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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom and Isaac.

From Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord that the ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews, or share on social.

Or even if you purchase courses and merch, or join the Be Courageous app community, enjoy the coffee or support financially. We’re so thankful you are a big part of the 10 Million Legacies movement.

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Reorg. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey, welcome to the podcast. Hey guys, so glad you’re here. Five crucial spiritual disciplines to.

Leaving a legacy of faith. Here we go. That’s right. So this is a super. This is like probably going to be one of the most powerful podcast episodes we’ve done. Because if you think about it, this is really what it’s all about. Biblical parenting at its core. What do you want to do? You want to leave a legacy of faith.

And in unprecedented times, the attacks on family are greater right now than previous few generations, at least.

Right, exactly. So we are going to go over these five crucial spiritual disciplines that we want to encourage and exhort every family to start practicing the habit of. And we’re excited to dive into Scripture. We have a lot to cover today, so we are just going to rattle off. But before we begin, we just wanted to encourage you guys and thank you so much for joining us on this podcast, especially if you’ve been with us since the beginning. Oh my goodness, can you imagine six years. It has been a fun journey in so.

Many people tell us they’ve been listening since the beginning, or some people found the podcast and then go back to the beginning, right? And by the way, my personal favorite episodes is episode number one and number two.

I knew it, I knew you were gonna say that. No, but you guys, I also love how much we’ve been able to really personally connect with couples through the Courageous Parenting program. And so we want to encourage you guys to go check that out. That is a six week ish because you can go through it at your own pace. Now it’s self-paced, um, program where we just dive into so many scriptures. You get a one hour pre-recorded teaching that also comes with what we call parenting packets. It has all the scriptural references as well as resources that we have kind of vetted and recommend as Christian parents that have helped us in our biblical parenting over the last 24 years. Um, and then we also have the lives that are in the dashboard as well. Those are 90 minute long, so you get to learn from those. Those are those different videos. I just have to say, we cover topics we’ve never covered in the podcast before. Actually, the whole parenting program is that way.

There are replays of lives, and then there’s one live that we do monthly in the Be Courageous app, and you get the app free for two months and you get put in a private mentor program group. So you know.

What I think a lot of people might also not know is that because they have access to the Be Courageous app for two months, they not only get the free, the the month long, the monthly 90 minute, um, live and Q&A that we do in the parenting program group that’s private, but they also get access to every single one of the heart of the home episodes, the replays of the Bible studies that we’ve been doing since last February. So there’s over 30 Bible studies on the heart of the home. So we talked about making your home a sanctuary. We talk about setting the tone of the atmosphere. Um, praying for your husband. There’s so many different topics.

So get into the Be Courageous app. But let’s let’s dive in first. Master books has been so amazing for homeschooling.

Oh man. For us this year it’s been a real blessing. It’s our first year using Master Books.com forward slash courageous. If you want to find out about the homeschool curriculum that we’ve been using, um, I would say it is the only curriculum I’m using with our kindergartner this year. It’s, um, there are two subjects I’m using with my third grader. There’s three subjects I’m using with my junior higher, and then there’s four subjects I’m using with my high schoolers.

Now, I know one of the things that was a derailment, potentially for Angie in the early years of homeschooling was science. And what’s so cool about master books is they have the largest, the most biblically based curriculum on science available of any company.

That’s right. And we know it’s biblically vetted. I don’t know if you knew this, but they’re actually the official publisher of Answers in Genesis curriculum, which is Ken Ham stuff, so that’s pretty cool.

So learn more of his stuff at Master books.com/courageous.

You can find out what my favorite stuff is so far.

So all right let’s get into it. So we have five crucial spiritual disciplines.

So you know the the first one might seem obvious to you, but we want to take you through some scripture and talk to you about the importance of having your children in church with you. But the first point is to take your kids to church. And I think that sometimes people think that they’re taking their kids to church, but they’re and they are they’re taking their kids to church, but are they taking them to the gathering? That’s a different thing, right?

So there’s two things here is going to church, right. Step one. And consistently, what do you want them to emulate? You can’t stream some of the most important aspects of what happens at church and why God wants us to go to church. Um, which is the fellowship, right? Which is the breaking of bread, the communion. Right. These kinds of things are so important. Worshiping together. Hearts knit together. Worshiping the Lord. These aspects you can get the teaching, but the knowledge and sermons are almost a commodity today. Now I give sermons. So here, bear with me for a second. But anybody can go online and get a sermon from a super pastor anywhere they want. And those pastors are doing a great job, and that’s fine. But to be part of the body of Christ is so important for you. But it’s even more important for the next generation to see you caring about it and going and being part of a community and them being raised up in that, that’s so important. Then the second part you’re talking about is actually taking the children to the church, meeting with you versus separating it out. Yeah.

