Christian Worldview & Discipleship

from afar, but if you can, it would be great if we could fill some of the seats up in the front.

Yeah, maybe I need a breath mint or something like that, but no worries either way. Just by way of quick correction, perhaps

I'm not sure what Pastor Bruce's view on the spiritual gifts are, but apparently the gift of prophecy or a word of knowledge is still in existence today because he is the 127th person to call me pastor, and I'm actually not a pastor.

Perhaps he's speaking a word over me. I am the youth director at my church in Massapequa, and I do teach in various contexts, and so that gives the impression sometimes that I am a pastor.

But be that as it may, it is a pleasure to be here talking about a vitally important topic, which was just briefly mentioned, is really being attacked.

The foundations of family is being attacked, and so it's very important that we understand things within the biblical context, okay?

And so the topic that I'm going to be addressing today is how to disciple your children, and that simple question must be couched within the context of a biblical world and life view.

I'm very much into worldviews because everything we do, everything we say, everything we believe is filtered through a worldview perspective.

And so I'm going to be coming at this issue from a worldview perspective and really just draw your minds back to the importance of the biblical revelation.

We cannot be waffle -minded. If you look at waffles, you see the little segregated squares, which

I like to fill up all the squares with syrup before I have my breakfast. Sometimes we can be waffle -minded.

We think in separate, disjointed categories. And so in one sense, my job is this little category over here.

My family life is in this category over here, and then when I go to church, there's a different category called church where I put on my religious mask so that people can know

I'm in my church mode. We are not called to be waffle -minded Christians. We are called to think holistically.

We are called to think consistently, and we are not called to think in a disjointed, disconnected fashion.

Everything that we believe, everything about anything is by necessity connected to other beliefs.

It's impossible, right? If I were to tell you to think of one thing that you think you can disconnect from other beliefs,

I am 100 % sure you cannot do it. I just did this with my students today because we were talking about a similar topic, and I told my students to think of one belief you have that you think you can disconnect from other beliefs.

And so one of the students says, I love cupcakes. My belief in my love for cupcakes really is irrelevant to everything else

I believe. And so I asked the student, can you say that again? And he said, I love cupcakes. And he's like, hmm, that's interesting.

What language are you speaking? He's like, English. Ah, so you have a belief in language. You have a belief that the people you are speaking to in this classroom understand you.

And so in essence, your belief about cupcakes is connected to your belief about language and the fact that the person states their love for cupcakes actually is an assumption of the reality of the external world,

OK? Don't want to get all philosophical on you, but the point is that everything we believe about anything is connected,

OK? As Christians, we cannot relegate issues of the family to a separate category that's disconnected to our

Christian commitments, right? I'm very much into apologetics. One of my favorite Bible verses is 1

Peter 3, verse 15. We must set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts, always being ready to give a reason for the hope within us,

OK? A lot of people who like to teach on apologetics, and this is not my topic for tonight, but a lot of people who tackle that verse are very quick to emphasize the always be ready to give a reason, right?

We need to be able to give answers to the atheist. We need to be able to interact with the Jehovah's Witness and not lock the doors when they knock on our door and, you know, close the, shut the windows and things like that, right?

Lord, please send someone in my path so I can preach the gospel and then God answers your prayer by sending the Jehovah's Witness and we say, quick, honey, lock the door.

That's not going to work, right? Where was I going with that? The point is we need to be connected in our thinking,

OK? So here I want to couch our topic within the theological framework and to remind us the importance of having a theological and biblical foundation when we're covering the issue of family and anything else for that matter.

And so I want to read for you from the book of Jeremiah, chapter 9, verse 23, OK? If you have your

Bibles or you have your phone, no judgment here, OK? You can take out your phone as long as you're not texting someone while I'm reading.

It would be greatly appreciated. Jeremiah, chapter 9, verse 23. And this is the verse

I usually go to demonstrate that God loves theology, OK? It is pleasing to him and it is connected to everything that we do.

And so here is what the word of God says. This is what the Lord says. The wise person should not boast in his strength.

The wealthy should not boast in his wealth. But the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the

Lord showing faithful love, justice and righteousness on the earth. For I delight in these things.

This is the Lord's declaration or this is the word of the Lord. Now, this is a very interesting passage of Scripture.

