Perhaps the reason that you aren't reaching the lost is because you have neglected to take the time to do discipleship in your family? If discipleship makes us more like Christ then a discipled family will be a family becoming more like the Lord and cause us to love what Christ loves. Having a heart for family discipleship will lead us, and our families, to have a love for the lost.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Carlton McLeod with the following message entitled, How Family Discipleship creates love for the lost. You know, the name of this conference is White Unto Harvest, White Unto Harvest. And it's just so absolutely true that the opportunities before us as people of the book, if you will, are immense. And so I am excited to be here. I am very excited to be here.

I'm excited to get back to Chesapeake, Virginia, where I'm from, and start unpacking all of the things that These wonderful men have been teaching and preaching. I'm excited to be here before you today on behalf of our Lord and by his grace. And I'm excited that my big brother in the gospel, Scott, has just welcomed me in our ministry into the NCFIC family. And We are very, very appreciative of that and for all of you being here today. Let's look to the Lord real quick and then we'll get into what I hope will be a fruitful time for all of us.

Father, we thank you today for your mercy. God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your son Jesus who has saved us from our sin. We thank you for his sacrifice. We thank you for Calvary.

We thank you for every nail and every thorn. We thank you, Lord, for the blood that was poured out for our sins. We thank you for his magnificent, marvelous resurrection that he sits at your right hand. We thank you for the earnest and the seal of the Spirit who indwells us and empowers us and causes us to walk in this kingdom life in a way that glorifies you. And Father, I thank you for these wonderful folks.

I thank you for their families. I thank you for their children. And I thank you for this organization that has brought us all together under such a wonderful banner. What could be more precious than to go out into all the world and preach the gospel, to preach the gospel to all the nations? And Lord, even though you've helped many of us understand that it must begin at home, you didn't say stop at home.

We have a responsibility and a privilege to share the life-giving gospel of Christ with men and women everywhere. We love you with all of our hearts today. And in one voice, we give you praise in Jesus name and let all the people of God say, Amen and Amen. Well, again, welcome to this session. Have a little bit ground.

I'd like to cover. But those of you never seen me before in a conference full of who's who's, I'm definitely one of the who's he type folks, but that's okay. I am very grateful to be here as I said. My name is Carlton and I have the wonderful privilege to pastor a family integrated church in Chesapeake, Virginia. I'll start by saying that it wasn't always family integrated, as a matter of fact, when we started our ministry in 1997, it was far from family integrated.

Like many pastors who haven't heard this message, and like many people who are starting ministries and planning churches, I didn't understand at the time the power of the sufficiency of scripture. I didn't understand how God has this way of regulating his own worship. I couldn't quite grasp it, and so I had read many books, which I'm sure some of you have read, which led me down some very pragmatic roads. But I will tell you today that the fruit of that pragmatism, although it burned brightly for a time, or it seemed to, wasn't very long lasting. As a matter of fact, when it comes to evangelism and discipleship, the statistics that we kept over the years mirror those of most churches, and certainly when it comes to the retention, the training, and the discipleship of youth, sadly, our statistics match those as well.

And so by God's providence and God's grace, through a book that Vody Baucom wrote, most of you I'm sure have this book, Family Driven Faith, and subsequently by the mentoring of Scott Brown, whether he realized it or not, I was on his website learning and growing. Several years ago now, the Lord led us kind of out of the pragmatic stream and into this wonderful place where we uplift the word of God. And we have seen the fruit of it. And so I just wanted to take a moment to express my extreme appreciation, kind of as an outsider coming into this circle saying thank you all for all that you have done. My message today is entitled How Family Discipleship Creates Love for the Lost, How Family Discipleship Creates Love for the Lost.

Since this transformation in our ministry, I've been kind of amazed at the rise of evangelistic fervor that flowed from family discipleship. I'm actually kind of amazed at the fact that there's the knock on family integration or the knock on family discipleship, the knock on on this wonderful thing that God has given us is that, hey, you guys are all a bunch of turned inward, don't share the gospel. All you do is go to church and hold your kids' hands and sing songs, but you don't get out on the street corner. You don't hand out a track. You don't disciple anybody.

Your homes are closed. Your churches are closed. You're all closed. I hear what you're saying, but that's why we don't wanna be a part of family discipleship circles, is because you guys have turned inward. You know the world is going to hell in a hand basket, you don't seem to care.

And I've heard that, and I've read that, but that is simply not true. Amen, somebody? That is simply not true. One of the things that I have been amazed at is the fact that our love for lost people as a result of family integration, family discipleship, the sufficiency of Scripture, returning to a biblical worldview, a biblical ethic has not gone down but is as high as I've ever seen it. Our homes have become these wonderful places where as they begin to reform, our doors have opened up and all of a sudden now there's more hospitality going, there's more street preaching going, there's more tracks going, there's more stuff happening now in our church than in the history of our ministry, and we're 15 years old.

