My dear wife Amy, Mother-In-Law to Kathy, Grammy to our coming granddaughter, gave this wonderful shower talk last Thursday.  I just had to share it!

Grammy Amy Giving Her Wise Words

Fruitfulness in Community

Kathy’s Baby Shower Talk September 10, 2009

I’m so excited! Isn’t this exciting?!

We’ve had many happy days lately, celebrating many babies and brides, but isn’t that a wonderful thing?!

Once again we’re gathering to celebrate a new life in our community. A new little piece of Christ’s victory on earth. I think the abundance of baby showers we’ve had this summer is a wonderful sign of God’s blessing and goodness towards our community. We are actually seeing God fulfill His promises to us in our lifetimes – we asked Him to bless our efforts to promote faithful families for Christ’s earthly kingdom purposes and He is causing our cup to overflow! What a glorious thing it is that baby shower gifts are quickly becoming their own budget category for RCC members!

Grammy Serving Dinner to Over 70 At the Shower

One of the blessings of all these babies in our community is the joy we now have of having several generations in our church. Since this shower is not only Kathy’s RCC shower, but her Hayes and Shubin families shower, I decided to do the shower talk myself and bring a somewhat personal viewpoint to the birth of the newest little Hayes. Hopefully you will all find something edifying in our little chat tonight, but I have to confess from the beginning that it is a talk highly colored by the Hayes family story.

As anyone who knows me very well will tell you, Kathy most especially:

I am inordinately excited over the coming of this baby.

In my way of thinking, a Hayes baby has been a long time coming! In fact, with a daughter-in-law less generous than Kathy, I’d say I’ve been walking a fine line of making this little baby girl “all about me!”

A Beautiful Night

But, since Kathy seems to welcome all the fuss with open arms, I’ve decided that I’m free to go completely overboard and be as ridiculous as I please over being a “Grammy.” Many an eyebrows may rise over my age and my friends may laugh at my needing to take September off to “get ready for the baby,” but I don’t have to care! God’s faithfulness to give all women an avenue of fruitfulness is demonstrated in this little bit of baby excitement in the Hayes family.

This is what I’d like to talk to you about tonight. How each of us fulfill our calling by God to be fruitful from Genesis 1:28, but not always in the natural way we think of when we read, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

Let me quickly read that familiar passage for you:

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it;

We’re pretty clear on our part in the dominion mandate in our community. Our family average is at least triple the national rate of 1.2 children per household, we work hard to have single-income households, find ways to educate our children without the state, create homes that are sanctuaries for those children and show them marriages filled with love and respect bound by the grace and mercy of Christ.

Godly fruitfulness is something we embrace and excel at in increasing contrast to the barren world around us.

However, some of us have been asked to face the question of, “how can I be fruitful, filling the earth and subduing it?” This happens for many reasons.

Perhaps you are like I was and discovered your lovely plan to “start with 7 and see from there” was halted by the sovereign hand of God saying “no”. How are you supposed to be fruitful if you can’t bear physical fruit?

Perhaps prince charming has tarried in riding in on his white charger. You can’t very well be fruitful and multiply all by yourself!

Perhaps your beloved child is in a season of rebellion or has fallen away from the faith and it seems to you that while you did multiply, you don’t feel it was very fruitful. (Bobbi’s fear)

Maybe you’re on the other end of the spectrum and with 4 children under the age of 5, you have begun to feel overwhelmed by single-handedly trying to fill the earth!

There are many circumstances that can bring us to the question of how are we to be fruitful for Christ in the particular situation in which He has sovereignly placed us. Thankfully, His word has much to say to us about being fruitful in whatever way He forms our journey.

I’d like to pass along 3 observations I’ve made in thinking through godly fruitfulness in my own life.

