Training Worshippers and Warriors - Ephesians: Born for War

Hey, I'm Steve Holt, the senior pastor of the Road at Chapel Hills.

This is the Road Podcast.

Thanks for joining us.

My heart is to empower you to change the world.

I hope this message impacts you.

Turn to Ephesians 6, you probably have your finger there.

And I wanna build off what I talked about last week.

Last week I talked about honor in the home, the importance of honor in the home.

And this is Ephesians 6, 1 through 4.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

So last week we talked about the importance of honoring your children and children honoring their parents.

And you can go back and stream that and watch that.

But the idea behind that is that when anybody, I don't care whether you're six years old or 76 years old, when you feel honored and loved, you can be yourself.

You're more free.

And when you're free, you can contribute, you can make an impact around those around you.

And so, man, it's not gonna happen a lot of times in schools.

It's not gonna even happen in the church.

But at the home, that should be the place.

That should be the place where we have honor.

We have an atmosphere of honor.

We talked about that last week.

Now look at verse 4.

And you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath.

So we talked about how important it is for dads and moms, not just dads, but dads and moms, to know how to bring discipline, know how to bring love, know how to bring boundaries into the lives.

And I gave you those four sort of key principles about how to really love your child.

But then it says this.

So it's not just about don't provoke, it's also intentionally saying, bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

So this morning I want to talk about building worshipers and warriors in our home.

Building worshipers and warriors in our home.

How do we build a training center?

How do we build a training center in our home where we're doing the best we can, as poor as it will be at times, to have a place where our kids know that they're gonna get trained in the things of Christ and the things of the Word of God?

And, you know, it's probably one of the big knocks on the church today who are we to be pointing the finger at things like same-sex marriage or whatever it might be when we have so many divorces coming out of the church.

Well, it's a legitimate point.

But the point is this why don't we change it?

You know, a lot of you have been through divorce.

And it's because you married into situations that you were poorly equipped for.

But as I think about who you are now and who this church is, which is half of you are probably 40 and under, man, I want to prepare you.

I want to do the best I can.

I want to, I think we want to do the best we can to empower you to change the world by empowering your kids to change the world.

So you've got these beautiful kids.

They're sinners and they're they're sinners.

And you've got them, you know, and you've got this brief amount of time.

It seems like forever, but it's not.

And um so I want to look at maybe some of the things that we can do, very practical, it's a very practical message today in helping us grow.

Many of you are not married in this room, and you're glad you're not married, and that's great.

You know, I tell you what, it's it's better, it's better to be single and wish you were married than married and wish you were single.

And um, so so when we when we look at you know the relationship of parents and children, you know, you can change things.

Even though you might have made some mistakes in the past, you can start gradually changing.

And and your kids will notice it.

Because you be authentic and be real about it and just say, man, I made a lot of mistakes.

We made a lot of mistakes, and I want to start growing our relationship even in these later years better.

And, you know, I think that most kids want to hear that from their parents.

So always hope.

There's hope on us wherever you are, you know, in this journey.

So, now I had a lively debate with one of our staff about this because he said that Stephen Covey says it differently.

But let me just tell you what I think.

And then Stephen Covey's probably smarter than me, he's probably got it better.

But I see it as a progression.

And here's the progression I see.

I see dependence being the first step in the parenting process.

Okay, depend.

They're dependent on you.

So they're learning dependability, okay, and that comes from the parents.

If you're not dependable, and by the way, all of you are not dependable sometimes, so nobody's perfect here, but if it's a general rule, if you're dependable, you give them, you give those kids a pretty good start in having a God that they can depend on, because you're the first authority figure in their life.

Second is interdependence.

So, what I mean by interdependence is that you are giving them opportunity to take risk, like a job that they do, or going out from the home with different things that happen, there's, but they're still dependent on you.

So it's kind of this interdependent relationship, and then you're moving them toward, hopefully, independence.

Now, that independence means that you know you leave your father and mother and you cling to your wife.

So there's that independence where they go and have their own home, and you hope that the time that you had together prepared them well with the values that they now carry with them.

Now, here's where I think Covey is right, now that I think about it.

There's actually a return, there can be, a return to interdependence.

Here's what I mean by that is that you go dependence to interdependence to independence, but hopefully, if you can keep a relationship with your kids after they left the home, there's interdependence again because they start to value what you said.

Have any of you come to the age where they said to you, and now they're like, maybe mom and dad weren't so dumb after all?