And so I come today to just let you know that since embarking on the journey of family discipleship, we've seen the desire and the heart for evangelism and personal discipleship of men and women go up and not down. We've seen that as we've turned to assess the state of our families and our children, well that same turn has not stayed in our homes, but it's flowed outward and has caused us to consider the lost in our communities, the lost in our church, to consider the devastation happening in the culture and certainly in our nation. Just as family discipleship has caused us to move and go on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ because of the souls of our children, likewise it has also caused us, and I'm hoping many of you have the same testimony, caused us in this room to move outside of those same precious families, taking our children with us and showing them the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. By show of hands, is there anyone in this room that's just really tired of the devil? I just wanna make sure I'm in the right place.

Anyone? It's okay, you can raise your, okay. I'm just really tired of seeing so many precious people bound and lost and trapped and down and just overrun and overtaken by sin and unrighteousness. And as I've gotten into daily worship with my family and discipling my wife and discipling my children, as I've seen the men in our church who just got this message a few years ago do the same thing, I've also seen them almost to a person turn outside of the house, taking their families with them, sharing the gospel of Jesus. So this is not an inward movement, but this is a kingdom movement.

Couple of texts for us to consider today. If you have your Bibles, I'm going to read three. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew chapter 22. And then from there, I'll read a quick verse over in Matthew 16.

And then finally, I'll read the Great Commission, which Brother Scott delivered so eloquently on last evening. Matthew chapter 22, verses 36 through 40. And the Bible says, "'Teacher, which is the great commandment "'or the greatest commandment in the law?' "'And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind. This is the first and great commandment and a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments depend all of the law and the prophets. Amen. Now turn with me quickly to Matthew chapter 16. I'm going to read verse 24. Matthew chapter 16 and verse 24.

Then Jesus told his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. And finally, the Great Commission, most of you can probably quote this one by heart. I'm reading from Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

I wanna talk to you just for a few moments before I get into how family discipleship creates love for the lost. I want to talk to you just for a few moments about the transformative nature of discipleship. As Scott said so wonderfully last night, we are called to do several things in the Great Commission. It is not just witnessing, but it is the making of a learner. It is the development of a disciple, someone who takes up his cross and follows the Lord for the rest of his life and into eternity.

And so we as learners then don't just learn in our homes or don't just desire that we are a home of learners, but rather based on the Great Commission, we desire a world full of disciples, a world full of people that learn and grow in the gospel. There are many excellent ways to define this term discipleship, but for our purposes today, I'm just going to try to keep it very, very simple. Discipleship is the process that makes us more like Christ. Discipleship is the process that makes us more like Christ. And My premise today, as we talk about family discipleship and how it relates to loving lost people, is simple as well.

As a family is discipled, and as a family becomes more like the Lord, a house of disciples, a house of learners, a house of students, a house of people that love the Lord their God with all of their heart and all their mind and all their soul and all their strength, a house of people that love their neighbors as their self, a house of cross bearers, cross carriers. My premise is that as that house transitions into discipleship and becomes more like the Lord, then that family begins to take on the character of the Lord. In other words, how perverted would it be for people to spend their lives studying scripture, but not see the love of our Savior for those who don't know who He is? How perverted would it be for us to catechize and train and sing hymns and walk in righteousness, but then to turn a blind eye to families who are obviously dysfunctional and need our guidance and need our help. How crazy would it be for us to experience the blessings of our God with our children and our spouses, and then to not recognize that God calls us to give the same gospel to others that transformed our lives.

Friend, I tell you that as a home, If it's being done correctly, as a home becomes more like Christ, as we are involved in family discipleship, then that house and the people in it begin to take on the character of the same Christ that saves us. And for those of us who are walking in Christian character, it is an impossibility to turn ourselves away from those who are lost and on their way to hell. Amen? Okay. And So I've noticed in my own home that we have begun to love what he loves and hate what he hates.

I've begun to see in the many of the families in our church that they're beginning to see life through what we joke at our church through Jesus lenses as opposed to please us lenses. In other words, family discipleship, we refuse to let it become an idol. We refuse to let it become an end to itself. Yes, I want my children saved, and yes, I want my wife to continue to grow and skyrocket in her faith, but I also must teach the same by word and example that we must take what God has given us. We must take this wholesome family that we have.

We must take the peace that we have in our home, and we must use it as fuel, as a springboard to share the gospel with our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers, as I heard earlier, a person at the checkout line, wherever we are. Family discipleship doesn't make us weaker in evangelism, but family discipleship is like a springboard into evangelism, okay? As Christ becomes Lord of the home, as Christ becomes King of the house, families begin to see themselves as citizens of an eternal kingdom, not just a kingdom at my address, my street address, or not just my own church. But I've now, as I've begun to disciple my family and immerse myself in scripture, I've begun to see more and more that I'm a citizen of the kingdom. And the kingdom has a king.

And the king sent his son to die for our sins. And so how do we hold that back? We should be as family disciplers, as people who are literally studying the Bible every day. The word of God should be so filled, so full in our lives, so rich in our lives, it ought to be bursting. We ought to be weary of trying to hold it back because we're in it every day.

