Episode 181: Discipleship in the Home? | Andy Fetzer

Good morning. Run up here because in first service, Tim started the clock way too early, and I'm gonna need the entire hour. Just kidding.

Good morning, my name's Andy Fetzer. I work for Young Life. I have since I graduated from James Madison in 1997. Go Dukes.

I need to tell you a couple things. One, I am working on my seminary degree, and I don't have it yet. My family and I are members here of this church, active members, and I need to get ahead of this. I have to control the narrative. All of my kids play travel sports. I know. It is a deep, dark sin in our life, but that'll flesh itself out a little bit more.

I've been married to Becky Fetzer for over twenty years, and we have four kids. Our oldest is Liberty at JMU. Then I have two kids, Kane and Charlie at K Spring High School, and then Naomi is at the middle school, at K Spring Middle School. I've apologized to them preemptively about the things I'm gonna share this morning.

I've been asked to spend our time speaking about parenting and more specifically about family discipleship.

Now here's the disclaimer. You're like, "Oh, I don't have kids. I don't have to listen." No, you do. We're all in this together. It may be at first blush just a sermon for people who have kids and more specifically kids in the home, but it doesn't matter. If your kids have grown and they're older, you might be a grandparent. So this is for grandparents as well. You might be co-parenting. You might not be married to your kid's dad or mom. It doesn't matter. You might not have kids. There are kids that live nearby. We're all in this together.

To be completely honest, as I was prepping for this sermon, I wasn't really excited about it in this sense. I didn't wanna come across as somebody who was an expert in this because I'm not. As somebody who's figured this out because I'm not. This is something that I just struggled with for a long time thinking about how to share this. We still mess up a lot in our family. There's not a prescribed way of doing things and I'm gonna say some things that might be controversial. I may say things that are dogmatic or that you might be thinking that I'm saying there's only one way to think about these things. That's not what I'm saying because there's not a program, there's not a prescribed way of doing the things that will guarantee success in this arena, but the stakes are really high and they're too high for us to just kinda throw the towel in or to play that discipleship lottery with our kids that somebody else will come along and do our work for us. We can't do that.

So let me pray before we begin.

Lord, give us open hands and let's spiritually uncross our arms. Lord, I pray that you would come against a spirit of defensiveness or of shame or guilt or dejection, and I pray Lord that you would have for us with our humble hearts what you've entrusted us with. In Jesus' name, amen.

Leslie Fields—you don't know her—she wrote an article, "The Myth of Perfect Parenting," a long time ago, and in it she says this: "It is faith rather than a formula, grace rather than guarantees, steadfastness rather than success that bridges the gap between our own parenting efforts and what, by God's grace, our children grow up to become."

What do we want our children to become? What is our role as parents in that? And what are some practical things that we can do today to start thinking strategically about the discipleship of our own kids?

This is the fourth of four sermons about discipleship. We'll continue to talk about this because it's so important. We started with the Great Commission and we're gonna continue with the Great Commission. It's in Matthew 28. Jesus says:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you. And surely I will be with you always to the very end of the age. — Matthew 28

This commissioning, this Great Commission, isn't just for professional church workers. It's not just for parachurch leaders. It's for every single one of us. And we should probably start in our own sphere of influence, in our own homes, with our own children.

So the most important thing to teach our kids—and if I polled you and I've asked everybody, "What is what do we want? What's the one thing?"—everybody would come up with this: to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind. That was Jesus' answer when he was asked what's the most important thing. And he wasn't taking an Old Testament concept and revising it for a New Testament audience. This was his plan all along. After all, he was there in the beginning.

In Deuteronomy 6:5, it says this:

Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. — Deuteronomy 6:5

These commandments I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads, write them on the door frames of your houses and your gates.

What are we after? We're after the hearts of our children. For them to love the Lord, for them to know who they are and whose they are. Where does their worth really come from? Is it being the best on their team? Is it getting the scholarship? Is it being the smartest in their class? Getting the most likes on Snapchat? We would all say no, of course not, but we live as if that is true. We're deceived by the world thinking that those are things that give us worth.

And for a little while, the world will befriend your kids. The world will say, yeah, this is good stuff—for a little while until they have nothing more to offer the world. Make no mistake about it. The world hates your kids. Hates them.

Jesus said in John 15, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world. I have chosen you out of the world, and that is why the world hates you."

In First John 2, it says, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world."

We have to change our paradigm thinking that the world is our friend. It's not. The world does not give life. It takes it away. Only Jesus and his words give life.

