once a year. It’s so encouraging! I mean, it’s just a wonderful resource. The Jesus Storybook Bible. If you don’t have one, get one. You need it if you have children in your home!

There are all sorts of books you can buy. We would use this one, The Exodus, and we would just take a page each night for our devotional. It was on a different passage of Scripture. We’d have those of our children who could read, look up the passage.

This is on Exodus 1:22ff, when Moses was found in the bulrushes. You can see the beautiful artwork. You can read it, talk about it together. All sorts of things like that which you can do. I would also just show you a few things that we’ve done in our family. 

How many of you can afford a poster board? It costs a couple dollars. So this is not expensive, for those of you who are thinking, I can’t go out and buy a bunch of books, Jani! In one of the books I’ve written—CrossWaypublished it—called His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy. It’s about living the Ten Commandments and giving them to your children.

And in that, after each commandment, I tell you how it’s God’s Law to you and then I try to show you how to give it to your children, and I show you how you can write it on the heart. And there are all sorts of things here. [ladies laugh as she is doing something]

In the first chapter, the first lesson together, we talk about how the law is a mirror. Charles Spurgeon taught us that. It shows us where we’re sinning. But you don’t go to the mirror to change you. The mirror can’t [change] you. 

But it’s God’s love letter to us, in that it shows us how He wants us to follow Him--but it points us to the Cross--so then we have a lesson on grace and how the Law points us to Jesus. And every time we sin, as we look to Jesus, that’s what God sees as He looks at us. He doesn’t look at our dirt that we see in the mirror.

You can keep going through here. There are a lot of different ways that you can teach each commandment. So something like that. It’s also on my podcast, He Restores My Soul,where I talk about the Ten Commandments, teaching them to your children.

Do you see how you can do that? Very simply. You don’t need a lot of money, but you could take time and teach your kids the Ten Commandments. One year we decided to take our kids through the Bible . . . actually, it was going to be about eighteen months. We were going to learn a Bible verse day—uh, no! per week—are you kidding?! So we chose a verse from each book of the Bible, 66 weeks, and we took some extra weeks to review. We told the kids we’d have a good prize when they finished.

Of course, we planned it out because we knew there was going to be a family reunion in California near Disneyland . . . but we didn’t tell the kids that! But they worked and worked, and we kept holding this prize over them. So they learned a different verse each week.

I got this at the Home Depot, or Staples, or some stationery store for a few dollars. You don’t need to spend a lot of money. What you need to do is spend your heart on your kids. 

There are a lot of resources out there: online, the Resource Center here, and between you and the Holy Spirit. You will never regret any time you spend teaching your children the Word of God. Let the gospel set the tone in your home.

Another way that you can live with future generations in mind is to make your home an outpost of heaven. What’s the atmosphere permeating your home? Does love saturate your relationships, does peace penetrate through your problems? Is kindness king in your home? 

Ask God to help you develop the power of a gospel culture within your four walls. It doesn’t matter how correct doctrine is if that doctrine is not enticing to your children. Do they see you love to live out what you believe?

When you talk about obedience or kindness or honesty, are your children seeing you live these out as well? Do your kids enjoy being at home? Do they want to invite friends over? Try to make your home their first outpost, their first resting place on their journey to heaven—that tastes a little bit like Heaven. The Lord will help you there.

A third way you can let the gospel set the tone in your home is to immerse your family in a faithful, living church. Your family needs a gospel community to help build their faith for the future. Do not give up on the church of Jesus Christ! There is no perfect church. Any church you go to will have some sort of imbalance, some sort of problem.

There is no perfect church, but here are some things you can look for: 

• Do they honor God’s Word as eternally true? 
• Do they invest great effort to faithfully teach His Word to all ages? 
• Do they present the gospel message graciously and with an open invitation? 
• Do you experience healthy relationships among the staff and members and visitors?

If you are not immersing your family in a healthy church, you are risking your children’s faith for the future. Please, do not give up on the church of Jesus Christ! He died to make us one. I know we fight a lot within the church, like any family does. Don’t give up! Find a good church and bring your kids.

