The sermon, titled 'Family Discipleship and Age Integration' by Jason Dohm, explores two core commitments and distinctives: family discipleship and age integration within the church. Dohm argues that the health of a church, such as Sovereign Redeemer Community Church, relies heavily on its dedication to family discipleship. He stresses that fathers hold ultimate responsibility for the spiritual education of their children, emphasizing that this responsibility is biblically mandated and crucial for a healthy Christian upbringing. The speaker draws from Deuteronomy 6:1-9 and Ephesians 6:1-4 to highlight the biblical foundations for these commitments, advocating for a model where parents, particularly fathers, actively disciple their children in a walk-along, talk-along method. Age integration is presented as a biblical pattern, promoting the idea that church gatherings should not separate by age to maintain intergenerational learning and fellowship. Dohm acknowledges the challenges of this approach but believes it fosters a more authentic and spiritually enriching environment. The sermon concludes with practical applications, encouraging both young and older members to engage across age groups and stressing the importance of fathers taking the lead in spiritual matters at home.

This week, the title is Family Discipleship and Age Integration. There are two things there. They are both core commitments and distinctives. In other words, they're a core commitment. Most of us feel like we ought to be going to a church that is really committed to this.

James and I know for sure we couldn't lead another kind of church. And it is a distinctive. It makes us weird. So it is a core commitment for us, but it makes us strange when you compare us with a quote-unquote normal church. Not one out of a hundred local churches in the US are age-integrated or family-integrated churches.

So this certainly makes us distinct. These two absolutely go together. In other words, we're not just lumping family discipleship and age integration together to go faster. We're putting them together because they must go together. And because we join them together here, I don't think it is an overstatement to say that the health of Sovereign Redeemer Community Church depends on the extent to which we're devoted to family discipleship.

Let me say that again, because that is a key assertion here. The health of Sovereign Redeemer Community Church depends on the extent to which we are devoted to family discipleship. Let me say that again, because that is a key assertion here. The health of Sovereign Redeemer Community Church, our church, depends on the extent to which we're devoted to family discipleship. James and I and many of us believe that if we're devoted to family discipleship, we'll have a healthy church.

If we're not, we won't. In other words, being age-integrated in the local church is only functional when family discipleship is taken seriously. And can you give me permission to just skip to the punchline? Okay, the punchline is this. Dad, you own that.

Now this matters to all of us. I think this is important to everybody in the room, not just dads, but half of me wants to dismiss everyone but the dads. So we can look each other in the eye and I can say, we're committed to this, right? We're really committed to doing this because we don't think we can be healthy without this. Let's pray.

God, we have a few minutes before us. We have some time before us to consider these things. I pray that Your Spirit would be here, entering into these things, helping me as I speak, and helping every hearer as the things that I'm speaking are heard. Whatever I say is true, God, I pray would be pressed on the heart of every hearer and everything that I say that's not true. I pray that it would fall to the ground and never be remembered again.

I Pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. Two points. The first main heading is on your handout. You'll see, Family Discipleship, the core of God's plan for the evangelization and discipleship of children family discipleship the core of God's plan for the evangelization and discipleship of children Please turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 6. I'm going to be reading.

Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 1-9. Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God, keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore, hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. 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, and 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, 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 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. Deuteronomy 6 verses 1-9, what I just read, prescribes and describes a faith-filled home of a believing father and mother. So it prescribes, meaning it's God saying, do this to a faith-filled father and mother. God is telling what a father and mother of faith are supposed to do, prescribing it, do this, and then describing what the home of a faith-filled Believing father and mother ought to look like.

So prescribing and describing. Deuteronomy 6, 1-9 calls for a lifelong preoccupation with God. So What's Deuteronomy 6 calling you to? Just a lifelong preoccupation with God. And passing that through the generations as God would give us grace.

So does it wipe away the doctrine of election? No, of course not. It takes the grace of God to do this. But God is calling us as He would give us grace to pass a lifelong preoccupation with God. Not that it would start and end with us, but that it would continue to our children and then our grandchildren.

Verse 2, fear the Lord and keep His commandments all the days of your life. Fear God and obey God all the days of your life. This is this calling to a lifelong preoccupation with God. Fear Him, know Him, love Him, obey Him all the days of your life. That's verse 2.

Also in Verse 2, you, not just you, and your son, not just your son, and your grandson, passing this life long preoccupation with God through the generations as God would give us grace. It is the expectation of God that parents pass the knowledge of God to their children and then their grandchildren. That's what God expects. Then there is this essential progression where each link in the chain must be present and in the right order. So here's what I'm saying this text is doing.

