(This message is from January 11, 2026. You can listen to the audio or watch the video here.)
Today we are going to look at one verse in the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4. Growing up, I’ve got some really good memories of making homemade ice cream with my mom and dad. Have some of yall done that before? made homemade ice cream? It’s wonderful, isn’t it? On a hot summer day, my dad would pull out this homemade ice cream maker, and we’d get out in the driveway, and they’d show us how to get the ingredients together. My mom is so good at those family-oriented things, and me and my sister, and we’d make it.
And I was reminded of that because my youngest loves ice cream. I mean, I think she eats ice cream multiple times a day. She is always wanting ice cream. And so for Christmas, we got her an ice cream maker. And so we have done that in our house now. Its winter. Its not as fun when its not hot outside, but I made some homemade ice cream with my daughter. And as I was doing that, I was just kind of flooded with the memories. This is what my parents did with me. My dad loves homemade banana ice cream, or homemade peach ice cream, and all of those memories would come back. We got to go get some peaches, or we were just… on the highway and they were selling peaches on the side of the street. So we picked some up and now we’ve got peaches. We need to get home. We need to make some homemade ice cream, put some peaches in there.
And all of those memories just started coming back of my mom and dad in my life and us doing that. And now here it is many, many years later. I’ve not made homemade ice cream with my parents in probably 30 years. But now in our home, I’m doing that with my child. And that reminded me, folks, that we do understand that parents can gladly, joyfully teach their children. We do understand that parents can gladly and joyfully pass on life and life-experience and life-truth to our children. We understand that, whether its knowing how to swing a hammer or mop a floor or make a bed or say, yes, ma’am, please and thank you. We understand how to pass on things. And here this morning in church, I want to remind us yet again that there is no bigger purpose and no higher calling and no higher priority than for us to pass on God and His good news through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today’s sermon is going to be a one-off sermon where we focus on family worship. The role of the leaders in the home, of being focused and intentional on teaching those in the home about God. Read with me, if you will, from Ephesians chapter six, verse four.
Ephesians chapter six, verse four. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but
bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
One verse. Now in context, and we all need to hear this, is helpful. This is a letter written by the Apostle Paul that was sent to the church that is in Ephesus. And so what would have been happening there on any given Sunday for them, they were gathered just like us for Sunday worship. And thrill and excitement and buzz would have been throughout the congregation. Everybody would have kind of known, hey, something’s up today. There’s a little bit of a vibe in the room. Its feeling good in here today. Hey, what is it? The Apostle Paul has sent us a letter. We’ve got it right here in our hands and we’re going to be reading it to the church today. That would have happened in 1st century Christianity and the church gathered in Ephesus would have had this letter that is written to the church. It is six chapters long and by the power of God it has been preserved for us as holy scripture. And in that letter we’ve got all types of good stuff. You can quote from Ephesians, I know you can. Ephesians has great verses in chapter one, great verses in chapter two, for it is by grace you’ve been saved through faith, not by works, right? We know that verse. Ephesians chapter three, right? He can do far more than we ask and imagine. Ephesians chapter four, we know that. The unity of the church, equip the saints to do the work of the church. Ephesians chapter five, all about marriage, right?
Ephesians chapter six.
And in this chapter right here, we’ve got the family being addressed with pretty good detail. It’s not long, it’s not thorough, but he addresses the family. He speaks to the children. There’s a lesson there in and of itself that at that family gathering, that church worship service, the children would have been present because he speaks to them in these passages. The children would not have been removed from that. They would have been there. And in that moment, he speaks to the moms and the dads and the leaders in the home and the grandparents, and he speaks to them and says, here are some things that you need to know. You and I are studying it today, recognizing that God has addressed this.
My message today is on family worship, which is not to get very complicated. I know it sounds rather heavy, but its really simple. I like this little definition that I got from Ligonier Ministries. Listen to this. It says, family worship is the regular use of scripture, song, and prayer. It’s pretty basic, right? Bible, sing, pray. Bible, sing, pray. Bible, sing, pray. “Family worship is the regular use of scripture, song, and prayer by a family unit guided by the head of the household.”