So, you know, we thought we would just share a couple of scriptures with you guys because this is like a revolutionary for a lot of people. I think, especially when Covid hit and a lot of churches went online that maybe weren’t online before. And of course, the whole world was doing shelter in place for six weeks, and that created a new habit of watching things on TV in the comfort of your home, maybe even in your pajamas. Can I just say that? And while I don’t think it’s bad to have stuff going on, there is something negative about isolating. The enemy wants his people to be wants people to be isolated. God wants his people to work together and be a part of members of one another, to be a part of a body. And so in Hebrews 1025, this was a really popular verse that was used all the time during the Covid time. Right? Not neglecting the gathering together. But I just want to read in verse 23 to 25 it says, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering. So do not waver like stay strong and firm in the Lord, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. So it’s saying like the every day is is closer to the day that Jesus is coming back. Amen. I mean, truly, like logically, every day that you live is one day closer to when Jesus comes back. So the day is drawing nearer and nearer every day. And it’s saying that as the days are drawing nearer, this is even more important. So it’s more important now than it was three days ago, actually, technically. And but it was just as important then as it is today. Yeah.

And so that’s one thing makes a huge difference. I mean, you’ve heard us say this before, but 70 to 80% of the children raised in Christian homes are leaving the church by age 18. So why is that happening? Well, this is one part of why that’s happening. And the second part is, do they actually experience being in the church meeting as God’s talking about in the Bible when they’re being raised up, or are they getting some Bible and a lot of fun and social time during church, and they have a Misconstrued view of what it means to go to church. And when they’re too old for that, maybe they don’t like church anymore.

Oh, I mean, it’s a big question you got to ask yourself. I just want to read this one more time. It says, for let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. Here’s the thing. If you’re watching a sermon on TV. Yeah. Are you stirring anyone else in the body of Christ up to love and good works? No, you’re not even in proximity with them. You know what.

I used to say? I used to be in a business where we had lots of teams all over a couple states, and there we’d have team meetings every single week, and there would be a group of people, and it’s usually the ones that are more capable and feel like they know what they’re doing, that maybe I don’t need to go to the team meeting this week, and I’d always tell them, I would say, well, either you need the meeting or someone else needs you in the meeting. Mhm. And so you think about that, if we’re only thinking about ourselves and whether we want to go to church or not, maybe we’re only thinking one sided. And maybe we need to think two sided three sided actually, because the guide cares two and it’s like, what does God want? What do people need from me? Even if you don’t have an official role or you’re not technically serving in some way, your presence does make a difference. When you just talk to somebody there, it makes a difference.

Imagine if every person sitting in a seat or a pew in a church thought, oh, it doesn’t matter if I go. And they just didn’t. They all didn’t show up one day. How would the pastor feel, how the worship team feel? How would you know what I mean? Like it would be empty. That’s not the gathering, right? And so here’s the deal. It says we’re supposed to stir one another up to love and good works. And that happens. It says, not neglecting to meet together. Like we’re not supposed to meet together. And then it says, as is the habit of some. So you have to ask yourself, what habits have I created? What habits am I actually creating and cultivating in my kids? Because that’s really the question we’re talking about leaving a legacy of faith. We have to evaluate what are the habits that we have created in the culture of our family. That and helped our kids to exercise because it is a habit. If you don’t go, you’re exercising the habit of not going, yeah, actually, or you’re exercising the habit of going. And so it’s like you have to ask yourself, what are the habits that me and my family have? And do I expect my kids to have this faith that I think I have if I’m not even modeling for them what God’s Word commands us to do on a regular basis? And so we have to really be aware.

Ask yourself some questions. So we want to encourage you guys to take your kids to church. You know, on this topic, I think it’s also worthy to say, like some of the deepest conversations that Isaac and I have had with our kids in regards to spiritual things, like I’m talking spiritual questions where kids start going, hey, maybe I want to be baptized, or what is communion about? Or can I take that? Or like where they’re learning, they’re listening to the sermon. And then they have a question about something that was preached on Sunday, or they detect something different, or they have a conversation with someone else and they say something that maybe isn’t quite what they’ve read in the Bible or heard in the Bible, read to them by the parents, and they bring that up. And then you have these awesome, spiritually deep conversations with your children. Yeah, you miss out on all of that if they are not going and sitting in church with you.

It’s so powerful. They see people taking communion. Believers are the ones that should take communion. But I always say in church, because we have age integrated church parents need to discern. You need to discern. And so that is now getting parents thinking about where their children are at and whether they should take communion or not. What a powerful thing to wrestle with. Yeah.