It's giving us a chain and every link in the chain is essential. You cannot leave out a single link in the chain, and the order absolutely matters. It's not a random ordering. It is God giving us an essential sequence of essential links in the chain. Link one, verse five.

Love God with a dominating, consuming love. So it's a different way to say love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Is it fair for me to describe that as a dominating, consuming love? All the heart, all the soul, all the strength. The dominant feature of your life is love for God.

Not just one of the things in your life. That wouldn't be consistent with all the heart, all the soul, all the strength. It starts with loving God with a dominant, consuming love. I should just stop there and say, does that describe your love for God? Dominant and consuming.

I hope it does. I know we have ebbs and flows. But our love for God, God is worthy of a dominant consuming love. Link 2, the next verse. I'm saying we have a sequence here.

It is in order. Link 2, verse 6. Establish the words of God in your heart. In your head? It must start in your head.

I don't know how it gets in your heart if it doesn't go through your head, but it doesn't stop in your head. Having the words of God in your heart more than just head knowledge of Bible facts. A love for God ought to result in a love for what He has said, His Word. And so you give yourself to His Word because they're His words and love for Him is a dominant feature of your life And so anything that he says gives you an affection for them. Makes you want to give yourself to those words, what he has said.

Then, link three. So what does it say? A monopoly. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Do not pass up love for God as the dominant feature, and establishing the words of God in your heart.

If you just start with diligently teaching your children, but you skip love for God and the establishing of His words in your heart, good luck with that. Many of us have actually seen this and how it plays out, and the end is devastating. Insisting that your children learn the Bible. But you have no love for God in your heart and no affection for His Word in your heart. His Word is not established in your heart.

But now you come to make demands. Not out of the love that you have as a dominant feature of your life or His Word residing in your heart. You skip the links of the chain and just go there, you will get devastating effects. Children aren't born knowing a lot of things, but they're born with hypocrisy detectors. They have those.

They're born with that. You have to teach them about everything else, but they're born with a hypocrisy detector. Now how do I do that? How do I teach the Word of God diligently to my children. That's the calling.

Now how? Well, talk of them when you sit in your house and when you go out and about. When you walk by the way. And when you lie down, at the end of the day, you should still be talking of these words of God. And then when you rise up, you start all over again.

So everywhere, not location dependent, not isolated to a location, but everywhere. And all day, Not time isolated, time dependent, but all the time. Wherever you go, and you're going together, that's how the Bible puts us, it puts us together with our children, and from the start of the day to the end. You might have heard this term. I hope you've heard this term.

Walk along, talk along, discipleship. That is a completely different method of bringing a child to mature Christian adulthood than what you see in any classroom. It's just a different kind of learning. Walk along, talk along discipleship, where we're not isolated to a location and a single time slot to do the delivery of facts. There's a time and place for that, I'm not saying, but I'm just saying that's not what Deuteronomy 6 is talking about.

Deuteronomy 6 is talking about walk along, talk along discipleship, where you walk with your children. You walk with your children. It's not location dependent, isolated to this classroom. And it's not isolated in time. This is our 8 o'clock to 9 o'clock AM slot for learning English.

This is not the kind of training that we're talking about. This is how believing parents pass the knowledge of God to their children and then their grandchildren. They walk with them and they talk with them. When? When they're at home and when they're not at home.

At the end of the day, they get in bed, they're still talking about the things of God. And it starts all over again when they rise up. It's this perpetual cycle. And this is why, as believing parents, we have undertaken to teach our own children. Thank you mothers.

God bless you mothers for undertaking to teach your own children. Because education is about so much more than just English and math and science and history. Of course English and math and science and history are part of education. But what a tragedy to think that's the sum total of education. It is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of knowledge.

Proverbs 1 verse 7. So you haven't started to know the beginning of knowledge until you have learned to fear God, the God of Scripture. You learn to fear this God, then you can start knowing stuff. The fear of the Lord makes knowing things meaningful in an ultimate sense. So, can you learn English and math and science and history without fearing God?

Of course you can't. It's just not meaningful. So we won't allow those academic disciplines to be isolated from knowing God. We say, no. They don't belong in isolation from knowing God.

They belong being woven together with knowing God. God has made parents responsible, and so We will do it and not hand it over to others. By and large. I mean you can never hand anything over to anybody else. It's not what I said.