Okay, so I think there's that role of dependence, interdependence, independence, and then hopefully back to interdependence.

So the best example I know of this kind of parenting is Jesus.

You said, Well, Jesus didn't have any kids.

Yes, he did.

He had 12 kids.

And they were called disciples or apostles, but they were like kids.

If you don't have any, if you have any doubts about that, read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Okay?

So what he did was he took 12 who didn't know anything about anything except fishing and ripping off people through tax collection and stuff.

Um, he took them and he began to mold a little army.

It was like a little training center.

And what he did is he first modeled it.

He modeled the kingdom of God.

Then he gave them a chance to come alongside him and do the kingdom of God with him, interdependence.

And then he sent them out, first 12 and then 72, to do it, independence.

Then they came back and they told all the war stories of what God had done.

But then probably they said, Well, you know, I was I was sitting there, Jesus, I was, man, I told that demon to leave.

I said, Leave in the name of Jesus, and it would not go.

And I did it five times, and that demon would not leave.

What do you do?

And then Jesus instructed him, and then he sent him out again.

And then there was a point where Jesus was ascended to heaven, and what happened?

Holy Spirit came, and now we are carrying the gospel of the kingdom all over the world.

So you see that development?

I think that's similar to a home where you've got your modeling it, then you give them chances to take risk, then you bring them back, you talk about it, then you work on it, then you send them out again, and you work on it, and then there's a point where they're released to uh have their own families and get married and and uh raise kids.

Now, why is this important?

The reason this is important is because you're the only one who can disciple your kids.

You say let's all say that together.

I am the only one who can disciple my kids.

I'm not gonna disciple your kids.

The road's not gonna disciple your kids.

We have them two, and if they're teenagers, maybe four hours a week out of 168 hours.

The school has them 40 hours a week, and believe me, they're discipling your kids.

I don't care if it's a charter school, private school, public school, whatever.

They're discipling your kids.

And it's usually not even the teacher that's doing it, it's the other kids that are.

I'll tell you what, there's a lot of discipleship happening in bathroom stalls.

That's where I for that's where I first saw pornography.

I saw pornography, I think, for the first time, like in sixth or seventh grade.

And right there in the stall, you know.

I mean, they're gonna your kids will be disciples at school.

What are you gonna do about it?

What are you gonna do about it?

How are you gonna counter that?

Well, I want to talk about what I think are some things we can do.

First, I think it's laying good foundations.

So turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Psalm 127.

What a great motivational psalm about how we build our homes.

Building our homes is the most important kingdom thing you do.

Building your marriage in your home is the most important thing you do.

But if you just focus on your home and you just focus on your marriage, it won't be all that it was meant to be.

Because I believe that your home and family is for others.

It's actually to make an impact.

It's not just for you to make your wife or your husband an idol in your life or your kids an idol in your life.

Some people make their kids an idol in their life.

Man, you better not say anything that hurts their feelings.

Or you're gonna have some mom just bearing down on you.

Anybody here ever coached kids in sports?

Any coaches in here?

Bless you.

Just bless you.

These mama bears will come after you and eat you alive, man, if you just even look at their kids the wrong way.

Their kid's gonna be an all-American.

There's so many all-American kids up to seventh grade, and then we never hear from them again.

So, so what I'm saying is, you love your kids, you bless your kids, but you're building arrows.

They're gonna be shot out into the world.

That's what God's saying here.

Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is vain for you to rise up early and to sit up late to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he gives his beloved sleep.

Behold, children are heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth.

Happy is a man who has his quiver full of them, they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with their enemies in the gate.

Here's what I think it's saying.

It's saying that the purpose of having kids is to raise them in the fear of the Lord, raise them in a godly home, raise them to have strong character, strong heart, resilience.

I'm gonna talk about resilience next week.

Um, I don't think we're supposed to raise pansies.

And um that the way you do that, that's more next week, when I talk about how do you deal with difficulties and problems in their life, when do you come into rescue and when do you back up and let them take the heat?

It's kind of a it's a it's a give and take.

But that there you're actually fashioning an arrow.

That Liz and I always we I don't know where it would ever happen, but we used to have an arrow that we had somewhere mounted.

And that was kind of our view of the family was okay, we're chiseling an arrow, you know, to shoot straight, to pierce the gates of the enemy.

And so that's part of what we're doing.