For the Scripture tells us the things we are not to boast in. But if you are going to boast, there is something we should boast in.

And it is connected to understanding and knowing God. If you're going to boast, he says, boast in this, that he understands and knows me.

Now, understanding and knowing is very interesting because we can understand these words in a very in very different context.

All right. I like to put it in the framework of understanding to intellectually apprehend something, to understand facts about God is important.

And as we see from this Scripture is pleasing to the Lord. But there is a difference between understanding

God, understanding things about God and knowing God within the context of relationship.

This is very, very important because the Bible uses the idea to know relationally.

That's why Jesus Christ, who is God in flesh, right? We believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. He is God incarnate.

And as God incarnate, he has all of the attributes of divinity. And so it is correct for us to say that Jesus Christ knows all things.

That's correct. That's a true biblical statement. But it's very interesting that Jesus is speaking to people as to what he's going to say to them.

On Judgment Day, he says to those on his right, enter into the kingdom that has been prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.

And then to those on his left, he says, get away from me. I never knew you.

Now, how can an omniscient God not know someone? There must be a sense in which he does not know some people and a sense in which he knows others.

The all knowing God knows all things. That's the very definition of omniscience. But there is a way in which

God does not know people. And that is within the context of relationship. He was never in union with these people.

OK, now there is a whole nother theological topic we can talk about in regards to what that means. But the point is that there is a difference between knowing about God factually, intellectually, understanding through the intellect.

And there is another way that we can know God through relationship. OK, now that means every time we think about God facts or we grow in our relationship with him, that is done within the context of theology.

That is what theology is all about. Facts about God and growing in our relationship based upon what we learn about God and his word.

And so God is what does it say here? It says here, but the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows me that I am the

Lord showing faithful love, justice and righteousness on the earth. For I delight in these things.

God delights when we know about him and when we are in relationship with him. And so that being said, theology is a very, very important thing in that it helps us to grow in the knowledge of who

God is and what he expects of us. And it provides a worldview framework through which we understand everything else.

Because as I said in the beginning, we are not to be waffle minded. Everything is connected.

Everything is connected to theology because everything is connected to God. Does that make sense?

That's very, very important. We cannot disconnect that at all. OK, and so discipleship, when we're asking how to disciple our children, we need to understand that discipleship is itself theological.

And it is to be understood within the context of the Christian worldview as grounded in God's word.

OK, so discipleship is theological. This is true because it is in a consistent Christian worldview.

Everything is theological because everything relates to God. Very, very important. So let me talk a little bit about this idea of worldview.

And the reason why I'm laying this foundation is because when we ask the question, how should I disciple my children?

What is very much involved in that is implanting within them a view of the world that we get from the word of God, teaching our kids to see things through the lens of God's revelation, first in a very elementary sense in ways that they could easily understand.

Look at all the beautiful stars. Where did this come from? These kinds of things where your children are taught from the very early stages that the world that they live in is itself a divine revelation from their maker.

And God blesses us with all of the wonderful gifts of creation. These are things that we instill within our children so that when they begin to think a little more independently, they're thinking within a consistent biblical worldview framework.

Now, a lot of people say, well, you know, I like to let my child just kind of think on their own, right?

People say, I just make up their own mind. That's really pretty dumb. Not because I don't believe that children are unable to think on their own.

But when we're talking about understanding how everything in the world is connected and grounded in the word of God, they need that foundation.

We do not start with a tabula rasa, a blank slate, and then we kind of just take in all this information and then make sense out of it.

No, we start with God's revelation. We start on that foundation and we instill that in our children.

It must start there. Otherwise, some other foundation other than the word of God will be in place of the word of God.

Because as people know, those of you who are involved in apologetics and worldview issues, we know that there is no neutrality in the world.

There is no unbiased observer where a kid can just look at the world in an unbiased fashion and come to the right conclusions.

We all have starting points. And as people who are called to raise their children up in the admonition of the

Lord, your commitment as a parent is to instill the seeds of biblical truth within your children.

Amen? Okay, so worldview. What is a worldview? I can give you a technical definition and I can give you the easy definition.

And because I'm weird that way, I'm going to give you both. All right? Okay, so get ready. Children, you ready? Okay, what is a worldview?