How do you sing songs like Come Thy Found and Holy, Holy, Holy amongst our children and don't want to communicate that holy God to a nation that needs him desperately. Family discipleship is a springboard to evangelism. Not just the husband, not just the wife, but the children and their children and their children's children. Family discipleship builds a legacy of personal evangelism and discipleship, which is why the devil hates what we're trying to do so badly, which is why I pray for Scott and I pray for Mr. Phillips and I pray for Dr.

Baucom and I pray for all the leaders, the senior leaders of this movement because Satan knows that if we ever catch it, if we ever fully understand that as our children are mentored and trained in the things of God that they'll be warriors unleashed upon the kingdom of hell and there's no demon in hell that can stop an anointed, spirit-empowered believer who's on mission for Jesus Christ. As a family begins to love God with everything that they have. They also begin to love others. For the great commandment is, of course, loving the Lord our God, but our Christ was careful to come right back and say, and there is another part of this, to love our neighbor as ourself. And so as a family is taught to love God, it is also taught to love others.

And that love begins to drive us. I've been telling my church this over and over, I've been trying to internalize this in my own walk and in my own life as well, but it's not loving to see people in darkness and do nothing. It's not loving to know that someone could shut their eyes for the last time today and end up in a Christless eternity in torment, perpetually, forever. That's not loving. It's not loving to know that an aunt or an uncle or a cousin doesn't know the gospel, has rejected Christ.

And we do and say, there's no love in that. That is not loving our neighbors as ourselves. And so as a family begins to see the multi-generational vision of discipleship, now listen, they also begin to see a multi-generational vision for evangelism. And they begin to desire that their children become teachers and preachers of the word of God and their spheres of influence. We are to preach the gospel not just to our progeny, but to our populace.

And I can't think of a better place to be cultivated to learn how to preach the gospel than in my very own home. For I too admit that my desire and preaching of the gospel outside of my home has intensified at least tenfold since I've begun to declare it daily to my very own children. And so the three texts that I read you earlier as simple context, not going to walk through them, but as simple context, Those three texts are often and rightly applied to the individual and also to the church. However, I believe they hold no less value and weight for the family. And intentional discipleship, again, if done properly, cultivates the desire in each member of that home to love God, to love others, to take up his or her cross and to make disciples.

Are you still excited? I'm excited. I've walked these grounds and I have seen all of these children and I see how well behaved they are and how, and the righteousness that's in their hearts and how, and the families and how they love one another and care for one another and we, folks, some folks are here from my church and we're going, this is just an oasis, but you know why else I'm excited? I'm excited not just because you guys go home to a peaceful and comfortable home. But I'm excited that they're also being trained and cultivated to take what they've learned and unleash it upon the kingdom of darkness for the glory of God.

And I don't want you to forget the warrior element of this. Yes, family discipleship is loving and tender, but it's also a war, and it's also a fight, okay? And so sometimes we can get family discipleship, we can get kinda kumbaya-ish, you know? It's kinda, yes, yeah, okay, but understand, yes, we're gonna, you know, understand, we're gonna unleash our children into a world that hates our Christ. And we are training them right now to take the gospel of Jesus, not only into their families, but on the streets and every place else they go.

So just very quickly, as I've tried to hopefully just take those scriptures and just touch them gently. I want to give you what I call 10 ways family discipleships creates more love for the lost. 10 ways family discipleship creates more love for the lost. That was my assignment and I want you to see maybe in a little more detail what I'm trying to impart. Number one, immersion in the scriptures as families should anyway create more love for the lost.

That's number one. Immersion in the scriptures as a family should create more love for the lost. Again, as I've said, in our church, we have experienced a revival in evangelistic fervor. There are people who are handing out tracts and who are striking up conversations now since we started this process several years ago, that never did it in the past. Maybe it's because they're more comfortable, maybe it's because they're more knowledgeable, maybe it's because the word of God has gotten ahold of their hearts because they're reading it every day.

I don't know how people spend a lifetime studying scripture and somehow out of that think that they don't have a responsibility to tell anybody about the gospel. When I read the scriptures, I'm convicted of my own sin and I repent. When I read the scriptures, I want to lift my hands and worship because he's so awesome and He's so great and He's so merciful. But when I read the scriptures, I get angry sometimes at the demonic and the enemy and what He's done and what He's managed to do to our nation and to our culture. And when I read the scripture sometime, I am deeply moved by the responsibility to get up out of my seat and tell somebody that Jesus is Lord and only Jesus saves.

How, again, how perverted is it, friends, to spend a life reading scripture and miss the mission of the Savior? You know who else did that? People we rail on all the time. The Pharisees did that. They spent a life reading scripture.

They spent a life studying the scriptures and to try to find Jesus, right, to try to find the Messiah and yet when he shows up, they missed him. Not only did they miss him, they persecuted him and plotted over and over again to kill him. We never want to have that kind of spirit. We never want to have the kind of spirit on our homes where we study the scriptures and everybody else can go to hell. That is not what this movement does.

