If the Great Commission is the central priority for the church, and if bringing up children in the training and admonition of the Lord is the central occupation for Christian parenting, it should be obvious that these two things are closely interrelated. In other words, it cannot be that children have been fully trained until they themselves have been instructed in how to fruitfully engage in the Great Commission. Far from being competing priorities, making disciples of the nations (starting with our neighbors) is an essential plank in the training of our children. Come contemplate how.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches presents Disciples Who Disciple Children to Make Disciples, a message given by Jason Doan at the Power of the Gospel Conference. Well I always look forward to these conferences every year. It's sort of turned into a reunion for me to see people, many people that I only see about once a year here. So it's a blessing and the fellowship is as good as the teaching so I appreciate that. The title this morning is Disciples Who Disciple Their Children to Make Disciples.

I have purposefully made the title as confusing as possible in the hopes that it would pique the curiosity of some to pump up attendance. So I'm not sure whether it's worked or not. I don't know what the baseline was, but that was the strategy. And actually, I've never done this before, and we'll see whether it was wise or not, but I'm actually going to now, in the rest of our time, give an exposition of the title. And we're just going to be working our way through the title to examine the different portions of what it represents to press on you the main point of the topic.

And here's the main point of the topic. I'm going to give you the punchline, get right to what I'm trying to press on you, and then we'll go back and just develop it carefully. Here's the main point. If it's true that evangelizing and discipling our children is the primary duty of parents. Anybody want to argue that point?

It is the primary duty of parents to disciple their children, if that's true. And if it's also true That the Great Commission is the great work that the great head of the church, Jesus Christ, has given to his people. Anybody wanna argue that, that the Great Commission is the work that Jesus has given us to do? Then, flowing from those two truths, it must be true that you're not done discipling your children until you've brought them into an engagement with the Great Commission. So are you with me?

Are you tracking with me so far? If it's our great duty to disciple our children, and if the great work that God has given his people is to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, then we're not done teaching these children until we've taught them how to engage in the work that our Lord has given us to do. A couple of weeks ago I was speaking with my wife Janet about this and her comment of encouragement was why are you talking about this? We're not good at this. And so this is my disclaimer, she's right, But we used to be terrible at this.

And so now not good is progress. It's a lot of progress actually. And that, I say that half jokingly, but only half jokingly. God has given us progress. This has probably been the category of most persistent sin in my life, is not engaging in the Great Commission and therefore having nothing with which to help my children.

And God has given us progress. So it's true, we're not good at it yet. And there's so much further to go, but God is showing us some things and teaching us some things, and I hope to be able to impart them to you. So as we approach the topic, let's go in prayer. Our God, I thank you for the children that you've given us the parents in this room.

What a precious trust. What a privilege and I thank you God for this great work that you've given to your people to advance the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ in this earth and to press forward the borders of this glorious kingdom and I pray that we would be found engaging in it with all of our hearts and and helping our children understanding their place in your kingdom. I do pray that you would give them a place in your kingdom Lord and that they would be faithful warriors in it. We pray this in Jesus name asking for the help of your spirit amen. Okay let's work through the title.

The title again is Disciples Who Disciple Their Children to Make Disciples. So it just simply starts with the word disciples. It behooves us to start with understanding who we are. If you're a Christian parent, before anything else, you are a disciple. Christian parents, we are disciples before we're anything else.

Yes, of course, we're many things in this life. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a worker, I'm a neighbor, I'm a friend. Janet's my wife. She is a wife and a mother. She is also a neighbor and a worker.

She's also a friend. But at our core, we are what we are in relation to Jesus, right? For Christians, Jesus is first, And so our core identity is what we are in relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And our relationship with him is one of teacher and student. Okay, master and pupil.

We are fundamentally disciples. Here's a place that we learn this. We learn this from Peter and Paul. In Second Peter, chapter one, verse one, in Philippians chapter one, verse one, both Peter and Paul say the same things, they introduce themselves the same way, they say, I'm a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Okay so we know them as an exalted thing.

