1996 SINGLE SERMONS
DISCIPLING YOUR CHILDREN
MOTHER’S DAY
DR. JIM DIXON
MAY 12, 1996
MATTHEW 28:18-20, EPHESIANS 6:1-4
On September 2, 1666, a fire broke out in the baker’s shop on Pudding Lane in the city of London, England. It was the beginning of what historians now call The Great Fire of 1666. In that fire, most of the city of London was destroyed. 13,000 homes were destroyed and 87 churches were burned to the ground. It was Sir Christopher Wren, the famous British architect, who redesigned the building of 55 of those 87 churches. Charles II, King of England, personally asked Sir Christopher Wren to redesign and oversee the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Wren agreed to do this. Three months after the rebuilding began, he was there on site, just walking around, as he did from week-to-week. Most of the people didn’t really even know who he was. As this great Cathedral of St. Paul’s was being built by Sir Christopher Wren’s design, he walked around and most of the people really didn’t recognize him. Now, he came up to some stonemasons and he asked one of them, “What are you doing?” The stonemason said, “I’m shaping the stone to go in that wall.” He went up to another stonemason and he said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m making a living for my wife and children.” He came up to another stonemason and he said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m helping to build a great cathedral.”
Well, this morning God has a question for you. He has a question for you moms. He has a question for you dads. He has a question for parents. “What are you doing?” In the world, parents have many different perspectives on what parenting involves and on what they are doing. But biblically, there can only be one answer for Christian parents. What are you doing? Making disciples. That’s what it’s all about for us, as Christians—for Christian moms and dads, for Christian grandmothers and grandfathers. It all has to do with making disciples. This, of course, is the great commission. Jesus said, “All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all peoples.” It begins at home. That’s where it begins. At home. Making disciples.
Now, God wants us to understand as moms and dads that making disciples requires two things, and these are our two teachings this morning. First of all, as Christian parents, if we would make disciples of our children, we must be involved in evangelization. This is the first aspect of making disciples: evangelization. God wants you, as parents and grandparents, to evangelize your children and grandchildren. Jesus said, “Make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptizing has to do with evangelization. I think this is oftentimes very much misunderstood.
Now, you’ve all heard of Charlemagne, whose name meant Charles the Great. Charlemagne ruled most of Europe from 768 to 814 AD. It was Christmas Day in the year 800 AD when Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo III. Now, by our standards today, Charlemagne was a fairly barbaric man, but by the standards of his time he was a relatively righteous guy and he really sought to serve Christ. He really sought to serve the church of Jesus Christ.
Now, when the armies of Charlemagne conquered opposing armies, Charlemagne would have them do a strange thing. The survivors from the opposing army, once they were conquered, were driven into water. Sometimes they were driven into streams. Sometimes they were driven into lakes. Sometimes they were driven into the ocean itself. And why? Because Charlemagne wanted them to be baptized. He would baptize them forcibly. He would baptize them with Christian baptism because he believed himself to be a Christian Emperor, ruling a Christian empire, and he wanted all of his subjects to be Christians. So he would forcibly baptize people, believing that by baptizing them they would be saved.
Now this, of course, is a grave misunderstanding of baptism. You cannot force someone to be baptized and thereby save them. Of course, there are even today many Christian moms and dads, many moms and dads in this nation and around the world, who believe they can save their children through baptism. This is true among Catholics. It’s also true among Protestants. Even in this church we have calls from time to time from moms and dads who say, “I want to get my baby baptized.” Of course, we do have infant baptisms here and infant dedications. We say, “Well, why do you want to get your baby baptized?” They say, “Because I want my child to be saved.” There’s kind of the thought that if their child were to die in infancy without baptism the child wouldn’t go to Heaven. The child wouldn’t be saved.
Most Bible scholars agree (and certainly I would agree) that when a child dies in infancy before reaching an age of accountability, surely God takes that child into Heaven. But baptism has nothing to do with this. Baptism can’t save anybody. Baptism can’t save you and baptism can’t save your children. Biblically, baptism is simply a symbol. You see, it’s like a wedding ring. A wedding ring and baptism are very similar because they’re both symbols. A wedding ring symbolizes marriage, and a baptism symbolizes salvation.
Now, I’m not wearing a wedding ring. I’m not wearing a wedding ring because I lost my wedding ring when I was watching the movie Alien. I was nervous and I was kind of fidgeting with my ring. I don’t know whether it fell into a box of popcorn or just rolled down the aisle, but I was never able to find it. But, you see, I am married. I don’t have a wedding ring, but I am married, and you can be married and not have a wedding ring or you can have a wedding ring and not be married. For those of you who are single, you could go out this afternoon and buy a wedding ring and put it on your finger, but it wouldn’t make you married. Well, in the same way you can be saved but not baptized or you can be baptized and yet not saved.