At least it hasn't in my experience. And I'm admittedly new to this, about five years in now. But that is not what has happened in our church, in our home. Immersion in the scriptures has shook us and woke us up. And we're going, oh my god, you mean to tell me my grandmother may not be saved?

And I've been sending her cards and praying quiet prayers, but I've never approached her. I've never written a letter. I've never showed her who she is in the mirror of God's holy law and then I've never preached grace to her as well. As we've worked to get our house in order there has been an Overflow of love for others as well and I submit to you today that immersion in the scriptures Should cause that to happen and if it isn't happening I challenge you as your brother find out why? Find out why we love the scriptures and we love the hymns and we love the songs but it's not translating out of the house, not moving out of the house into the neighborhood and into the community, for the fields are white for harvest.

And make no mistake, you are training warriors for the kingdom of God. It has been incredible to see the fruit of obedience. I wish I had time to tell a bunch of stories. I do not. I'll tell the ones, some of you who weren't at the men's thing yesterday, I'll tell very quickly, as our church has emerged or immersed itself in the scriptures, we've come out of that or emerged out of that as a different group of people.

And after preaching a message a couple of weeks ago, I was just feeling pretty good about how things went, really thanking God. There's a bunch of our children outside, And they were just kind of hanging out, fellowshiping in the car next to mine. As I got into my car to leave, they rolled the window down, waving and so forth. And I said, hey, how you guys doing? I started asking them catechism questions.

I started asking them about the 10 commandments just to quiz them to see what's going on, actually as a pastor to kind of check up on their mother and father to see if they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. But anyway, don't tell them. Okay, so they begin to answer those questions just point blank. I asked them the fifth commandment, boom. Sixth commandment, boom.

Seventh commandment, boom. Eight commandment, boom. I said, okay, the commandments are way too easy. That's just too easy. Let's try something different.

And I asked them, what are the decrees of God? Many of you know, which is a standard question in many catechisms, what are the decrees of God? And in one voice, they said, oh, the decrees of God are His eternal plan based on the purpose of will, by which for His own glory, He has foreordained everything that happens. And I kinda went, and I lost some money that day too, so I told them I'd buy them a Happy Meal if they got it right. And they got it right.

But this, I bought them all lunch. But the bottom line is this. They have been so transformed. These are the same children that go on missions, opportunities with their parents. The same children who walk around with million dollar tracts in their hands, the same children who are chomping at the bit to tell others about the gospel of Jesus.

In other words, the catechism and the hymn singing and the discipleship and the daily prayer, it hasn't yet, and we gotta keep watching this, but it hasn't yet become a hindrance to where they turn inward and there's no look at the neighbors that we're supposed to love as ourselves, but rather it has become a springboard where they are more confident in the God that they serve, they are more confident in his word, and at least to this point, I mean it could change on us and we have to buy only by God's grace, right? But at least at this point, we're very excited about what we're seeing. My job today is to try to encourage you in that, that what you're teaching your children ought to make you hunger for the souls of those who are lost. And they too should experience that. And it should translate itself in many wonderful ways.

So that was number one. Here's number two, just another quick way that family discipleship creates love for the lost, the building of a biblical worldview should create love for the lost. To know that his law is holy and that he is holy and that he is the author of life, indeed the Lord of all. To know that there's a fearsome day of wrath approaching. To know that the way is narrow, but there's a broad way and many are on it.

To know that hell enlarges itself. To know that there's a real enemy that is deceiving or trying to deceive the whole world. To understand that there's only one way and there's only one truth and there's only one way to life to know these things, to think biblically, which is what we're all big on in here. Gotta have a big world view. World view, the stats are down, they're really crazy.

Well, I submit to you that a biblical world view ought to create love for lost people do. It shouldn't just say, okay, I went on the Worldview Weekend website and took the test, or I went to the piers and I took the test, and oh, I got an 85 out of a possible whatever, look at my worldview. That's Great, praise God. But it ought to be something else for you too. Because if these things are true, and they are, then that means there's an awful lot of people right now who are dying in their sins.

A family who's being discipled, just to give you another quick example, loves life because of its worldview. I would dare to say that most people in this room are pro-life because of our worldviews, that we hate the sin and the abomination of abortion because of our worldview. Well, why doesn't that same love for life then translate over into those who are dying? It should. We who are pro-life, we who fight for babies, we who fight for children, ought to be just as zealous for the souls of those who could die today, meet Christ and be told, depart from me, you worker of lawlessness.

I simply never knew you. My daughter wrote a letter to the president the other day, and we mailed it. Odds that he'll read it are pretty slim, but she was so compelled by what was going on in our home and some of the things that her mother and I, our conversations and me sitting her down, and she wrote a letter, and the letter consisted of the 10 commandments, all 10, and at the bottom of the letter it said, abortion please stop. And she said, Daddy I want to mail this to the president. And I went, all right, I love it.