We know them as Apostles, capital A, Apostles. But that's not how Peter introduces himself. That's not how Paul introduces himself. He says, I'm a slave. I'm a slave of Jesus.

You might know me as an apostle, but fundamentally down at the core, what I am is my relation to Jesus. And so I'm like you, I'm a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Now why is this important? It's important for this reason. When we always remember that fundamentally we are disciples, We're given the humility and the resources that we have to have for everything that we engage in in life.

So now we're talking about parenting and discipling our children. But really, it's so much broader than just parenting and discipling our children. It applies to every category of life. When we think of ourselves as disciples, fundamentally as disciples, then we find ourselves with the humility that we have to have. We have to have it.

We find ourselves with the resources that we have to have it to engage in these things that God has handed us to do in life. So let's talk about each of those things. Humility. You must have humility. We desperately need humility.

And when fundamentally we think of ourselves as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, then I am the pupil. Okay, I am the learner. I am the student. That's what disciple means literally, pupil, learner, student. So I'm that before anything else.

In Matthew 23 verse 10, here's what Jesus says to his disciples. Matthew 23 verse 10, Jesus says, and do not be called teachers for one is your teacher the Christ. So there's a teacher, there's a great teacher and you're not that. You're the learner and he's the great teacher. So Jesus didn't even want his disciples who would become the capital A apostles to be called teachers because he wanted to reserve that title of honor for himself.

And he didn't want them losing sight that though they would be giving a teaching function, he was the great teacher. So this keeps us in a place of humility. So parents, yes, we teach. Yes, we should teach. Yes, we must teach.

Yes, we must be diligent in teaching. Yes, we must give ourselves to this role that God has given us in teaching. But we're not the exalted teachers. Jesus is the exalted teacher. We're under teachers.

You know what I mean when I say under teachers? In 1 Peter 5, Peter introduces himself as an elder and he is exhorting elders and he calls them under shepherds by virtue of calling Jesus the chief shepherd. So he says you shepherd, you are given that work, you should do that work, but you're not the chief shepherd, you're under shepherds. In the same way, parents are teachers, they're given the work by God of teaching, but they're under teachers. And so this should make us humble to know that fundamentally we're a learner and when we teach we're passing on what our Lord has taught to us.

These aren't our own things that we're teaching These are his things. He is the exalted teacher. So first it gives us humility to think of ourselves first and foremost as disciples. Secondly, as we apply ourselves to being a disciple, to being a learner and a pupil and a student of Jesus Christ, then we find that we have the resources that we need to then be a teacher in our homes. We must always be receiving and cultivating and filling a reservoir out of which we then teach.

That is the nature of discipleship. That's the heart of discipleship. That as a learner of Jesus, that I'm always acquiring from him. I'm always receiving from him. I'm always filling a great reservoir and then I have something to pull from to give.

We see this in Deuteronomy chapter 6. In Deuteronomy chapter 6, Okay, it's every homeschooler's life verse, right? This is we love Deuteronomy chapter 6. And what you see there is an important sequence. You see it's starting with the great commandment that you would love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, it starts there.

You being a disciple, you loving God and receiving from him, and then it says, teach your children diligently. Okay, the sequence in that chapter is of utmost importance. You love God, and when you love God with all your heart, soul, and strength, it fills the reservoir. And then you pull from the reservoir and you teach your children diligently. This is what we see in Luke chapter 10.

Jesus is in the house, Mary is sitting at his feet, Martha is frantically working in the kitchen. She says, Jesus make her help me. Jesus says, she's sitting at my feet, she's enjoying being with me she's enjoying hearing from me that's the good part it won't be taken from her and how often do we neglect our own discipleship okay forget making disciples What are you like as a disciple? Are you Mary or are you Martha? Are you sitting at the feet of Jesus to enjoy his presence and to hear from him and to receive getting the reservoir filled up so you can pull from it?

Are you frantically working in the kitchen? I know the answer for you if it's like the answer for me. Too often I'm in the kitchen clattering around with the pots and pans when I should be at Jesus' feet learning from him. So let's apply this to ourselves by asking two questions. The first question is this.

