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Who Cares #3: "Who Cares about Your Children?" Psalm 127

by Clancy Nixon

March 18, 2007

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.HolySpiritAnglican.org

Who cares about your children? In our We Care Campaign this month, we

answer, "God cares, and we care." Let's say it together: "God cares, and we care."

We've talked the last two weeks about how God cares and we care about your marriage;

and how God cares and we care about your family. This week, we're looking at who

cares about your children.

This is a message for parents. Teenagers, this message is also for you, not only

because you will one day be parents, but also because it may help you understand your

parents better. It's also for those adults who don't have children of their own, but who

desire to build into the lives of children.

First, God cares about your children. God is a loving father who watches over

even the sparrows how much more will your heavenly father, who loves you, care for

your children, who are in the covenant of his people by faith? Jesus said, let the children

come to me. God is love; his love for his children is everlasting. God desires the best for

his children that is the meaning of agape love. Romans 8:28 says, "All things work

together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose."

That's the garden principle: God always gives us his best. God can take what seems like a

tragedy and turn it into something excellent. When Ginger and I were experiencing the

pain of infertility, going month after month and year upon year with no pregnancy at all,

using every treatment available to us, praying fervently for a child, it seemed like an

ongoing tragedy. God used that negative circumstance in our lives to bring about his

perfect plan to build our family through adoption. We did not see this as God's plan at

first, but this became clear to us through the closed door of circumstance. Even before

they were born, God knew that Will and Sam needed us to be their parents, and that we

needed them as our children; so he sovereignly brought us together in the most beautiful

way. Ginger and I know that you and I don't create children, but that only God creates a

child, and he uses us to do it. God cares about all four of us, and so he created my

family. God cares about your children, too, no matter how he gave them to you.

Psalm 127 is found on page 614 of your blue pew Bible. You'll notice the note

under Psalm 127 that says this is a song of ascents, written by King Solomon. The songs

of ascents were songs sung by Jewish pilgrims as they trekked on foot uphill to

Jerusalem, where the Temple sits on the citadel of Mt. Zion. Families of pilgrims came

from their homes in the coastal plains, from Galilee and from all round the eastern

Mediterranean basin up to Jerusalem. Jewish families were required by the law of Moses

to come up to Jerusalem several times a year for feasts and rituals. As they climbed the

dusty roads of Judah, the families of pilgrims sang the songs of Zion that were popular

with the pilgrims, and these came to be known as the psalms of ascent. So psalm 127

speaks of the nuclear family, but also of the family of God. All the people of God care

for children. Amen?

Let's read these verses on the screen from Psalm 127 together: "Unless the Lord

builds the house, its builders labor in vain....sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a

reward from him. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are sons born in one's youth.

Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." From God's perspective, your children

are an asset for you, a gift to you, one way that God cares for you as a parent. The

Psalmist says that children are a reward not a curse, not a tragedy, not an accident

rather, they are an expression of God's favor. Second, God cares about your children

enough to give them to you.

Third, God cares about your children enough to choose them for redemption. If

you know God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then God's plan is that your children will

know him as well. Deuteronomy 5:10 says that God shows love for a thousand

generations of those who love him. Imagine that: a thousand generations of blessings and

love. That is an awesome promise. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train a child in the way he

should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." If your child has turned away

from God during this season, that does not necessarily mean that you did not train him

right. The mystery of why some kids turn out great, and some don't, involves the mystery

of free will, the mystery of human personality and the mystery of God's election. Living

with these mysteries, as we all do, the only way forward for parents is to trust in God.

Remember this: When I try, I fail. When I trust, God succeeds. When parenting, trust in

God. Here is one of my favorite scriptures. It hangs in my office. It will help you with

parenting, and all of life. Let's say it together: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and

lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall

direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5,6

Psalm 127 says, "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain....

Children are a reward from the Lord." This passage starts with the inception of the

home, and ends with the impact of the home. If you lay your foundation on the Lord, then

your children will be a reward to you. This is meant to be read figuratively - God will not

build your house for you you build it. It just says that you'd be foolish to build it alone.

No matter how hard you work as a parent to care for your children and teach them how to

be responsible and good, without God, without the firm foundation of the chief

cornerstone, your home will crumble. Solomon says that children are arrows. That

suggests that they are aimed at a target, and that you know what that target is. One major

reason parents fail is that they have never sighted the target. What is the target? The

target is that they become godly, responsible adults. Let's look now at how that happens.

It starts with a foundation of love. We care about your children.

First, we care for children by encouraging them. 2 Cor 13:11 says, "Encourage

one another." Ephesians 6:4 says, "Fathers, don't exasperate your children by coming

down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master."

Friends, this is something we can all do not just parents. We can all encourage one

another more. As parents, there are so many things we really do have to say "no" to.

There is so much that we have to correct our children about, we need to search out ways

to encourage our children. We need to catch them doing good. Everybody needs

encouragement. We've all heard the advice that we need 5 incidents of encouragement

for every one critical comment. If we are correcting our children more than we

encourage them, then we will indeed exasperate them. You and I can only take so much

correction; why should our children be any different? Since we do have to correct our

children frequently, finding five times as many things to encourage them about will mean

that you must take lots of time with them to give them that encouragement. The average

American father spends less than five minutes each day in focused attention with his

children. Gentlemen, we have got to do better than that. Spending "quality time" will not

cut it if it is less than five minutes a day. To really love your kids, you must spend both

quality time and quantity time. Amen?

