Gateway Church's Podcast
What Every Child Needs To Succeed
A Gateway Sermon
Turn with me in your Bible today to Deuteronomy chapter six. I'm going to share for a few minutes on a message about what every child needs to succeed. So if you're here today and if you don't have children at home, how many of you are celebrating and having a good time being empty nesters? Anybody here just really excited about that time? Here's a lot of shouting and revival hit at nine o'clock when I asked that question today. People went nuts. You know, it is a good time. It's a great time. It's a sad time and it's a great time. You get over it though. It becomes more great than sad as you go along. Maybe you're single though or maybe you're a young couple and you haven't had children. And so don't tune me out. And here's the reason I don't want you to tune me out. Number one because I'm speaking and number two because I think it's for the whole church. You know that one of the reasons why the Jewish people have overcome years and thousands of years of holocaust and brutality and really oppression, the reason that they have been able to perpetuate their faith, the reason that they keep surviving is because they understand the idea of moms, dads, aunts, uncles, granddads, growling around the next generation. They understand about generational transfer. It's something that I personally believe that our church will be well at. I believe you're going to catch a vision today for something that our elders, our pastors, our leaders have a heart for. And that is to see gateway have a generational transfer of God's vision. And that happens only when we rally around the children that God's put in our lives. So no matter if you have children actually in your home or maybe you have children that are gone, listen, we need you today as a church to understand. It's all of our responsibility to rally around the next generation. Do you know that the number one threat to America today is not the homosexual agenda? It's not Republicans or Democrats. It's not John Carrier, George W. Bush being president. It's not Janet Jackson. That's not the number one threat to America. Can I tell you what the number one threat to America is today? It is the disintegration of the family. In fact, secular sociologists are now coming to understand that if the American family does not very soon in the next 10 years, if the American family does not rally back to health, I read that this week, that they are now understanding that if the American family does not come back to some semblance of health, our democracy as we know it, our social structure as we know it is about to go away. It was funny that this week Arnold Schwarzenegger actually said something that was, I thought was really good. Besides, I'll be back. He said that we are on the verge of social anarchy, and it's because the family is no longer the dominant feature in the American culture. The family is disintegrating. And I'm here today to rally us around something that God put in order. God established a family. He established mom and dad and children. He established a family unit for a purpose. And I want us to catch the heart of this purpose again and not give up on it. I've not given up on marriage and I've not given up on family. And I don't want you to give up on it as well. In Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 5-9, this is the Shema, the central creed of the Jewish belief system. This is the reason the scriptures I'm about to read is the reason why the Jewish faith and Jewish culture has perpetuated in and become fruitful throughout thousands of years because they believe what I'm about to read. And I want you to believe it. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. And these commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. And press them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road. When you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. God does not have any grandchildren. Every generation must be converted. In fact, from the moment that your child has been conceived in the womb of a mother, God sees that person as an eternal being. He does not see it as a baby or a grandchild. He sees it as an eternal being that he sent his son to die far. That one day when that child was old, it will be redeemed the same way we were redeemed. God has a heart for children. I believe today that the Lord has given me four things, that if we will embrace these four things, it will guarantee the success of the next generation, including your own children. Here's the first thing. Children need our time and attention to succeed. Now I'm about to read what I believe wanted to be one of the saddest stories in the Bible. Personally, I believe that Absalom gets a bad rap. I liked Absalom. He never reached his fullest potential. According to Scripture, the Absalom was extremely handsome, extremely strong. He had tremendous charisma with people. He would walk into a room with a big crowd of people and everyone's attention would fall to Absalom. He had something about him that set himself apart from his peers and from people much older than him. Yet he never reached his potential. He never fulfilled the destiny that I believe God put in his heart. The reason I believe he didn't is because David never gave him time. His father David never gave him the time, never told him who he was, never identified his calling as gifts. And here's the story. It's said that Absalom has come to his dad and has invited his dad to a party. A party that's kind of a cultural thing but it's a party that would happen when they began to shear the sheep. When it was time to take the wool off the sheep, it was kind of a festival. And he was inviting his dad to a party. Now listen, as I read this Scripture, how formal Absalom talks to his dad. It's so formal. There's no relationship. There's no tenderness. There's no affection here between Absalom and his dad. And listen to how David responds to his son's request. 