How to Win the Heart of Your Child

Happy Father's Day.

Is anybody here excited about being a father?

Gotta see your hands?

Amen.

Hey, I love to be a father.

I mean, I I'm just I'm excited to be a father.

I'm excited to share with you today about being a father.

Hey, the Bible says that children are a blessing from the Lord.

And the fruit of the womb is our reward.

And so I'm just excited to share with you some things that the Lord has shown me over the last few years of learning how to become a better father.

And tonight I'm going to talk about how to win the heart of your child.

How to win the heart of your child.

But before we get started, I want to, I've always wanted to do this, so if you'll humor me for a second, I uh I want to honor in a very small way the father of Gateway Church, Pastor Robert Morris.

So are you ready?

Okay.

If you would turn in your Bible to two passages of Scripture.

Malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, and Mark chapter 12, verse 30.

Malachi 4:5 Mark 12:30

And put a marker at Mark 12, verse 30.

Mark 12:30

You know, it's a little bit ironic that I'm going to talk tonight about how to win the heart of your child and how to be a father.

Because I did not naturally start out as a good father.

When I got married to Melody, I had, I just, I was young, we just graduated from college, and I had no idea how to be a father.

And so I've been learning this process, and it's a process.

I want to encourage you younger guys, it's a process.

And you will get better as you as you keep fathering your children as you go along and learn things of how to be a good parent.

But I remember when Kristen, my oldest daughter, was three years old.

And Cassie had just been born, my youngest daughter, and so I took Kristen to church on Sunday night.

I came home from church that night, and I came home, I said, Hey honey, I'm home.

She said, Hey, honey.

And she kind of looked around.

She said, Where's Kristen?

I said, What do you mean?

And she said, Where's Kristen?

I said, Isn't she with you?

And then I realized I'd left her.

Melody said, Tell me you're kidding.

I said, honey, hey, I gotta go.

I'll be back in a few minutes.

Ran up to the church.

I mean, I just, I mean, I'm I'm learning to become a father, and I want to I want to share some things tonight about how to become a good father.

Years ago, I made a decision that the most important thing in my life would be God, and then Melody, my wife, and then my daughters, Kristen and Cassie.

So I'm gonna share some things that I've learned and try to make that the highest priority in my life.

Uh I'd like to introduce my family if it's if it's okay.

Uh Melody, my wife, and Kristen and Cassie, my two daughters.

Would y'all stand?

I just want to just kind of introduce them.

Kristen's on the worship team, as y'all saw tonight, and she works for Governor Huckabee.

Cassie works for our business ministry.

Now, y'all probably can't tell which one's the mother and which ones are the daughters.

So, Melody, my wife, is the one on the end.

Okay?

So y'all can see.

Just hallelujah.

I'm so proud of them.

I love them to death.

So, anyway, so I I made them the highest priority of my life.

So the first thing I did, of course, I started working on my marriage.

And then when I had children, I started working on trying to be a godly father.

And I decided I would do whatever it took to win the hearts of my daughter.

And I was very intentional about it.

And I just felt like I was supposed to focus on a few things to win the heart of my children.

So tonight I'm going to share a few of those things, of ways that I won the hearts of my children.

Okay?

So the first thing you need to do is to turn the heart of your children to you.

As a father, you need to turn the heart of your children to you.

And we get that out of Malachi chapter 4, verse 5 and 6.

Malachi 4:5

It says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

And I will turn, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

The problem with this scripture is the way we read it, though.

Here's the way we read it typically.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

And he will turn the minds of the fathers to the children, and the minds of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

See, here's so many times we don't even realize we're doing it, but we're not trying to win the hearts of our children.

We're trying to win the minds of our children.

And God's way is to win their hearts first, and then their minds.

As a matter of fact, in Mark chapter 12, verse 30, God gives us a list of words.

Mark 12:30

And in Scripture, when God gives us a list, it's usually very important the order of the words in the list.

So in Mark chapter 12, verse 30, he says, And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

Mark 12:30

See, the heart comes first.

