Well, good morning, everybody. So glad you're here with us this morning. If you are visiting for the first time, I'd like to extend a special welcome to you, invite you to stay after the service. We do have a fellowship meal together and we would love to have you stay and you could get to know us a little better, we could get to know you. Will you join me as I open up this time in prayer? Lord Jesus, we are so thankful, so grateful that we have the freedom and the opportunity to gather together as followers of you, to declare your name as righteous and holy, and declare you as our Savior and Lord. I pray now this morning that we will study your word properly, and that you will motivate us and encourage us and prompt us to apply it to our lives today, this week, and in the weeks to come. And we dedicate this time to you now and pray all these things in your holy name, amen. Well, we are nearing the end of a short sermon series that addresses five essentials of our church. These sermons are posted online if you miss them or wanna listen to them again. They help provide an important picture into why we do what we do here at Gospel Fellowship Church. And if you've been with us the past few weeks, one key essential that should be crystal clear by now is that our church follows the commands and patterns of scripture. That is our overarching mission. When we have questions about ministry or about church, we go to God's word first. As Pastor Michael preached a couple of weeks ago, scripture is sufficient for all matters of faith and practice. So that's our job here this morning as we look at this topic of ministering to the next generation. Our church is passionate about advancing the gospel, and we firmly believe that one important biblical way to advance the gospel is by impacting future generations. This is urgently important to our church, but also to our schools and our campuses, our workplaces, our neighborhoods and communities. I am sure you would agree with me that we need to be raising up a future generation that is grounded in truth, with a capital T. We'll be anchored this morning in Deuteronomy chapter six, where we're gonna be pulling in other scriptures to provide a solid foundation for this theme that will develop. Following the commands and patterns of scripture, our church is committed to equipping parents and grandparents to be the primary spiritual trainers of their children. Following the commands and patterns of Scripture, our church is committed to equipping parents and grandparents to be the primary spiritual trainers of their children. And we're going to develop this theme in three ways. We're going to look first at what the Bible says. What is this doctrine of family ministry? Then we're going to look at what the family does. How do we fulfill this doctrine in our homes? And then we'll close by looking at what the church does. How do we fulfill this doctrine here at GFC? What the Bible says, what the family does, what the church does. And with that, if you would, open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter six and follow along as I read verses four to seven. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. According to Jesus, in Matthew chapter 22, this passage contains the greatest commandment in all of scripture, to love the Lord your God with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your heart, and with all your strength. and bookending this great commandment in Deuteronomy. And supported throughout scripture, we find this doctrine of family ministry that we could summarize like this. God created the family to be the primary setting that children and youth learn to love and obey God. Look at verses one and two, Moses writes, the Lord your God commanded me to teach you that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son. This is a multi-generational vision of ministry. Moses is teaching you so that you can teach your son so that your son can teach his son. Then look at verse seven, you shall teach them diligently to your children. There ought not be any confusion about God's plan for passing on his commands and truths to the next generation. These aren't instructions written to Israel's leaders or a select group of teachers. God didn't instruct Moses to form weekly classes for the youth to attend to learn about his truths. And we see this pattern throughout all of scripture. All the Israelites, and by effect, all of us, are called to pass on these spiritual truths to our children and grandchildren. Let me list a few other references for you. In Deuteronomy chapter 32, Moses is preparing to transfer leadership to Joshua and the Israelites gather together to hear Moses' final set of instructions. And he ends that by imploring the people to pass on the instructions to their children so they will carefully follow them. Joshua took this to heart when he challenged the Israelites to choose whom they will serve and declared, for me and my house, meaning for me and my family, we will serve the Lord, Joshua 24, 15. In Psalm 78 that we just read, we find a powerful picture of parents and grandparents discipling their children. The psalmist writes, God established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God. Psalm 78, five to seven. In