And we wrapped it up, and we sent it away. The other day, she came to me, and she said, Dad, I haven't answered this question yet, because it broke my heart. She said, Daddy, when parents abortion their children, that's what she said, abortion their children, she said when parents abortion their children, do they bury them? Where do the bodies go? Where do the babies go?

And I didn't have the heart to tell her in little, well she's here, so I'm about to ruin it, but in little baby body bags in the trash. And most of us in this room would fight tooth and nail to end that abomination, but I'm telling you that same biblical worldview understanding of life should also fire us up on the other side to get out in the streets and go, there's a life that I don't know if that life is going to be with Jesus. There's an eternal human soul, and I don't know whether or not they're going to be with Christ. My mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my friend, my coworker, my Facebook buddy, the person who follows me on Twitter, I don't know whether or not they're going to be with Christ. So the same motivations drive us because of our worldview.

Number three, everybody still with me? Number three, a renewed desire to obey scripture creates love for the lost. This was already read during our time here this weekend, but the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making the wise simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever, the rules of the Lord are true and righteous all together. When we understand that and it's reiterated over and over and over again in family discipleship as we are catechizing our children and talking with our spouse and praying and crying out to God as a family, it ought to make you want to obey whatever thus says the Lord. And evangelism is certainly a command. The great commission to make disciples and teach men and women to obey everything that our Lord has told us to do is certainly a command.

And so I submit to you that as we are discipling, again, it's not an end unto itself. It is something that glorifies our Lord. It grows men and women up to be who God has called them to be, to go and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. We never want to get into a place where we sit in our homes and say, hey, we're discipled. Because that's not discipleship.

That's certainly not the kind of disciples Jesus gave us in the apostles. The Bible says, be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. As families, we see the absolute perfection of the word of God. And as we see that, we should be revived. We should become wiser unto salvation.

We should rejoice that our eyes have become open and we begin to see spiritual realities. And the spiritual reality is sad. Based on the worldview statistics and other things that have already been talked about and will be talked about in these breakout sessions today, Most of the world is lost. Most of the world will be judged on that day. Most of the world will go to hell.

Many of our friends will as well. That's the spiritual reality. And so as the word of God becomes more central in our lives, our desire to actually keep the commandments of the Lord and see families go beyond the amen and out into the doing should naturally happen. This is the nature of discipleship. It causes one to thirst for righteousness and it causes one to thirst for obedience.

Amen, Lord, Thank you for that. Number four, number four. The study of doctrine, the study of catechism should create love for the lost. Again, going back to that knock on family integrated churches, you guys are just a bunch of fact memorizers, but you never do anything. And nothing could be further from the truth.

What I've found is as I've gained a deeper understanding of all the precious doctrines of the historic Christian faith, as I've looked at the scriptures again, as I've looked at all the doctrines from salvation to eschatology. As I've looked at them all, they have inspired me to go tell people what I've learned. They have built my confidence in being able to answer the tough questions, not get caught out there and feeling like I didn't do a good job. They have helped me and inspired me. And hopefully they're doing the same for my, well I know it's working for my children.

Quick sea story here, I'm an old Navy guy. Quick sea story, last Halloween, we're up in, we're in our cul-de-sac and we're kinda out there riding, and Dory's riding her bike and she's doing all this stuff. And my neighbor has this, you know, the pumpkin and the whole thing and the witches and the goblins and the bats and so forth. My daughter, she's been learning some stuff here. So she goes over and says, why don't you have all this?

Excuse me, ma'am, why don't you have all that stuff? Don't you know that you're going to hell? I go, and I run over, I go, wait a minute. But she was so bold in confronting evil. Now, of course, we've had to tweak that presentation.

We don't recommend that one. But many times she's bolder than me. The same daughter said just the other day, we're headed out to get some stuff from my middle child's birthday party, when she said just the other day, as we get in the car, she said, Daddy, can we walk around the neighborhood and give our tracks and knock on everybody's door and tell them about Jesus? And her father, the preacher goes, not today, sweetheart, convicted. Boom.

Because there's a young girl who's been so immersed in the scriptures, there's just no fear in her eyes. There's just no fear. I was the one who was trying to hold her back to my shame. And so the study of doctrine in her life, and the study of catechism in her life, has caused her to become more and more fearless by the grace of God. Catechism helped hammer home for our family that man must come to Christ because of sin, the terrible sin of the fall, man's continual sin in the culture.

And that sin, of course, is demonstrated by all of us, by our inability to keep the laws of God that offends our holy God. We learn all of that in catechism. I will tell you, even as a preacher, before I started this process, I knew some things, but there were some things that came out in the catechism time and the doctrinal times that I simply, I had to go, wow, and that has helped us and driven us to love lost people. Okay, we learn that is the law that prepares the heart for grace. I didn't know that before.

I mean, I kinda knew it, but never in a succinct manner that applied to evangelism the way I know it now. We've learned that the law makes sin exceedingly sinful, that knowledge of sin becomes of the law of God. And we've used that now to inspire us to really understand that man has fallen and desperately needs our Savior. Number five, here's a good one, I love this one. The prophetic role of a father in discipleship cultivates love for the lost.

