Text: Genesis 10-11:1-9
Sermon Title: Whose Kingdom Come? Whose Will be Done?
Scripture Reading: Psalm 127
Explain that Genesis 10 (the genealogy denotes a new section) is an overview and Genesis 11 explains details that happened in the context of chapter 10 (Genesis 10 is to Genesis 11 as Genesis 1 is to Genesis 2-3) – Overview and then details.
Read Genesis 11:1-9.
Read Genesis 9:1, “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Look also in 9:7 and contrast with 11:1-4 (lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth). Babel (Babylon) was man’s attempt to usurp the authority and command of God (be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth) by building man’s Kingdom on earth instead of God’s Kingdom on earth.
Below, in red, are comments from Voddie Baucham’s Sermon “The Centrality of the Home.” Keep in mind that Dr. Baucham is a Southern Baptist pastor and all statistics are given in the context of the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC is the largest protestant denomination in America.
Depending on where you look, we are losing somewhere between 75 and 88% of our young people by the end of their freshman year in college. For that low number you can look at Glen Shultz’ work on kingdom education and for that high number, the 2002 Southern Baptist Council on the Family.
In America for the first time, our birth rate is below replacement rate. Replacement rate is 2.1 children per family. We are at 1.9.
Now we are not as bad as much of the industrialized world. For example, in France I think they are around 1.5 children per family.
In Italy they are somewhere around 1.1 children per family. Now, in case you don’t understand what that means, what that means is we are not having enough children for our culture to continue to survive. Our culture is dying one generation at a time.
Now, let me put skin on that for you. In France, they have a birth rate of about 1.5. However, there are North African Muslims and Arab Muslims who have emigrated into France. Their birthrate is about six children per family, which means in two generations, France will be a Muslim nation by sheer numbers alone.
Southern Baptists are consistent with the cultural average in America. It is an unwritten rule that you can only have two kids. However, there is one exception to the unwritten rule where you can have a third child and that is if your first two children were the same sex you get to try one more time for the other.
We despise children in the Southern Baptist Convention. You don’t believe me? Find a woman with six or seven kids and follow her into a Southern Baptist Church and watch the way we mock her. Watch the way people who don’t even know her come up to her and say, “Haven’t you guys figured out how that happens yet?”
Now let me put these two statistics together. We lose 75 percent… let’s take the most optimistic number. We are losing 75 percent by the end of their freshman year in college. We average two children per family. That means it currently takes two Christian families in this generation to get one Christian into the next. Let me make it even more plain. There’s 16 million Southern Baptists on paper. By these numbers, next generation, four million; third generation, one million; fourth generation, 250,000. More than numbers now, aren’t they? Oh, but that’s ok. We’ll just replenish those numbers through evangelism.
Interesting. In order to replenish those numbers through evangelism alone what we would have to do is reach three lost people for every one Christian. Currently we only reach one lost person for every 43 Southern Baptists. Now, let me make it plain and bring it home. Christianity in America is dying one generation at a time, one a home at a time.
The fruit of the womb is a reward. And it all goes back to prosperity. The poorest nations in the world see children as a blessing. In richest nation in the world, we talk about children in terms of how many we can afford.
In the Bible, fruitfulness in marriage is repeatedly described as a virtue to be sought after and is viewed as a blessing once obtained (Exodus 23:26; Deut. 7:14; Psalms 113:9; 127:4-5; 128:3-4). Families in the Old Testament viewed barrenness as a reproach (Genesis 30:1, 22-23; Isaiah 4:1; 47:9; 49:21).
We always talk about how we want more souls in the kingdom. If we were honest, here is what we would say. “We want more souls in the kingdom, as long as we don’t have to birth them, raise them and feed them” (Voddie Baucham).
Everybody is trying to figure out how to make men excited about church again. Everybody is figuring out how do we challenge our men, how do we get our men involved? God has got an answer. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4)
And when I said that I told them that after we found out that she wasn’t I said, whew, we had a close call.” “Maybe you’ll have a boy this time and you’ll be done.” “Are you in trouble?”
Child-Free by Choice – A June 2011 Article on AOL.com
By Madeline Vann, MPH
Medically reviewed by Pat F. Bass III, MD, MPH
Studies suggest that a child-free marriage might be more satisfying for some because the arrival of children often creates a crisis for the couple involved. Yet this long-term decision requires serious conversation before it is set in stone.
Ten years ago, when Dave and Jacqui Alegria first tied the knot, their large Hispanic family eagerly anticipated a baby within the first year of their marriage. And the family waited. And worried. And waited.
“Our families are pretty much used to it by now,” says Louisiana resident Dave Alegria, now 32 years old. “Back in the day, every time we’d visit, they’d say ‘When will you have kids?’” But the newlywed Alegrias were determined to live child-free.
In actuality, their decision to be childless was not fully articulated at the beginning of their marriage. “We thought that ‘not right away, but soon’ we’d have kids,” he explains. “We kept putting it off and putting it off. We said, let’s have fun and have kids afterward — we’ve been enjoying ourselves.” He and Jacqui, also 32, continue to enjoy their childless lifestyle — vacationing with other child-free couples, sleeping in, and spending money as they like.
