Turning the Hearts

Heading into this weekend I wasn’t sure what else I could add to the conversation since we have already said so much. And then I felt the Lord whisper to me this verse that we are going to read together.

It’s found in Malachi 4:6.

Reading

Malachi 4:6 NIV

He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

Turning the Hearts

Introduction

I heard this the other day about parenting…

Parenting is a lot like assembling IKEA furniture without the instructions. You think you’re doing fine, then suddenly you realize you have three extra screws, something’s upside down, and you’re praying the whole thing doesn’t collapse.

We are not going to ask parents to show hands today, because we have an image we have to keep up with our kids in the room, but you’ve had times when you felt like you just don’t know what to do…

And so what a lot of parents do then is we just drop our kids off at church once a week, and assume they’ll magically grow into mature, faith-filled adults.

That’s like putting a broccoli on their plate once a week and expect them to become Olympic athletes.

Raising kids is hard.

Handing them your faith is hard.

And then here in the text, we get this verse that seemingly acknowledges that and it tells us that Jesus is going to turn hearts of parents and children back towards one another, which is an admission that they aren’t, and that’s not god’s design.

Text

Now before we get to this verse I need to quickly walk you through this very short book of the Bible we read from, Malachi.

Malachi was a prophet in the Old Testament and we actually know very little about him. Him name simply means “my messenger.” And when you read through his letter, he says very little, and God says everything. God tells him write down everything that I am about to say to you, and that’s exactly what he does, and it’s pretty much the only thing that he does. It opens with Malachi introducing himself,

Malachi 1:1 NIV

A prophecy: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.

And then everything after that is God speaking through him to Israel.

[Transition]

So what is happening during this time?

Israel has come back to Jerusalem after 70 years of captivity and they have rebuilt the temple. They have started settling back into their land. They are planting crops, they are raising children, they are keeping the torah, and the temple, the center of Jewish life, was back in operation.

It would seem as though the horrors of captivity are behind them now and they are slowly adjusting to life as they knew it.

But Malachi’s letter cuts through the monotony of their new everyday life and he’s calling Israel to repent.

Why?

Well there’s a few reasons why, but here are the highlights:

They stopped bringing acceptable sacrifices to the Lord - they brought blind or blemished sacrifices

They stopped honoring the covenant of marriage. Men were divorcing their wives and trampling on the commitments that they made. - This is where you’ll find the verse in the Bible that God hates divorce

They stopped bringing the tithe to the temple. - As they stopped tithing the word says, “you have robbed God.”

When we get to the final correction in Malachi’s letter he tells Israel that “the great and terrible day of the Lord” is coming and that Elijah was coming to prepare the way of the Lord.

What did that mean? Those are strong words?

That was actually a prophecy that the Messiah was coming, and of course we now know he was talking about Jesus, and the Elijah coming was prophetic to mean that John the Baptist would come to prepare the way of Jesus.

So I’ve given you the executive summary of Malachi in just 5 minutes, but what does all of this have to do with family?

Well, when Malachi says that Jesus is coming, it is in that same breath that he says, “He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents.”

Let me translate that for you… Jesus is coming and at the top of His priority list is to reconcile families together.

Children turning to their parents.

Parents turning to their children.

[Transition]

Don’t raise your hand, but is there anyone here who feels like their child has turned away from them? Is there anyone here who feels like their parent has turned away from them?

Let’s lean into this for a moment because not only was this verse for then, 2,000 years ago, but there is something that is happening right not. At this very cultural moment. That is fulfilling the multi generational prophetic message of this verse.

Application

Parents

Let me start by talking to the parents in the room right now. When we read this verse, watch the order of the text one more time.

“He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents.”

Whose heart must turn first? The children or the parents?

[Pause]

Moms and Dads this is not the time for mumbling in the church. Say it loud and proud so that your children in the room can hear you. Whose heart must turn first?

The parents.

What does that mean?

Well, let me give you my opinion of what that means.

Before you can call your children up into your world, you need to first step into their world.

This is an old example, but we have a lot of new people in the church so I am going to use it.

My boys love watching Marvel movies. If you remember, these movies started releasing before many of our Gen Alpha’s in the room were even born! I wasn’t into them. I didn’t care about Iron Man. I didn’t care about Hulk. I didn’t care about Thor.

If I was going to watch a movie I was going to watch Denzel Washington, excuse me, Minister Denzel Washington movie.