First

Fruitfulness is found in our community. Sometimes if we are feeling frustrated about not being able to be fruitful in the way we expected – we need to consider other avenues. You may not be having all the children you expected to, or not yet, but perhaps you can be useful to those who are. Our calling is to be fruitful AND multiply – meaning the calling to fruitfulness is additional to the calling to multiply. When physical fruitfulness is denied or delayed, it is time to put more energy towards being fruitful in other ways. Be a blessing to those who are physically fruitful. Contribute to the fruitfulness of the Christian community around you. Can you serve a young mother who is struggling with the weariness of running after toddlers? Can you be a friend, example, “auntie” or “nanna” to children in your circles who maybe don’t have an extended Christian family? You may not be filling the earth personally, but you can be fruitful through helping those in your Christian community raise up a generation that knows God and exhibits the fruits of the spirit to the world around. Raising a godly seed is not a job for sissies and I know extremely few, if any, Christian moms who would turn away a helping hand!

Romans 12:4-6 tells us that,

For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them…

The Gifts Shared In Abundance

Each part of the body of Christ has a place in helping our families succeed at bringing forth a fruitful generation on the earth. We are one with one another and when a generation rises up that knows God, we all have been fruitful together as a body.

Secondly

Are you using your community? Whatever end of the struggle you may be on, there are many women of all walks here who want to help you succeed. Take advantage of the opportunities to seek one another out that are already available such as our Ladies’ Fellowship breakfasts. Reach out bodly and ask someone about their experiences or for their advice. God gave us a rich community life, but it’s of no blessing to us if we retreat from it in times of stress and struggle rather than reaching out and using our community life.

Sharing your burden of feeling unfruitful may help you to bear it and you may find fresh ideas for pursing kingdom fruitfulness. Asking someone to help you when you are overwhelmed with all the fruit running around underfoot in your home may allow that helper find an outlet for their own gifts. You may think everyone else has their hands full too, but you don’t know until you ask. I’ve spoken to many women who would like to be helpful to the next generation of young mothers, but aren’t sure how to get started or what exactly is needed.

A specific example I can think of is homeschooling. I can only imagine how hard it is to succeed at teaching 3 grades and nursing a new baby! God is increasingly blessing us with veteran homeschoolers and I know from personal conversations that some of them would love to help you succeed in educating your children! Find a mother who loved homeschooling and just talk – you may just find that those who loved homeschooling like to share their experiences and wisdom with you. J Someone may even like to help – maybe they miss teaching!

Avail yourself of the community God has given you that your home may be fruitful. Reject the uniquely American idol of individualism and share your load. It may be that in sharing your load you will actually be blessing the person who is called on to help you. Amanda may think I’m helping her by holding Esther while she eats, but really she is blessing me by sharing that baby! Using your community is a blessing to that body and you become fruitful together in one another’s lives. Don’t let your fruit rot on the vine because pride keeps you from sharing the labor or the harvest.

Lastly-

Reach out to those in community with you. Each of us has particular fruits of the spirit that we excel at and those we fail at. Use your strengths to hold up the weaknesses of others. When you see a sister floundering in a particular season of life – don’t wait for them to become desperate enough to send out an SOS – just offer. Just as using your community blesses it, reaching out towards others produces fruit in their lives and yours.

We all desire to come before the Lord on our judgment day and hear, “well done thou good and faithful servant.” We desire to be fruitful with the gifts He has given us. Pursue fruitfulness, not only by having those beautiful babies and raising them for Christ, but by seeking the fruitfulness of your Christian community, using it and reaching out for help from it.

The beautiful baby and mommy we here to celebrate tonight is what I would like to end on. I told you this was going to be a particularly Hayes talk and now’s my moment to beg your indulgence because I want to finish not with thoughts on fruitfulness, but by taking a moment to personally commend our guest of honor to you tonight.

At the end of the book of Ruth we read of the birth of her first born son,

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and when he went in to her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a close relative; and may his name be famous in Israel!  And may he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.” Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her bosom, and became a nurse to him.  Also the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, “There is a son born to Naomi.” And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

In my imagination, I always thought a natural motherly possessiveness over her baby would’ve made it hard for Ruth to allow her firstborn to be so completely claimed by Naomi. However, that’s probably me reading this passage through the lens of my own selfish tendencies. Ruth, who loved Naomi enough to speak those beautiful words we know so well from Chapter 1, continues to pour out her love here at the end of the book in this sharing of her fruitfulness with her mother-in-law.

