Who makes disciples? There is more than one answer to the question, as Jason Dohm will address in this message, and the multiple answers are designed by God to work together for the spiritual health and progress of everyone who has trusted in Jesus. Christian parents have a primary role in the evangelization and discipleship of their children. And the local church has a role in strengthening those parents and working alongside them as well. Other believers can, and often do play, a significant part. By His grace, God gives disciples help from a multitude of sources. 

You want the rest of the story on that message? Scott assigned me that message but he just didn't tell me. By the time he discovered it was too late, I already made plans. My topic this afternoon is a partnering in discipleship. Jesus's kingdom exists because Jesus made disciples who make disciples who make disciples who make disciples and so the gospel made it to me and the gospel made it to you and our generation And the gospel will be alive and well when Jesus returns because disciples make disciples.

This conference has considered how that happens, how God has designed it to happen. And my role is to help us consider two of God's primary institutions, the family and the church. They are designed to partner together, to fit together hand in hand, to make disciples and to help them grow. As we come to this topic let's ask God to help us. God if you don't help there won't be fruit.

Surely you want your people to be fed. You want there to be fruit. So I come praying with such confidence that your spirit will be here moving, helping me, helping people who are hearing so that there would be a harvest in our homes, in our churches, in our lives. Let it be so in Jesus name, amen. Here's the key premise.

The family is essential in making and growing disciples. But it does not have the sum total of what is needed to make and grow disciples. And the family functions at its best when it is working hand in hand with the local church and the opposite is is also true and is just as true the church is essential in making and growing disciples but it does not have the sum total of what it is needed to make and grow disciples and the church functions at its best when it is working hand in hand with the family. Here's the road map for our time. There will be three points.

One, How God has designed a family to make disciples and then help them grow. 2. How the church has how God has designed the church a local church to make disciples and then help them grow. And then 3. How families and local churches can work together as partners in discipleship.

Number one, how God has designed a family to make disciples and to help them grow. We'll begin with this classic quote from Malachi 2.15. Why does God unite a man and a woman and make them one in marriage? The answer to that question is in Malachi 2.15. He, God, seeks godly offspring.

This is what God has in mind when he brings a man together with a woman and he makes them one. He is seeking, desiring, godly offspring, more people who will know him, walk with him, be reconciled with him, love him, worship him. A husband and wife become a father and mother. What does God have in mind? That the husband and wife have been reconciled to him through his son and that then they do all they can to teach these children the gospel and Bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord God wants this husband dad wife, mom, to each be reconciled to Him through the person and work of His Son Jesus Christ.

And then as he gives them children, he wants to teach them about this God who is perfectly good, this God who is perfectly great, and then also what they're like so that they understand that there is a desperate, desperate need. There is a seemingly unbridgeable chasm between God and His perfect greatness and goodness and what we're like in our heart of hearts no matter how respectable we might look like to each other. And then as God in grace causes some of these children then hopefully more of these children then hopefully all of these children to be converted to repent and believe the gospel to become new creations that they are brought up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 6. How many times has that been said in this conference over the years?

Turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 6. A lot of times. I'm going to just be reading Deuteronomy 6 verses 4 through 9. Follow along as I read Deuteronomy 6 verses 4 through 9. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children shall talk of them when you sit in your house when you walk by the way when you lie down when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

In Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4 Paul writes, and you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath but bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord. What is that? I think it's just a summary statement of what God has already said to his people in Deuteronomy chapter 6. It's just a condensing of it. Bring up your children in the training and the admonition of the Lord Deuteronomy 6 just says it with more Content gives you more about how you do that the point I'm making is that that is the Old Testament testimony That is the New Testament testimony that is scriptures testimony of what parents are to be about.

Deuteronomy 6 gives us this indispensable progression. What is that? It starts with love for God in the hearts of parents. You have nothing until there is love for God in the hearts of parents because you cannot give what you do not have. It starts with parents having something towards God to give, to pass to their children.

