I realize that’s not your average post title.

I borrow heavily from R. C. Sproul, Jr. in a recent issue of Tabletalk magazine.

It struck me as significant as I have been reading Proverbs 4 throughout this fourth month of the year. There the writer exhorts his son in the first four verses:

Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction,
and be attentive, that you may gain insight,
2 for I give you good precepts;
do not forsake my teaching.
3 When I was a son with my father,
tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,
4 he taught me and said to me,
“Let your heart hold fast my words;
keep my commandments, and live.

Of course that begs the question, “What words?” No more important a concept may be conveyed to our children than that of their identity in Christ as followers of the Lord. Here’s where I thought Dr. Sproul Jr. hit the ball out of the park:

When my oldest children were still young, my wife and I labored to be certain that their identity was in Christ, in our shared identity as a house that, like that of Joshua before us, would serve the Lord. I instilled this in my children partly through some rather basic familial liturgies. While Hollywood and Madison Avenue were seeking to get my daughter to see herself in terms of her demographic, I wanted her to see herself in light of her Savior. So I taught her, when I asked her name, this call and response: Me—“Darby, what are Sprouls?” Darby— “Sprouls are free.” Me—“And whom do Sprouls serve?” Darby—“Sprouls serve King Jesus.” Me—“Whom do Sprouls fear?” Darby—“Sprouls fear no man; Sprouls fear God.”

May I suggest that you employ such a liturgy in your teaching of your children? May they keep His commandments and live.