A Mother's Prayer: Dedicating Our Children to the Lord
Notes
Transcript
Bible Passage: 1 Samuel 1:10-11
10 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish. 11 Then she made a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.”
Summary: In these verses, we witness Hannah's deep anguish and fervent prayer to the Lord as she seeks His help in conceiving a child. This passage highlights the importance of dedicating our children to God and seeking His will in their lives before they are even born.
Teaching: This sermon teaches that dedicating our children to the Lord is not just a ritual but a continuous act of faith, involving constant prayer and commitment to God's purpose in their lives. It illustrates the power of a mother's prayers and the need to entrust our loved ones to God's sovereignty.
How this passage could point to Christ: Hannah's dedication of her son Samuel serves as a foreshadowing of our ultimate dedication to Christ. Just as Hannah offers Samuel to the Lord's service, Christ is the ultimate offering, dedicated entirely to fulfilling God’s redemptive plan for humanity.
Big Idea: Dedicating our children to the Lord inspires a life of faith and commitment, rooted in prayer and trust in God's plan for their future.
Heartfelt Hopeful Prayer
Heartfelt Hopeful Prayer
Hannah was praying for a child. She was deeply longing for a child and realized that being a parent was a gift from God alone.
Please respond with me in the following verses. I will read the first and you read second. Psalm 127:1-5
Psalm 127:1–5 (NKJV)
1 Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.
3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
Not only should we pray for our children before they are ever born like Hannah, but anyone who has children knows that the prayer only intensifies the older they get. I believe Colossians 1:9-14 to be an excellent ongoing prayer for our children.
Colossians 1:9–14 (NKJV)
9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you,
and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him,
being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power,
for all patience and longsuffering with joy;
12 giving thanks to the Father
who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness
and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
14 in whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins.
One of the greatest things we can do for our children is pray for them, seek God on their behalf, and grieve for their spiritual well-being.
2. Holy Selfless Dedication
2. Holy Selfless Dedication
1 Samuel 1:11
11 Then she made a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.”
This thing that Hannah desired more than anything she gives to the Lord. I can only imagine how much harder it was for Hannah to actually give Samuel up to the Lord after he was born.
I would note one other thing. God work amazingly in Samuel and Samuel was blessed by this act of his parents.
I believe today the way we give our children to the Lord is through teaching and modeling the Christian life before our kids. Proverbs 1:8-9
8 My son, hear the instruction of your father, And do not forsake the law of your mother; 9 For they will be a graceful ornament on your head, And chains about your neck.
20 My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. 21 Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart;
6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Listen to Paul’s encouragement to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14-15
14 But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
We must instill in the hearts of our children that the best life is the life lived for Christ. The way we do that is through teaching and modeling that life.
I want to ask these parents and children to join me here on the platform.
I want to ask these parents and children to join me here on the platform.
What we’re doing now is publically promising to be diligent about raising our children in a godly home so as to best prepare them to trust and follow Christ!
What we’re doing now is publically promising to be diligent about raising our children in a godly home so as to best prepare them to trust and follow Christ!
This is a huge responsibility by the parents, but it is also the responsibility of LifePoint to support the parents in this task.
So, I would like to lead the parents and the church in some affirmations.
Parents: Do you promise to care for and raise your children in a God-honoring home, so that when they are old enough, they will commit their lives to Jesus and become His followers? We do!
Parents: Do you promise to care for and raise your children in a God-honoring home, so that when they are old enough, they will commit their lives to Jesus and become His followers? We do!
Will you: Pray for your children daily, teach your children about Jesus and God’s eternal purposes from the Bible. Will you faithfully attend a Bible-believing church with your children and model a Christ-like life at work, in the home, and in your marriage? We will!
Will you: Pray for your children daily, teach your children about Jesus and God’s eternal purposes from the Bible. Will you faithfully attend a Bible-believing church with your children and model a Christ-like life at work, in the home, and in your marriage? We will!
Church: Do you promise to support, encourage, and care for this child and family, treating them as your family? We do!
Church: Do you promise to support, encourage, and care for this child and family, treating them as your family? We do!
Will you: Pray for them faithfully, be their spiritual family, model through your collective lives what it means to be a Christian, walk beside these families as these children grow in spiritual knowledge and understanding? We will!
Will you: Pray for them faithfully, be their spiritual family, model through your collective lives what it means to be a Christian, walk beside these families as these children grow in spiritual knowledge and understanding? We will!
As an affirmation of these vows this morning I want to ask the parents to sign these dedication certificates. We have a book to help them spend time in scripture with their kids, and we have a letter to the children to go in the back of the frame for when they trust Christ or ask questions about Christ.
As an affirmation of these vows this morning I want to ask the parents to sign these dedication certificates. We have a book to help them spend time in scripture with their kids, and we have a letter to the children to go in the back of the frame for when they trust Christ or ask questions about Christ.
Read the letter
I want to ask the families to step down now and line up in front of the platform and we will take a moment to pray for these families. If you would like to pray with them please meet them here.