It progresses to words of God in the heart. These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. We have the words of God, yes, in our minds, Yes, knowledge, but these are things that are in our hearts. They are embraced at the heart level. And then out of love for God and a dwelling on the Word of God, the Word of God in our heart, we diligently teach our children.

The husband and father is the head and the wife and mother is the empowered helper. Heads of households Make sure your helper is an empowered helper. You'll get so much more help. And they, the head and the empowered helper, they should stand shoulder to shoulder to do what? To do this.

This is the job. There's a reason we come back to these texts over and over and over because they are absolutely foundational and they must shape our home life. Your Your home has contours to it. The contours should have been formed and shaped by this text of scripture. It should inform the decisions that you make about what your home is doing, the schedule of your home, the budget of your home.

By the very nature of the relationship, parents and children, God has given parents tremendous influence in the lives of their children and God has designed it for them to have to have that influence he wanted you to have that influence and to use that influence to impart the gospel and for discipleship. That's why he gave you the influence. No one can match a parent's influence. Not even when they try and they try but no one has the advantages that a parent has. Well, why did God give you those advantages?

Because he wants you to use that influence for the gospel and for discipleship. This is a unique position given to parents by God. And that's what they're supposed to do with it God you put me in this unique position. What am I supposed to do with it? That's it.

That is the job the family is designed to be a greenhouse for discipleship A hot house for discipleship when the family is functioning biblically the conditions are perfect for discipleship So a greenhouse Extends the growing season Farmers think in terms of growing season, there's a certain time when you can grow because the conditions are right for it. But you can create that every season if you have a greenhouse, if you have a hot house. The family is like that. The family, when it's functioning biblically, the conditions are perfectly for discipleship with no end to the growing season. God made it that way.

The conditions are just right for discipleship. Before we move on, let me say this. Homes are also a competitive weapon for evangelizing people from outside the home. Wow, I wish we thought of our homes this way. Do you think of your home this way?

Think of your home this way. It is a competitive weapon for evangelizing people from outside the home. What do I mean by a competitive weapon? I mean this. The Great Commission in a sense has us competing for the hearts and minds of the lost.

Do you buy that proposition? In a sense the Great Commission has us in a competition for the hearts and minds of the lost. Here's what I say to that. Okay, let's play to win. If that's the game, then let's play to win.

How do we play to win? Have unbelievers at our table. Not the only way you play to win, but it's a powerful way that you play to win. Why? Because in a home God is endeavoring to create, is designed to create a little piece of heaven, a little world of the kingdom of heaven.

That's what a home is supposed to be like. Does my home look like that all the time? Well I won't tell if you don't tell. How about that? But that's what God wants and the people from outside the home, the people from outside the faith have no context for what our homes are like.

They have an idea of what they think Christianity is and what Christians are and they couldn't be more wrong and the wall starts to be broken down when they have dinner at our tables. When someone moves from our church, I normally participate in the moving of the things into the new place. And before the work crew breaks up I will normally try to just gather us to just thank God and pray for the home and if you're there for that you'll hear inevitably you'll hear this oh god thank you for this family thank you for the resources that you placed in their hands in a new home that you've given them God I pray that you would bring people who have never met the Lord Jesus Christ to be here in this home that they would encounter Jesus here and I pray that many of your people who are weary and discouraged and need help and need instruction would come through the door of this home and find refreshment with brothers and sisters here in Jesus name. Amen. I pray all that prayer may people who don't know Jesus come here and encounter Jesus may people who do know Jesus come here and be refreshed and instructed here.

Our homes can be that. God wants our homes to be that. This is the design of God. So that's one how God has designed a family to make disciples and then help them grow. It's a greenhouse, it's a hot house, the conditions are perfect, there's no end to the growing season, God designed it that way.

Number two, how God has designed a local church to make disciples and then help them grow. So I just swapped out family and put in local church. The Apostle Paul wrote this to Timothy. I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. This is 1 Timothy 3.15.