Now, as Christians, we are commanded to participate in water baptism as a public testimony and symbol, but God wants us to understand that water baptism doesn’t save us. If you would understand as a Christian mom or dad what it means to evangelize your children, don’t confuse it with baptism. When Jesus said, “Make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” that baptism involves the presupposition of evangelism. This word “evangelism” comes from the Greek word euangelion. Euangelion literally means “good news.” It’s exactly like our English word “gospel,” which comes from the old English word “godspell.” These words, gospel and godspell, also mean good news. To evangelize your sons and daughters, to evangelize your children, means to share with them the good news. It means to share with them the gospel. This is the means of salvation: the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is your responsibility as Christian moms and dads: to evangelize your children.
I thank God for my mom and dad who evangelized me. I still remember sitting down with my mother so long ago. She explained to me the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She explained to me how Jesus Christ died for my sins on Calvary’s cross, how He paid the penalty for my sin. She explained to me how Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is alive and offers eternal life in heaven itself to all who believe in Him. She invited me to ask Jesus into my heart and life, trusting Him as Savior from sin and committing my life to Him as Lord. I still remember kneeling with my mother in the living room of our home and asking Jesus into my heart. I’ll be calling my mom today and I will thank her yet again for the evangelism that she was faithful to render. Forty-five years ago, when I was five years old, I knelt with my mom in the living room.
God wants you to understand today, as a Christian mom or dad or grandmom or granddad, how important this is. You can’t make disciples unless first you evangelize. You might be saying, “Well, that’s the job of the church.” Maybe you’re sitting there this morning thinking, “That’s why I bring my kids to church.” As a church we do seek to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Certainly we seek to proclaim the gospel to children and adults, and we invite people to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord. But no one can evangelize your children like you, and the responsibility of evangelization with regard to your children is only secondary for the church. But it’s primary for you.
Secondly, if we would disciple our children, we not only must be involved in evangelization but also sanctification. Discipling involves sanctification. Jesus said, “Make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.” You see, this is sanctification. This is the second part of discipling: sanctification. It is teaching our children to obey or observe all things Christ has commanded us. This has to do with the formation of character. It’s one thing to evangelize our kids. It’s something else to be involved in their sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit as we seek to rear them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that they might begin to have the very character of Christ. And this is so important.
Ten years before the turn of the century, two children were born, both of German descent. One was born in a small town in Austria. The other child was born in a small town in Texas. These two children would rise up to shake the Earth. These two children would rise up to change the course of history. These two children would affect the lives of millions of people. The first child, born in a little town in Austria, was born into a tragic home. His father was stigmatized by his own illegitimate birth and his father’s marriage to his mother was itself legally illegitimate, since they were cousins. His father had been married twice before and this child’s mother was his father’s third wife.
His father was an angry man. His father was a bitter man and often beat him. The mother, who was 23 years younger than the father, wanted to have nothing to do with motherhood. She didn’t want to have anything to do with rearing children. Now, when the father died, the mother shipped this child off to an aunt who was an alcoholic. That child lived with his alcoholic aunt until he was 16 years of age. He dropped out of high school and he ran away from home. This child received no Christian discipleship. There was no evangelization and no struggle for sanctification. This child’s parents had never been discipled and they, in turn, did not disciple him. And so there he was, at age 16, running away from home. He went from job to job. He wanted to be an artist, but he just failed at every career.
Finally, in the course of time, he joined the German Army. He fought in World War I. After World War I, he was humiliated and embarrassed because his nation had lost. Many people in Germany after World War I felt humiliated and embarrassed. This child entered the world of politics and he became a political activist. In 1919 he founded the Nazi Party. Subsequently, he was incarcerated for political insurrectionism and sentenced to five years in prison. But he was released early from prison with the promise that he would never enter into politics again. But he lied. The child lied and he did enter into politics and somehow, in the year 1933, through unusual socioeconomic and sociopolitical conditions, that child became the absolute ruler of the Germanic peoples, declaring himself Fuhrer, which simply means leader.
Ultimately, he plunged his nation and the world into war and he incinerated and destroyed 6 million Jews. When he died on April 30th, 1945, by his own hand in a German bunker beneath the rubble of Berlin, the world cheered.
Now, the second child was born in 1890 in the little town of Denison, Texas. He was born to a Christian family. His parents loved Jesus Christ. They had been discipled by their parents and now they, in turn, wanted to disciple their child. When the child was two years of age, they moved to Kansas. They joined the Church of the Brethren and they took the child to church every week. They sought to evangelize this child and to disciple him. Every single day without fail as the child was growing up, his mother would take him to a solitary place and she would open the Bible. She would read to him from the scriptures. She would place her hands in his hands and they would pray together. They did this every single day, year after year.
Jesus Christ became a living reality for this child. Now, this child went to West Point, and after West Point he was commissioned as a US Army officer. Through the years he rose in military rank until the year 1943, when this child became the Supreme Commander of the United States and Allied Forces in Europe. On June 6, 1944, this child organized and commanded the allied invasion of Europe. For 11 months, from June 1944 to April 1945, the army of this child went to war on the field of battle with the army of the first child, Adolph Hitler.