Now, if the man is there to be leading that, then he should be leading that. If he’s not going to do that or he’s not present, then somebody else can step up and do that. The mother can do that. The grandparents can do that in that sort of a setting, but I don’t want this to sound complicated. We know lots of examples where this is done well. Paul mentored young Timothy. And Timothy is an example to us throughout the Bible. We’ve got two books in the Bible written to Timothy, 1st and 2nd Timothy. He was a preacher, he was a leader, he was to pastor the church in Ephesus. Lots of good stuff in there about Timothy. But when we are first introduced to Timothy, we are told that it was his mother and his grandmother that led him to faith. influenced his life, that discipled him.
And you and I are to understand that there is incredible power in making disciples in our own home. I want us to be familiar, very familiar with that phrase. Make disciples in our own home. Make disciples in our own home.
#1 GOD INSTRUCTS THE FAMILY
Using this verse, Ephesians 6:4, I want us to draw out three observations. Number one, God instructs the family. I don’t know why we don’t get that. I don’t know why historically so often we’ve missed this, but God instructs the family and quite a bit. Have you ever been in school and a teacher rolled out a test or a pop quiz, And you get that test and you’re wanting to do good on it. You want to ace that thing. And then there’s all these questions that you don’t know anything about. And so you are very quick to say, hey, we never learned that. You didn’t even teach us this. That happens sometimes, doesn’t it? It has not happened in the Word of God based on the family unit in the home. It has not happened with our Father in heaven wanting us to understand. There is no reason why you and I should be pushing back. Well, I don’t know that, or I’ve never learned that, or nobody has ever taught me that, or whatever. God is instructing the family, and it is the church’s responsibility, and it is our responsibility to hear this and to embrace this truth → God instructs the family. We don’t want to get deep into it today because that would be very, very long. So let me just roll over some things. We have the Bible with great attention, says the Bible teaches us about husbands. I mean, today we’ve read from Ephesians and Colossians, the Bible teaches us about wives. fathers, mothers. The Bible teaches us about how families should be caring for the other people in their family. There are big chunks of scripture specifically to widows.
If there’s somebody in your family unit who has had a Spouse die, the Bible teaches quite a bit on that, what we should be doing, how we should be handling that, even financially, even provision, even caring for, right? The Bible speaks to these things. We have lots of teaching in the Bible on marriage and how that is supposed to function, divorce and what the Bible says about that. Faithfulness in marriage and the lack of faithfulness in marriage, the Bible talks about these things. We have instruction in the Bible on love and intimacy in marriage. That sounds crazy. We heard lots of, we just spent the whole last half of 2025 preaching through the whole book of Song of Solomon. It was awkward for yall, it was awkward for me, but we all came to the agreement like, hey, God talks about these things. And yes, we had a lot of people say, I had never heard that before. Never in my life heard a sermon on the Song of Solomon. Never in my life heard church talk about these things so much. But my point is, God does speak to these things. We cannot continue to say that we believe and follow Jesus if we don’t.
Isn’t that right?
And if we do, And if we truly do want to follow Him, then we must be looking to His word and to His instruction and learn from Him and no more than anywhere else than specifically with our families. Our hearts are pulled, our hearts are gripped, our hearts feel that family is so essential, so incredibly important. We must be looking to God for His instruction on our roles in the family. We must understand this. There should not be categories in our lives or areas of our lives that we are ignoring or ignorant of what God says. We must seek him, we must need him, we must depend on him. We should want to know his pleasing and perfect will in these areas. We must hear that God instructs the family. I want to remind you here today that as a primary example, The primary example of how we are to conduct our homes and raise our children is NOT how we were raised. In all the ways that that is wonderful, beautiful, and you give honor to those who raised you, to God be the glory, that is good and right. But in all the ways that it wasn’t, we should learn that too. And in every single situation there is a good, truer, and better example that is the Word of God, that has God at the center, and that is where we learn it from. We should draw as much as we can from our own experience and gain from that and praise God for it. But the primary example for every one of us is the Word of God and what God teaches us about the family. If you are here today and you’ve been living for a long time and you’re kind of past raising kids and now you’re on to grandkids, and so you think a whole lot about how it wasn’t like this or it wasn’t like that or whatever, then this will help you too to just think through it and process it. But if you’re here today and you’re looking forward to getting married and you’re going to be married one day, or you’re here today and you’re looking forward to having kids, or you just had kids, or you’re raising babies now, or you’ve got a handful of little young ones, then you need to hear today that all of the influence in your life that has already been there from family and friends and neighbors and all that, that is good stuff. But it is not the primary. Getting into the Word of God and seeking Him and learning that God has instruction for us on what a marriage is to look like, and what a husband is to be, and what a wife is to be, and what a mother is to be, and what a father is to be, and what kids are supposed to experience comes from the Word of God, and you and I should understand that.