It is a way we view the world. Okay? Very, very easy. Very, very simple.

And I think if I stop there, that's a sufficient definition. However, to understand the connectedness of our beliefs and what makes up a worldview,

I like the technical definition. So I'm going to lay it out for you and then explain a little bit.

And then we're going to jump into, hey, how do we decipher our children? Okay? The technical definition of worldview would be a network.

It is a network of presuppositions in terms of which all of reality is interpreted. A network of presuppositions in terms of which all reality is interpreted.

First thing, a worldview is a network. The beliefs that you presuppose about the world are connected, which is what

I said before. Okay? By definition, a worldview cannot be analogous to a waffle because everything you believe is connected.

So it's a network of presuppositions in terms of which all of reality is interpreted. Everything you believe about anything is subject to the lens of your worldview perspective.

Everyone is wearing a pair of intellectual glasses. I don't care if you're nine years old. I don't care if you're 90 years old.

I don't care if you're that guy that says, no, I don't know. I don't have a worldview. I don't know what I believe. You have a worldview. It doesn't matter, right?

There's the guy who says, you know, I don't know about all this philosophy and theology stuff. We should just kind of, you know, enjoy life, live for all the gusto we can get because you only go around once.

Wow, you said a lot about your worldview. We only go around once. So there's no afterlife. And if there is an afterlife, there's no judgment.

So I'm not held responsible for the things that I do today. There's a lot in that little statement. So people, whether they like it or not, are committed to a perspective, an outlook on the world.

That is, it is a necessity. And so as Christians, we need to be aware of our world.

You see, that's the trick. Many people don't recognize their worldview because they think in disjointed ways.

They think they can believe certain things that are disconnected from other things. But as Christians, if we're going to honor

God with our mind, we're to love the Lord our God with all of our mind, we are by necessity, we have to, by necessity, recognize that everything is connected to God.

And that filters off into what we believe about family, what we believe about philosophy, what we believe about theology, what we believe about history.

Everything that we believe about anything is connected to our worldview.

And we are called to honor God with consistency and faithfulness to the biblical worldview that he has given us in the scriptures.

So think in terms of our lenses. So how do we disciple our children? Well, first,

I want you to consider a very short verse that many people look over. When I was in seminary, I took a course on discipleship, and this was the verse they used.

And I've read the Bible a bunch of times, and I've never really thought about this. Mark chapter three, verse 14.

This is the foundation of discipleship. I mean, we can bring other verses into the issues here, but I think this is very important.

Mark chapter three, verse 14 says the following. He, Jesus, appointed 12 whom he also named apostles to be with him, to send them out to preach, et cetera, et cetera.

Now the point there is very interesting. He appointed 12 whom he also named apostles to be with him.

Disciples must be in the presence of their teacher. Make sense?

The disciples learned from Jesus because they were with Jesus, okay?

All right, very, very important. In Acts chapter four, 13, consider when the apostles were brought before the religious leaders.

It says here in Acts chapter four, verse 13, when they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Why is that mentioned? Because as uneducated as they were, they still were able to speak with wisdom.

And the wisdom that they were speaking was reflective of their teacher. And so the disciples were noted for their wisdom because it reflected the wisdom of their teacher.

And so the first step of discipleship is to encourage your children to be with Jesus and with you being aware of moments of teaching, okay?

That the life of the parent needs to be one in which you are standing in a sense in the place of Jesus.

You are an ambassador of Christ. And so as you reflect the teachings of Christ in your own person, your children are with you and they are taking note of those things.

Your children watch what you do. And by the way, everything that I'm gonna say to you today applies to me and I by no means fulfill this perfectly, right?

So we all have to say this from a perspective of this is something we could all learn from. Our children need to see us with Jesus and our children need to learn how to spend time with Jesus and to learn how we are to conduct ourselves in a

Jesus honoring way by watching the way we live. Just as the apostle Paul said, just as I imitate

Christ, imitate me, okay? So there's a very profound truth in the simplicity of being with the

Lord, okay? Your children need to see that. And so hopefully they will emulate that because they understand the importance and the foundational nature of your relationship with Jesus, okay?

Now, I wanna go through eight practical kind of steps for discipling your child, okay?

