Ephesians 6:4 - Bring Them Up

Main Idea: The church must invite and train children to become fully devoted disciples of Jesus.

The “Who” In Discipling Children

• Fathers - Family leaders who lovingly disciple children every day.

  • John Stott - “Christian parents should jealously guard their responsibility, delegating some of it indeed to both church & school, but never entirely surrendering it. It is their own God-given task; nobody can adequately or completely replace them.”

• The Church - Spiritual siblings who disciple children in community.

The Warning In Discipling Children

• We can disciple them to not believe or behave like disciples.

• We can disciple them to be angry & without self-control.

• We can disciple them to be exhausted & discouraged.

• We can disciple them to reject Jesus.

The “What” In Discipling Children

• We invite them to a relationship with Jesus, not with moralism.

• We train them to know the Lord through His Word.

• We train them to know there are consequences for their actions.

• We invite (not command) them to take steps of discipleship.

SERMON TRANSCRIPT (AUTO-TRANSCRIBED BY APPLE PODCASTS)

Today, we are with our Tabernacle kids. This is one of our family services. We have one this week, and then the upcoming two family services, where we have our Tabernacle kids, a nursery combined with us.

You can find that information in your bulletin.

And the reason that we do those is not because we just get tired of scheduling volunteers, but because we want to make sure that every person that serves at Tabernacle has time both to worship and to serve.

So because of that, we don't schedule anyone to miss more than 50 percent of our worship services.

We make sure if someone is perhaps, if someone is serving and they're serving maybe in nursery, they're serving in Tabernacle kids, that they are never doing more than one, more than one-in-one service in a particular week, or in a particular month.

So thank you to all of those that regularly serve in our Tabernacle kids and our nursery.

You guys are incredibly appreciated and our church is better for the fact that you invest in the lives of kids and disciple them, and you make it so that parents are able to receive discipleship each and every Sunday. Let's pray together.

I know I normally give a little bit of an intro and then pray, but let's pray right now.

1:26

Raising Believers

And I believe that as we walk through this passage and this truth today, the message is entitled, Bring Them Up, talking about believers and our responsibility to the next generation in discipling them.

I believe this can be something that greatly affects our church, even in the years and days ahead. Because it is a Tabernacle Kids Service, if you hear some talking, especially if you hear my son talking, know that we are glad that they are here.

And may we have that same heart of Jesus even from the passage that Jim read earlier, where you had the disciples, that kids were being brought to Jesus, and the disciples were like, ah, you know, take them away. Jesus is too busy.

And Jesus said, Let them come to me and do not forbid them, because the kingdom of heaven consists of such as these. And so let's pray together and ask for the Lord to work.

God, we pray today that you would be glorified in your church and in your people.

Lord, we ask that you would help us, even as we come to this time, whether we do not yet have kids, whether we wish that we could have kids, whether we had kids long ago.

Lord, I pray that you would help our hearts to recognize the purpose that each of us individually have as a part of the body of Christ, in seeing your work go out to the next generation.

We love you, Lord, and we pray all of this in your precious name. Amen. I did this a few weeks ago when it was warm as well.

It is not that I just want to be super hip, it is that I am sweltering. I run warm most of the time, and so my shirt says, by grace, I have been saved.

They're from Ephesians chapter 2, and I think it's one of the people over at Emmanuel Baptist with Pastor Jeff Schultz, that actually has a company. I bought this at the last Essex Day Festival, and so I really, really enjoy the shirt.

Anytime that you can proclaim to other people what your faith is in the Lord, it can certainly be a good thing. And no, I do not get any kickback from anyone buying a t-shirt.

If I did, I'd be able to drop the name, and I do not know what the name is. So today, we are going over this topic because we have VBS coming up this week.

And so I wanted to take a moment as a church just so that we can refocus on what are the core aspects of what it means for the church to raise up the next generation of believers.

Some people hyperbolically have put it, the church is never more than one generation away from extinction. And it's kind of a scary phrase that I've heard.

The truth is this, that Jesus said that he will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. We know that the perpetual nature of the church is not in question.

But for every local church, there comes a point at which we have to hand off the baton to someone else. Now, that might be, I know we have people in their 90s at our church. I know we have people in their late teens at this church.