But by and large, we will do it and not hand it over to others. One note on that. Most of us were well into life when we were shown these things for the first time. At least the parents, the parents and grandparents in this room, we were first generation homeschoolers. When we were going through school, our parents had never even heard of the term.

So we were all well into life when we were shown these truths for the first time. And it took time to understand them, and it took time to embrace them. So we should keep that in mind as we relate to others who don't have the same convictions. Meaning a gracious spirit would go a long ways. If God took 30 years before He showed you these things, you cannot demand that everyone else in the world catches up in 24 hours.

That's not fair. That's not gracious. That's not how it worked with you. That's probably not how it's going to work with anybody else that you relate to. A gracious spirit goes a long ways.

Turn to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. I'll be reading verses 1 through 4. Very familiar territory. Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 4.

Not surprisingly, it comes right on the heels of the end of Ephesians chapter 5, which is about how marriage is a reflection of Christ in the church. So again, what comes in Ephesians chapter 6 about parents and children flows out of a marriage relationship. It is designed by God to flow out of a marriage relationship that is reflecting the beautiful, healthy, wonderful relationship of Christ and the church. Ephesians chapter 6, 1-4. That wasn't in the notes.

That was free. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth. And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord." This is the New Testament's restatement and reaffirmation of Deuteronomy chapter 6. In other words, the change in covenants does not indicate a change in responsibility for the training of children.

What it was in Deuteronomy, it is in Ephesians, and it is in 2024 among the Lord's people. The New Testament's restatement and reaffirmation of Deuteronomy 6. Children have obligations to obey both parents and to honor both parents. By the way, children, it says that it may be well with you. If you think you can cheat the system, the joke will be on you.

Okay, say, I don't have to obey my parents, it'll still go well with me, that's fault. I don't have to honor both parents, it'll still go well with me, that's fault! That's not true. And parents have obligations, but in this text, as in many other texts, it is laid explicitly on the father. Because dads are ultimately responsible.

This is not to diminish the responsibility of mothers, or to demean the work of mothers. It is to affirm that fathers are ultimately responsible to bring up the children that God gives them in the training and admonition of the Lord, so they feel the weight of that responsibility. So, mothers, this doesn't diminish anything for you and this doesn't demean how you're spending your lives. It's so that Dad feels the weight. The Bible tells believing parents how God wants them to train and educate the children He gives them.

This word, the training, and admonition of the Lord, this word training, is a translation of the Greek word paideia, which means both training and education. To train and educate. It's a broad word. The Bible tells believing parents how God wants them to train and educate the children He gives them. And fathers are ultimately responsible to see that that happens.

Dad, you're ultimately responsible to see that that happens. That however many children God gives you, that you are ultimately responsible to see that they are brought up in the training and admonition of the Lord and to do all of it that you can yourself. So the summary is this. A Believing parents own the evangelization and discipleship of their children. They own it.

To see that their children are exposed to Jesus and His work, His person and His work on behalf of sinners. Parents own communicating to their children. All day, every day. Not location dependent, not time dependent. We should be speaking of that all the time.

And then, as God would give us grace, and some of them, and then more of them, are born again to help them make progress in the faith. To evangelize them and to disciple them. To help them make progress. So that was family discipleship, the core of God's plan for the evangelization and discipleship of children. Now the second main heading, the final main heading, age integration.

Age integration. Ages brought together. The pattern for the gatherings of God's people from Genesis to revelation. I dare you to disprove it. I dare you.

I challenge you to disprove it. That isn't the pattern from Genesis through Revelation of the gatherings of God's people. The ages coming together to worship God together. That is the pattern. Because scripture is perfectly able to thoroughly equip us for every good work, 2 Timothy 3.17, go back three sermons to the sufficiency of scripture, the Bible is perfectly able, no lack, to thoroughly equip us for every good work and because we must restrict ourselves to things established by God in Scripture in our corporate worship, we're not at liberty to do anything that God hasn't established in the Bible in our corporate worship, because the object of worship gets to decide how he is worshiped.

This is the regular principle of worship. You can go find a sermon on that too. I'm not re-preaching it now, but I believe it. And because you never see God's people separating out by age in their gatherings in Scripture, we believe that we aren't even at liberty to adopt what has become normal over the last 200 years, but only over the last 200 years, of the 2, 000 years of church history since the the dawning of the new covenant age, Only the last 200 years has this been normal that we separate out by age groups. 10 year olds, you go with the 10 year olds.

12 years old, you go with the 12 year olds. And so on and so forth. We don't believe we're even at liberty to do what has become normal over the last 200 years so that overwhelmingly our normal pattern is keeping the generations together. Look around the room. Gray hair, no hair, full heads of hair.

