First Baptist Church of Tampa Sermons

S1 E20: Train Them Up

• First Baptist Church of Tampa • Season 1 • Episode 20

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Sermon Overview

Series: Fathers Day

Title: Train Them Up

Text: Luke 10:38-42

Date: June 21st, 2026

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO THRIVE?

We want to help every person make a genuine commitment to follow Jesus and then follow through with that commitment in Connecting People to a Thriving Life in Christ. These Thriving disciples should Dig In to the Bible, Grow Up in Christ, and Branch Outinto the community.

Our Mission: To Connect People to a Thriving Life in Christ. What is a thriving life in Christ? Scripture says that Jesus Christ came “that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Our mission in the city of Tampa is to make disciples who follow the pattern of the believer in Psalm 1 and desire God’s glory above all things.

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SPEAKER_00

Thank you. As you're being seated, if you would join me in the Gospel of Luke this morning, Luke chapter 10, we're gonna look at just the last few verses of that chapter. We're gonna be on page 932 in the Pew Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, we want you to use that one today and then take it home as our gift to you. Luke chapter 10. We're taking a break from Mark. We'll come back to Mark in the near future. But wanted to do a special message this morning in honor of our fathers and on Father's Day. And so I started looking through my sermon files to see if I had one that I could brush up on or rewrite a little bit and began to dig through my files. Now, having done this for quite a while, I have an extensive set of files on sermons, and they look different. When I first started writing sermons, I wrote them out in long hand on yellow legal paper, and then I put them in a manila envelope and they're in a file folder in a drawer. As technology advanced, I advanced. I began to use a computer and then I'd save them on floppy disks, and now I have some on floppy disks, which don't do me a bit of good now at all. But I also then started to save them in the cloud. But I'm so old school, I still print out all of my manuscripts and I put them in folders. And so if you come into my office, you'll see a uh several shelves just filled with white folders with the spine with the title of the message uh on it or the title of the sermon series on it. And so I store all my sermons so I can go back and look at them from time to time. If you're interested, Mark has four folders just for this sermon series that we've been on for the last year and a half. And I pulled out a message as I was going through dated May the 5th, 1997. The title of the message was Preparation for Parenthood. And let me just give you a little context for what was happening in my life in May of 1997. I'd been in ministry for right at 10 years at that point. Darlene and I had been married for a little over three years at that point. I was serving as the associate pastor at the Carrollwood Baptist Church up in North Tampa. Had the privilege of serving there for many years. And Darlene was pregnant with our first child at the time. In fact, Ryan would be born less than two months after I preached this message. And so the weight of being a first-time parent was weighing heavily on me at that point. I'd been a student minister for several years, and seeing all that happens in student lives, I wondered, oh boy, am I ready for this for one of my own? And I began to question, what does that look like? And so when I was assigned the task of preaching on that particular Sunday, all I could think about was parenting. And my question that morning was, what does a Christian home look like? Do I have what it takes? Do I have what a child would need in order to succeed in life? These were my thoughts as I wrote this message. Now, I'll be honest with you, as I read it, it hurt a little bit because with God's goodness and grace, I'm a better preacher now than I was 30 years ago. So I've changed quite a bit of this message, correcting it, making it better, but this is the impetus of where it came from. The opening illustration started this way: an ICBM is an intercontinental ballistic missile. These missiles can carry huge payloads, oftentimes nuclear payloads, traveling from one continent to another in under 30 minutes. When they're fired, they are nearly impossible to shoot down, and they have extremely, extremely good accuracy. When they are fired at a target, they typically hit their target. They do so because they have an advanced guidance system on them called the inertial navigation system. The inertial navigation system includes gyroscopes and accelerometers and onboard computers so that when the missile is launched, it's going to land where you pointed it and expect it to land. Can you imagine for a moment firing a missile with so much power that did not have a guidance system on it? Can you imagine shooting a missile off into the air going, I hope it hits somewhere in this general region, but I really don't know where it's going to land. Our children are messengers that we send to a time that we may not see. As parents, it is our job to give our children a guidance system that points them and directs them to the right place. And there are so many things that pull our children off of the path. So many things pull them off of hitting the target. Their own sinfulness will do so. Pressures of their peers will do so. Cultural influence will do so. Misplaced dreams will do so. There are so many things that pull our children off of the guidance. And my question as I wrote this message 30 years ago was do I have the guidance system that my boys are going