The World-Changing Impact of a Christ-Centered Home

Bill Elliff: We're so glad you're here. I'm Bill Elliff, and this is my wife, Holly. I was just thinking this morning, as we were preparing for this, I never dreamed forty-five years ago when I saw that really cute girl with the short hair, sitting behind me in homeroom, that was just kind of blossoming in the ninth grade and took my breath away a little bit, that I would spend forty years married to her and have eight kids and six grandkids at present, and counting.

I never dreamed that we would be on the adventure the Lord has taken us on through the years—it's been quite an adventure.

Holly Elliff: It really has been an adventure. For those of you who think we are doing this session because we have the model, normal family, I can assure you that there is nothing normal about our family.

You heard Billy say we have eight kids. I can remember after our eighth one was born, we all went to the mall, and I turned around and looked at Billy and I said, "People are staring at us." And he said, "Well, they're trying to decide if we're a tour group or something." But it was just us with our kids.

Bill: We always wanted to get shirts made that said all the answers to the stupid questions: "Yes, we know what causes this."

Holly: "No, we're not Catholic, no we're not Mormon. We're just plain ole Southern Baptist." This will help you understand my life a little—the very first time I ever recorded on Revive Our Hearts with Nancy, we were just getting ready to go on the air, and I got a phone call from my oldest daughter, who said, "Mom, what do I do? The little kids have all taken their mattresses out to the front yard and they're sliding down the hill."

I hung up the phone, and Nancy said, "What was that?" And I said, "You don't want to know."

Bill: It's kind of gone like that ever since. The Lord has taken us through low times and hard times and suffering and great mountains, like He does every family. But along the way somewhere God really hijacked us. He gripped us with a burden to see our world change for the glory of God.

He put something inside of us that helped us realize that really our first church and our primary tool for seeing that happen was our family, was our home. That's what we're going to talk about this morning. I wonder, as we begin, Holly, would you just lead us in a word of prayer?

Let's ask for the Lord's presence as He speaks to us today.

Holly: Father, today we just acknowledge that there is no truth we can deliver that will change any life. Lord, we ask You to just show up here. We need Your presence. Father, by Your Spirit and through Your Word, would You give us instruction?

We ask that You would give us ears to hear what You want us to hear, and Lord, would You take these words and interpret them in the way You know that each woman needs to hear them? We ask You to do that in Jesus' name. Amen.

Bill: On Sunday, December 26, 2004, the day after Christmas, the third largest earthquake ever recorded in human history happened on the sub-floor of the Indian Ocean and had a magnitude on the Richter Scale of 9.1. You remember this moment because it was the longest duration of faulting that was ever observed.

It went on for about ten minutes under the ground. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as four tenths of an inch, which was an amazing thing. The result was it created a tsunami and that tsunami started at the epicenter, and then it just went over hundreds and hundreds of miles.

Finally when it hit a solid object, it hit fourteen different countries and created tidal waves, or tsunami waves, that were over a hundred feet tall. Over 230,000 people were killed in just a brief period of time. One of the greatest tragedies was that over a third of those were children.

Ladies, we don't need to convince you of that fact that in our nation today, in our world, we need a spiritual tsunami. We need something that would change the world, amen? Something that would make things change. "Spiritual tsunamis," as we're going to see today, start with a white-hot core that creates momentum and literally changes the world.

If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn with us to 2 Timothy 1. We're going to look at the story of three generations of a family that were part of a group of people in the first century that literally changed the world. They probably had no idea the ramifications of what they were doing, but the reality is that what happened in this family—and other families like them in the first century—is affecting you this afternoon as you sit here in your chair.

It's a family of a grandmother and a mother and a son named Timothy. Let's read the text together, if we could, beginning in 2 Timothy 1:1:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my beloved son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy. For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well. For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.

Therefore, don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I'm not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Retain the standard of sound words which you've heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you (1 Tim. 1:1–14).

Then look down in 2 Timothy 2:1, "You, therefore, my son." Paul felt like Timothy was as much of his family as much as anybody else. Over four or five times he calls him, "My son, my true child, my true child in the faith."

