From Generation to Generation

This past Sunday Marty Machowski preached a message in our Family Life series entitled “Growing Families Toward the Future. Marty preached from Exodus 10, the plague of locusts. If you’re interested in finding out how this text relates to raising our families, check out his message here.

In his message, Marty appealed that God has called us to affect generations to come by sharing with our children the great story of redemption through Christ. He said,

“When we tell them the story we connect them to a God who saw them before they were ever born. We connect them to a God who wrote the most magnificent story with them in mind. The Story begins way before the first plague. It begins just after the fall when God, looking down through the corridor of history tells Eve, I will raise up one of your children to crush the head of the serpent. And it carries through this Exodus account to the last plague where we see the sacrifice of Christ is foreshadowed in the blood of the lamb on the doorposts. So you see, the story we tell, the story God intended be passed on to the generations is more than locusts, it’s the story of the Gospel.”

He illustrated the power and purpose of God in using older generations to impact future generations through a letter written from his wife Lois’ grandfather to her when she was a teen. Here is the excerpt of the letter Marty read.

Dear Lois,

Peace be unto you.

This is your grandpa, an old man 94 years old. Time to go home, but I have 13 grandchildren and the question comes to me: How many of them will follow in my trail? How many will I meet at the judgment seat where we all will meet some day? To how many will I hear Him say: “Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. My prayer is: Lord please bring all my children and grandchildren with me into glory. I would like to meet them all there.

Today, everyone whom that grandfather had on his heart is serving the Lord.