The task of family discipleship can be an intimidating one. Many parents are anxious about how they will teach the Bible and biblical doctrine to their children and consequently, many are ineffective or give up entirely. Thankfully there are timeless and tested tools at a parents' - and the local church's - disposal to aid in this important work. Using the historic creeds, confessions, and catechisms for discipleship are effective means of teaching the faith to children that have been lost in much of the modern church. Turning back to using these tools will be of great benefit to parents as they seek to disciple their children and one another.

Well, we live in a day when the idea of taking dominion is really the idea of being innovative, or so it seems. You know, we ask the question, well, how can I make something bigger and better and stronger and faster? Yesterday's ideas seem antiquated, all of them. Everything from yesterday, its ideas, its conclusions, its pursuits, its practices, no longer, at least in our culture, seem to be uplifted and gloried in that sense. You know, my 68 Ford truck doesn't even have cupholders.

I mean it's quite obvious our parents didn't know anything And we our generation We've reinvented the world We have climate control everywhere. We've got self-driving cars. I never even would've guessed that we would've had that. We've got spaceships. We've got Google Translate.

I mean have you guys used this? You get a foreign text, you just put your phone over it and immediately you see it in your language? Is that absolutely incredible? That's what our generation has done. And yet there are some things that are just not up for any type of reinvention.

The wheel is always going to be around, and the church still belongs to Christ. In our pursuit of the extraordinary, in our pursuit of the new, we may have forgotten the ordinary, and we may have forgotten the very things that God has given us that are of value. Like fine wines, Sometimes the best practices come with dusty bottles and aged corks and yellowed labels. Solomon was absolutely correct that there is nothing new under the sun. The church has always been the gathering of God's people.

Pastors have always been under shepherds, under the great shepherd. People are still laid bare and humbled before the Decalogue and they are still lifted up to glory in the Gospel of grace. That's always how it's been. And so it would make sense that while the world has changed, people have not changed. The mission and message of the church has not changed.

And the means by which we carry out that mission has not changed. Those old ordinary means that seem to so many of our generation to be archaic and obsolete, I'm going to propose are just as life-giving and vibrant today as they were when Christ first commanded them. Sermons are still preached. My daughter went to a church for the first time in Idaho this last Sunday, and she walked out within five minutes. Why?

Because she walked in and the pastor announced there would be no sermon that day, that it was a community day, and they were gonna go out and do projects in the community. I'm all for community days, but the sermon, that's an ordinary means of grace. There's other days in a week anyway. Sermons are still preached, I hope they're still preached. Sinners are still being baptized.

The Lord's table is still being set. Prayers are still being made. And Christian fellowship is still a reality because Christ is still head of his church. And considering those truths, It's not reinvention that we need, it's actually rediscovery. My prayer this morning is that among this group there might be someone who would rediscover what I'm going to call the Christ magnifying, love awakening, missions mobilizing, scripture saturated, life-giving, God exalting, pride humbling use of creeds, confessions, and catechisms, not only in the meeting of the Church, but also within the sanctity of the home.

Historically, the Church has used creeds, confessions, and catechisms as the means by which to summarize the teachings of Scripture, to commit the truth of scripture to memory, to train Christians in apologetics, to clarify important doctrinal distinctions, and to inculcate Christian belief and practice to those within the church and to the next generation. That's how the church has always done it. If any of those goals are yours as a pastor, you're not making use of those things, of creeds, confessions, and catechisms. And You really have to ask yourself the question, am I really wiser than the generations that have gone before me? If you think you are, just pick up an old Puritan book and just read it.

And you'll quickly find out that you probably are not wiser. Right? By the way, just reading old books is proof that evolution is false, because we are becoming a dumber people. So if you've not used those historic tools, you have to ask, am I really wiser than these guys that have gone before me? Or perhaps you have to ask, do I have different goals than the church had in a previous generation?

You know, have I been looking too long at what was perhaps to be considered extraordinary that I have just abandoned the ordinary. I think one tough question that we each need to ask when we are tempted to be innovative is can we be innovative and also ineffective? I think we can be. Charles Spurgeon used to tell his students, you're not such wise acres as to think or say that you can expound the scripture without the assistance from the works of divine and learned men who have labored before you in the field of exposition. Listen, it seems odd that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others.

I hope that's not us. Let me say this, I firmly believe that next to the Bible, that historic creeds, confessions, and catechisms are the most important and profitable texts that the Christian can be reading. Shame on the modern church that has largely ignored what our forefathers would never consider ignoring. Just for the sake of definition, Creeds, when we talk about what a creed is, they're concise summaries of biblical truth. How do they help us?

