Despise not Little Things

The Potter's House

 

GET YOURSELF A JOB

Sermon notes for 5-3 2020

ALREADY GONE

 

            Text: Psalm 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

 

 

            What is the problem? Why are our churches getting smaller, and why are churches closing? Since 1969 1500 churches closed in England. This is happening all over the westernized world.  In our fellowship, there have been five churches that have closed since I started attending. All of the others seem to be getting smaller.

 

             Why do we have this problem? Is it the lack of evangelism?

             Could there be another reason? If we still had all the people that grew up in our churches, how large would our churches be today?

            Statistics show the most unchurched age in America is 18 to 25.

Statistics also show that at the age of 18 over 60 percent of children that go to church on a REGULAR basis walk away from God (some statistics say it's over 80 percent). When people 20 years old, who went to church on a regular basis, were asked "when did you walk away from God?" The answer in almost every case was when I was in middle school (junior high).

            Will these people come back to church when they get older?

             

            Why do our young people walk away from God?

            The bible says; Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. A very hard question that we must answer is; have we trained our children the way God has instructed us to? Let's take a look. Where do our children receive their knowledge? They learn at church, in school and from the television.

            How much time per week does the average child spend per week learning about the way of God? I would guess about 2 hours or less.

            How much time do our children spend per week learning at school and how much time do they learn from the television?

 

 

 

 

What do children learn?

 

            Let's look at what children are being taught during their formative years.

 

            The agenda at our public schools include evolution, secular humanism, and sexual immorality including homosexuality, premarital sex, abortion and much more.

            What are the children learning from television? Isn't the television teaching them the same thing?

            Now for the part that you really don't want to hear. What are our children learning about God? Are our church programs the kind of programs that is pleasing to God? Let's take a look. What do churches offer children?

 

            Pulpit preaching

            Sunday school.

            Youth activities.

            Vacation bible school.

 

            Let's look at each one of these.

 

Pulpit preaching

Eighty eight percent of high school graduates that went to church on a regular basis, and quit church, said they didn't believe the bible was accurate.

 Their disbelief was because of what they heard from the pulpit. One thing was the;

 Age of the earth ;

Another was the validity of bible stories.

            Ten percent of the ministry that was interviewed said they believed in evolution.

            Many others said they believed that God used evolution as a method of creation.

 Ten percent of pastors in Conservative churches say it's okay to believe in Darwinism.

           

 

 

            Sunday school, youth activities, vacation bible school etc;

 

The following is an example of a normal Sunday school bible experience.

 Johnnie and Susie will inter Sunday school class where they will be met by a very nice teacher (who is a volunteer).

 The teacher reads a bible story to them (they don't know if the story is really true or just another make believe story like they heard in kindergarten) the bible story will take about ten minutes.

 The teacher helps with a craft.

 They sing a song or two together.

It is estimated that in most Sunday school classes and the Sunday morning sermon will last about thirty minutes.

 This means our children will receive about thirty minutes of spiritual instruction a week.

 

            Let's compare this with what Johnnie and Susie are hearing in public school.

            Johnnie and Susie go to school about thirty hours a week (twenty in the classroom).

 In public school Johnnie and Susie learn many things, history, mathematics, language and science. Both observational and historical science. They learn the science from men and women who wear white coats and safety glasses. They use test tubes and Bunsen burners. They dissect animals and use microscopes to look at cells, and they carry clip boards under their arms to record all of their scientific findings. To Johnnie and Susie they look smart. They do research. They test hypotheses. They prove them with experiments. Johnnie and Susie know that these people deal with real things- things you can touch and feel- the kinds of things that matter.

             The same people talk about the age of the earth, the origin of life etc… Which is going to have the most influence with Johnnie and Susie?

 

 

           

What is the solution?

           

            Change the system. Teach parents to teach their children.

            Preach the word. Teach creation and world history from the bible as well as the gospel.

            Live the word. We MUST be an example by how we live as well as in defending God's word.

           

            I think we need to look at the way we are doing things. If what we are doing isn't working.

 

let's do something different.

 The question is, what should we change?

            We are losing our young people. What does the bible say we should do?

             Proverbs 22:6 says; Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

 The question is. Is our training methods the correct ones. What is the bible method for training up children? Let's take a look.

            Does the bible place this responsibility on the church? The answer is NO it does not. How are we supposed to train our children? Let's take a look.

 

God's way to train children

             Deuteronomy 6:1-9 Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it:

² That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.

³ Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

⁵ And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

⁶ And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

⁷ And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

⁸ And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

⁹ And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

 

 

            All these scriptures are talking to PARENTS, not the church.

            What is the roll the church should play in children's education?

            Start a training program in the church that trains and teaches the parents how to have FAMILY DEVOTIONS such as prayer, bible discussion etc. Practice family devotion in the church instead of the traditional Sunday school.

            Give some serious thought to changing your church to a Family Integrated Church.

 

            Statistics show that in traditional churches we lose eighty percent of our youth when they turn 18. In family integrated churches we lose less than twenty percent of them.

 

              3 John 1:4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.