This is the first step. Now, this is where it gets kind of practical, okay? It's kind of common sense. I know people who really love the

Lord and really have a great interest in theology and worldview and being consistent and all these other kinds of things.

And their vigor for the Lord tends to make them be very ambitious in their plan to disciple their children, okay?

Step number one, be realistic about discipleship.

That's huge, okay? We want our children to be saved. We want our children to know the

Lord and to be in relationship with the Lord and to live a certain way that's honoring to God. But when you spend time with your children, don't,

I mean, if they're like 10, don't hand them James White's exegesis of some texts in scripture.

Be realistic. Don't be self -centered. Don't force your children to be interested in the same theological topics that you're interested in.

They need to be built up. They need to be attended to in regards to their early stages of development.

Do not create some grand scheme where you imagine your child should be in their steps of discipleship.

And don't look at your past failings as an opportunity to live vicariously through them and make them be the people you wish you were at their age.

Okay, I know I'm speaking to all of us, I suppose, right? It's like, daddy, I don't like basketball. You like basketball, shoot the ball, right?

We have to make it to the NBA. I mean, you have to make it, you have to go to college. You see, we can't see discipleship in that way.

We need to be realistic. And to be realistic about discipleship is not to have a small vision of where we want our children to be.

It's to have a realistic vision. Just as God has grace on us at the level that we're at, we need to have grace on our children and understand, be involved in their lives enough that we know the level that they're at.

And so we can cater what we give to them in our devotion time to where they are so that the truth of the word of God can speak to their needs at the place in their life that they are at that moment.

And so step one to discipling your children is to be realistic, okay? Discipleship is, another step is recognizing that discipleship is a way of life, okay?

It's kind of like, how many people at New Year's, you're like, that's it, man, this is the year. I'm gonna get in shape, right?

And especially, you know, us Christians, us reformed Christian, you know, it's like, well, I don't believe in New Year's resolution.

You know, I don't make promises I can't keep. I know that God has all things under control. And then we're like, I really need to get to the gym, right?

We have these plans, right? And we don't treat working out as a lifestyle many times.

It's kind of just like a quick goal. I wanna be healthy and so I wanna lose this much weight and that's it. And then we kind of kill ourselves over an intense diet plan.

You know, oh man, Wednesday legs, I can't, you know, it's like, oh my goodness, there's a lot of work and we are thinking in terms of short term as opposed to looking at the road to healthiness as a lifestyle.

I'm not running tomorrow because I wanna be a certain weight by next month. I'm running tomorrow so that I can have better,

I have more energy to spend time with my family. And I don't, you know, I'm not tired all the time, which by the way,

I am. God help me, right? We need to understand that discipleship is a way of life.

We can't just think of in terms of quick, like by the end of the year, I want my child to have read all of scripture and he can recite the entire book of Hebrews just like those old

Jewish boys in the Old Testament, right? They knew their family line and the genealogies, you know, who begat so and so.

It's like, listen, we need to be realistic and we need to understand the level of where our children are and we have to be okay with looking at things long term.

I know people who say, you know, I raised my child in church and now they're not serving the Lord. And so I really just don't know what to do anymore.

You know, I feel like just giving up as though your task in discipling your child ends when your child gives up, right?

Your job as a parent is to be praying and reflecting the love of Christ until you breathe your last breath.

Because the funny thing about living a godly life is that it haunts the living daylights of those who are left after you when you pass.

And God could even use the memory of a righteous parent who is always there for their kids no matter what.

No matter what. And so we need to think in terms of a lifestyle and you don't quit until you die, okay?

Very, very important, all right? Another thing we need to understand in regards to discipling our children is to focus on Jesus.

I know that sounds very cliche and flee from moralism. Focus on Jesus but flee from moralism.

We often judge the spiritual progress of our children based upon external actions. Ah, we read through the book of James and look, my son did this, got in trouble in school.

He doesn't even listen to what I say as though the external action always reflects what's going on behind the scenes.

Now, of course, I affirm that a tree is known by its fruit. I know that. But we need to be very careful that we do not make judgments on the spiritual maturity of our children only based upon external factors.

They're important. But let's not become legalistic with our children. Help them to focus on Jesus, their relationship with Jesus so that doing good is not based upon pleasing mommy and daddy.

And on the one hand, we say we're saved by grace through faith yet we interact with our children as though salvation is based upon what we do, right?

