Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Psalm 127. The main subject of the sermon is how children are blessings from God.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Psalm 127. The main subject of the sermon is how children are blessings from God.
Take your Bibles and look at Psalm 127 this morning. This morning is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. By sanctity, we mean that we believe as Christians that human beings are sacred and set apart unlike any other physical creation in the world. We believe the foundation of this is right in Genesis Chapter 1, in which God said, “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness, and let them rule, let them be fruitful and multiply, and let them rule over the earth.” And so we believe that we are in a different category than the animals or any other creation. We are unique and special. Sanctity of Human Life.
“By sanctity, we mean that we believe as Christians that human beings are sacred and set apart unlike any other physical creation in the world. “
Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the infamous Roe versus Wade decision, in which state laws banning abortion were declared to be unconstitutional, much to the dismay of abortion advocates, the issue is not going away. It’s not settling into the dustbin of history. It’s not receding in the national consciousness. It’s not going away much to the dismay of those that thought that the Supreme Court decision would end the matter for good. It’s not going away. Much to their dismay, the issue continues to stand in front of America, screaming like an injustice to be righted, like a victim pleading to be saved, like a nation being held hostage, and it won’t go away.
Perhaps they felt that clever slogans like “Every Child a Wanted Child” and other type things that are put on signs would erase some basic truths, but they won’t. And so abortion continues to be the focal point of one presidential election after another, unspoken probably. Or the openly spoken focal point of one Supreme Court nomination after another, it will not go away, it will not disappear. And actually, statistics show that people who advocate abortion are losing ground in America. More and more, young people are seeing that it’s not going away because they believe that the pre-born is a human being and should be protectable under the laws of our country. And that we look forward someday to the day when Roe versus Wade will seem as bizarre and strange as the Dred Scott decision, which denied personhood to slaves, saying they weren’t really human beings, they had no right to sue in a court of law. That was the settled law of the land. Have you heard that phrase before? The settled law of the land at that time, and it is no longer. Thanks be to God.
Now, the price was high: Blood-soaked battlefields in Virginia and Maryland, and Missouri and Georgia, Tennessee. That was a very high price. But the battle is being fought even today, and the reason it will not go away is that Harry Blackman’s majority ruling is in direct contradiction to what the scripture says. Harry Blackman wrote at the time, a majority of ruling, he said this, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. We need not resolve that. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive in any consensus, the judiciary at this point in the development of man’s knowledge is not in a position to speculate.” Oh, they did more than speculate, they decided that the pre-born was not a person worthy of protection under the laws of our country. They did far more than speculate. And the problem is, and this is why it won’t go away, is that that is in direct contradiction with the teaching of Scripture.
In Luke Chapter 1, for example, when Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist meets Mary, who is pregnant with Jesus, she says this, it says, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women. And blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me. As soon as the sound of your greeting reach my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” Oh, just meditate on those words: For joy. That declares the personhood of John the Baptist before he was born.
I. One of Many Casualties In This War
And so there is a war on… It is a war, people have spoken of culture wars, but I think this is probably the central issue and the central battleground. Some have likened it to the struggle at the time of the Civil War. But I think it’s much larger than that. There is a spiritual warfare going on here. The Scripture openly testifies to it, I preached more directly to that issue last year. But in Ephesians 6:12, it says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Oh, how important it is for us to remember that. To look past the human opponent who seems so filled with hate and with irrational arguments against Scripture, and to say, “You know, I believe that someday the grace of God can change your heart.” Alright, my struggle is not with you, my struggle is with the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms that are stirring this system up, and how complex is that system?
Also says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we are ready to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” That’s speaking of a warfare, but it’s a different kind of warfare than the kind we might see in the nightly news. Our weapons are truth, our weapons are the power of the Holy Spirit, those are our weapons. We demolish ideas, we’re destroying demonic strongholds of concepts that are taking people captive.
Now, there have been many casualties in this war, certainly, of course, the babies themselves, 43 million of them. Forty-three million have died in this country since abortion was legalized. They are certainly casualties, the mothers themselves, casualties, physically, emotionally and spiritually damaged by this. The doctors and abortion providers and abortion advocates, radicals, folks like that are being damaged because their hearts are being hardened. It’s harder for them to hear the truth of God in almost any area of their lives, they also are damaged.
But one of the casualties, a little harder to measure, I wanna focus on today. And that is the basic biblical concept, that children are a blessing from God, that children are a blessing from God. And it’s ironic, isn’t it? Because a Planned Parenthood slogan, “Every child a wanted child”. I thought about that. The origination of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood, one of the most bizarre individuals I have ever studied. What a strange and weird person. She was one of the original advocates of birth control in our country and started the league of availability of birth control. It became Planned Parenthood. She espoused weird eugenic views, in which basically the survival of the fittest would weed out races and individuals unfit for life. And as much as Planned Parenthood wants to embrace her radical courage and all that, they are distancing themselves from some of the more racist aspects of her teaching. She was a eugenicist, very similar to the Nazis.
And out of this whole mentality comes this idea of every child a wanted child. The concept is that if we have widely available birth control and abortion, we can avoid having babies we don’t wanna have. And then we can check our sin nature at the door and the children will grow up in a paradise in which there are no problem societies, these problems will be solved because all of the children will have been wanted in some sense at the moment of their birth. Parenting is far more difficult than that I’m finding. How I felt about the moment I first saw my child doesn’t help me much along the way. I have to be renewed daily and a love for them and for the Lord, etcetera. But the idea is every child wanted a child would bring us into some kind of a paradise.
The implication is that tragedies like child abuse and cycles of poverty will be eliminated, if we could just have this widespread birth control and abortion being part of that. But the problem is it puts people in a position to decide if they wanted the child or not. The child then became a commodity to assess and to decide. And do you think that mentality stops at the moment of birth? It continues right on. And what’s amazing is that child abuse actually greatly increased after Roe versus Wade. From 1976 to 1987, 330% increase in reported cases of child abuse. Now, I know some of that is probably because of different reporting approaches, but I think it’s also… And studies have been shown that linked together, induced abortion and child abuse, it’s a great tragedy. But the basic attack is the attack on the idea of the child as created in the image of God, a blessing from God, and that’s great suffering.
And as a result, more and more couples in America are making the decision voluntarily to remain childless, choosing not to have any children at all, the fact is the nation’s birth rate fell last year to a historic low of 66.9 births per thousand women ages 15 to 44. That represents a decline of 43% since 1960. So our birth rate going down, down, down, down. Other parts of the world, especially the Muslim parts of the world, birth rate going up, up, up, up. What does that say for the future of our world? It’s gonna be very interesting. But our birth rates continue to decline, to decline. Couples are choosing…and not to have children.
There’s a great emphasis in popular culture on how expensive it is, I mean financially expensive to raise children. Have you heard of any of these studies and statistics? For example, March 30th, 1998, US News and World Report had an article, the cost of raising children, and they came to the conclusion that it took $1.5 million to raise a child up to age 22. Well, let me tell you something, I can challenge a lot of that… We’re not gonna make a 1.5 million and we have five children. Can you imagine $7.5 million, Christie, we need to come up with? I don’t have it, friends. And don’t pass the hat. I actually don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t know where they come up with these statistics.