The hair tells it all about what we think about age integration. It turns out that the generations need each other by the design of God. It turns out that isolating by age group harms everyone, but that keeping the generations together helps everyone, even though it has some challenges. So we do claim that this is the pattern of Scripture, but we do not claim that it comes without challenges. Not after 25 years.

It's almost like God knew that 10 year olds discipling 10 year olds and 12 year olds discipling 12 year olds is a terrible idea. Almost like God knew that. And don't kid yourself. If you organize so that the 10 year olds just go to be with the 10 year olds week after week, month after month, year after year, that that's not what's happening. That they're actually being discipled by the one adult at the front of the class.

You are kidding yourself. You're not kidding me. I've been there. I've been at the head of the class. I know who's doing the discipleship in that class.

And it's almost like God knew that older people isolated from the zeal and vigor and strength of young people is also a terrible idea. The older I get, the more zeal and vigor and strength is in short supply. Like you, you want to condense that? You want to concentrate that by just having the old people be together. Also a terrible idea.

Quote-unquote normal youth culture at practically any time in history, so I don't think we're unusual, is immature at best and immoral at worst. I'll say it again. Normal youth culture at practically any time in history is immature at best. It will not be better than immature and immoral at worst. Churches should never cultivate it and should try hard to stamp it out.

That's what I think. We shouldn't do anything to cultivate normal youth culture in our church. We should do everything we can to stamp it out. Because at its best, it is immature, and at its worst, it's immoral. But you know, normal old person culture isn't so great either, is it?

The get off my lawn stereotype exists for a reason does it not? And the more, the older we get and the more it's just us together, the more get-off-my-lawn I find coming out of my own mouth. I don't think we should isolate and condense and concentrate that. The truth is this. When you say, believing parents own the evangelization and discipleship of their children, but then you organize church life as if that's not true, The effect is very predictable.

Not on all, but on many. What was originally intended to be a safety net for the few, hey, not all our dads will disciple their children. We need a safety net. We'll organize this way. It becomes an escape hatch for the many.

Dads that would have done it say, thank heavens, Somebody's looking after that. The church meant well. We need a safety net because there are some dads who won't do it. Meanwhile, it has become an escape hatch where dads who would have done it if you just would have raised the bar of expectation and said, Dad, you own it, now think it's in somebody else's court. It's wrong to do that.

Now, does the church have a part to play in the evangelizing and discipleship of the young? Of course. The church has a part to play in the evangelizing and discipleship of everyone who walks through the door. That's one of the key reasons that the church exists. But parents have the primary role.

If you wonder about that, just answer this question. Are parents at liberty to pick the church? If the answer is yes, the parents pick the church, then the church doesn't have the primary spot. The parent does. And the church should never organize itself in a way that obscures or casts doubt on that.

Are there exceptions? Of course. There are single parent homes. There are dads who will not rise to the level of expectation. They might not even come.

And those exceptions deserve thought and attention. But you don't organize everything around the exceptions. In what other category of life do you say we have some exceptions? We should organize everything around the exceptions. No other category of life.

But what we do in big church isn't age appropriate for the young. Listen, the way you accelerate maturity is to expose the young to mature things. Do they understand it all? No, but they stretch every time and they get way more than you thought. The people who even use that kind of language, it's not age appropriate for the young.

Underestimate what the young can actually get out of being exposed to maturipity. You actually stunt growth by dumbing it down. That's true. You stunt growth by dumbing it down. Now, I want to say this.

The right structure only opens a window of opportunity. That's the best you can do with organizing things and structuring things, is just to open a window of opportunity. If your heart isn't in it, the right structure buys you little or nothing. If God isn't helping you a lot, then the right structure buys you a little or nothing. So we're advocating for a structure and saying it's the right structure because it's the Bible structure.

But know this, if our heart's not in it, and we're not crying out to God, it's going to be worth little or nothing. Age integration isn't magic pixie dust that solves all our problems and actually hands you a set of problems. Let's go back 25 years in a time machine. I'm there. I have hair.

It's 1999 and Scott Brown is starting the first family integrated church that I've ever heard of. The first age integrated church that I've ever heard of. I'm a 29 year old dad. Megan's five, Anna's three, Jake won't be born for another year. We committed to go with Scott and Deborah to help plant this thing that just barely had a name, a family integrated church, a age integrated church.

