The following sermon is brought to you by Capitol Community Church, located in Raleigh, North Carolina. Capitol Community Church is a people awakened to a holy God. If you are searching for a new church home, or from out of town looking for a church to worship with, or simply seeking for answers. Please join us for worship at 1045 a.m. every Sunday morning and six o'clock p.m. for our evening service. If you have any questions, please email us at info at CapitalCommunityChurch.com. We pray this sermon will help you grow deeper in your walk with Jesus Christ. I invite you to open your Bible to Ephesians chapter six. And I'm going to read verses one to four, Ephesians 6, one to four. Paul says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And verse four is particularly what I want you to focus on this morning, this last verse. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And the first thing I want you to see is that God gives the responsibility of raising children to the parents. Here he specifically mentions the father, but certainly the mother is implied in this reference. It's not the state's job to raise children. Children do not belong to the state. You might have heard recently, it takes a whole village to raise a child. it doesn't. It takes parents to raise a child. It's not the school's job to raise a child. It's not even the church's job to raise a child. Whose responsibility is it that Paul clearly delineates? It's the responsibility of the parents. The poet George Herbert said, a father is worth more than a hundred school teachers. So this is of pivotal importance that as parents, we own the responsibility of bringing up our children. This is our responsibility, that word, if you look, bring them up. It's ectrepho, and it literally means to bring a child from being a baby all the way to being a fully functioning adult. And it's an active verb. It's an active thing you do. You're not just responding to the child. Last week we used the example of the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. thermometer just measures the temperature in the room. And some parents are like that. They just go about their lives and when the kids get too loud or they interrupt their screen time, they respond. But that's not the responsibility of a parent. It's an active picture. You are setting the temperature in that child's life. You are the thermostat for your children. You set the tempo. So fathers must be especially careful, Paul says, that in bringing up children and mothers alongside them, that the temperature of their home is filled with godliness and grace. Look, he says, do not provoke your children to anger. The reason for this command, Paul gives in Colossians 3.21, he says, fathers do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. So there's an atmosphere of grace and love and reverence to the Lord that we are to bring up the children. And he says further, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Notice that last prepositional phrase at the end of verse four. Underline that or pay special attention to that because that qualifies what your home is to be like. You are to bring them up in the discipline of the Lord. and the instruction of the Lord. Now, we all have differences in our homes. Maybe you're an NC State family. Maybe you're a Carolina Blue family. We all have our own predilections. That's not what Paul's talking about here. He's talking about the Christian things that you do in the life of your home in order to bring up children. And we've looked a lot at this word discipline. We looked at this word paideia last Sunday morning, and we spent all of last Sunday evening looking at what this word means. It's not just corrective discipline. It's a whole environment of discipline. And in fact, the King James, I think, says nurture. It's a nurturing sphere in which you're bringing up children. And if you think about the great, the great Greek city-states, the Spartans, from the earliest that that young man was a child, he was being taught to do what? To be a Spartan warrior, to bring his shield or come back on it. So this is the idea that Paul's communicating. It's a comprehensive discipline. And then he uses this word instruction, that parents are to give instruction of the Lord to this child. And this is what I wanna focus particularly on this morning. That word instruction is the Greek word, neophysia. And I mentioned that word because various forms of that word are used throughout Paul's epistles. About 60 years ago, there was a man up in Pennsylvania named Jay Adams. Jay Adams. And Jay Adams revolutionized the counseling world. And what he realized is that most people, when they go to see a counselor, they were so influenced by Freud and all this psychoanalysis that the counselor would basically say, okay, let's talk about your repressed memories. Try and remember what happened in your past that is influencing you to where you are today. And the whole objective of so much of secular counseling just became to get down into the very core of your mind and bring out these old repressed memories. And J. Adams just simply looked at the Bible and said, Well, that's that's not actually what people need. And I know that you've probably been in a dark time before where you were facing a trial or difficulty, and I know that I've been. And what has helped me the most is when somebody