Have I lost sight that I am first and foremost a disciple? Have you lost sight of that? That is a dangerous place to be to lose sight of that one. Have I lost sight that before anything else I am a disciple? Here's the difference.

When it is on the front of our brains, when it's top of mind that we're disciples first, then in our interactions with our children, we're fellow sinners. We have a desperate need for Christ and his grace and his mercy just like our children do. And we're fellow learners, needing as much to learn and receive from Jesus as they need to learn and receive from Jesus. And what's the alternative? The alternative is I am the exalted disciple maker.

You're sort of a guru in the home, you know, to be come to and consulted about everything. Here's the second question. Am I devoting enough to being a disciple? The first question was, have I lost sight that I am first and foremost a disciple? The second question is, am I devoting enough to being a disciple?

Are you like Mary finding yourself at the feet of Jesus to receive from him to enjoy being in his presence often. Hey, this is what we need. This is how you fill the reservoir so that you have something to draw from and something to give. If not, if you're not devoting enough to being a disciple, you're lacking the resources that you need for the things that God is giving you to do. That's the first word in the title, disciples.

Now, disciples who disciple their children. Whether the Old Testament, Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 7 where Moses tells us, You shall teach the commands of the Lord diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up or whether in the New Testament where Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4, bring your children up in the training and the admonition of the Lord. This is our duty before God. Pick a testament, any testament, your favorite testament, and your job is the same at home. Old Testament to New Testament, Genesis to Revelation, the duty of parents is clear and consistent.

It is to bring our children up in the training and the admonition of the Lord. It's to speak to them about the things of God all day when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, when we rise up. Now here's something that's very important. We don't disciple unbelievers. Now I need to clarify this and be careful not to be misunderstood.

But hey, Christian parents have to get this settled in their minds. We do not disciple unbelievers. Now, it doesn't mean that we don't teach our unbelieving children. I am not saying that a thousand times. I'm not saying that.

Please don't go say that I said that. That will cause me a lot of problems. We absolutely should teach our unbelieving children. But we're talking about disciples of Jesus. We're not talking about pupils and learners and students in general.

We're talking about disciples like Jesus's disciples were disciples. We're talking about disciples of Jesus Christ. So we should evangelize our unbelieving children, and we should press the sinfulness of sin on our unbelieving children. And we should help our unbelieving children to know their desperate condition outside of Christ outside the mercies that are offered in the work the finished work of Jesus Christ and then when we have good reason to believe that they have embraced this for their own then we disciple them then we help them grow in holiness. You can't grow in faith you don't have.

Your unbelieving children are not going to be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Okay, that's impossible. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. So you can't turn them into something that looks like the image of Christ. Why do I say this?

Because there's great danger in quote-unquote sanctifying unbelievers. Do you know how dangerous that is to unbelievers? When you try to help them make progress in a faith that they don't have. It makes them proud. It makes them self-righteous.

It makes them little Pharisees. You take a natural man, I mean just somebody in their natural condition, however young or old, and then you work with them to eliminate all the external things and there's been no change in their heart and they become the most proud, the most self-righteous, the most Pharisaical person you've ever seen. So I'm not saying that we wait to teach what God commands and that we don't constrain evil. Of course, we teach our children believing and unbelieving what God commands. And of course, we constrain the evil of our children, the ones who believe and the ones who don't believe.

So I'm not making a case against doing that. I'm saying there's a difference between constrained evil and imputed righteousness. And if our children don't understand it, we're making them into Pharisees. In other words, if your children, because you've constrained their evil through responsible parenting, think that they're good, you're in a world of trouble. You've made it harder, you've erected a barrier to them coming to Christ.

You've not brought them to Christ, you've erected an obstacle between them and Christ if the constraint of their evil has allowed them to think, oh now I'm good. No, you're not good. You're not as bad as you would be because I'm constraining your evil. That's not the same thing as born again. So these are truths that we have to press on our children and help them to understand because if you don't say anything and you don't help them to understand that, they're going to think they're good because they're well behaved.