The more, and I've seen this in my own church, the more a father understands Deuteronomy six, the more a father understands Ephesians six, the more his heart opens for his own children. I have seen this dramatic transformation that his heart doesn't just open for his own children, but his heart opens for children. It's amazing. I've seen this thing happen where the more his heart opens for his wife, His heart begins to open for other adults. The more his heart opens for his family, it opens, period.

And all of a sudden, these guys who appear timid, kind of guys who always kind of took a back seat, all of a sudden are standing up and going, wait a minute. And as they are declaring the word of God in their own homes, they're also leading their families out the door to declare the word of God every place that they go. When dad catches it, watch out. Because he begins to become this fearsome warrior who is willing to go out and declare the word of our Lord. You know the passages very well, Deuteronomy 6, and verse two, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping his statutes and his commandments, which I command you all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.

Few verses down, verses six and seven, and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You know Ephesians six equally well. Fathers, don't provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. I have seen men understand that, and here's a wonderful benefit of it. It didn't just stop with their own children, but as they became confident, and this is important, as they became confident in discipling their own children, they became more confident in the Great Commission in general.

Family discipleship turned timid men into razors. And I have seen them lead their families out of the house, out the door, into their communities, Bibles in one hand, tracts in the other, the love of God bursting in their hearts. No matter what evangelism, you know, sermon I preach, it still didn't do what I've seen that man becoming the prophetic teacher of his house do with respect to evangelism. It's been incredible. But ladies, not to leave you out.

Number six. The tender instruction of a godly mother, the tender instruction of a godly mother also creates love for the lost. Maybe in a little different way though, but certainly it does. Paul speaks of Timothy's mother and grandmother's faith as sincere, the same type of faith that was passed on to him. Most of us know that moms by the calling of God and the nature of God are a little more caring and a little more nurturing.

The father's a little prophetic. Let's go get it done. All of you are going to hell. Mom's like, yeah, you're going to hell, but let's talk about it. And so I've seen both principles become this amazing thing in our church where dad kinda, let's go, let's go, let's go, and mom right beside him and right there going, we're going, but as we go, let's pick you up and let's pick you up and let's pick you up and we're gonna be a little more patient with you and a little more patient with you.

Yep, yep, okay, honey, you got them. I'm going to the next one, Jesus is Lord, right? And then behind, you know, and so we've seen the family, the distinctives, the creation order, the design of God implemented in Discipleship, and it's a beautiful thing with dad kind of leading and taking the kind of the battle to the enemy, and mom bandaging up the wounded and helping them with a little more patience than maybe I could muster. Because long since I'm thinking, okay, you don't get it, I'm done, I'm going to bed, my wife's still there. All the ladies, you can say amen right there.

Long when I'm done and the babies are sick and I'm tired and I have no more strength left, she's up and she's going and she's going and she's going and she's going. Thank God for our wives. Thank God for our wives. I don't know where that stamina comes from, but thank God for it. Hallelujah, praise the Lord.

And so that, but that, the usefulness of both parents in evangelism, we've also seen that, and well, the tender instruction of a godly mother creates love for the lost. Number seven, number seven. The blessings of family prayer, the blessings of family prayer creates love for the lost. As a family looks to God in prayer. You know, have any of you gotten to the point where, because you're family disciplers and family shepherds, have any of you gotten to the point where you just got tired of praying for you?

Anybody got there? Am I the only one? Where I've prayed for myself and I prayed the same prayer, Lord, help my child be obedient. Lord, I'm about to knock her out. Please help her, so I cannot do that anymore.

You get to a point where you go, okay, this week, guys, as we've been praying for ourselves, and praying for our unity, and praying for, but this week, we're gonna pray for India. We're gonna pray for China. Because you're praying every day, right? And so we're gonna, you just can't pray for yourself that much all the time. So today we're gonna pray for Africa.

Today we're gonna pray for Sister So-and-So who lives next door. Today we're gonna pray for our neighbor across the street who we know doesn't go to anybody's church. Today we're going to pray for this church and that church. And today we're going to pray for this pastor and that pastor. Today we're going to pray for widows and they were going to pray for orphans.

And today we're going to, in other words, the blessings of family prayer, if you know, cause we do it so much, you can't just pray for yourself all the time. Eventually you lead the family to begin to think outside of its own desires. That's what, you know, discipleship, we're following the Jesus character thing I told you about. And so the blessings of that prayer then begins to transform the heart of the family. You know, if there's one thing that frustrates me as a father, and there's several, but there's one thing that I just really, I'm really praying, Lord, to help my children deal with this, is when they get selfish.

