and working with all of the wonderful families
that make up this church.
And I don't take for granted the opportunity
that God has given me here and our family here
to be here in Finley, Ohio,
and to minister with the families and the folks here
at Trinity Baptist Church.
If you have your Bibles, I would like to open them up
to Genesis chapter 18.
Today I wanted to kind of address the idea of
what does it look like and to challenge you
to be involved with your family or wherever you are,
God has placed you as a great commission family.
Because I believe that it is paramount
that we as a church see ourselves
engaged in family-centered discipleship.
As part of what God has entrusted me here
under the vision of Pastor Jennings,
my desire is to help children and families
engage in this great commission,
in this great commission mode in their families
because I believe that it is paramount
for what God has designed the family
and how God has designed our church
and how it impacts the world.
Recently I went back and now that I've gotten
to the point in life where our kids are getting older,
I've been able to get to the point
where we've been able to kind of like share
some of like our childhood with our kids.
It's not if you've ever done that,
but we recently went back and watched a movie
that came out when I was a kid called Honey,
I Shrunk the Kids.
Has anybody ever seen that one?
And so we went and we were watching that with our kids,
our kids are not getting to the age
where they can sit through a movie and it's awesome.
But this movie came out in 1989
starring the lead actor Rick Moranis.
If you're not familiar with the story,
the story kind of goes where this guy's
an eccentric scientist, he comes up with this shrink ray.
And then of course bad things happen
when the kids are upstairs, the fate has it
that they get shrunken and of course
they get taken out with the trash
and then they have the whole movie,
the journey through the backyard trying to get back
to get back to their normal size.
Anyway, what I did, I knew that story as a kid
is because I had seen the movie before,
but have you ever had the experience where you go back
and you watch the movie as an adult
and you see things that you had never seen before as a kid?
Well, thankfully this movie came out,
it wasn't one of those things where like,
oh man, I need to turn that off
because I didn't realize that was in the movie.
Well, actually what I had never noticed before
was the overarching storyline of the family dynamics
that were going on in the movie.
So as the opening movie, after the credits go through,
this is back in 1989 where they had the credits before
and not after the movie and so my kids are like,
what is going on?
Why is this movie taking, what is all this?
All these words.
And so after all that opening credits scene,
the scene opens up to a very dysfunctional family.
The main scientist who was played by Rick Moranis
is having a difficult time with his wife.
In fact, throughout the movie she talks about
how she's going to go live with her parents
because they're not getting along in their marriage.
And as these opening scenes open up,
you see these two kids who are kind of caught
in the middle of this dysfunctional marriage
and as they are trying to just make sense of all of it,
the one young kid is kind of diving into school
because he's more of a nerd
and the one young girl is thinking about boys
and moving out and getting out of the house
because what's going on in their family dynamics
is not so great.
But as you watch throughout the entire movie,
you see kind of this restoration effect going on
in their family as this husband and wife
who couldn't stand to be in the same house together
at the very beginning of the movie,
they unify over engaging with their kids
because their kids have been shrunken
and they're out somewhere out in the backyard
and they're trying to find them.
And so they engage together to try to help their children.
And this is what happens by the end of the movie,
we see a restored relationship between the father
and the wife, the mother, the husband and wife
and the kids and that continues on
through some of the other movies, two and three,
have you ever seen those?
But the real life story of Rick Moranus
is kind of a lot like that.
I don't know if you've ever seen his story,
but he was kind of like a flash in the pan in the 80s
where he showed up and his career was booming in the 80s.
In fact, throughout the 80s, he was in about 15 different
blockbuster hits from ones from like,
the kids to blockbuster musicals to ghostbusters
and beyond, he had a very blossoming career
in the, throughout the 80s.
But after five years of marriage,
his wife tragically got breast cancer and she passed away.
And so it left him with two children
and a blossoming career in Hollywood.
And instead of pursuing and expanding his career,
he decided that he would shrink back
and he would focus on his kids and on his family.
And instead of pursuing Hollywood
and all the dreams that many people,
a dream about making their life,
all about this single dad decided
that he would only take the jobs necessary
to provide for his family and that,
the ones that would not interfere
with his family life and his kids.
And in an interview, many years later,
he was quoted saying this,
I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever.
My life is wonderful.
But a very quick Google search will show
that that is not the norm when it comes
to the Hollywood lifestyle and the family dynamics
that come with it.
In fact, across dozens of websites gathered along the internet
are long lists of what we would call deadbeat dads.