has come alongside me and spoken the truth of God's Word into my life. I've been in situations where you don't see an outlet on how to get out of a problem, and then all of a sudden you talk to somebody, and they say, but Grant, you need to remember this. and they bring God's truth to bear in your life, and then the darkness fades away. And so what we need is the truth of God's word. So Paul says this in the book of Romans. This is a verse tucked away in chapter 15, and this is the verse that J. Adams saw so many years ago. This is Romans 15, 14. He said, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness. So he's talking about Christians, he's talking about believers, filled with all knowledge. And look at this, and able to instruct one another. Able to instruct one another. That verb, instruct, is a form of the same word of Newthesia, it's newtheteo. Same root word, and it means to both warn and to teach. So there's a doctrinal component that you're giving. You're giving truth, you're giving facts, but you're also giving warnings about the way the world works, the devil about the flesh, about temptation. It's both doctrinal and ethical. And so what J. Adams started doing is he started training people to speak the truth of God's word into one another's lives. And that's how the biblical counseling movement began in this country. And what Paul does throughout his ministry and let me give you these cross references, is he, in believers' lives, this is what he would do, is he would come alongside them and he would give this instruction. So he uses the same word in Colossians 128, where Paul says, him we proclaim, Christ we proclaim, Warning everyone, same word, nutheteo, warning everyone, giving that instruction, giving that warning, and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present to everyone mature in Christ. So the picture of someone growing into maturity in Christ Jesus. Paul told the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, 31, he said, therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years, I did not cease night or day to neuthateo, to admonish everyone with tears. So it's teaching, but it's warning. You hear that emotional component that Paul said, I spent three years in Ephesus, warning you, teaching you, night and day, what it means to live this Christian life. And what Paul is saying, if you turn back to Ephesians. What Paul is saying in Ephesians 6 is that that is exactly the responsibility of the parents, of specifically the father and the mother alongside him, that they are to give this instruction of the Lord, this doctrine of the Lord, this warning of the Lord. And the result that you want, the goal of this teaching, the goal of this instruction is to impart to the child a biblical worldview, a biblical worldview. A worldview is the lens by which you view the world. A worldview is the lens by which you view the world. Every single person has a set of presuppositions and assumptions by which they view the world. Every single person does. Every single person in the world has a bias. The key, though, is that you want your child to view the world like God views the world, like Christ views the world. That's the goal of our instruction. C.S. Lewis said this about the biblical worldview, quote, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. So you want to see everything in the world through the lens of Scripture, through the lens of the mind of Christ. And that's the world's problem today, is the world is looking out at the world with distorted lenses. And it's the responsibility of Christian parents to give their children the instruction so that they can view the world properly. Christianity gives all the major answers to life. The metaphysical answers. Why are we here? What's our purpose? Why did God create us? How am I supposed to live my life? Christianity answers all those questions. Science doesn't answer any of those questions. Science can give you a how answer. Science can tell you how many times the earth It goes around the sun in a year. Science can tell you the laws of gravity, but what science can't tell you is why God puts you on this earth. Christianity gives you a purpose, it also gives you an ethic. Have you ever talked to a non-believer and you started talking about the public square? And they might say, that's wrong, that's a terrible thing that happened. And just ask them, well, why is it wrong? And they say, well, it's wrong because we all agree that it's wrong. Well, we could all be wrong, right? The only way that you can have a true ethic of right and wrong is if there's an absolute God who said that something is right and wrong. And so it's the responsibility of the Christian parent to impart this to the children. So what I want to do for you this morning is I want to give you the eight non-negotiable pillars of a Christian worldview. that every parent, that every grandparent should impart to their child or grandchild. So these are the things that you need to focus on in terms of your teaching, in terms of your instruction, in what you are teaching your child. First, God is our creator. I want you to turn to Genesis chapter one, Genesis 1.1. The biblical worldview begins with the fact of God. The Bible doesn't argue for the existence of God, it asserts it. Look at Genesis 1.1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That might be the