What exactly do you say to encourage a child? This is not just for parents, but for

all of us. Tell the girls they are beautiful, and the boys that they are handsome. Tell them

that they are smart; that they have great skills; that they are fun to be with. Give specific,

concrete praise whenever possible. After a game, instead of saying "You played well,"

you can say something like, "You made a great pass to Johnny along the sideline. Your

passing game is really improving." You can say, "I love seeing you kneel and say your

prayers with your little friends!"

Second, we care about your children by setting boundaries for our kids, and

sticking to them. That is how they learn responsibility. "The LORD corrects everyone he

loves, just as parents correct their child." (Proverbs 3:12) A great book on this is

Boundaries with Kids by Cloud and Townsend. They say that problem kids don't

develop in a vacuum. Children tend to mature to the level that the parent structures them,

and no higher. That means we should interpret our children's behavior as a response to

our own. In a way, the job of the kid is to test your resolve about your boundaries, and

your job as a parent is to withstand the test that includes anger, tantrums, pouting, and

more. How do you train your kids to be responsible? By enforcing boundaries. Don't

ignore boundary violations that enables irresponsible behavior. How does that work?

You let them experience the natural consequences for their irresponsible behavior. So if

they forget their boots when it's snowy out, instead of nagging them abut their footwear,

let their feet get cold and wet. If they don't pick up their toys, don't tell them for the

twentieth time to pick them up; instead, just put away the toys away that are left out.

Parents, we need to be more about action and less about words. In our house, if our

children abuse TV privileges, then the TV gets locked. I bought these luggage locks, and

they fit nicely in the holes of the plugs. If children neglect their homework, they get an F

on that. If an F does not phase them, add a penalty you impose for getting F's, such as

loss of TV and more time hitting the books.

What about situations where there are few natural consequences, and you must

impose consequences in order for them to learn the lesson? Try to make the consequence

as close to natural as possible. Let's take lying for example. When my boys were much

smaller, I caught them in a few lies, and this was becoming a pattern. I did not know what

to do about it until I read about a strategy in one of Dr. Dobson's books. I asked my sons,

"Have I ever lied to you?" They said, "No, you haven't, daddy." I told them, "Because

you don't seem to understand how bad lying is, I want you to experience yourselves what

it is like to be lied to. So for the first time in my life, I am going to lie to you. I will do it

sometime in the next two days, but I will not tell you in advance when I am going to lie.

Okay?" They seemed pleased that this was all that I was going to do to them. Several

hours passed, and they asked me if they could go to William's house to play. I said sure,

no problem, after you do your chores. An hour later, after they were done their chores,

they said, "Okay, Dad, we're ready to go!" I said, "No you're not. You're not going

anywhere." They screamed, "But you promised!!" I said, "Yes, I did promise. That

promise was my lie. You may not go out at all. I do feel sorry for you. Lying hurts,

doesn't it?" And I stuck to my guns. They did not go out that night. The lying got much

better.

Third, we care about the children of others by taking an interest in them. This is

huge it is part of the vision of our church, that each young person would have a mentor

who is older. You can get involved by teaching Sunday school or being a volunteer youth

pastor. You can mentor a person younger than you. I'm eternally grateful that Charles

Strother has mentored my son Will, and that Tony Lutyk has mentored my son Sam. The

difference in Will's life made by that one man and his farm is just huge. We care by

getting down on their level and making friends with a child or two in the church. Just talk

to some little people; if you want to make a lasting impact, invest yourself in a few young

people. When you ascend the mountain of the Lord, bring a young person with you.

I want to close with a story about the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,

because it makes a point about our children taking responsibility. John Ortberg tells of

his horror at taking his daughters to see that movie when they were little. He realized that

Snow White was a horrible role model that his daughters were seeing. Here's a young

woman, maybe 18 years old, hiding from her stepmother because she feels helpless and

afraid. She takes a job doing domestic work for seven short, cranky guys and assumes the

role of mother caretaker for them. And she's sitting around, passively waiting to get

rescued by somebody, and singing, "Some Day, my prince will come..."

Ortberg wanted his daughters to know: "Don't ever do that. If you're ever in this

situation, confront your stepmother face to face. Tell her to come to grips with the aging

process, and tell her that you have no intention of [taking the fall] because of her neurotic

insecurities about her fading sexual attractiveness. Tell her to find a good Christian

counselor.... And tell the seven cranky guys to get a life. If they cannot handle basic

challenges of personal hygiene and housekeeping, for crying out loud, they'll have to find

some other co-dependent enabler to facilitate their domestic passivity.... And stop

waiting for some prince to come and rescue you. Build deep relationships. Find

meaningful work. Serve the poor. And when it's time to choose a prince, let Daddy

decide who the prince is going to be. (Ortberg, "Parents and Kids; Same Planet, Different

Worlds" February, 2003)

Seriously, now. Who really cares about your children? God cares and we care.

God cares about your children enough to give them to you. God cares about your

children enough to choose them for redemption. And we care. We care for children by

encouraging them. We care about your children by setting boundaries for our kids, and

sticking to them. That is how they learn responsibility. We care by investing in the lives

of a child.

Please take two minutes of silence to pray about how God would have you

respond to the call to care for children.

Prayers of the People: I'd like to ask you now to break up into small groups of

four. I'd like to ask you to share how someone in the body of Christ has ministered to

your children. If you don't have children, how has someone in the body ministered to

your when you were young. Then please pray for each other with any concerns that arise

in the circle.