Those who include lists include men like Eddie Murphy,
Alec Baldwin, Carl Malone,
who among their other misdeeds have been even publicly
denouncing their own children
and saying those aren't my children.
One, in fact, at his son's high school graduation
was noted by saying the son wanted,
after growing up without a dad who was very busy
with his career and expanding opportunities
and making money, he had a conversation with his dad
and his dad says, I'm sorry son,
it's too late for a relationship now.
I can't imagine the pain of what it is
to be one of those kids.
But you know what, many times we face choices in our life
when it comes to our family dynamics.
And honestly, and including myself,
we don't always get it right.
We don't always engage the way that we should
in our families with our children,
with our grandchildren, the way that we should.
And which is why I wanna suggest to you this morning
that every one of us, every Christian here today
should be engaged in family-centered discipleship.
Genesis chapter 18, we're introduced to
a very important family in the word of God
and we're given access to a very privy conversation
that God has with himself.
In Genesis chapter 18, beginning at verse 17,
the scripture says this,
and the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham
that thing which I do,
seeing that Abraham shall surely become
a great and mighty nation,
and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.
For I know him, that he will command his children
and his household after him,
that they shall keep the way of the Lord,
and to do justice and judgment,
that the Lord may bring upon Abraham
that which he has spoken of him.
And the Lord said, because of the cry of Solomon,
Gamora is great, and because their sin is very grievous,
I will go down now and see whether they have done
altogether according to the cry of it,
which is come unto me, if not, I will know.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer this morning
before we dive into the exposition of this scripture.
Father, we love you, we thank you for the opportunity
that we have to enter into this place,
to lift up our voices and worship to you.
Father, I pray that as we look into the word of God today
and as we discover the important aspect
that each and every one of us should be engaged
in family-centered discipleship,
Lord, that you would impress upon our hearts,
not just knowledge, but illumination,
that you would help the scriptures transform our heart
and our heart and would turn into our actions
and our actions and our words,
and Lord, that our lives would reflect what is written
on the pages of the scripture before us.
Father, I pray that you would help us
to understand the importance of how you fit
into the picture of family-centered discipleship, Lord,
how we fit into it, Lord, and the dangers that surround us
and the reasons why we should be engaged.
Father, I thank you so much for what you're doing now,
and I pray that you would have your will and way, Lord,
that you would work in our hearts as only you can do
through your scripture today
and through the power of your Holy Spirit.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
As I mentioned before, just a second ago,
in this conversation in Genesis chapter 18,
we are introduced to this kind of conversation
that God has with himself.
If you're unfamiliar with this passage of scripture,
this is when God and the angels come to Abraham and to Sarah,
and they're going to finally give them the good news
that Sarah is going to be with child.
This is also the place where Sarah laughs in verse 13,
because she realizes that at the age that she's at,
she has no way physically she can have children.
But God makes a promise he is going to bring it
to bear even in the lives of old Abraham and Sarah
because of the plan that God had for Abraham.
So God here specifically has already chosen Abraham
and his family, but here he's going to help them understand
that this choice of choosing them is going to be for a purpose,
that he is going to pass through them the covenant
that God makes with them and their progeny,
which would include the patriarchs of several world religions,
and more importantly would give rise
to the savior of the world, Jesus Christ.
But before this promise is fulfilled,
God comes to Abraham with the news
that Sarah is going to have a child.
And that's where we pick up here in verse 18,
where God has a conversation with himself
about hiding from Abraham the things
that he was going to do.
And in this conversation, God recounts three activities
that we're going to pick up on today
that I hope will motivate us to be engaged
in family-centered discipleship
because of these three activities.
If you're taking notes, the first one is this,
what God is doing.
The first activity that we're introduced here
in Genesis chapter 18 is what God is doing.
In verse 17, the Lord says,
shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?
Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great
and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth
shall be blessed in him.
Now, God's plan to use Abraham and his seed
and his offspring to allow the Messiah to come
and to be born into the world and through him,
all the nations would be blessed
is the linchpin to his conversation here.
But God had started something long before Abraham
was on the scene.
You see, God's plan has been the same
from the very beginning of creation.
And that plan was to use families as the primary centers
of discipleship and evangelism
because God designed families to be discipleship centers.
Most churches that I've been in contact with,
and many of you probably have heard
that are engaged in discipleship at any level,
usually use one or two or three different phrases.
And maybe you've heard some of these phrases before.