Outlets Illustration
We got these outlets. I keep calling them the new outlets because I remember when they were built. They are not that new anymore. We got these outlets right up here on I-64 in Shelby County, and most of yall are aware of those, right? And I don’t know what they are doing with their food court. It is not like most food courts. Its hard to find the food there. It is hard to find the good food there in the food courts. And based off where you park, you may never find it. We had been going to the outlets for years until finally one day we had to run all the way to this other side to the corner and we walked past the Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Shop. Gotta be the worst location for the best place. Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Shop, so far away that I’d never seen. It is nowhere near the Nike store and that is usually the only place I go. I had never even seen that there was an Auntie Anne’s there. And I remember the first time walking through the Outlets and I came up, and you can smell it as soon as you are around the corner, those good pretzels. And I remember going there and stumbling upon these pretzels and saying, They have an Auntie Anne’s in here? I didn’t even know that. I’ve been coming here so many times and didn’t even know that there was one of these here.
Yall, there are a lot of church people that act like that on God’s way for the family. Man, I’ve been going to church for a long time, I didn’t know that God said that. I’ve been carrying this Bible back and forth to the car on Sundays for a long time. I didn’t even know that it said that. Church, we are here today to be reminded that God does give instruction to the most important parts of our lives. God instructs the family. There’s lots of kids Bibles and lots of little books. I wanna share this one with you. This One is Christmas oriented. It is called Tracing Glory by Sarah Rice. We love this book. Our family has used it many, many years. Its a December devotional that we use every single year with our family. Used it this year. And I wanna read to you the opening paragraph. “Lets be honest. It requires a lot of effort and a lot of patience. and a lot of creativity and a lot of determination to nurture a Christ-focused atmosphere and conversation in our homes. So much is working against us. There’s the television and there’s the internet and there’s sports and social media. There’s homework, there’s school projects. Then there’s grocery shopping and then there’s the laundry and well, there’s a lot of things working to hinder us from purposefully spending time together as a family, talking about the most important truths in the universe. But there is also something working for us. The goodness of the story the Bible tells us and our desire for our children and ourselves to be captivated and shaped by that goodness.”
Is that not so good? Hey, you, like me, like all of us, we have all the excuses. And she does a good job saying, lets be honest, there are a lot of excuses. But there is also something working in our favor, the good, sweet gospel that God loves us, and He has instruction for us. And He sent His Son, Jesus, to be the Savior of the World. And if you will surrender your life to Him and ask Him to forgive you of your sins, He will. He will set your life on the course that life is about. He will get glory from your life. He will shine through your life. He will fill you up with love and peace. And the Bible directs us toward that. And when God Almighty gets a hold of your life, you will want Him to get a hold of your family’s lives. That is the truth. When the Father in heaven, with His deep love and His everlasting mercy and His forgiveness that brings a peace without understanding, when He gets a hold of your life, you will want that for the people that are in your family. And we have that working for us. The first thing that we get from the Bible this morning is that God instructs the family.