We're building worshipers and warriors that can make an impact in the world.

So, first thing, everybody look at me, because I don't have a graphic for this, but imagine this is the foundation of your home.

This is the foundation right here.

I'm gonna give you three points for building a foundation, and then we're gonna build a structure of the training center itself.

So let's start with the first three things.

Number one, the cornerstone is Jesus Christ.

We build on Jesus Christ.

So this is so important because when we build on Christ, we echo the words of Joshua when they came into the promised land.

Joshua to the Israelites, when he said, Choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.

But as for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord.

So the cornerstone is Jesus.

And what Peter says is, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, a lack precious, he who believes in him will by no means be put to shame.

I don't want my kids going out and being shamed because they don't know Jesus.

Now they may they may find themselves in shameful situations because of things that they do, and they will.

It's just part of life.

We all have shame.

But as much as possible, we want to create mighty men and women of God that when they go out, they can't be shamed because they know whose they are.

They know who they are, they know where they're going, and they become a worshiper and a warrior.

Not just a worshiper, but also a warrior.

Not just one who has a relationship with Christ, but also, hopefully, through a mature view of that within the home, they can see, you know what?

I'm supposed to be a part of the community too.

I'm supposed to make an impact in the community too.

And that's modeled by us being a part of it.

So number one is the foundation of Christ.

Number two is the foundation of God's word.

Men and women, if we are not in God's word, there is nothing that's gonna stand.

The truth, you shall know the truth, the truth shall set you free.

Well, you can't know the truth that sets you free if you don't know the truth.

And the most important truth document is not the Constitution of the United States, it's not the Bill of Rights, it's not the Declaration of Men, it's the Bible, which is where all those came from.

All right?

So when the pilgrims came, when they came to this country, they knew this book.

Have you ever wondered what it was that made them so strong against the most mighty army in the world at that time, Great Britain, to take them on.

They were the children and the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren of the Puritans and the pilgrims.

They had a warrior spirit.

The problem with us today is that we're so darn comfortable that we're afraid of being uncomfortable.

And one of my jobs as a pastor is to make you comfortable with being uncomfortable.

You can do it.

I hope that in the days ahead as a leader, leaders, you're all leaders here, that God wants to make you comfortable with being uncomfortable.

And the way you become comfortable being uncomfortable is getting uncomfortable a lot.

You know what leadership is?

Leadership is dancing with chaos.

Leadership is dancing with chaos until order comes.

That's from my wife.

That's her definition.

Leadership is dancing with chaos until order comes.

You know what that means?

That means that, you know, Genesis 1, 1, Genesis 1, 2, there was chaos upon the earth, and on that first day, God began to bring order, and that second day brought more order, and the third day brought more order.

Order, order, order.

Leaders come into chaos and they don't run from it.

Leaders aren't afraid of chaos.

Your home may be chaos right now.

Welcome to life.

Okay?

And if it's not, it will be.

Because that's just that's the way family is.

Families are weird.

Every one of you in this room come out of a weird family.

Unless Jesus was your dad and the Virgin Mary was your mother.

If that's not true, then you come out of chaos, okay?

So leadership's dancing with chaos.

So first, you've got to know Jesus, but second, you've got to know God's word.

You've got to open God's word up.

And I love the Perkins family.

Ethan's my son-in-law, he married Deborah.

And so I've gotten to know them all through these years, many years together.

And Tiffin opened the word every day with her kids.

And the reason Ethan's such a fine man, the reason all their kids are such wonderful kids, is because, I mean, Tiffin would just open the word.

They go through, I think they went through the whole Bible every year.

They just read it.

They just read it.

So the Bible's so vital.

Paul, writing to Timothy, says, but you must continue in these things which you've learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you've learned them.

And that from childhood you've known the Holy Scriptures.

From childhood you've known the Holy Scriptures.

This is 2 Timothy 3, 15.

Which are able, listen, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, listen, for instruction in righteousness, that the man or woman of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I can't tell you how many Christian homes I enter and I know of where the kids don't know anything about the Bible.

And the only thing that the family depends on is what the preacher says on Sunday.

I'm going to say, guys, let's not be that way.

Let's be opening the word.

Have your kids see you in the word.

Just read it.

Just read it.

You don't have to teach it.

You don't have to be a theological scholar.

Just read God's Word.

It's living and active and sharper than each word.

I asked Tiffin.

I said, Tiffin, can I share that you used to do this?