I grew up with that kind of mindset, you know? It was very legalistic. When I was growing up, we weren't allowed to go to the movies.

Apparently, that was the devil's favorite spot to chill out. Right? We couldn't go to the beach.

Apparently, it was the 11th commandment, thou shall not gather near large bodies of water.

And there were rules that I, you know, they became legalistic. And I got to points where I was like, this is really dumb.

Like, why am I following all these rules? Where's this in the Bible, right? There's this kind of bondage that we can put on people because we desire them to do well.

And in our fear that they will not do well, we impose these extra, you know, these extra laws, if you will, upon their lives.

And then we make them feel guilty when they don't live up to it. Now, rules are important. And if your child is out of order,

I come from a Spanish background. There's sometimes there's a context where, you know, you got to throw down the hammer.

You know what I'm saying? My dad threw down the belt and then threw us down, all right? My dad was awesome, by the way.

And I think I came out okay. But discipline is a very important aspect of parenthood, right?

This is not in my notes, but one important feature of discipleship is to recognize that you are not your child's friend.

That's a hard one. Especially today where, you know, kids are seen as so cool and we want to just kind of be up on what they're doing and know what's going on and be that cool parent, right?

When mom says no, you know, dad's like, what's the matter? Come to me. You know, that's not a good thing.

I want to be friends with my children and there's an element of friendship with my children. Of course, my children are very young, but that's not what the foundation of a relationship should be based upon.

There needs to be that dividing line that I'm also your parent and because I love you, sometimes I'm going to be a little hard and I'm going to remind you what the

Word of God says and I'm not going to hold it over you for the sake of guiltiness. That'd make you feel guilty, but I want to point you to Jesus.

If you love the Lord, do what I ask you because you love him. Point them to Jesus, not a list of do's and don'ts.

Otherwise, you're just creating a Pharisee, okay? We should focus on Jesus with the emphasis upon the heart as opposed to external actions, okay?

Now, remember, that's not saying external actions are not important, but if the heart changes, the actions change.

I remember a movie back in the day, I used to love old Jesus movies. I like to see how different portrayals of Jesus, you know, there's that one

Jesus where his hair looks like a helmet. You know that one? It's just called Jesus. You know that one that they give out, you know, it's kind of the silhouette kind of looks like Darth Vader because of the hair.

And then there is The Passion of the Christ, which is a very realistic depiction of Jesus. And then one of my favorites is

Jesus of Nazareth, which was made in the 70s and it was a really good movie. I enjoyed it.

And there was a line in that movie, it's not taken from scripture, but it's very relevant, where one of the disciples were talking to the zealots, these kind of these revolutionaries that wanted to rise up against Rome.

And one of the disciples said, and again, this is not in scripture, but he says, before kingdoms change, men must change.

Before kingdoms change, men must change. That you don't change a kingdom from the top up through force.

But when the hearts of men change, then the change occurs, true change. Now, before you want your child to be more like Jesus, you need to really be cognizant of the importance of the life of the heart.

And that's that important thing of pointing them to Jesus, that relational aspect. Okay, very, very important.

Another helpful tip in discipling your children is this idea of guiding them, not only, notice the only, not only, although there's a room for this, not only commanding them.

Be a guide. Discipleship oftentimes requires us to do life with our children, not merely pointing them in the right direction, right?

Walking alongside your child through their lives, and actually living out the gospel, right?

There's this, and when I study apologetics, there's a very interesting kind of apologetics. When you study apologetic methodology, you have classical apologetics, presuppositional apologetics, evidential apologetics.

And then there's this other category, which I never learned about until I read it in some assigned reading

I had in school, and it was called incarnational apologetics. Incarnational. When we talk about the incarnation of Christ, we talk about God becoming flesh.

When we talk about incarnational apologetics, we're talking about defending the faith by how you live.

Show that your life actually reflects the truth of the message you're professing. If we are to use that same term within discipleship, what would incarnational discipleship look like?

Right? It is demonstrating in the flesh what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

And that demonstration in the flesh as to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus is something that your children look at.

And they begin to model, not because you give them specific rules necessarily, but you've equipped them with principles to put into practice because they see you doing these things.