the New Testament, we see churches built on families in Acts 11 and Acts 16, and consider Timothy, who is discipled by his mother and grandmother. Scripture clearly teaches that families are to be the primary setting that the next generation receives spiritual training. This is an important doctrine for our church that drives our approach to ministering to the next generation. And with that, let's return to Deuteronomy 6 to consider what this means for your family and for my family. How do we fulfill this doctrine at home? After recording the greatest commandment in all of scripture, Moses writes, beginning in verse six, and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. Through Moses, God speaks directly to parents to live out their love for him by doing all in their power to pass their faith to their children. This is the first mission God gives to us after the most important commandment in all of scripture. So we're going to walk through three instructions from these verses, three instructions that should strengthen parents and grandparents to be the primary spiritual trainers of their children and grandchildren. I encourage you to write these down, especially parents here this morning who have children at home. You are on the front lines right now of raising up the next generation. First, parents are called to tune their hearts to the Lord and his word. To tune their hearts to the Lord and his word. We see this in verse six. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. Parents, do you want to grow your children to grow in their relationship with the Lord? It starts with your relationship with the Lord. Let's be honest, it is unrealistic and unreasonable, really, to set a high expectation for the spiritual growth of your children if you aren't tuning your own heart to the Lord. Parents, it starts with you. You set the example. You're the model to follow. Have you ever not modeled something well and then seen the results of your own hypocrisy? It doesn't feel real good. You know, I realized... Well, let me back up. I've been driving for 30 years now. Well, actually a little more, but I don't want to totally age myself. And I mean, I think of myself as a pretty good driver. Christine might challenge that, but we can talk about that later. Now, I realized that some of my driving behavior maybe wasn't that stellar, when my kids got their driver's permit. You see, now, instead of me driving, my child is driving. And I'm sitting next to them, and I'm supposed to be training them. They don't even have their driver's license yet, and they're coming up. I'm using they, by the way, because I don't want to name names. But I'm pretty sure it's both. But we're coming up to a red light where the driver's not going maybe as fast as you're hoping that they will when it turns green. And here's my child. Come on, buddy, let's go, it's green already. I'm trying to teach them to be defensive and patient, and yet this is what I'm modeling for them. Now, if I'm a perfect driver with perfect behavior, does that mean my kids will be perfect drivers? No. And in the same way, tuning your heart to the Lord does not mean smooth spiritual sailing for your kids. But we need to remember, we tune our hearts to the Lord because that's what God commands us to do. And when God's word is woven into the fabric of your heart, being the primary spiritual trainer of your children comes naturally. You can trust the Lord for the outcome in his time and in his ways. So parents and grandparents, consider three diagnostic questions this morning. One, how often are you personally in God's word? Personally in God's word. If it's spotty or non-existent, can I challenge you, take five or 10 minutes each day this week in God's word. Five or 10 minutes for every day for one week. Tune your heart to the Lord through his word. And ask the Lord to grow your desire to be in his word. Secondly, are you praying daily for your family? Praying daily for your family. If you are not praying daily for your family, it implies you are going out on this on your own strength and on your own wisdom. Tuning your heart to the Lord involves prayer. And third, for husbands in the room, are you praying with your wife for your family? Praying with your wife for your family. You are a team and each of you see different needs for your kids. Commit to praying together. I meant to bring this and I totally forgot it. Christine and I have a prayer journal that goes back to like many years ago. We have tried to commit once a week, seasons of life have made that challenging at times, but once a week, gathering together, just the two of us focused on prayer for our kids. And we write that down and it is awesome to go back and see how the Lord has answered those prayers. But it doesn't stop with just tuning your hearts to the Lord. Parents are called to teach their children the truth of scripture. If we go back to Deuteronomy, the first part of verse seven, Moses writes, you shall teach them diligently to your children. Did you notice that Moses didn't write, make sure your children are taught. No, the instruction is you shall teach, you shall teach. I think it's too common for parents today to delegate spiritual training to a Sunday school teacher, a summer