most profound verse in the Bible along with John 1.1, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. It does this because the fact of God, it asserts that God is there before the universe is created because the fact of God is self-evident to us. Paul says in Romans 1.20, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. In other words, everybody knows that God exists. You wake up in the morning, you go outside, you see the sunrise, it testifies to the fact that there is a creator. Everyone knows that there is a God. John Calvin said that God has put a sense of God inside every person. It's called the sensus divinitatis, that God has put a sense of God that you know, and you can just, you know that you exist, You know that every effect must have a cause. You know that there can't be an eternal chain of causes. There must be a definitive point at the end of this, logically. Therefore, there must be a God. And atheists kick and scream this reality, not because of intellectual reasons, but because of moral reasons. They don't want to believe that God exists. There was an atheist named Thomas Nagel, and he was just being candidly honest. He said, quote, it isn't just that I don't believe in God and naturally hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God. I don't want there to be a God. I don't want the universe to be like that. Listen, this is very interesting. He says, my guess is, is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition, and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. So people don't want to believe that God exists, because then, if God exists, He's Lord, and then you'd be accountable to Him. That's, at its heart, that's what atheism is. It's a moral rejection of the lordship of God. That's atheism. And so, as parents, we just have a fundamental responsibility to teach our children that there is a God in heaven, a God in heaven, a holy God, a triune God, and He is distinct from creation. That is a very important delineation, that God is not part of creation. We're not pantheist. We don't believe that you cut down a tree and you're cutting God. God is distinct. Moreover, we're not deist. We don't believe that God has stepped away from the creation, that God just created things and wound a clock and now has disappeared. No, God is sovereignly ruling and reigning and providentially governing everything that comes to pass in this world. Job says in Job 12, 22, he says, he uncovers the deeps out of darkness and brings deep darkness to light. He makes nations great and he destroys them. He enlarges nations and leads them away. God's in control of everything, everything. Paul says in Ephesians 111 that God works all things according to the counsel of His will, all things. And that's a mind-blowing, staggering thing to realize, but it gives you great hope and confidence in this world because bad things happen, and we'll talk about that. But if you know that there is a God in heaven who is orchestrating every single event, every single molecule, that gives great assurance. We're not facing a blind future. We're facing a future that is known and held in the hand of a kind God who sovereignly rules. Moreover, if that wasn't enough, It's that this creator who created everything and governs everything desires to be in a relationship with you and me. that He wants you to know Him, not just know facts about Him, but to know Him intimately in your heart, and for you to love Him. Jesus said in John 17, three, and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So Christianity, friend, is about the knowledge of God. It's about knowing God and glorifying God. Second thing that you need to teach your children is that God has written a book. That God has written a book. And I find this one of the most astounding and amazing things. It's 2 Timothy 3.16. I want you to turn to 2 Timothy 3.16. This is such an important verse for you to memorize, to teach your children. Paul says very clearly, and there's other verses and cross-references that we could point to, but this verse is so clear, I want you to see it. He says, all Scripture, all of it, all Scripture is breathed out by God. That phrase, breathed out by God, is one Greek word, theopneustos. Theo is God, Neustas is breath or wind. It's God breathed. What Paul is saying is that the scriptures, the Bible, are the very words of God, not just the thoughts of God. Some people used to think that, well, the Bible contains the word of God. No, no, no, no. It is the word of God. Every dot is the word of God. And that's a remarkable thing because this Bible, if you look at its table of contents, you'll see that there's 39 books in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament, 66 total. It's written over a period of 1500 years by 40 different authors. And what Paul is saying is, is that all of it flows from the breath of God, that it is the word of God. Peter says in 2 Peter 1, 21, he says, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So several implications of this, and this is, these implications are really important to teach your children as they're trying to figure out absolute truth. But the first is this, is that God's word does not err. God's word does not err. When God speaks, he does not stutter. Whatever the Bible speaks about is true. Whatever it speaks about. Jonah was swallowed by a fish. The Red Sea was parted