UNLESS!

Psalm 127

Dr. Wm. J. Maxwell

First Presbyterian Church, Newport, RI

Mothers’ Day, May 8, 2005

Mothers’ Day is a very appropriate time for us to think about the subject of family life. Of course, pastors have numerous passages to consider for sermon texts on such a Sunday as this. But because I happen to believe that, generally speaking, the family in this nation is in very serious trouble, I have chosen for our sermon text this morning the passage of Psalm 127.

While so many families are struggling today, it is this psalm that speaks very clearly and forthrightly about family life. Going to the very first verse, and in fact to the entire psalm, we are here reminded in large part that we raise our families in vain without God – without God in the very center and heart of family life.

This is true because in the way of natural generation, we are all born with a sinful and fallen nature that is bent on rebellion and turning away from God. This includes our children who also have the inborn tendency to be rebellious, self-centered, and disobedient.

Providing food, shelter, loving concern and a good education – as wonderful and important as all of these are – this is still not enough. If we want our children to be blessed in a transformation that is real, a maturity that runs deep, and a life driven by God’s purposes, then God must be in the very heart of our family life. We therefore need to pay attention to this small but very powerful word – unless … as in “unless the LORD builds the house”. We need to pay attention and then act accordingly.

I

FOR EXAMPLE,

WE NEED TO PRAY FOR OUR CHILDREN.

The Bible teaches us that Christians should be a people of prayer. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul tells us to “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” [i]

Therefore, an alert eye, a watchful heart, and praying lips should be a vital part of the life of every parent and grandparent who loves Christ and who loves that child or grandchild. Unless we bring that young person into the realm of God’s grace through prayer, other realms far less nurturing and beneficial will have their way. That is why it is so very important to make constant and unceasing intercession on that child’s behalf.

Augustine, that great Christian and church leader of the fourth and fifth centuries, was convinced of this out of his own personal experience. In his Confessions, he tells of how his life was once anything but Christian. He lived a greatly immoral life. All the while, his mother Monica prayed and prayed for her son, even after he reached young adulthood. But Augustine simply would not come to Jesus Christ.

He tells how on one occasion he left for Rome from Carthage, in spite of the earnest prayers and tearful pleas of his mother. And yet in spite of her tears visibly running down her cheeks, Augustine deceived her by saying he was going aboard ship only to say goodbye to a friend. As she went to pray in a nearby chapel, Augustine set sail for Rome. As he did so, his mother wondered if she might ever see her son again.

One may wonder how Monica really felt in seeing her prayer seemingly unanswered, or at least answered in a way she had hardly preferred! And yet in the providence of God, it was precisely that trip to Italy that eventually brought forth her son’s conversion to faith in Christ.

After his conversion, Augustine turned to God in prayer, having reflected on his mother’s prayers at that time. In part, he prayed:

But Thou, in Thy hidden wisdom, didst grant the substance of her desire, yet refused the thing she prayed for in order that Thou mightest effect in me what she was ever praying for …She loved to keep me with her as mothers are wont, yes, far more than most mothers, and she knew not what joy Thou wast preparing for her out of my desertion.

Now, in our prayers of intercession, we must always remember that God is on the throne, and not we, ourselves. In God’s wisdom, knowledge and love, the course of answered prayer may at times confuse or even surprise us. But this event most certainly speaks to me, and hopefully to us all, of the call for diligent, earnest, persevering prayer on behalf of those who dearly need the benefit of our prayers and the benefit of the amazing grace of God.

II

WE ALSO NEED

TO TEACH OUR CHILDREN THE BIBLE,

We live in an increasingly diverse and secularized culture, as we all must know. Numerous worldviews compete for our time, attention and our devotion. When young minds are being formed and fashioned, which worldview will they adopt as their own? Only time will tell, but this one thing is certain: Parents have a most significant and important role, here.

Unless children have the benefit of their parents making a concerted effort to help them, theirs will not be a worldview grounded in the great truths of the Christian faith, as found in the Bible. Without that Word, the young person will inevitably be tossed about in a sea of relativism and in a society where increasingly good is called evil and evil good.

Results from two recent surveys indicate that we have a serious problem in this matter.[ii] In a Gallup poll just released, it was found that teenagers generally have little knowledge of the Bible. Fewer than one-half of 1,002 teenagers surveyed knew that Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Nearly two-thirds couldn’t identify a quotation from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Almost one in ten believed that Moses was actually one of the twelve Apostles!

In yet another survey, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill telephoned 3,370 English and Spanish speaking young people, and had face to face interviews with 267 of them, all between the ages of 13 and 17.

The result of this survey was that the religious knowledge of these youth was described as being “meager, nebulous and often fallacious.” “God is something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist.”

