Set Your Hope in God

From a sermon on Psalm 78:1-8

There is an urgent and yet ongoing process to press into the soft hearts of our children the need for putting their hope in God - of trusting Him with their very souls. It's helping them to see the sinfulness of their sin, and that it is a violation of the holiness of God, that it is punishable by death and that it cannot possibly be overlooked no matter how obedient they are. It's helping them to see the pure holiness of God, to see Him in His glory through the glory of His sinless Son, to see how this holy God hates sin - oh, how He hates sin! He hates sin so much that it "pleased the Lord to crush [His own Son]" (Isaiah 53:10). It's allowing them to see their sin in its seriousness and God in His holiness - and how the two cannot come together. It’s getting them to see as Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6 in the year that King Uzziah died and he saw the Lord high and exalted…and cried “Woe is me! I am undone!” We must bring our children to the end of themselves!

But then there's the Son! His sinless life and His sacrificial death and His supernatural resurrection have all displayed the satisfaction of the Father’s wrath against our sin. Because in His Son He has poured out all the wrath and judgment and condemnation that was due us. And so IN HIS SON we have "no condemnation" (Romans 8:1) And IN HIS SON we bow the knee and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11). And that IN HIS SON we have hope! (Colossians 1:27)

OUR CHILDREN MUST SET THEIR HOPE IN GOD!