Train up a child

Raising a Life Long Follower of Jesus

Raising a Life Long Follower of Jesus

Great fathers of faith 

Bio: Abraham  Spiritual Father: Mordaci  Step Dad: Joseph  Being a parent is hard.

I think it’s always been hard, but doesn’t it feel like it is getting harder?

We compete against evil influences and voices in our children’s lives.

Our digital world has given them access to more information than ever before.

It has also given evil an access to our children like never before.

In spite of this, we must build healthy families.

It is our responsibility as fathers no matter how hard, to do this.

Our children are worth it.

Like you, I want to do everything I can to ensure my children are lifelong followers of Jesus.

I’m a pastor – I’ve prayed with hundreds, even thousands of people. I’ve preached hundreds of times all over the place. But my greatest joy is when these kids raise their hands in worship or when they bring me something that God showed them.

Their spiritual journey is my responsibility.

"Raising my children to be lifelong followers is my primary assignment as father, from my heavenly Father.” Our Fathers day scripture today is going to be   Proverbs

Pro   v. 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go,  and when he is old he will not turn from it. When you train, you dedicate yourselves to becoming better at something.

I think the most important word in this verse is train.

Lifelong followers don’t just happen. 

Notice Proverbs doesn’t say TRY and help your child be better.

It doesn’t say “Suggest.”

It doesn’t say, “let your child do whatever he wants” or “Train up your child unless it hurts their feelings.”

A Dr. studied 50 Olympic athletes to learn what training methods they had in common. Most started training at a very young age.

Every athlete had a strict daily regimen of activity that was consistent almost every day

Each athlete had spent over 10,000 hours of training before their first Olympic event. Most thousands more than that.

Every athlete had dedicated people in their life helping them achieve their Olympic goals. (What is interesting is those coaches didn’t compete in the Olympics)

Training for the Olympics takes commitment to train to get the desired result.

When it comes to our kids, should we expect anything less from ourselves?

Training to be a lifelong follower means dedicating significant time coaching them to be like Jesus.

Lifelong followers are not developed in a day. If athletes spend over 10,000 hours training for a medal, should we be doing anything less for our children to serve God?

If you start when your child is 2 two years old, and you spend 2 hours a day in godly training. You would hit the 10,000 hour mark by the time they are 15.

1.

Show them Faith 

Raise up a child in the way that he should go. How do you expect your children to have a heart for God if you don’t show them what it looks like to have a heart for God. Show them what it means to worship God also not only during worship services but in your daily life.

When they have issues, do they come to you? How do you respond to them? With biblical wisdom, anger, or do you ignore them? It’s necessary to teach your kids how to handle tough situations now. They need your wisdom and they need your faith.

They need to know that when they get out in the world they can hang on the truths that you imparted to them and how your faith has shaped who you are.  2. 

Love their mother

Fathers you are teaching your daughters how to be treated and you are teaching your son how to treat other people’s daughters. All by the way you treat their mother. 

Whether you are with her or not…love her. Your kid is only going to show their mother the degree of respect that they see you show her. 3.

Teach them 

One of the reasons we have the sexual issues that we have in the world today such as transgenderism and homosexuality is because fathers aren't taking the time to sit down and talk to their kids about the tough stuff. It is your job man to teach your sons about sexuality. It’s also necessary to teach them about politics, hygiene (fathers of boys. Lol). Taking pride in their appearance, work ethic, saving, finances, etc.We forget we are not raising children. We are raising adults.  Prov. 1:8 Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. 9 They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.

If a child is told to listen to a fathers teaching that means WE should be teaching. As a dad, it is your responsibility to teach your children.

Solomon speaks here about the godly instructions in the bible.

If you want your child to be a lifelong follower of Jesus, Talk to your child about God.

The best way for your child to learn about God, is for you to talk about Him.

Your kids need to hear about Jesus from you.

I’d love to take credit for this idea, but it’s not mine, it’s God’s.

In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, God gave instructions to His people:

Dt. 6:4 “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God the Lord alone. 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children…

If you don’t know what to talk about, just read the bible together. Tell your children stories from the bible. You can also Memorize God’s Promises together

 Another thing you can do is,

Turn everyday situations into teaching moments.

The rest of that Deut. 6 passage says:…

Dt 6:4b Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.

Each day you have opportunities to explain to your kids what God is doing.

The scripture says to talk about God’s word at home, on the road, at night and in the morning.

These “teachable moments” are invaluable for your child to understand God’s work in their lives.

Look for opportunities. Don’t waste time in the car listening to talk radio, have worship services in your car.

When you are on vacation, don’t take the credit for taking your kids there, give God the glory for blessing your family. When bad things happen, stop immediately to pray.

Let your thought be, “How can I use this to teach my kids about God?”

My kids have always worked ministry with me.

You may not have Jordan or Aiden teaching your biblical marriage class. But any event we have here, any time I minister to someone they are in the background working, helping ministering.

Jordan has always helped speak into the lives of my rehab students. And its powerful because he’s speaking to them from the heart of a child who had an addicted parent.

Karmin puts as much time into LifeGate as a whole as any other person here and LOVES leading worship for the Kids.

As a family We have some mantras that we repeat and stand on. Some we’ve picked up from others along the way.

Like:

By life or By death, this is what we do.

