The Great Commission Within Our Homes

Chap Bettis' spiritual journey is a journey that he has learned over the years is not atypical. For me, I would say I came to faith as a young child, but I became convinced in my college years. And when I'll do seminars, I'll ask people to raise your hand if you professed Christ at a young age. You grew up in a Christian home. And then now, keep your hands up if you would say, I had a later time when my faith became my own.

And 98% of the hands stay up. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapeen. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. How can we as parents help our children on their journey as they move from a commitment to Christ to being convinced of the gospel?

We'll talk more with Chap Bettis about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today. Thanks for joining us. You guys have a new book coming out pretty quickly on parenting, right?

We do. It's coming out. What's it called? No Perfect Parents. And they picked you? I don't know why the publisher picked you to write that one. We didn't have that title until the publisher read the manuscript. Yeah, it was sort of funny.

It was going to be vertical parenting, you know, like the sequel to vertical marriage. And then they read it and said, you know, you guys keep talking about how you're not very perfect. So we think it's no perfect parents. And actually, that was about Ann because I was perfect.

Everybody knows that. When you were working on the book, did you stop and think, is there a verse that is kind of the parenting verse? I mean, I know most people when you think, what's the parenting verse? They think Deuteronomy 6 is where you go for parenting.

And it's it's a great parenting verse. That's the one I usually use. Is that the one you pick? Well, it's in there.

Yeah. You know, of course, because it's really a great vision and very practical. But really, it was based on the idea that most of us as parents really never decide what we're shooting for.

What are we trying to raise? And so it was Psalm 127, you know, arrows that we launch with a mission. And so the big idea of the book is, OK, what's your bullseye? So we just copied it from the art of parenting. You saw the movie like arrows. Exactly.

Exactly. We have got a friend joining us on Family Life today, Chap Bettis. Chap, welcome.

Thank you very much for having me. Chap is the author of a book called The Disciple Making Parent. And we're having this conversation in part because as I read your book, you say the North Star for parenting is a verse that I was very familiar with. And I thought, I don't know that I've ever thought of that as a parenting verse, but sure enough, it is. What's the verse?

Well, Matthew 28, 18 to 20, the Great Commission that were to go and make disciples. That's the one we meant, Bob. Chap, when we read that, that's what I told Dave when we were reading your books and your material. I said, we should have used that verse.

That is the verse. You know, I already mentioned this to you, but she said that over and over and over. Why did we put this in our book?

Why didn't we? Seriously, very great job. It was excellent and very helpful. And I'm excited to talk about it. So help parents get a picture of the great.

Some people don't know what the Great Commission is. So explain that. And why is that a parenting passage? Well, I think every parent remembers when they saw their first child. You know, the day that your first child is born, you hold him or her in your arms. And by the way, I know you're going to keep going, but don't miss this moment because you wrote about it in your book. When you were driving home, I think.

Talk about that. Well, I'm getting teared up now and just thinking about that again, because there's such a feeling of helplessness. God has given you this helpless baby or responsibility that you have.

And you're thinking, Lord, how do I do this? And I remember driving home and I think what happened was clashing of the feelings of responsibility with what I know from the scriptures. And often it seems like it's easy to keep parenting. What we think of parenting and what we know about the Bible separate. But when you put that together, God has not just given you a baby. He's given you an eternal soul to influence. And then so you say, OK, what actually is best? And I think parenting raises those ultimate questions because good parents want to give their kids the best.

But what what is the best? And that brings you back to, well, it's the gospel. This is an eternal soul. And so, well, does the scripture have anything to say about that?

And of course, yes, it does. Because Jesus tells us that we are the Great Commission is to go and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that he's commanded. And so really, that's actually a fulfillment of back in Genesis, where God's desire is to fill the earth with glory bearers. And so rightly, our churches send missionaries across the oceans and churches reach out across the streets. But we also need to reach out across the dining room table. That that's that's really the most important thing that this this person that God has blessed us with for a few years.

And as parents of adult children, we know it's very few. But this is a great privilege. I love what you said. You said you haven't just created a baby, but a person who will live forever in heaven or forever in hell. Like that's what we need to remember.

