Have You Given Your Kids Away?

Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  44:35
0 ratings
· 6 views
Files
Notes
Transcript
How many moms do we have present this morning?
You Might Be A Mom If...
- When the kids are fighting, you threaten to lock them in a room together and not let them out until someone's bleeding.
- You can't find your cell phone, so you ask a friend to call you, and you run around the house madly, following the sound until you locate the phone in the laundry basket.
- Your idea of a good day is making it through without a child leaking bodily fluids on you.
- Popsicles become a food staple.
- Your favorite television show is a cartoon.
- Peanut butter and jelly is eaten at least in one meal a day.
- Your kids make jokes about bodily functions, and you think it's funny.
- You're so desperate for adult conversation that you spill your guts to the telemarketer that calls...and HE hangs up on YOU!
- Spit is your number one cleaning agent.
- You buy cereal with marshmallows in it.
- The closest you get to gourmet cooking is making Rice Krispie treats.
- You've ever threatened to give away your kid, and then for a split second afterward, actually considered it.
And that last joke actually leads right into the message this morning!
I would like you to turn in your Bibles today to the book of 1 Samuel.
The title to to today's message is Have You Given Your Kids Away Yet? You may not have known that was an option, but it is. And before you start making plans to drop them off at my house, listen to the sermon first, Okay?
Today we are going to talk about a woman who gave her child away, and the result was amazing.
1 Samuel 1:9-20 So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD. 10 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. 11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. 12 And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth. 13 Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. 14 And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee. 15 And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD. 16 Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. 17 Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. 18 And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.
19 And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the LORD, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD remembered her. 20 Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.
Here we have the narrative of a woman who desperately wanted a child. Hannah was married to a man named Elkanah. Elkanah had another wife, Peninnah. Now, Peninnah had children, but until this time Hannah was barren. Because of this, Peninnah was horribly mean to her and derided Hannah at every turn. So during one of the yearly sacred feasts that the Israelites would attend at Shiloh, Hannah begins to pray in the temple there.
As we read in the story, Hannah was granted her request and had a child. But Hannah had made a deal with the Lord. "Give me a son, and I will give him back to you all the days of his life."
I want us to look at verses 24-28.
24 And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the LORD in Shiloh: and the child was young. 25 And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli. 26 And she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the LORD. 27 For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him: 28 Therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the LORD. And he worshipped the LORD there.
Here we see Hannah following through her on her promise to the Lord. This is a huge deal, and do not miss this ladies: because Hannah was faithful to God, the nation of Israel would never be the same.
Hannah gave her child to the Lord, and the aftermath of this action had some important effects on Israel as a whole. Samuel becomes the last judge of Israel. (Explain what a Judge was.) He guides Israel in the ways of the Lord.
The first thing that God does with Samuel is that he uses him to pronounce judgement on the corrupt sons of the high priest, Eli. Then, God makes Samuel wise. Throughout the nation, it became known of Samuel that even at a young age, Samuel was a prophet of the Lord. God did not let any of his words fall to the ground. The whole of Israel knew that Samuel received word from God and was faithful to preach it to the people. God later used Samuel to lead the nation in freeing themselves from the yoke of the Philistines.
As Samuel grew older, God used him to anoint the first king of Israel, Saul. A good king at first, with many good qualities about him. And when Saul was rejected by the Lord as king for his rebellion, Samuel was the one that anointed the most famous king of Israel, King David.
Samuel did a great many things for the Lord and for Israel, but it never could have happened if Hannah had not first given him away.
There are two things that Hannah realized as she gave her son to the Lord. This will be a short sermon today, and there are only two points.
I. Hannah realized that God was the creator of her son. That God was the giver of life, and not herself.
V. 10-11 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. 11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
Notice that she is recognizing who it is that gives and creates life. She says to God, "If you will give me a son..." I think that it is important that we remember in who the giver of life is, especially in the culture that we are living in today. If only we recognized this, I think that it would change a lot of things. I believe the world has lost the understanding of the value of life.
Yes, God formed the biology of men and women to be able to procreate, but we are not the bringers of life, He is. If this were understood the way that Hannah understood it, would affect so many things.
Think about it, if parents around our nation really understood and lived in the understanding that every life that was born to them was a gift from God Almighty, we wouldn't have a need for CPS. Each child would be loved and cherished because it would be understood that they are a blessing and a gift from the Lord, just as the Psalm says, "...children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."
The fruit of the womb is God's reward! Not His punishment! Regardless under what condition you had your child, children are not God's punishment to you. They are a gift.
Hannah didn't just realize that God was the creator and giver of life,
II. Hannah realized that though a son was what she most wanted in her life, God had better plans for her son than she could ever imagine. V. 27-28
For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him: 28 Therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the LORD. And he worshipped the LORD there.