And she said, No, first of all, I said, Isn't it true that you read the Bible like every day?

She said, Absolutely, it's a two-edged sword.

You know, it's like, duh, right?

To her.

And so it's a two-edged sword and it builds men and women of God.

So first, Jesus, second, the Bible.

Now the third one, really important, build on church community.

Number three, build on church community.

Now I don't, we've been here 27 years, and before that, we were in Japan.

So I haven't been in a community anywhere close to the amount of time I've been here.

I've never seen so many maverick Christians as you have in Colorado Springs in this area.

They just hop, they just church hop, they never settle in, they never get involved.

They're usually involved in a parachurch ministry in town, and that's their ministry, or they say, that's my church, but they never get involved in community and they're missing out.

And I understand it.

Well, I've gotten I I've gotten hurt by the church.

And I go, oh, okay.

Have you ever been hurt at work?

I'm just gonna quit my job because that person in the other, you know, in the other office space made fun of me.

Or we had a disagreement.

Come on, guys, grow up.

You know, smell the coffee.

We need each other.

I need you, you need me, we need each other.

Quit running around, settle in, become a part of the church.

This is your spiritual family, and grow.

Grow up before you grow old.

It's a really good idea.

And so we do that by being in church community.

And I can't tell you guys how much you mean to the Holt family.

Literally, all our seven kids have been discipled by many of you.

And many of you in this room remember stories where you met with my kids because we said, Well, go ask so-and-so.

He's better at that than me.

Get their advice on that.

You know, because they're you are better than me on so many things.

And so we've had my kids get mentored.

Charity's being discipled by someone in our church right now.

Josh is being discipled by our staff team.

We need each other.

They need to see a mom and dad that puts down some roots and hangs in there.

And we have a covenant of harmony at the road.

Because you're gonna have you're gonna get crossways with people.

Even when they put Twinkies in your on your desktop.

I have found that third Twinkie.

You guys, I don't know.

We have this running thing where they're always putting Twinkies in my stuff and then I try to serve it back to them.

Same ones, like ten year, like ten-year-old Twinkies.

Same ones that we've been doing for ten years.

So we work together, we clean together, we eat together, we worship together, we pray together, we're gonna pray tonight, and you get to know each other.

Nothing like that.

That's the Church of Jesus Christ.

And then you say something, you hurt somebody's feelings, and you work it out.

You work it out.

Everybody go like this if you want to work things out in your life.

Okay.

That's a good thing.

Alright, now.

I'm very practical here.

I'm gonna give you six things that I think are key.

They're not theologically deep, but I think they're practically helpful on building a transition.

Number one, eat together.

Number one, eat together.

Eating together one day, one time a day, I think is huge.

Just having a meal together.

There's so many things.

First of all, make the meal together if you can.

And if not, give give assignments to people to do it.

Talk, talk, talk.

So while you're together, talk.

No TVs, no flat screens in any kitchens and people in the road.

Tear that thing out.

Get that thing out of there.

Okay?

When you guys are in there, be there together.

Look at each other.

Talk to each other.

Talk about stuff.

Talk about significant things.

Talk about the day.

Talk about how the day's been, how's school going, the injury, and are you feeling better?

Political stuff, religious stuff.

Talk, significant thing, talk, talk, talk.

It does a, it's just, it covers a multitude of sins.

Because when you're talking, you pick up on stuff, guys.

You pick on how that other person's doing and everything, and you can kind of sense when they're down and you can talk about that.

So number one, I want to encourage you to eat together.

And by the way, parenting experts, secular and Christian, always have eat together at the top of their list.

Number two, pray together.

If I had a uh a silver bullet for marriage that I think is the most important thing, it's praying together.

When you can get a couple to pray together, it's amazing the power of the Holy Spirit can enter your home in such a mighty way.

I mean, miracles can happen when you're praying together.

And uh so praying together as a family is huge.

To just go in, go into the living room or do it right there at the dinner table.

Start with something small, just one sentence, prayers, and then see what God does with it.

So pray together.

Number three.

Number three is resolve conflicts.

Resolve conflicts.

Try to work on conflicts that are happening and talk about them.

Matthew 18 talks about coming together and talking about our conflicts.

We're gonna have conflicts.

We're gonna have, we're gonna hurt each other's feelings.

And demystify that.

Just demystify it.

Don't make problems more than they are.