But we get a little bit lost. Yeah, I was going to say the disciple making mission of a parent. You've been a pastor. I've been a pastor. Bob's a pastor. I lost that sometimes. I had it in my mind as a pastor.

I'm making disciples at my church. That's what I'm called to do. And and I come home and forget. Yeah, like I'm just a dad. I'm just a husband. It's like, no, no, no.

I'm supposed to make disciples. Did you ever lose that? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. You lose that. You lose that all the time in turn.

And that's why that's why I say it's the North Star, because you get off track and we all we all do. And different winds, different forces push us off in our own heart. And, you know, fears. I mean, I think parents wrestling with fear, you're raising your kids and suddenly your friend's child has taken dance.

Or violin. And you get this little catch in your stomach, like, oh, is my child falling behind? And certainly there's nothing wrong. Those are all good things. But I need to remember where my focus, you know, what am I focusing on?

And so, yeah, you get you get off track off the time of time. And God is gracious. It's not about being the perfect parent to go back to your to go back to your book. But but, yeah, to say this this is the North Star. This is where my heart is.

This is what I'm what I'm aiming for. Yeah. There's a great quote in your book. You say something like no one can be the perfect parent, but there are thousands of ways to be a good parent. Exactly.

And I thought that's exactly right. And if we could just focus on, OK, my goal today is to be a good parent in one of those thousands of ways, rather than come under the crushing weight of being the perfect parent, which, as you guys say, there is no perfect parent and no perfect kids. Right. So this process of disciple making, I think it's important we say to parents, you can't make what you aren't. You have to first be a disciple before you can make a disciple. You have to first be one of those committed to following the Lord before you can show others how to follow the Lord.

Right. Well, it's interesting that that in the New Testament, the word Christians only used three times and disciples used two hundred and sixty nine. And so disciple was a much more common way for followers of Jesus to refer to themselves. And a disciple is a learner, someone who is following a master and following his teaching, following his way of life. And so, you know, Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ and our children are going to imitate us. So modeling is actually really the most important key of any spiritual leadership. And our children, when they're young, they're imitating us.

When they're older, as you know, teenagers, they're evaluating us. Are we living the faith? And that's that's the most important thing. In fact, Paul was able to say to Timothy, talk about the faith that lived in his mother and grandmother. Second Timothy one five. And that was that should be encouraging because we know for those imperfect families, as all of ours are. Timothy's father was not a believer. So this is not this is not a cookie baking little home house on the prairie home that Timothy is growing up in.

And yet he is walking with the Lord and used by the Lord as Paul's son in the faith. So that that should encourage us. Do we have a living faith? That's that that our kids are seeing, not not playing church, but but actually we have a living walk with the Lord.

And it is somewhat scary, too, because they're going to copy us good and bad. I remember one time I was sitting at a stoplight with three three little boys are all husbands and dads now. But they were I think C.J., my oldest, might have been five.

So five, three and maybe one. Right. And so we're sitting there and I'll never forget it.

I don't know why it's so vivid because it's, you know, decades ago. But C.J. hits the power window button. He was in the front seat and, you know, goes down and he goes. And he spits out the window and it goes back up.

And, you know, it's just one of those things. And I look over and I go, C.J., you know, what are you doing? You don't spit out the window. And he goes, you do dead. And I go, no, I don't. And I look in the mirror and both heads are going, yes, you do.

Yes, you do. And I'm like, oh, my goodness. They are copying, hopefully, you know, the good as well as the bad.

But it hit me right then and there. They're going to do what I do, no matter what I say. I can say whatever I want, they're going to walk the way I walk. And you talk about making disciples. It's Bob's question.

Am I a disciple worth walking behind? We were driving down the street one day. Our son James was in the car seat in the back.

I think he was just learning to talk a year and a half or two years old. And I'm driving, Mary Ann's in the passenger seat and I'm on the main street and somebody pulls up on the side street, like is going to come out. And I didn't know if they saw me. So I just tapped the horn to let them know I was there. Just a little beep, beep. And from the back, I hear my almost two year old son say, jerk.