#2 GOD’S INSTRUCTION ON WHAT NOT TO DO
So #2, back to Ephesians 6, verse 4, looking at this verse. My second point here today is God’s instruction on what NOT to do. You know, I don’t know if you’ve been through training at your workplace before, but one of the best ways to train somebody is to show them what works and then to also show them what doesn’t work, okay? Now you better make sure you put those safety glasses on because if you go out there and you try to weed eat and trim the yard without those safety glasses on, sooner or later you’re going to catch a pebble in the eye. Its the truth. And so you teach somebody what to do, and you also teach them what not to do. And the Word of God, based off the ultimate wisdom, the one who is the most wise, does this for us. Look at Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4. He says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.” It is not a 2026, 2025 issue. It is an all-time issue that dads get frustrated, husbands get frustrated.
There is a lot of responsibility in a man’s life, and I feel that. It is hard to be a man. It is hard to be a woman. I understand that. But its hard to be a man and carry all that responsibility. And it gets increasingly harder and heavier when we recognize we are failing in it. When we see corners of our life or days of our life or children in our lives that aren’t going the way that we had wanted it to go. And it’s incredibly frustrating. And the responsibility just weighs and weighs and weighs. And so the result of that is quite naturally and often that we start doing things that make our kids angry. That is true now, and it was true then, and you see this here. The Bible gives us instruction on what not to do. Parents, we are not to make our kids angry. We must learn ourselves how to correct, rebuke, discipline, get them in trouble, fix the problem, teach them a lesson, spank their bottoms, whatever else it is, in a way where they know it is coming from a loving father and mother and it is good for them. The Bible tells us in multiple places that loving fathers discipline their children. And loving fathers do that in a way that draws their kid in. I’m not trying to present something crazy. I’m trying to tell you what God says. There is a way for you to be instructed and corrected, instructing and correcting in a way that does not provoke them to anger.
The best way to understand this is by being a Christian and to repent of your sins. One of the reasons, and I want to be careful here, but one of the reasons why there are so many parents that are driving their kids to anger and frustration is because, quite honestly, they don’t have a real healthy relationship with God in which they admit their sins. The Bible tells us that God has grace and mercy for you in your sins, and as a loving Father. We don’t run away from God in our sins, we run to God in our sins, and we receive His rebuke, we confess that we’re wrong, you’re right, I’m wrong. Help me, forgive me, I confess this to you, restore me, build me up.
And He does. The Christian is a child of God that knows, I do all kinds of things that upset my father. I do all kinds of things that misrepresent him. I do all types of things that He’s not proud of. I do all types of things that He’s ashamed of. And He loves me, and He brings me in, and He’s proud that I am His, and I’m proud that He is mine. That is Christianity, and that is the example for our home. And the Bible instructs us, don’t do it in such a way that makes them angry.
The reason why we read the Colossians passage, which is just a few books later, very similar, very, very similar letter, but it said it a little bit differently. Did you notice? It says, Do not make them discouraged. There is a type of parenting that makes kids angry. There is a type of parenting that continues on that trajectory for a
while, and now they are discouraged. I don’t want to talk to him. He doesn’t want to talk to me. He doesn’t even like me. He doesn’t want to spend time with me. He is disappointed in me. I’m not as good as him at other things. There is a type of parenting that is just like this. And it is not some preacher that came up with it here in January 2026. It is the eternal, true Word of God that knows what your lives are like, speaking directly to me and you.
Thats how good and true the Word of God is. I want to point out something else. The Bible says here, don’t make them angry. The Bible says here, don’t make them discouraged. But did you also notice when Pastor Jake read it in Colossians chapter 3, that in the same place it spoke to the husbands and it said, do not be harsh with your wives. Generally speaking, the father of the kids and the husband of the wife is the same guy. And he struggles with harshness to this one, anger to these, and discouragement in the family. The Bible speaks to us and says, don’t do that. We don’t want our kids to not be happy. We don’t want our kids to be discouraged. We want them confident and built up. We want our kids proud that we are their parents. We want our kids to know that we believe in them. We’ve got their back. We want our kids to know that we are Seeking God who loves us to help them see that God loves them.
