19: Teaching/Preaching: Psalm 127

Raising World Changers

EOT-Solomon shared God’s perspective on raising Kids.

EOS-Raising world changing children

DDS-

Intro:

Now we are talking about kids today and my wife told me you are not good at many things but what you are good at you are good at and she said I am good at the 3 b’s. Babies, Bible and Basketball. But we are going to be talking about raising children today.

It was my first year out of college and I was working with a campus ministry and I met a young man named Tim. Tim was a supper hard worker and gifted. He did well in HS he was on the football team and had all the accolades. But there was something different about Tim, you could tell that he was raised right.

As I got to know Tim I found out that his parents moved from China to America when He and his sister where young. They started a successful Chinese restaurant and then his dad unexpectedly passed away. Could you picture being in a new country with two young kids and your spouse passed away.

Tim’s mom decided even without her husband she was going to trust her kids to God and raise them up to be world changers.

She made this commitment not even in a new land that she was going to raise up her kids to be world changers for God.

What about you have you made a commitment that you are going to raise your kids up to be world changers for God?

Maybe you have not even thought about this before?

Maybe you do want to do this and are trying but you just do not know how to do it.

Raising kids is hard:

It is one of the greatest joys of my life:

Story about Nathaniel-I just enjoyed it. At times I will go into my kids room and just listen to their heart beats and just be amazed that God has allowed me to be a parent. One thing I have done lately is tried to wake my kids up by snuggling them, they hate, but I remind them they used to love it.

It is also one of if not the hardest thing I have ever been able to be a part of. With as many kids as we have we could have every kid being angels and one can wake and just be in a mode that day and they are just not going to obey no matter what they say: EXAMPLE-

Today I want to give us three truths we must embrace so that we can raise world changing children.

The first truth we must embrace if we want to raise world changing children is:

1. that God must intervene.

We are completely helpless without God’s intervention:

This is not what we want to hear because we live in America and how do you achieve the American dream you work.

But if we want to raise world changing children God must intervene.

This is true about salvation: Focus on the helpless of our state without God’s intervention.

Gospel

This is true about salvation but it is also true about raising world changing kids.

Psalm 127:1 NASB95

Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.

Why do we need God to intervene:

a. God is the builder of our kids

Notice the author uses a picture of a very basic function. Building a house.

v. 1-If it is vain to attempt things apart from the Lord would it no be crazy to try and raise kids without the Lord.

Without the Lord all domestic work is in vain.

This verse is not saying that work is not important rather it is saying that work with out the guidance of God is futile.

Are you praying for your kids, are you asking God to move in your kid’s life? Remember when Abraham literally put his kid on the altar and trusted his son to God completely.

It is so hard to trust God with the things we love the most: our kids.

When we allow God to be the builder of our kids, instead of us trying to make our kids what we want them to be. Really we want them to achieve the American dream.

When are we going to care as much about our kid loving Jesus as we do about.... them getting good grades, excelling in sports or band, getting a good job.

our kids are created in the image of God to bear his image: what if our greatest desire for our kid is that they would love God and love others.

Why do we need God to intervene:

b. God is the protector of our kids

Psalm 127:1 NASB95

Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.

You can try to protect your city but without God’s guidance it is in vain.

This is so true with our kids. We can do all we can but we will never be as good of protectors as God.

Have you ever noticed how every generation thinks they had it hard and the kids are worse than the previous generations. On a side not their were some pretty evil people in the previous generations: HITLER.

Isn’t it scary to raise kids today. There are so many things to worry about. Think about at the tip of a finger our kids have access to anything they want on their iPhones and electronics. Houston has a lot of kidnappings. Our kids could get hurt. Our kids can make bad decisions that will alter the rest of their lives. I could on and on and on.

This can keep us up all night worrying and living in fear.

But if we are going to raise up world changing kids God must intervene.

He is a lot better protector than me.

I can’t protect my kid better than God can.

Are you really allowing God to build your kid?

Are you really allowing God to protect your kid?

Psalm 127:2 NASB95

It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.

The result of not being dependent on God is that raising our kids will be in vain.

There is a right way and a wrong way to work.