Come on. And I turned around and look at him like, where did that? He's just smiling like he doesn't know what he said. And I look at Mary Ann, whose head is in her hands, and I said, where did he get that?

She goes, I said it once. But that's that's the point we're making. Our kids will obey what we tell them, but they will become who we are. And so if we're going to be disciple making parents, we have to be committed followers of Christ, which does not mean we have to be perfect.

This is one of the things I fell into. I thought, OK, so I must always model perfection and righteousness or I'm going to mess up my kids. You know, part of what you have to model is what you do when you blow it and what repentance looks like. Right.

Yeah. And that's grace. We need we need grace. And that's what our kids need to realize, that the Christian faith is not this perfection. I've thought that the hypocrisy. So hypocrisy, when they do studies and find out why do young people walk away from the faith? It's hypocrisy.

Right. But I don't think hypocrisy is what you're talking about. Being an imperfect parent, it's being an imperfect parent and not caring.

You don't you don't care. And so you're just you have the secret sin in your home. They know it.

Nobody else in the church knows it. And you're not working on it as opposed to. So here your analogy, you know, you're saying jerk or whatever that you say, OK, I need to work on this. I need to grow in holiness so that my kids see a living faith and they see me growing. And you say to your kids, Daddy blew it.

Yeah. Mommy messed up. And I've asked Jesus to forgive me.

And I need to ask you to forgive me so that they get a picture of here's what happens when you blow it. I remember when our kids were in our home, I would have this thought like, what am I thinking about all the time in my head? Because what I'm thinking about is what's going to come out of my mouth. And so I started and it's really what is discipling me.

You know, am I watching stuff on TV? Am I taught, you know, what's filling my mind? And I realize when I'm not in the word, when I'm not in fellowship, when I'm not with my friends talking about Jesus, that's not on my mind. And so I became this I became really adamant, like I need to fill my mind with God's word, with good things, because that's what's going to flow out of my mouth.

It's scripture. And so it was a good evaluation. Have I talked about Jesus much today? Have I talked about what God's doing in my life today? But it was just kind of this good check.

Goodness, I haven't even talked about him at all for days. And our kids, they see all of that. I liked what you said about teenagers. They're evaluating us. Isn't that terrible? I did the same. You know, did you too?

Yeah, you start evaluating everything. In fact, tell us a little of your journey, because I think yours, your spiritual story is probably pretty typical for church kids. The question is, what do they do when they get into young adulthood? But tell your story. Well, I grew up in a church-going home and faithful parents. And we attended church and youth group and believe I made a genuine profession of faith when I was around eight. And so I believe God changed my heart at that point. Having said that, though, I also had in the high school years had a number of questions.

So for me, they were intellectual questions. How do I know God exists? I distinctly remember sitting in the sanctuary of the church. How do we even know this is all true? How do you know you can trust the scripture? How do we know they didn't make it up?

Is there evidence for Jesus outside of the gospels? How old were you? I was probably 10th grade, 10th, 11th grade. But I've heard, actually, as we talk about this, just the need of apologetics. Even junior high kids wondering why is there suffering and these questions like that. And I never asked. No one ever offered and said, you might be having questions. But I never asked.

I certainly don't blame anyone. But it was when I went to college, believe it or not, a secular college, that I started questioning and finding answers through that college fellowship and apologetic books. Know Why You Believe by Paul Little and Josh McDowell, just a huge influence as well. And to say, yeah, actually, it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian.

The New Testament documents are incredibly reliable, the most reliable ancient document there. And it ended up along the way really recommitting myself to the Lord and to say, C.S. Lewis has a quote, Christianity, if true, is of ultimate importance. If it's not true, it's of no importance.

The only thing it's not is moderately important. So either be in or be out, but don't just play the game and be lukewarm. And I actually believe since then, the Lord has shown me 2 Timothy 3.14. I believe this pattern is very typical for those who grew up in the Christian faith. So if you, 2 Timothy 3.14, Paul says to Timothy, as for you, continue in what you learned and became convinced of. And for me, I would say I learned the faith. I came to faith as a young child, but I became convinced in my college years. And when I'll do seminars, I'll ask people to raise your hand if you profess Christ at a young age.

