THE TARGETED GENERATION
PROPS NEEDED:
Bow (Compound)
Quiver of Arrows
A Twig (small branch that’s slightly crooked)
READ Psalm 127:3-5, “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a mighty warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they will not be ashamed when the speak with their enemies in the gate.”
- What he is saying is this…that children are like arrows and fathers are like archers.
- Dads are to be mighty warriors and children are to be arrows in the hands of the father.
- The implication of this Psalm is that when Dad’s learn to shoot straight, the kids are going to hit the mark
- OBJECT LESSON: (Bow and Arrow) You see, An arrow is no more effective than the warrior who shoots it…the bow is no more effective than the man who holds it in his hand.
I. THE ARCHER – The Strength of the Father Determines the Strength of the Family
- Notice what it says (vs. 4), “as arrows in the hand of a MIGHTY warrior”
- God wants Fathers to be strong on behalf of their families.
- ILLUS: Archery…it is more than casually picking up a bow and arrow
o There must be a good aim
o There must be A full draw
o And there must be a Smooth release
- It takes skill, practice, and determination…that same is true to be a good dad
- My Dad taught me: To be a good man is difficult…to be a good husband is more difficult…to be a good father is the most difficult of all.
- When the arrow misses its target that may happen for several different reasons:
o There may be some bad arrows
o There may be some Moving targets
o Unforeseen wind that blows arrow away from target
- This doesn’t diminish the archers responsibility…it only increases it…that we might still point and aim those arrows.
- My goal in life: Highest ambition…to be a good husband and a good father
- The Archer Must Be Strong! (We’re not talking about physical strength here…we’re talking about SPIRITUAL strength)
- REPEAT AFTER ME: “The Person You Are Is the Person Your Child Will Become.”
- ILLUS: In 1994 the Swiss Government did a study published in 2000 with some interesting information. “It is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or the absence from church of the children.”
- There was also another study that found that fathers in the United States spend less time with their children than any other country in the world (Russian fathers spend as much as 2-3 hours with the children but in America, the Father spends an average of 37 seconds with their young children!)
- Parents as a whole spend less than 15 minutes a week in serious discussion with their kids!
Jeremiah 49:1, “Concerning the sons of Ammon. Thus says the LORD: ‘Does Israel have no sons? Or has he no heirs? Why then has Malcam taken possession of Gad and his people settled in its cities?’”
- God asks a sobering question: “Does Israel have no sons? Does Israel have no heir?”
- What was happening was the Ammonites were attacking God’s people – they were stealing, killing and taking everything that belonged to God.
- And when they cried out to God and said, “Lord why don’t you do something?”
o God put it back on them!
o And He says, “Does Israel have no sons? Does Israel have no heir?”
o He was saying to the parents / adults – “Don’t you have any children? Don’t you have any kids? WHERE ARE YOUR KIDS?”
- God’s Word teaches us that the key to your victory is not just in yourself – but the key to the nation’s victory, the key to your family’s victory – is not just in your parents – but where are your kids?
- ON SCREEN: Islamic Birth Rate compared to other countries in Europe and America.
- I love kids...how many of you love kids?
o I have three kids and I love them most of the time!
- I love listening especially to the conversations of little kids and hearing how they see things and hear things! They have a unique insight.
o ILLUS: I heard of one kid who was taught to memorize Acts 3 where it says, “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.” But this little boy said, “Repent and be baptized for the permission of sins.”
• You can preach a whole sermon off of that – some people believe that when you’re saved and baptized you’ve got permission to sin!
o ILLUS: I heard about another kid who was being taught the story about God leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt.
• He said, “I have a question Ma’am...
• You said the Children of Israel led them out of Egypt – that’s right
• You said the Children of Israel surrounded the Jericho walls and they fell down, is that right – yes, that’s right.
• You said that the Children of Israel fought the Philistines and the Amorites, and the Amelekites – yes, that’s right.
• He said, I just want to know one thing – when are the parents going to do something?
- That’s what I want to talk to you about today – WHEN ARE THE PARENTS GOING TO DO SOMETHING
o Because I feel a great burden to emphasize – that children hold a great, untapped, productive and powerful place in the work of God that is really not being harnessed fully like we need to harness it!
- We need to realize that God did not give us our children just to merely raise to be good citizens, or to teach them how to be good successful businessmen or businesswomen, or even to become leaders in our cities or in our nation.
- But the ultimate purpose of God for those children that God has given to you is to be Hell’s worst nightmare!