to need? That my boys are going to require in order to live a life of knowing God, loving God, trusting Him, and serving Him. 30 years ago, I don't know that I had with confidence an answer to that question. I can stand resolutely before you today, 30 years later, saying, I do. Not because Darlene and I were perfect parents by any stretch of the imagination. We we struggled along the way, and quite honestly, 30 years into it, we still struggle as parents along the way sometimes. But we were able to point our children in the one direction that they needed to go, to the one source that they needed to have, to the one guidance system that would not fail them. And we did so because we had the Word of God and we lived by it and we trusted in it and we shared it. We did so because we were both blessed to be in families who taught us what it meant to be in a right relationship with Jesus Christ. We were blessed to be raised in families that showed us the right direction. The family is foundational for society. As the family goes, society goes. This is God's design. God ordained, God designed families. They help us both horizontally as we learn to interact with one another. And our families are supposed to help us interact vertically with God. When families are going well, we learn from both of these directions. Many families, many parents feel overwhelmed by this and they go with the we'll figure it out as we go philosophy. Unfortunately, a figure out as we go philosophy often leads to conflict, tragedy, uncertainty. Others take an even more hands-off approach and say the kids will figure it out as they go along. That's even more tragic along the way. God has commanded us as parents. He has called upon us to not try to figure it out as we go, but to follow his guidance as we lead our children. Proverbs chapter 22, verse 7. Many of you know this one by heart. Some of you as parents and grandparents are clinging to this one where it says, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is older, he will not depart from it. Deuteronomy chapter 6. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, and when you lie down and when you get up. Teach them diligently to your children. Psalm 78. My people hear my teaching, listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth with a parable, I will utter hidden things, things from of old, things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their descendants. We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power and the wonders he has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded the ancestors to teach their children, so that the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds, but would keep his commandments. We go to the New Testament. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may go well with you, and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. Fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and the instruction of the Lord. Ephesians chapter 6, verses 1 through 4. God has not called us to make it up as we go. God has not called us to figure it out as we're going along. God has called us to follow his commandments and to teach them diligently to our children so that they would come to know him, love him, trust him, and to serve him. So, parents and grandparents, in the short time that I have this morning, my question this morning is what does that look like? What does it look like to do that in the home? From a practical standpoint, what does that look like to teach our children? To encourage them, to train them in righteousness. The text I've had us turn to is Luke chapter 10, verses 38 through 42. If some of you have looked at it already, you're thinking, where is he going with this text? This doesn't have anything to do with parents, but I do think it has everything to do with a godly home. If you're willing and able, would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word together? As we find four characteristics of a godly home. Now, as Jesus was traveling along, he entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister called Mary who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to his word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations, and she came up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me. But the Lord answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary. For Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Father, bless the reading of your word. Help us to see characteristics of a godly home that we can pass on to our children, our grandchildren. Lord, change what needs to be changed in our lives today, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. Just quickly this morning, four characteristics of a godly family that I see in this text that have helped me and helped Darlene in our journey in being parents and now grandparents. Jesus was traveling along and he came to a town of Bethany. There in Bethany, he had some dear friends, a man by the name of Lazarus and two sisters, Mary and Martha. Whenever Jesus traveled to Jerusalem, he often stayed in their home in Bethany. Bethany was over by the Mount of Olives. It was just a Sabbath's walk away from Jerusalem, a very close journey. So whenever Jesus would travel to Jerusalem, he often used their home as a respite, a place of rest. It was close enough that he could get to the temple, he could get to Jerusalem and have the conversations he needed to have and teach and do the ministry that he needed to do, but it was far enough away that he could pull away and get away from the crowds and rest for a little while. And so he comes to this home. The first thing I want you to see is that Jesus was welcomed into this home. A godly home is a home in which Jesus is welcomed. Luke just tells