God wants us to win the heart of our children first, and then the mind.

Paul kind of alluded to this in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 15, when he said, For though you might have 10,000 instructors in Christ, or 10,000 teachers who win the minds or reach the minds, yet you do not have many fathers who reach the heart.

1 Corinthians 4:15

See, God wants us to reach the heart of our children.

He wants us to turn the heart of our children to us, because if we don't win their heart, we may end up arguing with their mind.

And so many times we're not thinking about this, we we try and win their mind and but lose their heart.

And then what happens is as we as our children's hearts turn away from us, we tend to turn our hearts away from them.

Because we start out, right, with our hearts to our children.

Every father starts out with his heart totally and completely turned to his child.

I remember when Kristen was born, and I was so excited to be a father.

I don't know about you, but I was so excited.

I was so happy that I was going to be a father.

And uh we didn't have any money, but but I was there in the delivery room, and when the doctor finished the delivery, he started to walk out the door, and I ran over to him and I said, Here.

And I handed him a$50 bill.

And he said, What's this for?

And I said, It's a tip.

You did a great job.

I mean, that that was before I saw the hospital bill.

Listen, I'm I'm still excited about being a father.

I mean, it's easy when our children are young to have our hearts because let's face it, they're so cute.

I mean, little kids are so cute.

I remember Cassie was about five years old, and uh and we were talking, and she said something that really wasn't the truth.

And I said, now, Cassie, now I don't that I don't think that was the truth.

And do you remember what the consequences of not telling the truth are?

And she said, Yeah, dad, it's a spanking.

I said, that's right.

Now, uh, were you lying to me?

And she said, No, Dad, I was wrong.

I mean, of course I didn't spank her.

How could you spank a child after something like that?

So, but what happens though is our our child start, our children start turning their heart away from us, and then we start turning our heart away from our children.

And I was talking to a friend of mine about that about three years ago, and he was concerned about that because his oldest daughter was about to be a teenager.

And so I said, hey, listen, let me let me share something with you.

Your children don't have to rebel.

Your children don't have to rebel.

I mean, many times we think they do.

We think that, oh, our children are gonna get to be teenagers and they're gonna rebel and they're gonna do all these things, and then someday, you know, they'll come back to the Lord, and we we even use that scripture in Proverbs 22, 6.

It says, train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he shall not depart from it.

But can I just encourage you that that's not what that scripture means?

Here's what that scripture means: train up a child in the way he should go, and here's what the New American Standard Version says.

And even, even when he's old, he will not depart from it.

My children are 23 and 26, and they've never rebelled.

Your children don't have to rebel.

Well, he got so excited about this.

I mean, we should all be so excited about this.

And so he started applying, he said, Well, well, how do I do it?

So I started sharing some of these principles that I'm gonna I'm gonna share here in just a little bit, and he started applying those principles to his life.

Two weeks ago, I met with him, he'd give me these periodic updates and ask questions and all.

Well, two weeks ago I met with him and he started reading this letter to me.

And it was from his oldest daughter, she's a teenager, and she said, Dad, I just want to tell you how much I love you.

I mean, this is a letter that every father would die to get.

Dad, I just want to tell you how much I love you and how great I think our relationship is, and I always want to be close.

I don't want to ever have anything to come between us.

He's reading this letter, he's just crying over this letter.

He said, I just can't believe it.

Because he understood that our children don't have to rebel.

We'll just do certain things.

And he said, Steve, I've shared this, I've shared that your children don't have to rebel with so many people.

And so I want to encourage you tonight, your children don't have to rebel.

Don't believe a lie, that they have to rebel.

I mean, there are there are there are some people your children have rebelled.

Listen, listen, my heart goes out to you.

I know that has to be incredibly difficult.

But let me encourage you.

Can I encourage you tonight?

That it's never too late.

Never too late to win the heart of your child.

It's never too late to turn their heart to you.

So the first thing you do need to do, as it says in Malachi 4, is turn your heart to your children, but then work and do the things that will turn their heart to you.