So here's Paul, in a father's role, saying, "My son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2:1–2).

Holly: Now, girls, you know when we cook, it's really critical for us to have the right ingredients, right? It doesn't turn out well if you don't. My daughter has had some experimental dishes that were interesting. She one time made a birthday cake where the candles sunk as we were singing "Happy Birthday."

We never figured out what she did wrong, but it didn't work because the essential components were not there. So today as we look at this passage, we want to look at some essential components for our homes becoming that epicenter.

Second Timothy 2:5 starts with a picture of that white-hot core, that epicenter, that we want to see. As Paul traveled to a town called Lystra, he met a family, and in this verse we get to meet them too. There's Lois, who is a grandmother and a mother. We know that Lois was Jewish. We know that her daughter, Eunice, was also Jewish.

Eunice was married to a Greek man, and as far as we know, he was not a believer. We know that she was mother to an adult son, at this point, named Timothy. We learn something else about them. Lois and Eunice possessed something priceless. Because Paul calls it a sincere faith.

The word "sincere" in the Webster's 1828 Dictionary—the original one (it's one of my favorites)—is very interesting. What it really means is totally pure. It's the idea of "honey without wax." That's the illustration they use.

I can remember watching my uncle haul in a big bucket of raw honey in a big metal pail and putting that down in front of me. I can vividly remember looking in that bucket and it had bees, and it had bee parts, and it had bark, and it had all this stuff kind of floating on the top.

I had only seen honey in the little cute bear—you know the little plastic bear. That's the only way I had ever experienced honey, and I can vividly remember looking in that bucket and thinking, I will never eat that again. But what happened was that my uncle took that honey, and he processed it through a series of sieves. He poured it through one, and the bark was all gone. He poured it through another one, and the bees were gone. And he poured it through another one, and the bee parts were gone.

Then finally, all that stuff floating on the top was gone, and he finally had honey that was just pure—no wax, no bees, no bee parts. It was pure. That's the picture of this word sincere that Paul uses, of the type of faith that Lois and Eunice had. The definition goes on to say that sincere means "being in reality exactly what it appears to be."

It's not something that you put on or assume for the sake of appearance, it's not hypocritical, it's not pretentious. Actually, it's very similar to the definition of another word, and that word means "original," "fundamental," "essence without deviation," "something also pure." Do you know what the word is? The word is radical.

When I read the names Lois and Eunice, I'll have to admit the terms white-hot radical were not the first things that came to my mind. But that's exactly what these women were. They were white-hot, radical women in pursuing Christ. We're going to see more about that.

These women possessed and lived out white-hot radical faith before their son and grandson, Timothy. Scripture says it was real—"it dwelt in them"—and that just means it was settled down in them. It was at home in them. Lois and Eunice had met Jesus, and He had changed them from the inside out.

The relationship that He offered wasn't an outward demonstration. They would have seen that in the Pharisees putting on an outward demonstration of piety, but that's not what it was. It was total transformation in them.

Jewish homes in that day would have had a little box outside the doorpost that hung at an angle, and it was called a mezuzah. It contained Scripture, and it was a symbol that that home belonged to God—that it was ruled by God.

Lois and Eunice would have had that, probably, on their doorframe. But what they probably didn't have was a sign in their yard that said, "We are also Christians." You know why they didn't need that sign in their yard? Because it was evident in their lives. They were transparent, and they lived out what was at their core.

They were the evidence of that reality, as they put Christ on display in their lives. It was a reality that was not just for them, it was also for Timothy.

Bill: This sincere faith was at the heart—it's always at the heart, isn't it—of a genuine, godly family, a Christ-centered home. And everything must be done to make sure my faith is pure, my faith is real, my faith is authentic. But along with that there were other components that were in this home and in their lives. The second thing we want you to see that really contributes to building an epicenter that can literally change the world is a strong understanding and development of spiritual gifts.

In the next verse, he makes this statement, in verse 6: "For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you." You know, probably, what a spiritual gift is. The Bible teaches very clearly that when we come to Jesus Christ, He gives us something unusual. He calls them these gifts, and they're spiritual gifts.