But think of the spirit behind the study. What a burden, our children. What a high cost it is to have them. How difficult it is to have children. There is right now a proliferation of anti-child movements, you can find it an interesting e-world that we live, the internet world, there are groups out there, for example, No Kidding is a group. Look it up. It’s a group basically that espouses voluntary childlessness or happily child-free. They strongly argue on the basis of world overpopulation. This one is the most interesting to me: The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Vehement. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is the human humanitarian alternative to human disasters. Quote. This is not me, this is a quote. It’s important that you know this. “When every human being chooses to stop breeding Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die and evolve.” If they believe in evolution. “And will perhaps pass away as so many of Mother Nature’s experiments have done throughout the eons. Good health will be restored to the Earth’s ecology, to the life form known by many as Gaia.” That is just scary. Voluntary Human Extinction.
Now, the real danger here is that the attitude, attitudes like this can seep into the church and we can start embracing some of these attitudes. Dr. Muller president of Southern Seminary has been very proactive in writing about Christians and the issue of voluntary childless-ness. He talks about how couples don’t want children to affect their lifestyle. Talk about one couple in the Atlanta area that enjoy riding on matching Harley Davidson motorcycles and love their gourmet kitchen outfitted with the very latest stainless steel appliances and trendy countertops. And the woman explained, “If we had kids, we would need a table where kids could do homework.” Muller said clearly, “children aren’t part of their interior design plan.” And so more and more, there’s this theme of the cost, the burden, the difficulty of children. And Muller’s concern is that some of the world’s views on children are creeping into the church. “My larger concern is with the bare fact that an anti-natalist philosophy has now infected much of the Christian church. I fully expect non-Christians to think and act as unbelievers. Nevertheless, I am perplexed by Christians who seem to believe that marriage and reproduction can be separated by glorifying God within the marital bond.” And so he said this, “Couples are not given the option of choosing childless-ness in the biblical revelation. To the contrary, we are commanded to receive children with joy as God’s gifts, and to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We are to find many of our deepest joys and satisfactions in the raising of children within the context of the family. Those who reject children want to have the joys of sex and marital companionship, without the responsibilities of parenthood. They rely on others to produce and sustain the generations to come.”
Now, Dr. Muller is very careful, and I want to say as well, we are not dealing with the tragedy here of involuntary childlessness, sterility, the inability to have children. We’re not talking about that, it’s a great sadness and tragedy for some couples who just can’t seem to have children, that’s not what we’re talking about. And neither do I or Dr. Muller believe that if you don’t have children, you can’t be a fruitful member of Christ’s kingdom. We embrace the fact that there are some that remain unmarried for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. That they do not have the gift of marriage, they do have the gift of singleness, and they are free to serve the Lord boldly in that way, and it’s a wonderful thing. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ Himself had no biological children. As far as we know, John the Baptist and Apostle Paul had no biological children. All of them fruitful for the kingdom, and yet it’s said of Jesus that he has spoken of as having children spiritually. In Hebrews 2:13, it says, “Here am I and the children God has given me.” Isn’t that beautiful? So, it speaks of Christ’s children in that sense.
And then even the Apostle Paul uses parenting language when he speaks of his ministry. He says in 1 Corinthians 4:15, “Even though you have 10,000 guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel.” And he speaks both to Timothy and Titus calling each of them in different places, “My true son in the faith.” And so I’m not saying that you have to have children to be a fruitful member of Christ’s kingdom.
But what we are talking about is couples that marry and in a kind of a trendy way say, “I think we’re just deciding not to have children.” That’s a different matter. And I wonder if the root of it is that some of this attitude has seeped in that children are essentially a burden, something you assess and in the end, you decide that it’s not worth it. Even Christian parents who have children and see them as a blessing have to fight off this attitude. We have to fight off the attitude of how difficult it is to raise the children. How many sacrifices we have to make and all that. It’s not to be discussed.
II. Unless The Lord Build The House
And so I just wanna give you a gift this morning, the biblical perspective on children as an essential blessing from God. I’m doing it as an antidote to this pervasive cultural concept of children, isn’t it something we assess and frankly, in many cases, reject. And I’m gonna do it from Psalm 1:27, and there it says, Verse 1 and 2, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go to bed late, eating the bread of anxious toil, for He gives to his beloved sleep.”
Now, this is one of the Song of Ascents, Solomon wrote it and the Songs of Ascent were to be sung by pilgrims, the Jewish people who are traveling from different parts of the promised land, going up to Jerusalem one of the three times a year that men were commanded, Jewish men, to assemble in Jerusalem. There were three feasts: Passover, Pentecost, the Feast of Booths, and those three times they were to come. And the implication is that they’re gonna bring their families, and as they’re going, they’re gonna travel and they’ve got time on the road together. And we talked last two weeks about Deuteronomy 6, talk about these things when you walk along the road, and so the Songs of Ascents are psalms that were sung as they went. And it wouldn’t be surprising for these Jewish men surrounded by their children, their families to be thinking about their heritage, to be thinking about their children, and frankly to be thinking about the nation as a whole. And so, this is the Song of Ascents.
And basically, the central message is that God must be in the middle of what you’re doing. God must be central to everything you do or you will waste your time. That’s a transferable principle, and not even connected just to children, but unless the Lord builds what it is you’re building, you are wasting your time. God must be in the center of what you’re doing, He must be leading you in what you’re doing, or you’re going to waste your time. The Christian version of this is in John 15:5, in which it says, Christ said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he’ll bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.” And Psalm 127, I think, teaches the same thing. Another way of saying, and a Christian poet put it this way, “Only when life will soon be passed, only what’s done for Christ will last.” There’s a sense of the centrality of Christ and of God in the home. God must be central. Now, here it says, “Unless the Lord builds the house,” I don’t believe the word house here is primarily referring to a building project, like four walls and a roof, something like that. I really think it’s talking about a family, a household, a heritage. Think about the time of the birth of Christ.
Luke 2:4, it says, “Then Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth and Galilee to Judea to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged,” Listen, “To the house and lineage of David.” And you remember somewhat of the play on words, when David wanted to build a house for the Lord, he said, “Here I am living in this nice Palace, and I would love to build a house for God, he’s out there in a tent.” Did he feel sorry for God? Was that it? I don’t know, but he said, “I’m in a palace of cedar and he’s in a tent, there’s something amiss there.” But then God spoke to David through Nathan the prophet, saying, “Are you the one to build a house for me? Rather, I’m gonna build a house for you.” Now, what house did God build for David? He said, “I declare to you,” 1st Chronicle 17, “I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you when your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons and I will establish his kingdom.” So it’s a lineage, a genealogy, descendants, that’s the house. And unless the Lord builds that house, you labor in vain, you’re wasting your time.