I have this picture in my head of a hamster running around in circles on those exercise.

It is literally saying it is vain for you to raise early if you are not going to be dependent on God.

We will spin our wheels and go nowhere.

At times our family get’s so busy that instead of being dependent on God I try to do it in my power and I get exhausted.

It says when we are dependent on him he will give to us in our sleep, he will replenish us, Jesus says come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Are you dependent on God right now?

God is not telling us not to work, but he is telling us their is a proper way to work.

Picture #1 of Tim

As I shared about Tim and Tina earlier. Their family moved from China to America. A family trying to make it in America and their biological dad unexpectantly dies. Mrs. Theresa is in a county, she barely speaks english and as a believer in Jesus she decided to depend on God. A church wrapped their arms around her. And I just wonder how sweet her prayers to God were at this time as she mad a commitment to depend on God as she raised her kids.

Application:

Psalms 73–150 1. Problem—Labor apart from the Lord Is Empty (127:1–2)

127:2 The direct address (“you”) marks the specific application of the general principle in v. 1. Picking up “in vain” (šāwʾ) from the previous verse, the psalmist now pictures the typical human answer to the problem it posed. Nevertheless, even when people lengthen the workday and increase its intensity, their best efforts to secure life apart from the Lord are in vain. The psalmist describes well frenetic contemporary life, in which people in their vain search for success take on more work, grasp additional opportunities, and become enslaved to an impossible schedule. Even meals, which are intended to be times of refreshing fellowship, are turned into hurried pit stops “to have enough food,” (literally) “the eatings of the bread of toils” (ʾōkəlê leḥem hāʿăṣābȋm), as they become a hasty continuation of the rat race.

What is this verse saying: We will be nervous wrecks if we are not dependent on God in raising our kids.

The next truth we must embrace if we want to raise world changing children is:

2. that God really does love the Little Children

Now if we want to follow God then we should love the same things that God loves.

Now loving children does not mean that we have to have as many kids as we do.

It does not mean that we have to work in children’s ministry all the time.

But it does mean that we have to love children.

Jesus loves Children

Luke 18:16 “But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

Psalm 127:3 NAS

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.

How does God view Children:

Children are a gift-

Salvation is a gift from God there is nothing we can do to earn it. Some of the greatest things in life are things that we cannot earn but are a gift from God.

Children are a reward-

This is God’s view of Children

Our world however views children differently.

Children are inconvenient

Children are a hassle.

Don’t have kids until you have enough money.

No only do we not value children, in 2019 alone we had over 625,000 abortions.

God says be fruitful and multiply

Whether you are a parent or not God’s heart is to love children and this needs to be our heart as well.

Here is what Elon Musk says about this: “If people don’t have more children civilizations are going to crumble.”

From a very practical standpoint if countries do not have enough kids they will die.

But this is even more true spiritually:

I have heard people say, “We have plenty of churches. There are churches all over the place that sit empty, why start new ones? We don’t need more churches but better ones.” Can you imagine making such a statement about people? “We have plenty of people. We don’t need more people, just better ones. Why have more babies?” This is short-range thinking. No matter how inflated you think the world population is, we are only one generation away from extinction if we do not have babies. . . . Imagine the headlines if suddenly it was discovered that 96% of the women in America were no longer fertile and could not have babies. We would instantly know two things: this is not natural so there is something wrong with their health. We would also know that our future is in serious jeopardy.

As I think back to Tim and Tina and how God raised them up not only did they have a mother that loved them, they had an entire community that loved them. Tim’s mom would later get remmarried to Bob. They did not just hear about the love of God they experienced it first hand.

App

As a church building up it’s launch team, God desires us to love children. Look at how many children are already out there.

Are you loving children right now?

Do you need to get more in align with God’s heart for Children.

The Last truth we must embrace if we want to raise world changing children is:

3. we must aim at the right bullseye.

Andre Agassi Picture

Andre Agassi dad had two goals for his son. His target for his son was that he would be the best tennis player in the world, and in 1995 he was the #1 tennis player in the world and that he would be a millionaire. Today he is worth and estimated 135 million dollars.