camp, maybe even VeggieTale DVDs. I might be aging myself. Maybe you don't use DVDs anymore. I'm pretty sure we have VeggieTale VHS tapes in our basement if you want to borrow them. Now, don't get me wrong. especially since Phil Vischer lives in the area. Sunday school teachers and camp counselors and Bob the Tomato, they can have godly influences on our youth. But Pastor Rob likes to say that's like feeding your kids spiritual vitamins. They're a great supplement, they're a great boost. But your kids crave spiritual meals that happen frequently in your home. Dads. If you are sitting next to your father, you are allowed to gently nudge them and say, listen up. Dads, this is your leadership role. We heard read from Ephesians 6 a minute ago, Paul writes, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, Ephesians 6, 4. This is a most important priority. In developing a discipline, that doesn't happen on its own. It's a calling and a responsibility that requires intentionality and persistence. It is hard work. but it is pleasing to the Lord. It has eternal significance. This is one of the greatest ways you as a father can fulfill the Great Commission. But moms, and I know you're already paying attention so you don't need to nudge them. Moms, you play an important role. Scripture teaches that you are actively involved in the spiritual training of your children. Proverbs 1.8, hear my son your father's instruction and forsake not your mother's teaching. The writer of Proverbs 31 begins by recognizing the wisdom that was passed on to him by his mother. In Titus 2, Paul instructs the older women to instruct the younger women to love their husbands and to love their children. Moms and dads are a team and they teach their children about spiritual matters. Now I know we have many family dynamics here this morning. I know we have single parents. We have couples without children. We have couples with adult children. We have families where one spouse isn't a believer. I want to encourage you in any of those circumstances, God can use you in those circumstances. God can use you in spite of those circumstances. God can use you because of those circumstances. We don't have time to dig into each one of them. We have books on our resource table over there that explore and offer advice for your unique circumstance. I encourage you to grab a book. But I need to go back now to Deuteronomy chapter six. Because there's a third way that we as parents are the primary spiritual trainers of our children. We tune our hearts to the Lord, we teach our children about the truth of scripture, and we thirdly, talk with our kids about spiritual matters every day. Look at the end of verse seven, talk of them, that is talk of God's commands when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. Parents, are you talking about spiritual matters with your kids every day? It might seem basic, that sounds basic. But it's right there in God's word. Our mission to impress the hearts of our kids with the love of God must be rooted in daily conversation and instruction about spiritual things. And in his wisdom, God provides four prompts. Four prompts so we don't forget it. When you wake up, when you go to bed in times of transition, and when you're sitting at home, Now for many years I, oh for a long time, I've used my early morning hours to tune my heart to the Lord and in God's word and in prayer. And then I rush off to work. I've been convicted of this in recent years and more recently I've been trying to also add to this two or three minutes of reading God's word with my family and another two or three minutes praying together with them. Five intentional minutes in the morning and I'd begun my day with a spiritual conversation. My son is at college, I try to send him a text or an email every day with a passage of scripture. It's just one example, one example of trying to cultivate a daily conversation. Part of my morning routine when I was growing up as a student, my mom would pray with me and my sister. And then she'd quote Psalm 118, 24. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. It's burned into my memory. It's having a spiritual conversation, part of your daily routine. If not, will you commit five minutes, five minutes of spiritual conversation each day? Think of those five minutes as placing a deposit into your child's spiritual account. Five minutes a day, every day for a year, would be 30 hours of spiritual conversation with your kids. You do that for 15 years, 450 hours of spiritual conversations. Make that happen. The same holds true for end of the day conversations. In our family, this is Christine's sweet spot. I'm the early bird, she's the night owl. She can attest. That didn't happen when I practiced this. She can attest to how often she's been able to connect with our kids spiritually in the stillness of evening. If you desire to be the primary spiritual trainer of your kids, the Lord instructs you to talk about spiritual matters every day. Bookend each day with the hope and truth of scripture. Now I'd like to develop this command we see to talk with your kids when you sit at home. In today's hustle and bustle world, that probably seems impossible, right? I'm sure you all just sit at home with your