Okay? Now, again, me saying all this, it doesn't make it easy. It's difficult. Because to be a proper disciple to disciple our kids properly requires that we are being disciples of Jesus.

In other words, because I have children, I am all the more having to try harder to be faithful in my discipleship to the

Lord. So that's hard. It's easy to tell our children what to do. I've heard people say, you know, do what

I say, not what I do. That's the worst advice you could ever give. And it's hypocritical.

Because if I want to disciple my children, I need to be able to reflect the idea that I too am a disciple.

We can say like with Paul, imitate me even as I imitate Christ. Okay? All right.

And so another important aspect of discipleship is your own spiritual care. Watching your own spiritual health.

My mother -in -law always used to tell me, you could only give what you have. Right? How many people know that concept?

If I don't have something, I can't give it to you. If I'm spiritually unhealthy, even when

I say the right words, I won't be effective because I have not modeled for my children what that spiritual truth looks like.

I don't provide a proper context for my child to learn from. So we need to be able to, as disciples, watch our own spiritual health.

If you're spiritually unhealthy, this will spill over into your relationships. Remember what I said at the beginning? Everything that we believe is connected to something else.

How I act in front of my children is going to filter over to them. It's going to filter over to their relationships.

And so everything spills over into everything else. If you pretend that these are disconnected, then you're going to have a very difficult time discipling.

You're going, well, why is my child this way? Maybe because they are waffle -minded because you've taught them to be waffle -minded.

That they'll act nice when they're at home and at church, but they don't have to act that way when they're at school because there really is no connection because school is different than church.

Right? Consistency is super important.

The more you are in the word, the more effective and confident you will be in sharing with your children.

I'm going to say that again. The more you are in the word, the more effective and confident you will be in sharing with your children.

This is huge. We tend to be more comfortable sharing something that we have knowledge on.

If I were to ask someone randomly, can someone come up to the front and give us a 20 -minute talk on the

Communicatio Idiomatum? Well, some of you probably would be able to do that. But if someone were to kind of give you some weird topic to cover, even if you knew a little bit about it, you'd probably be a little nervous.

But if you were to give a 20 -minute talk on something you are very familiar with, if you can get over the fear of public speaking, you probably can hold our attention for 20 minutes.

Why? Because you're familiar with it. You have something to say about it. And if you're really familiar with the topic, you might even have something to add to it to kind of give your own perspective to enrich your examples that you give.

We need to be so familiar with the Word of God that we're comfortable in sharing it.

And that we're so comfortable in sharing that instead of running away from our children's questions, we embrace them.

And we are able to see the importance of those questions they're asking and use those opportunities as moments for teaching.

Right? That goes into 1 Peter 3, verse 15. Always be ready. That means when you're putting your kid to bed and they say,

Mom, where did God come from? You know? Go to sleep, kid. What's wrong with you? No, you can't do that.

Well, you probably could, but or you can be like, go ask your father or whatever. Whoever knows more, you could switch that. Go ask your mother, whoever.

Right? We need to be ready to capitalize on those teaching moments. We do. Now, there's a really cheesy cliche that goes something like this.

And I always say it in a weird voice because I think it's cheesy. Children. They're the flowers of society.

You ever hear that? Right? Children are the flowers of society. And usually that's said within the context of removing the responsibility of the older people and saying, well, we've had our run.

The children are the future. Well, let me tell you something. If the children are the future, are the flowers of society, then how much more are us older folks the soil out of which those flowers grow?

And if we do not provide a rich foundation, where do those children go when they have questions?

They don't go to you. You're just an old person. My parents. I don't want to listen to them. Or older people in the church.

All the church people, they're just a certain way. I don't like to talk with them. They don't even know I have these issues I'm struggling with.

They wouldn't understand. How awesome is it if we had such a relationship with our children that they knew that if they had questions, you're the first person they go to.

Because not because they think you're smart, not because they think you know it all, but because you have exemplified in their lives what it means to trust in the

Lord and to point them to the source of wisdom, which is his word. How awesome would that be? Now that's again, not easy.

Not easy. Sometimes we need to be humbled when a little kid asks us a question. You know, our child asks a question.

Sometimes we need to be honest. And this is part of discipleship too. And that's a great question. I don't know. Let's why don't we look why don't we look into that together?