Creeds aid us in providing very succinctly, briefly, what Christians believe. When we talk about confessions, confessions are, you can think of them as manuals of Christian doctrine. They appear in essay form. They are divided by chapters. I'm trying to look for the...

They look like this. If you look under here, you've got Article 9, Article 10. Essay form divided by chapters. When we think of, and I'll give this back to you, when we think of creeds or confessions, they not only are divided by chapters, but they give us scriptural reference as they systematize and summarize what the Bible teaches. That's very useful.

Catechisms, They teach core Christian truth through a series of questions and answers for the purpose of instruction. Catechisms aid us in memorizing what the Bible teaches. Scott mentioned Richard Baxter and how the story is that he would go and meet with the children. That's the skinny, that's the real deal. He would go to, he visited, he would visit every family within his church.

That's part of his shepherding. And when he would go there, I would guess that there were a few fathers that might've been a bit nervous. Because, and you can see there's a famous Puritan painting of a pastor and he's sitting on like a little bench or a log or something and he's got these children in front of him, sitting in front of him and he's catechizing them. And the idea was that he would catechize And he's questioning the children to see how well Dad is doing with his duties. Today that's an invasion of privacy.

But that was normal in the previous generations. It was expected that fathers would be doing that. And so that's what catechisms help us do. They aid us in memorizing biblical truths. And the biggest complaint you hear about catechism is one, people hear it and they say, Is that Catholic?

Well, there are Catholic catechisms. Or people say, I'm not into that. It's just like an empty liturgy or it's just kind of, seems like just rote. We do tons of things by rote. I mean, that's how, rote education is the building blocks of further education.

I mean, you teach your kids ABCs, that's by rote. You teach them to count, that's by rote. You know, we teach them multiplication tables, That's by rote. And then we teach them further things where they draw back on what they've learned by rote memory and they apply it to other areas of their life. When we talk about creeds, it goes back to the Latin credo, I believe, And there's creeds all over the Bible, creedal type of statements.

Even the great Shema, Deuteronomy 6, is a creedal type of formula. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. That's what they believe. Just like the first creed of the New Testament church, Jesus is Lord, that's a creedal statement. When it was contrasted with Caesar is Lord, and the church would say, no, Jesus is Lord.

That's our creed. They died for that creed. Daniel chapter six, or chapter nine, Daniel prays for the people. He states, I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands." Daniel could have just as well said, I believe that the Lord is the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands. And then we would have said, oh yeah, it does sound creedal, doesn't it?

Simon Peter, Matthew 16, he answers Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. That's a creedal formula. Peter tells Jesus, you have the words of eternal life, we believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. Again, Peter could have just as easily have said, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and alone has the words of eternal life because He is the Holy One of God. That's a creed.

By the way, another thing that you hear today is, maybe it's this back to nature group thing, entering the church, I don't know. But the big thing is just this simplicity, minimalist, Everybody wants to be a minimalist. And it's like, no, all that stuff of yesterday, remember yesterday's bad, so it's just no creed but Christ. That's what you hear. It really sounds awesome.

Sounds so holy, it's so retarded, it's not even funny. And the moment you enter into any conversation with someone that says that, you find they do have a creed. And you say, oh, I believe in Jesus. You know, it's like, and you can talk about maybe you give them a Mormon belief of Jesus. And so I believe in Jesus that he's the brother of Lucifer.

And you'd have a Christian say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. That's not Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God. Are you giving me a creed?

Everybody has them. It's just like when churches say, oh we don't use liturgy at our church. Oh, that's so funny. You do the same thing every Sunday. You have an order of service.

When you pray, you sound like this. I can sometimes, there's people in our church, when they pray, I know exactly the words they will use and repeat in their prayer, because they have this liturgical style. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, listen to this and tell me this does not sound like a creed. He says, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. Listen, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." That's a credal formula. You could excerpt that and say, I believe, and have that. You could say the same thing about Philippians 2, 6 through 11, Colossians 1, 15 through 20, 1 Thessalonians 4, 14 through 17, all over the Bible. There's these creedal formulas. How are parents supposed to teach doctrine to their children?

Have you perhaps considered even the Apostles' Creed? It's been good enough for about 1300 years. I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose from the dead.