And that's the last thing you want. If you examine carefully, you examine the children in your home carefully, you may find that you've been promoting sanctification in unbelievers. And I just wanna say that just means you have work to do to press the sinfulness of sin on them. Hey, the worst sins are the internal ones. The hypocrisy and the things that we hide and nurture, those are the worst ones.

You have to help your children understand that so they don't think that they're good people because they're polite. With that in mind, we should give ourselves, exhaust ourselves, to bring into the faith our children by God's grace. All of this is by God's grace. It could go without saying that one man sows and another waters, but God gives the increase. This doesn't overthrow the doctrine of election, the doctrine of election stands.

But Christian parents have many reasons to hope because of the promises of God and because of the goodness of God that he will put his hand upon our children. But it's his work. But he's ordained the means for these things too. So we're faithful in the means and then God does what God does. We don't control him.

But the things we can control, we should control. We should obey him and be diligent in doing the things that he's given us to do as parents. And then when we have good reason that they've embraced this for themselves, Then we help them make progress in the faith and We help them come to Christian maturity That's what discipleship in the home should look like, right? They're becoming mature in Christ. That's what we want.

What a delight it is when you begin to see some glimmers of it. Children that God's entrusted to you, put in your home. They begin to become mature in Christ. What a sweet thing to the eyes of a parent. And this brings us to the last part of the title of the message.

Disciples who disciple their children to make disciples. Now we layer in the Great Commission on all of what's said. It starts with fundamentally you being a disciple, so you're filling the reservoir so that you have something to give. And then you're discipling the children in your home. You're giving yourself to teaching them about the ways of the Lord and trying to help them come to faith and then make progress in that faith, grow in holiness.

And now, we're layering in the great commission, the great work that God has given his people to do in the world to press forward the borders of his kingdom for the joy of everyone who comes into it right this is not a sinister plot to take over the world this is a blessed plot to take over the world because everywhere that Jesus's reign goes every blessing and good thing goes with it. Isn't that true? Think about what God has done in your life. Think about where you'd be if God hadn't put his hand on you. We're just talking about more of that in the world.

Yes, let's have more of that in the world. Turn to Matthew 28. So we're going to look at the Great Commission with this in mind through the lens of what parents are doing in their home and how they ought to help their children. Matthew 28. I'll be reading 18 through 20.

Matthew chapter 28 verse 18 and Jesus came and spoke to them his disciples saying all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. Do you see how this is one big loop?

Do you see how the Great Commission, Matthew 28, 18 through 20, is one big loop. Jesus tells his disciples to make disciples who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples till he comes back. Okay, that's the loop. So you just have to keep in view who Jesus is talking to. He's talking to his disciples and what does he tell them?

Make disciples. Teach them all I commanded. Well what does he commanded? Well it's a good start that he commanded to make disciples. It's very circular.

You can't miss this about the Great Commission. When Jesus comes back there will be disciples on earth and it's because of this because disciples are disciple makers are to be disciple makers. This is the is to be the preoccupation and the great occupation of the church. It's to be the preoccupation of the Lord's people. In other words, they should think about it all the time.

If Jesus says something like this, right at the end, we should think about it all the time, it should preoccupy us. This should be the great occupation of the Lord's people, meaning we labor for it endlessly. Labor for it endlessly. Okay, there's no end to this labor till we die. What does that mean for parenting?

To the extent that parents have been transformed by the gospel, that's what this conference is about, right? The power of the gospel to transform life, all of it. To the extent that that has happened in the lives of parents. We care about this. We care about the spread of the gospel.

We care about more people coming under the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ for their own happiness. We can't stop thinking about it. We don't stop working towards it. So we're not just making disciples, we're making disciple makers. There's a difference.

There's a difference when you're training a teacher than if you're just teaching the content, right? We're not just teaching content. We're training teachers. You go about things differently when you're training teachers. We're not just making disciples, we're making disciple makers.

So why don't our family lives reflect this very much? Okay, now we're coming to the uncomfortable part. Can't wait to get here. Make everybody squirm. Why does your family look like this then?