us simply that Martha went out and welcomed Jesus into their home. You say, Pastor, don't read too much into this. I say, don't read not enough into this. It wasn't always popular to invite Jesus into their homes. Jesus was popular amongst most of the crowd. The crowd loved Jesus because Jesus fed them. Jesus performed miracles for them. Some of them thought he was the Messiah, some of them were encouraged by him, but not everybody. Not everybody liked Jesus. In fact, the religious leaders of the day were seeking to destroy Jesus. As we've seen in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus holds them accountable. Jesus holds them accountable for what they've done with religion, with what they've done with the rituals that God had given to the nation in order to draw them closer to him. They had turned it into this self-righteous, works-based thing that kept people away from God, and Jesus called them out for it. And they disliked him. They hated him. They wanted to destroy him. In fact, anybody that stood up for Jesus often had trouble with the Pharisees of the day, with the religious leaders of the day. There's a story in John chapter 9 of about a man who had been born blind. And Jesus heals that man. And the religious leaders come up to the man and say, Which one of these people healed you? And he says, I don't know, I was blind. I couldn't see him. And they begin to ask him more questions and they say, Oh, isn't this interesting? Wouldn't you like to become one of his followers as well? And they get so mad at the man, they kick him out of the synagogue. Allow him to be part of their society anymore. There's another man by the name of Nicodemus. John chapter 3. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. But Nicodemus was so intrigued by Jesus that he had to go and talk to Jesus and ask Jesus questions, but he did it in a clandestine way. He did it at night because if he he knew that if they found out that he was talking to Jesus, that would be it for him. He would be cast out. Lazarus, Jesus' dear friend, whose home he is invited into. You may be familiar with Lazarus, at least that name. In this home, Jesus had gone earlier. Because Lazarus had become sick. In fact, Lazarus died. And Jesus delayed his return to the home, and the two sisters said, Master, if you had just been here, your dear brother would not have died. And Jesus said, You know he's going to live again, right? And they said, Well, yeah, he's going to live again in the resurrection. We know that. And Jesus said to them in John chapter 11, I am the resurrection and life. Who who believes in me will not die, he will live. Do you believe this? He said, Yes, we believe you're the Messiah. And he said, Where is he laid? And they took him to the grave, and Jesus said, Take the stone away. And Martha says, It's been four days, Master. It's going to smell badly. And Jesus said, Didn't I not ask you if you believed? And then with a loud voice he cried out, calling him by name, Lazarus come forth. And Lazarus came out of the grave. They unraveled the grave clothes and he went on with his life. In John chapter 12, here's what we read: Jesus is eating a meal in this same home. Lazarus is there. Jesus is there. Mary comes and breaks an alabaster jar of perfume and pours it out on Jesus in worship. And the Pharisees are upset about all that is taking place. And not only do they want to destroy Jesus, do you know who else they want to destroy? Lazarus. Because Lazarus is testifying about Jesus Christ. Here's my point. Jesus is not welcomed in every home. Because in every home, they've weighed the cost and they've determined whether it is worth the cost to be connected to the name of Jesus Christ or not. They've weighed out and said, maybe it's not worth making it known that I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, because that might jeopardize my standing in society. That might jeopardize my standing in the synagogue. That might jeopardize my standing with my peer group. Jesus was not welcomed in every home, but he was welcomed in this home. And a Christian home is one in which Jesus is welcomed. He is not avoided. He is not talked about in hushed tones. He is not ignored. As I quoted earlier, Joshua chapter 24, verse 15, you can choose who you will serve, either the gods of this earth or, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Is your home a home in which Jesus is welcomed? Is he welcomed? Not only was he welcomed in this home, but once he was in this home, he felt welcomed in the home. What's the difference? Not only was he welcomed into the home, but once he got there, there weren't things in that home that made him feel uncomfortable. There weren't things in that home that made him feel like he shouldn't stay. Often Darlene and I enjoy hosting people at our home. And whenever we do, we make sure to clean the place. You know, you got guests coming over. You can't have your dirty laundry laying out on the floor. You gotta clean up your house. You gotta get the dust and the dirt and you clean it up. How much more when Jesus Christ comes to visit, do I need to clean up? Because did you know that Jesus doesn't live in a temple made with human hands? But Jesus Christ takes up residence in our hearts. How much more do I need to clean up the things in my life because Jesus comes and resides within me? If Jesus were to walk into your home, would he feel welcomed there? Are there things in your home and your family that he would be uncomfortable around? That he would not approve of? Robert Munger wrote a small little booklet entitled My Heart, Christ's Home, that I found very helpful in my life over the years, in which he compares my own life to the rooms of my house, and he says, Is Jesus welcomed in the rooms