In our ESV expository commentary, there is a quote in there from Andrew Lincoln’s commentary. Listen to this. It is pretty detailed and graphic, and its very helpful. “It says in this verse, this prohibition forbids excessively severe discipline. unreasonably harsh demands, abuse of authority, arbitrariness, unfairness, constant nagging and condemnation, subjecting a child to humiliation, and all forms of gross insensitivity to a child’s needs and sensibilities.”
That is not the way loving parents raise their kids. And the Bible here is instructing us to not do that. Sometimes it takes a look in the mirror. Sometimes it takes a walk outside by yourself, take a deep breath of fresh air to gather yourself and think about the big picture.But it takes Christianity and faith in Christ and real repentant hearts to say, God, I’m looking to you. Instruct me on how to be and instruct me on how not to be.
Funeral Illustration
There’s been multiple times over the years, and I hate to even say this.But I think it’ll prove the point, there’s been multiple times over the years where we’ve been asked to do a funeral. Maybe somebody in our church, maybe somebody in the community. We got there and we got to doing the funeral and family members that we didn’t know showed up. Maybe some siblings or maybe some children that we had never met, some grandkids. And all the planning, and you sit down over here with these people and you ask, hey, what type of a granddad was he? Hey, what type of a mom was she? We get to talking, we’re jotting down notes,we’re trying to plan out a simple funeral. And what comes out is somebody says, hey, I know you are going to get up there and try to present them in the best light you can. But before you go too far, I want the service to be honest. She was not very nice at home. He was a mean dad. So before you get up there and Say all that you are about to say. Just know that there’s people out in this crowd that know what he was really like. Now that has happened multiple times. Is there any wonder? Is there any wonder the amount of people after high school that are turned off to church and God and His truth? Because we’ve not heeded the instructions on what not to do.
Elementary School Illustration
At our elementary school, right over here at Fairdale Elementary, there is a program there called All Pro Dad. And Jake Beattie and I get to lead it and be a part of it, and it is a real simple program.
And the way it starts is each month, it is before school, meets once a month, And before school, dads meet with their kids. There is breakfast. And you have to go around the room. There are usually 20, 30 people there. You have to go around the room. You have to say, hey, my name is such and such. These are my children, and I’m proud of them because of this. It’s the highlight of the day. It’s the highlight of the month.
It’s amazing! And as you hear a dad say, man, I’m just really proud of her. She’s in the third grade, and she’s got so much resilience. I’ve seen her fail time and time again and not give up. She will stick with it, and she just makes me so proud. Man, this little guy right here, he’s not good at reading. But the school keeps saying you got to read 20 minutes a night and 20 minutes a night. So every night we sit down and we get to work on the book, and he struggles through it. But he is improving at his reading, and I’m so proud of him because He is learning to read and he’s digging into it. And I wish that yall could be there for All Pro Dad for the 30-minute meeting as kid’s faces beam like there’s something out of this world going on. My dad’s bragging on me. My dad’s proud of me. My dad cares about me. He is having breakfast with me. He’s talking out loud in front of other people about what he thinks I’m good at. The Bible teaches us that there is a great danger if we don’t get that. And if the primary, I mean, if the main thing about our relationship with our kids is more so anger and more so discouragement, then we’re missing out on what God has called us to do. Number one, God instructs the family. Number 2, God’s instruction on what not to do. And lastly, #3, God’s instruction on what to do.
#3 GOD’S INSTRUCTION ON WHAT TO DO
Look back to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4. “But bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” What a phrase!
It’s a phrase that you and I should not forget. Its only half of a verse, and after we’ve read it now here together, we should remember it. Guys, that Is our calling. That Is our job, to bring them up with discipline and bring them up with instruction, all centered on God and his ways and Jesus and his gospel. That Is what God has called us to. This phrase, bring them up, reminds us this is ongoing. This is not long haul. I mean, this is the long haul. This is big picture. You and I’s parenting is never, ever to be defined by just one bad day. That’s one bad moment. Every dad that there is, every mom that there is, has had a bad day. They’ve been in the struggle. They’ve said something theyshouldn’t have said. They’ve overreacted. They’ve been harsh. They’ve been angry.
They’ve provoked them to anger and they’ve discouraged them. Those things happen.