Some of the phrases that are used in churches today,
when it comes to discipleship, they use phrases like,
we do life together.
Anybody ever heard a phrase like that, doing life together?
Other ones like to say that life or ministry happens
in the context and it starts with the R of relationships.
Anybody have heard that phrase before?
There are some that like to use the phrase
that we have authentic community.
Some of these phrases are used in connection
with sometimes Sunday school classes, small groups,
or even the discipleship program.
All of them keyed in on the idea of discipling
or making disciples.
All of these phrase encapsulate kind of the importance
of relationships when it comes to,
in the context of discipleship.
But I wanna say that there's one place
that all three of these phrases happen often.
In fact, I'm talking about every single day.
And that is in the context of family.
Who does life together more than a family?
Who has the context of relationships more than a family
who is living together?
Who has more authentic community
than a mom and a dad and kids?
I'm telling you, my kids have seen what goes on
behind closed doors, all right?
And your kids have too.
They see the real authentic you.
No, not just the Sunday you, but the everyday you.
In the beginning here of the world, Genesis chapter one,
God creates the very first family, Adam and Eve.
And in this first family, the very first thing
recorded in scripture that God says to this family,
according to Genesis chapter one, verse 28 is this,
God blessed them and God said unto them,
be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth
and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea
and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing
that moveeth upon the earth.
Now we're gonna look at that and the importance of that
in just a moment.
But this is the first command that God gives
to his created people.
A few chapters later, after people mess it all up
and sin enters in the world and death by sin
and the world is coming up and is thoroughly evil,
God kind of pushes the reset button if you will.
And what happens?
God chooses Noah, right?
But God doesn't just choose Noah, God chooses a family.
God chooses Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives.
God chooses a family unit to kind of restart if you will.
And when God chooses his family, and after this family
experiences this catastrophic worldwide flood
and the waters recede, they get back out onto dry land,
they make their petitions to God and the sacrifices of God
and what does God say to them?
He repeats the same thing that he says
in Genesis chapter one, be fruitful and multiply.
He restates this very first commandment that God had given
to Adam and Eve, the very first family.
And in the New Testament, when Jesus has asked
what is the greatest commandment,
Jesus restates Deuteronomy chapter six,
verses five and six, and those verses go as such.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
with all thy soul, with all thy might.
And verse six, these words which I commanded thee this day
shall be in thine heart.
Immediately following the greatest commandment,
God gives his intended mission of how he wanted
to see this commandment come into practice in our lives
in a very practical way.
And then he gives a few examples in Deuteronomy chapter six,
verse seven, the following verse after this greatest
commandment, here's what he says.
Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.
That's the mission of loving God and serving him.
Then he gives us a few examples.
He says this, Thou shalt talk of them
when thou sittest in thine house,
and when thou walkest by the way,
and when thou liest down, and when thou rises up.
Why?
Why does God give this as the example and practicality
and the mission of loving God with all of your heart, mind,
and soul, and following God's word?
Why is this significant?
I believe it's because God designed the family
to be the discipleship center that God designed the home
in such a way as to advance the spiritual formation
of the next generation.
What's going on here in Genesis chapter 18?
Well, God is choosing a family as he already has chosen,
Abraham and Sarah, and he is going to miraculously
give them a child.
He is going to give them Isaac, and through him,
the nations were going to be blessed
because of their obedience.
God is setting up in the context of Abraham and Sarah
and Isaac a discipleship center that is going to
not only continue, but bless the entire world.
More on that in just a moment.
But God was doing something amazing,
and he has from the very beginning,
from Genesis chapter one to today,
God is still creating families,
and God still has the families as a center of discipleship
for the next generation, for the spiritual formation.
The second thing that we're, the second event
that we're given to you in our chapter today
comes by the way of what the faithful are doing,
what the faithful are doing.
Genesis chapter 18 verse 19, the scripture says this,
for I know him, that he will command his children
and his household after him, that they shall keep
the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment
that the Lord may bring upon Abraham
that which he hath spoken him.
Now God sets up this context, shall I hide from Abraham
what I'm doing?
The large plan of what God was doing
is that God was creating families
to be a discipleship center,
and specifically in Abraham's scenario,
he was going to have him to be a discipleship center
for Isaac who then would continue down to Jacob
and continue through the generations.
But we see what the faithful are doing,
and God himself points it out as a reason as to why
Abraham was specifically chosen for this incredible
world changing scenario.
God chooses Abraham to fulfill his global plan
to redeem mankind out of all the other families
of the earth, and he tells us why here in verse 19.