II. THE ARROW – Children Must Be Shaped and Sharpened to Hit the Target
- Children are not born straight arrows…they are not by nature arrows…(Sticks and twigs are not arrows) they have to be made into arrows
- OBJECT LESSON: (Hold up a Twig) You cannot shoot straight with a crooked arrows.
o WHAT IS YOUR JOB AS A DAD? Your job is Shaping, Sharpening, and Shooting the arrows that God has put in your hands.
o (Which by the way is one of life’s most difficult tasks…and that is why we have so many drop out dad’s.)
• The problem with society is not delinquency of teenagers, but the delinquency of dads!
o Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
• “Nurture = discipline…admonition = teaching
• If you want to be in your children’s memories tomorrow, you’ve got to be in their lives today!
o Colossians 3:21, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.”
• Don’t exasperate! It’s been said that shouting to make your children obey is like using a horn to steer your car – and you get about the same results!
• Any child can tell you that the sole purpose of a middle name is so he can tell when he is really in trouble!
• Do you know what the challenge of any man is?…The success of any man is whether or not his kids are spiritually sharp and emotionally straight.
• An arrow has to be straight and it has to be sharp
- Vs. 4, “Like arrows in the HAND of a mighty man.”
o There is a time when that arrow is in your hand and there will come a time when that arrow will no longer be in your hands
o When those arrows are in your hand, they are YOUR responsibility.
OBJECT LESSON: Twig -- When you have a twig, then you can begin to shape it while it is still soft and pliable
- Prov. 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
- Little children can be shaped and molded so very easily
- WHY? 4 Factors:
o 1. Curiosity Factor is extremely high…
• ”Why daddy, why?”
• My wife read a study last week that said the average 4 year old asks about 400 questions a day.
• Children love to ask the question “WHY?”
• We need to answer for them the questions of where they came from, why they are here, and where they are going!
• If we don’t, then MTV will!
o 2. The Memory Factor is great!
• Don’t tell me a little kid can’t memorize…
• By the time a child is 2 they have learned a foreign language.
• At this age, Scripture memorization is easy and it lasts longer!
o 3. The Trust Factor: Little kids trust!
• They trust their parents completely!
• The older we get the more cynical we get!
o 4. The Humility Factor:
• They are not too proud to learn! They can take advice.
• Jesus said that salvation can only be obtained when we have faith like a child.
• A child hasn’t learned to be prideful or arrogant!
• A child is soft and moldable when they are young, but they can harden as they age.
e. The Best thing fathers can spend on their children is TIME.
Since fathers are pretty time conscious, let me suggest three crucial times when you can lead your family.
1. Mealtime: Guard it. Protect it.
- You may have to eat early or late—just make certain you do it together as often as possible.
- Harvard professor Dr. Catherine Snow followed 65 families over an eight-year period. She made this profound discovery: Dinnertime is of more value to child development than playtime, school time, and story time.
- If eating around the dining room table trumps the benefits of school, then you’ve got my attention.
- At the table you can affirm, teach, listen, reinforce, and laugh!
- Life lessons can be learned here. So put away your phone and look into your family’s eyes.
2. Travel Time:
- Like it or not the inside of your SUV or car has become the modern day living room.
- As you shuttle your kids to and from, you have quality training time.
- Jesus taught his disciples while he travelled.
o He always seized teachable moments.
o Use your travel time to point your children in the right direction.
- You won’t always have them riding with you.
- Someday they’ll be driving separately, and it will be sooner than you think so take advantage of your captive audience (see Deuteronomy 6:4–9).
3. Bedtime:
- Sometimes we miss out on this pivotal time to lead our little ones, especially Dads.
- This is an opportunity for each parent to affirm, console, encourage, and bless your kids just before they fall asleep.
- I’ve gotten in the habit of praying this little prayer with my kids before they go to sleep: “Oh Lord, I can’t wait to see how you are going to use Austin.”
o Instead of falling asleep wondering if God could use him, I want him to dream of how He is going to use Austin.
o I’m vision-casting for my son at an early age.
- The spiritual history of the church is replete with God’s delight and desire to use children and students and young people in mighty and miraculous ways to shake nations and turn the world upside down for God
o Whether it’s the 3 Hebrew children that were in the fiery furnace that brought a national revival by their faith demonstrated
o Or the 17 year old shepherd boy named David who went out against the Philistines and defeated Goliath
o Or when you read of Samson – who was mighty and powerful but could not tear down Dagon’s Temple until a little lad (a little child) led him out and put his hands on the pillars of the Temple of Dagon
o Or whether it was Hannah’s son in the Scriptures – who was 12 years old and at the age of 12 he had been so mentored and so instructed and so taught the things of God – that when God spoke in the temple, God didn’t go to an adult or an experienced preacher – but God had a 12 year old child in the church that He could speak to in order to bring a national revival.