for Moses. There really was a king in Israel named David. And by the way, they've now archaeologically proven that. They found an inscription, you know, King David for years. People thought this guy didn't exist. It's right there. You know, secularists always say, well, you can't prove the Bible, you can't prove these things. For years and years and years, Paul says at the end of the book of Romans, Erastus greets you from Corinth. People said, who's this guy, Erastus? And then when they were excavating Corinth, they found an inscription, Erastus, the treasurer of Corinth. So, all the facts of Scripture, they've been proven to be true, all of it. And the second thing that we need to understand, therefore, is that the Bible is sufficient for all of life. Isn't that what Paul says here? He says it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Look at verse 17, that the man of God, that's the believer, that the man of God may be complete. You could even translate that word perfected, equipped for every good work. Not just some good works, every good work. The Bible answers all the great why questions of life and all the how questions of how to live a godly life. Now, it's not going to tell you how to fix your truck or how to diagnose your computer. or how to play a game. It's not gonna tell you those things, but it's gonna tell you everything that you need to know about how to live a godly life, about how to have a blessed marriage, about how to parent your children. It's gonna give you the things that you need to know that pertain to life in godliness. Therefore, the word of God is profitable for all of our lives, to equip us for every good work. It reveals to us who God is, it reveals to us who we are, and most importantly, it reveals to us the Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, who made a way to heaven. This book, The Psalmist says in Psalm 119, 105, is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. And what that means is this, is that every Christian's life is a story of your life in the Bible. Every Christian's life. Every true Christian is going to be guided and affected and changed by this book. You are born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed through the living and abiding word of God. And that's why when I inherited the Bibles of my deceased ancestors, and they were Christians, you open up those Bibles, and what you see are worn pages and notes. Because a ragged Bible most often belongs to a mature Christian. Every Christian's life is a life of the Bible. David says in Psalm 19, he says, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes, and keeps going. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. Therefore, he is like a tree, firmly planted by streams of water. Do you want your life to be a tree, firmly planted, your children's lives? You gotta get this book into their minds, into their hearts. Third, this is so big right now. So, so important right now. This is where Satan is on the prowl. This is where he's attacking. God created man as male-female image bearers. I want you to turn back to Genesis. This is another important verse that you could just teach your kids to memorize. They could memorize it in an afternoon. Genesis 127. So, God created man in his own image. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. What God is revealing about us, about mankind, is that we're unique. People are unique. God created us in his image, and that's why we are distinct from the animals, from the plants. I know we love our dogs, we love our cats. We include them in our family picture sometimes. But technically, they're not part of your family the way your children are. We're distinct. Have you seen this new thing where people are now identifying as animals? They call themselves Furbies. And I know that the tendency is to laugh at that because it's so preposterous and so ridiculous. But let me tell you what that is at its heart. At its very core, it is a rejection of the fact that God has made you in His image. It's saying, I am not like God, and I am more like these animals, and I don't even want to relate to God or my fellow man as a moral creature. I'm just an animal that has physical desires that need to be satisfied. I don't have a spiritual life. So at its heart, what Satan is doing in deceiving people is he's cutting off the very fabric of who God made us to be as his image bearers. That's why people are so unique in this world. The uniqueness of a fellow man or a fellow woman is the fact that God made them in his image. And for that reason, that's why all people are moral creatures, because God made us to relate to him. He gave us a conscience. God created us to work. Remember Genesis 2.15, he said to Adam, you need to work and keep the garden. Who else works? God works. God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day, he rested from his work. God created us to work because he works. All of this goes back to the reality that we are image bearers. And for that reason, Christians have always held that every life is valuable. The value of a human life is not what you can produce for society on an assembly ring. Your value is the fact that you're an image bearer of Almighty God. And for that reason, we oppose abortion. Absolutely. We oppose abortion. We oppose euthanasia. We desire to treat every single human life with dignity and respect. And