The Faith of Children

Please turn your Bible to Luke chapter 18. Luke 18, we'll be looking at these verses here, 15 through 17. That can be found on page 877 of the Pew Bible. When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's word.

Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called to him, saying, Amen, let the children come to me and do not hinder them.

For to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.

Amen.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, as your word has opened up for us today, I pray that we would receive it and that we would receive it like children, with confidence and with dependence upon you.

In Jesus' name, amen. This context in Luke has been about the nature of true saving faith, what it looks like, that it is a humble faith. You see the contrast between the Pharisee and the tax collector.

The Pharisee might be one who looks like he is justified, but he who goes away from the temple of God without justification, because he is proud. The tax collector looks like one who is not justified, and yet he walks away justified, right with God, because he has truly come to the Lord for mercy.

And so now this picture is given to us in a distinct way, in a new way, regarding children. The true faith is a childlike faith. It's like the faith of a child. And that has implications for us, ourselves, and our own faith.

It also has implications for how we would treat children and their faith. And so as we go through this, we are going to look at what it would look like to reject children, what it looks like to welcome children in the faith of a child, and then what it looks like to simply have a childlike faith.

Begins here in this passage. Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. This is interesting here in Luke, the word brephos in Greek is used to describe these infants. On the other passages, it speaks merely of children.

Here it speaks of infants, and so we see that there's a range of children being brought to him, not just older children, but also very young children, infants even, those who cannot talk or walk. They're being brought to him, and they're being brought to him in order that he might touch them.

Once again, looking at Matthew and Mark, you can stitch it all together and see what's going on. Why is it that he has to touch them? He's laying hands on them to pray for them in order to secure blessings for them.

Lays his hands on them, prays them, asks for God's mercies, for the Father's mercies upon the children. Children are very important. We'll see this as we go through the passage, but I wanna take a step back and just talk about the importance of children for a moment.

I'm thankful that last week we had a whole sermon about the importance of children. Children are very important. They are a blessing from the Lord. Now, most Christians are willing to affirm that because Scripture says it very directly that they are a blessing from the Lord, but a lot of times it is hard, people find it difficult to embrace that or to live that out.

And part of the reason, I believe, is because people tend to think of children as children. They tend to think of children as helpless babies. And this is not, I believe, the primary way that we should be thinking of children.

When it speaks of children, it's not talking merely of potential legacy, but pointing forward to an actualized legacy. For example, consider the words of Psalm 127, a passage that's frequently brought up in the context of children being a blessing.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them.

He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. Now, why is it that it speaks of these children as arrows? When you think of babies, you don't think of strength. You don't think of things that a warrior would use to his advantage.

What Psalm 127 has in mind about building a house is not just the potential, but what it can be actualized, which is technically potential also, but I'm trying to get you to think that it's not just talking about what things are in the early stages, but what they point to in the later stages.

When it says, like arrows in the hands of a warrior are the children of one's youth, why the children of one's youth? Bible also talks about the children of one's old age. See, the children of one's youth have the capacity to grow into adulthood while you're enjoying your later years.

This does not point out the children of one's old age because it is only the children of one's youth that you are able to enjoy as adults. So I think that one of the keys to understanding the blessings of children is not to think of children merely as children, merely as infants, but to think more long-term, to think not myopically of just what is right here and now, and the burdens that children produce and the difficulties that they may are, and the blessings only being the giggles and coos, but to think long-term about the many blessings that God provides through children.

You know, I have a, for example, I have a lemon tree in my yard. I love the lemon tree. I consider it a blessing, but when I consider a blessing, I'm not thinking of the tree as just the tree. Right now, it's not being much of a blessing, even though it is a blessing, right?

It will be a blessing when I actually have lemons from it. Right now, there are not any lemons hanging off of it, so it's not functionally a blessing to me in that way. So you can more further embrace children as a blessing if you do not only think of children as children and only the kind of blessings that they give to you in their infancy, but the blessings they give as they grow old as well.

This is part of the Bible's focus on children in a legacy. Children are very valuable. Proverbs 13, 22 says, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous.

Those things that you have, those things that you have built up, these are not things that you are able to take with you into the next life. They must be left to someone else, and you have two options.

You can leave those things to someone who carries along your name, carries along your honor, or you can leave those things to one who does not and so that there is no honor in that. And through children, one has the ability to pass on that kind of legacy.

Now, it's not just good for you as an individual or for families, but for society at large. Society at large is very much stabilized by family units and by substantial family units that embrace children.

A lot of times it's hard to see this and understand it because in the past 100 years to 200 years, there are many ways in which government has encroached on the role of the family and a lot of the role, a lot of the stability that the family provides, the government has provided.

And you can think about this, you can think about what people's immediate reactions are when you talk about problems in society, right? If you talk about the problem with people not being very intelligent or not being very educated, the question is, well, what is the government doing to fix this?

How are they going to fix this? Because since 1867 in our state, there have been public schools and more and more the government considers this their role to make sure the children are educated. You look at the homeless that exists and what's the first question everyone asks?

What is the government doing to fix this problem of homelessness? Is it really the government's primary problem or is that not something that should fall on families to make sure that there is a network that provides for those in the family who don't have things for themselves?

And then you see this with the elderly as well. Many people point out that the elderly are not well taken care of. What is the government doing to provide this?

What is the government doing to make sure.

What's going to happen to social security, et cetera, et cetera? Social security since 1935. These are things that have been included in society and have encroached on the role of the family so that you do not necessarily tend to think about the family as being the primary stability of society, but rather government more and more offers itself as being the primary means of stability.

And so this is something that you must train yourself to do is to recognize that one of, if not the primary stabilizing factor that God has given in society is healthy families, not healthy government, but healthy families.