I once heard a man define a spiritual gift like this: "It's a God-given ability for service." That's what it is. It comes from God. You don't choose—you don't go to the store and say, "I want this gift, and not this gift." You get the gift that God gives you, because He knows you best—and so do your children, and so does your husband.

And it's for a specific purpose. It's not just to be used on yourself, selfishly; it's a gift for service. Paul says, "Timothy, you have some gifts, and they're inside of you, and don't waste them. You need to stir those up; you need to fan the flame; you need to kindle up those things." It may have been the gift of leadership.

Or in your children, or in your life, or in your home, it may be the gifts of teaching or of exhortation or service or administration—all those different kinds of gifts. Now God has this incredible plan, doesn't He? It's a beautiful thing. His plan is this—He has created millions of people, and we all are in these families.

Each person—every child—is fearfully and wonderfully made. They have unbelievable abilities, temperaments, personalities, and then along the way we pick up life experiences—all those things that form us into who we are. But there's a problem, and the problem is that we are fallen.

So God's plan, as we've already heard about in this conference, is to redeem us, is for us to come to the end of ourselves, cry out to Christ, so that He would save us and come to live inside of us. The Bible clearly teaches that when He does, at the moment of our conversion, He gives us this special spiritual gift for service—a unique ability to serve mankind.

Our kids don't know this unless we train them, unless we teach them, unless we help them understand that. In fact, if left to themselves, they might just think exactly the opposite, because the world, the flesh, and the devil are constantly lying to them about their life.

Have you heard any of these lies, as a child growing up, or do your kids hear them right now? "You're nothing . . . you can't do anything . . . you're stupid . . . you're below average." Or "You need to just blend in with the crowd and be like everybody else."

You look at another person and say, "They could really affect the world, but I'm not going to affect the world." So if our kids believe this, they just settle into mediocrity, and the reality is, they are holding in their life—if they are followers of Christ—this unbelievable dynamic that can really affect the world.

So how in the world do we help them discover those gifts, discover who they really are in Christ, and then create this family that's white-hot with a sincere faith and functioning spiritual gifts that can really affect the world? Let me just give you some thoughts about that.

Number one, we need to become students of our children. Every kid is so different. I look at our eight kids, and there is not one of them that's the same. They are so different, and they've got different spiritual gifts. My first daughter has the gift of mercy; my second daughter doesn't. (Can I hear an "amen?")

I remember when we were new parents and just learning how to discipline our children—I would look at Jennifer, and she would just melt. She'd start crying. She would repent of stuff she'd not even done, because of her gift of mercy. Then my second daughter, I just had to wear her out to get her to understand things.

They're different kinds of people. We need to ask the Lord, "Give me insight into my child, so I can know who they are, what they're made of, and the particular gifts that You have supernaturally placed in their life when they have come to know Jesus Christ."

And then create an environment. You know, if you take a tree and plant it in concrete, it's not going to grow. But if you take a tree and put it in the right soil, right sunlight, right water, right food, it's going to have incredible growth. All of us know, we need to create as best we can a home environment where our children are growing.

As they're growing in Christ, they're going to naturally begin to feel—and you're going to see—the expression of those gifts. And then help them exercise their spiritual gifts. Your kids and mine grow physically by exercise, and sometimes we need to kick them out the door.

I remember my wife used to say in the summer, with our kids, she'd send them out, lock the door, and say, "Don't come in unless there's blood, and there's got to be a significant amount of blood before you come in." So we need to help them exercise. We need to do that with our kids spiritually.

So we think we've got a son here that's a leader, we think we have a daughter who has a gift of administration. Help them exercise that gift—give them little opportunities to serve in those particular realms.

Then we need to compliment success. When we see the little beginnings, the outcroppings, of those gifts beginning to develop in the lives of our children, then we need to just flood their soul with encouragement, because they're not going to get a lot of that in the world. We need to acknowledge those successes and that all those successes come from God, so that they understand the proper place that that's originated from.