In Deuteronomy 30, the Lord says, "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God. Listen to his voice, not the world's, and hold fast to him for the Lord is your life."

Being Intentional with Discipleship

How do we do this? We literally could spend the next 52 sermons talking about how to flesh this out. You may be thinking to yourself, I believe this, but I don't know exactly what it is you're asking me to do. Or you might say, I know what it is you're asking me to do. I just don't know how to do it.

Well, we're going to talk about some of those things, and in the end, I'll share a couple practical things. We'll still stay in the conceptual right now. And the first thing that I thought about is to be intentional with the discipleship of your own kids. Be intentional.

I'm not good at this. I much more prefer a casual approach, a more organic approach to discipleship. And oftentimes I read the Gospels and I think that Jesus just wandered about, and he said the right things, he just happened to meet the right people at the right place. And I don't give him credit for his intentionality.

Someone was mentioning not too long ago—they were talking about Luke 19. In the NIV it says that when Jesus reached the spot. This is the story of Jesus meeting Zacchaeus. Well, what's the spot? The spot's under the tree where Zacchaeus was. But if you know anything about the story, he was just passing through Jericho. He was on his way to Jerusalem. There's almost an intentionality about Jesus wanting to reach a certain place to meet a certain person on his way to the cross.

In John 4, Jesus shows up at a well and there's a Samaritan woman there—pretty random. Could have been any woman, except this woman was looking for a husband. She spent her life looking for the right husband. And there at Jacob's well, the place where in the Old Testament women met their husbands, she is having a conversation with the true bridegroom. Seemed pretty intentional.

Or John 5—just continuing on—he goes through the Sheep Gate, the gate where the animals go into Jerusalem to be sacrificed. Jesus goes through the Sheep Gate to meet a man who was paralyzed for thirty-eight years at the Pool of Bethesda. I'm pretty sure that guy wasn't like, "Thank God for coincidences." Jesus is intentional. He was intentional with us. We ought to be intentional with our own kids.

And that means being intentional means having meaningful words that we say, that we speak truth to our kids, that we remind them of God's love and mercy in their life. We tell our kids constantly the truest thing about them. The truest thing about them: that they are loved by the Lord.

When my kids were younger, I would ask them a question. I would say, "Who loves you the most?" And they'd say, "You, Daddy." As if it was a competition between me and Becky, and I was like, "Yeah, you're right. If it's that, I do love you more than Mom loves you." But I'd say, "No, no, no. Who loves you the most?" And they'd say, "Jesus does." I say, "You're darn right. Don't you forget it. Because here's a hard thing to imagine."

Jesus actually loves your kids more than you love your own kids, and that should give us confidence as parents because the one that loves our kids more than we do will never leave them, never forsake them.

Being intentional means having meaningful touch with our children as well. I'm not good at this, but Becky is. Just this week, one of our daughters failed, told a little lie, got really upset, and was crying. Becky drew her in and hugged her, reminded her of the truth about who she is, told her, "Hey, don't ever have to lie to us. Ever have to lie to us."

Meaningful touch also means holding a crown above their heads in which they can grow into. After all, they are sons and daughters of the king. What that means is we hold a crown above their heads that they can grow into. It's us dreaming the dreams that they can't dream themselves yet. It's having a vision for their life that they can't really picture yet. It's praying these radical prayers for our kids, holding a crown above their heads.

When they were younger and they were dancing around in princess outfits, my daughters, we'd be like, "Oh, that's so cute. Maybe one day they can grow up and marry an English prince." They're already royal. They're already sons and daughters of the king.

Teaching Our Children

The most important thing we teach our children is to love the Lord with everything they have. The second thing that we want to teach our kids—and this might be controversial—is to obey you. That they would have a spirit and a willingness to obey, to submit to your authority.

Now, if there are still kids here between the ages of zero and 18, this is for you. Kids, I know this is hard. It's difficult for you to obey your parents. There's almost something in us that makes it difficult for us to obey them, something that makes us want to fight against them.

They say they know what it's like to be your age, but they were your age a long time ago. When they were your age, they probably didn't even have cell phones. They probably didn't have social media. They had to go outside to find their fun. The world was smaller. They didn't worry about much. The only thing we worried about was getting into war with Russia.

But was it all that different? They didn't have their school canceled, their graduation canceled, their birthdays, their social life. They probably didn't have to wear masks in school, and they're probably not judged by whether they wear masks or not. Maybe there are some differences in the way that they encountered childhood than you are.