- I believe that God wants to use our children!
o When you study the greatest revivals and the great awakenings throughout all of church history – God always used our children and our youth in stirring up and starting a revival!
o God can touch your children in mighty and miraculous ways!
- One of the greatest needs of the church for a powerful present and a flourishing future is to recruit, and develop, and mobilize our kids and our youth for ministry!
o LISTEN: The devil’s not waiting until they’re 20 to recruit them!
o Satan’s going after them early... he’s going after them while they’ve very young!
- The Apostle Paul wrote an epistle to young Timothy who was a pastor of a church.
o In 2 Timothy 4:6 Paul says, “I am now ready to be offered up / to depart.” That’s a phrase meaning, “I am now ready to die and meet the Lord.”
o But Paul could not say “I am ready to depart” until he first said in 2 Timothy 1:5, “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.”
- LISTEN TO WHAT HE’S SAYING – He’s saying that because you received an impartation I am ready to be offered up!
o PARENTS / GRANDPARENTS – You are not ready to DEPART until you first IMPART your faith to the next generation!
o Your #1 assignment sir, businessman – is to understand that what you leave IN them is more important than what you leave TO them.
o And you’re not ready to depart if all you’re going to leave them is money!
o Money without God is disaster!
- Somehow, what we’ve got to do is get our faith and our calling into those kids!
- The greatest weaponry that we have that scares hell to death is our KIDS!
- That’s why this terrible Holocaust called Abortion is so prevalent in our country and in our world!
o The devil’s afraid that another Apostle Paul is coming down the pipe.
o The devil’s afraid that there is another generation that God’s going to use mightily in the last days to bring revival
o A generation that says,
• Why can’t our church be the biggest church in this city!
• Why can’t our schools be taken back for God!
• Why can’t Hollywood have spirit-filled Christians who can do the best movies and not be ashamed of who they are in Jesus Christ!
• I want you to dream with me! – God wants to use our children!
- We must provide greater venues for youth and children in our ministry!
- When the Israelites asked, “Why can’t we do this and that God?” God’s response them was “Because your children are not involved!”
- The solution is raising young champions – God would say!
- Repeat after me: “My kids...Are not going to be Normal.”
o Because “Normal” means you lose your virginity by the time you’re 14 years old in this society!
o Normal means you go out and get drunk every Friday night!
o Normal means you smoke pot and get high!
o Normal means you hate church and don’t care anything about God!
- I refuse the spirit of normal – I want to have some abnormal kids in the year 2015 in this church!!!
o Normal is Britney Spears being checked into a mental hospital and her little sister being pregnant!
- What I’m saying to you is that the world does not have the answers for raising a generation of kids – WE DO!
- We need some fathers who will stand up and say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!”
- The other day, I heard about some methamphetamine lab that had been found in a frat house of a bunch of young people and someone asked the question, “Why didn’t we have a drug problem when we were growing up?”
- I thought to myself – “You know what? I did have a drug problem growing up and my parents were the cause of it!”
o I was drug to church every time the doors were open.
o I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.
o I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults.
o I was also drug to the woodshed where they would lovingly spank my little hiney when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect.
o If I ever had the gall to utter a profane four-letter word – I would be drugged to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap!
o I was drug out to pull weeds and mow the yard and to help Dad with things around the house.
o I was drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors who needed help!
- LISTEN TO ME CHURCH: Those drugs are still in my veins; and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think.
- Those drugs are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today's children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place!
III. THE AIM – Your Life’s Example is Setting a Direction for Your Children
- Psalm 127:3-5, “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.”
o How many of you would say, “My quiver is full and I don’t want no more!”
o Is there anyone here who would say, “I’d like to add more children to my quiver.”
o Heavenly Father, please don’t get it mixed up – the last hands wanted more the first hands didn’t.
- In this passage, God is saying, “Parent’s—you’re the BOW! And your children are the arrow”
o Notice if I point this Arrow toward the CLUBS – it’s going to go in that direction
o If I point this arrow toward ALCOHOL – it’s going to go towards alcohol.
o If I point this arrow towards the idea that “MONEY is the most important thing in the world and the church is second” – it’s going to go in that direction!
o I can’t expect this ARROW to go over here towards church (and the things of God) if the BOW is pointing it towards worldly things!