that's what we stand for. You also see in Genesis 127, look at this. He created us as image bearers, male and female, He created them. Human sexuality is God's idea. He made two genders, male and female. That's the gender binary. Your sex is your gender and your gender is your sex. It doesn't matter what you feel or what some teacher told you to feel. God created you. with a physiology, and that physiology reflects God's design for your life. So if God created you as a female, rejoice in that. God made you to be a woman. If he made you a male, rejoice in that. God made you to be a male. One in five people right now, I just saw a new Gallup poll, of Gen Z identify as LBGTQ+. one in five of this next generation. You see how Satan is attacking the fundamental idea of what it means to even be human? God created you as an image bearer and as male and female. So Satan is confusing and lying to people at the most basic level of who they are. The statistic is one in five, but how many people now believe that you can simply identify as something other than your biological sex? They might not do it, but they still believe that they can. Do you see how one verse of Scripture, Genesis 1, 27, cuts through all of the insanity of the day? All of it. Praise be to God for his word. God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. It's really very simple. What our world has called confusing. Fourth, sin ruins everything. Sin ruins everything. I want you to turn now to the book of Romans, chapter five, verse 12. Romans five, 12. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, and they were real people, not just myth. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden against God by disobeying his command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And as a result of that, Paul explains the repercussions. Look at verse 12. He says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. By that he means, in Adam, we are all found guilty. We are all found sinners. And as a result, the result of sin is death. Now in the ancient world, sin was just an archery word. You would use that word when you were having an archery contest and somebody shot and they missed the bullseye. So even if you missed by just a fraction of the inch, they would still say, you've sinned because you've missed the mark. And the way that the Bible is using that word is that you've missed the mark of the righteous standard of God. You've fallen short of God's law. That's what he means. And in so doing, R.C. Sproul said this, he defines sin as cosmic treason against God. It's not just that you committed a boo-boo. or that you messed up. You know, you hear that people apologize like that all the time. No, you have sinned against God. You've broken His law. And for that reason, there's a separation between us and God. Paul says in Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And then he says in Romans 6.23, that the wage of sin is death. The wages of sin his death. And for that reason, each of us is born not a good person. Each of us is born a sinner. And we all commit sins. And last I checked, we're all going to die. Has anybody had a relative or a friend that just keeps on living? They're taking four or 500 years? No. Every life ends in death, and that's part of the curse. Hebrews 9.27, and just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgment. So as a result of our sin, we stand deserving judgment before Almighty God. And that explains why our world is messed up. Our world is messed up because it is broken, and we broke it. Sin destroys everything. God created what was good and man defaced it through sin. And children need to know why the world is the way that it is. Now, oftentimes, If a child experiences a tragedy in their young life, as sad as that is, and as difficult as that is, whether it's the death of a parent or a divorce, sometimes that child realizes sooner, more quickly than other children, that this world is a broken world. And God can use that in the life of that child to save them. Such was the case in my life with the death of my father when I was two years old. They started asking all these questions. Why did he have to die? Why are things the way that they are? Where did he go? Solomon said, better to be in the house of mourning than in the house of feasting. But most kids, that's not the life of most kids. Most kids are being handed out participation trophies for everything that they do, and they think that the world is a good place. And parents, you have a responsibility to explain to that child the world as it really is, that the world is truly a broken place, that death is real, and the result of that is because of our sin and our separation with God. Fifth, fifth pillar that you need to know regarding the biblical worldview. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of God. We always need to be bringing it back then to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible reveals that God is one, yet three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person is eternally God. Furthermore, the Bible reveals that the Son of God, the eternal Son of God, was sent on a rescue mission into the world. I want you to turn to John 3.16. You've seen this verse. Used to be on Tim Tebow's eyeliner. This verse has been everywhere, probably the most quoted verse in Scripture. But John writes, giving an explanation of Jesus's encounter with Nicodemus, the apostle John says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And that right there in a verse is the essence of Christianity, that God himself came into the world, that He became man, the man that is known as Jesus of Nazareth. The world doesn't dispute the fact of Jesus. Everybody knows that Jesus existed. Josephus and all the ancient historians talk about Jesus of Nazareth. That's not up for debate. What our world decries is that Jesus is the Son of God. I think he's a good person, maybe he was a prophet, but not God. Jesus said otherwise. Jesus said in John 5, the Father has been working until now and I work. I am one with the Father. And that's why people wanted to stone him, they wanted to kill him, because they knew what he was saying. He was claiming to be God. Jesus claimed to have the authority to forgive sins. Who can forgive sins but God? Jesus claimed to be God. And while he was on this earth as truly God and truly man, he lived a perfect life, a life that we could not live. And he did this all so that he could die in our place for our sins. If you look at John 3, 16, that's the meaning of that he gave his only son. Gave in what way? Gave to die. He gave his only son to die in our place so that whoever believes in him should not perish, that we would not suffer the penalty of our sin before God, that we would not be judged for all of eternity in hell, but that on the contrary, we would have eternal life. Look at verse 17, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. So the son was sent on a rescue mission to save us, and that gives meaning to the cross. The cross just wasn't a haphazard death on Jerusalem on some Friday afternoon. The cross was when Jesus was paying the sin penalty for our sins. God was pouring upon him the penalty that you and I deserve. 2nd Corinthians 5 21 Paul says for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God Romans 5 8 but God shows his own love towards us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us And because he was perfect, remember the wage of sin is death, but Jesus hadn't sinned, so the grave and death itself couldn't defeat him. He rose from the dead. Three days later, he was vindicated. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3.16, he was vindicated by the Spirit. He was vindicated to all the naysayers, to all the people who said he wasn't God. He was vindicated and he rose from the dead. And that, my friends, is the greatest news in the world. The greatest news in the world. Because we all have to die someday. We all have to die someday. And it could come sooner than you think. Sooner than you think. You don't know when that next step is going to take you into eternity. I know you might be young, you might think it's many years from now, but I've seen so many young people die. you don't know when your day is coming, you don't. But the resurrection gives you hope and an assurance to face that day. Because the resurrection says this, that the moment that you die, if you have trusted in Christ, that your spirit will immediately go into the presence of the Lord. And that one day when Jesus comes back with all of the glory and all of the angels, when he steps back into time and space, we will see him. Paul says in that moment, we'll be raised from the dead and our spirits will be reunited with our earthly bodies, will be remade. That's the hope of resurrection. And quite frankly, I don't know how you could face death as a sane person without it. It's only through Christ, John says, those who believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And that leads me to the sixth pillar that you need to teach your children. And that is this, that the only way to heaven is by divine grace. This is so important. This is at the foundation of Christianity. This is what Roman Catholics, unfortunately, get wrong, and so many Greek Orthodox get wrong, and so many people that are in evangelical churches all over the world get wrong, is that salvation only comes through unmerited grace. Grace is God's unmerited love given to you. And by emphasizing grace, I'm emphasizing that contrary to works of the law. I'm emphasizing that contrary to works of the law. Paul says in Galatians 2.16, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. Person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So Christianity teaches this. Christianity says that the only way for you to receive the benefits of what Christ has done on your behalf is through faith in him. And faith immediately unites you to Christ so that all of your sin is taken away and all of his righteousness is then given to you. That's called the great exchange of the gospel. That's the good news of the gospel. But listen, if you add just one work where you say, God, I'm going to stand before you by faith and works. If you add just one work to faith, you negate faith. It's like adding a drop of poison to a bottle of fine wine. You destroy the whole thing. That's what works does to faith. It destroys faith because at the end of the day, if you're trusting in one work, are you really trusting in Christ alone for your salvation? No, you're not. And this is what Martin Luther came to understand. You remember Luther, before he began the Protestant Reformation, lived a life as a monk. And Luther said, if anybody could be saved by