When it's about me, me, me, and my, my, my, it's really, because I know somewhere along the line, I know that's just her sin nature, but somewhere along the line, a point is being missed here. You've missed something critical, but as we begin to pray more, as I see my children desiring to pray, as I hear my wife wanting to pray for others, she prays for others way more than she does for herself, that changes the heartbeat of the family. It transforms the family, because now we've prayed for one another and we're praying for our strength and praying for our unity, but you can't help but eventually begin to pray for other nations, other states, and the elected officials, and the firemen, and the policemen, and eventually your heart turns to those who might wake up today without Christ, and the family begins to, in its own way, begins to deal with the spiritual reality that there are some who are not saved. And so I refuse to let my family discipleship time become, and oh Lord, for Christmas this year, get me. I just won't let that happen.

Okay, once and then that's over. Now we ought to be praying about what we can give to someone because we are so incredibly blessed. And if that doesn't meet a good reaction, it's time for dad to do a lesson on giving in family discipleship. Because we are working now to become more like the God that saved us by the blood of his son. And so because in family prayer you become less selfish.

Think about what prayer is. It is a looking to God. It is not a just purely a list of stuff that you want from God, but before it's anything else, It is a looking and a surrendering to God. And in that place, God begins to show you just how blessed you are. Have you ever had a moment where in prayer, where you went to him with a bunch of lists and he showed you, reminded you of so and so whose daughter is stricken with cancer and so and so, and you just begin to weep and say, Lord, I'm sorry I even was asking right now.

Show me how to help them, show me how to bless them, show me who needs the gospel, give me strength to preach it, help me to take my children with me. And those become some tender moments in the place of prayer. They become moments that redefine your family. I wanna encourage you to not let your family discipleship, to not let it, and I know many of you are very learned in this, but I'll say this. Yesterday at the Burnings in the Soul, somebody I very much admire, one of the speakers got up and he talked about some of the challenges and the problems that he's having in his church.

And this is before I got up to say my little bit there. But I remember kind of thinking to myself at that moment, I said, Lord, is it possible that these men who have blazed this trail, and these churches that have blazed this trail, are so used to it that they can't see what those of us who are just coming into it see, the radical transformation of men and women who've gotten ahold of this message. So I say to you, don't let it become old. Don't let it become stagnant. If you wanna break, if family devotions and family discipleship is getting a little old, a little tired, a little routine, hey, here's an idea.

Go get you one of those prayer books for the world or something, I forget what it's called, World Prayer or something like that, World Vision, it was something along those lines, and get one of those and pick a country. Or go on YouTube or someplace or GodTube and begin to look at widows and orphans in other places and gather your family. And if your kids are getting a little, you know, I want this and I want that, begin to show them Cambodia and begin to show them India and begin to show them some of these other places and begin to weep and cry out for God as to how your family might touch and bless and make a difference. Begin to talk about what's happening in your very own community. In Hampton Roads, for every two births, there's an abortion where I live.

For every two births, there's an abortion, okay? I can't abide that. I won't, and I don't want my family to abide that. And so in our discipleship as we move closer to the Lord and take on his character, yes, we're gonna pray over our own sin, and yes, We're gonna repent and cry out, and yes, we wanna learn to memorize scripture, but those things shouldn't stop there. Those are the things that oughta drive us to the streets.

The more you know of God, the more you should want his mission. The more you know the Christ who saves you, the more you should wanna tell everybody about the God that saved a wretch like you. Amen, somebody. So the more you begin to understand it, the more discipleship then has a missional element to it in your family. As your children are coming up and learning and growing, you are looking for ways to steer them and unleash them out into the culture so that men and women would know the gospel of Christ.

Number eight. Number eight. The simple faith, I love this one, the simple faith of maturing children creates love for the lost. I told the story already, I was gonna tell about my daughter but I wanna just reiterate again that her dad was so convicted that my daughter at seven years old was ready to go knock on every door. Hi, my name is Dori and this is what she do.

My name is Dori. I live over there. And here's a million dollar track. Would you like a million dollars? Look on the back, it has the 10 commandments, and then it has the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You go to church anywhere, and if I let her, she just go on and on and on and on until you were saved or slam the door on her face. I mean, It's just, you know, and I'm thinking, and if I can just be honest, I have to say, where's that in me? I don't have that sometimes. I'm not, I mean, door knocking? We don't do that anymore.

But the simple faith of your children as they come up, and it's so black and white to them. So as we get older, everything gets more nuanced. That's a word that's popular now, nuanced. Just like paradigm was 10 years ago, nuanced is very popular. But as we get older, everything has these shades of gray, and you just never really wanna, you just never know.

And I wonder if maybe the simple faith of a child is what we need. And at that time, the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and calling to him a child, calling him a child. He put him in the midst of them and said, truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Oh Lord, give us the simple, humble faith of a child who's willing to speak and say and do out of simple trust in you.

And yes, friends, I know that things are nuanced. I totally get that. But the gospel is still very clear. The gospel is still very clear. And so one of the things that I have noticed and seen is that the clarity of the message of Christ in a young mind, in a new mind, a newer mind who hasn't had two or three decades of nuance many times understand what needs to be done more than me.