of your house? He says, if if you have a library, is Jesus welcomed in your library? The library represents where all your books are, where all your thinking is, where your knowledge is. Would Jesus be welcomed into what you think about most of the time? He talked about the living room. He says the living room is where you have fellowship. It's where you have socialization with other people. Is Jesus welcomed in your fellowship? Is Jesus welcomed into the people that you socialize with? That's not to say we can't have friendships with unbelievers. It's just simply, are your relationships God honoring that He would be welcomed in them? He talks about the dining room. Dining room represents our appetites, the things that we hunger for. Would Jesus feel welcomed for the things that you hunger for? That you strive for? Talked about the garage or the workshop. This is where you use your talents, your free time. What do you feel welcome in what you use your abilities towards? What do you feel welcome in what you use your free time towards? Talked about the bedroom. The bedroom is where your most intimate times are. When nobody else is looking. He mentions a closet. He said the closet is where you keep things where you don't want anybody else to see them. Closet's where you keep your stuff from the past. Would Jesus feel comfortable opening up your closet door and seeing what's inside? Talked about the bathroom. The bathroom's where you go to get cleaned up. Would Jesus feel welcomed into your home? And once he's there, would he be welcomed amongst what is there? A godly home welcomes Jesus, a godly home worships Jesus. Not only did Martha welcome them into their home, but Mary we find sitting at his feet when Jesus came into the home. She was there and she unapologetically just sat in front of Jesus and listened to whatever he had to say. He just wanted, she just wanted to worship him. He wasn't just a guest in their home. He wasn't just a special guest. He was the honored guest. And she wanted to hear what he had to say. So she sat there. This is the same Mary who would break open that jar of perfume and pour it out on Jesus' feet. She did so because she knew who Mary was. She did so because she knew who Jesus was. She did so because she knew what Jesus had done for her family. Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus had raised her brother from the dead. Jesus had brought life into her home, and she did not care who knew about it. In fact, everybody who came into her home knew who Jesus was, knew what Jesus meant to her. Everybody who came into her home knew what Jesus had done for her family. She just simply worshiped him, unashamedly. Oh, that our homes would be a place where Jesus is not only welcomed, but Jesus is worshipped. Where we worship Jesus privately and our homes like we do publicly in our churches. Is our home a place where Jesus is welcomed and worshipped? Is our home a place where Jesus is served, verse 40? Mary sat and she worshiped by listening. Martha served Jesus by serving. There are some people who worship Jesus simply by sitting at his feet and listening to him. There are other people who are more active and they want to serve. Now hear me, these are not mutually exclusive. Mary and Martha were both right. Mary was right to worship. Martha was right to serve. She served indirectly by serving people directly. Both of them were right. But they're not mutually exclusive. You cannot just sit at Jesus' feet without serving, and you can't serve without sitting at Jesus' feet. They're at a time when we sit at his feet and we worship him, and out of the overflow of gratitude, out of the overflow of grace in our lives, then we go and serve him. And our homes ought to reflect a place where Jesus is served. The home in which I grew up was this type of home. My sister and I were blessed to have parents who demonstrated a love for Christ by serving other people through the local church. I cannot remember a time in my life where we were not actively involved in a church where our parents were not somehow serving other people, either as a teacher or a secretary or a deacon or a Bible study leader, serving as janitors in the church at a time because the church didn't have a janitor. They did whatever was necessary, and my sister and I observed people who loved the Lord and served him, not only in the church, but at home. Martha served him. She served him wholeheartedly. She was determined she was going to do a good job. She wasn't going to do a halfway job in her service to Jesus. Colossians chapter 3 says, Whatever you do, do it as serving unto the Lord. Matthew chapter 25, verse 40 says, Whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord. When your children see your home, do they see Jesus being served there? Do they see you using your time in service of the Lord? Do they see you using your talents and abilities in service of the Lord? Do they see you using the treasures that God has blessed you with in service of the Lord? Do they see you using all of those things and how you treat other people? Someone wisely taught me a long time ago. They said, Show me your calendar and show me your checking account, and I will tell you what you serve. If I were to ask you to show me your calendar and what you spend your money on, I wonder if it would reveal that your home is one that serves the Lord. A Christian home is one that Jesus is worshipped and welcomed. It is one where Jesus is served. It's also one where Jesus is heated. Verse 39. I'm gonna wrap up quickly here. I've always found this interaction between Martha and Mary and Jesus somewhat humorous. There is a conflict going on. Martha is trying to serve the Lord. Mary is trying to worship the Lord, and Martha is not happy about how Mary