Why would Janet say to me, why are they letting you talk about that? We're not very good at this. You didn't know I was going to make you famous when you said that. Well here's one good reason, here's a good reason why our families don't look like that. We've felt like the last 10 years a lot of energy and time has been given to reclaiming family discipleship.

It's ground that's been lost for a hundred years and getting it back hasn't been a small thing in my family and it hasn't been easy in our family in our church and it's taken a lot of time and energy. That's not an excuse, that doesn't mean that we couldn't have done more or we shouldn't have done more. We could have done more in the category of the Great Commission, we should have done more in the category of the Great Commission, but it's an acknowledgement of a reality, which is you can't do everything it wants all the time. And we've been spending lots of time and energy reclaiming something that's very precious and that is essential to the life of the church, the Lord's people, to the continuance of it. But there's some bad reasons too that our families don't look this way.

And I'll give you a couple. One is, we aren't as mature as we think we are. Okay? Mature people are engaged in the Great Commission. Some immature ones are too.

But can you call yourself mature if you've cared so little for something that Jesus said was the Great Commission? The answer to that question is no! You can't call yourself mature if the thing that has been said to be so precious by your teacher hasn't really been learned by the student. So we're not what we thought we were. We're better on paper, okay?

That's why Janet would say to me, we're not very good at this. We are better on paper. The domes are better on paper. The domes are better in a conference speech than if you lived with us. Okay, fair enough.

Let's make progress. We weren't what we thought we were. Okay. Well, let's cry out to the Lord for help. Let's throw ourselves upon him and his mercies.

And let's redouble our efforts to be faithful to him. Here's another bad reason why our families don't look like this. First, we just weren't what we thought we were. Secondly, we've allowed ourselves to be ruled by the fear of man. How do I know that?

Because I allowed myself to be ruled by the fear of man. And I would preach before a church, but I was terrified to share my faith with an unbeliever. Why? Because he would cut my head off? No, we're not having a lot of beheadings here, not in this part of the world, is he might think poorly of me.

I'm embarrassed to say that, okay, but I bet I'm not alone in the room in being governed by the fear of man when really we should fear God. So what's the solution? Repent. We should just repent. We should just acknowledge this about ourselves, agree with God, confess that he's right and we've been wrong all this time and we should forsake these sins and we should turn around and we should go the other direction.

It's really simple when you identify sin. What to do is not a problem. You turn around, you go in the other direction. The good news is that in homes where family discipleship has been reclaimed, in homes where family discipleship has been established firmly, the energy's been spent, and the ground has been reclaimed, it's a great platform for the Great Commission. I don't know of a better platform for the Great Commission than a family that is now solid in worshiping God every day.

Okay, now you got something. You have something to share, like we've been worshiping God together every day in this home. So the bad news is we haven't done as much as soon as we should have, but the good news is if we've really spent our time well reclaiming this ground, then it's good ground from which to launch out into the Great Commission. So the challenge is to come away from a conference speech and to reorganize our family lives to communicate to our children that the Great Commission is important. Here's what I'm saying.

Your schedule has to reflect that the Great Commission is important. I'm talking about teaching without saying things. I'm talking about teaching by the way we organize our lives and by what our calendars say is important. Because when we have lives and calendars that have no engagement with the Great Commission, We're teaching. We're teaching that we don't really think it's important.

But when our calendars and our family lives have an ever present engagement in the Great Commission, we're teaching our children without saying a word, this means everything to me. Because it means everything to Jesus. It matters to him, so it matters to me, so our calendar needs to look like this. Here's the picture. We as parents repent.

We master the fear of man. We stop fearing man and we start fearing God more and we engage in the Great Commission but we don't do it alone we engage in the Great Commission with five-year-olds at our elbow and eight-year-olds and every year old okay but they're there Don't you typically think of the Great Commission as evangelism, primarily, that's wrong, okay, it's evangelism and discipleship and it's the whole ball of wax, okay, But don't you think of it as primarily evangelism and primarily an independent activity? Who said it had to be that? Jesus didn't say it had to be that. So I think it's actually lawful to engage in this together.

