Growing in Grace and Knowledge

Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 3, at the end of this great and 2nd letter that Peter writes to the church shortly before his death, we believe. He ends with a great exhortation that we should grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He's been talking about in that chapter 3 about the coming of the Lord the second time, what we call the 2nd Advent, the 2nd coming of Christ. He said in chapter 3 verse 11, since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. According to his promise, we are waiting for a new heaven and new earth in which righteousness dwells. He urges the saints to go on in holiness. He says, continuing in verse 14, therefore beloved, since you are waiting for these be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord and salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you, according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. Then he gives his famous exhortation, you therefore beloved. Knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of all his people and lose your own stability, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to him be the glory both now and to the end of eternity. Peter says we are to grow. It's a command. It's something that we're proactively engaged in that we can have a great deal of influence on. We are to grow in both the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This grace is the power to live a Christ-like life, and this knowledge is the wisdom to live a godly life. These two things mentioned here, grace and knowledge, the grace of our Lord and the knowledge of Christ, are actually the twin pillars of the Christian life. At the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, one of the Bible scholars there, Thomas Schreiner, has written a commentary on 2nd Peter and he says grace is the foundation of the lives of believers and his entirely God's gift, and yet believers are exalted to grow in this grace, to be nurtured in it, to be strengthened by it. Grace is not a static reality. Believers are to grow in it until the day they die, otherwise they may be carried away by the lawlessness of the false teachers in the world. 2nd believers are to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Everything needed for life and godliness is available through knowing God, growing in knowledge is necessary for the living of the Christian life, only those who progress in godly virtues reveal that their knowledge of Jesus Christ is fruitful. Growing in the knowledge of Jesus Christ then is not optional. It is essential for eternal life, and Peter fittingly placed this theme at the conclusion of the letter. Why? Because that's the theme of the letter. Peter uses the word knowledge repeatedly in this letter, saying that if we are growing in the grace of Jesus Christ in the first chapter, then we'll be adding to our faith knowledge and to our knowledge self-controlling, to our self-control steadfastness, and to steadfastness, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly affection and to brotherly affection, agape, or sacrificial love. He says those who are fruitful in these things and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ will make their election and calling sure. So it's this grace of god in this knowledge of Christ that are the twin pillars of the Christian faith. We are saved by grace, and we are taken on to glory in grace. Grace is not something that happens once, as Dr. Schreiner says, it's not some static state or condition that we rest in. It's the launching pad to know god, to know him and to make him known, and to grow in this grace of knowledge is the essence of the Christian life. That's why really you've come here, it's the grace of god and you that's driven you to this place so that you would come and listen to the Bible yet again, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, many of you twice, three times on Sunday, because you have this yearning to know more of Christ and to grow in that knowledge and to make him known. That's a healthy thing. That's the essence of the Christian life. What Peter was really doing is he was combating a gnostic heresy that was rising in the early church. Peter and John and Paul all right against this gnosticarity. Gnostic actually comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means to know. They thought that they had some special knowledge, some esoteric kind of information that allowed them to live a worldly life and be spiritual at the same time. Men who Paul called having a form of godliness but denying its power, always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Peter Jones, Professor at Westminster West Seminary, wrote a book several years ago called the Gnostic Empire Strikes Back, an old heresy for a new age. And he lists out the seven fundamental marks of Gnosticism in the first century and how they've kind of been brought back by the enemy and imported into the evangelical faith. There's a worship of nature, an over-concerned for the cosmology. There's this word of faith that we can by mind, over matter, name and claim the worldly blessings for ourselves. There's the feminization of the church and the culture and of Christianity so that people actually turn to a goddess to save you in the end. There's the self-salvation, the belief that not only is god in you but you are a god yourself. There's the loss of sinfulness and therefore the idea that Christ is optional. He's not the only way to god. There's other ways to god because sin is no longer the fundamental problem. There's this and broad genus view of sexuality, where homosexuality and lesbianism and fornication and polygamy, same sex marriages with things that these Gnostic's endorsed. They taught that it didn't matter what happened to the body. You could do whatever you wanted to do with the body because