Psalm 127:4 NASB95

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth.

What do we need to know about the target?

It has to be defined!

In a real way the Psalmist compares raising children to arrows. And in a real way how you raised your kids could determine life or death.

Psalm 127:3 (TCENB): “Well doth David call children arrows; for if they be well bred, they shoot at their parents [sic parents’] enemies; and if they be evil bred, they shoot at their parents.”

There was a real target these OT people were trying to hit. They had to raise kids who were on their side and would be willing to protect them when they got older. But there was also a spiritual side to this. In the Old Testament one of the key verses is called the Shema.

For our devotions over the last two weeks I have been teaching my kids the Shema:

In this Shema defines one of the targets the Jewish people had for raising their kids:

Deuteronomy 6:5 ““You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

Andrea Agassi’s hit the bullseye his dad had set for for him.

What I have seen is that a lot of time’s we as Christianas have the same targets as the world has.

Kaleo-Parents did not want their kids to go to Kaleo-Mormon-Billionaire-He celebrated his daughter going to the porrest country in Africa to share their message. People do not need a works based salvation message people need to hear the message of Grace that comes through Jesus Christ

But what if our bullseye for our kids was not the American dream that was not the final end but rather that our kids would love God with all their heart, soul and mind.

What if one of the bullseyes we set for our kids was that they would marry someone who loved God.

What if the bullseye was that God would raise our kids up to be leaders in his church and that they would take the gospel wherever they went.

Heather and I’s target is that our kids would leave the house one day with a passion to know God and make him known.

Do you have targets for your kids.

If you are foggy on the targets for your kids then they are definitely going to be foggy.

Result of Godly Children

Psalm 127:5 NASB95

How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies in the gate.

The author describes children as a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, they are like arrows in the hand of the warrior, blessed is the man who has a lot because he will not be put to shame.

Conclusion:

Tim Picture #2

Tim and Tina are both married, have beautiful families, they are Physical and Ocuupational Therapists. They would be considered very successful even by the world’s standard. But what is amazing is they are really successful because they love God and love others.

Tim sends out a devotional each week and this last week he sent this out to a group:

This past week a pastor friend of mine asked me to go on a home visit to see a bed bound woman. I hear her story of what brought her to her current condition and how she felt hopeless; she didn’t want to be where she was, but didn’t know what to do about it. I was able to share with her some ways to help her physical condition and how to get more mobile. More importantly and vital I shared with her the hope of Christ and how He is the one who heals and allows us to live vibrantly and with purpose. Her eyes light up to this message and said “today you gave me hope when I was so hopeless!” All around us and myself included need this message of hope that we don’t have to live this way and there is a better future in Christ. The cool ending of this story is at the end the woman who was bed bound was able to walk without assistance and able to sit up while smiling at the end. Help bring hope to someone and watch them light up! Happy Friday!

I get parenting wrong a lot, and if you are a parent you are not going to be perfect. But at times I get reminders of doing this God’s way is worth it. This text from Aiden: Each day I encourage them to spend time with God and then text me or someone what they are learning and here is what he said: I liked how it said that you shall pray and receive because I feel like God has been answering my prayers lately

Talk about how we have lowered the standard very low-we are hitting the wrong target.

Psalms 73–150 1. Problem—Labor apart from the Lord Is Empty (127:1–2)

127:1 Psalm 127 begins with two conditional clauses introduced by “unless” (ʾim plus lōʾ, “i.… not”) that speak of two fundamental tasks in life, the provision of a house for the family and the protection of a city for the community. In both cases, unless the Lord is in it, human effort is vain, ineffective, and unsuccessful. The Lord, then, is essential for even the most basic human endeavors, and if these basic tasks cannot be completed successfully apart from him, then nothing else can either. The Hebrew term for “labor” (ʿāmal) is reminiscent of the toil of life under the divine curse on human sin in Gen. 3:17–19. As Goldingay notes, this word recurs in Ecclesiastes in a similar sense: “We can plan something carefully, work hard at it, and be responsible and creative in implementing our plans, and everything go wrong in a way we could never have foreseen.”