So another scripture that we wanted to share is in first Timothy three 413 it says, until I come, devote yourselves to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. And then verse 14, Do not neglect the gift that you have which was given you by prophecy, when the council is laid on it. So this is obviously talking about like eldership and how there’s gifts within the church. But I bring this up because one, we’re supposed to devote ourselves to the public reading of Scripture. Um, and that would mean that there would be a public listening of scripture if there’s a public reading of it. Right. And so people need to do their part. They either need to be a part of the public reading of it or the public listening of it. Okay. And then there’s also this element of like, what is your spiritual gift? And are you actually activated when you go to church and being a part of the member of the body of Christ, because God has given you a gift? And guess what? Your kids also are a part of the body.

Now there’s questions coming in. We have five points. We have to move on pretty quickly. This one point could be a whole episode, but people are probably wondering, well, there aren’t any age integrated churches around me, or I can’t find a good church like that in. And so the answer to that is we also, most of our marriage were taking our kids and they were sitting with us in non-age integrated churches. We definitely didn’t stay in ones where they kicked our children out of the service, but there were a lot of good churches that were welcoming of that, even though we were pretty much the only ones doing that. And so and so, that was fine. It was no big deal. And but, you know, I guess after a while it does. You know.

It gets hard after a while. However, I would say, you know what? Realize that maybe God is going to use you as a family to create some positive disruption, some positive change. Set a good biblical example of teaching and training your children how to sit in church. And you know what you guys, we actually have an entire podcast episode that we did in season two that was about how to have your kids sit in church. Well, I think you could go and listen.

And we should touch just for a second, because that’s the next question is, well, my my children have a lot of energy. You must have really low energy children.

I have boys, I have seven sons and two daughters.

I remember when we were first doing this, one of our children, it was. It was so hard. But the the difficulty and thinking about Sunday coming and going through that again in the beginning was hard. But persevering was so worthy, so worth it looking back. So worth it is.

Is no regrets.

One of the most important things we’ve done in raising our children is that they sat with us hearing the sermon, worshiping God, seeing communion, participating when it was right to do so, and in these.

Things, and witnessing baptisms, because that oftentimes led them to to want to know about baptism. And then we were able to disciple them, teach them, make sure they knew what it meant, and then baptize.

Them and have same conversations afterwards, because we all heard and saw the same thing.

Right? There’s just and we worship together, which we’ll talk about that in a minute. So even.

The littles, even the babies, even the toddlers.

And it’s hard. I mean, the message is you have to be willing to do hard things as a parent if you want to leave a legacy that’s courageous parenting. Yeah. You’re not here if you want. Sorry. I’m not going to say that. Easy parent of. Yeah. Easy, easy parenting. So, anyway, that would be our challenge to you. We get that. That’s a challenge. We get that that’s not the norm. And that if you’re listening, probably 90% of people listening today are like, oh, why’d they have to say that?

I’m already getting questions. Hey, is there a church like yours here where they live? I get these messages, right? Oh, yeah. Where the church gets those messages on social media. Oh, yeah. And I would just say, go find a Bible believing church and.

Just start taking your kids to church. It’s it’s important. So, okay, so the next point that we want to talk about is reading your Bible to your kids and in front of them. So you’re going to read the Bible out loud to your kids, but also reading the Bible in front of them. So, you know, the first thing that comes to mind. There’s a couple of sub points under this category. We just talked about going to church. Parents, listen, take your Bible to church with you like this. This belongs going to church with you because it’s your textbook. It’s your guidebook. And it’s an exercise, a habit that you want to start practicing with your kids. Hey, Johnny, do you got your Bible? We’re going to church. You know what I mean? Like, but but at the same time, I also want to say Sunday shouldn’t be the only time of the week that you’re getting your Bible out.

There’s another thing. Hey, gents, you’re actually supposed to be, you know, the accountability to for the pastor. In a way. Yeah, right. Gents, we are to be making sure Scripture is right, making sure our children are hearing the right thing and reading through it. Not with a critical eye, of course, but just, you know, following along.

Challenge one another. That’s right. I think that, you know, we’ve got another verse that we just want to share with you guys in John 1717 right here. Um, but before Isaac shares that scripture, you know, reading your Bible out, like in front of your kids, I know that for myself as a mom, I was kind of, um, I struggled thinking that I needed to have, like, a quiet, alone time to study my Bible.

Um, otherwise ideal setting.

Ideal setting, you know, coffee Candle. Little. Little setup. Maybe those modes are.

Great if you. If you get them. Yeah, they might be rare, but they.