Okay?

So how do you turn your heart to your uh your child's heart to you?

Well, you the first thing you should do is show them how much you love them.

Somehow, you know, when when kids get a little older, there just can't seem to be this disconnect between emotions and reason.

Has anybody, has anybody noticed that at all?

Well, I know what happened with me.

I mean, I got as I went in my teen years, it's like this, it just didn't make any sense.

And our for some reason our children start doubting whether we love them or not.

But let me tell you, they need our love.

Our children need our love.

It is so important, fathers.

You are so important to your children.

I can't tell you how important you are.

Do not believe that you're not.

Our children want our love, and we are so important to our children.

So we need to tell our children that we love them, and then we need to show them that we love them unconditionally, just like the Father does with us.

It's impossible to be separated from the love of God.

Romans 8, 38 and 39 says, For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

My daughters know there is nothing, nothing they can ever do that will keep me from loving them.

And so how do we show our love?

Well, the main way is just time.

Love is spelled, we've all heard it, love is spelled T-I-M-E.

And so I want to encourage you to spend a lot of time with your children.

Go on date nights with your children.

Uh having two daughters, here's something I've learned about going on dates with my children.

If you ask them, where would you like to eat?

That's the ticket to end up being the only guy in La Madeline's restaurant.

I mean, I was a couple months ago, I looked around.

I was the only guy in the restaurant.

But we just spent a lot of time with our children.

We would uh we we we we love to hang out, we love to go on vacation together, we love to eat together, we love to to uh to just talk.

I mean, we just love to share life together.

We we love to sit around at night, late at night in our master bedroom and talk about our days and things like that.

You know, people say, well, should I spend quality time with my children or quantity time?

Yes.

Yes.

Do both.

People say to me, Steve, I don't know how to show my children I love them.

Hey, listen, I didn't either.

I I had no idea when I first had children.

And so what now Melody knew, but I didn't know, so here's what I had to do, guys.

I had to start reading a bunch of books.

I had to find out from the experts how do you show love to your children.

I mean, Tom Lane's written a great, great book called The Influence of a Father.

Jimmy Evans, The Seven Secrets to a Successful Family.

There's a great book by Gary Chapman.

It's called The Five Languages of Love.

And he he he tells us how to speak the language, the love language of our children so they can understand that we love them by the way we speak their language.

He's even written a book for children called The Five Languages of Love for Children.

Well, we went to seminars, we went to parenting conferences, we took a course on parenting, we talked to successful families to try and learn what to do.

I mean, we just, I didn't know, so I had to had to learn.

I want to encourage you to learn everything you can.

It's not as difficult as it seems, I promise you.

I've been through it now, and we just have to make the effort.

We just have to focus on it and put some energy into it and make it a priority.

Now, some things are harder than others.

For example, shopping.

I don't know what it is about a mall, but when I walk into a mall, if I'm in there just a few minutes, I just start getting dizzy, I start getting weak, I get disoriented.

I mean, you know, a guy can walk five miles on the golf course playing 18 holes, but I mean, I start getting, I mean, my feet start hurting.

I want to sit down.

And let me tell you, ladies, hey, we're not faking it.

This is really real.

I mean, I know, you know, you get girls in them all.

I mean, you're walking with them usually, and they kind of, you know, you gotta slow down and walk with them.

Man, it's like they got supernatural energy in them all.

I mean, who what guy can keep up with a woman in them all?

I mean, it's impossible, right?

So, uh, you know, there's a there's a spirit in them all.

And I don't think it's the Holy Spirit.

So uh when you're spending all this time with your children, what do you do?

Well, you communicate with them.

See, I don't think a lot of guys, we just don't know this.

Women know this, but guys don't.

So let me can I just share a couple things that help you will help you communicate with your children?

Okay.

The secret of being a good conversationalist is not to be a good talker, it's to be able to ask good questions and to listen.

That's the secret to be a good conversationalist.

It's not to not to be able to talk, is to be able to ask good questions and listen.