By the way, ladies, can I pause right here? All that I'm saying about our kids also goes for our mates. This is what husbands should be doing for their wives; this is what wives should be doing for their husbands. You should look at your husband—find what his spiritual gift is. Help him exercise that; encourage him when he succeeds in that.

And here's another thing, and that's to navigate failures. Our kids are going to fail. There are going to be times when they don't do that real well in their life, and we need to help them know how to handle that because that's what life is all the way through.

Then we need to expand their horizons, give them ever-expanding opportunities, and fiercely combat the lies that their lives can't make a difference.

My mother was a country woman who loved Jesus and read His Word and did what it said. Somehow, with the four of us children, when we left home, we thought we could change the world—every one of us. I remember one day talking to my brothers and saying, "Did you think that?" And he said, "Yeah, I thought that." "Did you think that?" "Yeah, I thought that."

And we started talking, "How did we come to that conclusion?" It was our mother, who constantly told us, "God has a plan for your life that is wonderful. Your life can change the world."

Holly: Another essential component is in verses 7 and 8. Look at that with me. It says this: "For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God."

You remember those commercials that end with this question: "What's in your wallet?" Well, this verse really encourages us to take a little bit of inventory about what is in our life. God has given us incredible gifts if we are His child. We see some of those here: power, love, and self-control or discipline. Do you ever need any of those things as you're raising your kids?

Do you need self-control? Do you need discipline in your own life? None of us really wants to get out of our chair and go clean the kitchen or do laundry, right? Those things are hard—sometimes they require discipline of us. Or get up early when you've been up all night with your kids.

This verse also points out to us an attribute that doesn't come from God, and we're not speaking here of awe or reverence. But this scripture is very specific, and it reminds us that God has not given us a spirit of fear. So if we find ourselves fearful at any point in our lives, where does that come from? It comes from the one who is determined to derail God's agenda for our home. Satan, who is the father of all lies.

You may be thinking, I'm not really a fearful person. I'm just kind of discouraged. You know the interesting thing about that? Look at this word—"dis" means "without." So when we are discouraged, we are without courage. Discouragement is just fear kind of dressed up in nicer clothes, because we can say we are discouraged, and nobody looks at us strangely. If we say we're fearful, they might.

So it's just fear dressed up in nicer clothes. But it is just as destructive, because it's the opposite of faith. We can't do these essential things without understanding what it means to access the gifts that God has given us. When we are women who embrace courage, we help equip our kids for battle.

We live in a world that opposes Christ, and as believers we're not even designed to feel at home here. Why? This is not our home. We will never feel at home here on earth, because God has built us to live in a different kingdom than this. But we are responsible to equip our kids for the opposition they will encounter during their time here on this earth, if they stand for Christ.

We can't send our kids out in the morning in their pajamas or their long johns. Although I've had some escape in their underwear before, but that would not be my choice. I wouldn't plan for that. My boys—I have four boys and four girls—my boys used to love to dress up, and they used to like to put on things that made them look like knights in armor with capes or soldiers with their guns and be equipped for battle. But that was just pretend.

Why would we send them out into life without the real armor that Ephesians 6 says God has built for our children? This world is not friendly to our kids, so we need to equip them with the armor that God has already provided for them.

When we get on a plane, we're instructed to do what? Take the oxygen mask if something happens, put it on ourselves first and then our child. In the same way, we need to be women who understand how to access the armor of God, so that we are equipped, so that we can then turn and teach our children, "Here's how you walk in the world."

We can't expect our children to give an account for the hope that is within them unless we are grounded in that ourselves. What do we model about our possessions, our values, our modesty, what we believe about purity, our faithfulness to our marriage vows, how we make decisions?

Do our kids know that God is at the core of every decision we make? Or is He? Do they see that in our home? What do we model about the power of prayer? When our kids come to us and say, "Mom, I don't know what to do about this," is our first response, "You know what? We need to pray about that." And just right there, no matter where you are.

