Seven Mountains of Influence (Family)
Impacting the Seven Mountains
Family
Text: Malachi 4:5-6
Stats:
In a 2021 Gallup survey, 47% of all Americans belonged to some form of a religious congregation (church, synagogue, or mosque).
These numbers are down from 70% in 1999.
Prior to the 21st Century, the statistics in this area hardly moved.
The first year that these statistics were recorded by Gallup was 1937, and in that year, the percentage was 73%.
Now, in 21 years this statistic has dropped 23 percentage points, while hardly moving for the previous 62 years.
Stats tell us that roughly 80% of young people from church-attending families that are leaving the church as soon as they leave the home.
The statistics above are actually representative of the fact that genuine faith in Christ is passed through family homes from parent to children more so than through churches and institutions.
In other words, children leave the church because it has no meaning to them.
Therefore, the home was the only thing keeping them in church but it was not because of faith but coercion or merely family practice.
The children were ready to leave the church long before they left the home.
In a 2017 study from Focus on the Family, only 11% of young people leave the church if they claimed a strong faith as a child, or grew up in homes that taught a genuine walk with Christ.
The other 89% say that they never really believed and didn’t feel a strong push in their families to believe.
So, what this study is pointing out is that church congregations ARE shrinking and people ARE leaving them. But, they are being left by young people that had no meaningful faith to begin with from families that really had no meaningful faith in Christ, or they lived in families that simply broke religion down to a bunch of works and not faith.
The family has been under intense attack for several generations. There has been an all-out assault against the family unit because the family is the cornerstone of our society.
Without the traditional family and its values intact, society will eventually fold up and dissolve from its present status.
If the family is disintegrated or even redefined from its conventional and traditional place, then society will be altered.
Malachi 4:5-6 shows us that improper or out-of-order family structures will release a curse into the societies of the earth.
When families do not operate in the order of God, troubles and curses are released not only upon that family but into society as well.
The fatherlessness that is affecting our nation is the root problem to many of our struggles as a society.
Our prisons are full, our children have no real identity, and people are aimless and many seem lost.
As a result, our society is beset with curses that affect us all.
Proverbs 3:33-35 tells us that the blessing of the Lord is on families in order while curses are on those who are not.
Whatever is upon our families will find its way into the whole of society.
If a family is blessed because it is just, then that blessing will translate into the society that family is in.
If a family is cursed because of wickedness, then that curse will find its way into society.
The family mountain is the values mountain.
The values of society flow from the family mountain.
The family creates the values system of society that afford us a foundation to function from.
If this is eroded in the family, it is only a short time until society as a whole begins to crumble.
Psalm 11:3*
If we are going to see what the family mountain looks like in a transformed society, we should first understand the purpose of family.
There are several purposes that family was created for by God.
The first function of family was conquest.
Most people think that family is first and foremost about companionship or fellowship.
The reality is that God made family so that the progressive rule of the kingdom of God would impact the earth.
The first family in scripture was made up of Adam, Eve, and then their children.
Notice the commission that God gave to the first family.
Genesis 1:26-28
God’s intent over family was always to expand the rule of His government throughout the earth.
God took the man and eventually the woman and put them in the Garden of Eden. Even though He put them in the Garden, their commission was to the whole earth.
They were to subdue it, take dominion over it, and—through fruitfulness and multiplication—rule over it.
The Garden of Eden in that day was the expression of the kingdom of God.
They were to take the expression of His kingdom and transplant it through the whole earth until all of the earth reflected His glory.
God’s agenda has always been the whole of the earth.
All the earth was to become a demonstration of His kingdom rule. This was to be done through family.
When Adam was “alone” God said that this was not good - Genesis 2:18
It was never said that Adam was lonely, only that he was alone.
There is a difference.
How could Adam have been lonely when he had never known companionship?
Also, he was in complete and total unbroken fellowship and communion with the Father Himself. How could he be lonely?
God’s purpose for forming Eve was not to heal loneliness in Adam—it was to create spiritual synergy for greater kingdom dominion in the earth.
Remember that if one can put a thousand to flight then two can cause ten thousand to flee - Deuteronomy 32:30
Husbands, love their wives.
Wives, honor their husbands.
Children, obey their parents, and life should be at peace within the home.
God’s desire for the “godly seed.” Scripture addresses the passion of the Lord for a “seed” of a godly nature to be released into the earth.
Malachi 2:15 refers to the kind of children who will come from specific kinds of unions that will bring great effect into the societies of the earth.
In this verse from Malachi, the understanding is that when husbands and wives live together in right treatment of each other, godly seed is produced.
The exhortation was that husbands and wives must guard their spirit so that they have a home conducive to raise the reformers God is after in the earth.
II Timothy 1:5
As the family mountain comes to a place of transforming our society, children will become valued within our society as God intended.
We have lost the value of children in society as a whole.
They quite often are more seen as nuisances rather than treasures.
As a result of this philosophy in society, the needs of children and even children themselves have been abused and mistreated.
No wonder children are being raised with no real sense of self-worth or identity.
These same children grow up to be dysfunctional adults and even menaces of society.