kids, wondering what to do. But for centuries, Christians have practiced this through the discipline of family worship, which involves reading God's word, singing together, and praying together. You don't need a seminary degree to lead family worship. You don't even need to drop activities. You just need a plan and a commitment. I'm gonna again reference books on our resource table. They provide a history, a rich history of family worship that provides ideas to make family worship creative and fun and specifically tailored for your family's situation. What I wanna do here right now is speak to families and encourage you to make family worship a habit. If this is something you haven't been doing, or it's been infrequent, set a goal of 10 minutes each week, one day, 10 minutes, and make that happen. Allow God to multiply that sacrifice of time, to bear much fruit in your family, and watch how the Lord allows you to expand its depth and its frequency. It's a natural setting for your family to build its vertical relationship with the Lord and your horizontal relationship with each other. And for families with young children, this is great training ground for worshiping in church. Expose your kids at an early age to hearing God's word read, to singing corporately and praying together. It lays the foundation for a lifetime of worship in the local church. And I want to emphasize it is not to be equated with the word boring. It can be fun and interactive and involving every family member. As a parent and a pastor, I urge you not to neglect this. And if you haven't been doing this, I know. I know because I've had to do this. It's awkward to go to your family and say, hey, I've dropped the ball. I have not been doing a good job at this. That's an awkward conversation. I understand that. Tell your family how important it is to you. Ask them to help you and to support you. another just honesty check, prepare for some bumps. You know, I mean, it's like you have this vision, like of everybody, ooh, you know, singing and it's all beautiful. You know, we'll be like, okay, at nine o'clock on Wednesday night, we're gonna get together and we're gonna do family worship. It's like on the calendar, good, everything's good. And then, you know, like Wednesday at seven, eight o'clock, I'll blame it on me, I'll say something that hurts someone's feelings, or there's some form of conflict. And then you sit down, it's like, yeah, okay, let's do family worship now. But these can be used as teachable moments. Don't allow some unexpected disagreement or tension to keep you from this important time of family worship. And kids, I want your attention for a minute. You play an important role in all of this. Your parents are responding to God's word. But as we heard read this morning, you're called to honor and obey your parents. You have been blessed with parents that love you so much, they wanna just pour into you through family worship, and they have wisdom to pour into you. So play your part, play your part by talking about spiritual matters and participating in family worship. Now it wouldn't surprise me if we have students here this morning that roll their eyes when they hear this. In fact, you might be thinking to yourself, oh great, now my parents are gonna make me sing and pray with my family. That sounds like a fun 10 minutes. There might even be someone here that's thinking, you know, that sounds a little bit like you're trying to brainwash me. So if you're an eye roller this morning, I wanna talk to you for a minute. I want your attention. I want you to imagine for a minute that you are dying of a deadly, terrible disease. I know that's not a rosy picture, but just imagine it with me for a moment. And then imagine that this terrible disease that's taking your life has a cure. I can assure you that your parents would do whatever it takes to acquire that medicine and have you take it. because they love you and they want what's best for you. Now, you could pretend like you're not sick. You could reject the medicine your parents have purchased. You could even find some other medicine and say, you know, I've heard that medicine's better than this medicine. But none of those responses, none of those responses are going to change two things. One, your parents love you, they want what's best for you, and they are going to pursue you. And second, if you don't take that medicine, you are on a path to death. Now, here's the thing, and I know this is going to sound a little churchy, but each of us are infected. Each of us are infected with sin. That's the truth. You can ignore it, but that's the truth. And your parents know the cure. They want to pour into your lives. They want to help you understand it and accept it and believe it. Are your parents perfect? No, no, they're not. They probably embarrass you. They probably make you feel uncomfortable. If they're like me, that probably happens on a daily basis. but they desire what's best for you. As a parent, words don't describe their love for you. So if you are here this morning and the thought of talking about spiritual matters with your parents makes you bristle, I wanna challenge you to one thing, one thing. Don't reject your parents without first carefully, closely examining what you're