Should be rare. Like, honestly, it’s probably rare. I mean, getting up early, I remember a long time, I get up early, I get up and I go work out with my neighbor at, well, we were going at 530 in the morning and then we were going at 630. Sometimes we go at seven, you know, we go early is the point. Um, and then oftentimes I will spend a little bit of time in the word, and then I start making breakfast for people. And generally speaking, though, I remember days during the postpartum years where I had so many little kids where the thought of getting up earlier before the kids was like, you’re right. They’re up earlier than I am. So and so my devotion time happened differently than some people, and you have to find your rhythm. And one of the things that I would encourage you as moms is that have your Bible out on your counter and snack on the bread of Life, the Word of God, all day long, and it will help you to keep your heart right and steadfast in the Lord throughout the day, which is what we need as moms, but also sit down at the table. Who cares if your kids are are running around or playing Legos, or if they’re all sitting with you with their Bibles? That would be great too. And put some music on. Maybe put on the scripture reading out loud and sit and do your study. Let your kids just see you doing it.

And one of the things, as a dad, I hope my children say when they’re older and they’re talking to their kids and they’re saying, you know, what I really appreciated about grandpa is when I was a kid, he always had his Bible open. When we went to church, he had his Bible open. He read his Bible, not the app on the phone. Right. The Bible? The Bible. I think that’s important. The visual. Visual and pages. There’s something about it. You know, book sales are climbing right now. People are drawn to physical paper more and more, and we’re going to see more of that as we’re in the greater digital age than ever. Right? You can’t necessarily.

Trust what you see online.

So books Bible so, so important by the way. And okay, we’ll do this scripture real quick and then sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Absolutely. Absolutely true.

If you’re leaving a legacy of faith, don’t you want to sanctify your children in the truth? Because God’s Word is truth? Yeah. And so that that’s you have to be reading the truth, the word of God, in order for them to be sanctified. Yes.

So now there’s one. There’s a third big question on point one. I know we’re on point two, about to go to point three. But the big question is, well, how do I train my young children to sit still in church and be active? And I just want to direct you again to that previous podcast we did. We’ll try and put it in the show notes at Courageous Parenting.com. Mhm.

So Joshua one eight through nine really. But I’m going to just read verse eight says this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. Okay. So can we have the Word of God on our mouth and not departing from it if we’re not reading it, that’s impossible. I said in the last episode, or maybe it was Bible study. I was like, you can’t remember what you haven’t read. You can’t recall what you haven’t recited, right? That whole, um, grammar dialectic rhetoric stages, which is like the classical model of education, right? Where you’re learning something and then you’re practicing it. And then rhetoric would be when you’re teaching it, then you’ve mastered it, right. And so to truly have something written on your heart, you go through those different stages of learning. And so they’re having the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, prosperous, and then you will have good success. This is one of God’s promises in His Word. This is what we want for our kids, that they would have the Word of God on their minds all the time, but you have to be meditating on it day and night. Um, another scripture that comes to mind is Psalm one 1811, which says.

I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Mhm.

So obviously, like leaving a legacy of faith, there’s this sin issue that all humans wrestle with the, the, the power of sin, the power of the flesh. Right. But if we’ve stored up the Word of God within us, it’s so that we might not sin against God so that the Holy Spirit has this like ability to convict us. Right. And, and and it’s. Yes, it’s a parent’s job to disciple. Yes, it’s a parent’s job to discipline their children. But you also want the Holy Spirit to be activated, moving in your child to where they’re convicted. The Holy Spirit is convicting your child when they sin, because there’s going to be sins that your kids struggle with that you don’t even see. Yeah. And so you want the Holy Spirit to be convicting them. And if, if, if they have stored up the word in their hearts, it will help them to not sin against God. And it’s that personal relationship.

Do they see a sincere prayer life in you? Do they see that modeled with heartfelt prayers, or is it always the same little prayer at dinner and before bed? You know, I think there’s a difference there. Authentic. I’m not saying that the same prayer isn’t a prayer. It is. But what are they seeing modeled? Are they seeing a real deepening relationship with God based on how you talk to God?

Okay, let’s just take a moment from the podcast for a second, because I want to talk to you about a spiritual discipline of worship and leaving that legacy of worship. That was something that was super important to Isaac and I. But neither of us had musical skills, and so we paid thousands of dollars over the years to have our kids learn instruments from piano and guitar, violin to voice lessons. And I don’t regret any of it because they’re very capable. But there is a better, faster, cheaper way through Voorburg music Academy.com. The Vote Burke method approaches music differently. Instead of teaching theory, note reading, and tedious technical skills. First, they skip straight to giving students a love for music so that they can’t wait to sit down to practice with by ear training and song based learning. Students see immediate results and learn technique, note reading, and theory in a context that will stick with them forever. And what makes it even better? They can earn visual reminders of their hard work with the methods rank system that mails badges and rank pins right to your doorstep instead of learning music in an isolation boat. Music Academy.com encourages families to learn together. In fact, with my code Courageous, you can get 20% off all your children learning piano, guitar, mandolin, violin or ukulele for less than $30 a month.