The local church is the place where believers learn how we ought to conduct ourselves in worship, how God wants to be worshiped. We shouldn't be worshiping according to our preferences. We should be worshiping how the object of worship, God, wants to be worshiped. So we learn that in the local church and then we worship God and conduct ourselves that way The local church is the repository of the truth Paul calls it the pillar and ground of the truth God's revelation to mankind this book God's revelation to mankind is safeguarded and taught and honored there. Do we need a place on planet earth where the word of God is safeguarded and taught and honored?

You better believe it. Where is it? It's the local church. The local church is where we cultivate and live out the one another's, these New Testament descriptions of how believers need to learn to relate to one another. Let me give you a smattering of them.

Love one another. Be devoted to one another. Build one another up. Bear one another's burdens. Submit to one another.

Exhort one another. Stir one another up to love and good works. There's something like 30 of them depending on how you count. Some of them are very close and so you'd say there's so much overlap. They're not two, they're one, so you get different numbers.

It's about 30 one another's in the New Testament. This is how the New Testament teaches us to relate to one another among the people of God. And let me tell you, I need to receive these things, all 30 or whatever the number it is, I need them all. You need them all. I need to learn to give these things.

They're not native to me. Native to me is selfishness. So I need to learn to give these things. I need to receive them. I need to learn to give these things.

I need to receive them. I need to learn to give them. And you do too. And overwhelmingly, the local church is where that happens with regularity. We need somewhere where that will happen with regularity.

Where is it? It's the local church. The local church is where qualified men define and defend sound doctrine. They say this is the truth of God. They define it and then They defend it from error.

Where qualified men preach the word of God to exhort and encourage and strengthen and even rebuke and move the people of God. We're slow to move. What does God intend to do about that? He raises up qualified men to preach so we would be moved. I love how I love what our family calls Bible time.

Many people call it family worship. It's the time almost always after dinner when we gather together. It's very simple. It's not very long, but we gather together around the Word of God and we consider a chapter usually. We talk a little bit about it and then we all pray.

I love it. But that is not the same as what happens on Sunday. When a qualified man stands before the church to authoritatively declare the word of God after spending 11 to 15 hours in preparation. That's strangely specific. That's my range.

Virtually never less than 11 hours goes into it. Virtually never more than 15 hours that goes into it. That's a lot of time. I never spend any of that time for family worship. I always spend that time for Sunday morning.

It's not the same. We need the depth that comes from 11 to 15 hours. The richness, the connections in scripture that comes from the 11 to 15 hours. The authoritative declaration that comes from the confidence of spending 11 to 15 hours. Some of it praying.

Those qualified men have authority. Yes within your jurisdictional boundaries thankfully and admittedly I know that. But they do have authority and they are tasked to provide accountability. Do our families need that? Of course our families need that.

The local church is where so many of the ordinary means of grace reside. What do I mean by an ordinary means of grace? I mean a pathway established by God, a means, the way you get to the end point, that he has established to pour his goodness through every day, every week, every month into the lives of his people. He has established channels and he promises to pour his goodness through those channels into the lives of his people every day, every week, every month through those channels. You can go back to them over and over again.

They're just ordinary means but the the grace of God the goodness of God flows through them. Individual sermons are each like a building block you're getting material for your heart and your soul and your mind and then there's another individual sermon and you have another building block and God is building you up brick by brick. It's an ordinary means of grace. Corporate singing engages the heart. It makes sure that a worship service doesn't become a business meeting.

Corporate singing is an ordinary means of grace. Praying together bonds us together and gives us a shared history of answered prayer. Have you been to a prayer meeting, a weekly prayer meeting for a long time? If you have, you understand that you build a shared history of answered prayer that is precious, that gives you confidence that God will continue to answer your prayer. Because you can remember we prayed about all these things and in time God answered them.