- “As arrows are in the hands of a mighty man – so are the children of one’s youth.”
- In other words – your children are your weapons!
I thought about 4 arrows that we need to put in our kids hands...
1. SURRENDER – you teach them that there is only one God
- Deuteronomy 6:4 tells us to teach our children that there is only one God!
o Teach your children that money is not God
o Teach your children that sports are not God!
o Teach your children that Buddha is not God!
- So that when they go off to the University and the Professor throws the Bible in the garbage and says, “You were not created by a God...you were created from a monkey! You’re the offspring of an animal”
o That your children have so much in them that they know who their God is.
o That they don’t wonder if there is any other way! THERE IS NO OTHER WAY!
- I love what the Scripture says in Psalm 127 – that your children will not be ashamed!”
- When it comes to growing in the things of God – the Church is the classroom but the home is the laboratory.
o It’s in the home where the teachings of Scripture are reinforced and applied to practical every day life.
2. WORSHIP
- We’ve got to teach our kids how to worship!
- The reason why we have so many teen-sicles and youth-sicles in praise and worship!
- The reason why we have so many teen-sicles and youth-sicles in our worship is because we have so many Pop-sicles!
- But if Mom’s and Dad’s would get FIRED UP!
- If Dad would turn from a Popsicle to a worshipper!
If Grand Pop would get enough in him to truly praise and worship God!
- Then those teen-sicles would start to warm up!
- LISTEN: A father without a life of prayer and worship is like an archer with an unstrung bow!
o I know that every Sunday, my parents are covering me in their prayers.
3. HOLINESS
- The arrow of holiness
- Teach your children that they’re different!
- When your kids start asking the questions, “Why can’t we? The kids down the street do this and this? Why can’t we?” We are not like other families!
o My Father taught me and my sister at a young age that we are different!...
o We don’t drink alcohol!
o We don’t go to worldly places!
- Our house is different and you are to be different!
- There’s some parents who say, “Well, I just want my children to fit in and I don’t want them to be criticized for their Christianit-it-y.”
o You need more help than your kids need!
- I don’t want my kids to be like the kids next door!
- Some of you parents need to get the guts to stand up to your children!
o You allow your children to go off to the beach knowing that they’re going there to get drunk?
o And what kind of sorry parent would buy alcohol for their kids “because I want you to party in a safe environment!” – You are a moron! You need help! You need to get deliverance because you are messing up your kids!
- Children don’t need you to be their best friend! They need you to be a parent!
- There’s one more arrow...
4. CALLING -- The Calling of God on their life
- I’m afraid that we are trading the American dream for the call and purpose of God on our kids.
- We put certain things on a pedestal as if to say that the highest calling in life is to
o Become a professional athlete
o Become a powerful businessman, doctor, or lawyer
o Ooh if you could become a movie star like Lindsey Lohan!
o If you could just do these things we’d be so proud of you!
- We are trading the American dream for the calling of God
- The greatest call is not to do any of those things unless God calls you to do them and you use them as a platform to bring glory and honor to Jesus Christ and to witness to people!
- The Apostle John says in 3 John 4, “I have no greater joy than to hear my children walk in truth.”
- More than a million dollars, more than a huge mansion – there is no greater joy in this life more than to hear that my children are walking in God’s truth!
- There used to be a time in the church when we used to say of little girls...
o “Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised is she grew up and married a preacher.”
o Or when a little boy was born you would hear mothers/fathers say, “You know, I pray that perhaps one day God will use him to be a preacher!”
o I don’t hear that any more...I don’t hear that at all!
- We applaud our kids in everything...except spiritual things!
- I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in truth.
o I’ve prayed, “Lord if my kids go off to do mission work and live in a straw hut doing the work of God and struggle the rest of their life...
o That’s what I would want from them as opposed to great big, starry-eyed, glazed things out of the will of God!
CONCLUSION:
- Many times we try to keep our kids FROM the enemy, we ought to aim them AT the enemy!
- Vs. 5 says “they will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies at the gate.”
- Parents (fathers) more than anything else, determine the aim of their children.
- You have to have an aim, goal, and desire for your children.
- Arrows are not to be collected, they are to be projected.
o They are to be shaped, sharpened, and then they are to be SHOT
o “Our Job as parents is to work ourselves out of a job.
OBJECT LESSON: You have an aim and then you let it go.
- You have to release them into adulthood.
- Your goal ought to be to raise them in order to release them!
- Thank God we have arrows to aim at the enemy.