I have prayed with our kids in the car, on street corners, outside an appointment before they went in, in the middle of the day, through text messages—whatever it took. But they understand that prayer is an essential part of what enables them to take their next step.

Our children will take their cues from us. God needs to be part of every equation, and we cannot do that in our own strength. I love that God equips us for what He calls us to.

So our next essential is the sense of calling that our homes need. In verses 9 and 10, again we see attributes God has put in place for us. "God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works"—nothing we have done—"but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has now been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

We don't manufacture these gifts, these attributes that are essential ingredients. Only God can do that. Scripture says He saves us from an eternity without Him, and He calls us to this holy calling. It's a distinctive lifestyle. It's not based on any of our accomplishments, but on His purpose. And then He gives us enabling grace, so that we are able to do His will.

We believe that grace is the power and the desire to do what God has called us to. We don't create it, but this verse says God, Christ, did that before the ages began. We are, however, responsible to access that grace.

My granddaughter, Truth, who is four, is also just like my daughter Becca, who is my strong-willed one. Truth and I were walking a few months ago, and it was cold. And I'm cold-natured, so I had on my really long coat—and we're walking down this path—and Truth said to me, "Honey" (that's my grandmother name), "I'm really cold." And she was up ahead of me.

I said, "Truth, run back this way." Now normally Truth would not have run back, but she was cold and so she did. She ran back to me, and I opened up my really coat and I tucked Truth in right here, and she kind of glued to my leg and walked inside my long coat.

And she wasn't cold anymore. She was covered. She had what she needed. In the same way, Christ calls us to run to Him, to access the grace, the covering, that He has already designed for us. We have all these things on our phone, right? What are they called? Apps, right? Do you know that Apple was not the inventor of apps? Because God did that a long time ago.

God gave us the means to apply what we need to our lives. So if we find that we need power, there's an app for that in God's Word. Now you say it with me. If we need grace, there's an app for that. If we need love, hope, endurance . . . (women respond, "There's an app for that.")

We don't have to work for those things. God has already put them in place. But what we do have to do is make a choice to access those things. If Truth had kept running up that hill, she would have just stayed cold. But the solution was already there. She wouldn't have accessed it, and she wouldn't have had it.

In the same way, we walk around as women complaining—and I know, I've done my share of that—about what we don't have, but God has already put it in place. We're just not running to Him to access what He has already given us by His Spirit and through His Word.

God has the supply. Scripture says in verse 10, "It has now been manifested—or made known, it's evident—because Christ has brought all of this to light." Like Paul, after the Damascus road experience, where one minute Paul had no eyes to see—the scales fell from his eyes, and then Paul could clearly see what Christ was calling him to.

Just like Paul, we need new eyes to see and access what Christ has provided for us and to understand our calling. Christ has abolished death and He has, Scripture says, "deposited to our account life and immortality." Now I rarely go through a week—maybe not more than two or three days—where I don't get a message, a text, a phone call, an email, from one of my children, and it goes like this: "Hey Mom, I don't get paid 'til Tuesday, but I have four dollars in my account." This just happened yesterday before I left—"Can you run by the bank and put some money in my account so I can make it 'til Tuesday?"

When you have eight kids that happens a lot. Sometimes it's at 2:00 a.m., like it was last night when my son called me at 2:00 a.m., not remembering that I was in Indianapolis and it was really 3:00 a.m. You know what? What God has deposited in our account is absolutely amazing. Scripture says He has already done it. He has already made the deposit in us, for us.

He has entrusted these truths to us, and as verse 12 says—and I love this verse—"I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He will guard these deposits that He has made in me, that He is making in my children, until I am with Him." Until then, I need to be a transparent picture of God's deposit in my life, so that they can see God's deposit in their life.

Girls, we can't afford to indulge ourselves in the things of this world instead of understanding the deposit—the treasures—that God has entrusted to us. We need to run to Him, because He already has us covered.

Bill: So we're, very quickly this afternoon, kind of stirring up this mix and we're putting all these things in there that have to, and need to, be in a home to create this white-hot center that's really going to shake the world. It begins with this sincere faith, right? This real faith. It's cultivated by stirring up spiritual gifts in your life and your children, your family, your husband—helping your family really reach its full potential.