the body was set from the spirit and the spirit was saved but the body was damned. So do what you want, leave the body behind and go be with the Lord. The rise of pagan polytheism, where they imported pagan practices in their spirituality as people have today with yoga and transcendental meditation and all these kinds of things that come from Eastern and godless, Christless religions. You see this, folks, in such pop culture things as the Da Vinci code, that Da Vinci code was nothing but an exposition of gnostic Christianity. And unless you say, well, faster people will take this seriously, oh, I begged a different my dear friend. It was in the first few months that I was hearing Charlotte that I went to Barnes and Noble down here at the Arbor and a man in front of me in line was buying a copy of the Da Vinci code and the young salesperson behind the desk, the young lady said, oh, she said, that's the best book that's ever been written. I leaned forward, you know, he said, really? She said, oh, yes, she said, it's corrected my view of Christianity. Why the Da Vinci code in the Bible are the two things I used to guard and guide my life. I leaned forward and said, miss, you've got to be kidding me. I wasn't very popular when I left to Barnes and Noble, but it's the reality today. Christian Smith says it boils down to a moralistic, therapeutic, D is a moralistic. God helps those who help themselves. Therapeutic. We trust psychology more than psychology and therapists more than the Bible and it's deistic. God is out there somewhere, but he's not really involved in your life except maybe in an emergency. It's interesting that Christian Smith after he did this long, protracted study on the religious practices of American youth funded by our government, left evangelicalism went to the Catholic church because he says that Protestants have lost their historic Christianity. So Peter, the Apostle, tells us to grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ in order to be certain of our salvation. He says in chapter 1, therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. If you practice these qualities, you will never fail. For in this way, there will be richly provided for you and entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, that's just introduction. I'd like you to turn to the text we're going to look out today, and that's from Luke chapter 2. As we look at the life of Jesus Christ as a young man, it's the final pericopy, the final story, final part of the nativity story in the scripture, and it's the only passage of scripture that talks about the childhood of Jesus Christ. It's an appropriate passage for this first Sunday after Christmas, but also an appropriate passage for what has been going on in our own society in these last few weeks up in New England. These slangs at the San Diego Calimentary School in Newton, Connecticut, cause the death of 20 little children, which is an awful atrocity and a horrible tragedy but I want to tell you that there is a greater tragedy happening in schools every single week. It's happening on most of our college campuses where our young people because of our failure to impart to them the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, which will save their souls, are walking away from the faith in record numbers. It has been the belief of the majority of Christians over the majority of church history that when children die, they go to be with the Lord. Not because they're sinless, not because they haven't reached an age of accountability, but because God in a sovereignty and His grace saves them. But we have a different belief about teenagers and young people. They are treated as adults and they are judged upon death by God for their faith, their God in us or lack of it and their life on this earth. Just as the author of Hebrews says, it is appointed for man to die once and after this comes the judgment. There was a greater tragedy that happened in our schools back on April 16th of 2007 at Virginia Tech, far, far greater than Newton, Connecticut. Not as emotionally disturbing as little children being slain and not as frightful to American parents, but I will tell you far more tragic because 33 young people, more than likely the vast majority of them, faced Jesus Christ at a premature moment in their life and more than likely the majority are spending a Christless eternity because of what happened on that campus one spring morning. Here is what I want us to see this morning. The difference between the little children and Newton going to be with the Lord and the young people of Virginia Tech going to an eternal hell is this text that is before us this morning. What happened to Jesus Christ as a child and as a young man is what must happen to us as children and young people if we are to go to heaven when we die. I'm being faithfully frank. Death, loss, souls, eternal hell, judgment or subjects that we don't want to discuss especially with children in the room. But I'm afraid to tell you parents that your children live in a fallen world where death and hell and judgment and Jesus Christ are sobering realities and I want to make sure that our children grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and make their election and calling sure. So that whatever happens to them when they're young people in high school or on a college campus, they are ready for eternal life. The family of Jesus Christ sets a pattern for us of pattern to follow and preparing our little ones to meet God because this passage talks about the education, the growing and grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Notice in Luke chapter 2 how this story is bracketed by two statements that are very similar. In verses 39 and 40 it says after his circumcision as a child and when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee to their own town of Nazareth and the child