Psalm 127:3-5 tells us the way God sees children and the way we are to see them as well.
Stats:
In a 2021 Gallup survey, 47% of all Americans belonged to some form of a religious congregation (church, synagogue, or mosque).
These numbers are down from 70% in 1999.
Prior to the 21st Century, the statistics in this area hardly moved.
The first year that these statistics were recorded by Gallup was 1937, and in that year, the percentage was 73%.
Now, in 21 years this statistic has dropped 23 percentage points, while hardly moving for the previous 62 years.
Stats tell us that roughly 80% of young people from church-attending families that are leaving the church as soon as they leave the home.
The statistics above are actually representative of the fact that genuine faith in Christ is passed through family homes from parent to children more so than through churches and institutions.
In other words, children leave the church because it has no meaning to them.
Therefore, the home was the only thing keeping them in church but it was not because of faith but coercion or merely family practice.
The children were ready to leave the church long before they left the home.
In a 2017 study from Focus on the Family, only 11% of young people leave the church if they claimed a strong faith as a child, or grew up in homes that taught a genuine walk with Christ.
The other 89% say that they never really believed and didn’t feel a strong push in their families to believe.
So, what this study is pointing out is that church congregations ARE shrinking and people ARE leaving them. But, they are being left by young people that had no meaningful faith to begin with from families that really had no meaningful faith in Christ, or they lived in families that simply broke religion down to a bunch of works and not faith.
The family has been under intense attack for several generations. There has been an all-out assault against the family unit because the family is the cornerstone of our society.
Without the traditional family and its values intact, society will eventually fold up and dissolve from its present status.
If the family is disintegrated or even redefined from its conventional and traditional place, then society will be altered.
Malachi 4:5-6 shows us that improper or out-of-order family structures will release a curse into the societies of the earth.
When families do not operate in the order of God, troubles and curses are released not only upon that family but into society as well.
The fatherlessness that is affecting our nation is the root problem to many of our struggles as a society.
Our prisons are full, our children have no real identity, and people are aimless and many seem lost.
As a result, our society is beset with curses that affect us all.
Proverbs 3:33-35 tells us that the blessing of the Lord is on families in order while curses are on those who are not.
Whatever is upon our families will find its way into the whole of society.
If a family is blessed because it is just, then that blessing will translate into the society that family is in.
If a family is cursed because of wickedness, then that curse will find its way into society.
The family mountain is the values mountain.
The values of society flow from the family mountain.
The family creates the values system of society that afford us a foundation to function from.
If this is eroded in the family, it is only a short time until society as a whole begins to crumble.
Psalm 11:3*
If we are going to see what the family mountain looks like in a transformed society, we should first understand the purpose of family.
There are several purposes that family was created for by God.
The first function of family was conquest.
Most people think that family is first and foremost about companionship or fellowship.
The reality is that God made family so that the progressive rule of the kingdom of God would impact the earth.
The first family in scripture was made up of Adam, Eve, and then their children.
Notice the commission that God gave to the first family.
Genesis 1:26-28
God’s intent over family was always to expand the rule of His government throughout the earth.
God took the man and eventually the woman and put them in the Garden of Eden. Even though He put them in the Garden, their commission was to the whole earth.
They were to subdue it, take dominion over it, and—through fruitfulness and multiplication—rule over it.
The Garden of Eden in that day was the expression of the kingdom of God.
They were to take the expression of His kingdom and transplant it through the whole earth until all of the earth reflected His glory.
God’s agenda has always been the whole of the earth.
All the earth was to become a demonstration of His kingdom rule. This was to be done through family.
When Adam was “alone” God said that this was not good - Genesis 2:18
It was never said that Adam was lonely, only that he was alone.
There is a difference.
How could Adam have been lonely when he had never known companionship?
Also, he was in complete and total unbroken fellowship and communion with the Father Himself. How could he be lonely?
God’s purpose for forming Eve was not to heal loneliness in Adam—it was to create spiritual synergy for greater kingdom dominion in the earth.
Remember that if one can put a thousand to flight then two can cause ten thousand to flee - Deuteronomy 32:30
Husbands, love their wives.
Wives, honor their husbands.
Children, obey their parents, and life should be at peace within the home.
God’s desire for the “godly seed.” Scripture addresses the passion of the Lord for a “seed” of a godly nature to be released into the earth.
Malachi 2:15 refers to the kind of children who will come from specific kinds of unions that will bring great effect into the societies of the earth.
In this verse from Malachi, the understanding is that when husbands and wives live together in right treatment of each other, godly seed is produced.
The exhortation was that husbands and wives must guard their spirit so that they have a home conducive to raise the reformers God is after in the earth.
II Timothy 1:5
As the family mountain comes to a place of transforming our society, children will become valued within our society as God intended.
We have lost the value of children in society as a whole.
They quite often are more seen as nuisances rather than treasures.
As a result of this philosophy in society, the needs of children and even children themselves have been abused and mistreated.
No wonder children are being raised with no real sense of self-worth or identity.
These same children grow up to be dysfunctional adults and even menaces of society.
Psalm 127:3-5 tells us the way God sees children and the way we are to see them as well.
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