You grew up in a Christian home. And then now keep your hands up if you would have, if you would say I had a later time when my faith became my own and 98 percent of the hands stay up. And so I think for me as a disciple maker to realize, oh, I'm so excited that my seven-year-old made a profession of faith.

I'm really excited about that. But now the temptation is to say, okay, now let's go pursue all the education and all these other things. We've got the Christian thing done. And to say, no, actually, even as my good child is going to church or whatever, they're going to have questions. And it really, there will be a time when they need to become convinced, whether sometimes it's through trials, sometimes it's through intellectual questioning, but where they're saying, yeah, I'm all in.

Yeah. And I think what you're saying is so true. I picked up a book when I was a young dad called The Dangers of Growing Up in a Christian Home. And I picked it up because I didn't grow up in a Christian home, but now I'm leading one.

So I thought, hmm, what are the dangers? And I don't remember much from the book, but I do remember that point was you have to, as a parent, let go. And their faith has to become theirs, not yours, because it's going to be their parents for quite a while.

At some point, they've got to become convinced and make it theirs. And a couple of weeks ago, we had this interesting incident take place in our home. I went to help my son who trains receivers. He was a college and NFL receiver for a short time. So he has this ministry or really training high school kids and he has dad come throw. I'm the thrower because I was a quarterback back in the day.

So I come and throw to these kids. So we're going to train this one kid at this certain school. I get a text from my son. We're going to be at a different school.

There's people on the thing. So we go to this other school and calls me and says, hey, I'm going to bring Bryce, my son's son. Who just happened to have spent that night on a whim that he just happened to spend the night. And I said, hey, Bryce would love to be in the football field. I'm going to bring him over. And so he said, well, we were here, but don't go there.

Go here. So I get over there and he says, don't park in this parking lot. Park in this other parking lot. Just to help her, it's going to be a lot closer.

And we're telling you all the details because they end up playing out in this story. Get done. Get home. Ann beats me home. She goes, hey, I found a wallet in the parking lot where you had me park. I go, I don't know where you park.

Yeah, there was anyway. Well, in this wallet, it's a college student because we're on a college. By the way, she has all the money laying in our on our kitchen table.

You went through this kid's wall. I was going to leave the wallet. But then I thought, oh, there's two hundred fifty dollars.

There's a couple of credit cards. And so I thought I'll find him on social media. I did. I call him and I said, hey, are you looking for your wallet? He goes, oh, man, yes, I've been looking all morning.

Did you find it? I give him our address. Say, come and get it.

We've got it. So I'm in the family room watching college football. I hear her give some kid our address. I come in the kitchen. I go, why did you give a stranger our address? You don't do that.

Meet him in a gas station. Whatever. Am I right, Bob? You're shaking your head like. Bob, stick up for me.

I'd find a happy medium. Anyway, next thing you know, ding dong. He's at the front door again.

I'm in the family room watching football. And I hear him go, Ann Wilson. And then he says, is Dave here?

And I'm like, what? So I get up and he's in the kitchen. He says, can I come in and talk to you guys?

By the way, one important fact. Before he got there, when I come out to say to Ann, why are you telling him our address? She has chocolate chip cookies for him on the kitchen counter. I'm like, what are you doing?

She has the gift of hospitality. No, no. Tell him what you said. I had been praying and I just had, have you ever had this sense? You know, you're thinking, is this you, Holy Spirit? I had this sense. This is going to be a significant moment in this kid's life. She tells me God's in this. And I'm like, whatever.

And I go back in and watch college football. He shows up, walks in our kitchen. He's pretty emotional. Really nice kid. Find out he's senior in college, getting ready to graduate.

Sort of really soft. And I'm watching this and I'm like, okay, what's going on? So I said, I said, dude, what is happening right now? And he goes, I can't believe I'm standing in your kitchen. I go to your church. I've been at your church since I was a baby. I've been there my entire life. My parents took me there.

