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God’s Great Guidance about Children
Psalm 127:1-5
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - April 22, 2012
*On a scale of 1 to 10, how important would you say children are to their parents?
-- Ten! -- Yes, of course they are that important to all good parents.
*All Godly Parents recognize the truth of vs. 3 that “children are a heritage (or gift) from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is His reward.
Verse 5 adds, “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.”
Listen to vs. 5 again from “The Message paraphrase: “Oh, how blessed are you parents, with your quivers full of children!
Your enemies don't stand a chance against you; you'll sweep them right off your doorstep.”
Godly parents recognize that children are one of the greatest treasures we can ever receive from the Lord.
*But what about the church?
How important are children to a church?
-- Also a ten.
A church without children has no future.
They may coast along for a few years.
But a church without children is a dying church.
*Now, how important do you think children are to God? -- Again a ten!
*In Matthew 18, Jesus said:
5. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.
6. "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
*Then Jesus told His followers:
10. "Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.
11.
For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.
12.
What do you think?
If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?
13.
And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.
14.
Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
*Nobody cares more about children than God.
He wants the absolute best for our children, so He gives us great guidance in His Word.
And Psalm 127 is one of the places to find God’s guidance.
1.
How can we help children?
-- First, we must depend on the Lord.
*There’s no doubt about it in vs. 1: “Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it.”
We can try our tip-top best, but we are not going to make it without the Lord’s leadership, guidance and help.
We must depend on the Lord.
[1] That’s certainly true in our spiritual life.
*In Matthew 16:18, the Lord said He was going to build His church, but Jesus wasn’t talking about bricks and mortar.
He was talking about hearts and souls.
He was talking about building a living church.
And this is something the Lord cares about deeply, because it’s the place where His Spirit lives.
*The Bible makes this truth clear in Ephesians 2:20-22.
Here the Apostle Paul was speaking to Christians, and said that we have:
20. . .
been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone,
21. in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
22. in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
*Jesus Christ is building a brand new, everlasting life for everyone who will trust Him as Savior and Lord.
And “unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.”
[2] We must depend on the Lord in our spiritual life, and in our family life.
*That word “house” in vs. 1 can mean a building, but the Bible also uses this word “house” to talk about our families.
We find an example of this usage in the Christmas story.
Luke 1:26&27 says:
26.
Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
27. to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.
The virgin's name was Mary.
*“Unless the LORD builds the (family), they labor in vain who build it.”
*Rob Morton tells about a preacher who was finishing up a series of sermons on marriage.
At the end of the service he gave out a small wooden cross to each married couple.
Then the preacher said, “Put this cross in the room where you fight the most.
It will remind you of God’s commands, so you won’t argue as much.”
One lady came up after the service and quietly said, “You’d better give me five.”
(1)
*We laugh at that, and that’s O.K.
But it reminds us of a deeper truth: Many Christian families are in trouble.
*A group called “Family Life” once put together a family needs survey for Little Rock, Arkansas.
By April of 2000, they had collected over 10,000 responses from local churches, and the statistics were alarming.
*Less than half of the Christian couples said they have a good marriage.
-58% said their marriages were in trouble.
-43% of those marriages were in the “yellow light” area with signs of trouble.
-And 15% were in the “red light” area with serious trouble, headed for divorce.
(2)
*“Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.”
*I strongly believe in the triangle model of marriage I first heard from Bruce Wilkinson.
This model puts husband and wife on the two sides of the triangle, with God at the top.
So, the closer we both get to God, the closer we naturally get to each other.
(3)
[3] We must depend on the Lord in our family life, and in our national life.
*At the end of vs. 1: “Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.”
*America has the strongest military force in the world today.
And we should thank the Lord for the people defending our country today.
But remember this: We could have all the guns and planes and bombs in the world, and that wouldn’t help a bit, if God is not our Defender!
*Without God’s help, we don’t have a chance!
But if God is our Defender, we can win with sticks and bricks.
[4] We must depend on the Lord in our national life, and in our emotional life.
*That’s the message of vs. 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.”
*We’re not supposed to worry, but when we have children, it’s part of the package.
And God gives peaceful sleep to the ones He loves, but when you have children, you will surely find yourself awake some nights:
-You may be walking the floor when your baby gets a belly-ache or is just cutting teeth.
-But you could be stunned by the news of a much worse disease.
-Or waiting and worrying over a child who is headed down the wrong road in life just as fast as he can.
*Yes we will have worries.
But we can learn to cast all our care upon God, for He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).
And vs. 2 here reminds us that God is watching over His children to give them comfort, peace and rest.
As Mary Crowley once said, “Every evening I turn worries over to God.
He’s going to be up all night anyway.”
(4)
*We can depend on the Lord.
And we must depend on the Lord.
*Charles Ryrie told about a dad who was standing in the shallow end of a pool as he held his 3-year-old son.
Dad started walking toward the deep end, and the little boy started to panic.
He held on to his dad tighter and tighter, even though he was never in any danger, because his dad always had his feet firmly planted on the bottom.
*The truth was that the little boy was in just as much danger in the shallow end, because he couldn’t swim, and the water was over his head even there.
His safety anywhere in that pool depended on Dad.
*And Charles Ryrie said: “At various points in our lives, all of us feel we're getting ‘out of our depth.’
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