their monkery, it was I. He was a monk's monk. He spent hours in the confessional. He was doing everything he could to earn God's favor. You ask Luther, do you believe in Jesus? He would say, yes, of course I believe in Jesus. And I'm also trying to work and to please him. So it was both, yes, I have faith, but I'm also working. And Luther, at one point, went down to Rome and went on this pilgrimage, and he was looking for some spiritual solace in Rome. He thought he could find it there. And there's these steps in Rome called the Scala Sancta, and those were supposed to be, supposedly, the steps that Jesus walked up when he was tried by Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. And Apparently during one of the Crusades they took those steps from Jerusalem and carried them all the way to Rome and put them there and they said if you went up those steps on your knees and you said Hail Mary's and and our fathers on every step and you got to the top that you would have a spiritual reward and Luther went to Rome and he went up those steps and he got to the top of There was nothing. He felt just as guilty as he did before. Because when you're trying to please God with your own works, how do you know how many is good enough? And what do you do with your past sin? What do you do? There's nothing you can do. And I want you to see this incredible text, an important verse to teach your children. This is Ephesians 2.8. Ephesians 2.8. Paul says so clearly, the way of salvation in Christ is by grace. He says, for by grace you have been saved. And how do you receive this grace? He says, through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. It is not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Salvation is not a result of works. It's a result of what Christ has done for you. Paul says, Notice this language at the end of verse eight. It is a gift of God. What must you do with a gift? Do you have to earn a gift? No, you have to receive a gift. And that's what Paul is saying. You must receive this gift of what Christ has done for you. When Luther finally figured this out, when he finally discovered it, he said, By the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, he was thinking about Romans 117, that namely in the righteousness of God is revealed as it is written, he through faith is righteous shall live. There I begin to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God. namely, by faith. And this is the meaning, the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith. As it is written, he through faith is righteous shall live. He says, here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. This is the most glorious news in the world, that heaven's gate is open, that Christ has already accomplished salvation, and you just have to receive it as a gift. You just have to receive it as a gift. So that's the real question, is have you received what Christ has done as a gift through faith? Have you received what Christ has done as a gift through faith? Children, listen to me. Have you received what Christ has done as a gift through faith? There's no more important decision in the world. Trust Christ. Trust Christ. And you will possess in your hand the ticket to heaven. Seven, Jesus has given us an ethic. Jesus has given us an ethic. Now, the Christian does not do good works. and obey Christ to earn salvation, but simply out of a love for God, out of a love for God. It's a new ethic because we are new creatures in Christ. And Jesus said that this is his ethic. In Matthew 22, somebody asked him, what's the greatest commandment? And Jesus said, the greatest commandment is this, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength. And the second greatest commandment is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And what he was summarizing was the 10 commandments. First four commandments, love God. Last six commandments, love of neighbor. Jesus is summarizing that. And of course, when you read the Sermon on the Mount, you see how he ups the ante. How it's not just do not commit adultery, it's do not look with lust upon a woman. It's not just do not murder, it's do not hate your brother. And Jesus says that in the kingdom of God and his ethic, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Jesus said in Matthew 517, do not think that I've come to abolish the law of the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. So if you read the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus unpacks his manifesto of kingdom living, the Christian ethic. And so, parents, we need to teach our children what Christ has instructed us, to be ready to forgive, to not be anxious. You know, Jesus says, look, consider the birds. Don't be anxious. How many kids are struggling with anxiety? going into the counselor's lounge, and they're just terrified, and they're struggling, and they don't know what to do. Jesus says, don't be anxious. Consider the birds of the heavens. Consider the lilies of the field. Look to me. He teaches us how to pray and address God as our Father. That's the Christian ethic. And then eighth and finally, this is the last pillar that you need to teach your child. is that history isn't going to perpetuate forever into the future. The world also isn't going to be knocked out by a meteor and cease to exist. The world ends on a divine timetable when the Lord Jesus will return