Great Grandma Hayes, Aunt Lenora & Cousin Bethany

Kathy is wonderful living example of Ruth in our home. However odd our family may seem to the world around us – Kathy is that kind of godly, loving woman whose joy in family causes her to pour herself out for them and unselfishly, joyfully share her best treasure with even me. Instead of being embarrassed or annoyed, Kathy is an example of being fruitful in community as she reaches out to me – taking me to her ultrasound, inviting me to have an opinion on her nursery colors.

She happily accepts me as “mother-in-law-friend” and “grammy” without being weirded out by my age and welcomes my ridiculous over-eargerness about this baby without ever seeming to become intruded upon. My daughter-in-law who loves me is better than the 7 babies I had all planned out for my “normal” family because in love she shares her fruitfulness with all of us at home.

So, I wanted to take a chance to praise Kathy before all of you tonight for this loving fruitfulness she pursues in the lives of her family.

I encourage you, Kathy, to continue in this pouring out, not for my sake, because I know this really isn’t about me however much we joke about it. It’s because pouring ourselves out is what we do as mothers and with that virtue alone you will be a wonderful mommy to our girl and your life will be filled with both the fruitfulness this baby represents, but also the fruitfulness of good works that blesses the community of our family and the world around you.

Shubin Women Support Momma Hayes!

Let’s pray together

Heavenly Father, Thank you for calling us to fruitfulness and for giving each of us the means and way you would have us fulfill that calling. Help us to humbly submit ourselves to your ways and your means. Give us strength to the task you have appointed. Accept our works through the work of your Son.

Thank you for the community of Christian sisters we have represented here tonight. Thank you for surrounding us with love and fellowship in a world that is increasingly hostile and isolated by sin. Help us to see one another’s needs and to fill them. Cause us to be true pictures of your love toward us in they way we lay ourselves down for one another.

Bless this new member of your body Lord. Give her and her mother safety, health and strength as she enters the world. Cause her to grow each day of her life in stature before both you her God and men her community. Give her sweetness of spirit and thankfulness of heart and make her a joy to her Savior, her family and her church body. Be her God and watch over her, guiding her feet on paths of righteousness we pray for we know that she is given to us in safekeeping only and that you are her Father who loves her.

Bless Kathy as she enters into motherhood. Give her strength for the tasks that are too great and joy for the times that are too sorrowful. Send her fellow laborers in Christ to lighten her load and to aid her success in raising her daughter for you. Send the peace of your Holy Spirit to her as she looks forward to the perils of childbirth. Make her path smooth and her way easy. We ask you especially Lord to cause this baby girl to turn so that Kathy doesn’t have to go through the trial of a C-section.

Bless each of us here that has role in the life of this new mother and child. Let us be a blessing to them both. Cause our celebration tonight to redown to your glory and to the edification and encouragement of one another we pray. Thank Lord for being our God and hearing our prayers as we call out to you to look down on us in love.

We pray these things in the name of Christ Jesus – Amen.

This is a communion homily I gave on March 22,2009:

This is the season of Lent.  We at RCC don’t emphasize or do much to practice Lent, but the 40 days of Lent is a reminder of other 40 day events in scripture, not the least of which is the 40 days our Savior spent in the wilderness after His baptism.

In the gospel accounts of His baptism by John (which is Christ’s appointment by God as the warrior priest, prophet and king), Matthew says the Spirit descended on Him like a dove and the Father commended Him from Heaven, and then,

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. (4:1-2)

Mark says,

12 Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. 13 And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts…

And Luke says,

1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.