That’s right. Say goodbye to budgeting hundreds of dollars a month for just one child to take lessons. On top of that, the vote method provides community with thousands of other like minded Christian families to celebrate with and learn from. Students are given accountability, performance opportunities, and live feedback from their instructor and printables to help them stay on track. Unlike traditional music lessons that students soon forget, Wartburg Music Academy creates lifelong lovers and players of music in just a few months. Use my code courageous to get 20% off every month your family is enrolled and learn music in a way that sticks. Now let’s get back to the podcast. You know, one of the other things that’s important when you’re dealing with like, sin. I just want to go back to that for a second. When you’re when you’re discipling or disciplining your children, right. The scripture that we have read many times in Second Timothy chapter three. It’s one of your favorites, right? All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. Um, this is one of the verses that actually was like a core foundational scripture when we were planning and preparing for the Courageous Parenting program.

Um, that, along with love, you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. The first and greatest commandment, and the second, which is like it. And looking at those two scriptures, it’s like, okay, how do we love the Lord with our mind? Well, we have to be saturated in the word. We have to be reading the word. But why? And then you go to the scripture. It’s, well, the Scripture is breathed out by God. It’s literally breathed out by God. That’s what it says. All Scripture is breathed out by God. Okay. So it’s his words and it’s profitable. So it’s good for teaching for reproving, which is correcting for correction and for training and righteousness. We’re talking about leaving a legacy of faith. This is literally the epitome of what we’re trying to do. But what does it end with so that the man of God or a woman of God may be competent and equipped for every good work? Which is why we created the Parenting Mentor Program to try to help parents to be able to do that. Right. And so it’s.

And beware of something too. Little children are likely to pray without any fear, yes, without any concern about the people around them. And they have faith like a child, which God Jesus was saying for us to have. But at some point they get a little older and if you’re not careful, they will start. They will stop praying in front of people. So be aware of that. Right. Encourage that. Keep encouraging that to keep going and to to be confident in praying publicly and not to lose that faith as a child.

And the same can actually happen with worshiping in front of people too. You know, I’ve noticed that the kids will like as they get older. Maybe they start caring too much what people think around them, or they’re not really confident in what their voice sounds like or whatever it is. And so to really stir that up and encourage them to keep going so that they have that confidence and ability in worshiping and.

What what’s the difference really peer influences and activities away from you, but also practice and less time just with you in your home. And that is the main difference. I don’t think it’s the age, I think it’s the influences.

But it’s also what habit is practiced and exercised and like prayer is a spiritual discipline. That is a habit, right? And so if you don’t give them the opportunity to pray in front of other people, they’re not going to be confident in doing it if you don’t give them the opportunity to worship with other people, worship in front of other people, they’re not going to be confident doing it. So it’s literally, again, a spiritual discipline and a habit that you have to give them the opportunity to be able to do and.

Saying things like, I’ll from time to time say, hey, it’s not the you know, what matters is praying to God, but it’s not just when other people are around. Yeah. What also matters is, is the personal prayers you have to God when no one’s around. What happens when no one’s looking might even matter the most in the whole scheme of things, right? So kind of planting those seeds with them that it’s it’s your personal relationship. It’s not a just a group thing we’re doing. Yeah. It’s not just a talk or pray as a group together. Right. It’s a family thing. No, it’s a God thing and it’s a personal relationship thing. Yes.

Oh I love that. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we have shared a lot in Matthew four four is where Jesus answers and he says, man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that comes from the mouth of God. This is when he’s been baptized and he goes into the wilderness. He’s tempted by Satan for 40 days and nights, and he’s tempted to turn stones into food. Right? And he says, no man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And understanding that reading our Bibles, that should be the thing that is nourishing us. That’s what’s giving us the sustenance to keep going. And whatever it is that we’re doing and we need, we need to give our kids that kind of nourishment. That’s a spiritual nourishment. The bread of Life is a spiritual nourishment. We need it as moms and dads, but our kids also need it because they’re human too. And so let’s let’s move on to the third point, which is to pray with your kids and for your kids. That’s kind of an obvious one. But but here’s the deal. Like there are some questions that we should probably ask. Like when you pray for your kids, do you pray for them worldly desires or do you pray for them? The will of God? Whoa. Hold on a second. Now all these little bumpy questions start coming up. Well, how do you know what the will of God is for your child’s life? Like, I don’t know what they’re going to do. Like, what is God’s will for Xander when he grows up? Isaac. He’s three years old. If I say Isaac, what is God’s will for Xander when he grows up? Workwise what is he going to do specifically for work?