And everyone that is at this church, we all have a responsibility to hand off the baton to someone. But I wanted to take a look at what is our big picture of passing on the baton.

And we can find a great admonition for this, a great encouragement for us in Ephesians 6 and verse 4, where it says this, fathers, don't stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Going to read that one more time. I want to encourage you, even if you would, read this out loud with me. Fathers, don't stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

There, as you can read there, that encouragement to bring them up.

This is the exact same phrase that Paul used in Ephesians 5 to talk about the care that a husband has first for his own body, that as I look around the room today, it looks like every one of you, you put on clothes today, thankful for that.

It looks like some of you might have even touched up with a razor or something, that your face is either like nicely shaved or your mustache is curled just right, or some of you, various walks of life. All of us got ready today.

We care for our bodies. We feed our bodies food. We hopefully drink at least some water, if not enough water.

We drink some water. We care for, we provide for, we nourish our bodies. And what Paul encourages husbands to do is to care for their wives like they do for themselves.

So everything that you would want to make sure that you're doing in care for yourself, that you take care for another, specifically the person that God has given you to spend your life with, that you care for your spouse just as much as you care for

yourself. And it is this word here, bringing them up in the training and instruction of the Lord, that Paul says here for fathers or parents to give to their children.

He says, care for them, not just for their physical needs, but care for their emotional and spiritual upbringing as well.

Commentator Warren Wearsby said, the Christian husband is to nourish his wife and his children by sharing love and encouragement in the Lord. It is not enough to nurture the children physically by providing food, shelter, and clothing.

He must also nurture them emotionally and spiritually. What we're going to see today through this verse and a few other verses in scripture is that the church must invite and train children to become fully devoted disciples of Jesus.

This is born out of Jesus' last command to us in Matthew 28, where he says, I am with you always. And he says, go therefor, and can anyone remember? What is that command that he gives?

Go therefor and make disciples of all nations. He says, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe everything that I have commanded you.

But if we as the church are going to do our part in training the next generation, we need to invite and train them to become fully devoted disciples of Jesus. Gary, you're my favorite person today. Thank you, brother.

Appreciate that. I don't know if it will improve my vocal quality, but I'm thankful for it. I appreciate that.

Oh, that's nice and cold. I don't even know where you got that. I assumed from the fridge.

8:09

Parent Role

Today, first, I want us to look at the who in discipling children. Now, don't think of the band, not that the who, but the who in discipling children. And we see this first in this passage that who is intended to disciple children.

And he says here, fathers. Now, I know you guys are very bright. Here when it says fathers, do you think that this means mothers, you're totally off the hook, you don't have to do any discipling?

Does anyone think that? No. This word, as with many words in more gendered languages, encompasses both the father and the mother.

So, I do duolingo Spanish lessons and I'm not very good at it. But if I wanted to say the word parents in Spanish, I would say the word padres.

And if you speak Spanish today and you're like, dude, your pronunciation is so bad, I'm so sorry, I'm learning, I'm trying. I would say the word padres. Now, padre is father, but in plural, it means a father and a mother.

Or if you have perhaps a group of people, you would say ellos, even if the group includes both male and female people there. So also with this passage, this is an admonition to parents or to, if you will, guardians.

The goal is not, okay, which chromosome does the person have? And that determines whether they disciple or not. That's not the point here.

The point is those that are in charge of, those that have the care and if you will, the ownership of these children, here is the mission that is given to you. When God created children, he made them with two built-in guardians.

The first of these is the father, who like God the father, is supposed to protect, provide for, and guide his children as God would have him to.

God also gave children a mother, who like God is supposed to direct the home, guide the children, and show them what God is like through her actions and through her reactions. You can see this over and over again in Scripture.

Of course, God has given the title, God the father in his relationship with God the son.

But as you walk through Scripture, both the Old and New Testament, you'll see over and over again the picture that God cares for his people like a mother cares for her children.

You can even think of Jesus' words as he's talking to Jerusalem, and he says, Jerusalem, how often I wanted to shelter you like a mother hen shelters her chicks, but you would not have it.