But two things happened… number one, I wouldn’t let my kids watch his movies. Those are for grown folks.

And number two, my boys got old enough to have an opinion on what they wanted to watch and that was Marvel movies.

So what did I do?

I stepped into their world. I started taking interest in the things that they took interest in.

I would take them to release nights of the new movies and we’d make memories together. Always stopping at the theatre displays and taking picture of my kids.

[add pictures here]

Do you want to know what I didn’t do?

I didn’t criticize their movie choice.

I didn’t make them feel bad for liking Marvel.

I didn’t refuse to sit with them because it wasn’t what I wanted.

No, I literally turned my heart toward them, took an interest in what they were interested in, and experienced what they were experiencing.

[Pause]

But as my kids are getting older, I am slowly bringing them into my world.

I start to expose them to the things that their Dad is interested in.

If I have to minister somewhere, I bring one of them. If I’m going to meet with someone at the church and it’s appropriate, they get to come.

I am bringing them up into my world.

And here we go, all of that is a lead in to this, I give my sons a seat at my table.

But, before I can bring them up, I have to go down.

Now let me ask you a question, when you bring them up to your table, what are they going to find you consuming?

I think you are figuring out that I am using a table metaphorically now.

Ok, so when you bring them up to your table, is it a table of prayer? Do your children know you as a parent of prayer?

When you bring them up to your table, is it a table of devotion and worship?

When your children see your table, is it a table that they want to sit at?

[Pause]

I need to go a bit deeper here…

Parents, as you turn your hearts toward them, are you making an effort to understand the world that they are growing up in?

Your children are not growing up in the world that you grew up in.

I dived into this in my study this week. I know we could talk about this for hours, but let’s just talk at a high level about things that we are seeing generationally:

I want to show you what we are seeing generationally across Boomers, Gen X, Millenials, Gen Z, and, although we don’t have enough data, some trends with Gen Alpha.

Institutional Trust

Boomers: High Trust

Gen X: Skeptical, disillusioned

Millenials: Deep distrust

Gen Z: Mistrust, activist pressure

Work & Career

Boomers: Corporate loyalty

Gen X: Work-life balance, side hustles

Millenials: Gig-economy, job hopping

Gen Z: Entrpreneaurship, remote working

Community Life

Boomers: Face-to-face, civic groups

Gen X: Loose friend network (Everyone’s Connected)

Millenials: Online/ Digital Communities

Gen Z: Hybrid (online +IRL), movements

Core Identity & Values

Boomers: Stability & prosperity

Gen X: Individualism & independence

Millenials: Experiences, inclusivity

Gen Z: Identity, mental health, climate action

Gen Alpha (~2010 - 2024)

Growing up in a world shaped by smartphones, AI, climate change, and global instability.

Expected to be the most educated and diverse generation in history.

Gen Alpha will be AI natives—growing up with algorithms that know them better than they know themselves.

Gen Alpha may expect very high levels of affirmation and customization in life.

Likely to value self-paced, gamified, interactive learning more than traditional lectures.

Will expect personalization in everything

Challenges that Gen Alpha will face:

Mental health & attention span (due to tech saturation).

Lack of resilience if over-protected or overly curated childhoods.

Digital dependency—harder to separate “real world” from digital.

Social disconnection despite hyper-connectivity.

OK, that is a lot of information. I get it.

Parents, are you seeking to understand this?

Are you turning your heart towards your child to reconcile your relationship with them?

Because before you call them up, you need to first step into their world.

And, can I just give you a little parenting pro-tip here?

Tell them about the world you grew up in, and help them find the connection to theirs.

[Pause]

Just last night I spoke to many of your children for our Lighthouse Students and my boys were here.

After it was over I so enjoyed the conversation in the car. I told the students about some of the sacrifices I made as a teenager trying to get into Bible College. I told a story that I feel like I have said 100 times, but they never heard it.

They asked me about my sacrifices and what it was like…

What a joy to show them that their Dad had to make hard decisions too, and that their Dad had to make some sacrifices to purse the calling of God on his life.

[Pause]

I teach this concept to our students in our leadership college, “We lead from our strengths, but we minister from our brokenness.”

Parents, at some point you need to get real with your children and share with them the scars you have,

“Hey the reason I don’t want you dating right now is because I did that when I was your age, and not only did I have my heart broken, but I gave myself to someone who isn’t your Dad. I can’t ever take that back, but and I have deep regret over that. I don’t want that for you.”