God must be at the center of your household. Now friends, what house is God building now? Is he not building a spiritual house? Does it not speak of the house of Jesus Christ, the Temple of God, where He will dwell forever and ever. 1 Peter 2:4&5, it says, “As you come to Him, the living stone rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious to Him, speaking of Jesus Christ, you also like living stones are being built together to be a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, a royal priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices to God.” So we’re like living stones into this new house that God’s building. That’s the house he’s building. These living stones were once babies in someone’s family, they were ones babies, they were raised up, maybe raised in a believing home. And shaped and prepared to go into the wall of the eternal temple that God is building, and if the Lord is building that house, we need to be involved, don’t you think? That is the house he’s building, it’s the house of Jesus Christ, of which it is spoken in Revelation 21, “Then I looked and I saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.” And then it was said, “Now is the dwelling of God with men, and He will live with them and he will be their God and dwell with them forever.” That is the house that God is building. And unless the Lord builds your house, you’re not involved in what God is doing.
III. Children Are a Heritage And a Reward from The Lord
Well, in the center of Psalm 127 is this concept that children are a heritage and a reward from the Lord. Children are a blessing, and it begins in some of the translations, the NIV has the bad habit of cutting off the beholds, I like behold, even though it’s an awkward kind of thing. When was the last time you just said behold to somebody, try it this week to a friend or whatever, roommate, co-worker, “Behold, I’m about to tell you something.” See what happens. Well, I think the NIV trying to make it more modern, we really don’t say that anymore, so sometimes they go look and sometimes they just drop it out, But behold, children are such and such in a way, sit up and take notice. I’m gonna tell you something you might not believe. So even back then, perhaps there was a challenge of thinking of children as a blessing, but it says, behold, and then it uses these two wonderful words, children are a heritage.
Children are a reward. The word “heritage” is almost… Sometimes the word translated inheritance, they’re like an inheritance, something you could… An heirloom or something you could pass on from generation and generation, a sense of immense worth and value. The second word is “reward”, a sense of, again, something incredibly valuable given to somebody who’s rendered good service to a king maybe, for a reward for a righteous life. God may reward you with children. And there are some brief advantages, are listed, it says in 127, that they are like arrows, verse 4, like arrows in the hands of a warrior. And it speaks, “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” So I started thinking about archery stories, I love archery stories, ever read the tales of Robin Hood, you know how he went after the silver arrow with the Golden feathers and all that, and all the best archers from the North of England came to shoot for the silver arrow, and that’s a great story. You’ll have to read it to find out how it comes out. Robin Hood wins. But anyway, he just… The marksmanship, it’s just incredible from 100 paces what he’s able to do.
Archery and bows and arrows have had a major impact in many battles, like in the middle ages, for example, the Battle of Agincourt 1415, in which the British longbow dominated the day, though the British were outnumbered 10 to one, many of their soldiers suffering from dysentery, and the French, heavy knights in armor and all that, they were really looking at getting slaughtered, and Shakespeare picks up on this, and Henry the 5th, and there’s this famous speech in which he rallies the troops and says, “We few we happy band of brothers that were here this day, etcetera,” well, they end up winning the battle, apparently historically, they’ve been shooting the bow the wrong way, they’ve been holding it horizontally and pulling from the hip, reduce its range greatly. He said, “No, turn it vertically point it up at about 45 degree angles and see what you can do.” They could fire and hit accurately target 400 yards away, they could fire nine arrows a minute. They wiped the French soldiers out before they even got close, the battle wasn’t that simple, but here’s the principle, how are children like arrows? It’s a matter of projected influence.
A sword-bearer, he can only project his influence as far as his arm can go, and he’s gonna fight hand-to hand with the sword, that’s fine, very powerful, very influential, but here’s a set of godly parents. Let’s talk about it that way. Who can project their influence for generations to come, 400 yards across the battlefield, projecting influence, great influence, enough to win the battle? That’s what children are like. The ability to project influence. And the psalmist celebrates having a multiplicity of children, notice it says the children of your youth. Let me tell you something, alright? There is a reason God gives infants to young people, there is. And if you wanna know more about that, come and talk to me afterwards, but there is a reason why. Or talk to Christy about it. But for the most part, God blesses young people with children, infants, but Abraham and Sarah were quite aged, and God gave them a sustaining grace, didn’t he? And Elizabeth and Zechariah the same thing, he gave them sustaining grace. It’s a beautiful thing.
“Here’s a set of godly parents. … Who can project their influence for generations to come … enough to win the battle? That’s what children are like. “
Now, friends, Psalm 127 doesn’t stand alone in scripture as uniting the idea of blessing and children. It’s a consistent teaching in the Bible from the very beginning. Genesis 1, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him male and female, He created them.” Listen, “And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth.” Right from the very, God blessed them, be fruitful and multiply. Do you see the connection? And again, when the human race was dangling by a thread, eight people, Noah and his sons and their wives, eight people. After that, same thing happens again. Genesis 9:1, God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number,” the blessing and be fruitful, there it is.
Or concerning Abraham and his son Ishmael, God said to Abraham concerning Ishmael, he said this, “As for Ishmael,” this is Genesis 17:20, “I have heard you, I will surely bless him, I will make him fruitful and greatly increases numbers, he will be the father of 12 rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.” The blessing of God with the multiplication of children. Again, Isaac, Genesis 26:24, “That night, the Lord appeared to him, and said, “I am the God of your father, Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham,” Blessing and increase the number of your descendants. It’s God’s way of thinking. And again, Israel as they’re about to enter the promised land. In Deuteronomy 7:12-14, “If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord, your God will keep His covenant of love with you as he swore to your forefathers, he will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless you and increase your numbers, he will bless the fruit of your womb.”
What does that mean? Fruit of the womb, you have to study these words very carefully, it means your children, he’s gonna bless your children, your babies, He’s gonna bless them, and your grain in new wine and oil, it says in Deuteronomy 7. Now verse 14 it says, “You’ll be blessed more than any other people, none of your men are women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young.” And again and again, the issue of the barren wife comes up and God blesses the barren wife with children. Sarah, for example, “As for Sarah, your wife,” Genesis 17, “…you will no longer call her Sarai, her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of Nations, kings of peoples will come from her.
Rebecca was barren. And it says, Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren, and the Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebecca became pregnant. If you are among that group of people that is suffering because it doesn’t seem that God is blessing you or hasn’t blessed you with children yet, pray, pray as Isaac did and see if God opens the womb, as he did for Rebecca, and how great would your joy be? The same thing happened with Rachel. As a matter of fact, she was so upset and angry that she wasn’t having children, she was greatly jealous of her sister Leah, and she went to her husband, grabbing him and saying, “Give me children or I’ll die,” and that’s a tough request to fulfill. I know every husband wants to please his wife, but he says, “Am I in the place of God? I don’t have that kind of power.” But in the end, God answered her prayer and her desires. It says in Genesis 30, “Then God remembered Rachel and he listened to her and opened her womb, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.”
The same thing happened with Hannah, the same thing happened with Elizabeth again and again. And the principle is clear. Psalm 113:9, “He settles the barren woman in her home as the happy mother of children, praise the Lord.” Friends, do you not see the biblical weight of evidence, how overwhelming it is that children are a blessing. They’re a blessing from God. Now, where does this mentality come from in our country, but from the pit of hell? It does not come from God, it isn’t coming from God, it’s coming from Satan, who as Randy Alcorn, said, “…desires to hang God an effigy.” That’s a powerful image. We are in the image of God. He can’t get at God who dwells above, so he hangs God an effigy by attacking his image here in this world.
