THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"Crowning Our Families with Glory”Rev. Rodney Kleyn January 11, 2009; No. 3445
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prca.orgDear radio friends,
You and I are people who are prone to take for granted the
good things that God has given to us. God gives to us good health. He gives to
us food. He gives to us work. He gives to us prosperity. And we do not
acknowledge Him as the giver of those things, and we do not use those things as
we should in the thankful service of His name.
We do this also with the
blessings that God has given to us in our Christian homes. We do this with our
children. We do this with our parents. We do this with our husband and our
wife.
In the text that we want to
look at today we see that we should value the gifts that God gives to us in our Christian homes. In
Proverbs 17:6
we read, “Children’s children are the crown
of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.” This text tells us
especially this, that believing parents ought to value their children and
grandchildren; and that children ought to value their
believing parents.
As we seek to understand what
this verse means, we should not simply be sentimental. It is very nice to have
children and grandchildren around. It is very nice to have a full house for a
holiday. It is very nice to have peace in your home and in your family, between
husband and wife and parents and children. But the text does not simply mean
that this is a nice thing. Rather, the text wants us to look at this in view of
the promises of God and the calling to live as His people in our Christian
homes: the calling of children to crown their parents with glory; and the
calling of parents to be the glory of their children and their grandchildren.
You see, the opposite can be
true (and this implies the calling). It can be that a man and a woman are a
shame to their children—they have godly children but they have sinned in a very
gross way and this is a shame to the family. It can be that children are a shame to their parents. In
Proverbs 19:26,
“He wasteth
his father, and chaseth away his mother, is a son
that causeth shame, and bringeth
reproach.” So this text calls us to examine the calling that we have in the
godly home to be a crown of glory and a blessing to the other members of the
family.
The first thing that we should
notice as we look at this text is that the text has in view the covenant
family. It gives a very rich description of the covenant family. In this verse
there are three believing generations. There are children, and children’s
children, and old men (the fathers or grandfathers). This is describing the
covenant family unit that includes believing parents, children, and
grandchildren and that involves the promises of God to the grandparents and the
parents concerning their children and their children’s children.
This is something that we
should rejoice in as the people of God. What a wonderful thing that God would
not only save us, but also save with us our children. This is a rich part of
the Reformed faith. God’s covenant is a covenant of friendship. And when we say
that the covenant comes into our homes and that our homes are covenant homes,
we mean that we have in our homes the kind of spiritual relationship with each
other that reflects God’s relationship with His people. In fact, the home is
used in Scripture to describe to us the relationship between God and His
people. In the Christian marriage, a man and a woman live together in the most
intimate relationship. And the Bible tells us that Christ is also the husband
of His church. The Bible lays before us the rich relationship of a father and a
son. And over and over it will compare that relationship with the relationship
of God to His people.
What is so rich about this text
is that this covenant (this relationship of friendship) is something that God
continues with His people in their generations. This is a beautiful and a marvelous
truth. We do not believe concerning our children that these are just like the
children of the world. We do not believe concerning our children that these
children need to be the object of mission work or need to be treated as ungodly
and unbelieving and unregenerate and reprobate children. Rather, the promise of God is to believers and their children, as Peter lays out in
Acts 2:39.
Sadly, this is missing in much
of the church world today. And because of this lack of understanding of the
important truth that God saves the church in its generations, parents and
grandparents and churches are not doing today what they should for the younger
generation in the church: instructing them and being an example to them. And
because of this, churches are aging and there are no young or very few young
who remain in the church.
The text speaks of a glory and
a crown. The word “glory” in the text is used in other places in Scripture to
describe the adornment, or what someone would put on, to make something
attractive and desirable. That is the idea here in the text. “Children’s
children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their
fathers.”
The other word that is used in
the text is “crown.” A crown usually makes us think of a king who wore a crown as
a symbol of his royalty and his authority. But the crown in the Bible, and also
in ancient literature, had the idea not only of something worn by royalty but
something used to honor someone else. For example, when an athlete would win a
competition, he would be crowned. When a soldier would come home, he would be
crowned as a hero. Special guests at a feast were not only given as a symbol of
honor the best seats in the house, but were also often given a crown. This is
the idea here in the text. Children’s children are the crown of old men. Old
men are honored by the reputation that their children and grandchildren give of
them.
In the text this is applied to
people. And the idea is that, through your association with someone else, that
person brings honor and glory to you. This is the way that Paul the apostle uses the idea of crown in
I Thessalonians 2:19
and 20. There he says, “What is
our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our
Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and
joy.” The apostle Paul means that when he stands before Christ on the day of judgment, the Thessalonian
Christians among whom he labored will pay compliment to him.