2 Samuel 13, two years later when Absalom's sheep shears were at Bell Hazar near the border of Ephraim, which is near Denton somewhere. He invited all the king's sons to come there. And Absalom went to the king who was his dad and said, "Your servant has had shearers come. Will the king and his officials please join me?" Isn't that formal? This is his dad. Hey dad, would you bring some of your friends? He would look for you to come and bring some of your friends. And then he said with the king and he says, "No, my son," the king replied, "all of us should not go. We would only be a burden to you." And although Absalom urged him, he still refused to go, but gave him his blessings. Listen, Absalom didn't want his blessing. Absalom didn't want his approval. He wanted his time. It's the same thing that our children want from us. They want dad and mom to be around. They want dad and mom to be there, to be available. They want dad and mom to give them their time. This is how children spell love, T-I-M-E. And listen, listen, children do not know the difference between quality time and quantity time. It's one and the same. Children don't understand 30-minute parcels of time. They just want to know, "Where's dad? Where's mom?" It's not about quality time. You know, I'm out all the time with my kids, and I see parents going through a guilt stage where they're doing things for their kids. It's out of guilt, though. And they spend most of their time, and I see dads doing this a lot. They spend most of the time out doing that quality time on the cell phone back at work. They think that by their short amount of time that that's going to make up for the hours that they're going, and it's not. I understand I make a living. I work. I work a full-time job, by the way. It's a full-time job being a pastor. I know you don't believe that, but it is. Full-time. And this is a large church with a lot of responsibilities. However, I know this. If I'm going to be a success at one thing in my life, here's two things. Actually, I want to be successful at. I want to be a great husband, and I want to be an unbelievable father. And I'm okay with being an average pastor if that's what I have to settle for. You see, that's the decision you have to make. And God, listen, God will give back to you any time that you sacrifice for your family, that you give to your family instead of work. God will actually multiply your abilities and your effectiveness back at work if you will simply make home priority. And see, I believe that Absalom could have been redeemed. In fact, after Absalom turned and walked away from his father in this exchange in 2 Samuel, David would not see Absalom again for three years. Absalom turned, went to that party, and killed his brother, because his brother had violated his sister. That was the last time David had ever looked at Absalom for three years, and then when he saw him again in three years, it was never the same. Absalom would die soon after he saw him again. His relationship with Absalom could never be recovered. This is a sad story of a young man who had the DNA of God and planted in his heart, but it never came to fruition. It never developed. He never became the young man that God created him to be. Children need time, and they need to know that they are priority. In fact, in a recent book that's just been printed called The Irreducible Needs of Children, the book says that in order to raise emotionally healthy and protected children, that their number one need is a nurturing, consistent, connectedness with parents. And one step further, the book says it's actually the presence of a father that determines the success of a child. It says it's the single largest factor in predicting whether a child will graduate from high school, attend college, become involved in crime or drugs, or get pregnant before the age of 18. It's a dad's presence and a child's life that will ultimately determine the success of children. Listen, dads, every dad, please look at me. It's our responsibility to be there. It's my responsibility to make sure that I'm home. It's my responsibility to say no more than yes to events that would keep me away from my house. It's my responsibility to make sure that my schedule does not dictate time away from the home that I should be spending there. I am the one that has to decide up front before I ever get put in that position. I've already made the decision. Listen, I've already made the choice before I get asked. I'm going to be at home. And I say no, 95% of the time, the request that would keep me away from my house. You can ask anyone around me. I am a boring person because I stay home all the time and is the most fun life I could possibly imagine. Stay at home. Be at home. Get control of your schedule and make sure that your children have your time because their success depends upon it. Here's the second thing. Children need to hear and see our values to succeed. In Deuteronomy 6, verse 7, it says, "Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." According to a new study from Purdue University, and listen, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars proving that the Bible is right. This is what blows my mind. They spent all of this money and it all comes back. Oh, by the way, we think the Bible is more and more accurate. We think the Bible may actually contain some useful information. All these studies prove this. Listen to this. It says, "According to a new study, unless the content of our values and beliefs is articulated verbally, children may not have an accurate perception of what their parents actually believe." It isn't that amazing that if you don't tell them what you believe, they may not know. Seriously, if you don't tell them, what are the values of our home? Do you have values that govern your home and do your children