We all have plans for out children. As they grow and we see what kinds of things they are interested in, what their talents are, what they are good at, we begin to say to ourselves, "Little Johnny would make a great _________." We have plans and expectations for them that usually only grow with the passing of time. We get frustrated when we see our children deviate from these plans. We get frustrated when others try to put a different plan in their heads. Often times, parents have not only a plan for what career their child should pursue, but also a plan for what college they should go to, whom they should marry, how many children they should have and when, and the list goes on.
As parents it is easy to get into the "Father knows best" or "Mother knows best" mentalities, but what we must understand is that God will always know best.
Hannah had no clue the great things that Samuel would accomplish or the influence he would have in the shaping of a nation. She may have thought that Samuel would be some lowly temple servant for the rest of his life, but what she did know was that God had better plans for Samuel than she could have ever devised for her own self.
I am not saying that as a parent you should not have goals for your children. What I am saying is that we must understand that God has infinitely better plans for our kids than we could ever imagine.
William Borden was a young boy when his mother started attending church and got saved. William was heir to the Borden fortune (not the dairy product family, a silver mining family). As a graduation gift, his parents set 16 year old William on a trip around the world. As he travelled, the Lord placed on his heart the burden of giving the Gospel to Muslim Uygiar people of northwest China. During that trip, upon reaching London and hearing his pastor from Chicago who was holding some meetings there, he decided that instead of dedicating his life to the family business and the making of more money, he would instead give his life to the Lord and became a missionary.
One of his friends is reported as saying that William Borden was "throwing himself away as a missionary." In response to that, William Borden wrote in his Bible these two words: No Reserves.
Shortly after, he began his studies at Yale University. He started a Bible study as a freshman with one other student. By the end of his senior year, of the 1300 students enrolled at Yale, 1000 of them regularly attended the Bible study. Before ever leaving the country to be a missionary on a foreign field, Borden had become a missionary in his school. During his freshman year at Yale, William's father died. This left William a millionaire in his own right. He often gave money out of the family business to fund ministries. Though a young millionaire now, Borden rarely acted like one would expect of a young man with wealth. A friend noted of William the following: "No one would have known from Borden’s life and talk that he was a millionaire, but no one could have helped knowing that he was a Christian…" Borden was fully consumed with the Gospel and, and upon finishing his studies at Yale and later Princeton Seminary, left the family business and the family fortune to go live in Cairo, Egypt as a training ground for his future missionary endeavours. There were many job offers and investment opportunities, but in an act of complete surrender to the Lord and demonstrating his commitment to continue with the mission that God had placed on his heart, William took out his Bible and inside the cover wrote two more words: No Retreat.
Arriving in Egypt he began to learn Arabic so as to be able to more fully understand the this language that many of the Chinese Muslims spoke. Not satisfied with mere academic study, within two weeks of arriving in Egypt, William organized the students of a theological school in Cairo to engage in a door-to-door canvasing of their city in an effort to give every person pamphlets and other literature that contained the Gospel. The vision was no small one as Cairo's population at the time was over 800K people.
Within three months of being in Cairo, William Borden contracted spinal meningitis and died three weeks after his diagnosis in the year 1913. He was 25 years old. A wave of sadness spread throughout the globe. Though William had never made it to China, he had been living the life of a missionary at Yale, Princeton, and Cairo. Many of those thousands that he reached with the Gospel, after hearing about the death of this passionate young man, left their homes and spread throughout the world wit ha singular mission: to take the Gospel to people that were hurting and need of Jesus.
Many newspapers reported on the life and death of William Borden, regretfully announcing the end of a life cut short. Most believers, however, chose to embrace the sentiments of another missionary who wrote concerning Borden, "I have absolutely no feeling of a life cut short. A life abandoned to Christ cannot be cut short. ‘Cut short’ means not complete, interrupted..." William's life, though cut off at the age of 25, was filled with more meaning and was more effective for the Kingdom of God than lives of most.
When his mother was given William's Bible, she noted the two phrases that he had written earlier along with the dates that he had written them: No Reserves; No Retreat. But under those two phrases, she saw a third, dated shortly before his death: No Regrets.
It was because of the influence of a mother who was faithful to the Lord that William Borden was exposed to Biblical teaching. It was because of the influence and encouragement of a mother that thousands of lives were impacted directly through William and thousand more were indirectly affected by reading about or hearing his testimony. This is the power of influence that mothers have.
I have personally heard mothers and fathers tell their children to not waste their time being a pastor or being a missionary. And it is a horrible thing to presume we could possibly have better plans for our children that God does. No, not every child will be called into vocational ministry, but God does have a plan for each of our kids. God told Jeremiah, "Before I formed the in the belly I knew thee."
Psalm 139:14-17 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
Mothers, did you know that God has a plan for your baby boy, or baby girl? He does. The question now is, do you trust God with your child? Have you given your kids away yet? Have you put those children, regardless of age, in God's hands and told Him that He has free reign in their present and their future?
If you haven't, would you do that today?
Invitation:
Your kids do not need to be babies for you to give them to the Lord. Giving them to the Lord is simply telling God, "I relinquish control over my child, and will seek to point them to you always, knowing that you have better plans for my kid than I could ever dream up."
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more
Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.