But he’s going to protect mankind.

Well, because that’s what we named him. But but in reality, though, like, we don’t necessarily know the details, but we can pray for God’s will for him to be done, and we can be raising him up in the way that we know God has called us to raise him up. We can be stirring them up to good works. We can be giving him opportunities, seeing his gifts and skills, and trying to encourage him in the things that we see him thriving at and really enjoying. Um, and, and give him opportunities to find out what his talents are. Right. And, and what is it that God has given him. But there there are a couple verses in Scripture that as parents, when we’re praying for our kids, we need to be praying the will of God, not be praying our will. One of the things that I have really realized over the years is that everybody has a will for your life. Yeah, you might have a will, but God has a will for your life. But then sometimes does your wife have a will for your life? Isaac. That honey do list gets pretty lit. Big, right? Honey, honey, I have a will for you.

I’m tired as we speak.

No, but same goes for you. To me, right? Like we. I’m just being honest that, you know, the reality is, is that there are other people too, that like. Oh, pastor, you need to do this. Oh, yeah. Like, different people have a will for you. But here’s the deal. Romans 12 one and two. It gives us a good reminder of how we find out what the will of God is.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So is that what we want for our kids? What’s perfect? What’s what’s what is the will of God is what’s perfect. Actually. That’s it. It’s not that they would be rich, or that they would be famous, or that they would it. It’s like, no, what is God’s will for our child? Actually, it’s that they would be fulfilling the purpose that he created them for.

And that Jesus would be their master, not themselves.

I love it. You preached on that this Sunday. It was such a good sermon. I hope that it gets online on the website, but it’s there. Oh, already? How’d you do that?

Rooted Bible church? I think it automatically happens now. There’s people doing things, taking care of things.

Praise the Lord. I didn’t even know. Okay, so I want to share with you guys another scripture that is in John chapter 15. It’s verse seven in regards to praying for your children. This scripture is the one of our favorites. It’s the vineyard scripture, right? Because we had a vineyard with our kids and, um, it’s the vine and the branches passage. Yeah. But verse seven says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. And then, so this is the thing. A lot of people could take that scripture and they could treat Jesus like a genie in a bottle. Oh, if I’m if I pray he’s going to give me whatever I want. And that’s actually not how it’s.

Whatever God wants.

It’s not how it works. The whole point is that this entire the first seven verses talk about the importance of not being apart from God, but being abiding in his word and being in him. And this even says it here if you abide in me and my words abide in you, then whatever you ask, does that change what you ask? I think it does. I think it drastically changes what you ask when you are in God’s Word. You don’t ask for the own your own fleshly desires things. You start asking for God’s will to be done. And like we just read in Romans 12, it’s about God’s will for your life.

100% agree. But I also just want to encourage everybody that we have a good God that does want us to have. And that is true good things too. And so but we should be praying in his will and and whatever your will is, Lord. And so we can ask for things. But most importantly, whatever your will is Lord and children growing up that way, praying with them. Um, exercising that prayer muscle is key.

So the fourth point we want to talk to you about in these five crucial spiritual disciplines to leaving a legacy of faith, is praising Jesus together or worshiping him together? Um, praise and worship are two different things, but they also are the same. Like praise is a form of worship. Worship can be many different things in your life. Um, but praising Jesus together. John 423 says, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth. For the father is seeking such people to worship him.

It actually will improve. Point three it’ll improve their prayer life because worshiping is praying to God essentially in song. And so you think about that. Think about the lyrics. That’s why the lyrics have to be biblical. They have to be right.

It has to be.

True worship in alignment with the Bible and the will of God. It’s so important. But because you’re actually praying, you know? So what kind of music do you want your children listening to? Because whatever they’re listening to, they’re meditating on those words, right.

And they get emotionally connected to them very serious way.

So it is really important what they listen to and praising Jesus together, seeing children praise Jesus is so key.

You know, yesterday when we were in church, our he just turned six. Eli was just belting out the worship songs. I could hear him so loud I could just. And I’m like looking at Ethan. He’s looking at his brother Ethan, who’s 14. Who was who, by the way, led worship all by himself on Sunday. And he did a phenomenal job.

I was like 150 people there.