He chooses Abraham because he knows how Abraham
is going to handle the next generation's
spiritual formation.
He says, for I know him, that's Abraham,
that he, Abraham, will command his children
and his household after him,
and they shall keep the way of the Lord.
Why was Abraham's faithfulness important to God?
Because God desired the faithfulness
of the future generations,
that God desired a godly offspring.
And Abraham represents the faithful parent
who engages in family-centered discipleship.
But today, we must face the harsh reality
of why we should be motivated to be engaged
in a spiritual formation of our children
and the spiritual formation of our families.
Because the harsh reality that we live in
is this, according to a study done in 2021,
just a few years ago, looking specifically
at Christian parents who self-identified
as having attended worship and strongly agree
their faith is important, only a staggering 51% of them
were very concerned about their children's
spiritual development, that only half
of what we would consider faithful church-going families
were concerned about their children's spiritual development.
A decade ago, in a book entitled You Lost Me,
written by Barnard Research President David Kineman,
shocked the Christian world by reporting that 59%
of young adults, that's 18 to 25s,
who had Christian upbringing had dropped out of church
by their early 20s.
Eight years following, another research study was done,
in 2019, the percentage had increased from 59% to 64%,
suggesting that nearly two-thirds of young people
who were raised in church will statistically withdraw
from the church as they pass through their teenage years.
While the reality of this can certainly be bleak
and certainly make us feel like, well, what hope is there?
I want to also point out something that's also true,
that these realities, these statistics inform us
that there is still one-third of young people
coined in this study, resilient disciples,
who will dare to stand against the tide of their generation,
that there still remains those faithful people,
young people, which is why it is important for us
to engage in spiritual formation
and family-centered discipleship now.
One such story is a young man by the name of Hayden.
A few years ago, not too far from where I grew up
in the state of Florida, this young man,
this young teenage boy dressed for school in his short
showed up at a flagpole during what was called
See You at the Pole.
If you're unfamiliar with See You at the Pole,
it is a nationwide Christian-centered event
started back in Burlington, Texas in the 1990s
by a group of students.
And it's an annual event that's held nationally
at every school where young Christian people
stand outside by their flagpole
and have a moment of prayer in a very public way,
standing up for their faith
and praying for their school and for their nation.
But at first, Hayden thought that the other kids
were simply just late.
That he would stand out there and by bowing his head
and waiting just a few moments,
he would eventually be surrounded
by his other Christian classmates.
But as the minutes passed by and no one came,
Hayden was left standing alone,
bowed head, exposed, abandoned, and embarrassed.
Most people would have walked away,
maybe had a few choice words with their classmates.
Why weren't you there?
You made me look like an idiot, but not Hayden.
When plan A failed, he had the grit to go with plan B.
Plan B was to stand alone on his school campus
and to pray for his nation and for his classmates.
His stance sparked a social frenzy
that sparked a revival in the local Christian groups
of his area.
Hayden said later in an interview,
as I stood alone and prayed, the cry of my heart was this,
God, as people drive by, let them wonder,
let their hearts be pricked.
Hayden's mom later in a blog said this,
my little boy, I'd rocked to sleep
in blue airplane pajamas when he was sick.
The toddler who loved Elmo and couldn't get to sleep
without holding his veggie tail characters
had captured the attention of our entire community
by standing alone, by doing everything we had ever
taught him, everything we'd ever hoped he would do.
Hayden that day became the model
of what a resilient disciple in this generation looks like.
But I wanna tell you today that resilience isn't innate.
It isn't just special to a few who were born with it.
Resilience is the muscle discipleship builds.
And God has designed families to impress the hearts
and minds of children to love God.
This is God's design for fathers, for mothers,
for grandparents to impress the hearts and minds
of children to love God.
The most well-known of all God's commands
are probably the 10 commandments
that we find in Exodus chapter 20.
Even those who aren't familiar with the Bible
are generally familiar with one or two or three
of these commandments, which sometimes still hang
in our halls of law.
The first four are vertical.
They deal with our relationship as human beings to God.
The final six are horizontal.
They deal with our relationships with man
and how we should deal with each other.
And through these horizontal commands,
they all seem to fit together.
Things like don't kill, don't steal, don't cheat,
don't covet, don't lie.
They all seem to have the same kind of taste to them.
In fact, coveting actually leads to all the rest of those.
Except the very first one.
The very first horizontal command that we find
in the 10 commandments is in Exodus chapter 20, verse 12.