know what they are? Do you expect that through osmosis or through a cassette recorder under their pillow that they're going to catch it somehow? No, we've actually got to sit down. If Hillary doesn't beat her to it, my girl will probably be the first female president. Now listen, here's some values that we have at our house. When someone greets us, we talk back to them. We greet back. We look them in the eye and shake their hand and say hello. And I've had to tell my children, it's important that when people talk to you that you look back at them, smile and tell them your name. When they ask what your name is, you tell them what your name is. And you know why mommy and daddy want you to do that? Because people are important. Now that's how you talk to a five-year-old. Now you don't have to talk like that to your eighteen-year-old, but they need to know, what are your values? What are the values that govern our home? What are they? And you must write them down and not only just write them down, talk about them all the time. Proverbs 22, 6 says that teach your children to choose the right path and when they are older, they will remain upon it. You know that life is caught and taught. Life, they need to not only see your values in action, that you've got to write them down and talk about them. Here's what I want to challenge you to do today. You need to just sit down with your husband and your wife and write down three or four things. I'm not talking about a list of twenty-nine mandates. I'm talking about just a list of three or four things that you honor and that you covet in your family. That are your values and write them down, put them in plain sight and begin to talk about them with your children. You know that children will not do what you expect them to do, they do what you accept. They don't do what you expect, they do what you accept. That's pretty wise advice because I got it from someone else last night. That's true though. Do your children know what you're expecting of them and what are you accepting? What are you accepting from your children because that's what they're going to do. Here's the third thing I want to share with you about children being successful is that children need discipline to succeed. You know that the surest way to make it hard for your children is to make it soft on them. I'm not talking about being hard or brutal or abusive or not relational, that's absolutely not my heart. But there has to be some discipline in your home. I know children are excited about this message. I know that teenagers in the room today are just thrilled to death and I'm bringing this up. But let's read what scripture says. I know there's a great cultural debate going on right now about to spank or not to spank. Let's just see what the Bible says. Proverbs 22, 15 says the youngster's heart is filled with foolishness. How many of you agree that your child is included in that mix? That their hearts are filled with foolishness. Now listen, I have the sweetest five-year-old boy and the sweetest red-headed curly-haired little three-year-old girl, but their little hearts are filled with foolishness if I don't deal with them. They were brought to the earth with a little heart packed full of little foolish ideas that I have to train out of them. It's not because of genetics, it's because of sinful nature. And their hearts are filled and it says, "But discipline will drive it away." Proverbs 23, 13 and 14. Don't fail to correct your children. Can anyone say amen to that? They won't die if you spank them. Physical discipline may well save them from death. Can I tell you why that Solomon wrote this proverb because Solomon had a life group. (Laughter) And one day he invited all of his officials and their families over to his house for the weekly life group. And sure enough, as soon as the doors to the palace open and all the kids come running in, the parents for an hour and a half actually forgot that they had children. And the children just destroyed as ivory couch, destroyed all the carpet, tore things up, pulled down the curtains. And so after they left, he closed the door and said, "Give me some paper right now. I'm about to write a proverb and I want this in the Bible because one day I want people to know that's okay to spank your children." (Laughter) Have you ever been there? There are couples that we don't hang out with anymore because they're kids to share a house up. I'm sorry. I'm saying it publicly. I just don't have enough nerve to come to you privately. (Laughter) Yes, I do have enough nerve to come to you privately actually. But you know what? There are couples we just choose not to spend a lot of time with because their children are out of control. And our kids sit there and go, "My goodness." And then we have to reprogram our kids for two weeks afterward. But mom, that's not but mom. You're not going to do that. And listen, it destroys friendships. It drives people away. It separates couples that should be spending time together simply because we just choose not to discipline. But choose not to do it. Listen, there are nerve endings right here in children that are connected to a motor's nerve in their mind. And it's a long cord that goes right up here, okay, and it gets right here. And when you put the proper pressure on these two nerve endings, suddenly this motor starts turning and working. And they remember things that they had forgotten three days earlier. You know all that talking and time-out that you're doing? Let me tell you how to activate that. Firmly apply right here and your time-outs will be more meaningful to them. In fact, all time-out is supposed to be the chance to recover from the spanking. That's what I use a time-out for. Now you have a time-out and quit crying. That's what my time-outs for. And I don't count either. One, two, three. Stop counting to your kids. Unless you're teaching them. Listen, if I'm a kid, I'm