And

100yrs from now it won’t matter what kind of car I drove, house I lived in or how much money I had in my account. Rather, what will matter is how many lives I was able to reach for my King.

Training involves explaining and demonstrating things to your kids.

Teach them why you are doing what you are doing. They don’t know unless you tell them.

Why do you put the time into people at church etc because maybe…just maybe my kids will catch me in a moment of excellence  4.

Lead them  I want you to think about what you want your kids to be and how you want them to act and operate around others.

If you are not in front of your children person you just thought about then you’re not leading them correctly.

The father role, the earthly father role belongs to you and you alone. You do not give someone else the right to father your children.

Proverbs 20:7 The righteous man leads a blameless life; blessed are his children after him.

Training your child means, you live a life of integrity. A life well lived is the greatest lesson you can give your child.

Actions are stronger than instruction.

The best way to train a child in the way he should go, is for you to being going in the right way yourself.

They will follow your lead, more than they will follow your words.

Nothing will mess up your child’s faith commitment like inconsistency in your relationship with God.

This doesn’t mean you are perfect or you have to get it right all the time.

It doesn’t mean your kids will never see you mess up or make a mistake.

It does mean that when you mess up, Own your failure and apologize. A while back, Karmin was being interrogated by her mother about a friend.

I didn’t like this situation at all because that friend was a boy.

Now It wasn’t that big of a deal, but I lost my temper. I raised my voice correcting her. I was unreasonable and out of line.

She has worked hard to show responsibility and trustworthiness and she had asked me to trust her in this. She’s earned that right by her actions but I wanted to protect her from possibilities that weren’t even evident.

I came back later and she was sobbing. My tone was harsh and not appropriate. I knew immediately what I had done was wrong, but I couldn’t take it back. My only option was to immediately own my failure. I apologized and asked her forgiveness. For some of you, you need to go back and make something right with your kids. Own it and ask forgiveness.

Encourage them  Encourage them in their walk with God

I said earlier that for Solomon “training” meant dedication and devotion to God.

If you want to raise a lifelong follower of Jesus, Commit to consistent church involvement.

The Olympic athletes we talked about, they spent 10,000 hours training. Have you spent that much time on the spiritual training of your family?

Let’s say you are an average church attender. Recently I taught that means you attend 2 weekend services a month. We will round it up and say it’s 1.5 hours for each service Let’s also say you bring your child to Wednesday night youth or kids ministry. That’s another 1.5 hours. So a total of 3 hours a week, twice a month. Your child spends 6 hours a month - 72 hours a year at church. We have some great pastors and volunteers. Our youth and children’s leaders are God given gifts. But you can’t assign your training responsibility to them. And let’s be honest, 6 hours a month or 72 hours a year isn’t enough.

If you use the 10,000 hour rule it will take 138 years of going to church.

There is no way, you can expect your child to be “trained” unless you get involved on a daily basis.

You are important to your child’s spiritual health! Your family needs you!

Make going to church as a family a priority. Model consistent attendance and ministry involvement. Be above average. Show them excellence. Make the commitment to weekly church attendance with your family.  Encourage your children to be involved in youth Classes and other activities.

Maybe....just maybe they will catch you in an act of excellence.

JALEN or music if she’s gone

Now Let me encourage you:Do not use church as a discipline tool. Don’t ground your children from spending time with God. Don’t ground them from the positive influences in their life. It is confusing to me why an important part of in helping your child grow spiritually, becomes a discipline method.

It never too late to start  I know what some of you are thinking, “OK, Pastor, that is fine and good. But, I did that. I took my child to church, I did my best to live for Jesus and train them. But now, they aren’t serving Jesus.

Even worse, you might be thinking, “What did I do wrong? Is it my fault my kid isn’t serving God?” Maybe you weren’t following Jesus when your kids were young. You did a lot of things you regret. Sure, each of us could do a better job of parenting.

But your child’s decision to not follow Jesus is their decision, not yours.

Coaches train their Olympic athletes for thousands of hours. But at the moment of competition, the coach doesn’t play the game. The athlete succeeds or fails on their own performance, not the coach. The coach trains, the athlete competes.

It is the same with your child. You train, your child chooses. You instill right values and you put them on the right path, but each person makes their own choice to follow Jesus.

The Bible teaches this. Solomon, who wrote “Train a child in the way they should go, and he will not depart from it” also wrote this:

Proverbs 19: 27 Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. I wish I could give you the guaranteed way to train your child to be a lifelong follower. There is no guarantee. 

You cannot force your family to serve God, but you can lead your family to follow God.

It’d be great if you could make your children be life long followers. You can’t do it. I can’t do it. They have a choice. If you feel guilty because you did everything you could, but your child has walked away from God, I want to remind you:

It is your responsibility to train your child, it is your child’s responsibility to follow Jesus.

We do our part, God does His part, but every child has to make their own decision. If you didn’t do a good job when your child young, don’t give up. You can’t go back in time. But you can start doing right now. Own your mistake and apologize and start doing right. And there is another thing you can do, no matter what happened, Pray for your child

As long as you can pray, there is hope. Don’t give up on your child. Don’t give up on God. Don’t give up – pray. If your child is still in your home, make prayer for them a daily part of your life. If your child is older and serving the Lord, pray for them. If your child is away from God – pray and believe in the power of God to bring them home.

Pray for kids who are lost. . . .