I've worked at Christian camps. I've had this great faith journey and I've lost my faith. He goes, I just, six months ago, I said, this is my parents' faith.

It's not mine. He literally used those words. And he goes, I just recently started praying to God, I need a sign that you're real, that you see me, that you care about me, that you're real.

It's not, it needs to be my faith. Yeah. And he said, I'm done. And he just looks at us. He goes, this is the sign. And he looks, he goes, I'm all in. I'm, I'm going all in.

And of course, I'm looking at Ann like, she's right. You know, it was a God thing. He said, I made you these cookies because I felt like this could be a significant moment.

And it was interesting. We laid hands on him. We prayed for him. We social distanced, laid hands on him, just to be careful. He came in with a mask, though.

Yeah. But as we were praying, it was sweet because when we were done, I look over at Dave. We all have tears in our eyes. And Dave, tell him what you said to him. She looks at me. You know, my wife's like, look at you.

You're crying because I don't cry much. And we're standing at the door. He's getting ready to leave. And what hit me in that moment was, look what God did with a lost wallet.

And he doesn't know all the situations of how she ended up in that parking spot at that school. It was supposed to be totally different, but it just hit me. Look at what God did to bring a lost wallet and my wife together to touch a kid. That's a young man that needs to make his faith his own. And when you said that, I thought that was it. I watched it.

Now, who knows where that's going to go. But it was this moment when somebody's son. And he texted us later, by the way, and said, hey, I don't know if you remember this, but Dave, you married my parents 27 years ago. Wow. So I did their wedding. And here it was. It was that moment where a 20 year old young man says it's no longer my parents' faith.

I've got to own this. I'm thinking there may be some moms and dads who are going to pray tonight that their child loses their wallet. You know, seriously, it's not a bad prayer to pray that God would do something dramatic in the life of a son or a daughter who is questioning, who is wandering, who has lapsed, who is in that moment of doubt, or sometimes in a moment where the lure of the culture looks brighter and shinier than the gospel looks.

And kids in high school and college, young adults are drifting for a variety of reasons. And as parents, prayer is one of the main things we can do and just say, God, would you do something amazing like that in my child's life? And it's so encouraging, Bob, that we're not just discipling our kids alone. God is walking alongside us. He's cheering for our kids.

He's cheering for us. And it's just a good reminder that we can always talk to him about our kids because he cares more than we do. And the goal is disciple making. And that's what we've got to keep in front of us. Your job is to go, therefore, and make disciples of your children. And first become a disciple.

That's right. Teach them to observe all that God has commanded. And know that God's going to do it for you and with you and through you. Chap's book is a book that we think every parent ought to read. And in fact, Chap is making available the audiobook for Family Life Today listeners this week for free. So if you like audiobooks or if you want access for free to the content we've been talking about today, go to familylifetoday.com.

You'll find the information there on how you can download the audiobook, The Disciple Making Parent. If you'd like to order the paper book, that's available on our website as well. Go to familylifetoday.com.

If you have any questions, call us at 1-800-FL-TODAY. While you're on our website, check out the Art of Parenting video series. Family Life's resource designed to help couples get together and develop as a couple a strategic plan for raising each of your children.

Information about the Art of Parenting can be found at familylifetoday.com or you can call if you have any questions, 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. You know, I think all of us as we look toward this new year are looking with expectation, with hope. We're looking for 2021 to be a better year than 2020 was for many of us. And from all of us here at Family Life, we just want to say thank you to those of you who, in the closing days of 2020, rallied and made contributions to help support the ongoing work of this ministry. We are grateful for your partnership with us in the gospel. You are making practical biblical help and hope for marriages and families available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the resources of Family Life. Every time you give, that's what you're helping to support. So we appreciate you. Thanks for your support of the ministry. And we look forward to 2021 and what God is going to do through your investment in this ministry this year. And we hope you can join us again tomorrow as we're going to continue to talk about how we, as parents, make disciples of the next generation, particularly our own children. Chap Bettis will be back with us again. We hope you can be back as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.