And the way to have a good conversation with a child is to ask open-ended questions.

Open-ended questions are ones that can't be answered with one word.

Now, if you ask a little boy a question, like, how are you doing today?

What's he gonna say?

Fine, good, right?

I mean, to little boys, almost every question is a closed-ended question.

Right?

The one answer, one word, or maybe a grunt.

Now, if you're if your daughter's like a little girl on the video, almost any question is an open-ended question.

Right?

Every question is an opportunity.

So ask questions like this.

I spent hours, you know, I've spent hours just thinking about questions to ask my children.

What did you learn today?

That's an open-ended question.

What was the best thing that happened to you today?

You can't say yes to that.

It's an open-ended question.

What was the worst thing that happened to you today?

See, I I think God gave me two girls because I'm not the most sensitive guy in the world, unfortunately.

I mean, I want to be, but I'm just I'm just not that sensitive.

So I think God gave me two daughters to help me to learn to be more sensitive.

I uh uh this past week I was talking to my youngest daughter, and she was telling me about this situation where someone asked her to do something, and uh she had to tell them that she couldn't do it.

It was kind of difficult for her.

And here's what I said when that happened, how did you feel?

I mean, it's a great question.

How did you feel?

Now, on the outside I was calm, but on the inside I was like, yes, I finally remembered to be sensitive.

Yeah.

And even my wife was even there.

And said, and I was like, you know, home run.

And then I thought, man, I can use this in the Father's Day sermon.

This is perfect.

It may have taken me 20 years to come up with that question, but I've I finally did it.

So we need to show our children that we love them with time and communication.

And then another way to turn the heart of our child is to build godly relationships with our children.

See, God doesn't want us to just build relationships with our children, he wants us to build godly relationships with our children.

Here's what a godly relationship is: a godly relationship brings out God's best in you, which brings out God's best in me.

See, godly relationships bring out God's best in you, which brings out God's best in me.

So here's what happens.

As I'm trying to bring out God's best in you, I've got to ask, like I'm trying to bring out God's best in my daughter.

I've got to say, God, uh what's your vision for for her life?

Uh God, I need some answers here.

As you're praying for your daughter, as you're asking the Holy Spirit for direction and wisdom and knowledge and understanding about your children, that brings out God's best in you.

Well, that then, as you, as you give your children those answers and you tell them what the Lord is saying in their life, it brings out God's best in them, which then brings out God's best in you.

See, God wants us to have godly relationships with our children.

Relationships typically are between people with common interests and common goals.

So I want to caution you, Father.

If you don't have goals for your life or for your children, you can't have a common goal with your children.

And then if you don't have a common interest, you may end up with no relationship with your children because you have no common goals or no common interests.

If you and your child are pursuing the Lord, you both have a common interest.

And so Melly and I, we we learned this, and so we started we started developing common interests and common goals with our children.

And we would we would go on retreats and we would we would talk on weekends and say, what are some common interests and some common goals we can develop with our children?

And so we started we started doing things together as a family to try and reach certain goals, and we started working on things together.

We started working on how to walk in love.

We started uh how to be kind to one another.

We uh we we we started memorizing scripture together.

Uh we would we would work on things like like once a month we would work on something different, different character qualities.

I remember one month we worked on how to have a good work ethic and just different things.

And and you you try and bend these interests or goals to your children.

Try and find out what they're interested in.

Uh, one of the things that I did, I would try to be an example to my children about memorizing scripture.

And so my children got interested in memorizing scripture.

And I'll never forget the the one Christmas a few years ago, Cassie, my youngest daughter, was 15 years old, and she said, Dad, I have a special gift for you for Christmas.

And I said, Really, Cassie, what is it?

And she said, Well, I'm gonna have to show you.

I said, Well, okay, let's see it.

Well, the whole extended family was there, and Cassie stood up and she quoted Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

The whole chapter.

And I said, Cassie, that's incredible.

That's just incredible.

She said, Dad, I'm not finished.