is going about her worship of the Lord. Martha thinks Mary should get up. She is wasting her time and she needs to help with the service. And I just imagine this in my consecrated little brain what this looked like. I imagine Mary sitting there as Jesus is teaching, and Martha increasingly getting angry as she carries in more platters and more pitchers of food. Each time trying to get her sister's attention away from the Lord, at first very subtly, maybe with a clearing of the throat, and then more abruptly, with a banging of a pot or the dropping of a platter. Eventually she gets so tired of it that she just says, Jesus, would you please tell my sister to get up and help me serve? Surely she thought she had an ally in Jesus. She thought she was in the right. She thought Jesus would say, You know what, Martha, I'm sorry, you're right. Mary, what are you doing? Get up and go help your sister. But that is not at all what happens, is it? Jesus said, Martha, Martha, my dear sister, you are worried about so many things. But your sister is worried about the most important thing. And I'm not taking that away from her. And best I can tell, Martha not only went to Jesus as the authority, which she was right to do. She said, I need an arbiter in this situation. I think this is right. My sister thinks this is right. I'm going to go to the one who I know knows what's right. I'm going to go to Jesus and find out. You're the authority, Jesus. What should we do in this? Not only did she go to the right authority, she heeded the right authority. She did what he said. Let me encourage you that a family that glorifies God, that provides a guidance system for their children, recognizes that the word of God is the authority in the home. It's not the leader's decision. It's not what society says. It's not what a counselor says. It's not what a book says. It's what does the word of God say? That's the authority. But it's one thing that thing to say that the word of God is the authority in my home. It's another thing to heed the word of God, even when it goes against what you want it to say. Because I'm sure Martha was not really pleased with the response that she got from Jesus. In fact, I'm sure it bruised her ego a little bit, and yet she heed it. Is God's word the authority in your family? Are you teaching your children that what God says goes? Even if it cost me something, even if it is hard for me to follow it, even if I don't understand it completely, even if it bruises my ego, what he says goes. They heed the Lord. And finally, I want you to see this. They exalt the Lord. Martha, what you're doing is good. Martha, your serving is good. But what Mary's doing is the best thing. What Mary's doing is putting me in the proper place in your home. What Mary's doing is putting me in the proper place in her life. Mary is not treating me as just any guest. Mary is not giving me a place in your home. Mary is not giving me a prominent place in your home. Mary has given me the preeminent place in your home. And I'm not going to take that away from her. Jesus was exalted in this place. He was not something added. He was not something that was put in if it fit the rest of their busy schedule. He was preeminent in this home. It was the most important thing in the home. What's the most important thing in your home? You may have an answer, but I wonder if I were to ask your children what their answer would be. You may say, I think this is the most important thing in my home. Yeah, Jesus is the most important thing in my home. Our relationship with Christ is the most important thing in our home. I wonder if I asked your children, would they have the same response? I wonder if I asked my own children for many years if they would have had the same response. What is talked about most in your home? What is celebrated most in your home? What is emphasized most in your home? Jesus does not deserve a part in your family. Jesus does not deserve a prominent place in your family. Jesus deserves the preeminent place in your family. And that must be demonstrated to our children so that they recognize that Jesus isn't just something you tack on with all the other gods that are presented to you in the world. He's just not added to all the other things you're going to become a part of in this world. He directs all of it. Children are messengers that we send to a time we may never see. Wouldn't it be tragic to send them without a guidance system? And yet so many children live under the philosophy of we'll make it up as we go, we'll figure it out as we go. Or even worse, we'll let them get old enough and then we'll let them figure it out as they go. God has commanded us as parents, God has commanded us as grandparents, God has commanded us to raise our children, to know him, love him, trust him, and to serve him. And to do that, we need homes. We need homes where Jesus is welcomed, where we are unashamed to say we're followers of Jesus Christ. No matter what the cost, Jesus is welcomed in this home. And Jesus will feel welcomed in this home. We're not going to allow things in this home that are going to tarnish him or his reputation. In this home, we're going to serve Jesus. We're going to give him wholehearted service. We're going to serve him indirectly by directly serving others. In this home, we're going to worship Jesus. We're going to worship him at home like we do at church. We're going to worship him with all of our hearts. And Jesus is the authority in our home. What he says goes. Even if it costs me, even if it hurts my pride, even if I don't completely understand it. And Jesus is exalted in this home. He is worthy of being in a preeminent place on the throne of our lives, on the throne of our family, because he is the guidance system that we need.