And so, here, God's first, if you will, deployment, the front lines of discipleship for the next generation are here, fathers or parents, family leaders who lovingly disciple children every day.

John Stott said, Christian parents should jealously guard their responsibility, delegating some of it indeed to both church and school, but never entirely surrendering it. It is their own God-given task.

Nobody can adequately or completely replace them. If you are a parent, a grandparent, a guardian of children that you have the watch and care over, God gave them to you so that you can disciple them. It's not an accident.

It's not happenstance. You are God's frontline disciple makers for these children.

When God gives a child to parents, which, by the way, it is God that gives us our children, if God sees fit to give you or your child or your grandchild a baby, rejoice in that. Love that child.

There are millions of people across the world that wish that they could experience that new life that you have been privileged to receive.

When God gives a child to parents, they have a personal responsibility from that point forward to show that kid what life lived with Jesus looks like every day. That responsibility is theirs.

It is not the primary responsibility of the church to disciple your children, as the church will at most only see your kids for one to three hours a week, as opposed to the 165 hours that you have with them. We can read this in Deuteronomy 6.

It says, Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.

Then he says, Repeat them to your, what's that word there? Children. Talk about them when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.

Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.

The first who in discipling children is the people that have primary responsibility, ownership, care for the children day in and day out.

Now, I know we have people in a variety of life circumstances all across the room today, and if you're like, listen, I am a single parent, does that mean that I'm lesser than? Absolutely not, my friend.

As you think, even of Jesus as he navigates through his late 20s and early 30s, most people assume that Joseph was a little bit older in his life and ended up passing off the scene as we don't read about him again after the episode with Jesus in the

temple at age 12. And so even as Jesus lives some of his adult life and has some interactions with his younger siblings, it seems to be that Mary is all by herself at that point. And so Jesus cares for her, loves her.

He even gives the responsibility for caring for her over to the Apostle John there on the cross, as we looked at several months ago now.

So I want to encourage you, whether you are a pair of Christians, pair of believers, or pair of parents that are discipling your kids, or whether you're a single mom or a single dad, God can and will use you to be able to disciple the children that

he gave to you. You can think even of Timothy, Paul's apprentice in the faith. And when Paul talks about the faith that Timothy received, even though Timothy had a dad, his dad was not a believer in the Lord at all.

And so as Paul talks about the spiritual heritage that was given to Timothy, he says, I know about the true faith that is in you, which you received from your mom and from your grandmother.

And so whether you are a mom, a grandma, a dad, or just a guardian, I know we have people even in this room that have done adoptions and foster cares. God can use you to help disciple people for the gospel.

15:06

Church Role

But secondly, God has given the church to disciple believers. God did not just give parents or guardians to disciple kids. God gave the church to disciple kids.

Someone could ask the question, so does the church play no role in the discipleship process of children? Absolutely not. The church's unique responsibility in the discipleship process of children is that we disciple mom and dad.

Pardon me, I lost my place here. We disciple the kids' main disciplers, their mom and dad, and we teach and model for the child what a disciple of Jesus looks like.

So as Christians, as the church, we disciple mom and dad, and we disciple the kid so that the one day a week where we have the kid, man, we're discipling them. And through the rest of the days, mom and dad are discipling that child.

Any meaningful discipleship of children will include both of those aspects.

If all we do is disciple mom and dad and never teach children or show them through our words and actions what a disciple looks like, we shouldn't be shocked if they grow up not having been apprenticed as a disciple of Jesus.

On the other hand, if all we do is teach and model Christianity for kids one to three hours a week, I promise you, the other 165 hours in the week will undisciple those children.

As we pray over as a church, our search for a family pastor, one of the biggest reasons that we're looking for someone to give that title to family pastor is because meaningful discipleship of children must include discipleship of their parents or

guardians. It's kind of an example of this. I took a five credit Spanish class in community college when I was in 11th grade. I passed the class with an A.

I spent three hours in that class a week for four months. But today, I can only carry on incredibly small conversations with pronunciation that would give a bad name to Spanglish.

However, day in and day out in the self household growing up, we spoke English, we sang in English, we wrote in English. I know English from the heart because that's what I interacted with every day.