grew and became strong filled with wisdom and the favorite God was upon him. Twelve years later after his bar mitzvah, his confirmation, it says in verse 51 and he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them and his mother treasured all these things in her heart and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. This is how Jesus Christ grew and this is the pattern for us and for our children. So I want to look at how Jesus Christ was reared. It says that the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom and the favorite God was upon him and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Wisdom is mentioned twice in his passage Sophia. Wisdom is not raw information or knowledge. Wisdom is the knowledge and the fear of God applied in such a way that it is a blessing to you. It's the fear of God reference and the knowledge about God applied in a practical manner that makes you a blessed person and a blessing to others. Favour is really Lord Keras here, the word grace. He grew in grace and in wisdom. He grew in the grace of God just as we mature in the grace of God and his stature. This word helicia really means his physical development, his maturity, both probably emotional and social as well as physical. Jesus Christ it's saying grew in a most natural way. He grew up and in the nativity story Luke is clear in the use of his words, he uses the word babe and then the word for little child and then a word for a growing child and then the word for a young man and then he calls Jesus by name. He's showing that through the stages of life Jesus grew socially and physically and spiritually in the grace or favor and the wisdom, the knowledge of God who was his savior, his great God and benefactor. Darabok said Jesus receives two such notices while John the Baptist receives only one, looking chapter one at verse 80 and the child referring to John the Baptist grew and became strong in spirit and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel. Only says one thing about John, he grew in the spirit. It says of Jesus Christ he grew in wisdom and favor and stature and it says it on two different places. Darabok says this mentioned both of God and humans as a way of saying that we can perceive the growth of Jesus Christ as we could in any other person and where John grew in spirit, Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and favor. The difference is yet another indication of the superiority of Jesus Christ both as a person and in his mission. Luke pictures Jesus growth very naturally his term for Jesus changed from one story to the next. He's a baby in one, a little child in the next, a child and finally a young man with a name. He grew in the grace and knowledge of God his Father, grace and wisdom, the same natural way that our children grow when they're brought up in the right way. Now how did this happen in the life of Jesus Christ? Well if we were to go get a copy of the mission of the writings of the rabbis that still exists, we would find that the rabbis categorize a person's life through different stages. The rabbi, Judith Ben-Tema tells us about the different stages of life. He says at five years of age it is the reading of the Bible at 10 years learning the mission at 13 years bound to the commandments at 15 years the study of the Talmud at 18 years marriage at 20 the pursuit of trade and business at 30 years full of vigor at 40 maternity of reason at 50 a man of counsel at 60 the commencement of ageiness at 70 gray hair at 80 advanced old age at 90 bowed down at 100 as if we were dead and gone because he should be. Well you pick yourself in that lineup. I'm at the beginning of ageiness. This is how Jesus Christ grew up in a wonderful book called The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Jewish God or Alfred Ederson says in regards to the child life of Christ we read and the child grew and lacked strong being filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him. This marked so to speak the lowest run of the ladder. Having entered upon life as the divine infant he began as a human child subject to all the conditions to grow in a natural manner and yet was perfect in them all. How did this happen? Well Joseph would have supervised his early education with Mary being the primary teacher. Jesus began as a homeschooler as all Hebrew children did. He was taught private prayers and daily Bible reading. He learned how to prepare himself and to be part of family's preparation for the Sabbath every week. He would memorize before he was five years old the 18 benedictions, 18 synagogues and service prayers of the Jewish people that they say even to this day. He would be familiar with and perhaps memorize the Psalms for each day that we studied at the beginning of this year. He would know the meaning and the symbolism of his verses seven holy days or feast days. He would sing with his family the pilgrim songs as he went on pilgrimage and the halal Psalms that he would sing around the table from memory Psalms 113 to 118 at Passover. He did a lot of memory work and the Proverbs and prayers and the sayings of the rabbis the Psalms and Bible passages. The first thing he even memorized is the great confession of faith. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength. He would before he was the age of five memorized the 10 commandments both from Exodus 20 and from Deuteronomy chapter 5. And much more memory works. Eterschein says special attention was given to the culture of the memory since forgiveness might prove to be a fatal consequence as ignorance or neglect of the law in the world. Very early the child must have been taught what might be called his birthday text some verse of scripture beginning or ending with or at least containing the same letters as his Hebrew name. The guardian promised the child would insert in this daily prayers. The earliest hymns taught would be the Psalms for the day of the week or the festive Psalms such as the halal Psalms or those connected with the festive pilgrimageist's Zion. Jesus Christ as a little fella just as a little boy of two and three and four years old would already by his mother and father be engaged in the active pursuit of God's word through his memory. Folks, I want to impress upon you that still remains a fact that a child's memory isn't incredibly powerful much better than a 63 year old man's. What a child can memorize is phenomenal and it was so with Jesus Christ that age five or six Jesus would then move to Torah school. He would go to the synagogue on a regular basis during the week. Up to age 10 he would learn the Bible studying the majority of the Pentateuch beginning with Leviticus and working through the rest of the books of Moses and then on into the history books the prophets and then the sacred writings. From the age of 10 to 15 he would study the sayings and the interpretations of the Bible from the rabbis and a book known or series of books known as the Mishnah. If he continued in school, Torah school from 15 to 18 he would have turned to what was called the academics and he would learn the finder points of Jewish culture and theology in what is called the Talmud, another book of grammatical sayings. Meanwhile at home and at synagogue services on Sabbath day Jesus would learn the history of his people. He would learn the history of his family giving special attention to the memorization of his genealogy as far back as it would reach and he would learn how his family and his people inextrifically linked together in this thing called the Covenant of Grace. Jesus learned the stories of the apocrypha. He knew about the wars of the Maccabees and the escapades of Judith and Tobit and others not because they were sacred scripture but because they informed his Jewish background and there were stories to be taken seriously. He would learn from the two great schools of rabbis the conservative Shama and the liberal Hullel and depending upon his rabbi he would have grown up a liberal or conservative just as people do in churches today. He would learn a trade beginning at the age of 18 which was Carpentry and the high point of his education would come with a special pilgrimage at Passover every single year. The Jews were expected to go to the temple three times your Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. In reality most people couldn't afford to do that it would be like three family vacations in one year so they usually chose one of these holidays. We learned from this text that Jesus family chose to go up to Jerusalem every Passover and it was there as a boy that Jesus Christ had a great encounter with God and with the rulers of Israel at his bar Mitzvah. That would have been his confirmation at the age of 12 he would have become a son of the commandment. Bar, son, Mitzvah, commandment of the law where he stood and was examined by the men of the synagogue and then the priest of the temple and he was admitted to the communing membership we would call it or the full membership of the church taking his turn reading the scriptures and sitting with the men in the synagogue. That's what this story is about beginning in verse 41. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover and when he was 12 years old they went up according to the custom and when the feast was ended as they were returning the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it but supposing him to be in the group they went a day's journey but then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances and when they did not find him they returned to Jerusalem searching for him. After three days they found him in the temple sitting among the teachers listening to them and asking them questions and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished as mother said to him son why have you treated us so? Behold your father and I have been searching for you in great distress and he said to them why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house and they didn't understand the saying that he spoke to them? There my friends is the end and purpose of our spiritual and social education of our children. Did you not know that I must be in my father's house or it could be translated this way that I must be about my father's business? Why do we bring our children up in the Lord? Why do we baptize them and take them to church? Why do we invest so much money, so much time and effort in their informal family and in their formal education? It should be because we want them to be part of their father's house, the church, to love the church and be a vital member of the congregation of Jesus Christ somewhere and we want them to find their calling in life, not what they want to do or what you want them to do or what makes them a lot of money or gains them great fame and fortune. But what God has put them on this earth to accomplish, it is a great testimony to Joseph and Mary into the local rabbi and the community that boy grew up in, that at the age of 12 he was able to say did you not understand mom and dad that I am simply doing all that you educated me to do? I have come to love my father and his people, the church and I have recognized what my business in is I am called to be the savior of the world. It was there folks while Jesus watched that high priest lift up lamb after lamb and sheep after sheep and goat after goat and pieces of the bullock after one piece after another and say for the sins of such and such a household and for all of Israel I offer this blood sacrifice for atonement while Jesus watched that it dawned on him, he was the lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. He must be about his father's business to seek and to save that which is lost. Certainly his calling was much grander and much more