He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. And as I read that, there's probably some of you saying, I really don't like that it says, he descended into hell. And I really don't like the use of Catholic. And I'm there with you.

But let me just say this. Instead of throwing out the creed, why don't you just teach people what that means? For instance, the Apostles' Creed is part of most catechisms. Actually, part of it. Let me give you an example.

Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 16, question 44 actually reads, Why does the creed add he descended into hell listen to this answer? To assure me in times of personal crisis and temptation that Christ my Lord by suffering unspeakable anguish pain and terror of soul especially on the cross, but also earlier, has delivered me from the anguish and torment of hell." Can you teach that? Our church utilizes a revised version of the Heidelberg. I say revised because we're a Baptist church. And so there's a question that we rephrase.

But anyway, we have a revised version of the Heidelberg, which by the way is a historical confession that Baptists have used. I don't call it this because it seems kind of punchy, but when Baptists have changed that confession, they've called it the Orthodox confession. So I don't go down that road because I think, woo, that's fighting words. But the Heidelberg is divided into 52 Lord's Days. Why 52?

52 weeks out of the year. The way we use it is we actually read it aloud in our service. One of our elders are up there, he reads a question and the congregation responds with the answer. And often I've had people come up to me after the service and they, hey, pastor I have some questions on what we read in the catechism this morning, and then we get to dialogue about stuff that they read or didn't understand or had more questions about, those conversations never would have happened. And I'm not saying your church has to do it that way.

I'm just saying that's one of the ways we have used those things. And then we encourage families, they know it's gonna be coming up next week or they have just heard it on this Passover today. And so we encourage families during their family worship to go over the catechism that's going to be used in the service and it's a way for the family worship to strengthen and further their understanding of what the Bible teaches. It provides time within the family for people to ask questions and especially children which is what it was designed for. By the way, that's another reason you know that people were smarter, is that things like the Heidelberg were designed for kids.

So it's like when you look at third grade grammar a hundred years ago. You know, I struggled going through first year Greek because I knew nothing of English grammar. You know, they were talking about, oh, we're going to make it easier, we're going to compare this to English grammar. And I realized, Man, my grammar ended with verb, nouns, adjectives. I mean, talk to me about cases.

I didn't even know we had them. Back in the previous day, they did. In the 1850s, by the way, When you started seminary, you were expected to have, I think it was nine years of Greek, and here we are as pastors bragging about year three, nine years of Greek and I think it's 12 years of Latin, because you're expected to be learning that all through your childhood. If that was the qualifications today, there would be no seminaries. There would be no professors at seminaries.

Confessions, sorry, that was a side, Confessions are different than creeds. While creeds are technically short, or attempt to be shorter, confessions are quite lengthy. They read almost like a mini systematic theology, and in that way they become extremely valuable. They systematize God's teaching. And in whatever your tradition, I'm quite sure that there's going to be a historic confession that would provide a summary of what you believe.

If not, then maybe that's another question you should ask yourself. Why is it that I can't find a confession that says what I believe? Our church, we hold to the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689. Each Wednesday, we gather together to study through the confession and because of that we've had many profitable conversations about it. I mean not everybody that gathers agrees with, you know, they have challenges.

We kind of sometimes we end with agreeing to disagree, but the church, the people that attend the church, they know what the church teaches. Right? Sometimes they say, well, what does your church believe? Well, I don't know what everybody in the church believes, but I can tell you what we teach. So they know what the church teaches and we've had great conversations about Christian doctrine and life.

These tools, those same tools that we use in the church, become very profitable at home worship. So our church has, the last time we started the confession was two and a half years ago. We're still going through it that one time. That's how much conversation happens on gathering for two hours on a Wednesday. And then at the end of it, we'll go back to the beginning.

But in that time, imagine if somebody, a father took that and said, and there are people in our church that do this, is that becomes the foundation for home worship. And it's like, hey, we're just going to study through this confession. And they read through it and they're looking at the Bible references, and their kids are asking questions, and they're learning on top of it, and all of those types of things. That's a foundation in home worship that could last a lifetime easily. Because it never really gets old.

For instance, let's say you have kids, let me give you a practical way that confessions can be used. Let's say you have kids that are asking about marriage. Because you hear all this culture war out there, or this moral revolution, I should say. You know, it's like, oh, you know, this redefinition of marriage, and this and that, and the kids just have some questions, and, you know, how do I answer these things in the public square? Well, how helpful would it be to just be able to sit down and open up the confession on marriage and then go through the accompanying Bible verses?