Hey the reason I think it’s a bad idea to open up that store credit card is because I once found myself in a lot of debt and it affected my marriage, my mental well being, and it took a lot for me to get out of that place. So I don’t want that for you.

The reason I don’t want you out with your friends partying is because I used to do that, and I ended up getting a DUI. I ended up waking up after I drank myself to sleep and I had no idea how the night went before and I have a lot of regrets.

Minister to your child through your brokenness.

Show them your scars.

Children

Now, what I believe the text is saying here is that after parents have turned their hearts to their children, children then need to turn their hearts to their parents.

I think I’m going to get a lot of parents leaning in right now because you are looking for me to hopefully straighten out your children here in these next couple of minutes, but I can’t promise you that.

So here is what I think needs to happen in order to get our children’s heart turned towards the parents.

Parents, first we set our hearts towards Jesus.

We turn towards Jesus and we trust in his word and his promises. We trust that Jesus loves our kids even more than we love our kids, and that’s crazy, but it’s true.

So we stop demanding anything from our kids and we start depending on God to reach our kids.

I’m generally speaking here… there are times when if our children’s lives are in the balance you have to swoop in and rescue them.

But listen, stop demanding and start depending.

Fervently pray for your children!

Take a day out of the week and devote it to praying for your children to know God

Intercede with the God of heaven and earth for your children

[Pause]

And then, turn your children’s heart towards Jesus.

Train up your children in the way of the Lord.

The Biblical construct is that one generation tells the next generation about the goodness of God.

One generation tells the next generation about the greatness of God.

Parents, we need to make a bigger deal about Jesus in our homes. We need to give our children a vision of WHO HE IS.

We need to disciple our children with an intentional plan that they are eager to join you on.

And if we get this right parents, then I believe what we’ll see happen is this.

We’ve got the hearts of parents and children turned towards one another.

[Pause]

Yes, I am putting the cookies on the bottom shelf this morning.

Yes, I am trying to make this as easy and plain as possible.

But we have more parents turning their kids hearts towards college and sports, that Jesus is a far second on the list of things they are teaching their children

Parents will hire a coach, put them on a club team, drive all around the country convinced their son is the next Messi, and meanwhile, you haven’t even taught them how to read and understand the scriptures.

And then you wonder why your kid doesn’t want to talk to you.

You keep pointing them in the direction of worldly ambition, and they don’t know your God.

[Pause]

Conclusion

We have to hand the next generation a baton, and not a burden.

What do I mean by that?

I remember growing up hearing about the revival that God did in the previous generation. It’s only now that I fully understand what was happening…

I was born in 1980, and so in my childhood, the mid to late eighties, do you know what I was hearing about?

The Jesus Movement of the 1970’s.

Hang with me for a second…

In the 1970’s there was a global awakening and in particular, the Jesus Movement of the 1970’s was characterized by mass baptisms, miracles, packed altars, and a national reconciliation to Jesus.

Here are some things that were common to see.

So in my childhood, what I heard was, “Jesus moved, and you just missed him! If only you were born 15 years ago.”

In fairness, that’s not what they said but that’s how it felt whenever I would see something that I thought was awesome and they’re respond, “Yea, but that’s not like how it was in the 70’s…”

So why do I tell you that?

That could have been handled better…

Do you want to know why?

Because right now, many people believe we are on the cusp of another awakening in our time. As a matter of fact, church historians will tell you that it was in the 1920’s that what is now Pentecostalism and Charismatic churches had their formation. 50 years later it’s the Jesus Movement. Well, it’s been 50 years since then, and I believe there’s another one coming and this next generation will be the ones to carry it.

So are we telling our children about the goodness of God and pointing them to what God is getting ready to do in our churches?

Parents, I want you to see what is happening here.

As we turn our children to Jesus, they will consequently turn towards us.

The greatest thing that I can do for my child is to give them a vision of Jesus.

Teach them about Jesus.

Tell them about his life. Tell them about what He did. Tell them about his word and his promises, over and over again.

I may not be able to turn their hearts towards me, but I can turn their heart towards Jesus.

And in time, we will believe for the kind of generational reconciliation that brings about the presence of God over our churches, over our homes, and over our cities.

Deuteronomy 6:6–7 NIV

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

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