glorious than any you and I or children would ever have but I contend my friends that there is absolutely no difference in the end of Jesus Christ's education and the end of ours if we do not understand what it is to be part of God's people and why God has placed us in this world to serve him and other people then we have failed. I don't care how successful and how rich and how happy our children will be if they are not in Christ church and they are not serving Jesus Christ they are headed to a Christless eternity because we botched their education. I want you to notice this too that in verse 52 it says Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man that word increased is a mild way to translate the Greek word procopto which means literally to cut away obstacles. Jesus Christ did not grow up easily just because he had a divine mind in a sinless human soul did not mean that life was easy for him. Luke pictures him with this powerful word as having a spiritual machete chopping his way through all kinds of obstacles a jungle of misconceptions of sinful temptations and mind-boggling human stupidity on the way to the goal of becoming the man of God God wanted him to be. It wasn't easy for Jesus Christ. He had to chop away at obstacles to grow in wisdom and to knowledge and in favor with God and man and so it is with our rearing of our children. It's not easy and that is where I think we have failed. We have chosen to take the easy route and quite frankly loved ones there is no easy route to get our children from here to eternity. No easy route at all raising up godly children is not spiritual rocket science. It follows the same patterns as those of Jesus Christ and his family life so just for a few minutes I want to look at what our education of our children should look like and I want to suggest you there are seven key things that we should be doing the same things that Jesus Christ's parents Joseph and Mary did for him. First of all is family worship, Bible reading and prayers and family devotions even if they are sporadic and I know in our hurried world it's almost impossible to do this every day consistently but even if they're sporadic your child must see religion in the home if he's going to be able to take his religion out into the world. Secondly is memory work. We have not 18 benedictions to memorize but we have three formulae. Churches had this from the very beginning in fact they formed the the basis of Christian cynicism in the early days after the apostles. We call them the three formula or in plural formulae. They are the apostles creed, the ten commandments and the Lord's Prayer. What we believe are ethics are piety and devotion to god. J. I. Packer says the three formulae which have always been central to Christian teaching, the creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, plus teaching about Christian baptism. These three formulae do with the Christian convictions, communion with god and code of conduct respectively and baptism speaks of god's covenant, Christian conversion and commitment and church life. Christianity is not instinctive to anyone nor is it picked up casually without effort. It's a faith that has been learned and therefore taught and to some sort of systematic instruction is an essential part of the church's life and the Christian's life. By the time your children are able to enter the first grade they should have memorized the apostles creed. They should be able to recite from memory the ten commandments as given in the text of scripture and they should be able and should say with you at least every night when they go to bed the Lord's Prayer. These are the three fundamental aspects of our Christian life and faith. What we believe and how we should live and how we come to god in prayer. Next should be catechism and scripture, memorizing and discussing the question answers of the children's catechism, the shorter catechism and key scripture verses and again even if you only do it partially. If you never finish it the benefit to your children is amazing. Fourthly, I would mention the Sabbath day observance that you bring your children to Sunday school to morning worship and to Sunday night. Think of it this way folks. We've got one day and a week to get into the mind and hearts of your children and the world has Monday through Saturday. I've got one day to push against the secular tide that is plundering their little minds and souls and you should use the Lord's Day to the maximum impact upon their lives. You should also fifthly explain the significance of our church's history. Why we are Presbyterians, why we are evangelicals, why we are conservative people who believe the Bible and how we got to this point through church history and how your family fits in with this. You say pastor I don't have the information. Oh you do have the information to do that. The same way Jesus Christ's parents had the information to do that. He had holy days and we have holidays. You should tell them the significance of Christmas and Advent, of Lenten Easter, of what Pentecost is all about. Why do we have thanks giving day in America? What is reformation day? Why is the Fourth of July a celebration not only of physical, political freedom but of spiritual freedom and our own bill of rights? Give them the story of how we became what we are because we're quickly losing that in our modern age. You add the holy days and the holidays and family celebrations and explain these things and you'll be amazed what a grasp of time and space and history and your family's heritage, your children will kick up quickly. You need to oversee their formal education, supervising a child's education and cleansing it with the word of God as your primary responsibility. I know that in a perfect world we'd all go to a Christian school but we don't live in a perfect world and there are serious differences about