The MOST Urgent Thing for Our Homeschooling Generation (R.C. Sproul, Jr.)

R.C. Sproul, Jr., a man I highly respect and whom I consider a friend, (hey, it says so on Facebook), spoke to us, the speakers and staff, on the last night of the Christian Heritage Homeschool conference.

It was so raw and real. For one, he was tired and so were we, and he was speaking from a vulnerable place and we received it there as well.

But the message–oh the message, was so important, even though I will not articulate it nearly as well as he did.

The first generation of homeschoolers, he explained, risked being simply part of a fad that might die out in a few years. But here we are, decades later, going strong. In numbers.

But too many of us have failed to walk by the simple doctrine, “by grace alone, through faith alone.” Not openly, mind you, we would never actually say “I put my faith in…”

But to demonstrate how we often do lean on our own righteousness, he shared the analogy of the story Jesus told, challenging us to search our hearts:

Have we said, “Dear God, Thank you that I am not like other people who don’t homeschool (or don’t watch TV, or don’t wear denim jumpers–(affectionately referring to the once widely-worn homeschool uniform), or” [insert thing])?

No, he said, if we want children who will grow up servants of Christ, who will carry the cross into their generation, who will last–we had better beat our breast, unable to even look up, and cry out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!”

The best we can do is to humble ourselves before our children, praising God that He forgives sinners, “of which I am chief.”

May this generation of  parents “cast aside every weight and sin which so easily besets us, and run with patience, the race that is set before us.”