in glory. That's a fact. The Lord Jesus is returning to judge the living and the dead. Paul says 1 Thessalonians 4, 16, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with the cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Jesus said in Matthew 24, 30, then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. At that moment, history, as we know it, will come to an end. Peter says in 2 Peter 1, 19, that is the dawning of a day. It's the dawning of a new day. And at that point, all of evil will be judged. Christ will reign. Christ will defeat all of his enemies. And you know what? you and I will be vindicated and will reign with Him forever and ever and ever and ever. It's all good. The world is going to hell in a handbasket right now, but it's all good, because I know where it's going to end. I know what Christ is doing. I know how the story unfolds. And so that fact right there is going to give great stability to your child, that they know the trajectory of history, that they can expect at any moment the Lord Jesus to return. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe this month. But it's not going to keep on going forever and ever. Now let me just give you a couple words of application. A couple words of application as you're thinking about teaching these worldview pillars to your children. One, don't force your child to make a decision to become a Christian. Don't, look, you can manipulate a child really to say anything that you want them to say. Present them the truth of the gospel. Urge them about the necessity to place their faith in Christ. But don't say, you must do this right now. Because so often what happens is children make professions of faith, and then years later, what happens? They wander off from the faith. They never owned it. Why? Because at the end of the day, salvation is a supernatural work, it's grace. God must do a work in the heart, and we can't manipulate that, so our job, as parents, as Sunday school teachers, is to sow the seed. Sow the seed of the gospel. Urge them to believe, but don't force them to do that, because then you're violating their personhood, and you're assuming that God is regenerating that child. You present the gospel to them. Second, It's important to do formal times of teaching. You wanna teach formally in your home, and most often the best place to do that is at the dinner table. The Hebrews called the table the household altar. So you wanna gather the family around, you wanna teach them. Maybe it's a short Bible study, maybe it's a discussion on one of these things that we've talked about, but you're teaching them the biblical worldview, you're teaching them scripture, you're teaching them theology. But most of your teaching is going to be done informally. Most of your teaching is going to be done informally. It's gonna be answering the question about why you voted for a specific political candidate. Mom, dad, why'd you vote for that person? It's gonna be answering the question about why you work so hard. Why do you work so hard? Well, I work so hard because I'm working under the Lord, not for men. That's Colossians chapter three. Saw my friend Eric the other day, he had that verse on the side of his truck. And everybody asks, what does that verse mean? Well, it means that I don't work for you at the end of the day, I work for the Lord. That's the biblical worldview. That's the biblical worldview. And your children are gonna ask you why you do things and why you believe things and what you think about something. And don't just say, well, I believe that and I do that because that's just who I am and that's how I'm different. No, you explain to them, I do this and I believe this because I've experienced the grace of God. I've been transformed and I have a Bible and this is what the Bible says. And now they're hearing how you interpret the world. And they're going to begin to interpret the world that way. And then just one last piece of wisdom is pray that the Lord would give your child, your grandchild, wisdom. Wisdom comes from God. You can teach them all day long, and at the end of the day, they can still reject it. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. So pray that God will open their heart that God will open their mind, that God will open their eyes to the truth, and that what you're teaching them will take hold. Pray that what you're teaching them will take hold, and that it will bear fruit in their life, that they'll be born again. These are glorious truths. And praise be to God that God has revealed all of this to us in his word. We're not flying blind. We're not flying without instruments. We have exactly what we need to know because it's all right here in the scriptures. Praise be to God. Heavenly Father, we come to the throne of grace now, Lord, and we do pray for our children, our grandchildren, the children in this church, the children in this country. We pray, Lord, that parents would take it upon themselves to instruct them in what it means to be a believer and what it means to be a Christian, that we would give them godly instruction. We pray, Lord, that that you would open their hearts, that you would open their minds to the truth. We love you, Lord. We ask all these things for the sake of Christ. Amen. Thanks for listening. For more sermons, information, and events, check out our website at CapitalCommunityChurch.com.