Godly Children Don’t Happen by Accident
By Pastor Matt Black
13 June 2007
Midweek Bible Study
Psalm 78:1-8
Introduction: Open your Bible to Psalm 78:1-8. I know this Sunday is Father’s Day, and we have a guest speaker, but tonight I have somewhat of a Father’s Day message. I didn’t plan it this way-this is just where we are in our study of the Christ-centered family. The title of tonight’s message is “Godly Children Don’t Happen by Accident”. To begin, let’s read verses 1 through 8, “Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: 3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children. 6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: 7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.”
I’m somebody’s Dad
Probably the most awesome thought I have ever thought in regard to my family is that I’m somebody’s dad. The little people in my house are going to live forever somewhere. Raising my children has driven me and sharpened me spiritually in so many ways. I can’t just live for myself or just myself and my wife. My life now includes my precious children. Tonight if you’re a mom, you’re somebody’s mom. If you’re a dad, you are somebody’s dad. That’s a fact that will never change. And if you’re like me, you want your children to turn out for the Lord.
We see our Children
Our eyes are opened tonight, and we see our children. And we know they are just as sinful and prone to wander as we are!
· Do you ever feel the burden that your children might not turn out to want to follow the Lord all the days of their life?
· Do you ever feel overwhelmed being a parent in this generation and in this culture in a world that is filled with crime and violence, hatred and racism and materialism and drugs and gangs and immoral promiscuity and TV shows that tear down our values?
We see this World
And we look at our culture tonight—and we wonder, “How did it get this upside down?”
· Do you ever wonder what ever happened to common sense? What happened in our country to all that is good and holy and proper?
· How can we raise our children to love God and live holy lives and respect authority in their lives in such a messed up society as ours?
It’s hard enough to do right myself, but what can we do so that our children will turn out godly?! I want to tell you that godly kids don’t happen by accident, that’s for sure.
Quench the Fiery Darts of the Devil’s Discouragement!
But before you get discouraged and think that raising godly children is impossible, let me tell you to put up your shield of faith to quench all the fiery arrows of the devil. What do those fiery darts look like? Well, they are thoughts of unbelief like…
· I’m a new Christian—by the time I get mature, it’ll be too late for my kids!
· My kids are too old—I can change, but it’s too late for them
· I’m battling against sin so much that I’m just too exhausted to work with my kids
Listen, all those things need to be cast down. As 2 Corinthians 10:5 says—you need to “Cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”.
You see, tonight if you hold a Bible in your hand then there is reason for hope. God’s Word tells us that we can have hope for our children no matter where they are, if we’ll simply listen to the counsel of our Heavenly Father in the Word of God. The Bible never fails, and it is our only guidebook—it is the only perfect infallible advice you can obtain!
Illustration (The Assyrian Scribe and Socrates): I want you to be encouraged because we are not the first generation to feel overwhelmed. In fact, 4700 years ago, an Assyrian scribe etched into stone this sentence, “Children today no longer obey their parents”. In 425 BC, Socrates said it even more clearly. Here’s what he wrote: “Our youth today love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, and disrespect for older people”. He says, “Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents; they gobble their food; and they tyrannize their teachers.” That was over 2400 years ago!
Proverbs 22:15 tells us, “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child.” But here’s the good news! It doesn’t have to stay in the heart of a child. If we love God and obey His Word, good and godly things will always happen in the hearts of our children. It may not be in the way you think it ought, or in the timetable you want, but can someone testify tonight that God’s way is perfect? Is it true that His timing is always on time?!
Two Messages in Psalm 78
1. First is that God’s Grace is greater than Stubborn Hearts!
Now let’s look at Psalm 78, and let’s see what God is saying. This is a Psalm really about His grace. Basically you have the nation of Israel that God looks at as His children, and sees a group that he describes in verse 8, “a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.” You read on and you find in great detail that these people were a mess.
· They don’t obey God
· They whine and complain
· They’re selfish and ungrateful
Verse 37 says that “their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.” The parents had drifted away from God.
And yet, what do they get from God in return? They get another chance. Love. Grace. Hope. Look at verse 38, “But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not” and verse 39, “For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.”
Psalm 78 is a message of grace, because no matter what our parents or grandparents have done, God gives fresh hope, fresh love, fresh grace, and fresh fire to each new generation. “Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds” (Romans 5:20).
2. The Second Message is the Importance of One Generation.
Tonight I want you to see the importance of one generation. One generation is all it takes to take a godly nation and turn it on course to being Sodom and Gomorrah. It takes only one generation of parents to just be a little lax on being radical for Christ, and a whole generation can be lost. Lukewarmness spreads quickly.
But you know what else? It takes only one generation to turn a nation and a world around. Look at the pagan world at the time of Christ. It took a band of 12 men to turn the world upside down. So Psalm 78 is a message of grace, because no matter what our parents or grandparents have done, God gives fresh hope, fresh love, fresh grace, and fresh fire to each new generation.
So let’s dig into the text. Psalm 78:1, “Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.”
Now we don’t talk this way much any more, but this is what he’s saying—Get your ears on and lean forward and listen real well. “Incline your ear”—move it forward because something really important is about to come your way.