IV. How Are Children a Gift from God
Now, how are children a blessing from God? I listed out 10 ways, and I just went quickly through them, and if you don’t like my 10, come up with 10 of your own or 20, but these are just 10 ways that I’ve found that scripturally and just an experience that children are a blessing from God. First of all, they are a display of the glory of God, as we’ve already said, every child created in the image of God, they are in the image of God from creation, and as they developed from that point, they display more and more of the image of God. Human beings are the greatest and the most complex of all of God’s creations in this world.
Michael Card in “Beautiful Lullaby” had this quote, singing to one of his infants, “You show more of God than I’ll ever teach you.” Isn’t that powerful? They just show God, they are displays of the glory of God. Secondly, as we’ve been saying, we don’t need to belabor this, but Deuteronomy 6, having children is the most effective disciple-making opportunity you’ll ever have in your life. The connections are stronger, they get to observe you, they get to watch your lifestyle, and there is a need for pattern in evangelism and discipleship. Philippians 3:17, “Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” Nowhere is it easier than in the Christian home for one person or a group of people to set a pattern for others to follow, than in the home, it’s the most effective disciple-making opportunity that you’ll ever have. Thirdly, it is an opportunity for you, I’m talking parents, to grow up spiritually. And you say, “Well, wait a minute, we’re the parents, we’re the mature ones.”
“Having children is the most effective disciple-making opportunity you’ll ever have in your life. The connections are stronger, they get to observe you, they get to watch your lifestyle, and there is a need for patterns in evangelism and discipleship. “
Oh really? There are opportunities to grow. We’re not done being saved, we are not done being sanctified, and most parents can testify immediately to how their children are one of the number one arenas of personal spiritual growth for themselves, they grow in Christ as they learn to trust in Christ for situations. They learn the Bible much better than they ever did, ’cause they have to explain it to children who keep saying why, why, why? And you just bore down to the core of the issue again and again, because God said so, that’s why. Well, why did he say so? And it’s convicting that your children pick up your sin patterns far more easily than they pick up your good habits, and so opportunity for spiritual growth.
Fourthly, constant occasions for prayer. Constant occasions for prayer. Paul talks about a great trial that he was in. In 2 Corinthians 1, he said, “This happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.” Self-reliance is a great scourge in the Christian life, friends, how many times do children bring you to a point where you cannot rely on yourselves? Barrenness would be one example where you just know it’s beyond just like Jacob said to Rachel, “Am I in the place of God? I don’t have the power to do this.” Well, I feel that again and again concerning transformation of my children’s hearts, I have not that power, and so therefore is a great opportunity for prayer, others have faced dread illnesses, leukemia and other things, and they are brought to the edge of hopelessness, and they look inward and do not find the resources there.
What does it do? It drives into prayer. Opportunities for prayer. It destroys self-reliance. It also fifth, destroys self-centeredness, how can you be self-centered during those midnight feedings or when they’re toddlers, 3:00 in the morning and they’ve had the flu and they need a change of sheets, or how can you be self-centered when you come home tired and there are just issue after issue to deal with, you learn not to be self-centered or just even turning around the issue of just generosity, the yearning to just bless your children and give them many good things, it’s an antidote to self-centeredness.
Sixth, it’s an object lesson on God’s love for us, many people have testified they didn’t really understand how much God loved them until they had their own children, they were on some kind of a performance thing, they thought they’re in, they’re out. They’re in, they’re out, they’re up they’re down like the stock market, but then they realized when they had children, that’s not the way it is with children, they have their good days and bad days, they have their sins and their disobedience, and then there are times they just melt your heart, but they’re always your child, they’re always your son or daughter, there’s a security there, and God has chosen to use that language, we are adopted children of God. Ain’t that beautiful? And so, we can learn that God loves us, Jesus even uses, “If you then though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him?” An object lesson of God’s love for us.
Seventh, the source of joy and happiness, they just do fun, wonderful, joy producing things that you’ll never forget, they do funny things, they do amazing things, they make you things that you keep the rest of your life up in your bulletin board. They just are a source a river of happiness every time little children walk in the room, almost everybody just smiles, because they just bring happiness, they bring joy. Why would you not want that blessing, it’s just an amazing thing, what the devil comes to try to steal from us. “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. I’ve come that you might have life and have it abundantly,” Jesus said, A source of joy and happiness. You see that at weddings when parents just can’t stop crying, and I’m not convinced they’re just tears of joy. I’m not convinced. I think they’re tears of sadness at the end of a phase of life that has been delightful and know that from then on it really won’t be the same, but yes, they’re tears of joy because they know this is God’s way and it must continue that way.
Eighth, deep friendship, Christian parents can take joy in the fact they’re building a bond of relationship that will last unlike any in this world, deep friendship.
Ninth, a lasting personal legacy, multi-generational view, 400 yards down the battlefield, you’re projecting your influence for generations to come, you can have an influence, you’re not gonna waste your life, you’re gonna invest your life in children, you’re gonna invest in the pattern of discipleship. Grandparents testify that there are few things as joy-producing as looking at the exploits of talking about the exploits of their grandkids. It’s interesting on the other end, listening to the stories about all the things their grand kids are doing, but that’s fine, the church has a ministry to listen to the stories of grandparents. “Oh, look at the pictures,” but there’s a great joy that comes from the multi-generational view.
And then finally, blessings in old age. It’s more than just biblical Social Security. The Bible’s version of how elderly people are cared for in their old age is children. The children, the families provide for them, they care for them, but it’s more than just financial, it’s relational, it’s being delivered from the scourge of loneliness in your old age.
VI. Application: Taking Every Thought Captive
That’s 10. You probably could come up with 10 others of ways that children are a blessing. What do we do? How do we apply this? Can I go back to 2 Corinthians 10, and urge you to, “…take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ”? It’s like there’s a big battle going on and someone… It’s like nighttime and something goes running by and it looks like an enemy, so you grab it by the back of the neck and bring it to the Commander and say, Is this friend or foe? That’s the way thoughts are, take the thought captive to Jesus and say is it friend or foe? Is the concept that children are essentially a burden and difficult and expensive, is it from Christ or not? The Bible says no, take it then back to Christ and think about things Christianly. I wanna finish by just saying a word of grace concerning this issue of abortion, and I’ve just learned to do this and it’s so important, a few issues make people hurt and feel pain and guilt and grief as much as this one, and so we… Even an essentially joyful topic like how children are a blessing can turn around and become a great source of grief and pain, all I can do is point you to the only source of forgiveness and mercy and grace there is in this world, the cross of Jesus Christ.
Come again to the cross, find forgiveness, find grace and mercy to help you in your time of need, and it’s not just perhaps women who’ve had abortions, or it may be men who forced women in that direction, or just all of us feeling that we haven’t done enough to be salt and light, haven’t prayed enough, whatever, but we can feel so guilty. I’d urge you to come back to the cross. Deal honestly with what the Bible calls sin. Don’t call it that it wasn’t sin. But just bring it to the cross and let Jesus Christ cover it with His grace and with His blood. Close with me in prayer.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Psalm 127. The main subject of the sermon is how children are blessings from God.