ultimately rejecting. Because these are matters of eternity. I think your parents would agree with this statement. We are not trying to force some blind, thoughtless faith on you. We've been through the wrestling match spiritually. We understand there's doubts, there's questions. So you should have more conversations with your parents, not less. Wrestle with spiritual issues together. That has been my prayer for you this week. Okay, to recap here, we've looked at what the Bible says about family ministry. A doctrine we can summarize like this. God created the family to be the primary setting that children and youth learn to love and obey God. We looked at what this means for the family. Parents are called to tune their hearts to the Lord, to teach their children, and to talk about spiritual matters every day. Family worship is a critical ingredient to this calling. But this sermon series, of course, is about essentials of our church. So let me conclude by answering the question, what does this mean for our church? If I could use one word, one word to describe what this means for our church, it would be the word equip. Pastor Rob preached two weeks ago on Ephesians 4.12. God's word instructs pastors in the local church to equip believers for the work of ministry. That's why our church is committed to equipping parents and grandparents to be the primary spiritual trainers of their children. So at GFC, what does this look like and how can you plug in? For the sake of time, I'm going to hit some highlights. I've listed them here on this slide if you want to write them down. Perhaps the most obvious, if you're visiting here, is that we have all generations being full participants in our worship service on Sunday. We view our church service each Sunday as a gathering of all the believers, all of our faith community in the presence of God and under the authority of God's word. We want everyone present. We want everyone actively participating. And we take this position because we think it's biblical. We see all ages, including children, partaking in Old Testament ceremonies and celebrations. Paul's letters include specific instructions to children. These letters would have been read to the local church, so children had to have been in attendance. We want your kids here. We have a cry room available in the back if you need to step out. We provide special note taking worksheets to help your kids take notes and pay attention during the service. We as pastors work very hard to tailor portions of our sermons towards young people. And one practical way to tie this together with your conversations at home is to talk about what you learned at church on Sunday. I mean, this could be from the sermon. It doesn't have to be. It can be something that you learned in talking with someone else at a fellowship meal. Which leads me to another way our church seeks to be family-centered. We intentionally strive to develop multi-generational interactions during our fellowship meal, at men's ministry meetings, at women's ministry meetings. Now I know it's natural to gravitate toward friend groups that are of similar age, but our goal here is to provide settings in which younger people can be having conversations and spiritual connections with believers of all ages. This is a great way, by the way, to impact the youth and students in our church. Take the initiative to sit down at a fellowship meal with someone younger than you and get to know them and have spiritual conversations with them. Now, we host equip groups. We've had seminars geared towards family and grandparents and parenting. But we also, if you're not on our email list, we try to tee up for you every week through our weekly email a connection between family worship and our Sunday service. We'll send an email out. We'll provide a song that's being sung on Sunday. We'll provide a passage of scripture that connects to our service on Sunday. We'll provide discussion questions that connect to the sermon on Sunday. That is neatly packaged up for you in your inbox. It's like family worship right there. Just open your inbox, follow the outline if you want. And you also prepare your hearts to worship on Sunday. And finally, If you see a need, let's talk. A group earlier this year wanted to launch a study for teen girls. Came to the pastors, we helped equip that group with resources, a room, training, promotion. That's just one example of where you see the need, we want to support it. We've had families that will bring youth together to pray at their house or to play games. I mean, these can be fun things too, right? So I encourage you, I encourage you to find opportunities to connect with our youth. And most importantly, to connect with your kids, kids to connect to your parents, so that you can grow in your relationship with the Lord. Will you join me as I close in prayer? Lord Jesus, I thank you. I thank you for the parents and the grandparents and the kids and the families that are here this morning in your name. We desire to be faithful to your word as we raise our kids and minister to future generations. Help us to tune our hearts to you. Help us to have spiritual conversations in our home. Strengthen our trust and faith in you. We ask in your name, Lord Jesus, amen.