Now keep in mind, the 10 commandments are the only part
of the word of God that God wrote down himself.
Now when I say that, I don't mean to say that God
did not inspire the rest of the book.
God has written the whole book
and he did it through the men.
But the 10 commandments, God actually wrote out himself
on tablets of stone and gave them to Moses.
The very first horizontal command God writes down
and gives to Moses is Exodus chapter 20, verse 12.
You may know it, it goes like this.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
That thy days may be long upon the land
which the Lord, thy God, giveth thee.
Why is that significant?
Why do I even point that out?
Well, I pointed out perhaps because it is the very first
moral decision we are given when we come on this planet.
Right now my children are not struggling
with thou shall not kill.
Now sometimes when I watch my daughter
and my son play together, I sort of wonder, right?
But right now they're not dealing with
thou shall not commit adultery.
What they're struggling with right now
is honoring their father and their mother.
To the purpose of parenting is to mold
and impress kids' hearts and minds to love God.
Which is why the most important commandment for children
is to honor through obedience.
It features six, chapter six, verses one and two.
Children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right.
Right, verse two restates what we just read
in Exodus chapter 20.
It's the very first one given to us with a promise.
God's response to their parents' purposeful discipleship
is paramount to their,
there's a verse for this, so I'm gonna say that again.
A child's response to their parents' purposeful discipleship
is paramount to their spiritual formation.
Which is the ultimate reason why I believe God hates divorce.
Malachi chapter two, verse 16, it says that
God hates putting away, that is old English for divorce.
Now I am a child of divorce.
My mother and father were divorced.
The grandparents who helped raise me
and helped nurture my spiritual condition
were both in their second marriages
by the time I came along.
And that is not the focus of my sermon today.
But I wanna tell you today that the New Testament
gives us a little bit of insight
into the mystery of Christ and the church
and how it's illustrated through that marriage covenant
of between the husband and wife.
But I believe that God's hatred for divorce,
according to Malachi chapter two, verse 16,
runs even deeper than the fact that divorce
breaks up that imagery of Christ and the church.
And the reason why I say that is because of the context
of where we find in Malachi chapter two.
Malachi chapter two, beginning in verse 14,
gives us a little context for this phrase
that God hates divorce.
Verse 14 says this, yet ye say that wherefore,
because the Lord hath been witness
between thee and the wife of thy youth
against whom thou hast dealt treacherously,
yet is she thy companion and the wife of thy covenant.
Verse 15 says, and did not he make one,
yet had he had the residue of the spirit,
and wherefore, one, why is it that God creates
this covenant relationship between man and wife?
Why is this so precious to him?
Why one?
He says this, that he might seek a godly seed.
Therefore, take heed to your spirit
and let none deal treacherously against the wife of thy youth.
Verse 16 says, for God hate putting away.
God, see God's designed for the family and for parents.
And the reason why God made the two one
is to raise godly seed, who will love God
and who will worship him.
And the reason why God hates divorce is not only
because it defaces the image of Christ and the church,
the mystery which is given to Paul and now to us
in this New Testament age, but it disrupts his plan
to pass faith to the next generation.
The reason why God hates divorce is because it destroys
and has the potential to disrupt
the next generation's spiritual formation.
This is why the instruction to fathers
in Ephesians chapter six, verse four, I believe is so clear.
It says in Ephesians six, four, ye fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath,
but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Straight shooting from God himself to fathers and to parents.
A godly father and by extension a godly parent
needs to be about making disciples of their children
if they are to fulfill the great commission of Jesus
in their lifetime, which leads us to our final point.
We see in Genesis chapter 18 what God is doing.
That God reveals to Abraham and to us through his word
that his plan from the very beginning is to create families
who will be discipleship centers.
And that these families, when filled with faithful men
and women will pass the faith
baton on to the next generation.
Will impress upon the hearts and minds of their children
to love God with all their heart,
with all their mind, with all their soul.
But where there is light, there is also often darkness.
And we see in verses 20 and 21 of Genesis chapter 18 today
what the world is doing, what the world is doing.
You see this third activity of what the world is doing.
I believe there is no mistaking of the reason
why God connects these two together.
I don't believe that is by happenstance
that he will deal with this issue.
Right on the heels of putting together
the family discipleship center that will go on
to change the world and the nations
by bringing forth the Messiah and the Savior of the world.
