Can We Pass On The Faith

Introduction

Listen to this story...

A woman pulls up to a red light behind one other car. She notices the driver of the car in front of her is talking on his cell phone and appears to be shuffling through some papers man still doesn't notice the light change. The woman begins pounding on her steering wheel and yelling at the man to move. The man doesn't move. The woman is going ballistic inside her car, ranting and raving at the man, pounding on her steering wheel and dash. The light turns yellow. The woman begins to blow the car horn and scream curses at the man.The man hearing the commotion, looks up, sees the yellow light and accelerates through the intersection just as the light turns red. The woman is beside herself, screaming in frustration as she misses her chance to get through the intersection.

As she is still in mid-rant she hears a tap on her window and looks up into the barrel of a gun held by a very serious looking policeman. The policeman tells her to shut off her car while keeping her  hands on the car roof and quickly is cuffed and hustled into the patrol car.

She is too bewildered by the chain of events to ask any questions. She is driven to the police station where she is fingerprinted, photographed, searched, booked and placed in a cell. After a couple of hours a policeman approaches the cell and opens the door for her. She is escorted back to the booking desk where the original officer is waiting with her personal effects.

He hands her the bag containing her things, and says, "I'm really sorry for this mistake. But you see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn and cussing a blue streak at the car in front of you. Then I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker, and the chrome plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. So naturally I assumed you had stolen the car."

How about that story? I know that nothing like that has ever happened to you. I know that everyone within the sound of my voice today has been brought up better than that and would never act out in such a negative behavior. Am I right?

What does determine how a child will turn out? What is the primary force which molds the life of an individual and determines what he or she will accomplish in life?

The answer is obviously not geographic location, for productive people and parasites of society both come from all places.

Some claim that educational opportunities are the determining factor. Yet that is not the true key. As one writer pointed out, there are enough Ph.D.s in prison to staff any college. Neither is denominational affiliation the key. When Billy Graham preached once at a prison, the warden leaned over and said, "It might comfort you to know that 50 percent of our inmates are Baptists!" Some comfort!

Some feel that circumstances are the key to determining one's level or lack of accomplishments in life. While there is no doubt that outside circumstances and environment are great factors, it is still true that some of life's greatest people have come out of the most unpleasant circumstances.

What then does most determine what a child will become? I believe the answer is the child's parents. I heard of a cartoon of a kangaroo with a baby kangaroo peeping out of the pouch. This caption was at the bottom: "His mother determines his point of view." It's true. The mother and the father are the key.

Life can be hard. Family can be difficult. Raising children is an increasingly difficult task in our world today. Raising children so that they carry on the faith is becoming more and more rare. In the pluralism of the American religious scene, it is not unusual for a child to forsake his or her family's religious tradition. The result is often very difficult for families to handle. One of the most often asked question is, "How can I best pass on my religious beliefs to my children?" We want our beliefs to be as meaningful to our children as they are to us. It is frustrating, but we still believe that the mother and father is the key.

Because that truth relates to our responsibilities as parents today and is applicable to how our children will turn out, I feel that it would be helpful for us to look at a biblical mother who passed on her faith to her son and see how she did it. Eunice was her name and she is mentioned in only one verse in the New Testament. Read with me II Timothy 1:3-5. Ybor

With just this one mention, why is she known as such an outstanding person? Did she start a church? No. Did she become a great missionary? No. Was she an outstanding author? No. She became a heroine of the church and was honored as one of God's dear saints because she passed on her faith to her son. It is my prayer that we will do the same.

No matter what else we do for our children, if we provide a beautiful house in which they can live, if we feed them well and dress them in the finest clothes, if we send them to the most famous schools and establish them in the most prominent jobs, if we do all that and do not give them a spiritual heritage, then we have not really given them anything at all.

It is not easy to bring children up in this world. There are many pressures from the outside and even from the children themselves. I agree with Sam Levenson when he said, "Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your children!" While I know that there have been difficulties in rearing children in every generation, the ungodly forces that cry for our children's attention are louder and more bold than ever. Many of you have no idea that your children for example, are into pornography as you think they are doing their homework on the computer. We have children watching things on television that adults would be ashamed to see. Sadly enough, we even have some parents who know all this, and still do nothing.

How did Eunice impart her faith to her child? What were the practices that enabled Eunice to pass on her faith to her son?

I. She Planted Her Faith

The first obvious factor in the story of Eunice and her son, Timothy, is that she planted the faith in his life at an early age. From the first day of his life, he had a constant reminder of the importance of faith and that reminder was his name. She named him Timothy, which means, "God-fearing."

Eunice could not put the fruit of faith in her son's life. She knew that. She couldn't force feed her faith into his heart. But she could plant the seeds which she hoped someday would blossom into faith. She could not make her son fear God, but she could give him that name to live up to. The process of passing on her faith to her son began the day he was born.

We parents, in every area of life, want what is best for our children. So we try to determine what is best, and then we go about planting the ideas and developing the personal habits that will enable our children to realize the best, to experience fulfillment. If we do that in the areas of personal behavior and education and diet and grooming, why shouldn't we do it in the spiritual realm?

When you do not plant the seeds of faith in the life of your child, when you don't create a kind of spiritual climate in your home that will influence your child in matters of faith, you are not being open- minded or tolerant. You are being negligent.

One writer suggests that Christian parenthood is a war against the forces which would destroy our children's lives. "The prize," he explains, "is the inner spirit of my children, and the stakes are high. Arrayed against me are those who wish to extract money, loyalty, and the strong creative energy my son or daughter may have to give. In the eternal dimension, the prize is the soul of my children. I am not prepared to compromise or negotiate. Until my children are old and wise enough to distinguish their enemies from their friends, I hold the responsibility to conduct both a defense and an offense on their behalf."

Eunice was able to pass on her faith to her son because she started the day he was born by planting the seeds of faith in his life. From the beginning she fought the battle against those forces that would destroy her son.

II. Eunice Taught Her Faith

We see this truth in II Timothy 3:14-15. Paul said of Timothy, "and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures" (NIV).

Who were his teachers? His grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice (1:5), as the next clause shows: "And how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures." Bernard comments, "It was the custom to teach Jewish children the law at a very early age, and to cause them to commit parts of it to memory" (p. 135). This was Timothy's heritage.

These Old Testament scriptures were able to make him "wise" in preparation "for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." They disciplined him in obedience to God and also pointed forward to the coming Messiah, through whom salvation by faith would become available.

Can that be said about our sons and daughters, that from childhood they have known the Bible and what it means? If our children are to learn to love God, we have to teach them. If they are to become men and women of faith, we have to guide them.

If they are going to know God's life, then it will be because we have committed ourselves to teaching the Bible in the home. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."

The influence of a mother's Christian education is inestimable. On one occasion, Karl Barth, considered by many the greatest theologian of recent yeas, was asked, "Why do you, with all your intellect and erudition, believe what Christianity teaches?" With a twinkle in his eyes, he replied, "Because my mother told me." Think of how many times such a story could be repeated.

III. Eunice Lived Her Faith

She planted the faith in Timothy's life, she taught him, but most of all she lived it. Paul spoke in our text of the "unfeigned" faith of Eunice and her mother. The New American Standard Bible uses the word "sincere." Phillips has "genuine faith." The Greek word derives from a verb from which we get our word hypocrite. A hypocrite was one who acted beneath a guise, an actor behind a mask. But Paul said Eunice's faith was un-hypocritical. It was not a put-on faith. It was real. The faith Eunice claimed to have publicly she also lived privately. She lived her faith at home.