But here's what I want to tell you, kids. They're your parents. God ordained them to be your parents. Whether you were born from them or out of the abundance of their deep, deep love for you, they adopted you—God ordained them to be your parents, and God commands you to honor them.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord for it is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it will go well with you and that you may enjoy a long life on earth. — Ephesians 6

As long as it's not immoral or unethical, obey your parents.

Train up a child in the way that he or she should go, and when he or she is older, he won't turn from it. — Proverbs 22:6

This isn't a guarantee. It's prudent and wise living, but make no mistake about it. If we're not intentional about this, it's not going to happen by accident.

And parents, let's be wise in what we're actually asking our kids to honor us in because rules without relationship will lead to rebellion. I know this is one of the reasons why this sermon's difficult. It's because I'm sharing stuff that I don't want bull's eyes on my kids when they mess up, because they will. I don't want people to look at me and Becky differently when we mess up as parents, because we will.

In the Fetzer household, we have a rule—a hard and fast rule that's been there since day one. It's not broken much anymore at all. In the early days, it was broken. And here's the rule, and all the rules in the family actually filter through this one rule: No one speaks ill of the queen. No one sasses mom. No one talks back to mom. No one rolls their eyes at mom at all.

And I remember saying, and I meant it at the time and I still do, these words: if they were to disobey in this area, if you think that this behavior is acceptable in this house, I will make your life miserable. I will take everything away from you that you hold dear until you come to a point in your life where you realize that what I'm asking you is not negotiable. No one speaks ill of the queen. Am I a dictator? Maybe, but I don't care. I want them to respect their mom and that's not up for negotiation.

Key Concepts for Discipleship in the Home

So here are a couple concepts. They're still not practical, but here are a couple concepts that flow through that. One is we're not training up robots. We're not training up kids like the Von Trapps in The Sound of Music. We're training up kids to be obedient to us because it's a spiritually significant thing. If they can be obedient to us, it's much easier for them to be obedient to the Lord, which is the ultimate goal. We want them to be obedient to the Lord. Their obedience to the Lord is tied up in their love for the Lord.

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father and I too will love him and show myself to him. — John 14:21

Obedience and love go together.

Another concept is first time obedience is what I'm after. When they hear what they need to do and they do it right away with a happy heart, that's what I'm after. You might count, and if you count, that's fine. We don't count in the Fetzer family. I think when they were younger, I did and I was like, I'm not doing this anymore because I'll count to a thousand, I guess. But what I want them to do at the first second is exactly what I want them to do at the first second. I'm not going to wait and I don't want to wait. I want to say it and be done with it. I know that sounds controversial, but we don't count. I want them to have obedience right away.

Another concept is to celebrate those victories that you do see. Years ago, Cain was probably seven or eight years old and we heard dishes clinging in the kitchen and it was early Saturday morning. I was still in bed. Becky was still in bed. We were like, what the heck is that? We went in the kitchen and Cain was emptying the dishwasher. It's 7:00 in the morning. I said, "What are you doing?" He's like, "Is there anything else I can do to help around the house?" Nice. Cain could not do anything wrong for a long time after that. I think I was like, "You know what? Let's get some ice cream." And we were watching cartoons with ice cream. It was like, this is the greatest thing.

Kids, here's some free advice: get caught doing something like that. It'll make your life a lot easier. Try to tell high school kids that. They're like, "What?" I was like, "Take out the garbage." And they're like, "What?" I was like, "You want to make your mom crazy? Make your bed." They're like, "I don't know."

Another concept is to follow through. Your words mean something.

By your words, you will be acquitted and by your words, you'll be condemned. You'll be judged for every careless word you have spoken. Let your yes be yes, your no be no. — Matthew 12

What this means is make sure that the words that you say, you're going to follow through with. So if you say, "If you do that one more time, you're not getting dessert," a really bad thing would be if they did it one more time and you gave them dessert, because it teaches them that your words don't really matter. So be really smart in what you're actually going to say. If you say something like, "If you do that again, you'll be grounded for a year," you gotta make sure that you really mean that.

And the last concept is sibling affection. In my line of work, I see kids. I see brothers and sisters and brothers and brothers. I see family members connect a lot and I see the way that they treat each other. And for the most part, I'm like, I don't want my kids to ever talk like that about their brothers and sisters. I want them to love one another. I want them to cherish one another. This is hard work, but it's worth it because siblings that bite at each other—and you know this to be the case—siblings that fight and bite against each other create chaos for the entire household. But siblings that love each other, I mean, it's harmony. It's beautiful. It's great. And when the queen's happy, everybody's happy.