That is the point of the
proverb. In the covenant home, grandchildren are a crown that brings honor and
glory to their grandparents. Children are a crown that brings honor and glory
to their parents. And parents and grandparents give honor and glory to their
children.
In
II Timothy 1
the apostle
Paul gives an example of this. Speaking to Timothy, whom he calls his own
dearly beloved son, he says that he calls to remembrance the unfeigned faith
that is in Timothy, and that dwelt first in his grandmother Lois and his mother
Eunice and now, he is persuaded, in Timothy also. Timothy had a mother and a
grandmother who, you might say, did him proud. They were not parents and
grandparents of whom he should be ashamed. But they were a crown and a glory to
him.
That is the way it should be in
the covenant family. The grandchildren should not be ashamed of their parents
and their grandparents. The father is not one to be held up for ridicule but to
be prized and appreciated as a treasure. Children, covenant children, are a
great value and a gift to believing parents. Believing grandparents say of
their grandchildren: “I’m honored to have you as a grandchild.” Children say of
their aged grandparents, “What an honor to have you for my grandparents.”
Now, this is not, as we
indicated earlier, a universal truth. It is certainly not true that every
parent and every grandparent or every child is a crown of rejoicing and glory
to the other members of the family. That is not even true in the church. You
see examples of that in Scripture. Rehoboam, because
of his sin, was a shame to his father Solomon and to the house of David. Think
of Manasseh, the son of good king Hezekiah. For fifty years his reign was
filled with wickedness and he destroyed the good reputation of his father.
Think of the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, and what a shame they were to their godly father.
And you have that the other way around as well. Gehazi,
the servant of Elisha, was smitten with leprosy for
his sin, and this disease was passed on to his children and grandchildren,
reminding them of their father’s shameful deeds.
There are two reasons that this
happens even in the Christian home.
The first is that not all who
are born into Christian homes are true members of God’s covenant. There is
always a carnal and a reprobate seed born into the Christian and the covenant
home. And that reprobate seed will show itself as it did in the case of Esau.
The second reason is that the
true members of the covenant do not always live in a way that brings honor to
the Christian home. Solomon is not envisioning in the text a perfect and a
sinless people. He knows what we are like. Some of the clearest descriptions of
man’s sinful nature are found in the book of Proverbs. Solomon says in chapter
20:9, “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?” Of course,
no one can! Solomon says in chapter 22:15, “Foolishness is bound up in the
heart of a child.” He is realistic. He is under no delusions here. And so it is
only by the grace of God and with His blessing, that we can be a crown of glory
and rejoicing to our homes.
This is clear in
Proverbs 3:33,
where we read, “The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just.” It is by God’s grace,
with His blessing, on account of His faithfulness and the strength of His covenant
promises, that it can be said that children are a crown to their parents and
parents to their children.
Now, the question is, How do we
crown our families with glory? Many would say that someone brings honor and
glory to his family when he accomplishes things that are considered great in
the eyes of the world. For example, in our society, great value is placed on
athletic ability. It is considered an honor to have a son or a daughter who
excels in sports in high school. And if he goes on to college sports or sports
on the professional level, that is even better. Think of how much honor it is
considered to be to have a son win a gold medal in the Olympic Games. The same
is true for wealth and status and education in our society. What an honor to
have a child who has made it on his own in this business world. What a glory to
have for your father a congressman or a senator, a judge or a lawyer.
Even though these things are
not wrong in themselves, all too often in the church we begin to think
exclusively along these lines. Those who are honored and held up and receive
attention in our families or in the church are often the ones who have become
prominent because of something that they have achieved in this world. Sometimes
believing parents will even push their children in the area of achievement.
But it should not be this way.
The measure of a man’s greatness is not to be in the eyes of the world. The
measure of a man or a woman is not in athletic achievement or riches or power
or position. On the day of judgment, when we stand
before the Lord, these things will mean nothing. They will not be the crown of
old men or of children. If all we have to hold up before the Lord are our
achievements and riches, we will certainly perish.
And so we should not be judging
greatness this way in the home and in the church, either. These are not the
essence of true greatness and honor before the Lord. We should not take glory
to ourselves. And we should not find our glory in such things. The measure of a
man, of a child, of a church member is his godliness. God has chosen, James
says in chapter 2 of his epistle, those who are rich in faith and heirs of the
kingdom to be great in His sight.