But bringing them up reminds us that God normally gives us several years with our kids, generally speaking, a good solid 18 where they Are there. And 18 times 365 days, whatever that number is. Its a lot. And God has given us a lot of time to make mistakes and learn from them and come over it and overcome it and all of that. Bring them up reminds us. You don’t have to be a pro. You’re not going to be a pro. You don’t have to be good at it. NobodY Is good at it. You don’t have to be an expert at it. You have to look to God. God instruct me on this. I want to lead my family. I have a desire for my family. I’m praying for my family. Bring them up reminds us that God is wanting us to do this over time through the highs and the lows. And over time, bringing them up over the days, the weeks, the months, and the years, we are to do 2 things. Discipline them and instruct them in the Lord.
Discipline speaks to life, practice, living, obedience. He was raised right. This is what you don’t do. That’s not how you do that. Hey, let me show you this. Make sure you look them in the eye. Make sure you take your Bible to church. Hey, make sure once you start making a living, even if its $5 a week, that you know to honor God with this because the Bible instructs us to honor God first. It Is all of the things that we’ve got to learn to do. Thats what this word is pointing toward, discipline. Its the lifestyle. ITs the living. Its the living it out. Its the walking the walk.
The other word here, instruction, refers to how that comes about. The teaching, the Bible, the church, the gospel, the being there to explain what this stuff means, the spiritual aspect of it, the heart side of it, the inner parts of it. That Is what this is. Christianity is to be inside the home a time, a long time where God has given you children, where now over the many, many, many, many, many years you want them to be brought up, to use the wording, to be brought up in discipline of this is what it looks like to live a life that honors God. Instruction, this is what it looks like for us to know the truth and be set free by the truth and have the word of God transform us so that we’re not being conformed by the world. And time after time the bringing up of this God will do that. Yes, it is good when parents emphasize that raising their kids right is to teach them hard work and teach them respect and teach them manners and all of those good things. Nobody Is down on that. We do the same thing. Those are great. They are a key part of parenting. But listen to me. It Is not the main part.
It Is not the most important part. The most important part of parenting is leading your kids to know and love Jesus according to the truth of God’s Word. Because those other characteristics, and there’s a thousand examples out there of it, those other characteristics are empty Without the way of God. Without the love of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives, then all the good characteristics in life just seem like what’s the point? Why does it matter? This week I met with someone in their 40s who was valedictorian of their high school here in Louisville, not Fairdale, valedictorian of their high school, got good parents, doesn’t know the truth of the word of God. Very far from the truth of the word of God. Empty, broken, dependent, addicted, suicidal, asking me with tears in their eyes, please tell me of a better way. Please show me a better way. If your kid says yes ma’am and thank you, works a job, saves their money, and was valedictorian of their high school. But does not come to know the sweet truth of a savior in heaven that will lead them every day of their life, we have missed it. And there is no higher calling and no more important thing than for us to lean in on that. And that is what family worship is about.
Family worship is us being intentional to bring our families together, to read the Bible, sing a song. And say a prayer.
This morning I’m wanting to encourage every one of you all, every single home, regardless who Is in it, to implement family worship.
It’ll look different in every home. I’m not saying how long it needs to be. I’m not saying how good it needs to be. I’m not saying you need to go through a training where we’ll give you six weeks to teach you how to do it because it ain’t even that complicated. I’m saying go home tonight with this right here. Open it up and say, Let’s read a verse. Now let’s pray. If you don’t know a song, keep waiting until you learn one. Turn on a CD, play YouTube, ask Alexa.
Sing with your kids, pray with your kids, read the Bible with your kids.
PRACTICAL TIPS
Now some practical things here that I want us to think about with this.
– It will take time and it will take years for this to find a good rhythm. This is not going to be something where its just, oh, this is so good. I feel like Billy Graham and my kids feel like the most awesome church there is. No, not at all. Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about how well its going.
– Don’t worry about them falling asleep in the middle of it.
