The devil loves convincing Christians that their efforts to do their God-given duty are for nothing. The prophet Elijah, for example, was a preacher of God’s Word and was continually teaching it to the people of Israel. He resisted evil rulers as they spread idolatry in the land, his life was regularly in danger from those who hated him, and the people of Israel seemed so easily to incline toward false gods. In 1 Kings 19, Elijah laments to the Lord, “The people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” The devil had been trying to convince him that all his work was for nothing.
This is the lie of futility, the lie that you could do your Christian duty in your God-given stations in life and it could be utterly fruitless. The devil loves to spread this lie of futility among parents. There’s not a father or mother I’ve met and gotten to know who hasn’t expressed the frustration and hopelessness that the devil sows with this lie. Parents often feel like farmers who toil and sweat in the sun, breaking up the hard earth, readying the soil, planting seeds, watering and fertilizing, and waiting for the seeds to sprout. They do the same work every day—teaching, correcting, encouraging, disciplining—the same things over and over again. “How many times have I told you…?” Fill in the blank. Every parent has been there, waiting for fruit that seems like it’s never going to come.
But God does not command us to do useless things. He gives us duties that are good both for ourselves and our neighbor. To say such work is powerless would be an insult to God. To say that God would let men share in his office of Father and yet prove impotent would malign the fatherhood of God himself.
Thus we may say that futility in our stations in life is a delusion. Father and mother do not labor in vain, nor do the teachers who serve in the stead of parents. We might not see immediate fruit. That’s fine. God can see to the fruit. We simply do our duty. Fac quod tibi facere datum est: Do what is given to you to do. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6).
You will feel inadequate to do your duty. God often makes us feel our inadequacy. This does us two great services. First, it makes us despair of our works, which is always needful for us because we’re so inclined to rely on our works for our righteousness instead of trusting Jesus for our righteousness. Second, it makes us realize that we are undertaking a task for which we are insufficient, and knowledge of our inadequacy sends us running to our Father in heaven, seeking him to do what we are so obviously unable to do.
Yet inadequacy is not futility. We are unequal to the task set before us, but our Father in heaven, “from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. 3:15), is more than sufficient. Elijah knew his inadequacy, but the Lord would not let him think it was futility: “I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him” (1 Kgs. 19:18). Elijah labored under God’s Word, and God’s Word works.
So do what God has given you to do. Raise Christian children. Take them to church. Read God’s Word to them at home. When you feel inadequate, pray, “Dear Father in heaven, you have entrusted these children to me, and since I am so utterly inadequate to raise them by my own power, I entrust them back to you. Complete in them what I am unable to do, for the sake of Christ.” God has not given you to futility, but has made you participants in his Fatherhood, which he exercises with divine power. “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58).
Sing, pray, and keep His ways unswerving,
Perform thy duties faithfully,
And trust His Word; though undeserving,
Thou yet shalt find it true for thee.
God never yet forsook in need
The soul that trusted Him indeed.
(LSB 750:7)
In Christ,
Pastor Richard