An opportunity, right? Now, again, your relationships with your children are diverse. And sometimes, you know, you're not going to be in the context in which you can just say, hey, let's go look into this.

Maybe, you know, some of you have kids or you may have kids that are unbelievers. And now you're in a completely different context.

How do I disciple a child who doesn't want to be a disciple? So you have a very diverse situation, especially within the context of today's world, right?

Definitely not easy. But the more we are acquainted with God's word, the easier it is to share.

All right. And of course, teaching by example. I said that already. Here's another important thing. A lot of us tend to take on the task of discipleship in isolation.

What we want to do, and this is another helpful tip in discipleship, is to avoid isolationism in discipleship.

It's hard to disciple your children. So why are you trying to do it by yourself, right? There's something called, oh yeah, the church, right?

I mean, I suppose this is a reprimand to the church, because many people in church don't see their responsibility as participating in the discipleship of young people.

That's not my kid, right? I go to churches where they practice infant baptism and they'll say, hey, you know, we promise as the child is being baptized to keep the child accountable and to be there.

And there is no follow through in that. It's just a ceremony, no consistency. It is the church forsaking their role to participate in the discipleship of their young people.

And what happens when those young people grow up? Bye. And then we hold meetings wondering where did they go?

What went wrong? Right? So we need to understand that the role of the parent is vital in discipleship.

However, discipleship is not to be done in isolation, but also within the context of the church.

And this is something that needs to be taught from the pulpit. It doesn't mean that the people in the church should be all up in your business and like, oh my goodness, did you see what

Sister Stacy's son did last week? Oh my goodness, we need to. I'm not talking about being up in everybody's business, but that there is such a relationship within the church that there are opportunities for people to speak into the lives of your children.

OK, what that looks like will vary from context to context. But that's the messiness of church life, right?

We are doing it together. We're praying for one another. We're always coming together under the authority and teaching of the word of God.

And we try our best to instill the importance of holding firm to those truths together.

And lastly, an important part of discipleship is prayer. Now that's a simple one, right?

It's like, what do you need to do to be a good Christian? What does everyone say when this is like, well, pray, read the

Bible and go to church. That's what every young person does, right? Like, hey, I'm going to ask a bunch of people, what do you think pleases

God? And you, little kid, pray, read the Bible, go to church. Very generic, right?

But it's true. It's very true, isn't it? Prayer is not just talking to the ceiling and in our minds like, yeah,

I know God listens, but do you really know God listens? Yeah, I know God is sovereign.

Do you really believe that though? Because the lack of our prayer shows otherwise.

The reality is that we act upon what we believe. We don't act upon what we don't believe. Think about that.

And if you believe prayer is powerful, then why don't we pray? By the way, myself included, right?

I need to pray much more than I do. But this is something we do together. I'm encouraging you as well as I'm encouraging myself.

We believe in a God who listens. We believe in a God who is sovereign, but we believe in a God who has sovereignly decreed that prayer is an important tool whereby we communicate with God and God responds in like fashion.

And we need to teach our children that we believe in a God who listens, a God who acts, a God who is there for us.

We need to be very careful how we present God. We often reprimand the Arminian in their theology, which often have an imbalanced view of God's love.

And it's all about God's love to the exclusion of his justice and his righteousness. And parents, when we are discipling our children, we often emphasize one aspect of God and we don't want to go over to that prayer side because that sounds too

Pentecostal, right? We don't want to over -spiritualize stuff. No, we need to have balance. You could have imbalance both ways.

You can be totally over -spiritualizing or you could be totally over -intellectualizing. And there's no medium in which you bring these two together.

And you hear people all the time, man, even though I don't agree with the theology of many of these charismatic churches, your music is awesome.

You know, they got the great worship, right? And then the many people, it's a cliche, this is not, you know, absolute, but the preaching sometimes isn't that solid.

But the music, oh man. And then you go to those reformed churches where, oh man, he just exegeted through that passage of scripture.

Oh, I was so fed. But then when we did worship, it was just really, you know, it was very old school and hymnals and you know, eh, eh, you know.

And we tend to overemphasize. People who are grounded in God's truth find a balance.

And balance actually includes not thinking about yourself, whether you like the music or not.

Guess what? It's called a service. You serving him, not us serving you. That's an important aspect of theology as well.