– Don’t worry about them running around and getting up. Kids are like that. They’ve got all kinds of energy. They’ll be rolling, bouncing, jumping jacks, cartwheels. They’ll be doing all of that while you read the Bible. Say, hey, are you listening? Yeah, I’m listening. Okay.
– Sometimes it will be working and sometimes it will not be working, but stick with it. Make it a part of your life that you do this with your home. Make it a part of your life that you do this with your home. And if it takes the first three years for everybody to think, okay, that’s what we do, it takes the first three years. Probably won’t take that long.
– But get in a habit when you wake up or in the middle of the day or before nap time or before you go to bed to just say, lets pause for a second, turn off the TV. I want to share something with you all and eventually you’ll get it. Eventually you’ll learn to prioritize it.
TWO REAL LIFE EXAMPLES
I want to give you two examples that have really spoken to me recently. I remember years ago, really years ago, I think every week i’;m telling yall now these sentimental feelings that I’ve got because my family is growing up and time is passing us by and We were reading the Bible together and yall, we would do it where I would just lay on the floor on my stomach and just put the Bible there and I would read and kids would climb on my back and jump on my back and do all those sort of things. And we would just sit there in the floor, literally no organization, nothing good to, we would just read the Bible. And I remember on one particular night, we were talking about how powerful God is yall the Bible says He made the world with his with his by speaking it right that’s how strong God is! So,you’re as a dad you are just saying like man God is strong God is powerful and I’ll never forget it because one of my kids interrupted and said “Daddy who you think would win in a fight between Jesus and the Incredible Hulk?” I’ll never forget that.That’s actually a really good Bible question, isn’t it? Because the Incredible Hulk, a superhero, fictional character, is about as strong as we can imagine of anything. And I’m here to tell you right now, he ain’t nearly as strong as the Lord Jesus Christ. Son, trust in him. Trust in the one who has all the power and Authority.
I remember one time years ago, we were reading through David and Goliath. And somebody in our family came up with the idea, we should act this one out. There is a good story here. Let’s act this one out. So they decided that I would be the big ugly giant. And one of our kids would be David with a slingshot. And they came in the room and I gave that intimidating speech. I’ll rip your head off and have you on toast. You come this way. They said “NO! God fights for me.” And they whipped that slingshot. Not really, you know. Hit me, killed me. I fell over. The Bible says they took a sword and cut his head off. They took a sword and cut my head off.
And Val told them, now yall need to stand over the giant and chant, “God is great. God is great. God is great.”
Over the winter break, yall, a new movie came out called David. Some of yall may have gone to the movies to see this kids movie. A kid movie out on the life of David, and we went to see it. Its a little long for me, but its all right. When David slung that slingshot in the movie theater with my seven, and Goliath fell over dead, one of our kids leaned forward and said. “God is great. God is great. God is great.”
Because of something that was read 10, 12, 14 years ago -thats true about God, the victory belongs to Jesus. And whoever trusts in Him finds life. And God has instructed each and every one of us that if there is somebody in our home, we point them to him. Its not gotta be complicated. Bible, singing, prayer, and let God do the work, and He will. Jesus is worthy of it. Churches are not trying to draw the biggest crowd in town and be the coolest. and have the coolest pastors. Thats not the goal of a church. The goal of a church is to see and hear the word of God and say, oh God, help me follow you. Trust in Christ and follow him. May God make you and us and all of us here followers of Jesus, even in our homes.
CLOSING PRAYER
Let’s pray. “Father in heaven, we thank you that you do instruct the family. God, thank you that your word has not left us confused on that. God, you have talked about it and talked about it and talked about it. We remember when Moses continued to say, When they ask. We remember when Abraham told Isaac, We’re going to worship. We remember when the Psalms say over and over again, Tell to the next generation. Father God, make us a church that wants to lead our families. God, use us to that end. Father God, remind us that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. And whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. And so we then believe that in our homes. God calls the Word of God this morning to get into our hearts and minds that we would follow you. God, give the moms and dads grace to try it and keep trying it. God, give the Leaders in the home, whoever it is, to try to keep going with it. God, show our homes your power that you are mighty to make disciples in our homes. Father, bless family worship here.”