whether it should be a Christian school, a charter school, a public school, a classical Christian school, homeschooling consortiums or whatever. Those options are not there to pit you against one another. I'm sick and tired of you people criticizing each other for the selections you make or can afford or not afford. What I want our church to be is a resource for people regardless of what education they can or cannot afford or what they choose to support them in that. And I want the families of this church to become partners in education, not competitors and critics. Whatever they're learning, whether it's from your lap and homeschool to the public school, they're not learning everything correctly. You need other people to help round out your children's education but it's your responsibility to make sure that when they study history and science and math and social studies and literature that they see it from a Christ-centered perspective and they're able to fit all this together so that their world and life you that they're learning in church is not in conflict with the world and life you they take into the marketplace. You can't throw that off on the principle and teacher just because you pay big bucks for the education or because you pay excessive taxes for that education. It's your responsibility to make sure through school and church and your home life that your children have a coherent and comprehensive view of the world that is theosentric God-centered and Christ-honoring. Finally, number seven is the calling of God. You have the primary responsibility to make sure that your people understand what is a call to Christ and the church, what is the calling of God on their life and career, what they're going to do for Christ and other people and how to choose a godly spouse and with the way our children living and divorcing they're strong indication that we're not focusing on these things as the end of the education. Our goal is still that they get into Duke or North Carolina or Wake Forest and get a good job make a lot of money. I want to remind you of the first we read at the offering time but the world and all of its desires is passing away but the one who does the will of God will live forever. Better your children struggle through life financially doing what God has called them to do

than to gain the whole world and lose their soul. I believe we failed because we've taken these sacred responsibilities and we've forced them on to the youth group, to the sports program, to the Christian school, to all the clubs, thinking that if we kept our kids busy and religious stuff and out of the world, they turn out okay. Well my friends they're walking away from the church and Jesus Christ at the rate we're told of 80% in college so all of our church activity didn't mean anything because we did not have it the ultimate objective. They're calling to Christ, they're engagement in the church and they're ministry in the world and so we missed the whole thing. Our formula was easier. We let the professionals take care of our children's souls but it was not better. What we're going to do about that this year is begin next Sunday to spend the whole year in Proverbs. You say Proverbs, the whole year, the whole year, all 52 weeks. Learning wise things as older people to communicate to young people so that they grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What we're going to find out is that wisdom has a name and that name is Jesus Christ. The Proverbs will take us to Christ and Christ will take our children to God. That's the only way it's going to work. Our thing next year is wisdom for all generations and here's our theme first. You'll find it on the back of our annual report, oh God from my youth you have taught me and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds so even to old age and gray hair oh God do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation and your power to all those who are yet to come. Wisdom for one generation to another. I know that what happened in Newton, Connecticut, was traumatic. I know that Virginia Tech was an even greater tragedy but the loss of a generation of souls is a travesty we simply cannot tolerate and need longer. We have to turn to Jesus Christ. We have to make an effort to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We have to trust him that he will fulfill this promise, that he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, less God come and strike the land with an utter decree of destruction. I don't want our children destroyed. I want them to live this abundant life and to live it forever. I want them to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Father we have nothing we treasure more than our children and yet we know that as much as we love them it cannot compare to how much you love them and all that you have prepared for those who love you, things which I has not seen and ear has not heard and has not even entered the heart of man. You have a great plan for our children and grandchildren's lives. You want to bless them and use them and enrich them and bring them to glory. The only thing standing in their way is us, we, their parents, are no problem. We pray that you would convict us this year, beginning today with what we can do to bring our children into this process of spiritual, moral, emotional, social and even physical development so that they grow in wisdom and in favor and in stature before God and man under the tutelage of Jesus Christ and by our efforts. Help us to appropriate this grace, to have this blessing upon us and our culture and to favor our children with not only eternal life but with a fruitful life as they go about their father's business and live in their father's house. This we would pray and ask for the sake of those who come after us and for your glory. So we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.