For many parents or guardians, they think a Sunday school class, a youth group, or a week of Bible camp will affect a drastic change in their child that the parents themselves aren't living out either.

However, true discipleship takes place over dinner tables, reading the Bible at night, asking questions about Jesus in the car, going to church together, and a thousand other places with the built in disciplers that God gave kids.

Stop expecting your kid's teachers or your pastor or an exorcist to be able to help your kid believe in and act like Jesus and start showing them how to do it yourself.

Now, for those of us that are a part of Tabernacle Baptist, in the Great Commission, Jesus told his disciples to go and make what? Disciples.

He didn't tell us primarily to go and build buildings, though I'm really thankful for the buildings that we have. He didn't primarily tell us to go have fun events, though I love fun times that we get to have together.

Instead, he told us to make disciples. If you see a kid in this room today, and you are a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, you have a responsibility to teach and show that kid what Jesus is like through how you talk to them and how you treat them.

That might not mean that you are a formal Tabernacle kids teacher or helper, which some of you are, we are grateful for you, and some of you in this room might need to become one.

But every Christian is intended to help other people become fully devoted disciples of Jesus. Don't offload caring for kids, learning their names, encouraging them with kind words, or helping their parents to only the kids teams at Tabernacle.

You be involved. Pray over these families. Encourage them when their kids are loud or rambunctious or disobedient.

Give them reminders of the preciousness of this time with their kids. Help sponsor a date night for the parents so that they have room to breathe for an hour or two, so they can get back to the grind with new strength.

We as a church need to participate in the life of the whole family if we are going to bring up the next generation of disciples. Also, be grateful for the kids that we do have. Don't just yearn for ones that God hasn't given us yet.

I want anyone that has kids under 18 or any of you that are under 18, could you raise your hand real quick? Now we got a good collection there at the back, some over here, many people. I want you to see these individuals.

I promise you, we are not yet caring for these parents and families in the way that God tells us to in scripture. And why should he give us any more children and families until we adequately care for the ones he has given us?

In the words of Christ, the one that is faithful with little will be trusted with much. So the who in discipling children? Who disciples kids?

It is the parents and it is the church.

20:30

Discipleship Warnings

But secondly today, we can see the warning in discipling children. Even in the verse, it starts off with that warning, fathers, don't stir up anger in your children. You see, in discipling kids, all of us disciple other people.

We don't always disciple them to do good things. If you will, the word disciple, we're more familiar with the word discipline, that you learn how to do something through repetition.

And over and over again, we can be discipling, teaching our kids to do and say the wrong things. The first of these is that we can disciple them to not believe or behave like disciples. Many of us are familiar with the phrase monkey see, monkey do.

How can you expect to make a disciple of Jesus if you do not act or believe like a disciple of Jesus? Do you regularly show your kids what the fruit of the Spirit looks like through how you live?

If you are consistently unloving, angry, anxious, short-fused, unkind, dishonest, inconsistent, harsh, and intemperate, how could you expect your children to follow another pattern that they have not seen modeled?

Do you regularly read and talk about the Bible with your spouse or your kids or those around you? If you're not putting effort into your relationship with God, what would make your kids think that it should be important for them?

As I was talking in the class this morning, a disciple of Jesus is not just someone that says, I believe that Jesus existed. That's kind of a baseline. Yes, you should believe that Jesus existed.

But even the devils believe that Jesus exists. Instead, those that are disciples of Jesus believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Lord, the one that died on the cross for our sins.

He was buried and he rose again three days later victorious over sin in the grave. And he invites everyone everywhere to come and experience forgiveness for all the wrongs that you have done or you will ever do.

And to be a part of his new kingdom life with God's Holy Spirit living inside of you and a home with Jesus forever. That's what a disciple of Jesus is.

And so if we as parents, if we as grandparents are not modeling this for our children, how could we expect them to know and walk like Jesus when we aren't doing it ourselves? We can also disciple them to be angry and without self-control.

Again, in the verse, don't stir up anger in your children. Do you know this? That if your kids constantly see you in a state of rage, in a state of yelling, always flying off the handle, that is what they will model within their own life.

You can tell them to be self-controlled, but if you model a lack of self-control, that is what will show up in their life.