So this is chapter 18 verses 20 through 21 says this,
the Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah
is great and because of their sin is very grievous,
I will go down now and see whether they have done
altogether according to the cry of it,
which is coming to me and if not, I will know.
Without doing a deep dive into Genesis chapter 19
and the following narratives, what we find is that God
connects the reality of the world around this discipleship
center that he is building in Abraham's family
and it includes the influential future uncle
to Abraham's son Lot who is now residing
in the city of Sodom.
Probably the two most well-known cities outside of scripture,
even those who are not Bible believing Christians,
there's probably no two cities more well known
than Sodom and Gomorrah, the names who which today
are still associated with and synonymous with
a certain set of sin and wickedness.
At this time, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
had become cesspools of sexual promiscuity
and they're permeated with this,
I should be able to do whatever I want
with whatever I like attitude.
So much so that the practice of sex with whoever,
whenever was thought of by the greater majority
as their right.
What do we see in our world today?
That the ruler of this world Satan
hasn't really changed his script all that much.
Today, the traditional nuclear families in crisis
and all world is orientating itself more and more
to be at odds with what the word of God declares as truth.
And with how God has set up the family.
Some years ago, the Huffington Post
dropped an article entitled, Is the Church Dying?
And it gave a rather scathing view
of conservative Christianity and conservative belief
and made three suggestions that they believed
would be essential should the church have a viable future.
And here's what they said, number one,
if the church is going to have a viable future,
they need to one, stop pretending that the Bible
is an infallible book written by God.
Number two, they need to end their losing war
with science, biology, and anthropology.
And number three, they need to concede
that they have lost their discriminatory war
on gender, race, and sex.
That was their suggestion.
That if the church and Christianity were to have
any viable future in the world we live in now,
that all anchors to truth should be pulled up,
that we should concede that we were wrong
about what the Bible teaches about creation,
about the world, about people.
This has been Satan's goal for some time.
Satan's goal was the same as it has been from the beginning.
To destroy godly families and their growth
in order to destroy the growth of the family of God.
Because the two are connected.
Because God designed families as the engine
that will fill the earth with His worship.
You see, a family-centered discipleship unit is paramount.
It is part of God's plan for the Great Commission.
How can I say this?
Well, let's backtrack a little bit.
Malachi chapter four, it's the very last chapter
in the Old Testament.
The very last chapter in the Old Testament
before there is hundreds of years,
400 years of silence from God.
The very last verses of Malachi chapter four
are verses four, five, and six.
And here's what God says.
Here's how God ends the last part of the Old Testament
before there is 400 years of silence.
God says this,
Remember ye the law of Moses, my servant,
which I commanded unto you in the Horeb for all Israel
with the statutes and judgments.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children.
And the heart of the children to their fathers,
lest I come and smite thee with a curse.
And that is the end of the Old Testament revelation.
And there is 400 years of silence
where God does not give any new revelation
to what would account to four generations of his people.
Then you fast forward to the New Testament.
And then God breaks the silence of 400 years
by sending his angel Gabriel to speak to a priest
by the name of Zachariah.
This Zachariah, whose wife and her advanced age
is expecting while he is ministering to the Lord,
is visited by this angel.
And the angel Gabriel breaks this 400 years of silence.
And here's what the angel Gabriel says
in Luke chapter one, verse 13 and following.
The angel said unto him, fear not, Zacharias,
for thy prayer is heard.
And the wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son.
And thou shalt call his name John.
And thou shalt have joy and gladness.
And many shall rejoice at his birth.
And he shall be great in the sight of the Lord.
And shall neither drink wine or strong drink.
He shall be filled with the Holy Spirit
even from his mother's womb.
And many of the children of Israel
shall he turn to the Lord their God, verse 17.
Here's what he says, he shall go before him
in the spirit and power of Elias
to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.
And the disobedient to the wisdom of the just
and to make ready the people prepared for the Lord.
Do you see the link between 400 years of silence?
The last thing God chose to say was to talk about families
coming together.
And when Jesus comes on the scene, the very first thing
the angel declares as the messenger of God to people
is that the fathers are going to turn their hearts back
to their children.
Why is this significant?
Why don't we even point this out?
How can I make such a bold claim as to say
that God had designed families as the engine
that will fill the earth with his worship
that will help push forward the mission
of the great commission?
The reason why I say it is this,
because when a parent's heart is turned towards
their children in family-centered discipleship
and a child's heart is turned to their parents
in obedience,
everyone is ready for Jesus.
Everyone is ready for Jesus.
What about reaching the whole world?