The very first thing Jesus did following His baptism was to do battle with the Devil. It was the Spirit who filled Him and led Him into this battle. He is our Spirit-empowered deliverer par excellence. When He finished the skirmish in the wilderness the Gospels say that the Devil left Him and angels came and ministered to Him. Presumably by giving Him food and rest. But that was just the beginning. Luke said that He went by the power of the Spirit to Galilee and began His public ministry, preaching about the coming of the kingdom and doing works that brought it forth in the world. Peter Leithart wrote:

The Spirit is the Warrior Spirit.  He clothes Othniel and Gideon, Jephthah and Samson and Saul, and trains their hands to fight.  He descends on Jesus like a dove, and then drives Him to the wilderness to battle Satan in the howling waste.  By the Spirit, Jesus heals.  By the Spirit, He casts out demons.  By the Spirit, He cleanses lepers.  By the Spirit, He topples Satan’s kingdom.  By the Spirit, He binds the strong man and plunders his house.

He is our example, for after the first Christian Pentecost, we too are Spirit-empowered deliverers. Again Peter Leithart:

The Warrior Spirit falls on the disciples, and Peter boldly calls the Jews to repentance for crucifying the Prince of Life.  The Spirit makes war against the flesh, as the flesh wars against the Spirit, but the Spirit will be the victor.  It’s only through the Spirit that we can trample Satan underfoot.  By Him, we put on the armor of God to fight principalities and powers and wickedness in high places.  The Spirit is a sword that circumcises hearts rather than flesh, and the word is the sword of the Spirit that divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow.  The Warrior Spirit stirs our spirits, filling us with battle rage, with holy blood wrath.  By the Spirit, each of us become one of God’s beserkers, [driven with] the zeal of Jesus.

After we are baptized we are filled with the Spirit and led into battle with the world, the flesh and the devil. We become hungry and weakened in the battle, and God invites us to this table to renew our strength so that we can rise up again for Kingdom work. Interestingly, the section in 1 Corinthians that deals with Paul’s instructions to the Church about the Lord’s Supper is followed immediately with a discussion of the gifts given by the Holy Spirit to believers enabling us to be His ministers of Christ in this world. We are His Spirit-empowered deliverers.

Hear now the word of the Lord from Rev. 14:13, which Don asked for this verse to be part of the service:

Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me,

“Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”

What a wonderful text to meditate on with the death of a dearly beloved Christian. To fully understand what the Apostle John wrote, it is important to be aware of the larger context of the book of Revelation.  It was written to Christians that were suffering dramatically in the years just before the destruction of Jerusalem in the 70 AD.  The believers in Jesus, faithful Christians, were being brutally persecuted, primarily, by the Jews that rejected the Lord Jesus. They were being compromised and corrupted by people within the church. They suffered from social discrimination from every corner of the culture.  Most of the Christians lost their livelihoods, homes, social status and were impoverished in almost every way. In short, they struggled with enemies that were mighty and powerful. Jesus, by His Spirit, revealed in this book that He would come to save His people by judging those who had rejected and killed Him and were now seeking to destroy His body, the Church.

Earlier in this same chapter, Jesus is shown to be the Lamb that was slain that now stands as King on His Holy Mountain. With Him are those who had been killed for their testimony for Jesus, and now had God the Father’s name written on their foreheads. Rev. 14:2-5 describes these dear saints as those who enthusiastically sing in heaven with the heavenly army:

And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder. And I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps.  They sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures, and the elders; and no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth. [They are no longer singing songs of sorrow - They have a new song of praise on their lips. Why?] These are the ones who [kept themselves pure]. These are the ones who follow[ed] the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God.

While these saints sang in the heavenlies, God sent forth His judgments on the earth to bring salvation to the world. A first Angel “came forth having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people-said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.” Salvation comes to God’s people through judgment on His and their enemies. The good news is that God brought His judgment for sin upon His Son, the sacrificial Lamb of God, so that those who believe in Him shall be freed of enemies and have everlasting life. Because Jesus overcame death and was raised from death to sit at the right hand of the Father, He judges the wicked and brings life and salvation to His people, both Jews and Gentiles. What follows is one Angel after another declaring the judgment of God upon those who refuse to fear God and give glory to Him. These judgments were both temporal in time and history, but will extend into the eternal future. Vv. 11-12 says that there will be no rest, day or night, for those who refuse to keep the commandments of God or believe in Jesus.