Can I just tell you guys, like that is something that is hard as a parent, when you've got toddlers and they're constantly doing things that might endanger themselves or other people, it can be easy to want to be angry and to express in unkind tone

or words. But what Christ commands us to do is don't stir up anger in your children, but bring them up.

John Stott said, Parents can easily misuse their authority either by making irritating or unreasonable demands, which make no allowances for the inexperience and immaturity of children, or by harshness and cruelty at one extreme, or by favoritism and

overindulgence at the other, or by humiliating or suppressing them, or by those two vindictive whippens, sarcasm and ridicule. These are some of the parental attitudes which provoke resentment and anger in children.

I love what Sir Frederick Catharwood said, The dominant father who uses his own authority for his own ends is no more entitled to claim Christian authority than the rebellious son. One is abusing authority, the other is flouting it. Both are wrong.

If you are a parent in the room today, can I encourage you, do not model for your children consistent anger, hatred, wrath against them or against others.

Disciple your children or your grandchildren to exercise forgiveness and grace and self-control. Third, today, we can disciple them to be exhausted and discouraged.

In Colossians 3.21, we are told, fathers, this is again parents, do not exasperate your children so that they won't become discouraged. I loved this quote that I heard a friend of mine mention in his sermon recently.

He said, Dear parents, your child is not proof of your righteousness. When our kids are polite, respectful, successful, making good choices, we feel like we're winning.

When they struggle, wander, fail, or make decisions we wouldn't choose, we feel like we failed. But your child was never meant to carry the weight of proving that you are a good parent.

And you were never meant to carry the weight of producing a perfect child. Somewhere along the way, many of us stopped seeing parenting as discipleship and started treating it like performance.

If we do enough, teach enough, pray enough, protect enough, then surely everything will turn out exactly as planned. But scripture doesn't paint that picture. The Bible is filled with faithful people whose children made foolish choices.

And it's filled with people who came from broken homes and still encountered God. Because God has always been in the business of saving people, not parents. Parents aren't in the business of saving people.

That's God's point. Your job is not to control the outcome.

Your job is to faithfully point them toward Christ, to teach, to guide, to correct, to encourage, to apologize when you're wrong, to model what it looks like to follow Jesus imperfectly, and then trust God with the rest.

So, if your child is thriving today, give thanks. If your child is struggling today, don't lose heart. Neither changes who you are in Christ, because your identity was settled at the cross long before you ever became a parent.

The goal was never to raise children who make you look successful. The goal was always to raise children who know where to find Jesus when they aren't.

Maybe the greatest act of faith in parenting is this, believing that God loves your children more than you do, and trusting Him enough to act like it's true. Then we can disciple them to reject Jesus.

We can see this in the words of Christ in Matthew 18, where Jesus says if someone causes the little ones that believe in Him to stumble, to fall away, He says it would be better for a millstone to be hung around their neck, and for them to be drowned

in the sea, than to experience the punishment of God for what they did against children. Jesus' harshest words recorded in Scripture were not reserved for the murderous Romans or the Jewish Sanhedrin.

They were not spoken to the adulterers or those engaged in any number of sins that we would preach against today.

Jesus' harshest words were for those that through their words and actions sin against children in such a way to cause them to reject the Savior that loves them. Pastor Tony Evans said, It's one thing to be a stumbling block to yourself.

It's far worse to be a spiritual stumbling block to others. Or the English Standard Version Expository Commentary said, To treat a child well is to treat Jesus well.

But to lead little ones to sin, whether they have few years on earth or few in the faith, is to beg for God's wrath. It would be better to be dead. And the man who will not tempt others to sin should hate sin in himself, too.

We can disciple through our actions, through our words. We can disciple children to reject Jesus. Unfortunately, even in my own life, I have seen friends and loved ones that experienced abuse at the hands of those within the church.

And as a result, today, they want nothing to do with Jesus, because what they experienced was not discipleship, what they experienced was harm and abuse within the church.

I'm thankful for the justice of God, where he says it would be better for the millstone to go around their neck than for that person to sin in that way.

So I want to encourage you today, when we think about discipling the next generation, have a care for the safety of children. This isn't part of the sermon, this is just a thing for us regularly.

