Let the Little Children Come: Faith Begins Young

You know, we we this is what we need to do. We cannot complain about the deterioration of our culture and the family if we're not part of the solution, all of us. So there's no rebuke. There's just love. It's just love. You know one of things I've told you over and over again, nobody falls through the cracks. In other words, don't rush out to go to the so you'll get at the restaurant before everybody else. If we miss an opportunity to pour into someone else, what good's the lunch. Right? [01:10:43] (33 seconds)  #BeTheSolution

Parents, guys, grandparents, all of us, teachers, we cannot force or ensure that our kids become followers of Christ, but we must emphasize it. This must be center part of our homes, it must be the center part of our lives. We know that parents still have a huge influence on the choices their children make and we also know that most people either accept Jesus when they're young or not at all. The fact that most Christian parents overlook this critical responsibility is one of the biggest challenges to to their Christian church. [01:13:27] (39 seconds)  #MakeFaithHomeCenter

we need helpers to work in our children's ministry. We need helpers on for a while. We need them in youth. We need them in vacation bible school. Some of you have said, man, I've already given enough years. No, you haven't. You're not you're not dead yet. Okay? I mean that with all my heart. There's no such thing as retirement from ministry. Because you know what better than to have grandparents loving own kids. Right? Right? It's the way it is. [01:09:19] (27 seconds)  #ServeInChildrensMinistry

We have a lot of students who come to Liberty, who come from and they're the only Christian in their whole family. They need us to pray with them, to support them, to love them, to invite them home sometimes. Let them have a home cooked meal with us. To walk down after church and just walk across and enters What blesses my heart is to see intergenerational things happening with our youth, with our teenager, with our college students. It just blesses me to see it. That's who we are. [01:06:16] (31 seconds)  #IntergenerationalCare

I can remember many of my friends I still talk to today that came to Christ because my mom and dad were part of their life. They didn't just send us to church and say this is the church's responsibility. They said, no, we're gonna bring the church here. So I challenge you to think what that looks like in your own community. How do we do that? What does that mean? When we make that commitment to raise our children, the generations up, we need to understand that everything we do will influence. How about this? We must do nothing to hinder reaching youth and children. [01:15:37] (37 seconds)  #BringChurchHome

They're gonna bring this up on up on the screen for you, but this is what he says. And this this this really got to me when he said this, and then we'll get on with the sermon here in a second. Adults essentially carry out, listen to this, adults essentially carry out the beliefs they embraced when they were young. The reason why Christians are so similar in their attitudes and values and lifestyles to non Christians is that they were not sufficiently challenged to think and behave differently that is radically differently. [01:02:29] (30 seconds)  #EarlyBeliefsLast

Someone did that. It may have been a parent or like in my case, it was my parents and my brother and other people. It was a it was a Sunday school teacher who who shared with me when I was six years old. It was a revival service that I got saved in. But all those things happen. It is it is essential that we understand the importance of why children need the gospel when they're young, why teenagers need that, why we need workers. You can sit there and go, well, I don't have anything to tell them. You can tell them your story. [01:04:26] (31 seconds)  #ShareYourStory

So what does it take? It takes a commitment of time, of funds and resources, of people, of love, of being inconvenienced. I've told you over and over again that love always requires inconvenience. There was a study done, was a little bit older study done, parents describing how they raised their children and this was kinda scary to me. And this is what it was entitled, the most desirable outcomes for kids. And here's what they said. By far the top rated outcome that these parents who were in the study said that they wanted wanted for their children was a good education. [01:11:49] (33 seconds)  #CommitTimeAndLove