And then instilling a sense of courage and a sense of calling, so that we know, "Hey, we're going to do this. We're unashamed. We'll even suffer for this, but we're not going to back off of what God has called us to do." He's put this grace deposit in us, and now He wants to give that to other people.

And then we want you to see in the last few minutes two other really important ingredients that need to be in this mix to create this home. One of those is what we'd call "sound words." He says this in verses 13 and 14: "Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, and the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus." And then, "Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you."

That word standard is an interesting word. It means kind of a skeleton idea. It's like an architect who's about to build something, but he draws out a sketch. So what he's saying here is that we need to have a kind of a sketch of sound words—the skeleton of biblical doctrine and biblical truth.

And then he says, "Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me." In other words, "I've invested this in you." I think it's really critical to pause right here and say that the training of our family is not somebody else's responsibility primarily—it's yours, it's mine. So often as a pastor, people come and drop their kids off at church, and they say, "You've got an hour-and-a-half—now train my child and correct all the influences that have come all week long." It's impossible to do that.

At our church we say, "We are not responsible for the ultimate training of your children. You are, and we're going to come alongside and help you." So it means, ladies, that we have got to be investing the skeleton of biblical truth into the hearts of our family, into the hearts of our children.

He says we do that in faith in love. We bring them to the point where they believe those things, they know those things, they're depending upon those things, and they know how to communicate those things and live them out in love. It's not just sterile doctrine—"I know all these doctrines and all these truths. I know how to love people, and I have the balance of truth and grace in my life."

And then he says, "You need to guard these truths." That indicates that there's going to be an attack, that somebody's going to come after my children to try to take those truths away.

Listen carefully: Timothy was a third-generation Christian, and he owed his sincere faith to the groundwork done in his life by his mother and grandmother, who taught him in the Scriptures from infancy. In fact, 2 Timothy 3:15 says that, "From childhood you have known the holy Scriptures that have brought you salvation."

So here's the issue: Timothy lived in a home where he got the spiritual and biblical basics. He got them from his family, he learned how to trust those truths, he learned how to handle those truths in love, and he knew how to guard what had been entrusted to him, so it would be his and he would have it the rest of his life.

I want to ask you two very important questions: What are the essential truths that are vital to your family? You've got a child for eighteen years. Do you know what are the ten truths, that are the critical truths, that if those truths don't get into the heart of your kids, the heart of your family, they're going to go out and be really swayed by the lies of the world?

What are those truths, and—here's the second question—how am I going to invest those in the life of my child? How am I going to get those truths—with all the other things coming at them—how are we possibly going to get those inculcated in the heart, the life, the spirit, the practice of my children and of my family? Because that's the only way we're going to change the world. Because the truth is what really sets people free.

Can I make a couple of suggestions in just a brief moment? One of the ways we do that is through planned teaching. In other words, I think we ought to have some kind of systematic way—it's in concert with other people and other things, but we know that over the course of my child's life, we're going to be taking the truth, and we're going to be walking through it, and we're going to be pouring it into the heart of our child.

It would be fascinating to go home and sit down with your husband, if you have a husband—a believing husband—and say, "You know, can we write down the ten things that really need to be in our child's life, so they can really change the world, that they need to really know about God and how to access Him?"

But then, not only planned teaching, but teachable moments. Life is a constant classroom, isn't it? People say to us all the time, "Bill and Holly, how do you . . . ?" Our kids, by the grace of God, are walking with Christ, they're serving Him in ministry—all four of our boys have headed into ministry and our girls, too, in different ways.

You say, "How did that happen?" Well, it happened along the way. I mean, it happened in the car; it happened at three o'clock in the morning when somebody's had a big problem and we're saying, "Okay, Bethany, what's going on right now is about faith. What's God saying to you right now?"

It happened in the neonatal intensive care unit when our daughter had a son who had a stroke in the womb, and they told us, "He'll never walk, he'll never talk." (He does, by the way, by the grace of God.) And we're saying, "What's the Lord saying here? And we know that God's sovereign, don't we, because we've learned that truth together. We know that He'll work all things together for good, because we've learned that truth together."

