Living for Christ
is a Confused and Confusing Age
A Study of the Book
of Judges
Sermon # 9
“Principles
of Being a Good Parent.”
Judges 13: 1-25
Good morning and welcome to our Mother’s
Day service. We have a gift for each of our ladies this morning. Please don’t forget
to pick up your gift on the way out this morning.
I want to start the service today by
sharing a few answers given by elementary school-age children to questions about their
mothers.
How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. God made my mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.
What ingredients are mothers made of ?
God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one
dab of mean.
What
kind of little girl was your mom?
1. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
2. They say she used to be nice.
How did your mom meet your dad?
Mom was working in a store and dad was shoplifting.
What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer? Does he
make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?
Why did your mom marry your dad?
My grandma says that mom didn't have her thinking cap on.
What makes a real woman?
It means you have to be really bossy without looking bossy.
Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because Dad is such a goofball.
2. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than Dad.
What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't have spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.
Is anything about your mom perfect?
1. Her teeth are perfect, but she bought them from the dentist.
2. Her casserole recipes. But we hate them.
3. Just her children.
What would it take to make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. You know, her hair. I'd dye it, maybe blue.
If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my mom smarter -- then she would know my sister did it and not me.
On a more serious
note, it seems oddly appropriate that today on Mother’s Day we arrive in our series
on the Book of Judges at a study of Samson’s parents. According to verse eight the
prayer of Samson’s father was “Teach us how to bring up the child who is to be
born to us?” This is surely the prayer of every godly parent.
Yet if you are
familiar at all with the story of Samson you know that his life did end so well. Like many
modern parents Samson’s mother and father may have wondered, “Where did
we go wrong?”
When our children
make bad choices we ask ourselves the same question. We blame ourselves and see the bad
choices of our children as some how evidence of our ineptness as parents.
Most Christian parents
know Proverbs 22:6 which says, “Train a child in the
way in which he should go and when he is old he will not turn
from it!” In our minds that sounds like a guarantee. But we must remember that
proverbs are principles not
promises. There is in reality no absolute correlation between the ways
we parent and the way our children turn out. Please note I said there is not absolute
correlation not there is no correlation. Good parenting does make a difference, but
there is no guarantee that our children will turn out like we would like.
We are all acquainted
with families in whom the parents are any thing but paragons of virtue, yet the children
grow up to be good stable people. And there are other families where the parents are good,
loving individuals who have at least one prodigal in the family and perhaps more than one.
Chuck Swindoll warns
Christian parents, “Being godly parents is no absolute
guar-antee you’ll have godly kids. Doing a good job of training children and teens
provides no airtight promise that they’re going to turn out exactly right….Nothing
thrills us more than to know that our children are walking in truth and nothing hurts us
more than to realize they’re not.”
I want to suggest to
you the question for us this morning is not “How can I raise godly children?” but
rather “How
can I be a godly parent?” You
may be tempted to say, but aren’t the two questions the same, and the answer is no
they are not.
The first has to do
with the result “a godly child” which we do not have the power to produce, the
second has to do with the process, which we do to some degree have a measure of control.
This morning, on this
Mother’s Day Sunday I want us to gather three principles on “Being a Good Parent” drawn from
the life of Samson in Judges 13.
First, Being A
Good Parent Requires That We Recognize That Being A Parent Is A Privilege. (vv. 2-3)
“Now
there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah;
and his wife was barren and had no children.”
Oddly enough
sometimes we do not take the time to realize that being a parent is a privilege. In our
society in which there is such a desire for self-fulfillment and the acquisition of
things, parenting – and motherhood in particular, have fallen into disrepute. Manoah
and his wife were in the group of individuals who sincerely wanted children but had not
been able to.
Today childless
couples can pursue all manner of medical expertise when they are unable to conceive
children. And even if that fails they can adopt. However in Manoah’s day there were
no such medical options or adoption agency to help a child-less couple.
In that society,
barrenness carried a great social stigma. It was not just a sense of incompleteness, women
who could not have children were considered cursed by God. We can only imagine her shame
and the continual longing of her heart.
In verse three
we are told that then one day an angelic messenger appeared, “And
the Angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, "Indeed
now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.”
According to
“the” angel of the Lord” she is to be barren no longer. She is to be the
mother of a very special son!
The psalmist says
in Psalm 127:3-5, “Behold, children are a heritage
from the LORD; the fruit of the womb is a reward. (4) Like arrows in the hand of a
warrior, So are the children of one's youth. (5) Happy is the man who has his quiver full
of them….”
Every child born and
unborn is a blessing from God. How
tragic it is that we live in an age in which an unborn baby is seen as a menace instead of
a miracle, an intruder instead of an inheritance.
Being a Good Parent Requires that we
recognize that Being A Parent Is A Privilege and….
Secondly, Being a Good Parent Requires that we
Recognize that Parenting Has Responsibilities. (vv. 4-5)
“Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. (5) For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines."
Although the Nazirite vows have specific application to the life of Samson, I want you to see that it also applies to each of us as parents in suggests, how we are to raise godly children in a perilous environment.
The couple chosen
by God to be Samson’s parents, were a genuinely godly couple, with a heart for God
and a hunger to obey His Word. This couple is given a vital assignment from the Lord.
Their assignment is to raise up a child, a child who would be given a special place in the
plan of the Lord. But they would not be allowed to take their child off into some secluded
and safe place to perform this task. They are to raise their child for the Lord in the
context of perilous culture. This is the same assignment that is given to every Christian
parent today! The situation is the same for every Christian parent today, “How am I going to be a successful parent in such
perilous times.”