Take your Bibles and look at Psalm 127 this morning. This morning is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. By sanctity, we mean that we believe as Christians that human beings are sacred and set apart unlike any other physical creation in the world. We believe the foundation of this is right in Genesis Chapter 1, in which God said, “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness, and let them rule, let them be fruitful and multiply, and let them rule over the earth.” And so we believe that we are in a different category than the animals or any other creation. We are unique and special. Sanctity of Human Life.
“By sanctity, we mean that we believe as Christians that human beings are sacred and set apart unlike any other physical creation in the world. “
Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the infamous Roe versus Wade decision, in which state laws banning abortion were declared to be unconstitutional, much to the dismay of abortion advocates, the issue is not going away. It’s not settling into the dustbin of history. It’s not receding in the national consciousness. It’s not going away much to the dismay of those that thought that the Supreme Court decision would end the matter for good. It’s not going away. Much to their dismay, the issue continues to stand in front of America, screaming like an injustice to be righted, like a victim pleading to be saved, like a nation being held hostage, and it won’t go away.
Perhaps they felt that clever slogans like “Every Child a Wanted Child” and other type things that are put on signs would erase some basic truths, but they won’t. And so abortion continues to be the focal point of one presidential election after another, unspoken probably. Or the openly spoken focal point of one Supreme Court nomination after another, it will not go away, it will not disappear. And actually, statistics show that people who advocate abortion are losing ground in America. More and more, young people are seeing that it’s not going away because they believe that the pre-born is a human being and should be protectable under the laws of our country. And that we look forward someday to the day when Roe versus Wade will seem as bizarre and strange as the Dred Scott decision, which denied personhood to slaves, saying they weren’t really human beings, they had no right to sue in a court of law. That was the settled law of the land. Have you heard that phrase before? The settled law of the land at that time, and it is no longer. Thanks be to God.
Now, the price was high: Blood-soaked battlefields in Virginia and Maryland, and Missouri and Georgia, Tennessee. That was a very high price. But the battle is being fought even today, and the reason it will not go away is that Harry Blackman’s majority ruling is in direct contradiction to what the scripture says. Harry Blackman wrote at the time, a majority of ruling, he said this, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. We need not resolve that. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive in any consensus, the judiciary at this point in the development of man’s knowledge is not in a position to speculate.” Oh, they did more than speculate, they decided that the pre-born was not a person worthy of protection under the laws of our country. They did far more than speculate. And the problem is, and this is why it won’t go away, is that that is in direct contradiction with the teaching of Scripture.
In Luke Chapter 1, for example, when Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist meets Mary, who is pregnant with Jesus, she says this, it says, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women. And blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me. As soon as the sound of your greeting reach my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” Oh, just meditate on those words: For joy. That declares the personhood of John the Baptist before he was born.
I. One of Many Casualties In This War
And so there is a war on… It is a war, people have spoken of culture wars, but I think this is probably the central issue and the central battleground. Some have likened it to the struggle at the time of the Civil War. But I think it’s much larger than that. There is a spiritual warfare going on here. The Scripture openly testifies to it, I preached more directly to that issue last year. But in Ephesians 6:12, it says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Oh, how important it is for us to remember that. To look past the human opponent who seems so filled with hate and with irrational arguments against Scripture, and to say, “You know, I believe that someday the grace of God can change your heart.” Alright, my struggle is not with you, my struggle is with the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms that are stirring this system up, and how complex is that system?
Also says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we are ready to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” That’s speaking of a warfare, but it’s a different kind of warfare than the kind we might see in the nightly news. Our weapons are truth, our weapons are the power of the Holy Spirit, those are our weapons. We demolish ideas, we’re destroying demonic strongholds of concepts that are taking people captive.
Now, there have been many casualties in this war, certainly, of course, the babies themselves, 43 million of them. Forty-three million have died in this country since abortion was legalized. They are certainly casualties, the mothers themselves, casualties, physically, emotionally and spiritually damaged by this. The doctors and abortion providers and abortion advocates, radicals, folks like that are being damaged because their hearts are being hardened. It’s harder for them to hear the truth of God in almost any area of their lives, they also are damaged.
But one of the casualties, a little harder to measure, I wanna focus on today. And that is the basic biblical concept, that children are a blessing from God, that children are a blessing from God. And it’s ironic, isn’t it? Because a Planned Parenthood slogan, “Every child a wanted child”. I thought about that. The origination of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood, one of the most bizarre individuals I have ever studied. What a strange and weird person. She was one of the original advocates of birth control in our country and started the league of availability of birth control. It became Planned Parenthood. She espoused weird eugenic views, in which basically the survival of the fittest would weed out races and individuals unfit for life. And as much as Planned Parenthood wants to embrace her radical courage and all that, they are distancing themselves from some of the more racist aspects of her teaching. She was a eugenicist, very similar to the Nazis.
And out of this whole mentality comes this idea of every child a wanted child. The concept is that if we have widely available birth control and abortion, we can avoid having babies we don’t wanna have. And then we can check our sin nature at the door and the children will grow up in a paradise in which there are no problem societies, these problems will be solved because all of the children will have been wanted in some sense at the moment of their birth. Parenting is far more difficult than that I’m finding. How I felt about the moment I first saw my child doesn’t help me much along the way. I have to be renewed daily and a love for them and for the Lord, etcetera. But the idea is every child wanted a child would bring us into some kind of a paradise.
The implication is that tragedies like child abuse and cycles of poverty will be eliminated, if we could just have this widespread birth control and abortion being part of that. But the problem is it puts people in a position to decide if they wanted the child or not. The child then became a commodity to assess and to decide. And do you think that mentality stops at the moment of birth? It continues right on. And what’s amazing is that child abuse actually greatly increased after Roe versus Wade. From 1976 to 1987, 330% increase in reported cases of child abuse. Now, I know some of that is probably because of different reporting approaches, but I think it’s also… And studies have been shown that linked together, induced abortion and child abuse, it’s a great tragedy. But the basic attack is the attack on the idea of the child as created in the image of God, a blessing from God, and that’s great suffering.
And as a result, more and more couples in America are making the decision voluntarily to remain childless, choosing not to have any children at all, the fact is the nation’s birth rate fell last year to a historic low of 66.9 births per thousand women ages 15 to 44. That represents a decline of 43% since 1960. So our birth rate going down, down, down, down. Other parts of the world, especially the Muslim parts of the world, birth rate going up, up, up, up. What does that say for the future of our world? It’s gonna be very interesting. But our birth rates continue to decline, to decline. Couples are choosing…and not to have children.
There’s a great emphasis in popular culture on how expensive it is, I mean financially expensive to raise children. Have you heard of any of these studies and statistics? For example, March 30th, 1998, US News and World Report had an article, the cost of raising children, and they came to the conclusion that it took $1.5 million to raise a child up to age 22. Well, let me tell you something, I can challenge a lot of that… We’re not gonna make a 1.5 million and we have five children. Can you imagine $7.5 million, Christie, we need to come up with? I don’t have it, friends. And don’t pass the hat. I actually don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t know where they come up with these statistics.