And then she quoted Matthew chapter six.

I said, Cassie, you did it for me?

I can't, I can't believe that.

And she said, Dad, I'm not finished.

And she quoted Matthew chapter seven, the whole Sermon on the Mount.

I mean, it took her like 15 or 20 minutes to quote the Sermon on the Mount.

Why?

Because I set an example to my children.

It became a common interest of memorizing Scripture.

One thing I've I heard uh Brady Boyd say a few years ago, and I thought about it, I really agree with it.

If we want to have a godly relationship with our children, we need to we need to be an example to our children, being on fire for the Lord.

For those who know me, who came to habitation services, and I mean, I I think every person ought to be on fire for the Lord.

And what and what what Brady said was, he said, you know, most people who are on fire for the Lord, either their parents, usually their parents were either on fire for the Lord or they were cold.

Most lukewarm parents have lukewarm children.

So we need to be an example and be on fire for the Lord.

I think it's why in Revelation 3, 15 and 16, Jesus talking to the Laodicean church, I think this is why he said, I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.

I would wish that you were cold or hot.

So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

I think that's why why Jesus was saying, one of the reasons he was saying is because he knew if we were lukewarm, that our children would be lukewarm.

So I want to encourage you, fathers, to get on fire for.

God and your children will follow and it will help you build a godly relationship with them.

I just want to say again, it's never too late to build a godly relationship with your child.

It's never too late.

Guys, you can do it.

I promise you, you can do it.

If you'll just focus on certain things and things that will build those relationships, common interests and common goals, you can do it.

And I promise you, I promise you, it's worth it.

It's just worth it.

And fathers, I just want to encourage you to do it.

Well, now I want to talk about the child.

So, what's the children's part in all this?

It's honor your father.

Honor your father.

People say to me, Well, I don't know how to honor my father.

Here's what honor is: honor is a special attitude of the heart.

It's a special attitude of the heart.

It's choosing to turn your heart to your father.

That's what honor is.

And you say, Well, you know, my parents are dead.

You can still honor your parents.

My father is in jail.

You can still honor your father if he's in jail because it's an attitude of the heart.

I mean, God gives us this amazing promise in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 2 and 3.

Ephesians 6:2

And here's what he says: Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

What an incredible promise.

If we'll just honor our father and mother, things will go well with us and we'll live long on the earth.

You may say, I don't feel like my father deserves honor.

Well, honor him anyway.

Turn your heart to your father.

You may be amazed how God turns your father's heart to you, or the things he may do in your father's life.

I did not go to church growing up, and so I didn't, I'd never heard this.

I'd never heard about honoring your father.

But when I became a Christian, I read this and I said, I want to honor my father.

And so I saw I started honoring my father.

And my father and I have had a great relationship for years and years.

But I remember thinking a couple years ago, I thought, how can I how can I turn my heart more toward my father?

How can I build a better relationship with my father?

And I remember that scripture in Luke 12, chapter 12, verse 34, where it says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And so I thought, well, I want my heart to be turned to my father.

Children, listen to this.

I want my heart to be turned to my father, so I need to invest my treasure in my father.

And here's how it worked out for me.

I thought, I'm going to start taking my dad on a trip every year.

Every year, if as long as he can make it from now on, I'm going to take my dad on a trip and I'm going to take my mom on a trip.

So every year, my brothers and I take my dad on a trip and we take my mom on a trip.

I remember the uh I remember our first trip.

My dad's here tonight, by the way, but but I remember our first trip, and we went to Yellowstone National Park.

And I wanted to see grizzly bears, right?

I mean, if you go to Yellowstone, I mean you want to see grizzly bears, right?

Well, we didn't see you the first day, and so the second day I'm going, gosh, I really want to see some grizzly bears.

And we just hadn't seen any.

But so then we were driving along about mid-morning and we see this group of people off the side of the road.

I said, hey, let's see what's happening.

So we go over there and we say, hey, hey, what's going on?

They said, there was a mother grizzly bear and her two cubs, and they just ran into the woods.