On Tuesday night, I went to a Cave Spring Hidden Valley basketball game. It was not a great game if you're a Hidden Valley fan. I say that because Cave Spring this year is phenomenal. They're crushing everybody in basketball. I went to this game as a volunteer leader. I lead Young Life at Hidden Valley. Some of the very few times I get to see my kids in the line of work is the Hidden Valley Cave Spring game.

And I was there on the Hidden Valley side watching Hidden Valley get pounced, and there wasn't much joy in that, but there was one particular joy that I did get to witness. I was sitting next to Alex Shima, who's a volunteer Young Life leader, and we were near the student section, meeting some kids, dabbing them up. In the midst of Hidden Valley getting destroyed, I look across the gym—because we're sitting right across from the Cave Springs student section—and my son, who's a junior, is standing shoulder to shoulder with Charlie, my daughter who's a freshman. The whole game. They were with each other. He drove her to the game. He drove her home from the game.

Friends will come and go, but siblings are blood. It's so important for our kids to honor one another in that as well, to teach our older kids to serve the family by serving the younger kids.

Practical Discipleship in Your Home

So what are the practicals of discipling our kids? Something that you can do starting tomorrow if you're not doing this already. It's pretty simple, and it's hard to start, but once you start, it's like you've never not done it. I wish I started this when Liberty was young, when Liberty was a baby.

We find out what time the earliest person leaves the house. In our case, it's 6:50 AM. Becky leaves to go teach. So at 6:30, everyone's required to be in the living room with their Bibles. Sometimes it's Cain and me, wiping the sleep out of our eyes and sitting down there. Cain doesn't have to leave for another hour, hour and a half, but everybody's required to be in the living room at 6:30 with our Bibles.

Someone prays a really short prayer about us being attentive and awake, and then we start to read. Presently we're in the Psalms, but often we'll just read a gospel straight through. We pick a portion to read. One person will start—usually Charlie, because she loves to hear her voice—and she'll read a verse. Then working counterclockwise, everybody will read a verse, and we keep going around until we're done.

You're just like, "That's not very hard." No, it's not. The word of God is spoken audibly in my house, in that living room. It's one of the last things they do before they leave the house. But not yet, because when we're done, dad prays. Dad prays.

Let me just tell you, I hate to say this, but if you're not praying for your kids, who is? Who's praying for your kids? Lift your kids up in prayer, and let them hear you say those prayers.

Lord, bless my kids today. Be with them. Protect them. Remind them of who they are. They're gonna go into a dark place, Lord. Let them be the light in a dark place. Give them the eyes that you have, Lord, for kids that they might come into contact with that aren't loved, that aren't lovable. Lord, give them courage to enter into those relationships.

When they hear their father pray those things, it's true. They start to think about those things. And then the last thing that's done before we scatter to the four winds, before the chaotic day starts—each one of my kids has to say out loud who they are. And it's rote. It's the same thing every morning, but it's powerful. They have to say their full name, who their parents are, and two things about who they are in the Lord.

And again, it's rote. I casted lots to figure out which one of my kids was going to be embarrassed in this section, and it's Charlie. So this is what Charlie says when it gets to her—and we go oldest to youngest of those still living in the house:

"My name is Charlotte Virginia Fetzer, born of Andy and Becky Fetzer. Daughter of the king and child of the most high God."

All of them do that. Do you think my kids are beginning to understand who they are really, truly? Better believe it.

There may be a time where they start to fight a little bit with each other. All I have to do in a lovingly way is say, "Who are you?" Not in a condemning way, not in a shame-ridden way, not in a guilt way, but I say, "Who are you?" And they immediately think, "Oh, a child of the king doesn't act like this toward another of the king's kids."

Try it out. You really have nothing to lose, and let me know how it goes.

I'm gonna pray just a second, but I wanted to remind you, right after I'm done praying, the rails are open. The round rail is for those of you who want to respond by yourself—maybe the Lord's impressing something on your heart. The straight rails on the side are for folks who would like somebody to pray with them.

Let me pray for us and we'll be done.

Jesus, thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your grace, especially in this area. Lord, help us to be folks, adults, who are obedient to the call in our life to disciple our kids.

And Lord, if we're kids in here, help us to honor our parents. And we really do at the end of the day. We wanna honor them.

Lord, thank you. Thank you for the way that you love us. Thank you for who we are in you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.