Pastor Candy Christmas | Living A Godly Life Before Our Children | October 30, 2025

Living a godly life before children, grandchildren, and subsequent generations is the most crucial form of discipleship. This practice profoundly affects those coming up behind us, as they are constantly watching how we navigate through life and following in our footsteps. The lifestyle parents and grandparents lead can even affect grandchildren who may not currently be living for God, leading them to walk the paths of faith.

The command to teach and embody the Word of God is emphatic, emphasizing that this instruction must be visual and habitual, flowing from our lives, not just our lips.

The Mandate: Diligently Teaching the Word of God

Deuteronomy 6 commands parents to teach God’s words diligently to their children. These words must first be in your heart before they can be in your children’s hearts.

God instructs parents to talk about His Word when they sit in their house, when they walk along the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up. The Word of God should be bound as a sign on the hand and as frontlets before the eyes.

Modeling Faith Through Life’s Struggles

Children arrive as an empty canvas, waiting for the beauty of life, which comes through the Word and the love of Jesus Christ, to be painted on their hearts and minds.

• Sharing Struggles: Parents should share some of their struggles with their children—to the extent they can handle them—so the children can enjoy the glory and the answered prayers when they come, which builds their faith and heart.
• Imitating Imperfection: Children watch how we handle our mistakes. It is important for children to hear parents say, “I was wrong, I’m sorry,” so that they may imitate the way parents handle mistakes.
• Visual Teaching: Teaching is not just verbal, but visual. The only Bible a son saw open was his mother’s, and that image stayed with him the rest of his life.

The Power of Example: Actions Over Words

Children are great imitators, so parents should “give them something great to imitate”. What children see in a parent’s daily walk speaks louder than what they hear on Sunday.

Children Are Watching

Children are watching parents more closely than we realize. They don’t just hear what we say; they see who we are.

• The Ham Analogy: One family had a tradition of cutting the end off the ham before cooking it. When asked why, the mother realized she did it because her own mother did it. The grandmother finally explained that she did it because her pan was too small. This illustrates that children will often imitate actions without knowing the original reason.
• The Pastor’s Failure: A very sobering illustration tells of a Baptist minister, Reverend Robert James, who, out of dishonesty, disguised a neighbor’s lost dog to keep it. His sons, Frank and Jesse James, later became notorious outlaws. The speaker wondered if the sons’ shunning of the gospel was due to the lifestyle their father lived in front of them.

Raising Future Leaders

We are not just raising children; we are raising future disciples and leaders. Ephesians 4:11 emphasizes that we are raising up the next generation of pastors, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers. The home is the first church children attend, and parents are the first pastors.

• Men are called to be the pastor of their home. The husband should “wash his wife his bride with the washing of the water of the word,” linking back to the command to teach the Word daily.

The Generational Echo: Faith and Redemption

A godly example sets a pattern for the enemy that the enemy cannot easily erase. Like soft clay, children’s hearts are modeled by what they see in daily use.

The Heritage of Faith

The sincere faith found in Timothy first lived in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, and Paul was persuaded that it then lived in Timothy. Faith often runs in families.

• Grandmother’s Influence: The speaker’s mother, who dealt with rejection, literally learned about Jesus in her grandmother’s rocking chair. Her grandmother would rock her and sing to her about Jesus, and the lifestyle her grandmother led motivated her to become a devout Christian.
• Grandfather’s Preaching: The word preached by the speaker’s grandfather 70 years ago is still alive and relevant today to the speaker, her children, and her grandchildren, enduring to all generations.

The Prodigal Promise

The proverb, “Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it,” means to dedicate by practice—it is hands-on discipleship. This training involves exercising, disciplining, teaching, and forming by practice, like training soldiers of the cross.

• The Way Remains: Even if children have departed from the way, the way hasn’t departed from them.
• Hound of Heaven: The “hound of heaven is constantly tracking them down”.
• Memory of Godly Home: Prodigals remember the prayers of their parents, and the road back to God is often paved with memories of a godly home.

A godly life plants seeds of faith that may take years to take root, but years later, the fruit of it will come forward, echoing in eternity.

Worship and Relationship: The Heart of the Example

Children need to see their parents worshiping the Lord with their hands raised and leading their house to serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15 declares, “As for me in my house we will serve the Lord”.

Modeling Prayer and Vulnerability

Many parents mistakenly pray in isolation, locking their bedroom door and getting angry if children interrupt. However, children should be allowed to see and participate in prayer:

• Parents should let their kids crawl all over them while praying, and let them see their parents cry out to God and pray in the Holy Ghost.
• Children should hear you forgive.
• It is vital that children know your faith is not a performance but a relationship.

A life of faith, prayer, and integrity leaves an impression that no sermon alone can make.