So how do we crown our families
with glory? We do it by living in godliness. And by that godliness we bring
honor not just to our home but to the Lord through our home and family.
This means, in the first place,
that we must keep the world out of our homes—the world and its ideals and its
sinful corruption and departure from the ways of the word of God.
There are all kinds of ways
that the world makes inroads into the home. Think of media and its influence on
the home. Think of the television and the Internet, the magazines and books and
all kinds of ideologies of this world that are pressed into the minds of the
people of God. If we let this into our homes, then the world’s methods and
goals for living will impact the lives of our children. Our homes ought to be a
refuge from these inroads.
And this means, to parents and
grandparents, that if you are going to be a crown of glory to your children, and if you would have them be a crown of glory and
rejoicing to you, then you must keep these things from your home. The psalmist David gives us a beautiful example of this in
Psalm 101.
This is a Psalm where
he as king sets forth his resolves. And he says these things, for example, in
verses 3 and 4, “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work
of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. A froward
heart shall depart from me.” He says, “I will walk within my house with a
perfect heart.” David is setting here resolves as a father so that he may be a
glory to his children.
This also means for us that we
must meet our responsibilities in our homes in the different roles that God has
given to us. God has set up the home with different members and given to each
member a unique responsibility. And the home is going to operate in a smooth
and in a God-glorifying way only when those roles are acknowledged and followed
by the different members in the home. The Bible gives a role for the husband, a
role for the wife, a role for parents, a role for the child, a role for the
father, and a role for the mother.
Two of those come out in the
text. The text speaks of fathers and of children. For the father to be the
glory of his children, he must be a teacher to his children, an example to his
children. He must love his family. He must be a good husband. How many children
are not destroyed in our world by a man who is, maybe not so bad a father, but
a terrible husband? The father must be a man in his home who patterns himself
after our Father in heaven and after His Son who is the husband of His bride, the church, and who lives towards His church with, according to
Ephesians 5,
a
sacrificial and a selfless love. When the father lives this way in the home,
his children will become his crown and glory in later life. They will grow up
to fear the Lord and they will become an honor to him. And what an honor it is
for us to have God as our Father. That is a crown of glory! And so it is, to
have a father like this in a Christian home.
For the son or the child to be
a crown to his father, they must follow the way of their godly parents. Proverbs is full of this kind of instruction. If we turn to
Proverbs 1,
we find
that this is one of the main themes or the main emphases in the book of Proverbs. In
Proverbs 1:8, 9,
Solomon says, “My son, hear
the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: for they
shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.”
Children honor their parents and become the crown of glory to their parents by
following their good instruction. To do the opposite of this is to become a
shame to parents.
This is not just about
listening to parents. It is not just about following a tradition. But in the
context of the covenant home, this means that children must come to know the
Lord. They must live by faith in Him. They must walk in the godliness of their
parents and their grandparents. And in that way, they become a crown of glory.
Children should pattern
themselves after the Son of God. When Jesus came to the earth it was very clear
in His life that He came not to bring glory to Himself but to obey the Father’s
will and to bring glory to God.
What an honor and a privilege
to have children like this: to bear and train covenant children and to see the
fruits of that in their lives. What a blessing in the Christian home to have
such parents and such children.
This is important. It is
important because it is about the glory of God in the church and in this world.
We should understand that this is not about family pride. It is not about us
receiving credit for our family name. But this is about the honor of God in our
home. We should not be concerned, first of all, about what people are
saying about our homes, but about what God says? How does God evaluate
our home? Are we honoring the name of God as believing family members in our
home? Unless God is glorified in our home, there is no glory and there is no
crown in our home. God is glorified when the church is made up of homes and
families where this happens.
The calling in the text is also
important because this has to do with the salvation of the family members. I
want to take you back, now, to something I said at the very beginning. We take
for granted the good gifts that God has given to us in our homes. One thing,
though, that certainly is implied in this text is that children are a gift from the Lord. In
Psalm 127,
“Lo, children are an heritage
of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” There are many things
that we receive in this life. But among all the things that we can receive,
there is nothing so precious as a covenant child.
Someday, when you come to the end of your life, there are only two things that
you will be able to take with you. The one is your own soul. The other is your
children, the souls of your children. This is how important it is, especially
for parents now, to be a crown of glory to their children.
May God help us and give us
grace to be faithful to Him in this.
Let us pray.
Lord, we are thankful for the
blessings in our Christian homes. We pray that we may have the strength to
continue to serve Thee and to be an honor and a glory to Thee in the way that
we live with our children in the Christian home. For Jesus’ sake we pray, Amen.