Is it our duty as parents to pass on the wonders and teachings of the Lord to our children?

In this video, Scott Aniol discusses the importance of discipleship within families and cites Psalm 78, which emphasizes the role of parents, particularly fathers, in passing on the teachings of God to their children. He underscores the dangers of inadvertently hiding God from our children by failing to recognize this responsibility or by trying to do it alone, without the involvement of the local church. Aniol stresses the importance of the intergenerational context of the church in nurturing discipleship.

He further highlights the beauty of creating a tradition of faithfulness that is passed down through generations when we take our role as spiritual mentors for our children seriously. He concludes that the ultimate goal as Christian parents is to ensure that our children know, love, and obey God. This, he believes, is best facilitated when fathers acknowledge and act on their responsibility to disciple their children within the context of the local church.

Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV): "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Psalm 78 is one of my favorite Psalms when we're talking about discipleship that takes place within the context of families. This psalm clearly says that we have been taught from our fathers and we have to pass this on to our children. In fact, it says we will not hide this from our children, which is a danger. We would never intentionally hide the things of the Lord from our children, but sometimes we do. And that's an important lesson from this psalm.

We inadvertently hide God from our children, as fathers in particular, when we fail to recognize that first and foremost, this is a task given to us. We cannot pass this off on anyone else. We cannot pass this off on to pastors, although pastors are important. We cannot pass this off on to any other people, although as I'll mention in a moment, we need the other people of the congregation for this to take place. We need to recognize as fathers, first and foremost, and as parents together as well, that it is our responsibility to pass on to our children the wondrous deeds of the Lord.

But then the second way I think we sometimes hide God from our children is when we maybe recognize it is our responsibility as fathers, but we think we can do it alone. And so we remove our children from the context of the local church. But we need to remember that a psalm like this, written by Asaph, who was one of the chief musicians of the temple in ancient Israel, a psalm like this shows us that this kind of discipleship, where fathers are teaching their children, happens best in the community of God's people. This was a song meant to be sung in the community of Israel in the temple. And so yes, fathers have been given the primary responsibility, but we cannot do it alone.

We must do it within the intergenerational context of, in our case now in this age, the local church. And that's a really key, important lesson as well. A third beautiful lesson I think we see here from this text is what we find when it talks about the fact that if we pass the wondrous deeds of the Lord to our children, then they will tell their children and they will tell their children after them. What this shows us is that if we take our responsibility seriously as fathers, We must pass on to our children the wondersties of the Lord and we need to do that within the context of the community of God's people. That begins to create a tradition of faithfulness, a tradition that will be passed on then to our grandchildren and our children's children's children, which is exactly what we want to see.

We want to see that all of our future generations will hear the wondrous deeds of the Lord. And the final lesson I think we see from this wonderful psalm is that it helps us to communicate what our goal is. And our goal is that our children will have three things, that they will know God, that they will love God, and that they will obey God. And we see that here in the text. It says, so that they will set their hope on God.

That refers to directing their hearts. We want their affections set upon God. That they will not forget the works of God. So that means they need to know God. We need to tell them who God is and what he has done and specifically who Jesus Christ is and salvation found only in him.

And then that they will keep his commandments, that they will be disciples of Jesus Christ, that they will follow Christ in their lives because we know that's what's going to bring God most glory and that's what's best for our children as well. This very much reflects the command given in the great statement of faith of Israel, the Shema. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, that's knowing God. We need to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

That's loving God, and that's all given in the context of obedience to God. That's what we want for our children, And that will happen best when we fathers take our responsibility seriously to disciple our children in the context of an intergenerational Church of Jesus Christ.