And he. So he’s up there playing guitar, leading worship because his sister got sick the night before. And so it was literally like he was prepared to do all four because he knows the songs. But really, he was supposed to do two of them and she was going to do two. He took on all four, and I got my my six year old son who looks up to his brother so much. They have a really great relationship. And he’s looking up at Ethan leading worship, and he’s just belting it out and I’m like, this is one of the best things ever for our family, because to see that multi-generational discipleship, even within the family, where Ethan’s being a godly example of what striving to be a man of God is to his six year old brother at age 14. Yeah, he’s number six. He’s number eight. And to see that, I almost started crying. Um, because sometimes Eli will sing a lot, but sometimes he’ll get shy when you look at him. But he was surrounded by all these people singing. He wasn’t shy at all. I could hear him belting it out. And you know, one of the things that has hit me a lot is that the importance as a mom of recognizing that what we sing is meditation, like what you said, and that meditation is what changes our attitudes. It changes our hearts, it changes our minds. It changes us.

Another point you just brought up is your older siblings leading by example to the younger siblings. So because Ethan, potentially because it was his brother up there. Yeah. And seeing him sincerely belting out, he just.

Really is a sincere worshiper.

How much easier now is it for the three year old to do that? Because the siblings are doing that, the older siblings.

And boys, because sometimes you don’t see boys doing that. It’s more girls sometimes.

So who your children are around, how your older siblings are being is so important. So then as an important to pay attention to who the older siblings are around and peer influences, it is very important because your older siblings peer influences are going to influence the younger children 100%.

But I just want to reiterate what something that you said, because worship is important. It is meditation. We see that in other scripture. I meditate on your law day and night, and there are so many Psalms that talk about singing to the Lord, hymns and songs and spiritual songs and and how they shape us. Okay. And this is saying it, the hour is coming and now is here. So when you look at other scriptures that talk about the hour is coming or you look at other scriptures, I’m not going to share a bunch of those. But you know what I’m talking about because we’ve shared them in previous podcast episodes where it’s like in the last days there will come scoffers, and in the last days this will you’ll see this and you’ll see false teachers and you’ll see, like there’s so many warnings about those things that even happens within the church. They have seeped into the Greater Christian church all over the world. And there are there’s deception that is happening. And this is important that that if there’s an elder listening or a pastor or a pastor’s wife, I just want to encourage you right now that your role is to protect the doctrine of your church and to be listening and and and to be choosing people that are going to be leading worship, that are going to take that to heart. Right. Because the hour is coming. There are false teachers when when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth, not in falsehood, not even slight truth, not a half truth in spirit and truth. Just it that’s it in spirit and truth. And so we have to have that standard. Um, but, you know, we’ve got another scripture here in revelations 14 verse seven that is such an encouragement.

And he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea, and the springs of water.

Just having that perspective with your kids of like, you know, we could be here thousands of years, but he could also come back tomorrow. Yeah. You know what I mean? And, like, living as if both. The paradox of both at the exact same time is an encouragement to worship him with full abandon. Like full surrender, we just recently we had a wedding reception for our daughter at our house, and we had some dear, dear friends of ours that are part of the home church that we planted in bend, Oregon. And they all came and were here and we had a worship night the second night, and we did worship at the wedding reception. Megan and Ethan led worship, and that was really wonderful. But then we did like real full on worship for a while at the house the next day with all of them, and it was just awesome to just hear the children’s voices and all of us, like, there were 45 of us just singing in the house. It was the house of the Lord. People took turns.

Just spontaneously at the piano, grabbing the guitar.

It was rad.

It was.

Amazing. It was awesome. And I miss that with them. And I we did that during the summer too. But it wasn’t like a spontaneous and just like raw. Like it was this time. That wasn’t something that was planned. And I just want to say like, that is a special thing that you can with your community, just say, hey, let’s just worship God together right now. Like, I want to do this right now. Let’s just do it. And that’s how life should be. You should be walking in life with people where you can worship together. Well, how about this? Let’s leave a legacy of.

Faith this last summer, just inviting anybody that wants to come over to our house and worship and worship that was playing guitar, leading worship around the fire. Yep. Um, you know, were we familiar with the people enough to know if they were comfortable to sing and worship in close proximity? No, no, you just you just do it. You just obey God and do things. Yeah.

So the fifth point to five crucial spiritual disciplines to leaving a legacy of faith. Isaac. The fifth one is.

Serve God together. Oh, it’s so important.

We did a whole podcast episode on building God’s kingdom. Find ways. It was so powerful in America.

I know people listen actually in over 190 countries around the world, but but in America, We’re so self-sufficient in modern times. In most places, we’re so self-sufficient that it becomes harder to see opportunities to serve, and it becomes harder to even want to do it. Sometimes because we get busy, because so many things are actually done for us that used to not be done. So now we take on more and more and more things on. We say yes to more things. So, um, let’s slow down and serve God together once in a while. Because if they don’t grow up serving God, they’re.

