God has blessed us with these 5 precious grandchildren (so far) and we are overjoyed to be their Mimi and Papa. To be grandparents to these tender and immortal souls is the greatest privilege and most sobering responsibility.
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Being grandparents has also brought with it another means of sanctification.
Watching our own children learn to be parents—seeing the way they are serving the Lord and the many good decisions they are making raising their own children—helps us see so many ways in which we failed as parents and see many things for which we are constantly repenting. But we also see the ways in which our own children are being blessed and sanctified: they too are learning to trust God, to love one another, to struggle, to repent, and to learn the many ways in which the gospel must be applied to their own lives. This is God’s doing and it is marvelous in our sight. And by God’s grace, they will be better parents than we were, and better at following Christ. And one day, they too will be grandparents, learning things we are just now learning. And their children will be learning what they are just now learning. God is a God of generations.
“Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers.” -Proverbs 17:6
Too many times we think of God’s redemption as limited to our individual existence. And while there is a personal, individual element to salvation, his plan is generational. Regardless of what we see happening in the news today, God is still at work, redeeming the world (John 3:16); but we must recognize he is working generationally. He is already at work in our grandchildren’s lives by working in ours. And he was working in our lives through our grandparents. There is a sense in which salvation is generational.
One of the features of the New Covenant is the restoration of the covenantal parent/child relationship: “He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Lk. 1:17).
Hebrews 8:6 also tells us the New Covenant generational and covenantal promises. Under the Old Covenant, children regularly fell into apostasy. But God promises that because of the gospel of Christ, under the New Covenant, this pattern will change.
A wise man once said, “If we forsake our covenant children, we are returning to the lifestyle seen under the powerless shadows, which could not maintain faithfulness over generations.” God’s promises are oriented to this end, and the Apostles recognized the way in which Christ’s ministry was the fulfillment of this as can be seen in Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” -Exodus 20:12
“My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.” -Ezekiel 37:24–26
“May you see your children’s children! Peace be upon Israel!” -Psalm 128:6
“And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”” -Acts 2:38–39
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