I don't think we have to engage in it all the time with our families, but I think we're free to engage our entire families in it and that it's a blessing and that it communicates that it's important to us because it's important to Jesus. So that's the picture. We master the fear of man, we repent, we engage in the Great Commission but we do it not alone but with our children at our elbow so they can watch and see and begin little by little to engage themselves. So what might that look like in your home? I have some ideas, but here's the preface to my ideas.

This is not a list for you. Don't go home and do this list. The point of giving the ideas is just to say, here's some things I've seen, and they appear to be a blessing, and it's supposed to stimulate your thinking. Because the truth is, there could be a thousand different applications. There could be a thousand different ways this could look in your home.

Here's some things we've seen that have been a blessing. Let it stimulate your thinking and then go home and start putting some things on your calendar. So I have three ideas what this could look like in a home. Idea number one, start in an easy place. Your dining room table.

It's a great place to start. Start at the dinner table, your neighbors, your coworkers, the people you meet in your community. They come, they eat with you, talk about normal things. The Lord may or may not be part of that. Be good if you could have the conversation gravitate towards that, but whatever.

And then the dishes are starting to be cleared away and the head of household says, you know what, God's been very merciful to us. We just, this family, we just exist to worship him and so we're humorous we are we engage in this every day we're just gonna you know pull out our Bibles join us don't don't let them leave keep them captive you know and have family worship have it be shorter than usual maybe Have it be maybe more regimented than usual, I don't know, and just have them experience that. It will blow your neighbors away. They've not seen it. And worship God.

One comment I wanted to make is, hey, we've got to pull ourselves back from the thought that if we haven't engaged in an end-to-end gospel presentation, that we haven't engaged in the Great Commission. So if you're going out to witness, it has to be end-to-end, okay? You got one shot. If you're going downtown to witness to people, you got one shot, maybe, unless they give you more. And so it's gonna have to be end to end, but if you're having neighbors into your home, you've got more than one shot.

So you can engage in the Great Commission without an end-to-end gospel presentation you may be you may leap be just laying groundwork and just showing them our family exists to worship God and we think the Bible is his word okay that's That's a good first plank in the Great Commission. OK, you got something to build off of if all that happens in the dinner with your coworker is that they come over and they learn that your family exists to worship God and that you think the Bible is his word. You'll be able to do something with that at future times. So that's idea number one. Okay, you don't have any excuses for that.

You know you got a dining room table. You know you got neighbors and co-workers. Idea number two. I hear something we've seen be a blessing. The nursing home.

The nursing home. Here's who's at the nursing home. Okay, they've got staff. They're captive. Because they're being paid.

They can't go anywhere. There's nowhere for them to flee. And there are two kinds of residents. There are old people who are unsaved, who are coming to the end of their life, and they've never been in more desperate need for the gospel. All humans are in desperate need of the gospel but all old humans are in really, really desperate need of the gospel.

There's not much time left. There's the unsaved people. We should be there giving the gospel to them. And there are old people who are saved who have little or no Christian fellowship and encouragement. 99.9% of them don't leave on Sunday morning and go to a church where all ages are and get the encouragement that we get on Sundays.

99.9% of them sit there with nothing like church going on there. Okay, so whether we're there to preach the gospel to old people who are in desperate need of the gospel or whether we're there to encourage brothers and sisters in Christ who get precious little of it, we're there for the right reason. Here's the genius of the nursing home. It allows for participation at all levels. OK.

Your two year old is gold in the nursing home, okay? If people are currency, the teenagers are $20 bills and the eight year olds are one thing, but the two year old is like gold bullion in the nursing home. And if they're just nice and will hug them, okay, they're engaging in what you're doing. It's not an end to end gospel presentation but You're bringing them into that, right? You go, and so we have a service, but probably the most important things happen before the service and after the service.

Go. Have your five year olds at your elbow while you're speaking about things that matter with people who have precious little of that in their lives. Go be a blessing and find out if you're not the ones who actually get blessed. That's our experience. Idea number three.

This is the one you might be cool to, actually. You might not like this one. The abortion clinic. There's probably one within an hour drive of you, and babies are being murdered all the time there. Take your children, take your two-year-olds.