And even as a parent, where you feel like, man, I don't even know how to really articulate these things. Well, you're now teaching your children and you're strengthening your own understanding of what the Bible teaches. Let me just give you an example. Our confession, you look up marriage and it says marriage is to be between one man and one woman. Well, we can spend a lot of time on that because that tends to be the problem.

And it tells you, man must not have more than one wife and a woman must not have more than one husband. It defines it for you. Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife for the increase of humanity with legitimate offspring and for the prevention of immorality. Everyone who is able to give rational consent may marry, yet Christians are to marry in the Lord. Therefore those who profess the true religion should not marry unbelievers or idolaters, nor should the godly be unequally yoked by marrying those who lead evil lives or hold to damnable heresy, " and the confession goes on from there.

How awesome is that? I mean, and then there's Bible references for us to look at and discuss. And in each of those sections, where it's packed with scripture, it's telling you that, look, these propositions that are being given are only as valuable as they're in line in accordance with the only unsalable authority, which is the word of God. These tools have greatly benefited our family. These are not tools I grew up with.

I didn't even grow up in the church. I didn't even know what a catechism was until probably 20 years ago. And even after knowing what it was, I only knew what it was because we were assigned books by Philip Schaff, you know, and I thought I had to become familiar with them and you've got to memorize the years that different creeds came out. I didn't know we were still supposed to be using them. But they've been a great benefit for our family.

My older children have helped at a neighboring church's VBS the past few years. And because I have older children going, we would send our younger children along, and they would be as part of the classes. And last year, my daughter Quincy, she was eight years old at the time of the VBS. And she was in a class, and it was the first day. And this young lady that was leading this class asked the question, what is sin to these kids?

And my daughter immediately thought of her catechism question. She said, sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. And this young lady, her draw just dropped. And she said, wait, what? What did you say?

And so Quincy repeated what she had said. And she said, want of conformity? What do you mean by want of conformity? Well, guess what the next catechism question is. What do you mean by want of conformity?

And so Quincy was saying, she was able to answer, well, not being or doing what God requires. The girl said, OK, so how do you define transgression, which is the next catechism question. And she says, well, that means doing what God forbids. And this VBS teacher was so shocked. This is day one of the class, she grabs my daughter by the hand, leaves the class, drags her through the church to the pastor's office and says tell him what you told me.

Now does that mean that as parents we just have this all together? No, we're struggling along with the rest of you. Does that mean that my daughter is probably some theological prodigy? You know, she's the next John Calvin. No.

She's just a normal kid. She struggles in other subjects. She, you know, she can't pronounce her R's. She's been given answers to questions and she's been drilled at it so that she actually knows the answers. And it's, you know, in the midst of struggling as a parent to inculcate truth, this is a helpful way to do it.

And it's not reinventing the wheel. It's actually our forefathers also have the same struggles we have. And they were also attempting to teach their children. And they've come up with all of these different methods and tools to help us and so being that we have the same goals that they had, being that the church has the same goal, why not use some of these historic tools to help us? Catechism gives your kids answers to questions that they may ask and it gives them answers to questions they didn't even know they were supposed to be asking.

Creeds give your kids a short answer to some of those basic questions of the faith. Somebody asks, are you a Christian? Yes. They want to know what kind of Christian are you? Cause there are a lot of people that say they're Christian.

You know, what do you believe? Here's what I believe. And they have an answer. I believe. That starts off as a creed statement and they're able to give an answer.

Confessions. They give a thorough summary of what the Bible teaches. And by the way, the church is still writing confessions. You know, when we're having, when we're struggling with things in the modern church, and we talk about things where people are now questioning whether the scriptures are infallible and errant and so forth, there is, there are new documents being drawn up by the church in our lifetimes that say, look, this is the historical understanding in more detail and this is for the church. There's a statement on Christology that came out a few years ago.

I think Ligonier spearheaded that. You know, that's a fuller explanation of who Christ is because of questions in the current culture. But they're very, very useful. And that's what confessions do. In just that brief time, my prayer, what I'm hoping that I'm conveying to you is that not only are these things important, but they are so helpful.

It would be like somebody coming and just saying, look, let me just take a huge bit off your plate. Let me just give you some tools that's making what you know is important, this job that you've been given, a whole lot easier. And they're right there at your fingertips. It's free. They're all over online.

Just go and download it. It's free for you. You can even get it in modern English. They're just right there for you. They're just as apropos today as they were when they were first written.

Thank you.