Getting Better All the Time
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

I am just back from Ligonier's Orlando conference. My job there is three-fold. I am asked to teach a seminar. But mostly I'm there for the other two reasons. I flew down to Orlando so I could happily listen to people tell me how much they love Tabletalk, and to ask me what it is like to have R.C. Sproul for a father. Frequently the question is asked with great excitement, as if such an upbringing is akin to winning the parent lottery. Other times the question is asked in concern. The person is worried that having R.C. for a father would be an unbearable burden. The irony is that both views are accurate.

I did win the parent lottery (not just with my father but with my mother also). I couldn't have asked for better parents. The reason, though, is not because my father is famous or smart, but because he is a godly man. I'm grateful for having my parents because they genuinely love me, and more importantly because they love my Father in heaven, and did their best to raise me by His standards.

It is also a horrible burden. But the burden like the joy, has nothing to do with fame. Like the joy, the root of the burden is the godliness of my parents. I was not born in a vacuum. I was born to godly parents who expected that I would be a godly child. And they sealed this deal, while I was yet too young to protest, by baptizing me. They placed obligation on me, the obligation of being in covenant with their God.

In the providential outworking of R.C. Jr. becoming R.C. Jr., no two events had greater impact. God placed me in this family, which placed me into covenant with Him. And that is the way it is supposed to work. When I consider the burden of being R.C. Jr. I think perhaps the greatest weight I feel is the obligation to place a still greater weight on my children. I want to be a godly man first because it is pleasing to God, third because it is pleasing to my parents, and second because it is good for my children. My goal is for my family to practice what I call progressive familial sanctification. I want each generation to be more righteous than the one that preceded it. Now you know why I have a heavy burden.

It strikes me that this is the way it ought to be. Consider the children of Israel. The first generation to leave Egypt gets a lot of catcalls from evangelical readers, all that grumbling, and then being afraid to drive out several nations from the Promised Land. "What a bunch of whiners," we think. Remember that they did leave Egypt, and that they were at least good enough to cry out to God regarding their being oppressed. The next generation on the other hand, the children of the reasonably good, grumbling cowards, they went and took the land. They had the faith to move mountains.

And if, by God's grace, I should carry my burden, doesn't it make sense that my children, in God's providence, will have a slight advantage over me? And wouldn't that give them an advantage in raising their children?

Of course it is all God's grace, and His providence. I probably will fail in my quest for myself, but God could still work wonders in my children. Like the cowardly first generation, I at least (again by God's grace) have the sense to get on my knees and pray constantly for the sanctification of my children. "Oh Lord," I cry, "cover my many parenting failures, and make of these your children mighty men and women of faith. Let them shatter the records, let them even surpass not only my earthly parents, but the great cloud of witnesses You wrote about to the Hebrews." And not only does my Father in heaven hear this prayer, but my children here on earth.

As with all things the call is both to an utter dependence on God's providential care, and ceaseless diligence, a tireless labor on our part. Jacob He loved, and Esau He hated, even before they had done anything, that His purpose might stand. But such is no excuse for Isaac to lay down on the job. God's sovereign power does not mitigate His sovereign authority to command us to diligence. As Augustine prayed, "Father command what Thou wilt, and grant what Thou dost command."

For what are you working and hoping in the lives of your children? What is the cry of your heart for them? Is it your hope only that they would make more money than you? That they would be more popular than you? Is the burden you lay on them merely an academic one? Or do you labor only for their approval of you, and thus refuse to place any burdens on them? If so, may God give them the wisdom to seek first His righteousness, both for themselves and their children. May He in His providence do a great work among His less than great people. And greater still in the next generation, and the next and the next.