So I watched my oldest daughter, who had this pattern of sound words in her heart, navigate life in a beautiful way that brought glory to God, because, along the way, all through those years of her life, it had been poured into her life by her family.

Not only teachable moments, but then finally, biblical streams. In other words, I hate to use this from our dear friend from Arkansas, Hillary Clinton, but it does "take a village," doesn't it.

Holly: Not her kind of village, though.

Bill: Not her kind of village. It takes a spiritual village. It takes the Church, the Body of Christ. So I need to be open to what are the influences my child has? The friends they have, the books that they read, the groups they spend time with, being in a great biblical church that's really teaching the truth and challenging them. We can make a difference if we pour this deeply into their hearts and into their lives.

How can we possibly change the world if we don't have a family that's filled with the life of God, filled with the love of God, and filled with the truth of God? We've got to pour in sound words, and then once we stir in these elements through the years—we stir in the elements of a sincere faith and spiritual gifts. We're stirring that up in our kids, and giving them a sense of destiny and a sense of calling and the courage to carry out that calling.

They're grounded in the sound words of the faith. Then what do we do? Where does that go from there? How is that ever going to affect the world? And, finally, we need to stir in also what we would call a strategic plan. This is so important.

You have to have an understanding of God's plan if you're going to pass on something to somebody else. In this passage of Scripture we see this illustrated by three generations. We see Lois, who somehow knew, "I need to give this to my daughter, Eunice." And Eunice, who probably didn't even have a believing husband, who said, "Somehow, I need to get this into my son, Timothy." And then we hear her saying, probably, along the way, "Now, Timothy, you've got to share this with other people."

So we see it illustrated in this family, and then we see it encouraged by Paul. Paul comes here, really Timothy's true spiritual father, in 2 Timothy 2:1–2, and he talks about four generations. He says, "I've had this truth, I've passed it on to you; I want you to give that to faithful men who will give that to others also."

So there was in this plan this idea of multiplication. And, of course, we know this is Jesus' plan, isn't it? Go and make disciples, who will make disciples, who will make disciples, who will make disciples. The way that you create a tsunami is you understand the incredible power of multiplication.

You know how a tsunami works. There's an eruption at a white-hot core, and then waves begin to go out across the ocean—in fact, they're long waves. Sometimes you can go for hundreds of miles and not even see that wave, but it's a strong current underneath that's just building and building and building and building. And when it comes in contact with something, it makes a phenomenal impact.

And so, God is building our family. You know on certain days we think, Man, I don't know if this family is ever going to get built; I don't know if we're ever going to have all these things. But you're just faithful, doing the best you can, crying out to the Lord in prayer. "Oh, God, let our family help change the world." And you're going along, and you're building this sense in your children: "We live to disciple others, who will disciple others, who will disciple others."

I was thinking this week about my grandfather and grandmother, Thomas Alvis Alvarene Carter, and his wife—listen to this—Molly Missouri Mosely Carter. They were born in the 1870s, and Molly and Thomas had fourteen children. Ten of them lived to adulthood, and the last of those children was my mother.

Now an interesting thing—if you have two children, who have two children, who have two children, who have two children, in the tenth generation you will produce, through your line, 1,024 children. That's a lot of kids to impact the world. But Molly and Thomas had ten children that lived to adulthood—they all averaged four kids—and they were all believers who walked with the Lord.

My mother only went to church once a month, out in the country, because that's the only time the church was open. But every Sunday her father and mother sat out on the porch, and they taught the Word of God to their kids. And all of those children came out to be great men and women of God.

If you have ten kids, who have four kids, who have four kids, who have four kids, in the tenth generation, do you know how many kids are going to be produced? There will be 2.6 million kids. Now I want you to think about that in terms of the purpose of God, because the devil's thought about it and he's copied that plan. In fact, do you know what he's doing all over the world right now? He's telling people of his faith and his religions, "Have a lot of kids, fill them with their beliefs, even willing to die for them. Just keep having those kids with those beliefs, and it will change the world."