Another way I was just helping to live ten generations out is to rejoice in biblical marriage. Some of you may be divorced, some of you may be single raising children, but you can still rejoice—wherever you are in your life—in God’s plan for marriage. We can make sure children around us are exposed to happy, godly marriages. All children need models they can follow. 

Now, if you are married, cultivate a happy, beautiful marriage as best you can, that makes the gospel attractive to your children. God’s Word is unashamedly pro-romance, so why shouldn’t you be?

Think of all the love stories in it, and some of the passages that are erotic, like the Song of Solomon or Proverbs 5. God values and celebrates love and sex in marriage, and He calls for married women to enjoy their God-blessed romance. 

Your marriage is so much more important than your own happiness. It took me years to figure that out. Marriage is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person. That means at times you will be unhappy. Being unhappy is not the worst thing in life.

There is so much more at stake in your marriage than your personal fulfillment. Ask God—the One You promised on that day you married, you made your promise before Him—for the grace and strength to live above your own hurt feelings, your disappointments, your frustrations, your resentment, your bitterness.

This isn’t always easy, but it is worth it! God will build something great out of two people who just keep working at fulfilling their promise to Him about how they would treat each other throughout their whole life together.

Give your children a visual of what this could look like. Coach your children for their own future marriages. Talk to them about keeping promises and let them see you keep your promises day to day, both big and small.

Older children need to hear from us that sexual union is more than mere physical pleasure, wonderful though that is. God created us as men and women, and God designed marriage to be the union of one man with one woman. Your children are being raised in a culture where that is confused. You need to speak to them about this.

You see the movie where the two young women are kissing. You need to say, “That isn’t right. Let’s talk about it after the movie.” You need to be encouraging your children that you’re praying for their spouse; you look forward to the day when they marry.

If you don’t know how to talk to your children about marriage, I’ll put in a shameless plug for one of the books I’ve written. It’s called The Child’s First Book about Marriage. God’s way is always best, and it’s a book you can read to a four-year-old on up. 

Eight- or nine-year-olds can read it on their own. It talks about how we are confused today.

It will give you some words that you can talk through with your children about what marriage is.

Now, let me suggest one final way for you to live today with your future generations in mind, and then I’m going to bring us to close. 

Teach your children to obey you. There is a lot I could say about specifics about working with children, how we taught our children different things.

But one building block in a family of faith is learning to balance discipline and structure along with play and spontaneity. The danger is to emphasize one over the other. The path of wisdom holds the two together, making obedience both winsome and compulsory.

You are training your children in how they should respond to God by how you let them respond to you! You see, you as a parent or a grandparent stand in the place of God. You are performing God-like functions as God’s special agents. Think of it: loving, providing, caring for, protecting. Second Timothy 3:1–5 shows us that disobedience to parents indicates a corrupt, out of control, anti-God spirit.

Is your child disrespectful to you? Then why would you expect him to honor God as he grows? The way your child obeys you now is setting a pattern for how he will obey God later. Help him obey his heavenly Father! 

Everyone is always under some authority figure. Mary so clearly showed us that this morning, didn’t she? Even adults, we’re under governmental authorities and ultimately under God’s authority. Teach your children to honor you even before they completely understand what that means. The fifth commandment says, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Ex. 20:12).

The fifth commandment is about the flow of human relationships, and at the very center of all relations is that between the parent and a child. A child’s whole life is shaped by his parents. The family is the first and primary set of relationships in the beginning of all human society.

In that fifth commandment God shows us how to live together in close family units, which will in turn affect every relationship outside the home. God’s desire is to preserve the intergenerational continuance of a vibrant faith in God, which will bear far-reaching effects!

I believe if a child is taught to honor his parents, he will obey them. What is honor, really? It comes from that Hebrew word that means, “weight,” “heavy.” If you honor someone, you give them weight. We need to be good examples here, too. 

How do your children hear you honor others? What do they hear you say about your parents or your in-laws or your preacher or the policeman who just gave you a ticket? (laughter) Well, let me suggest just a few simple ways that you can teach your child to obey you, starting at a very young age.