always going to wait till three. It's not do what Dad says at the count of three. It's do what Dad says right now. Three's way too late. You wait till I get to three, Dad's going to have something in his hand. And not his hand, but y'all will spank. And listen, there's another thing. Even today, I'm 37 years old, and I don't like crossing the street without asking my mom. I'm kind of, every once in a while, I just get this feeling that my mom's going to grab me by the arm right there with her fingernails and keep me from going across the street. You'll have those marks on your arms, your mom's fingernails. Don't you even think about it. You come back here to me. I was making a list of the top 15 things that I've been spanked with. I've been to all kinds of instruments. I've got this one. I can tell you the number one thing that hurts the worst, okay? If you're from the deep south, you understand what I'm about to say. The number one object that hurts the worst is a limb from a peach tree. That's from the deep south. I'm from Louisiana, which side of the family are you on? on. Children need discipline. For every action, there is a consequence or reward. Now, here's the balance to spanking, right? I know I'm saying a lot about spanking. Here's the balance of spanking. Praise loudly and blame softly. Here's the formula for spanking. Hug, hug, hug, hug, Hug, spank, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug, hug right there. That's my fault because I kept them out all day. They don't have a schedule. I went right through their nap at the mall. And now I'm spanking them from my schedule. I'm spanking them because I'm the one that didn't keep them on the schedule. We don't spank them in that case. We don't. That's our fault. When you're tired, it's not the time. And have you communicated your parameters? Do they know what the rules are? Do the rules change every week? Are the rules the same every week? Have you communicated your parameters for your children? And here's the last thing. Is your account with them, your relationship account full? Especially this is critical for teenagers. Mom and Dad rules without a relationship equal rebellion. And if you do not have, if you're not working harder at relationship than you are in discipline, you're headed for rebellion. You must work 10 times harder building a relationship with your children than you do trying to discipline them. Listen, if you will build a relationship with your children, when it's time to withdraw a little bit out of that account, it's not painful. It might be a little painful, but it won't be, it won't destroy your children. And it will not destroy the relationship as long as that account is full. Build a relationship, invest in your children, and when it's time for discipline, it will not be the traumatic event that has been happening in your home recently. The reason your children are rebelling is because they don't feel like they have a say. They don't feel like they have any relationship with you. All they see are rules. Rules without relationship is what causes rebellion. Here's the fourth thing children need two parents who are committed to marriage. This may be the single most important thing that I ever say to you at Gateway Church. Marriage is a covenant that God calls us to be in with a man and a woman. And the reason that the family, can you see if I were the enemy, if I had a strategy to really get to the core of the family unit, first of all, I would attack every marriage and I would attack every child because once we divide parents from children and children from parents, and once I can get division there, I can destroy a society. And in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 29, it says, "Oh that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever. Every decision we make as a married couple has an effect on our children. The moment that we conceive a child and our woman decide to bring a child on the earth, it becomes less and less about us and more and more about them." Do you know that in 1960, you know what the number one fear of a child was in 1960? Nuclear war. If you remember, that's when JFK was coming on the television telling about missiles that were on Cuba, only 130 miles off our coast, and that at any moment that bomb could hit your city and everything could go away. You were probably building bomb shelters in your backyard. Those things were being sold everywhere. The number one fear of children in 1960 was nuclear war. In 2004, the number one fear of children is their parents might divorce. In fact, I heard recently from some school counselors that children are talking more and more that they're coming to school and here's what they're talking to their peers about. Will your mom and dad make it? Is your mom and dad going to divorce? Is your mom and dad not going to make it? I don't know. And here's what I see. Based on what I see, I don't know. Based on what I'm seeing, I don't know if they're going to make it. This is what school counselors are facing right now. It is that epidemic proportions, even in South Lake and Keller, because I heard it from a South Lake school counselor. It's epidemic. They don't know if mom and dad are going to make it and it's causing trauma, it's causing fear, it's causing sickness. They cannot concentrate at school simply because they don't know if when they go home, mom and dad are going to be together. You understand that God has designed marriages and moms and dads to work through every issue. God has given us the Holy Spirit that by every issue that surfaces in a marriage, God has equipped us to overcome it. And children of divorced homes are more likely to be abused, more likely to exhibit emotional, mental, and physical health problems, or more likely to commit crimes or abuse drugs, are more likely to commit suicide, and are more likely to perform poorly in school. In fact, if you surveyed