Number nine, the blessings of hospitality should create love for the lost. In the communities that I serve, seeing a biblically literate father leading his family is, I was going to use the word anomaly, but that's actually too soft. It's almost unheard of. In the communities that I have the honor to serve, to see a well-ordered home where children are taught to serve their guests but stay out of earshot, where mom and dad aren't throwing stuff at each other. And to use a joke at our church where the po-po isn't always that they don't.

That's the translation, police. OK, anyway. OK, but anyways. But anyways, it is so unusual to sit down to a dinner where the truths of God are expounded upon, people are encouraged, lifted up, children actually come in and it's so unusual that hospitality in and of itself becomes like a trap. It becomes like a, you know, because people are going, how did you guys do this?

Because in most of, and this is now true for everyone, but in most of our homes in America, I mean you got the kid over here on Facebook and that one over there on Twitter and there's this one over here on his iPhone and mom, you know, dad's eating dinner in there and mom's eating dinner in there if there's a dinner at all and we don't eat breakfast together, we don't really come together and then we get home, we take them to school and that gets all frantic then we come home and they gotta go this and that and this and so there's no family time, none of that. The family gets more fragmented. You all know that very well and all these things happen, which is why you're here. You know that very well. So your homes then, these hospitable places, become drawing cards for families who, although they may initially look at you and go, you guys are weird, underneath all of that are going, but how did you do that?

How did you, I've had people say, how, how, how did you have kids at your church that actually sit still? And then someday I'd walk up and pull out a rod and go, this is how I did it. Walk away. But it's true. But The truth of the matter is bringing people into your home is a wonderful opportunity to develop love for lost people and a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel.

And I can't even think of a better environment for discipleship. You know, you don't need a class. You need moms and dads who have been trained in the Word, who love God's Word, who love people enough to open their home and let them see that, you know, it is possible, even in this culture, for a husband to love his wife like Christ loves the church, for a wife to submit herself to her own husband as to the Lord, for children to be brought up in the fear and admonition, the instruction of the Lord. And people sit back and go, I just don't know. And you'll see them wanting to come over.

They'll start inviting themselves. When's the next time can we come over? And they don't even know why. But it's underneath it all. You know why.

They're hungering for that thing on the surface, but you know that it's really the Christ and his word that changed our entire family. And so I'm going to give you the gospel because I can't just give you, this is how you know, it starts with the gospel. Okay, so I encourage you to still continue to be very active in the process of using your home as a place of discipleship, but also a place where the gospel is proclaimed in word and deed. And then finally, doing ministry as a family creates love for the lost. I've had many, many comments since I've run into Scott Brown of people that come to our church and they'll see a mom and her daughter standing at the door handing out a bulletin as people come in.

And it's just this unheard of thing, or to see a joint choir up and singing with older and younger people in the choir. Or to see, have a men's meeting where dads have their sons, or to know that this father took his son or his two boys out as he handed out tracks and what have you. And what you're doing is you're discipling that love for the lost. Oh, fishing is great, and basketball is great, and throwing the old ball around, that's awesome. But taking them on missions trips, taking them when you go feed homeless people, taking them to the clothes closet as you're giving clothes away, taking them to the hospital of King's daughters to see other children as you minister to them and lay your hands on them and pray for God's blessing and restoration.

Having them with you more and more begins to cultivate love for the lost. Because then the family comes home, still very shaken by what they've seen, still very impacted by what God has done, and they begin to pray and cry out. And children begin to ask, when can we go back there? How can we do that again? When can we do that again?

Mommy, can I write her a letter? Mommy, can I give my money I earned from doing this to this child, boom, boom, boom, boom, and you begin to see this love, this thing begin to bubble up because of taking the time to disciple one's children and one's family? And it's a beautiful thing to behold. Families involved in discipleship tend to want to do ministry together. The whole family is exposed then to kingdom work.

And at our church, we encourage every family to get involved in community service at least once or twice a week. Spend that night, that evening, doing something outside the church, something not connected with what we're necessarily doing. But my family and I, it's pro-life issues. We are all over the place. I mean, you know, Christ is pregnant center, and just a variety of things we're doing, just trying to save babies, just trying to save babies.

But it's important that my daughters and my son develop that love for life. That's my job, to teach them that. Bottom line is this, I think my time is up. As families become better disciples of Jesus, they take on the mission of Jesus. As we become better kingdom citizens, we more joyfully embrace kingdom mandates.

As we are daily baptized by the word, we desire to preach that same word. As our hearts turn towards him, again, the first half of the great commandment, he turns those same hearts towards our neighbors, the second half of the great commandment. Eternity then becomes very real to a family being discipled. The dominion mandate becomes very real to a family being discipled. Both the command to take dominion and the reality of hell and judgment become very real to a family being discipled.

Then this humble family begins to understand its role in discipling others, and I can't think of a more perfect environment to develop love for the lost. Thank you very much. The National Center for Family Integrated Churches is dedicated to proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life and to the establishment of biblically ordered churches. For more information, resources, and products, please visit our website at www.ncfic.org.