There are even some spectacular ones where you say do you remember the night where we prayed for this and by the time the meeting was over, we had the answer to it. We've got some of those stories. Corporate prayer is an ordinary means of grace. God's Goodness has flowed through that channel to us. The Lord's Supper is a precious gospel remembrance where we're brought face to face in a tangible way, meaning you can touch it and smell it and taste it.

We're brought to face to face in a tangible way with who we are. The wages of sin is death. Somebody has to die for these sins. But Jesus has been willing to come and offer his body and spill his blood as an acceptable sacrifice for me. I see who Jesus is when I take up these things that I can touch and taste and smell.

And I know who I am and I know who Jesus is and who he's done. That is an ordinary means of grace. The goodness of God has flowed to me through that channel more times than I can count. I need all of these things. You need all of these things.

Yes, private worship is essential. Amen. There is no Christian life without it. Yes, family worship has tremendous value. We ought to be at a family level gathering around the Word of God and honoring what God has told us and crying out to Him in prayer.

But we need this corporate life as well. We must have this corporate life as well. The grace of God flows to us through these established corporate means. The grace of God flows to us through these established corporate channels. The church is where you have this broad array of gifts and functions.

Listen to how Paul describes this in Romans chapter 5. I won't be here long So just listen Romans chapter 5 about the gifts and about the functions. I think I've marked the wrong spot. It's in Romans about how we're all one body and all the members are different with a different function. All the members have been given different gifts by God.

And I can say this. We need each other. We need more breadth and depth than is contained within any one nuclear family. Let me just say that again. That is such an important thought.

We need more breadth and depth than is contained within any one nuclear family. I love my family, but each of us needs more than is contained in our home. I need more than that. My wife needs more than that. My children need more than that.

The local church supplies that. The functions that we don't have in our home are supplied by our local church. The gifts that we don't have in our home are supplied by the local church. Can people and families in frontier missions, places where there are no local churches yet survive without it, by the grace of God, yes, but they will tell you how brutally difficult it is, how much is lacking When you only have your personal relationship and your family relationship and you are missing the local church relationship and those functions aren't there and those gifts aren't there, the people in Frontier Missions will tell you. Sometimes it feels like we're starving.

The local church is designed to be a greenhouse for discipleship, where the growing season never ends. Outside of it, the growing season is truncated, shrunken, but in this designed greenhouse, hot house, the growing season goes and goes and goes. When the church is functioning biblically, the conditions are perfect for discipleship. The conditions are just right for discipleship. And of course like the family also exists to make disciples outside the members of the home, the local church also exists to make disciples outside the members of the home.

The local church also exists to make disciples outside the members of the church. Here I'll just say go re-listen to Brian Borgman's message from yesterday. Like insert here. I'm gonna listen to that again. You need to listen to that again.

How can our churches engage outside for the purposes of bringing the gospel and then helping converts grow? That was great. Number three, how families and local churches can work together as partners in discipleship. How can we work together? The family alone does not fulfill God's design for making disciples and then helping disciples grow.

The family needs the local church. The church alone does not fulfill God's design for making disciples and then helping disciples grow. The church needs the family. They are designed to work together. God always designed them to work together.

Then how does that work? How should that work? Let me start by stating the obvious. Families should create a culture that honors the local church. Fathers and mothers in this room you're responsible to create a culture in your home that honors the local church that has a high view of the local church that carves out a prominent place for the local church.

And the local church should nurture a culture that helps families. The local church should be cultivating a culture that is tailwinds, wind in the sails of families, not headwinds blowing against families. The biggest fan of the Biblically functioning church should be the Christian family. Other families, go church, go! Go church, go!

How can we help you go farther, faster? Put us to work to help with the mission of the local church. Our strength is your strength. Our functions are your functions. Our gifts are your gifts.

The biggest fan of a biblically functioning family should be the local church. Go family go! Go family go! Go family go. Your family should give your local church the ongoing prioritization it needs to maximize the disciple making and disciple growing functions that God has given the local church.