children who are going through a divorce, they would rather, their two unhappy parents, stay together than divorce. Every child, every child of a divorced home will tell you, "I wish mom and dad would have worked harder at it and stayed together." I have never met a child who said, "I'm so glad my mom and dad divorced." Now listen, I know there are victims here in this room. I know that there's some of you whose husband or wife left you, that they abandoned you, and you're an innocent victim of a bad marriage, and I'm not talking to you. Here's the people I'm talking to. I'm talking to the couples that are sitting in this room right now, and in your mind you're saying, "I don't know if I want to stay with this man. I don't know if I really want to stay with this woman." That's who I'm talking to today. Can I just beg you and plead with you? Can I just ask you please let gateway, let our pastors, let our life group leaders rally around you. We will spend whatever amount of money is required. We will spend whatever time is required. We will give you every available resource. But please, please, please let us rally around your marriage. It is worth saving, and it is instrumental to your children's success. Please let us help you. Please don't leave here today without coming forward and letting us talk to you, letting us putting together a plan for you. Please, for your child's sake, let us rally around your marriage. That is our heart. That is a core value of our church. We love marriage. We believe in it. We've not given up on it. We believe that God gave it to us, and it's worth fighting for. I'm not talking to innocent victims of divorce, and by the way, we love divorce people. I love divorce people. I've spent most of my life ministering to divorce people. It's not divorce people that we're against. In fact, you're in the right place. If you're sitting here today and you've gone through the divorce, this is the perfect place for you to be. We will love you and help you and equip you, and we'll do everything we can to make sure you're healthy. But if you're here today and you're thinking about it, will you please let us help you? Because I'm telling you, it is more devastating to your children. The enemy lies to couples. This is the number one lie that couples buy into when they're thinking about divorce. Oh, my kids are resilient. My kids will get over it. No, they don't. No, they will not. Without God's help, they will not. And we're here today to say, please let us help. Psalms 127.3 says, children are a gift from the Lord, and they are a reward from Him. God came and gave us our children. My wife and I have adopted both of our children. It was a miraculous thing how both of our children came into our home. But even if you had natural birth and God is a miraculous thing to see God bring children into our home. And all I'm saying to you today, this is what I want you to leave here with, children are an investment from God into our lives. And I treat God's investments with great honor. I want to do everything I can to make sure that the gift that God has given us to the fullness of what God has called them to be. And so can I just ask you today will you rally around the next generation? Can we just take a stand today and say we're not going to lose this generation? Can I just ask you to pray right now if your marriage is in trouble? Can I ask you right now just to go to the Lord and ask Him one more time for help? One more time will you ask God to intervene on your behalf? I just want you to close your eyes and bow your heads with me today. I want to pray over you. And I know that there are marriages today that you need help. You need a miracle to happen right now. And I'm here today to pray, but more importantly the Holy Spirit is here right now to come and pour Himself into your life. And Lord Jesus we are so grateful today. We're so grateful that you have equipped us, that you have invested in us the gifts of your spirit, the power of your spirit. And I'm just asking you right now across this building for every marriage that's in trouble. I pray right now for the power of the Holy Spirit to fall upon them. And Lord that you would give them eyes to see and ears to hear, a mind to understand, and a heart to receive, your grace your forgiveness. I pray that they would have the ability to forgive one another. I pray that they would right now in Jesus name even as they go home today even throughout this afternoon that their communication would come back, that their intimacy would come back, that their passion for one another would come back. But more importantly Lord that their commitment to one another would return. And Lord I pray Lord I break generational curses that come with divorce. I break the curse O God of suicide and depression. I break that curse O God of doing poorly in school for children in the room today that have gone through divorce. I break those curses as those statistics said. And Lord I pray in Jesus name that every child would be healthy and whole that you would give them supernatural grace to walk through a divorce. And Lord I just pray in Jesus name right now that our children, the children of Gateway Church, the children of Southlake and Keller and Colleyville and Grapevine in this area that we would see a generation of believers filled with your spirit, filled with your power, filled with your faith O God raise up a generation. Lord we choose today to rally around our children, to rally around the youth of our church O God we rally our hearts around them and Lord we make a covenant with you today to pray over them to cry out to God on their behalf and to be mentors and friends and parents that are worthy of respect and honor. Lord I thank you for that today. I bless your name and I am so grateful for the grace that in the mercy that you're pouring out into all of our hearts. And we ask it today in Jesus name. Amen.