But as you see these extremes, there's definitely a pendulum swing to either extreme. We need to understand that as, especially as reformed people, that just as much as theology is important, good theology also includes good theology concerning prayer, which includes that we believe in a

God who listens and that he commands us to pray. How much more are we to exemplify this before our children?

Praying with your children consistently emphasize the importance of prayer in the home.

And the key word there is not prayer. Consistency, right?

It's consistent and it becomes habitual. It becomes something that when something is going on in the life of your child, it is so much a normal part of the family life that their knee jerk reaction to respond to their situation is prayer.

Because you've pointed them to Jesus and they have a relationship with Jesus and they believe about Jesus. What the

Bible says that we can come to him and give him our burdens. Consistency, consistency, consistency.

And so to summarize. Point number one in practical steps for discipling your children.

Number one, be realistic, OK? Understand that discipleship is a way of life.

It is not a program you put in place that begins and then ends at a certain point. It's something that you continue to do until you die.

Focus on Jesus, not on moralism. Focus on the issues of the heart with the hopes that God works through their heart, which will filter in over into their actions.

Being someone who guides them, not merely commands them what to do. Participate in life with your children.

Watch your own spiritual health and teach by example. Just as Paul said, imitate me even as I imitate

Christ. Avoid isolation. Discipleship is not merely your task. It's something that we come together within the context of the church and emphasize the consistent importance of prayer within the family.

You follow all these things and you are on the right road to discipleship.

Notice what I didn't say. That you will perfectly disciple your child. OK, there is no magic bullet.

I'm not giving you a formula to follow that when you do A, B automatically follows.

How many people know that life is messy? How many people know that family life is messy?

It's very messy. And so understanding the difficulties that come with discipleship is going to really put you through some interesting situations within the context of your own personal sanctification.

You want to teach your kid to rely on the Lord? Show them that you rely on the Lord when they don't. When they start going off the deep end, that you consistently rely on the

Lord so that you continually model that that attitude, even when they're in rebellion. Because even that speaks louder, speaks louder than words often.

OK, all right. Well, that's all I have for now. I hope this is helpful. I mean, I'm not sure how much time it was

I within the time frame. You guys are falling asleep, right? Yeah. OK, that's right. Maybe she's like,

I want to go home and watch a movie. Is there any questions? Brother, would you be willing to take some questions? Of course, yeah.

Any questions if you guys have them. I love questions. If I could answer. It's like, what do you do when your child is so annoying that you want to throw him out the window?

Actually, you should call the police because that's very dangerous and it's highly illegal. OK, highly illegal.

All right. Well, if anyone has any. Yeah, good. My children are two, four and five.

And I work with middle school and high school kids. And so I'm very much involved in that age group.

And so I teach Bible and theology in a Christian private school. And so I am within the context of discipleship in that regard.

So I do have a lot of experience working with teenagers. And I'm I'm the this is the funny thing because I'm the teacher that everyone thinks is cool and funny, but that at home,

I try to make my children laugh and they just look at me like. And so it doesn't matter how cool you are in any other context.

Your children are completely different animals. They don't laugh at the same things that other kids laugh at. And so it is easy for me to disciple other kids who are not my kids.

But I would imagine it is different ballgame when you're discipling your own children. And so, as you know, we need to not be confident in our own ability that works somewhere else.

We need to rely on the Lord out there and we need to rely on the Lord even within that personal context. So I was going to say,

I find myself praying sometimes that the Lord would raise up some other people beside myself, whether it's in or in church or another church, something a believer their age at the school they're going to to be an influence.

Yeah. And I think and not by any means to do that. Absolutely not by any means to pat myself on the back.

But I believe that my role in the lives of many of these children have been just that.

I've had parents tell me I prayed for someone like you and I've gotten along with students.

They're still in contact with them after they graduate high school. And it you know, my role in their life has been an answer to prayer.

And I'm sure that they're able to do that for someone else. And that's how God works. And so Valley Stream Christian Academy.

Yeah. So so it has been interesting to kind of see, you know, the different age groups. And even before that,

I worked with elementary. So I've had the whole I don't think I've ever worked a job that didn't include children, except when

I was like working as a custodian, you know, when I was like a summer program or something. So God has put young people in my life and almost everything that I've done.

So, OK. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time.