Well, greetings to you in the name of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I hope you're enjoying your time at the conference. It's been a wonderful time so far. As I thought about what I would say to you today, it's I think just a truism that all pastors go around all the time with many different burdens that they carry. It's sort of hard to pick just one particular thing.
We're all the time struggling with different things. We're fired up about our Sunday sermon or we have something going on in our heart as we're dealing with things that are taking place in the church. And so as I thought about what I would say, I thought about something I hoped that would be fitting for the particular theme here of the conference. And I want to read a couple verses to you here in Proverbs chapter number four, verses one through four. Here, O sons of fathers, instruction and be attentive that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts.
Do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son with my father, Tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, let your heart hold fast to my words, keep my commandments and live." If you think about the book of Proverbs and particularly chapters one through nine, you see that the father is very zealous and very anxious to pass the faith on to his son. You see in the very opening section where he talks about the fear of the Lord being the beginning of knowledge, this father wants his son to be a God-fearer instead of someone who is a fool. He contrasts the one who is wise with the one who is foolish. And so he's wanting his son to get this God-fearing worldview.
But beyond that, he wants the son to come into a genuine relationship with God. He wants the son to have knowledge of God, not just intellectual knowledge of God, but he wants him to have that relational knowledge, that experiential knowledge that we've even heard about this afternoon. And I got to thinking about this passage, and in my own story growing up, I was so blessed to have Christian parents. Both of my parents are still alive, and they're two of the godliest people that I know. And it was an amazing time growing up just to see the godly lives of my parents.
In many respects, I still look at my parents and I feel like I'm still chasing their coattails to catch up to where they're at. And I can remember growing up and thinking of my father as he would teach us, me and my other two brothers in the home. And my father was very zealous about passing to us the family heritage as it was. The faith passed down to his sons. And I can remember during times of family devotion and family worship my father sitting in the living room and telling me and my brothers about his own conversion.
And I can remember my mom telling me about her conversion many, many times. I could stand before you this afternoon and I could tell my parents' conversions to you just as well as I could tell you my own. And that always stuck with me and I always remember that. And as I think about this passage, this father seeking to pass on the heritage, my parents, their lives demonstrated that day in and day out. I've never even heard my father, I've never heard my father say a curse word, I've never heard him even say a slang word.
It's an amazing thing. My father always exemplified the faith that he would tell us about. It was real. It was vibrant. I could see it in their eyes.
I could see it in their life. I could see it in the way that they dealt with people and the way they worshiped the Lord and the way they shared the gospel with us in the home. A tremendous, tremendous blessing. And so as I think about that today and think about the burden that's on my heart for you, I can look at this from two different ways. On the one hand, maybe I could exhort you, those of you who are parents and you have children, many children still living in the home perhaps.
How often are you like this father in Proverbs, where it's as if he's pleading with his son? Here, here, O sons of father's instruction. It's more than just teaching his children how to clean their rooms and how to grow a life of, a disciplined life. It's far beyond that. It's not just bossing them around, telling them what to do in the home, but this is the pleading of a father that's getting down on the level with his children and almost grabbing them by the face saying, son, I have something that I need to communicate to you.
Something that's so very serious. The most important thing that I could ever say to you, I want you to listen to me. I remember my father doing that. In my exhortation to those of you who are parents and you know the Lord and you're raising those children, make sure that you're taking time in family worship, in family devotions, trying to live the Deuteronomy 6 life to make sure you're having those moments where you sit down and where you're pleading with your children that they would come to know the Lord relationally like you know the Lord relationally. That you wouldn't just take it for granted because they go to church week after week or because they have Christian friends that they hang out with, that everything is just going to work out.
That you wouldn't just presume upon God because you live in a Christian environment and whatnot, but that you're actually taking time to come down on their level and say, son, daughter, Let me tell you about when the Lord converted me. Let me tell you about the time that the Holy Spirit got ahold of me and brought me under conviction and worked in my life and showed me the glories and the truths of the Lord Jesus Christ. I can remember one night, it wasn't long ago, in our own family devotions at home, I have three little girls at home. And we were sitting in the living room and doing our devotions and it just came back to my mind, one of those times that my father bore his heart with his sons. Just pleading with us to understand the gospel and to know what it meant to know the Lord.
And I remember the Spirit got a hold of me in the living room and I just began to plead with my children. And I began to tell them my own testimony and they were captivated, they were listening intently like they had never listened to a lecture from their father before. And then I finished and they said, Mom, tell us about when you were converted. Tell us about your story. And So my mom began to, or Bethany began to share with the girls about her story.
And it wasn't long, I don't know, 30 minutes perhaps, that little exchange. And my two oldest girls at that time, I guess about 9 and 7, They went back into our bedroom and they climbed up on the bed and they began to weep. And they began to pray. And we as a family began to just seek the Lord. And they even have some very godly people, we have some godly people in our church that have influenced them tremendously.
And they said, we want to call and we want to talk to, they named the names of some of these people. And we got on the phone and they even began to exhort and to love on them. And you know, it wasn't long after that, about a year later, with about a distance of three to six months between my two oldest children, that they were both converted and are now walking with the Lord. And we see fruits in their life of walking with the Lord. So parents, let me just say to you, make the most of those opportunities.
Pass the family heritage. You say, well, you know, I didn't come up with a family heritage. I didn't have people in my life, family members that taught me the faith. Then Tell them your story about the happy feet that brought you the gospel. Tell them about those persons that shared.
Tell them about what happened to you and pass that on to your children. Now real quickly before I finish, that's my exhortation to you as parents, but there are those that are in here today that are still living at home, children still living in the house. I know some of these themes have already overlapped a little bit this afternoon, but let me just say to you as well, you need to come to know the Lord yourself. You see your parents in the home And you can say about your parents that the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is their God, but my question to you today is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the God of your parents, is He your God? Do you know Him?
Do you know Him personally? Have you come into that experiential knowledge of knowing God and the Lord Jesus Christ? Our Lord Jesus in John chapter number five, He said these words and they're really searching. They should cause us to give pause today. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me.
Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. Children, are you seeking the Lord? Do you know the God that your parents know? Have you had those times of secret prayer in which you have sought the Lord. Scripture tells us to seek the Lord while He may be found and to call upon Him while He is near.
Come to know the Lord. Get the family heritage. That's my burden for the conference for the weekend is that you would come to know the Lord and that parents that you would plead with your children that they would in fact come to know the Lord.