The goal of biblical, Christian education is not merely to fill a kid's head with facts, but to get his heart changed so that it's full of hope

in God and not money and not esteem and it doesn't care about the popularity at school or

what the next kid on the bus is wearing. The aim is to change his heart and to root him in truth, which begets hope.

So how do we help our children set their hope in God?

John Piper turns to Psalm 78 for an answer to that question in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached

at Bethlehem Baptist Church on June 8, 1986.

I want to think with you this morning about this duty to train another generation of people to hope in God against the backdrop of this song,

especially the first eight verses.

Now notice two things in this passage.

verse five.

First, God has spoken.

He has revealed his will.

He has given a testimony and a law. He has established a testimony in Jacob, it says, and appointed a law in Israel.

Now we begin here because this is absolutely basic.

If God hadn't spoken, if he hadn't revealed his will or interpreted

his work, we would be absolutely adrift and rudderless in a sea of confusion

here in the 20th century about the meaning of life. Everybody's got an idea about what is helpful and harmful, about what is right and wrong and good and bad.

But nobody knows if you take eternity into view what's really good for us and for our children.

Everybody's got an idea, but those are only opinions that come from feeling what I'd like to do or cultural pressures what's going to be

acceptable to do or tradition what's always been done or some other human authority. So and so said so I heard on the radio.

But without God's word, who's going to know what's going to be good for me in a thousand years.

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