Sermon Notes: Father’s Day 2022: Psalm 127

Father’s Day 2022 

Psalm 127 Unstoppable

Parenting is the most humbling work of subduing creation that God gave us. Parenting also might be the closest we get to being like God.

God alone creates from nothing. As image-bearers and imitators of God, we create NOT from nothing, but from the created means of our own bodies and other image-bearers and the created world around us. 

We create a home of image-bearers in the Eden-like garden of our homes, and they have great potential that we must cultivate for the world. 

This is why Satan comes after the Eden of our homes just as he did with our parents in the first Eden. He aims to destroy through all manner of means that create chaos. 

It’s far too easy for me to participate in that chaos. 

Why? Because I am the descendant of my parents who are descended from theirs and our original parents of Adam and Eve, and as they did, we do, in everything, including the parenting work of fatherhood and motherhood.

The work of parenting in a world cursed with sin that is NOW being retaken by the kingdom of God is one of the myriad reasons we need Jesus’ salvation and the ever-growing kingdom at work in us and in our families in our churches and in our world. 

Jesus not only forgives. He brings us to sanctifying repentance and transparency as parents. I say transparency because if I can’t be open about what I don’t do well and seek help at overcoming those inherited habits and cycles of my own sin, I won’t grow or change as a parent. 

There is no parenting book that will prepare you to deal with yourself that I’m aware of, and we are often the place healing needs to start. 

In all our parenting challenges, there is the continual good grace of God to work inside of me to keep stripping me of my own sin and heal my deep-rooted hurts that indirectly affect everything. 

Part of parenting well is dealing with our past and how that is affecting the present and making sure we are on a journey to maturity and wholeness as we help navigate our babies to maturity and wholeness. 

There are some truths we can glean from Psalm 127 that we didn’t get to completely cover on Mother’s Day I want us to see that can help us on this journey. 

So, let’s revisit Psalm 127 and see what God says to us parents on this Father’s Day?

Psalm 127

1. Parenting, with the limits introduced from the curse of sin, is impossible – vain. V. 1
   1. Our building and oversight of parenting are inadequate, so unless the Lord intervenes, our efforts are vain.
      1. Application
         1. We must first seek the kingdom of God.
            1. Matthew 6:33
               1. As we learned a couple of weeks ago about maturing in our public square engagement, we begin with prayer, not outward engagement.
                  1. Devotion to prayer is where speaking with seasoned speech begins.
               2. Likewise, our parenting begins not with parenting books or best practices, but with our personal and corporate seeking the reign of Jesus in us and over us, and around us.
                  1. Jesus’ work through the Holy Spirit in us is wildly effective.
         2. Because Jesus is at work, and often we don’t see it overtly as we’d like, learn to look for the unseen causes behind our kid’s actions and obvious external results being manifested in our families. You will find the Holy Spirit at work here, and we need to join in that work.
            1. There is no action that does not have a cause.
               1. As parents seeking the reign of Jesus and the supernatural work of God in our families, we need to seek root causes.
                  1. This can be spiritual warfare.
                  2. This can be emotional wounds.
                  3. This can be a mental process.
                     1. We must be in tune with the detective work of the Holy Spirit in order to join God in the building and oversight of our families.
2. Our effort alone is vain, so we must learn to do the work of parenting in step with the Spirit. V. 2
   1. God gives sabbath so that we can learn that we need his production in order for our production to have any meaningful and eternal measure to it at all.
      1. So he tells them here that it is vain to believe our labor alone produces results.
         1. Let’s be clear. This is not an invitation to being lazy in our parenting. God has given means to us for restraining wrong and releasing good. (See Eli’s failure to restrain his son’s sin as priests.)
            1. Once we have done all we should do, we have to learn to rest on the inside and outside.
            2. We are so inebriated with a world standard of production and often ridden with false guilt that if we rest we feel guilty, and the other side of that coin is true of the world system also.
            3. We can be lazy and directionless and call that trusting God and sabbath.
         2. As parents, we are called to execute all that we can, and at that point, learn to rest and trust God for results.
      2. Application.
         1. Learn that sweet spot where what you have to do begins to intersect with the work that God does, and live in that place.
            1. This spot is not prescribed or located with a GPS and it takes living, living in fellowship on mission, refinement, failing, correction, adapting, and finding our stride.
               1. Rhythm. Relationship. Repeat.
                  1. This is how we find this place.
         2. Give attention to this discipline because that is where you will begin to see the work of the kingdom manifested and the supernatural work of God.
3. Multiply and release. V. 3-5
   1. The illustration used here communicates the truth that like an arrow extends the range of a warrior so our children extend the range of our influence through the habits we set in repetition…for good or for bad.
      1. Our home Edens have the potential to extend into the world through multiplication and just like with Adam and Eve, we can export good or we can export bad.
         1. Epigenetics is what the scientific world has discovered that confirms what God said in Exodus 34:7, that the consequences of our sin extend multiple generations.
         2. The habits we set through rhythm, relationships, and repetition, are multiplied genetically in our children so that what we actually do habitually will override what we say with our mouths all the way down to the manifestation of those habits at the DNA level in our actual bodies.
      2. Application:
         1. Set rhythms. Invest in relationships inside covenant church fellowship. Repeat.
         2. The boring nature of this kind of life will lead to being a parent that sits at the gate and is not ashamed of what their life has produced. V. 5.
         3. Believe that if we will operate like this at the Eden level of our families, it will extend to the church, and then to the world.
            1. You don’t have to change the world.
            2. You do have to manage your Eden. If you will do that, the world will get the impact of the kingdom through the unstoppable power of kingdom multiplication.
               1. This extends from the family, to and through the church, to the world.
               2. Satan and the dark kingdom can’t stop many arrows in the quiver.
4. Corporate Prayer: Ezekiel 36:37-38
   1. Grow our families, church, and influence in the world.
   2. Grow our maturity and holiness.
   3. Grow our impact in sending the whole church to the mission. What if the church was the missionary?