What about, well, how does the family engage
in this great commission?
I don't still quite understand what you're saying.
Well, let me give you a table.
I like tables.
Let me give you a table that kind of shows you
in comparison to great commission,
which is in Matthew chapter 28,
to the very first commandment that God gives us
in Genesis chapter one, verse 28.
And I want to point out to you their focus,
their scope, and their target.
Matthew chapter 28, verse 18 through 20,
what we call the great commission goes like this, right?
He tells them to teach,
matatisate, make disciples of all nations,
and to teach them to observe all things.
The focus and scope and target of all three of those
is to teach, this is the idea of multiplication,
making disciples.
Genesis chapter one, verse 28,
God says, be fruitful and multiply.
What is its focus?
Also multiplication.
All nations, what is the scope?
It's everywhere.
Every ethnos, every nation replenish the earth.
What is the scope?
Everywhere.
What is the target?
Teaching them to observe all things.
Subdued is how it's said in Genesis chapter 21.
What is the target?
Both conformity, not just conformity for conformity's sake,
but conformity to God's plan.
You see, raising kids is part of the great commission,
and it is impartial to it going forward.
And I want you to know this,
that the natural flow of the gospel message
cannot skip your family.
Because oftentimes when we think about the great commission,
we think about the great commission in this perspective.
We think, well, there's a personal responsibility.
I need to respond to the gospel.
And then we think about the world around us.
They need to respond to the gospel.
We need to send missionaries to Africa, to Argentina.
We need to go around the world with the gospel.
I need to respond to it.
And then I need to be involved in sending people
to those fields that are ready to harvest, as Jesus says.
But what we often miss is the path from here to there.
And that path naturally is through your own family.
Acts chapter two, Peter gives his famous sermon
at the day of Pentecost.
And here's what Peter says.
Peter said that they had to do them, verse 38,
repent, be baptized, every one of you,
in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.
And ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,
for this promise is unto you and to your children.
And to all that are afar off,
even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Do you see that progression?
You, your family, and everyone else.
Many times we think about the great commission
in a very two-dimensional.
I gotta respond and the nations need to respond.
But what about the third dimension?
What about your own family?
If you're excited about reaching the world,
but you forget to reach your own kids,
you're missing the point.
Wow, that seems pretty bold, Pastor Corey.
But I still have a question.
What about the local church?
How does the local church engage in the great commission?
Because it's one thing to say, and it's very bold to say,
that families are what God is going to use
to move forward the great commission.
But what about the local church?
Shouldn't that play part in it?
And it does, and here's how.
See, the church isn't a building.
It's not an organization.
What is the church?
The church is us.
The church is made up of who?
Families and families, discipleship centers.
God's natural ordering from Genesis chapter one forward
is the family.
And that is why the early church gathered together,
and when they gathered together, you could see it so clearly.
Because when the early church gathered together,
they met together as families.
And they went from house to house.
Whose house?
Well, the different families' houses.
And they had all things in common, praying and worshiping
and sharing and growing in Christ.
Because when families are discipled well,
the world also is going to be discipled.
Because part of the discipleship process is evangelism.
That idea of making disciples is not just discipleship,
it's also evangelism.
That when we disciple our kids and teach our kids
that evangelism isn't some superior level or threshold,
but is part of our everyday life,
and our kids are seeing us be evangelists
in our own workplaces and in our own families
and in the restaurant.
And as they catch a vision for that,
they too will catch a vision to evangelize their world.
This is one of the reasons why it is so crucial
in the early church is that anyone who was going to take
the role of a pastor or the master-disciple in the church
had to already be doing this in their own home.
1 Timothy chapter three, verse four and five,
God lays out some rules for the pastor.
And it says this in verse four,
he has to be one that rules well his own house,
having his children in subjection in all gravity.
For if a man know not how to rule his own house,
how shall he take care of the church of God?
God was so enthralled with this idea
that there was no way God was gonna allow anyone to pastor
those families who didn't already have this,
or at least continue to have this under wraps
in their own family.
This is why it is so important that families understand
that it's not God's plan for the church
to disciple their kids,
but it's their own responsibility
to disciple their children.
While the church can come alongside and help,
I often use this in our children's ministry trainings.
I say the church is like a vitamin.
You can't live off vitamins, right?
But it does come along and help
and fill in the gaps where we need it.
But the church can do that.
The church can come alongside the family
and other families can come alongside other families
and help encourage each other
in this discipleship process.
That's what the Bible says
when the older are teaching the younger.