Decide what is most important to you. You’ll grow weary if you’re trying to correct absolutely everything! In our home it was kindness, honesty, and cheerful, hard work. Those were the three things I wanted to emphasize.

Follow through on your instructions. If they can’t obey you, help them. If they won’t obey you, make them or discipline them. Surviving a firm “no” as a little eighteen-month-old or two-year-old, and all the frustration that follows, will strengthen your baby!

Self-control, endurance, being able to tell himself “no” when he is on his own is learned when you can hear a “no” from your parent and follow through on it. Make the pain of any disobedience outweigh the pleasure of that disobedience, if he were to disobey. Without this, any discipline you administer will be meaningless, it will be fruitless.

Don’t discipline your child unless it works! If you’re disciplining your child for a certain thing over and over and over again, it’s not working! Deal with anger at a young age. I don’t have time to go into that, but we tried to do that when our kids were really young, trying to figure out what was at the root of that child’s anger. Is it fatigue, self-justification, pride, jealousy? We had to teach our kids what was worthy of fighting for. 

And then finally, give many rewards! Children should learn that good and pleasure go together as surely as sin and pain. Reward cheerful, quick obedience and good manners, kindness, respect, hard work—all those qualities that you long to see developed in your child. You will be grateful for every effort you put into helping your child obey you! If you want more ideas on this, I refer to this a lot in my book on the Ten Commandments: His Loving Law, My Lasting Legacy. 

Now let me conclude in this way, because we need our break and then our next breakout.. Here is what your family needs most from you; if you hear nothing else, here this, this final few minutes.

The best gift you can give your family is your own personal integrity before your heavenly Father—not tons of money, not social prestige, not the best kids’ soccer team, but your actual life as you reverently accept God’s call upon you. The best gift is a life that turns decisively away from self-centeredness and sin, a life that turns toward Jesus and His way. A life that says like Mary, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38 KJV). It’s a life that says, “Lord, I’m all yours! I’m all in. Whatever you ask, the answer will be ‘yes.’”

It’s in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done” (Matt. 6:19). It’s a preapproved prayer! By God’s grace, for His glory, you can give yourself to the future destiny of your family. And God Himself will help you do this. Why would He hold back? 

It was God who created the family as a sacred institution, Genesis 2:18–25. It was God who set precedent by blessing Abraham and his family, Genesis 17:1–7. That family grew into the family of Christ Himself, Galatians 3:29. Do you see how God loves family?

It is God who builds families in every generation, Psalm 127. It is your family—yes, your family, broken and messy as it may be—where God’s blessing can come and live and last. 

In the book we’re studying this weekend, Scripture says this, “For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation” (Dan. 4:34). To the tenth generation and beyond! You do not need to make it happen. Let God give it to you!

Start where you are, messy as it always is. Turn to Christ moment by moment trusting Him for your next step, and just keep going. He will help you to be the mom or the grandmother or the Sunday school teacher or the auntie that your family needs, and that our future needs. And your imperfect, but faithful, commitment will matter long into the future.

We might feel small at times, even defeated in our day-to-day routines, but the truth is, we do matter. We will still matter even two hundred years from now! “The memory of the righteous is a blessing” (Prov. 10:7). May it be so in each one of our families here! Now, let me pray for us, and then we’ll be dismissed.

If you have any questions about any of the books I’ve mentioned or about our ministry, Gina will be up here, and she’ll be glad to help you or give you some addresses if you need social addresses. Let’s pray.

Father, we feel weak, we feel small, sometimes we feel defeated, but we know that is not of You. We know that it’s the weak who need you, so You love the weak! We don’t want to wallow in our weakness; we want to bring it to You. So we do, thanking You that You give strength and power to the weak. 

And Father, some of us are scared. Oh Lord, we bring our anxieties to you over our children or our marriage. We need you! We don’t know what the future is, but we claim our phrase for this weekend, that Heaven rules! And Heaven will rule according to Your good plan, and so we look to You.

I pray for every family represented here today. Lord, would You give them a story that will last even to the tenth generation, for Your name, for Your glory. It’s all for You, Jesus, amen.

Scripture taken from the ESV.