But think of the spirit behind the study. What a burden, our children. What a high cost it is to have them. How difficult it is to have children. There is right now a proliferation of anti-child movements, you can find it an interesting e-world that we live, the internet world, there are groups out there, for example, No Kidding is a group. Look it up. It’s a group basically that espouses voluntary childlessness or happily child-free. They strongly argue on the basis of world overpopulation. This one is the most interesting to me: The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Vehement. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is the human humanitarian alternative to human disasters. Quote. This is not me, this is a quote. It’s important that you know this. “When every human being chooses to stop breeding Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die and evolve.” If they believe in evolution. “And will perhaps pass away as so many of Mother Nature’s experiments have done throughout the eons. Good health will be restored to the Earth’s ecology, to the life form known by many as Gaia.” That is just scary. Voluntary Human Extinction.
Now, the real danger here is that the attitude, attitudes like this can seep into the church and we can start embracing some of these attitudes. Dr. Muller president of Southern Seminary has been very proactive in writing about Christians and the issue of voluntary childless-ness. He talks about how couples don’t want children to affect their lifestyle. Talk about one couple in the Atlanta area that enjoy riding on matching Harley Davidson motorcycles and love their gourmet kitchen outfitted with the very latest stainless steel appliances and trendy countertops. And the woman explained, “If we had kids, we would need a table where kids could do homework.” Muller said clearly, “children aren’t part of their interior design plan.” And so more and more, there’s this theme of the cost, the burden, the difficulty of children. And Muller’s concern is that some of the world’s views on children are creeping into the church. “My larger concern is with the bare fact that an anti-natalist philosophy has now infected much of the Christian church. I fully expect non-Christians to think and act as unbelievers. Nevertheless, I am perplexed by Christians who seem to believe that marriage and reproduction can be separated by glorifying God within the marital bond.” And so he said this, “Couples are not given the option of choosing childless-ness in the biblical revelation. To the contrary, we are commanded to receive children with joy as God’s gifts, and to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We are to find many of our deepest joys and satisfactions in the raising of children within the context of the family. Those who reject children want to have the joys of sex and marital companionship, without the responsibilities of parenthood. They rely on others to produce and sustain the generations to come.”
Now, Dr. Muller is very careful, and I want to say as well, we are not dealing with the tragedy here of involuntary childlessness, sterility, the inability to have children. We’re not talking about that, it’s a great sadness and tragedy for some couples who just can’t seem to have children, that’s not what we’re talking about. And neither do I or Dr. Muller believe that if you don’t have children, you can’t be a fruitful member of Christ’s kingdom. We embrace the fact that there are some that remain unmarried for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. That they do not have the gift of marriage, they do have the gift of singleness, and they are free to serve the Lord boldly in that way, and it’s a wonderful thing. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ Himself had no biological children. As far as we know, John the Baptist and Apostle Paul had no biological children. All of them fruitful for the kingdom, and yet it’s said of Jesus that he has spoken of as having children spiritually. In Hebrews 2:13, it says, “Here am I and the children God has given me.” Isn’t that beautiful? So, it speaks of Christ’s children in that sense.
And then even the Apostle Paul uses parenting language when he speaks of his ministry. He says in 1 Corinthians 4:15, “Even though you have 10,000 guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel.” And he speaks both to Timothy and Titus calling each of them in different places, “My true son in the faith.” And so I’m not saying that you have to have children to be a fruitful member of Christ’s kingdom.
But what we are talking about is couples that marry and in a kind of a trendy way say, “I think we’re just deciding not to have children.” That’s a different matter. And I wonder if the root of it is that some of this attitude has seeped in that children are essentially a burden, something you assess and in the end, you decide that it’s not worth it. Even Christian parents who have children and see them as a blessing have to fight off this attitude. We have to fight off the attitude of how difficult it is to raise the children. How many sacrifices we have to make and all that. It’s not to be discussed.
II. Unless The Lord Build The House
And so I just wanna give you a gift this morning, the biblical perspective on children as an essential blessing from God. I’m doing it as an antidote to this pervasive cultural concept of children, isn’t it something we assess and frankly, in many cases, reject. And I’m gonna do it from Psalm 1:27, and there it says, Verse 1 and 2, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go to bed late, eating the bread of anxious toil, for He gives to his beloved sleep.”
Now, this is one of the Song of Ascents, Solomon wrote it and the Songs of Ascent were to be sung by pilgrims, the Jewish people who are traveling from different parts of the promised land, going up to Jerusalem one of the three times a year that men were commanded, Jewish men, to assemble in Jerusalem. There were three feasts: Passover, Pentecost, the Feast of Booths, and those three times they were to come. And the implication is that they’re gonna bring their families, and as they’re going, they’re gonna travel and they’ve got time on the road together. And we talked last two weeks about Deuteronomy 6, talk about these things when you walk along the road, and so the Songs of Ascents are psalms that were sung as they went. And it wouldn’t be surprising for these Jewish men surrounded by their children, their families to be thinking about their heritage, to be thinking about their children, and frankly to be thinking about the nation as a whole. And so, this is the Song of Ascents.
And basically, the central message is that God must be in the middle of what you’re doing. God must be central to everything you do or you will waste your time. That’s a transferable principle, and not even connected just to children, but unless the Lord builds what it is you’re building, you are wasting your time. God must be in the center of what you’re doing, He must be leading you in what you’re doing, or you’re going to waste your time. The Christian version of this is in John 15:5, in which it says, Christ said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he’ll bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.” And Psalm 127, I think, teaches the same thing. Another way of saying, and a Christian poet put it this way, “Only when life will soon be passed, only what’s done for Christ will last.” There’s a sense of the centrality of Christ and of God in the home. God must be central. Now, here it says, “Unless the Lord builds the house,” I don’t believe the word house here is primarily referring to a building project, like four walls and a roof, something like that. I really think it’s talking about a family, a household, a heritage. Think about the time of the birth of Christ.
Luke 2:4, it says, “Then Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth and Galilee to Judea to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged,” Listen, “To the house and lineage of David.” And you remember somewhat of the play on words, when David wanted to build a house for the Lord, he said, “Here I am living in this nice Palace, and I would love to build a house for God, he’s out there in a tent.” Did he feel sorry for God? Was that it? I don’t know, but he said, “I’m in a palace of cedar and he’s in a tent, there’s something amiss there.” But then God spoke to David through Nathan the prophet, saying, “Are you the one to build a house for me? Rather, I’m gonna build a house for you.” Now, what house did God build for David? He said, “I declare to you,” 1st Chronicle 17, “I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you when your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons and I will establish his kingdom.” So it’s a lineage, a genealogy, descendants, that’s the house. And unless the Lord builds that house, you labor in vain, you’re wasting your time.