In other words, by the way I just said that, I hope I kind of demystified you.

Give you permission to make mistakes.

We give you permission to have conflicts.

Conflicts aren't bad.

I'll tell you what's bad is when there's conflicts under underneath the surface that are never get dealt with.

That's bad.

So what's good is when conflicts come and they they could be heated.

And my wife and I have had some heated um debates.

And we've thrown socks at each other.

Um but but work it out.

I I know that there's kind of this Ozzy and Harriet kind of beaver cleaver, June Cleaver kind of mentality out there.

Like everything's supposed to be just always just so nice, and everybody, you know, that you know, your your mom's gonna wear, you know, her pearls to dinner and her dress.

I mean, right?

But it's not true.

It's not true.

Eddie Haskell was probably the most authentic in the whole series, right?

Like, I know that.

Do you hear me people just laugh?

You know who he is because that's you.

And that's me.

We're all hypocrites, okay?

So if we can authenticate the fact that we have that tendency and then we can talk about it, anyway, it sets us free to be able to not hide stuff.

Number four, have fun.

Have fun as a family, do fun stuff, play games, um, do stuff.

It doesn't have to cost you a cent.

You can do stuff you can do hide and seek in your house or your apartment.

And you can do Huckleberry Beanstalk.

Everybody knows what that is, right?

Nobody knew in the first service either.

Okay, that's the little game we used to play.

We had this little troll guy, little hair going poof, you know, coming out.

And you went into a room, everybody else stayed in another room, and we hid it somewhere.

And you you had to make it where a little bit of it was showing.

And then you were trying to keep, you know, stump everybody.

So everybody's walking around, and when they see it, they say Huckleberry Beanstalk and they sit down.

And then until everybody sits down, the one who saw it first is the one who gets to do it the next time.

Just little fun stuff.

You know, banana grams.

I mean, there's so many fun things you can do right there in your home.

Doesn't cost you a cent, but it's doing it together and it's fun.

And by the way, if your kids say this is corny dad, or this is corny mom, say we like corn.

We are into corn here.

So have fun camping together, fishing together, doing fun stuff together.

Number five, serve together.

Serve together.

Do stuff together that helps humanity.

Might be that this coming Thanksgiving you should go to the soup kitchen and do that as a family.

It might be that you need to serve in children's ministry as a family.

Might be that you should be a greeter out here as a family.

I mean, do stuff together.

I remember one year Isaac was just on a tear in his high school summer baseball league, and he was just, he was batting over 500.

At one point, he was 19 for 19.

I mean, he was so hot just with his hitting and stuff.

And then the Joplin tornado hit, and we just felt like we needed to pull him out of baseball for a week and head over to Joplin, Missouri, and help serve people.

So I loaded up, we loaded up our kids, and we loaded up my chainsaw and utensils, and we headed out there and we helped out for a week.

It was great.

It wasn't great though when we were unpacking the bags and we realized that we left charity's bag at home.

So she had no clothes.

So we went out and got clothes and stuff.

But we served.

We served in Joplin together, served together.

Number six, encourage each other.

Number six, and lastly, encourage each other.

Um they say in psychological studies that for every for every um discouraging word, we need eight encouraging words.

So make it a habit of saying encouraging things, saying how much you love your kids, how beautiful they are, how wonderful they are, how proud you are of them, and associate it with a character quality.

Don't just say it about their physical looks, but also say, you know, if you see something, like one of your kids is helping someone, say, yeah, I'm so proud of you for helping your sister on her homework because that that shows empathy.

That shows compassion for other people.

I just love that about your heart.

You know, to say encouraging things, building up their spirit.

Confident kids are kids who come out of encouraging homes.

Confident kids are kids that come out of encouraging homes.

And worshipper warrior kids are kids who are confident.

So, you know, use opportunities to be an encouragement.

If you tend to be, which a lot of us are, discouraging, well, stop that.

You know, quit doing that.

And ask God to start giving you an encouraging spirit.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Road Podcast.

It's been my joy to be a part of your life today.

And you know, that's part of what we do here at The Road, and this is what I do in having this Road Podcast is to empower people to change their world.

My passion and desire is that you would take God's word through the power of the Holy Spirit and make that relevant for your life.

You know, the reality is that God has placed your life here on this earth to make a difference.

And if you'd like more information about how to grow in Christ, if you need prayer, if you want more equipping in different areas of your life, go to thero.org.

God bless you.