Where there will be yelling, where there will be blaring horns, where there will be one finger salutes, Let your children hear it and see it so they don't lose sight that just because we're in America, Christians are in a war. Take your children into a war zone. See, it's too young, I don't wanna see that, that's foolish. The sooner they know that the world is at war with Christ, the better. The sooner they know that Christians owe a debt of love to unbelievers, because we used to be that, the better.

Okay, so you can teach them to love people who give you the finger and who blare their horns at you and who yell at you. We go there, The men preach, but there's value in everybody being there. It's raising the visibility in our communities that this is happening in buildings that looks so pristine and so respectable People drive by there all the time. They have no idea what happens behind those walls until Christians stand there and say, God hates this. And there are opportunities, many opportunities for interpersonal appeals.

People will come out and talk to you from time to time. And not just to yell at you, sometimes it is that, but more often than not, they are really willing to engage. I've been so surprised at how often people will actually come out and really be willing to engage in discussion. Three applications. Number one, be a disciple with all your heart.

You've always known that. You've known that since the first days of your Christianity. If you're born again, you knew that right away. You have to give your heart to being a disciple, a pupil, a student, a learner at the feet of Jesus. That may be Revelation chapter two verse four is you today.

This is Jesus writing a letter to his churches. Revelation two, the beginning of the chapter is the letter to the church at Ephesus and he writes to the people in that church, you've left your first love. Come back, come back to your first love. Okay. If you find yourself, you're not really giving your heart to being a disciple anymore.

That's it. That's the problem. You've left your first love. You need to come back. Jesus beckons you to come back to that number one be a disciple with all your heart number two exhaust yourself to evangelize and then disciple your children.

You know, they're not really your children. God has entrusted them to your home. In a sense, they're your children. In a sense, they're not really. In a sense, the window is closing fast.

Isn't that true? It happens so fast. I'm almost out of time with a couple of mine. It makes me very sober-minded about these things, the window is shutting. It's just closing really fast.

Exhaust yourself now to evangelize and then a disciple, the children that God has given you. What a privilege to be given children to share Christ with. Number three, engage your whole family in the Great Commission, all of them. Communicate without words that it's so important to you because it's important to Jesus and you love Jesus. Put them at your elbow and then go speak the words of life.

View this as a non-negotiable element of the discipleship of your children. Are you with me? You have to see it this way. Teaching your children to engage and how to engage in the great work that God has given to his people is non-negotiable. You've not discipled them if you've not taught them to engage in this work.

The reason you haven't may be that you haven't engaged. You must engage now. What are you waiting for? How long can you wait? The window is closing and you've got a massive gap in the discipleship of your children if you've not brought them into an engagement with the great work that Jesus has given to his church.

Is he the head of the church or isn't he? This is the work that he's given us to do and you've not discipled your children until you've engaged your children in his Great Commission. I'm gonna close with a thought from James 1 27. This is James chapter 1 verse 27, pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit widows and orphans in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. What I learned from this verse is that our faith is not just things not to do.

That's part of it. It's an important part of it. It's a non-negotiable part of it. We are to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, but heaven help us if we stop there. Look at me I'm not spotted How glorious I guess.

We're to be light and salt. To be light. I don't want that candle to get stained. Let's put the bushel over it. Whose idea was that?

Let's get rid of that idea. God, I thank you for this time to consider the beauty of the working of the gospel in our lives and how we long to be more fully transformed by it, but I thank you God that you have given all the power when you sent your spirit all the power for the thorough transformation of our lives was given and so God come and do more. Help us Lord, more. Help us, Lord, help us to relinquish everything that we can think of to your lordship, to be fully governed by you, to stop loving the world, and to return to our first love and love you like we did at the first in those first days when we were free from our sins for the first time. Help us have such a heart for those who have not been delivered yet, and to help our children see how your heart is towards them.

Help us to engage our children in this great work that you've given to your people. God, we pray for your help to make us faithful as we ought to be. We pray these things in the name of your son Jesus. Amen. And for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org.