God must be at the center of your household. Now friends, what house is God building now? Is he not building a spiritual house? Does it not speak of the house of Jesus Christ, the Temple of God, where He will dwell forever and ever. 1 Peter 2:4&5, it says, “As you come to Him, the living stone rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious to Him, speaking of Jesus Christ, you also like living stones are being built together to be a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, a royal priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices to God.” So we’re like living stones into this new house that God’s building. That’s the house he’s building. These living stones were once babies in someone’s family, they were ones babies, they were raised up, maybe raised in a believing home. And shaped and prepared to go into the wall of the eternal temple that God is building, and if the Lord is building that house, we need to be involved, don’t you think? That is the house he’s building, it’s the house of Jesus Christ, of which it is spoken in Revelation 21, “Then I looked and I saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.” And then it was said, “Now is the dwelling of God with men, and He will live with them and he will be their God and dwell with them forever.” That is the house that God is building. And unless the Lord builds your house, you’re not involved in what God is doing.
III. Children Are a Heritage And a Reward from The Lord
Well, in the center of Psalm 127 is this concept that children are a heritage and a reward from the Lord. Children are a blessing, and it begins in some of the translations, the NIV has the bad habit of cutting off the beholds, I like behold, even though it’s an awkward kind of thing. When was the last time you just said behold to somebody, try it this week to a friend or whatever, roommate, co-worker, “Behold, I’m about to tell you something.” See what happens. Well, I think the NIV trying to make it more modern, we really don’t say that anymore, so sometimes they go look and sometimes they just drop it out, But behold, children are such and such in a way, sit up and take notice. I’m gonna tell you something you might not believe. So even back then, perhaps there was a challenge of thinking of children as a blessing, but it says, behold, and then it uses these two wonderful words, children are a heritage.
Children are a reward. The word “heritage” is almost… Sometimes the word translated inheritance, they’re like an inheritance, something you could… An heirloom or something you could pass on from generation and generation, a sense of immense worth and value. The second word is “reward”, a sense of, again, something incredibly valuable given to somebody who’s rendered good service to a king maybe, for a reward for a righteous life. God may reward you with children. And there are some brief advantages, are listed, it says in 127, that they are like arrows, verse 4, like arrows in the hands of a warrior. And it speaks, “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” So I started thinking about archery stories, I love archery stories, ever read the tales of Robin Hood, you know how he went after the silver arrow with the Golden feathers and all that, and all the best archers from the North of England came to shoot for the silver arrow, and that’s a great story. You’ll have to read it to find out how it comes out. Robin Hood wins. But anyway, he just… The marksmanship, it’s just incredible from 100 paces what he’s able to do.
Archery and bows and arrows have had a major impact in many battles, like in the middle ages, for example, the Battle of Agincourt 1415, in which the British longbow dominated the day, though the British were outnumbered 10 to one, many of their soldiers suffering from dysentery, and the French, heavy knights in armor and all that, they were really looking at getting slaughtered, and Shakespeare picks up on this, and Henry the 5th, and there’s this famous speech in which he rallies the troops and says, “We few we happy band of brothers that were here this day, etcetera,” well, they end up winning the battle, apparently historically, they’ve been shooting the bow the wrong way, they’ve been holding it horizontally and pulling from the hip, reduce its range greatly. He said, “No, turn it vertically point it up at about 45 degree angles and see what you can do.” They could fire and hit accurately target 400 yards away, they could fire nine arrows a minute. They wiped the French soldiers out before they even got close, the battle wasn’t that simple, but here’s the principle, how are children like arrows? It’s a matter of projected influence.
A sword-bearer, he can only project his influence as far as his arm can go, and he’s gonna fight hand-to hand with the sword, that’s fine, very powerful, very influential, but here’s a set of godly parents. Let’s talk about it that way. Who can project their influence for generations to come, 400 yards across the battlefield, projecting influence, great influence, enough to win the battle? That’s what children are like. The ability to project influence. And the psalmist celebrates having a multiplicity of children, notice it says the children of your youth. Let me tell you something, alright? There is a reason God gives infants to young people, there is. And if you wanna know more about that, come and talk to me afterwards, but there is a reason why. Or talk to Christy about it. But for the most part, God blesses young people with children, infants, but Abraham and Sarah were quite aged, and God gave them a sustaining grace, didn’t he? And Elizabeth and Zechariah the same thing, he gave them sustaining grace. It’s a beautiful thing.
“Here’s a set of godly parents. … Who can project their influence for generations to come … enough to win the battle? That’s what children are like. “
Now, friends, Psalm 127 doesn’t stand alone in scripture as uniting the idea of blessing and children. It’s a consistent teaching in the Bible from the very beginning. Genesis 1, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him male and female, He created them.” Listen, “And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth.” Right from the very, God blessed them, be fruitful and multiply. Do you see the connection? And again, when the human race was dangling by a thread, eight people, Noah and his sons and their wives, eight people. After that, same thing happens again. Genesis 9:1, God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number,” the blessing and be fruitful, there it is.
Or concerning Abraham and his son Ishmael, God said to Abraham concerning Ishmael, he said this, “As for Ishmael,” this is Genesis 17:20, “I have heard you, I will surely bless him, I will make him fruitful and greatly increases numbers, he will be the father of 12 rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.” The blessing of God with the multiplication of children. Again, Isaac, Genesis 26:24, “That night, the Lord appeared to him, and said, “I am the God of your father, Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham,” Blessing and increase the number of your descendants. It’s God’s way of thinking. And again, Israel as they’re about to enter the promised land. In Deuteronomy 7:12-14, “If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord, your God will keep His covenant of love with you as he swore to your forefathers, he will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless you and increase your numbers, he will bless the fruit of your womb.”
What does that mean? Fruit of the womb, you have to study these words very carefully, it means your children, he’s gonna bless your children, your babies, He’s gonna bless them, and your grain in new wine and oil, it says in Deuteronomy 7. Now verse 14 it says, “You’ll be blessed more than any other people, none of your men are women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young.” And again and again, the issue of the barren wife comes up and God blesses the barren wife with children. Sarah, for example, “As for Sarah, your wife,” Genesis 17, “…you will no longer call her Sarai, her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of Nations, kings of peoples will come from her.
Rebecca was barren. And it says, Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren, and the Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebecca became pregnant. If you are among that group of people that is suffering because it doesn’t seem that God is blessing you or hasn’t blessed you with children yet, pray, pray as Isaac did and see if God opens the womb, as he did for Rebecca, and how great would your joy be? The same thing happened with Rachel. As a matter of fact, she was so upset and angry that she wasn’t having children, she was greatly jealous of her sister Leah, and she went to her husband, grabbing him and saying, “Give me children or I’ll die,” and that’s a tough request to fulfill. I know every husband wants to please his wife, but he says, “Am I in the place of God? I don’t have that kind of power.” But in the end, God answered her prayer and her desires. It says in Genesis 30, “Then God remembered Rachel and he listened to her and opened her womb, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.”
The same thing happened with Hannah, the same thing happened with Elizabeth again and again. And the principle is clear. Psalm 113:9, “He settles the barren woman in her home as the happy mother of children, praise the Lord.” Friends, do you not see the biblical weight of evidence, how overwhelming it is that children are a blessing. They’re a blessing from God. Now, where does this mentality come from in our country, but from the pit of hell? It does not come from God, it isn’t coming from God, it’s coming from Satan, who as Randy Alcorn, said, “…desires to hang God an effigy.” That’s a powerful image. We are in the image of God. He can’t get at God who dwells above, so he hangs God an effigy by attacking his image here in this world.