Not going to do it when they’re older. Yeah, they’re going to get too busy. And I think that again, it’s like, what habits have you exercised with your kids that they then have a heart for? They’ve experienced serving like last night we had, um, our new church that, that we just planted, um, teamed up with, um, well, someone at the church decided they wanted to do Operation Christmas Child, which many of you guys have probably participated in this with your churches before, and it was just awesome. We took our three younger kids down to the church and helped with, um, packaging the boxes. We went shopping for kids before that. Not for my kids. My kids got to pick out toys for other kids needs like nail clippers and nail files and things like that for other kids. And I was able to talk to them about how these kids have never had a gift before, and that they’re going to get the gospel of Jesus in the box, along with all the toys and the things that they might need, like a bar of soap.

Our three year old was so into it I couldn’t believe it. He was.

So. It’s true. He was so into it. So if you think your kids are too little to get it, that’s a lie from the devil. Take your three year old.

To prevent him from putting six hairbrushes in one box.

No, honey, they don’t have that much hair. Maybe they had. Maybe that kid had a family with six siblings. Who knows?

Or someone? No, I know another one.

We need.

Another one. But it was fun walking through with him, seeing his heart and what he would pick and and praying over the box and just just very, very, very, so sincere.

He held that box with his little hand and he had his eyes pinched tight and he was praying. It was the sweetest thing ever. And you know, the six year old and nine year old to, um, actually saw him still eight. But, you know, the reality is, is that doing those things, those are the different exercises. I remember collecting sleeping bags at a work Christmas party to to take with our kids down to the Union Gospel Mission, the rescue mission down in downtown Portland with for all the homeless people. There’s just been so many projects over the years that we’ve done with our kids that we’re serving together in a practical way, meeting a practical need. That would be something that would really, like, hit home with the kids and, you know, serving at VBS. That’s another thing I’ve done with the older kids, um, in the past. And there’s just there’s so many ways that you can serve with your family. And I think that it is an important thing, and you may feel like you’re too busy to do it, but actually you’re too busy not to do it. It needs to be one of the most important priorities. If you want to leave a legacy of faith and you want to activate your kids, to actually be a member that is functioning and active and using their gifts within their church when they’re older, they need to practice that when they’re younger. So we have a couple of scriptures for this too, but I’m just going to share the last one, which was Matthew 28. This is rad because this is like one of our favorite verses. The Great Commission go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. God has commanded this to all his people, that is, for all of us to be doing. And if we’re not doing it right where he planted us, first and foremost, we’re missing it.

Now here’s the unprecedented times tip. It’s very easy to be a fear based parent, to actually fear the future for our children, to fear the decisions our children will make to to to fear and wonder if they’re going to accept the Lord or not and these kinds of things. And instead I would exhort you to not fear at all. God tells us not to fear anything in this world, but to fear him, which is a different kind of fear for his power, his awesomeness and love for us. Um, and but you know, what helps you not to fear in the wrong ways is doing these five crucial spiritual disciplines. Yeah. And it’s really important with the distractions, with the ability to get to kids through technology. You might. Oh, not my kids. They’re going to be older at some point. They’re going to have technology. Okay. They’re going to have access at their fingertips to everything. Yeah. Everything possible that you can unfortunately imagine they will have access. Now the question is will they get access? Will they try to get access? Will they go in their godly way or go in the wayward way? And you can’t save your kids, but you can do a lot to point them to Christ. You can do a lot to disciple them. You can do a lot through your example to be an example and the stats are going against you. The stats are terrible about what’s working out for the next generation. And so it’s very important that you are more intentional than previous generations, even about the spiritual disciplines and relationship with God that you have there, exhibiting to your kids and doing these five things. It’s part of why we created the Courageous Parenting program, too. So if you want help, the very first session, there’s 37 scriptures about the theology of parenting with practical insights and just session one. So I encourage you to go to Courageous Parenting.com and check that out. Hey, and.

Isaac, can churches do that together too? Why don’t you share with people how churches we’re getting?

There’s a church going through it right now, and we’re getting testimonials that are from the pastor, from from people going through it that are amazing. And it’s we’ve changed it to so it’s completely self-paced now. And you have control of the dashboard and the pace. You do it. So that’s easier for churches. It’s easier for individuals. Yeah. But still getting alive in a month. But hey, we so appreciate you being part of the 10 Million Legacies movement and being part of the podcast. I hope you love it. I hope you share it.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. Go to be courageous Ministry. Org for more biblically based resources, ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online Parenting Mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, we release a video session with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible, self-paced program. We cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group in the Be Courageous app, live webcast, and direct access to us.

If you’re interested in joining our next online Parenting Mentor program, secure your spot now at Be Courageous Ministry. Org that’s Be Courageous ministry.org.