But the armies of this child from Denison, Texas, prevailed, and this child returned to the United States of America a hero. He returned in glory and he returned in honor. He entered the world of politics. In the year 1952, he became the president of this nation. He served this nation through two terms, and he was the only president (and to this day is still the only president) ever to be baptized while in office. He explained that he had become a Christian as a child. He had become a Christian when he was very young, but he had never received public baptism and he wanted to give a public testimony to his faith. So the leaders came from a hundred nations and this child’s baptism was televised around the world.
In 1959, the Soviet Premier Khrushchev was visiting the United States and he spent the weekend with this child at Camp David. It was this child who talked to Khrushchev about Jesus Christ and about his Christian faith. On April 27 of that year, 1959, on that Sunday morning, this child invited the Soviet premier to go to church with him and Khrushchev declined. The child went alone. Ten years later, this child was dying in Walter Reed Hospital, and he called for Billy Graham, as he had in times past. Billy Graham came to him there in the hospital. They opened the scriptures and they read the Bible together. They held hands and prayed together, as this child had done with his mother many, many years before. Finally, this child said, “I’m ready,” and he left this world. Dwight David Eisenhower died, and the world mourned.
After his death, Nikita Khrushchev, who had been the Soviet premier, wrote a letter to Mamie Eisenhower. In that letter, he said, “In all this world, only one man ever inquired about my soul, and that was your husband.” Well, Dwight David Eisenhower was not a perfect man, and his presidency is still being evaluated by political historians, and yet this much is true… on this, everybody surely must agree: the outcome of a child’s life is massively influenced by what that child received in the home. Can anybody deny that? Oh, surely it is true that sometimes, by God’s grace and mercy, good children come from bad homes. That’s sometimes true. And it is also sometimes tragically true that bad children come from good homes, but normally—you see, those are exceptions to the rule—the rule of Proverbs 26:2 applies: “Bring up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” I hope you understand that discipleship, discipling our children, has to do with character.
The early church identified seven deadly sins and seven cardinal virtues. They said the seven deadly sins were covetousness, lust, anger, pride, gluttony, envy, and sloth. They said the seven cardinal virtues were faith, hope, love, courage, justice, prudence, and temperance. These deadly sins and cardinal virtues equate to what the Bible calls the fruit of the Spirit and the works of the flesh. The cardinal virtues equate to the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the deadly sins equate to the works of the flesh. If you look at the fruit of the Holy Spirit and you look at the works of the flesh, it all has to do with character.
We live in a world where I think most moms and dads, as they bring up their children, just aren’t concerned enough with character. I think most parents aren’t primarily concerned with character. I think most parents are primarily concerned with knowledge and with skills. They want their kids to get a good education and they want their kids to have a great career. They’re concerned with knowledge and skills. These things are important, but they’re nothing when compared with character.
You see, Adolph Hitler had knowledge and skills, as did Dwight David Eisenhower. They both had knowledge and skills, but the difference was character. It’s all about character. Even knowledge of the Word of God means nothing if it doesn’t impact character. Even skills for ministry will be abused if we don’t have character. And so, as Christian parents, we are called to disciple our children, and this means evangelization, that we would share with them the good news of the gospel, inviting them to receive Christ as Lord and Savior. It also means sanctification. It means behavioral sanctification, that through word and deed we would seek, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be involved in the transformation and the shaping of their character.
You’ve all heard of Steve Young. He’s quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. He is, by all regards, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. His quarterback ratings are always at the top. He first played football, according to Sports Illustrated in this past week’s issue, in the Pop Warner League. In his first game he was hit hard, tackled for the first time, and thrown to the ground. His mother (who was there) ran out onto the field and jumped on the guy who had tackled her son. She grabbed him and she said, “Don’t you ever do that to my boy again!”
You’ve got to love a mom like that. You see some good qualities there. You see loyalty to family and you see courage. But you see some bad stuff, too. You see a little problem with anger. You certainly see a problem with self-control, and God knows (surely we all know) that we’re all a little like Steve Young’s mom. We’re all like that. We all have flawed character. We all model good things and bad things. We all model good things and bad things for our children, and we just hope for the mercy and grace of God. I mean, isn’t that true? We just hope for the grace and mercy of God, but, as Christian parents, we’ve also made a commitment to rear these children in the nurture and admonishment of the Lord. We’ve made a commitment to disciple them, to evangelize them, and, yes, by word and deed, by our model through the grace of Christ in us, to be involved in their sanctification.
The Bible says, “Bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” These two words—paideia and nouthesia, “nurture” and “admonition”—both refer to instruction. They both refer to discipline, but there is a difference. You see, paideia referred to instruction and discipline that was given by action, and nouthesia referred to instruction and discipline given by word. So, God’s message to us as parents this morning is pretty clear. By word and by deed we are to discipline and instruct our children.
So this morning, on this Mother’s Day, God exhorts us as Christians, as parents and grandparents, to disciple our children and grandchildren; to evangelize them, sharing the good news of the gospel with them, inviting them to receive Christ as Savior and Lord; and to be involved in their sanctification, that through nurture and instruction we might participate in the formation of Christlike character. Much is at stake, and God is calling for renewed commitment today. Let’s close with a word of prayer.