Let me just say that backwards because it was a lot. And you'll get it again if I say it backwards. God has given certain discipleship making and discipleship growing functions to the local church. So the family should give the church all the prioritization it needs to fulfill those functions. If you are in a biblically functioning church, God has given you qualified men who are giving significant thoughts, significant prayer to how can we make disciples and how can we help them grow?

Why are you exempting yourself and your family from much of what they think would help you? They've been thinking about what would help you grow as a disciple and you're exempting yourself from much of it. Why? If they aren't the right men to follow, Then find the men you think are the right men to follow, but then follow them. A casual approach to local church life where you do lots of selective participation and treat the discipleship opportunities of the church like a menu to pick and choose from is not partnering in discipleship.

Wow it's quiet in here I thought I would get some amens. It's too late. It's too late. If I have to ask for it, it's too late. Yeah, some churches do too much and would run your family into the ground.

Some churches do things that don't have much discipleship value. My observation is that more parents are hiding behind that argument than actually find themselves in that situation. Is that you? Well, I mean, we need to do family discipleship so we can't really participate in most of what the church does. Is it really that?

Is family discipleship getting that time? I doubt it. The Christian family should be jet fuel for the local church. Friends, go be jet fuel for the local church. And your local church should do everything it can to encourage and strengthen the families that are part of the church.

Everything it can to encourage and strengthen their families. Yes, of course I'm addressing pastors and there are a lot of pastors here but I'm not just addressing pastors. Do you need to be a church officer or need a title to encourage and strengthen families? It's got nothing to do with me until you give me a title. Pastors can and should encourage and set an expectation of vigorous spiritual life in the home both inner personally and in the pulpit.

What do I mean? Inner personally, like pastors, we have to have our act together at home. Our family life has to be in order by definition, by qualification. So we should encourage and set an expectation of vigorous spiritual life in the home because we have vigorous spiritual life in the home. But also from the pulpit.

We need to mount the pulpit and say, brothers and sisters, we must. Brothers and sisters, God has called us to this. How can we not? But any of us can model that and reinforce that expectation through hospitality. It's such a gentle way to raise the bar.

Hey, let families who are new, families that are struggling, come and see it in action. Of course, it has to be in action. That's the problem. But let families that are struggling, families that are weak come and see it in action. That's the gentlest way to raise the bar and we need to raise the bar.

Any of us can schedule a time to have coffee and say, How's marriage going? Fine. Great. How's marriage really going? How's parenting going?

Great. Glad to hear that. How's parenting really going? How's gathering everybody around the Word of God to read and worship going? What are your obstacles to doing that almost every day?

What would it cost you to do it almost every day? Friends, here's the bottom line. God created these two great institutions, the family and the local church, so that sinners might be saved and then grow. That people might know him and then walk with him. Every one of us has a place in both of these ecosystems.

A place in the family, a place in the local church. And these ecosystems are interrelated and interdependent. You might and interdependent. You might think, I don't matter in one or both of them. That's not true.

Both ecosystems, the family and the local church are designed to need their members. They are designed to need all of their members and both of these ecosystems, the family and the church, lose power and effectiveness when even one single member checks out and disengages. That's true. So if you're a believer, accept that you are part of this partnership. Why?

Because you are part of this partnership. Accept it and train yourself to engage as a partner. To think like a partner. To plan like a partner. To pray like a partner.

It will help your own discipleship it will help the discipleship of others God help us I need help in my discipleship and I want to play a role in the discipleship of others. I thank you for giving me a place that's rich in opportunities for that, But I know among the people of God there are no fields that have no opportunities for that. God help us. Help our homes be a little bit of heaven. A little place where Christ is known, is loved, where sins are acknowledged and repented of, where children are brought up in the training and admonition of the Lord, where the love of God is transmitted.

Help our churches be places that really are a greenhouse where there's no end to the growing season. That are tailwinds filling up the sails of families. We desire these things. We know that you have called us to them and I pray that you would give these things to us in Jesus name. Amen.