If you ever hear of a case of abuse against a child, talk to the police. I'm glad to be a pastor. Don't go to me first.

I am not the investigative authorities. Go to the police first. When churches have skipped that step, they have sinned and failed over and over and over again.

I do not ever want Tabernacle to become a place where that takes place. This is why we have several safeguards, even within our children's ministries, at our VBS training luncheon last week, we walked through several of those safety steps.

That is something that we never ever ever want to happen for a child or any person here at Tabernacle. So I want to encourage you, take the safety of children seriously, because God does.

30:14

Discipleship Practices

Lastly, as we close today, the what in discipling children. So the who. Who disciples kids?

Their parents or guardians? The church comes alongside once a week and helps them in that. There's a warning in discipling children that we can train them, we can teach them to do the wrong things through the way that we model our lives.

But then, he gives us a what in discipling children. What do we do to disciple them? First, we invite them to a relationship with Jesus, not with moralism.

The goal of your parenting must include more than simply having your kids be good citizens or financial successes.

The goal of your parenting at minimum must be to experientially show your children what a relationship with Jesus looks like because they have lived with you.

Your children's lack of jail time or large bank accounts or impressive possessions will do nothing for them on the day of judgment. The only thing that will matter on that day is if they experientially knew Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

If your primary concern is that their behavior not embarrass you, you are vastly missing the point. I love this quote again by John Stott.

Certainly, the overriding concern of Christian parents is not just that their children will submit to their authority, but that through this they will come to know and obey the Lord.

There is always much rejoicing and thanksgiving whenever the teaching and discipline of a Christian home leads, not artificially, but naturally, to a child's acceptance of the teaching and discipline of the Lord Jesus himself.

When was the last time that you talked with your kid or your grandkid about their relationship with Jesus? Not if they filled a checklist of readings or ideal behaviors, but about if they know Jesus personally.

Secondly, we train them to know the Lord through His Word. 1st Peter 2 and verse 2 says, Like newborn infants desire the pure milk of the Word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation. Do you want your kid to become a disciple?

They will become a disciple through learning and seeing the Word of God taught and lived out. I love fun youth events. I love playing games.

But what your kid actually needs to be a disciple, the actual need of kids and youth ministry, is the Bible.

If someone doesn't want to listen to the voice of God found in the Bible, then no amount of fun or behavior modification advice will make the change necessary for them to become a disciple.

The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to make the child of God more like the Son of God. Someone truly indwelled by the Holy Spirit will want to learn and hear from the Word of God.

If your kid is learning arithmetic, or if they're learning calculus in high school, if they are learning about ancient history, I promise you they can learn the basic truths of the Word of God.

The world onlooking expects them to be able to learn some things. May we as the people of God encourage them to learn the most important things. We also must train them to know that there are consequences for their actions.

As Ephesians 6 says, fathers don't stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. The word training here is the same word that is used in Hebrews chapter 12.

When God talks about when we've done wrong, He corrects us.

He brings us back in line as He talks about, hey, some of you had dads that punished you when you did wrong growing up, and you know that they did it so that afterwards, you would be a better person because you would not do the boneheaded things that

you used to do. That's my paraphrase. It's not actually in Hebrews 12 there. So we train children to know that there are consequences for their actions.

Wearsby continues, Our discipline must be fair and consistent. Consistent loving discipline gives assurance to our children.

They may not agree with us, but at least they know that we care enough to build some protective walls around them until they can take care of themselves.

In giving consequences, I want to encourage you, especially parents or guardians in the room, that maybe you have some kids at home and you're not sure how this should look like.

Be consistent, be kind, be firm, be self-controlled, be situationally appropriate, and above all, ask God to give you wisdom and the ability to be able to do it right.

It is one of the most important things in our life, to be able to do right as it relates to the discipline of our children. I had to make sure that I moved one of the sound settings that way, anyone online could still hear.

For the church and consequences are good for children. A child that learns that he can't bite other people in nursery, or a teen that learns that he can't curse in youth group, these are valuable life lessons.

And with the joy of having parents as the main disciplers of kids, it means that even if kids temporarily can't be in kids specific areas of ministry, it does not mean that they aren't experiencing regular discipleship.