Now look at verse 2, “I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old”. What are these “dark sayings of old”? It means this: some of the things that we are trying to teach our children are so much out of fashion—the teachings of the Word of God are now being forgotten. Night is falling, and people have forgotten the bright light of God’s Word. People have forgotten the great moves of God and the revivals and the great works of God! But it is time to remember that God is a God that can do anything. It’s time to listen to what God can do!! Let’s give this generation fresh hope and offer them fresh grace. Let’s not forget about these children sitting next to us tonight! They need the fresh experience of God in their lives!
So God says, Give ear—Listen to what I have done in past generations. Don’t forget about it! Verse 3, he says these are things “Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us”. They’ve told us, but they seem distant! Our children need to be brought back into the reality and excitement of the Word. It’s not just for us. We have to take the Word directly to our children. That’s what verse 4 says.
Verse 4, “We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.” 5, “For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children.” 6, “That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: 7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.”
Here’s what we have God saying to the children of Israel:
v Every generation is a fresh opportunity. Every generation represents new hope. Every generation gives you a fresh shot to grow up to be godly people who are godly leaders, and who stand for God in a godless generation.
Listen, if your kids are going to turn out for God, it won’t happen by accident. It takes diligence, sacrifice and a commitment to learning and living God’s Word. We are going to look at that, but I want you to see now two things that Satan will use to distract you.
Two things that will Distract You
A big thing here in this Psalm is past failures. Here you have a record of failure, and stubbornness and rebellion. Listen Satan wants you to be consumed with your past rebellion and failures! He’ll say, man you’ll never succeed, look at your record! You’re a looser.
Listen, we are all failures:
v We’ve all done some boneheaded things in life. Financially, I’ve made foolish purchases. At times I have been careless.
v We’ve messed up with decision making. I have made hasty decisions that I look back on and I wonder, “What was up with that? How did that happen?”
v We’ve messed up with our communication. I’ve said some things in unkindness that I wish I could take back and have a do over. But I can’t.
We all live a life of repentance and are in constant need of God’s GRACE! We sing that song that God gives us that “grace that is greater than all our sins!” Do you believe that? Then don’t be brought down by your past.
Jesus said if you’ve put your hand to the plow don’t look back (Luke 9:62). Listen we lived rebellious lives, but God has turned us to Himself.
God is all about making things new! 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If any man be in Christ…” He throws the past away—with all its rebellions, and gives you a fresh start!!
So tonight there’s no use at all looking back to the past. Learn from it, make things right if need be, but don’t toss and turn over it. Old things are passed away. It’s a waste of time mull over what God has buried in the deepest sea!. Philippians 3:13-14, “this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”.
”This is what God’s Word is saying. You think you’ve blown it, and yes you and I and all of us have royally messed up and rebelled against God. But don’t let discouragement or coldness or a lukewarm superficial form of Christianity win in your life. Get up and get going! “FORGET THOSE THINGS THAT ARE BEHIND”. Press on toward the prize!
Hopefully we’ve all learned from our disobedience. Don’t let your past distract you from the task at hand. You need to raise a godly seed! But if you do nothing with your children, your child will turn as everyone does to “his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). In other words, godly kids don’t turn out godly by accident!
Here’s another thing that Satan will use to distract you from the TASK at hand:
We look around at our generation and our father’s generation right now. We are running the country. Those morals are setting the standards in our neighborhoods and schools and in the Congress and courtrooms of our land. Look around! What do you see? I see what Asaph describes as “a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God” (verse 8)
We live in a culture that has forgotten what commitment and sacrifice and perseverance and loyalty are! Our generation has thrown away their kids as an inconvenience. I don’t mean they’ve literally abandoned them, but they might as well have. Instead of spending time with their kids, they leave them to navigate the cable movie channels to watch things that no adult should watch while the parents check out and do their own thing. Instead of taking time to be with their kids and love them and invest in them, they leave their kids on their own to do what they want to do, and so many kids are suckered into giving away their purity or wasting away their brain cells or selling away their imagination to stupidity all because they are trying to find the acceptance with their friends that they should be finding with Mom and Dad. Or worse, they can’t find acceptance and so they numb themselves with music, pleasure, and eventually substances like alcohol or even worse.
Listen, do you believe that if we start here and now, that we can change a generation that can change a society that can change a world? That is what this Psalm is saying! If you want to effect change in a society, you’ve got to do it by raising up a generation that is stronger and godlier and more radical than yourself! Do you have that attitude?
For this coming generation, we need to tell our children the history of what God has done in the Scriptures and in our lives. They may be dark sayings to them, but one day they will all make sense. Deuteronomy chapter 6—he says here’s what I want you to do, you need to take God’s Word and His loving and guiding commands in our lives and “teach them diligently unto thy children, and…talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up”. He says, I want you to just be teaching your children ALL THE TIME! Why? Why is it important we guide our children’s education? Why is it important we pray over our children? Why is it important we are so careful of the influences on our children’s mind? Why do we want to not only teach godly instruction from the Word, but also live it out before them so that they see Mommy and Daddy praying every day? Why is all this so important? Simply because of this: Godly kids don’t happen by accident!!
Conclusion: Godly kids don’t happen by accident. Don’t underestimate your influence. Think of your kids, your grandkids, what is your legacy? Make the hard choices and rely on the grace of God. Trust Jesus.
Closing Hymn: 405 Trusting Jesus