Praying For Your Child Series

¡§PRAYING FOR YOUR CHILDREN¡¨

Luke 18:1

¡§Now He was telling them a parable to show

that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart¡K¡¨

What is your plan for succeeding as a parent?¡K as a family?

First of all, I hope you have one¡K a plan that includes biblical goals for your family and especially for raising children. Every Christian family needs a biblical strategy for raising, educating and equipping their children for living for Christ in the midst of a fallen world. One purpose of this series is to help you develop or refine one. If you are a normal Christian parent then you probably have read articles, books, seen videos about marriage, parenting methods, schooling options and may have even attended various seminars, conferences and workshops. These are or can be good things.

But I want you to know something if that is what you are counting, depending on to make it as a family or a parent, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment or failure.

Over the last 30 ¡V 40 years, more books have been written and more seminars given about marriage and family life than in all the preceding 2000 years of church history and yet there are more troubled families today than in any other era of church history. We have all the how-to¡¦s by so-called experts, but families are coming apart at a higher rate than ever before within the church. The same issue is true in parenting. We may own or consult stacks of books on raising children, go to the finest seminars on the how-to¡¦s of Christian parenting or schooling and yet we have more problems per square inch today with young people in the American church than at any previous time in church history. I am not talking about kids who got saved from non-Christian homes and now attend, but those who have grown up in the church¡K those who have had good parents with good methods, good activities and all different types of schooling¡K

ƒá I want to talk with you today about the one resource in parenting you cannot do without¡K

ć I want to talk with you today about the one part of parenting that you cannot leave out and still succeed.

ć I want to talk with you about the easiest and simplest thing to do as a parent, yet the one thing that is the quickest and easiest to be put aside or forgotten when things get hectic or schedules get full.

ć I want to talk with you about the one essential you will fall back on in every season of your life

I want to talk with you about praying for your child¡K

Review: Series „³The Word On Parenting (4 major parts or divisions to this study)

ƒá Part 1: God and Your Child (How God sees your child, value, goals for¡K)

ć Part 2: You and Your God (Your walk with God as foundational to all you will do as a parent)

Today we begin Part 3: You and Your Child [Loving, teaching, training, disciplining, setting boundaries, honoring, valuing, communicating with and other factors that go into providing the right environment for your children. Growing godly children requires the right environment.

I.e. Psalm 128¡K 1 How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, Who walks in His ways. 2 When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, You will be happy and it will be well with you.3 Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine, Within your house, Your children like olive plants Around your table. 4 Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed Who fears the LORD.

Wife: fruitful vine --- source of life and nourishment, bearing fruit

Children ¡V little olive plants ¡K individuals, own bents and traits, yet born to reproduce after their kind.

What God¡¦s sunlight is to a plant, your prayers are to your child.

Just as God¡¦s sunlight is essential to the healthy growth and development of a plant,

so your prayers are essential to the healthy growth and development of your child.

TITLE: Praying For Your Child

Big Idea: Growing godly children involves depending on God in prayer.

It is possible to pray and not really depend on God, but it is not possible to depend on God without praying.

Growing godly children involves depending on God in prayer.

Primary Text: Luke 18:1 ¡§Now He [Jesus] was telling them a parable to show that at all times they

ought to pray and not to lose heart ¡K (to not give up)¡¨

I am not going to teach you the parable, but the principle as it applies to parenting:

Principle: Parents ought to depend on God in prayer at all times and not lose heart (give up)¡K