The sociologist indicates many reasons for this, but one of them is surely the parents’ failure to fully train their children in what really matters. So it becomes all the more vital for our families to give place to God’s revelation of truth as soon as possible. It must be in the home especially that the Bible is respected and taught. If so, our children and grandchildren can then know and experience “How Firm A Foundation” it really is that “… is laid for (their) faith in His excellent Word!”

III

WE NEED TO BRING OUR CHILDREN TO CHURCH.

This sounds rather simple, and yet we also know that all of us are living in a society filled with competing activities and events of all kinds.

I’m fully aware that there are some legitimate reasons why some families cannot attend church on certain Sundays. But I’m also fully aware of the fact that some parents have willingly acquiesced and surrendered to the desires of others, failing to protest such events as sports activities or what have you that are being scheduled for Sunday mornings.

I have often wondered exactly why this is, and I can only assume it is for the reason that the parents themselves have lost sight of the value and worth of the church. It is no longer a priority. But at the same time, I have to wonder: If it was our Lord’s custom to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath[iii] - as a child and as an adult - why should any of us presume that we don’t need to do the same?

Theodore Roosevelt, due to his parental upbringing, attended church on a regular basis, even into his adult years. He was of the Dutch Reformed faith, and was quite knowledgeable of the Bible. When in Washington, Roosevelt attended Grace Reformed Church. When at Oyster Bay, Long Island, he would attend Episcopal services, as his wife was of that faith.

In a national magazine, Roosevelt once wrote an article entitled, “Shall We Do Away with the Church?” In this article, he brings forth matters worthy of our reflection even today:

… on Sunday go to church. Yes, I know all the excuses; I know that one can worship the Creator and dedicate oneself to good living in a grove of trees or by a running brook or in one’s own house just as well as in a church, but I also know that as a matter of cold fact, the average man does not worship or thus dedicate himself. If he steps away from church he does not spend his time in good works or lofty meditation … He may not hear a good sermon at church, but unless he is very unfortunate he will hear a sermon by a good man.

Besides, even if he does not hear a good sermon, the probabilities are that he will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful passages from the Bible, and if he is not familiar with the Bible, he has suffered a loss which he had better make all possible haste to correct.

He will meet and nod or speak to good, quiet neighbors. If he doesn’t think about himself too much, he will benefit himself very much, especially as he begins to think chiefly of others. [iv]

Here, Roosevelt’s words speak well, I think, of the need for the church in every family, and for every individual. Whereas some see participation in the church an option, we should see it as a priority!

IV

LASTLY, WE MUST SET AN EXAMPLE

BY LIVING FOR GOD OURSELVES.

In our baptismal service for this morning, did you hear the questions for the parents? One of the questions asked was this: “Relying on God’s grace, do you promise to live the Christian faith, and to teach that faith to your child?” Note the words and the order in this question. We are to live the Christian faith in such a way so that the faith can be caught as well as taught.

Regardless of whether you hold to infant baptism or not, all of us must agree that teaching our children the faith will come to nothing if we deny those same teachings by the way we choose to live. Believe me, our children and grandchildren never stop watching and observing us, as they learn as much by example as by our words – if not more!

In New England history, one of the more prominent families is that of the Beecher family. Lyman Beecher was an influential Congregational minister in Connecticut. He and his wife had eleven children, two of them being Harriet Beecher Stowe, a noted author and novelist, as well as Henry Ward Beecher, a respected clergyman in his own right.

Henry once spoke of the profound influence his mother had on him in terms of her example. It was particularly her example in the midst of the deep trials and challenges of her life that had affected him so greatly. He saw the living God in the life of his mother.

He had this to say of his observation:

Now you may put all the skeptical men that ever lived on the face of the earth on one side, and they may plead in my ears. And all the scientists may stand with them, and marshal all the facts of the universe to disprove the truth of Immanuel, God with us; and yet, let me see my mother, walking in great sorrow, but from the surface of which sorrow reflecting the light of cheer and heavenly hope, patient, sweet, gentle, full of comfort for others – yea, and showing by her life as well as her lips that with the consolation wherewith she has been comforted, she is comforting others – that single instance of suffering is more to me, as an evidence of the truth of Christianity, than all the arguments that the wisest men can possibly bring against it.[v]

Of course, there is an important place given to so-called apologists and defenders of the Christian Faith. But just as important and just as vital is the witness of those who are living testimonies to the reality of God’s grace found in Jesus Christ. Yes, there is great power to be found in our example, and parents and grandparents of all people would do well to remember this!

Of all the so-called “institutions” on this earth, the family is the most precious of all. But just as families are precious to us and to others, families need to be handled with great care. With great privilege comes great responsibility.

So let us be diligent to heed the wise words of the psalmist: “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain”!