That's why every choice
and every part of your family dynamic
is a discipleship opportunity
because the success or failure
of your discipleship program in your own family
has both a local effect
and a far reaching global effect
because God designed families
who gather together in local churches
to be the engine that will fill the earth with His worship.
In closing today, I wanna leave you with a few thoughts.
I know in here there's really probably two groups
of people, two groups of people,
but both have equally important roles to play
in family-centered discipleship
and great commissioned families.
The first one is very obvious.
It's the one with the group with children.
If you're a part of that group
and you have children and children in your home,
what can you do?
Well, first of all, you can lead your family,
but you can only lead your family
to places that you are going yourself.
It is folly to say to your children,
you need to live this certain lifestyle
and at home not be demonstrating
what that lifestyle looks like.
It's not gonna work.
You can practice today by laying a foundation
for the future and understanding that the choices
that you make now are laying the foundation
for your children's spiritual formation
and the choices they will make in the future.
And you can understand the reality
that the church partners with you,
but it can't replace you.
There's another group in here, those without children.
And I wanna tell you today
that this message has not been wasted
because well, I don't have any children.
My children are long gone or I'm not married
or I don't have any children of my own.
We don't have any children yet as a family.
I wanna tell you that this message
has not been wasted on you
because you still have an integral part to play
in this church and in this Great Commission family's idea.
How?
For those of you who don't have any children yet,
I wanna suggest to you that right now,
the way that you can prepare
is to prioritize your own discipleship growth,
which is one of the reasons why we're having
an outpouring of discipleship groups
and Sunday school are the reason
why we provide these opportunities here in our services
and because you need to take seriously
your discipleship growth.
Now, while you have the time on your hands
and before the burdens and the opportunities
of childbirth income.
Secondly, you have the opportunity to pour into others
like no one else does.
And it's one of the reasons why Paul makes the argument
about young pastors and about it's good for them to marry,
but if they're not gonna marry,
they have more time to dedicate to the ministry
and to the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If you don't have any kids,
how can you apply this to your life today?
Prioritize your own discipleship growth
and figure out a way to pour it into others.
Maybe some of you and rightfully so,
you've had children in your home.
They've grown up and now they are probably
having children of their own and your raising,
your kids are raising their kids,
maybe even great grandkids.
I wanna tell you that if your kids have already left,
this message hasn't been wasted on you either
because you have to realize that the potential of the impact
and the continued influence that you have
on both your kids and your grandkids.
That your time of discipleship centered families isn't over.
That you can continue to have an impact like never before.
And number two, you can take advantage of the availability
that God has given you now in your time of life
through serving and mentoring other families.
That's my testimony.
I mentioned earlier that I was a child of a divorce.
A lot of my formative years, spiritually speaking
and physically speaking, I lived in a single parent home.
And there were grandparents, godly grandparents in my family
who took the charge and took the lead
to help me realize the importance of the gospel
and realize the importance of growing
in my own spiritual formation.
And I went to a church that was filled like this
with older couples who saw their lives
as a, to be on mission, who served
in our children's ministry programs
and who poured their lives into me,
who showed up with my grandparents to church.
And that's what I wanna see happen at our church.
I believe it's already happening to some degree,
but I would love to see it happen even more.
That the family of Trinity Baptist Church
would be so engaged in this idea
of family-centered discipleship,
that they would not only prioritize
their own spiritual growth,
but would pour it into other people
who would see the kids that run around this facility
and they would see them as influential to them,
influencing them to be raised as a godly generation,
as a generation who takes seriously
the final words of Jesus Christ to go and make disciples.
It made a difference in my life.
My dad, who I don't often speak of,
the only connection I ever had to him
was a few letters and I brought them today
that he wrote to me from a jail cell.
This is all that I have in my relationship with my dad.
And through my formative years as a young man
who grew up in church, I struggled.
And I struggled with, well, if my father wasn't there
and God says he's my father, what kind of a father is he?
And I wanna tell you that I learned from scripture
because of the investment that older couples had in my life,
in my children's ministries, in my Sunday school,
my junior church, that my father is one
who will always be with me, that he is my everlasting father.
And that though my father here on earth
might have tucked tail and left,
my father in heaven will never leave me nor forsake me.
And that is because of a church of families
who saw me and who poured into me.
And I wanna challenge you that every single one of us
in here today, we all have a part to play
and that we all must be engaged
in family-centered discipleship.
Would you stand to your feet today?
Your heads.