We loved the Browns, but Janet is obviously uneasy, but she won't say why she's uneasy. You know Janet. She doesn't blurt out everything that she thinks when she thinks it, but she's no wallflower and she's no doormat and if she's got concerns about something sooner or later you'll get the concerns but I I could tell she's uneasy but she won't say so finally I had to say what is happening what is it that you won't say here's here's what she wouldn't say we you have a church we've been in this church for almost 10 years, got all these relationships. It's got flaws, but every church has flaws. Maybe the methodology isn't right, but it is evangelism and it is discipleship I'm afraid that we'll be trading something for nothing Because you won't pick up the ball.

That's why she wouldn't say it, because that's what she was afraid of. That we would go to this good sounding thing on paper. But it only is functional if dad picks up the ball. If dad doesn't pick up the ball, you've traded something in the categories of evangelism and discipleship and traded it for nothing. That age integrated church, wonderful as it might sound to some, if dad doesn't pick up the ball, is not going to be delivering anything in those categories outside of The church service.

Here's what's in my notes. Ouch, but fair. It hurt. She knew it would hurt. That's why she was reluctant to say it.

But It was fair. I was a 29 year old dad. I liked basketball more than I liked church. We were gonna go pioneer a new thing. Dads, we own this and the model isn't magic you are the magic under the blessing of God meaning there is no magic It's you under the blessing of God.

That's the magic to age integration. That's it. Brothers and sisters, friends, Let's worship together. Let's grow in following Jesus together. I think that's what you see in the Bible.

The oldest with the youngest and everything in between. Learning to worship God together. Growing in following Jesus together. This is actually what we see in the Bible. Applications I'll give you four.

Number one, young people reach up in age. You like to sit together in the afternoons, no problem. I get it. I like to sit with the old guys. I like to sit with the geysers at lunch and after.

No problem. But young people reach up and age some of the time. Sit with the geezer. Sit with me. Sit with me.

Less young people, not as young people. Wink, you know what I'm talking about. Reach down in age. Reach down an age. Go stand in that circle.

Go sit at that table and mix it up with the young people. If we're not going to do that, we're losing so many of the advantages of structuring this way. We should capitalize on the opportunities, the window of opportunity that structuring this way opens up, but an open window doesn't mean anything if you won't go through it. Young people reach up an age. Less young people reach down an age.

Number two. I want to sell these two core commitments and distinctives. The reason I've never preached a message ever before in 25 years on age integration. It's because we don't believe in the gospel of homeschooling. And we don't believe in the gospel of family integration.

We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we don't think that local church worship services ought to be reduced to church and family life conferences. So we don't preach on that. We don't think the local church exists for that. But you can swing so far away from that, that you never talk about it and you never sell the virtues of it, why you think it matters.

And understand this, hey parents, we chose this, none of our kids did. We chose this because of many things we saw in places that don't embrace this, But our kids didn't pick it. They just spent along for the ride. They didn't choose this. They just came to church with you.

So they haven't seen the things that from churches past that make this very valuable to us. So they might not value it at all. I think from time to time we're going to have to sell it. This matters. Over the long haul this matters.

Kids, the grass can look very green on the other side of the fence. Your parents and grandparents will tell you, we've been over there, that's paint. We've participated in painting brown grass when we were over on the other side of the fence. It looks great. There are some very attractive things to it.

Spend a decade in it, you'll probably be back. Probably be back. Number three. Many want the results without the commitments and the sacrifices. They mean well.

They mean well. Year after year they mean well. But they never make the commitment, they never make the sacrifices required to squeeze the good out of it. It's not enough to want the results. He just doesn't.

That's not what delivers the results. Crying out to God and committing to it and making the sacrifices that it takes to deliver the goods. Number four. Dads, we own this. Dads, we own this.

Dads we own this. Dads we own this. Dads we own this. I've seen so many wives over the decades who pray and wish and hope that their husband would take the lead in the things of God. It's so sad.

It may not be true of us, brothers. It may not be true of us that we have wives that are pining away that we would just obey the Scriptures and take the ball and run with it. Let's pray. God, whatever your word shows your ways to be, pray that we would love it and do it. However counter-cultural it is, however hard we would have to swim against a strong current in the opposite direction.

I pray that you would help us to commit and make the sacrifices necessary to do whatever your word says. I pray that you would give us mighty husbands and fathers who are unafraid, who are willing to lay down their lives so that our children might know you. Oh God, may our children know You. Thank You for revealing Yourself to us. Don't let it stop with us, God.

Give us the privilege of seeing our children recognize who they are and what they need I'm fleeing to Jesus for it. Pray in Jesus name, Amen.