Alegria appreciates spending time with the children in his wide circle of friends and relations, but says he also enjoys sending them back to their parents at the end of a visit. Meanwhile, he and his wife are free to fly off to Disney World, the Caribbean, and any other destination they want to visit. They recently spent New Year’s weekend in Key West with friends, a trip that he knows wouldn’t have been the same with children.
The Alegrias’ feeling that their marriage would be changed by children is accurate. Intuitively, most couples know this. What comes as a surprise to many is that the change may be, in fact, a negative one. A recent study of 218 couples during the first eight years of marriage provided evidence that marital satisfaction decreases with the arrival of a child and can take a long time to return, if it comes back at all.
Alegria agrees. “Don’t let anybody influence you,” he advises. Although he acknowledges there may never be a perfect time to have children, he says that almost everyone he talks to has regrets about the timing of their children or the number of children. But he and his wife have no regrets about the way they have managed their child-free marriage. “Choose your own life, whether it be to have children or not,” he suggests.
The conclusion I aim to prove from Scripture:
- The family is God’s primary engine for fulfilling the Great Commission: evangelism and discipleship.
- The biblical purpose of parenting is to impress the hearts of children for the heart of God.
- One reason we do not have children or more children (when it is our choice) is because we prioritize building a Kingdom of our own, rather than the Kingdom of God.
Supporting Evidence (we want to be driven by what Scripture teaches):
1) First commandment God gave to humans: Genesis 1:26-28
2) Read Genesis 6:5, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” What was God’s plan to restore man? Notice that God did not save one man, but one family. Read Genesis 9:1, “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Look also in 9:7 and contrast with11:1-4 (lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth).
3) Genesis 12:1-4 - How? - Read Genesis 18:17-19. God had a global mission for Abraham.
4) Read Deuteronomy 6:1-6 and discuss – then read the “how to” of vv. 7-9.
5) This would imply they are having children and that they are home. The home is central to God’s plan of establishing His Kingdom through evangelism and discipleship.
6) Read Deuteronomy 32:44-47 (the last words of Moses before his death)
7) Read II Kings 17:34-41
8) Read Malachi 2:13-16
9) Read Malachi 4 (The closing scene of the Old Testament)
10) The first scene of the New Testament: Luke 1:16-17 Do not mistake me saying you have to be married and have children to fulfill God’s plan for your life: Jesus and Paul were not married (Matthew 19:13-15; Luke 17:1-3; Matthew 18:10-14).
11) Matthew 28:16-20 is not PRIMARILY about the guy at the water cooler and third world countries – it is first about your family.
12) Ephesians 6:4 – The primary attack points of Satan on the church today is that dads define their duty as the provider, be physically there, serve in the church, have his family at church.·If you have served, provided, loved, fed, clothed, worked in the church, tithed, cut your grass – but at your funeral if your children cannot say, “My father/mom/guardian was the PRIMARY spiritual influence in my life. He taught me MOST of what I know about God,” than I would submit to you WE HAVE MISSED THE BOAT.
Back to Genesis 11 – What are you building?
Application
- Having Children through Birth, Adoption, and Foster Parenting
Psalm 127
- Christian Education (Luke 6:40; Psalm 1)
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education and order are some of the chief means of grace. If these fail, all other means are likely to prove ineffectual. If these are duly maintained, all the means of grace will be likely to prosper and be successful.
- Family Worship
Rev. M. Simpson, 1882 - The Influence of Family Worship
Family Worship increases the spirit of reverence for God and His Word. Children copy their Parent’s spirit and example. If parents begin the day by invoking God’s blessing, by consecrating the early hour to His service, they show their estimate of the value of worship. If business, society, wealth, and pleasure are deferred for worship, the youth feels that the claims of society are above all other claims. Parents thus show that they can do nothing rightly without the divine blessing, and that Divine approval is far more precious than the approval of men.
Matthew Henry – Commentary (1662-1714)
Masters of families, who preside in the other affairs of the house, must go before their households in the things of God. They must be as prophets, priests, and kings in their own families; and as such they must keep up family-doctrine, family-worship, and family-discipline: then is there a church in the house, and this is the family religion I am persuading you to. You must read the scriptures to your families, in a solemn manner, requiring their attendance on your reading, and their attention to it: and inquiring sometimes whether they understand what you read.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
First, let us begin by emphatically declaring it is parents (fathers in particular) and not the church who are given the primary responsibility for calling the next generation to hope in God. The church serves a supplementary role, reinforcing the biblical nurture that is occurring in the home. It is not the job of “professionals” at the church to rear the children of believers in the faith.
Richard Baxter (1615-1691) We must have a special eye upon families, to see that they are well ordered. If we suffer the neglect of this, we shall undo all. Therefore, if you desire reformation, do all you can to promote family religion.
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