The only means of being a successful parent in an ungodly world is to be completely
dependent upon God. We begin to see this dependence upon God when Manoah’s wife tells
him what has happened in verse six, “So the woman came
and told her husband, saying, "A Man of God came to me, and His countenance was like
the countenance of the Angel of God, very awesome; but I did not ask Him where He was
from, and He did not tell me His name.”
Manoah does two things
that demonstrate his dependence upon God.
First, He
demonstrates his dependence seeking God through prayer. It seems
obvious that Manoah believed his wife, but he didn’t know what to do next, so verse
eight tells us he prayed. “Then Manoah prayed to the
LORD, and said, "O my Lord, please let the Man of God whom you
sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who will be born."
(9) And God listened to the voice of Manoah….”
Maoah prayed for
wisdom. The New Testament instructs us in James 1:5, “If any man
lack wisdom let him ask of God.” I love the first part of verse nine, “And God listened to the
voice of Manoah!” Do you
realize that when you pray, God listens to your voice? Isn’t that awesome? The God of
the Universe takes the time to listen to your prayers. Manoah did not beat around the
bush, he got right to the point, and He wanted to know what He should do as the father of
the future deliverer of Israel.
And in answer to
Manoah’s prayer God appeared again in the form of the angelic messenger. Verse
nine says, “… and the Angel of God came to the woman
again as she was sitting in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her. (10) Then
the woman ran in haste and told her husband, and said to him, "Look, the Man who came
to me the other day has just now appeared to me!" (11) So Manoah arose and followed
his wife.”
Secondly, He
demonstrates his dependence by a request for principles to be a good parent. (vv.
11-12)
“When
he came to the Man, he said to Him, "Are You the Man who spoke to this woman?"
And He said, "I
am." (12) Manoah said, "Now let your words come to pass! What will be the
boy's rule of life, and his work?"
Is Manoah asking for
more information than is proper? Perhaps, but isn’t it the desire of every parents
heart to know what will become of their children? And in fact, he shows the same desire
that people in every age have expressed. We want to know what each of the successive steps
in following God’s will, will produce before we are willing to take our first step of
obedience. God wants us to be willing to trust him and therefore the Angelic messenger
give no further inform-ation than had already been given. Manoah will have to wait and see
what sort of person his child will grow to be. He would have to be content to know that he
and his wife will have a son and that he has been given a purpose by God.
The answer to Manoah’s
question is found in verse thirteen, “So
the Angel of the LORD said to Manoah, "Of all that I said
to the woman let her be careful.(14) She may not eat anything that comes from the vine,
nor may she drink wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean. All that I commanded
her let her observe."
Manoah and his wife
gave every indication that they sincerely wished to know how to carry out their
responsibilities for the child that is to be born.
Everything about
Manoah and his wife seem to indicate that they were concerned about doing their best as
godly parents for their unborn child. Why then was Samson’s life so checkered? The
answer can only be that Samson continually made the wrong choices.
The son that was to be
born was to be a Nazirite by sovereign directive, and the mother was to observe the
Nazirite regulations during her pregnancy.
Manoah and his wife
recognize that parenting is more than just a privilege it bears certain responsibilities.
At this juncture in the lives of Manoah and his wife their highest priority was how to
raise this child to fulfill God’s purposes.
In the case of
Manoah and his wife they intend to undertake the great responsibility to guide and direct
their child toward God’s intended life and calling.
Manoah is so moved by
the angelic message he wants to know his name that he may honor him when all of these
things come to pass. Verse seventeen, he says, “Then
Manoah said to the Angel of the LORD, "What is Your name, that when Your words come to
pass we may honor You?" (18) And the Angel of the LORD said to him, "Why do you
ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?" (19) So Manoah took the young goat with
the grain offering, and offered it upon the rock to the LORD. And He did a wondrous thing
while Manoah and his wife looked on—(20) it happened as the flame went up toward
heaven from the altar--the Angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar! When
Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. (21) When the Angel
of the LORD appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the
Angel of the LORD. (22) And Manoah said to his wife, "We shall
surely die, because we have seen God!" (23) But his wife said to him, "If the
LORD had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain
offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have
told us such things as these at this time."
When the offering was
consumed and the angel disappeared in the fire; several things happened. The couple fell
to the earth (v. 20), it suddenly dawned on them who that messenger was (v. 21); fear
entered Manoah’s heart (v. 22) and Manoah
concluded that he had looked upon the face of God. All that he had been taught made him
believe that such an experience would result in his death. His wife proved to have better
judgment in this matter. Ladies, that is why we men need to have you around to bring us
back to reality. With perfect logic and relative calmness Manoah’s wife pointed
out some crucial truths. First, the angel of the Lord received their sacrifice rather than
rejected it. Secondly, the truth that had been revealed to them would be useless if God
was going to kill them. Third, a promise had been made that they were to be the parents of
a special child, which required that they live. In essence she said, “Honey,
calm yourself if God intended to kill you, you would already be dead!”
Manoah was wrong in
his conclusion, but he was right in his instinct, for where did we ever get the idea that
the presence of God is not dangerous business.
Being a Good Parent Requires that we
Recognize that Parenting Has Responsibilities and
….
Third, Being a Good Parent Requires that we
Recognize that Parenting Has It’s
Limitations (vv. 24-25)
“So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. (25) And the Spirit of the LORD began to move upon him…..”
She called his name “Samson” in Hebrew (Shimshon) is literally “little son” or “sonny.” I think that his name suggest that his parent did indeed regard him as a treasure that God had entrusted into their care. They treated him as a treasure; they sought God’s direction for raising their child. I belief that they did all they could to lead him into the truth of God’s word. Samson, as do all children, ultimately had to choose for himself to live for God or self.