The Blessing of Children: Psalm 127:3-5
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Main Idea: Children are a blessing from God and should be treated as assets for the Kingdom of God.
Main Idea: Children are a blessing from God and should be treated as assets for the Kingdom of God.
1. Children are a fruit (v. 3)
1. Children are a fruit (v. 3)
Children are a gift or a heritage from God to a married couple, to the church, and to the world.
They are a gift to a married couple because they keep their family lineage going. They are a gift to the church because they are the future of the congregation. They are a blessing to the world because they keep the human race going.
It is important to remember that apart from God, children are not a blessing. They are a blessing because they are from God.
Heritage was a big deal in biblical times. Who your ancestors were was a major deal. Which tribe you belonged to, whether you were Jew or Gentile. Also, who was going to carry on the family name and legacy was crucial as well. People wanted to ensure they were leaving their legacy with properly equipped children.
If you were a carpenter, you would train your children to be expert carpenters. Whatever your profession may be, you would have trained your children to do the same to carry on the legacy of the family.
In the same way, our children and the children of the church will likely carry on the legacy of the faith. We pray that they will grow into strong believers in Christ. But it takes teaching, admonishing, correcting, and faithfulness in their lives to achieve that.
Children are described in this verse as a fruit of the womb.
Thinking about a child fresh out of the womb doesn’t sound like a delicious, sweet fruit. However, they are. It is the picture of what comes from the hard toil and labor of childbearing. That hard work produces something beautiful. Personally, I love a gardening. Growing fruits and vegetables is an amazing process to me. There is a lot of hard work that goes into tending to these plants to ensure a good harvest. The hard work is worthwhile. All the labor and toil we go through is worth it when we reap the fruits and vegetables at harvest time. We are to think of children in the same way. We should look at them as a enjoyable rewards of hard work. They are not bothersome nuisances and shouldn’t be disregarded as such.
One of the basic fundamentals of Christianity is that believers are called to bear good fruit. (John 15:1-5) (Genesis 1:28)
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
God working within a marriage can and will produce the fruit of children. From the beginning of mankind, one of our commands has been to be fruitful by having children. We see this in (Genesis 1:28)
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
So we see that God blesses mankind by providing offspring.
2. Children are an arrow (v. 4-5)
2. Children are an arrow (v. 4-5)
One detrimental downfall of our culture is the definition of the family and the structure of the family. We see passive parents in our culture, horribly disobedient children and so on and so forth. The problem I believe is that there is a lack in understanding of the biblical family.
The biblical family is described here in military terms. The psalmist is describing children as arrows, which are weapons.
Arrows are weapons that have to be carefully crafted so they can be effective in combat. Anyone who knows anything about archery knows that for an arrow to be effective, it must be crafted with precision and it must be used by a skilled archer.
Pastor Doug Wilson made a great point about the state of the church today when He said “the problem with the church and the culture today is that we have too many crooked sticks and not enough straight arrows”.
We have a shortage of arrows and archers.
So how do we fix this problem? We need skilled archers. In other words, we need strong rooted Christians. We can’t teach the faith and the truths of the gospel to children if we ourselves don’t know it. We must be in our bibles daily, and on our knees in prayer daily in order to craft straight, effective arrows. Other wise, all we’re doing is collecting more firewood, not crafting arrows.
How do we craft these effective arrows, these strong men and women of the faith? We teach them biblical truth. We start from a young age and repetitively teach them the gospel. We plant the seeds in their hearts and pray that Spirit would bring salvation.
It’s so important to remember that children will only come to Christ through the work of the Spirit. It’s not up to us to save them but it is up to us to share the good news that can save them. We teach them faithfully because we are called to, not because we are expecting results.
Neglecting to craft your arrows can lead to disaster.
Look at examples such as Absalom, son of David. He tried having his father killed. Look at the sons of Eli. They abused the priesthood by taking advantage of women and manipulating their way into getting what they want. Cain had his brother killed. It is crucial that we intentionally disciple children from a young age.
This prepares them from an early stage for the hardships of the sinful world we live in. It prepares them to be a light in the darkness. Matthew 5:14
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
Properly crafted arrows make an impact when used.
When it’s time for us archers to shoot our arrows, When it is time for children to go off to college, enter the work force, or get married, are they going to be effective Kingdom workers where they go?
Part of crafting these arrows is ensuring they will make an impact where they land. Whether in their marriage, their school, their job, etc, the presence of their faith should be known.
3. Children are a defender (v. 5)
3. Children are a defender (v. 5)
When our children, or the children in our church mature and grow up, will they be able to hold their ground in the faith? Listen to these statistics done by George Barna on youth leaving Christianity.
1 out of 9 (11%) lose faith in Christianity
4 out of 10 (40%) leave the Church but still call themselves Christian
2 out of 10 (20%) disconnect from Church and express frustration about “church culture” and disconnects with society
What’s the problem? We aren’t precisely crafting these arrows to become defenders of the house, of the faith.
Molding these defenders takes persistence, patience, and prayer.
We must be persistent with teaching the truth of the gospel to our children. It is of the most importance. It’s more important than the games, the crafts, any of it. Hiding the gospel in the hearts of our children is primary and we must consistently do it to see growth. Growth is gradual and slow. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean we should give up. We are called to snatch souls out of the fires of Hell. Jude 1:23
save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
We must be patient with teaching the children. They are not always going to comprehend everything we teach them the first time maybe even the second time. However, we must be patient realizing that we once were in their shoes. I remember teaching a lesson on baptism to the children of our last church. Boy was that a doozy. But patience and persistence helped lead to their understanding of what baptism is.
Lastly, we must be prayerful with molding these defenders. Only through our reliance on the Lord can we have the strength to teach and bear with these kids. We have to rely on Christ’s strength, not our own to get us through these lessons.
We also must rely on His power to make the lasting change in the hearts of the children, not our wisdom. Philippians 2:13
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
So we must be persistent with our teaching, patient with our bearing with the children, and prayerful by relying on God to empower us.
Verse 5 ends by saying the blessed man shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies at the gate. Why? because his fully equipped children are standing there with him defending their house.
Are our children going to be ready to defend the faith?
When it’s time to come face to face with the enemy, face to face with this sinful world, are our children equipped and ready to fight as warriors and defenders of the Kingdom? Are they going to be ready to square off against the powers of darkness boldly and confidently in the strength of Christ? I pray they are and I pray God will use us to prepare them.