I said, Come on, Dad, let's go.

So we ran into the woods.

Not that great an idea to follow a grizzly bear in the woods, but but so we ran about five, ten yards in the woods, and there she was.

I mean, she was, she and her cubs were probably 25 or 30 yards away.

Well, I just wouldn't even think.

I said, Dad, I said, get the video camera.

You know, get the video camera.

So Dad grabs the video camera, he starts, you know, filming this mother and her two cubs, and after a couple of minutes he kind of stopped me.

He said, he said, Steve, what if she charges us?

I said, Well, Dad, we start running.

And uh he looked at me and said, Steve, we we can't outrun a grizzly bear.

And by now, there's about 10 or 15 people around us, and I looked at them and they were kind of elderly and retired.

I said, Dad, we don't have to outrun the grizzly.

We just have to outrun them.

So we have we've had some great trips, and the trip showed my dad that I loved and honored him.

I was very intentional about loving dad and honoring dad.

And uh eight months ago, I had the privilege of leading my dad to the Lord.

And I I'll tell you, it's one of the greatest joys of my life.

I'm so proud of my dad.

You know, my dad got in.

I said, Dad, now this isn't about getting just getting saved.

It's about making Jesus Christ Lord over your life, area of your life.

So dad said, okay.

And so we started doing a Bible study every Sunday.

Uh, for about an hour to an hour and a half.

Every Sunday we do a Bible study together.

And for dad said, well, hey, if I'm in, I'm in.

So he started doing a Beth Moore Bible study.

Well, he probably didn't know any better.

So anyway.

And then at the same time, he started doing a Henry Blackaby Bible study called Experience of God.

Same time, doing three Bible studies at the same time.

He started memorizing Scripture.

He he joined a church.

He started reading through the Bible in a year at the age of 73.

I mean, I'm so proud of my dad.

And I just want to say that my dad was an example to me.

Just like I want to encourage you to be an example to your children.

My dad was an example of integrity and loyalty, how to work hard, how to do things with excellence, dependability.

And my dad showed me how to serve.

I can't tell you how many times growing up we would see a car stopped on the side of the road, and my dad would pull over, and he was, he's, he's, he's great with working on cars.

He would, I mean, I literally can't tell how many times he would pull over and he would help people with their car.

And so I just want to honor my dad tonight.

And dad, I want to tell you I love you, and I'm so proud of you.

I'm so glad you're in the kingdom of God.

Thank you.

Would you stand?

I mean, would you just honor?

I really believe just these trips that we went on.

Investing in my dad, but turning my heart more toward my dad.

I just want to encourage you, fathers, to turn your heart toward your children.

And turn your children's heart to you.

Okay?

So uh I'd just like to I'd just like to pray over you right now if I could.

So here's my question.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you today?

Is he saying, turn your heart to your child?

Or maybe he's telling you to turn your heart to your father.

Perhaps he's saying, show your children that you love them.

Or he may be saying to you, build a godly relationship with your child.

The Holy Spirit may be saying to you, honor your Father.

But I want to encourage you to, whatever the Holy Spirit's saying, whatever he's telling you to do, I want to encourage you to hear what he's saying.

Believe him, and then obey him.

And he will bless you for doing that.

So, Father, I just thank you for each person here.

I thank you for the love that you have for them, the love that I have for them as an elder of this church.

We have this wonderful people at Gateway Church.

And Lord, I ask that you use this message to encourage them.

Lord, I pray that maybe it would give them some ideas or some thoughts or some pointers on how to win the heart of their child.

Or perhaps if they're a child to turn their heart to their father and their mother.

Lord, I just thank you.

I thank you for what you've done for us.

Lord, I thank you that you can do all things through us and in us.

Lord, I ask that you empower us to live the life as a father that you want us to have, to live the life as a child that you want us to have.

And Lord, I ask that you glorify yourself through us.

And I ask that you bless every person here.

And I ask these things in Jesus Christ's mighty name.

And everyone said, Amen.