And then John speaks the words we have already heard:

“Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”

From now on, from the time of God’s judgments on His enemies in the first century, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”  Why? Because, by the Spirit of Christ, “they will rest from their labors in the world for Christ – and are assured that their works will follow them.”

Since the Fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden, all men are by nature sinners, and actual committers of sin. We inherited a sinfulness in our nature, and we are sinners in the way we live our lives.  And the penalty for sin is the just judgment of God. One of those judgments is death and dying (we are all, in a sense, dying from the time we are born).  Death is the means that God puts and end to sin. But dying and death do not give us life.  It ends life. Death has been the great enemy to all mankind since the Fall of man.

The only way to have life is for God conquer this enemy. This the Father has done by putting upon Jesus, His Son, all of His just judgment so that He would taste death and judgment for us.  And yet, if Christ remained in death, there would be no life on the other side.  He conquered death and was raised up to life again for our salvation from sin itself, judgment for sin, and to conquer death in us in and for us.  Since the time that Jesus ascended to His throne at the Father’s right hand He has been battling His and our enemies. Is it possible that He should fail? NOT A CHANCE. He will continue to put all of His and our enemies under His feet until the last enemy is defeated – Death.

You see, because of Jesus, for us final salvation comes on the other side of death.  Because believers are in union with Jesus, we can be assured that we too will have life on the other side of death – just as He did.

Life, health and joy are on the other side of dying and death.  Sickness, dying and death are part of the human condition.  But for those who are in Christ, death and dying have lost their sting – lost its power over us. Life is on the other side of death and dying: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” Instead of singing songs characterized by dying and death, they sign new songs of life, health and joy.

We don’t generally struggle with the same enemies that the first century Christians did.  But we do yet fight with enemies don’t we? We fight the good fight against our sin, and the sinfulness of those around us. We still have to battle, Satan, the old Serpent who still wanders about trying to devour us through temptation to unfaithfulness and faithlessness. We still have to do battle with dying and death. But we fight, not like those who have no hope. Rather, we know that Life is on the other side of dying and death.

For almost 4 and a half decades Bonnie was stricken with the enemy of Multiple Sclerosis. She suffered, and many of those around her suffered with her. Is that what characterized her to us all?  Is that all she was to us? No – because for the last 30 or so years, she has been in union with Christ. She, though dying, was alive in Him.  In many ways she rose above herself and her infirmity

Often when people are stricken with suffering it is tempting for them to see the dying and trouble of life as something that marginalizes them – makes us of no consequence – makes us useless – causes us to be less than what we should be.  But in Christ, like Bonnie, we can still live as useful servants of Christ, anticipating that our works, as frail as they are, will be used by Him.  Our works will follow us, both in the lives of the people we leave behind and as the offerings we will present to God throughout eternity

Shortly we will sing about the fact that our God often moves in mysterious ways in our lives. Don tells me that in her last days of suffering and dying God used that time to reunite the family in profound and deeply meaningful ways.  This was a great joy to Bonnie and Don. One ways for the works of Bonnie to follow her in her heavenly rest is for that reestablishment of the family relationships to continue. I want to encourage you all to work hard to stay in relationship, which will continue to honor Bonnie through the rest of your lives.

‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”

As A Father Pities His Children

Psalm 103

Doug Hayes, July 2, 2006 – Church of the King, Sacramento, CA

07-30-05-as-a-father-pities-his-children

The hear the audio of this sermon go here

Joyfully Manifesting the Word of Life

1 John 1:1-4

Doug Hayes, August 3, 2008

08-08-03-manifesting-the-word-of-life

Audio of Sermon