IV. How Are Children a Gift from God
Now, how are children a blessing from God? I listed out 10 ways, and I just went quickly through them, and if you don’t like my 10, come up with 10 of your own or 20, but these are just 10 ways that I’ve found that scripturally and just an experience that children are a blessing from God. First of all, they are a display of the glory of God, as we’ve already said, every child created in the image of God, they are in the image of God from creation, and as they developed from that point, they display more and more of the image of God. Human beings are the greatest and the most complex of all of God’s creations in this world.
Michael Card in “Beautiful Lullaby” had this quote, singing to one of his infants, “You show more of God than I’ll ever teach you.” Isn’t that powerful? They just show God, they are displays of the glory of God. Secondly, as we’ve been saying, we don’t need to belabor this, but Deuteronomy 6, having children is the most effective disciple-making opportunity you’ll ever have in your life. The connections are stronger, they get to observe you, they get to watch your lifestyle, and there is a need for pattern in evangelism and discipleship. Philippians 3:17, “Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” Nowhere is it easier than in the Christian home for one person or a group of people to set a pattern for others to follow, than in the home, it’s the most effective disciple-making opportunity that you’ll ever have. Thirdly, it is an opportunity for you, I’m talking parents, to grow up spiritually. And you say, “Well, wait a minute, we’re the parents, we’re the mature ones.”
“Having children is the most effective disciple-making opportunity you’ll ever have in your life. The connections are stronger, they get to observe you, they get to watch your lifestyle, and there is a need for patterns in evangelism and discipleship. “
Oh really? There are opportunities to grow. We’re not done being saved, we are not done being sanctified, and most parents can testify immediately to how their children are one of the number one arenas of personal spiritual growth for themselves, they grow in Christ as they learn to trust in Christ for situations. They learn the Bible much better than they ever did, ’cause they have to explain it to children who keep saying why, why, why? And you just bore down to the core of the issue again and again, because God said so, that’s why. Well, why did he say so? And it’s convicting that your children pick up your sin patterns far more easily than they pick up your good habits, and so opportunity for spiritual growth.
Fourthly, constant occasions for prayer. Constant occasions for prayer. Paul talks about a great trial that he was in. In 2 Corinthians 1, he said, “This happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.” Self-reliance is a great scourge in the Christian life, friends, how many times do children bring you to a point where you cannot rely on yourselves? Barrenness would be one example where you just know it’s beyond just like Jacob said to Rachel, “Am I in the place of God? I don’t have the power to do this.” Well, I feel that again and again concerning transformation of my children’s hearts, I have not that power, and so therefore is a great opportunity for prayer, others have faced dread illnesses, leukemia and other things, and they are brought to the edge of hopelessness, and they look inward and do not find the resources there.
What does it do? It drives into prayer. Opportunities for prayer. It destroys self-reliance. It also fifth, destroys self-centeredness, how can you be self-centered during those midnight feedings or when they’re toddlers, 3:00 in the morning and they’ve had the flu and they need a change of sheets, or how can you be self-centered when you come home tired and there are just issue after issue to deal with, you learn not to be self-centered or just even turning around the issue of just generosity, the yearning to just bless your children and give them many good things, it’s an antidote to self-centeredness.
Sixth, it’s an object lesson on God’s love for us, many people have testified they didn’t really understand how much God loved them until they had their own children, they were on some kind of a performance thing, they thought they’re in, they’re out. They’re in, they’re out, they’re up they’re down like the stock market, but then they realized when they had children, that’s not the way it is with children, they have their good days and bad days, they have their sins and their disobedience, and then there are times they just melt your heart, but they’re always your child, they’re always your son or daughter, there’s a security there, and God has chosen to use that language, we are adopted children of God. Ain’t that beautiful? And so, we can learn that God loves us, Jesus even uses, “If you then though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him?” An object lesson of God’s love for us.
Seventh, the source of joy and happiness, they just do fun, wonderful, joy producing things that you’ll never forget, they do funny things, they do amazing things, they make you things that you keep the rest of your life up in your bulletin board. They just are a source a river of happiness every time little children walk in the room, almost everybody just smiles, because they just bring happiness, they bring joy. Why would you not want that blessing, it’s just an amazing thing, what the devil comes to try to steal from us. “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. I’ve come that you might have life and have it abundantly,” Jesus said, A source of joy and happiness. You see that at weddings when parents just can’t stop crying, and I’m not convinced they’re just tears of joy. I’m not convinced. I think they’re tears of sadness at the end of a phase of life that has been delightful and know that from then on it really won’t be the same, but yes, they’re tears of joy because they know this is God’s way and it must continue that way.
Eighth, deep friendship, Christian parents can take joy in the fact they’re building a bond of relationship that will last unlike any in this world, deep friendship.
Ninth, a lasting personal legacy, multi-generational view, 400 yards down the battlefield, you’re projecting your influence for generations to come, you can have an influence, you’re not gonna waste your life, you’re gonna invest your life in children, you’re gonna invest in the pattern of discipleship. Grandparents testify that there are few things as joy-producing as looking at the exploits of talking about the exploits of their grandkids. It’s interesting on the other end, listening to the stories about all the things their grand kids are doing, but that’s fine, the church has a ministry to listen to the stories of grandparents. “Oh, look at the pictures,” but there’s a great joy that comes from the multi-generational view.
And then finally, blessings in old age. It’s more than just biblical Social Security. The Bible’s version of how elderly people are cared for in their old age is children. The children, the families provide for them, they care for them, but it’s more than just financial, it’s relational, it’s being delivered from the scourge of loneliness in your old age.
VI. Application: Taking Every Thought Captive
That’s 10. You probably could come up with 10 others of ways that children are a blessing. What do we do? How do we apply this? Can I go back to 2 Corinthians 10, and urge you to, “…take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ”? It’s like there’s a big battle going on and someone… It’s like nighttime and something goes running by and it looks like an enemy, so you grab it by the back of the neck and bring it to the Commander and say, Is this friend or foe? That’s the way thoughts are, take the thought captive to Jesus and say is it friend or foe? Is the concept that children are essentially a burden and difficult and expensive, is it from Christ or not? The Bible says no, take it then back to Christ and think about things Christianly. I wanna finish by just saying a word of grace concerning this issue of abortion, and I’ve just learned to do this and it’s so important, a few issues make people hurt and feel pain and guilt and grief as much as this one, and so we… Even an essentially joyful topic like how children are a blessing can turn around and become a great source of grief and pain, all I can do is point you to the only source of forgiveness and mercy and grace there is in this world, the cross of Jesus Christ.
Come again to the cross, find forgiveness, find grace and mercy to help you in your time of need, and it’s not just perhaps women who’ve had abortions, or it may be men who forced women in that direction, or just all of us feeling that we haven’t done enough to be salt and light, haven’t prayed enough, whatever, but we can feel so guilty. I’d urge you to come back to the cross. Deal honestly with what the Bible calls sin. Don’t call it that it wasn’t sin. But just bring it to the cross and let Jesus Christ cover it with His grace and with His blood. Close with me in prayer.