Do you know that in France, right now, who has such a low birth rate that they can't even maintain the population of their nation, Muslim families have moved in with their strong faith, and in two generations France has virtually become a Muslim nation? They're changing the world. You know why? It's the power, the physical power of multiplication.

Now just think what would happen if you said, "What could my one family do to really change the world?" Where you can raise up a family with a red-hot faith, that understands their gifts and knows the truth and has a sense of calling and realizes they can make a difference in this world.

And then you can train them. "Children, we want you to have children—physical children and spiritual children—that you disciple and develop and teach them to do the same, who will do the same, who will do the same, and in a few generations our one family is going to send out millions of disciples who will help advance the kingdom of God."

I'll tell you one final story before Holly comes. My great-grandmother on my father's side—her name was Mary Elliff. I don't know much about Mary, except she was a strong believer. They moved from Tennessee, she and her husband, J.T. (James), they moved to Oklahoma when it was just Indian territory.

And she got sick and was dying, and she said—we have it in a diary—she said to her husband, "Please don't let me die in this wild Indian country." So they sold their farm, got on a train in Fort Smith, changed trains at Little Rock, and they laid her out on the train because she was dying.

She called James—they had a little baby, just like this little baby that's coming down the aisle right now. And James knelt down beside Mary, and she said, "I'm going to die, but you've got to promise me two things. One, you've got to promise that you'll give your life to Christ, and number two, you have to promise me that you'll raise our daughter for Christ." And she died.

James's testimony was that he stayed on his knees a long time and got up a Christian. He went back home, he buried his wife, he began to raise that daughter for Christ. God gave him a second wife who was a wonderful believing woman; they had several children. One of those was my grandfather, who became a pastor.

My grandfather had two children, a son and a daughter. One of those was my dad, who became a pastor. Then my dad had four children, three boys and a girl. Three of those who became pastors and one of those married a pastor. And now in the next generation, there are eighteen grandchildren, and all eighteen are walking with Christ, and fourteen of them, by the way, either are pastors or missionaries or have married pastors or missionaries. Now we're in the next generation that is filled with young men and women who are also following Christ.

All from one woman, who when she drew her last breath, probably had no idea "I'm making an impact on my family for the cause of Christ." But her sincere faith has changed at least a part of the world, and that's our calling, amen? That's what God wants us to do. Honey . . .

Holly: You know, this is not something God expects us to accomplish. This is something He desires to accomplish in us. He's already given us everything we need for life and godliness. So, gals, I want you to think for a minute today about what your "epicenter quotient" would be, if we could measure your home today on a Richter Scale—what would your measurement be? Are you a negative ten? Are you a five? Are you a nine?

God knows that today; I don't know that about your home. I know what God has called me to in my home, and I know that no home is ever going to be perfect. But gals, we need to be pursuing the call of Christ. It matters, it really matters—it doesn't just matter to us, but it matters to the generations who will come after us far more than we will ever know.

What we do, the choice we make, matters. Let me just close with this thought:

Lord, give us a home that has Christ at the core,
So the longer we live we may picture You more.
A home where Your truth is proclaimed without fear,
And the children who live there grow year after year
To look more like Jesus.
'Til one day Your Name will resound from each tongue,
And the world You created will praise You as one.
Lord, give us a home that has Christ at the core.

Is that your desire today? It's our Father's desire for us. Let's pray.

Father, we thank You today that You don't expect us to create anything. Father, we fully acknowledge that this can only happen in and throughYou as we access what You have already done. Father, I pray that we would leave this place as women with a calling on our heart—whether we have a husband who is a believer, or we're single, or we're widowed, Lord, Your calling does not change.

Lord, if we have a husband who is a believer, I pray that You would lead us to follow our husbands, so that Your work can be accomplished in Your way. And Father, would we surrender our homes to You, so that someday the impact You intend for us to have would be made real in this world for the cause of Christ.

To God be the glory, amen.

Thank you, girls.