And then lastly today, we invite, not command children to take steps of discipleship. Here's where the hardest part of the discipleship process lies. Can you command or force your kids to brush their teeth or to obey you and not play in the street?

Everyone can, can you command your children to brush their teeth or to not play in the street? Yeah, absolutely. I heard some kids saying no.

Yes, you can command that. Can you command them to go to school or to not curse at home? Yes, you can command those things.

Can you command your kids to accept Christ as savior or to be baptized or to pray or to take the Lord's Supper? No. Those are unique steps of personal faith and discipleship.

Part of our beliefs as Baptists is individual soul liberty, that each one of us will individually give an account of our life to God and that no one else can force us to believe anything in violation of our conscience.

Just because I'm a Christian does not guarantee that Bryon or Evelyn will become Christians. That will be a choice that at some point they will need to make themselves.

I can command them to do some things as their dad, but when it comes to their personal faith and belief, I can't force or coerce them to take steps of discipleship. How might this look personally?

How do we invite them to Jesus and train them with the word without forcing or coercing them? I can only give the examples from my own life, both growing up in a home with Christian parents and from what Samantha and I do each week.

We have regular family rhythms, including Sunday worship, Sabbath rest, nightly Bible story reading, hymn singing, and prayer, that those are all distinctly Christian things, but those do not constitute a personal relationship with Christ.

At Sunday worship, Bryon is not encouraged to get baptized or partake in the Lord's Supper until he personally professes faith in Christ through baptism.

When we pray each night, I often pray, though sometimes I'll ask the kids if one of them wants to pray. I don't force them to. I don't shame them if they don't want to.

But they at least know that dad is going to be praying. And they're invited into that process if they want.

Realize that just because you're a Christian, or that you take your kids to church, it doesn't mean that they will automatically be a Christian too. Each one of us will have to voluntarily make that decision.

And it's not something that you can genuinely bribe, guilt, or push your child into. That is a scary thought. But it recognizes that God's salvation isn't something that is inherited through blood or national origin.

It is a personal relationship. Far too many parents think that the problem with their kids is just their behavior.

And so they try to just get their adult kids to attend church or read their Bibles, all claiming that the adult really is a Christian despite all proof to the contrary.

May we recognize that spirit-endwelt Christians are those that actively believe in and claim Christ as their Savior and their Lord, the master of their life who calls the shots.

If your kid doesn't have any interest in church or God or the Bible, can I encourage you to regularly share the gospel with them? Show them what a relationship with Jesus looks like through how you talk and act now, and ask for God to transform them.

God is able to save all ages. From the 7-year-olds to the 97-year-olds. This also means for parents of teenagers, realize that a day is coming quickly.

When your kid leaves the home, and their relationship with Jesus or the lack thereof will become very evident very quickly. Be willing to still love and care for and spend time with your kid, regardless of their current walk with Jesus.

And may they see through your life that loving and following Jesus is the best option. Today, if we're going to bring up— Pardon me. I'll live.

Tell my family I love them. As we think about discipleship, it starts at home. Parents, guardians, grandparents that have grandchildren in the home, you guys are God's plan A.

The church is intended to come alongside you and to help you in the discipleship process, but you are the main disciplers. Take that mission seriously.

Church body, God does not say, I want you to help other people become disciples if they're within 20 years of your age. God wants all of us to care for all of us.

I love as you listen to this room even today, you hear young babies, you hear not so young babies, realize that all of us have a responsibility.

God, give us more, give us more of the criers, give us more of the families, give us more of these kids, and Lord, may your will be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. I love that Jesus says, heaven filled, populated with children.

Can you imagine that moment? Man, if Jesus welcomed the children into his arms down here, how do you think he responds when he sees them up there? May we have that same love and care for children in the here and now.

Parents, you've heard ways. How do we disciple kids? Share with them the word of God, invite them to a relationship with Jesus.

Make there be consequences for actions that happen, but do it in a way that points them to the goodness and forgiveness and redemption of Jesus, not forcing or coercing, but allowing them that opportunity, showing them what it's like through the way

that you and I live and talk.