There was an economist in the 1700s you may have heard of named Malthus. Malthus posited that populations increase exponentially but resources increase linearly. So as the population increases exponentially, the resources there will be less and less.

And this is frequently emphasized in all sorts of dystopian fiction, perhaps Soylent Green being one of the more famous of these where there's just too many people, not enough resources. And this idea is emphasized over and over, even though all the statistics say the opposite, that the amount of food per person has increased with population increase.

The amount of resources has increased at a greater rate than the number of people. The only exception to this possibly being real estate. Now there are ways that that can be accommodated with better building, et cetera, but by and large resources increase at a greater quantity than people do because God has made humans in such a way that they have a creative capacity for work.

They're able to subdue the earth and they're able to provide the resources that are needed so that more people is not a bad thing. More people is a good thing. And this is a great, great stabilizing feature that exists in our world.

Children are very much a blessing that is to be embraced. And if you look at those societies that have really embraced the Malthusian idea that resources would be at stake, they're trying to walk it back.

Some statistics from Japan. In 2016, Japan reached a point where over 25 of its population was over the age of 65. And they began selling more adult diapers than they were selling children's diapers.

From 2012 to 2022, Japan's GDP decreased from 6 .2 trillion U .S. dollars to 4 .2 trillion U .S. dollars. Now in general, countries grow in their GDP. They become more productive as they advance and develop.

Japan has only decreased as they have a more and more aging society as they have not embraced the goodness of children. You look at China's one-child policy. They're trying to walk it back with all kinds of tax incentives, et cetera, in order to encourage people to have children.

Those societies that have embraced this Malthusian idea have all tried to run from it. So children are a great blessing. Now with that, continue considering this passage here. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them.

Okay, so the disciples see that people are bringing children to Jesus in order for him to lay hands on them to pray. And they rebuke him. Now there's two different responses to this. One is to see the reasonableness or to sympathize somewhat with the disciples.

I think it's very common for us to not and to see this as completely unreasonable. To give you some sympathy. You know, consider what it is like for an important person to be doing work and then a child to come interrupt.

Maybe you're familiar with that scene that happened a few years ago where that professor was on the CNN interview on Zoom and then one child walked into his office and then the toddler and the little walker walked in afterwards and the mom has to dive in to take them and he's talking about the issue in North Korea, et cetera.

Very serious things that are happening in this very important interview. And then children are interrupting and it does seem like, well, this is really not the place for children. So if you have the most important person in the world doing the most important work in the world here, you know, Jesus Christ, maybe you can have some sympathy with where the disciples may be coming from when they think that it would be right to reject these children.

But they are wrong.

Jesus rebukes them.

Jesus rebukes them for this. Now there are many different ways that children are rejected, that children are rejected from coming to Jesus. Let me go through a few examples of those with you. So, and this goes beyond maybe the obvious ones of not having children, of killing children, which is rampant in society.

But even beyond that, in the church, there are a lot of ways that children are rejected. And some of them are more intentionally by design and some are less so. Right, so one is children's church. Now if you don't know what children's church is, that's where during the main service where the people are gathered for worship, there's a second area where the kids are kept and they are given their own very similar service that is different from that of the adults.

Right, and so we're not talking about different kinds of teaching here, we're talking about them being kept from the worship of God altogether. This is something that I experienced growing up, you know, being part of children's church, wondering when I get to join with big church.

If this really is a special time where God's presence is found with us, especially as it describes in Hebrews 12, this is not something to keep children away from. Now there are other ways that churches can buy kids programs that are ostensibly designed to help children, that are ostensibly designed to bring children to the Lord, actually end up pushing children away from the Lord.

A lot of those happen with Sunday schools that have second-rate teaching. Right, a lot of times, and I experienced this, I mean in high school, I was in high school and I was put in a Sunday school class that was for high schoolers, and at this point we're talking about an age that's even, you know, beyond the age of the children being described here.

I was put in a class with high schoolers and the teacher that was given authority over this class, she had us draw, like it was about this time of year, I remember, she had us draw turkeys with our hands because it was Thanksgiving, and this is kind of the level of teaching that I was getting in this particular Sunday school class.

And it took me a while to realize that I didn't have to stay with that, I could just go and join the 50-year-olds in their class, and finally I did that. And it was much more, much more edifying. Now, this woman, when we all graduated from high school, and she was very sad to see us all go, she went and talked to the church leadership and she cried crocodile tears, and so she made it so that she got the college class too, so we were in her college class as well.

This lady who's teaching us as though we are, you know, as though we're toddlers teaching a college-level class. But this, now that's an extreme example, but there are all kinds of ways that the children's programs designed to help children can actually end up hurting children, and this is real common with youth groups as well.

Right, a lot of youth groups, because children are often only converted later on in life, a lot of youth groups are designed to entertain children, right, they're designed to basically entertain goats instead of feeding sheep.

You know, I experienced this too growing up, being part of a youth group that had lots of different games and programs, very little teaching, while all the adults are getting very solid teaching that I was capable at that age being one who is regenerate and being one who was of a proper age, even though considered young by the adults, of a proper age to receive the kind of instruction that the adults were getting.

And so there are various ways that our kids are inadvertently kept away from Jesus, though people think that they're bringing them near. And in general, age segregation is not helpful. Titus 2 talks about how older and younger are to interact, both between men and between women, and that this is supposed to be an encouragement to the body, and this is true of children as well.

But often, a lot of times, the way programs are set up, they're designed in such a way that you don't benefit from those interactions between generations. And this is true for older ages, too. This is not just true for young children.

This is true often for singles. A lot of times, churches will arrange it so that the midweek programs are just focused on particular demographics so that singles hang around with singles to their own detriment, where they're not benefiting from the wisdom of married couples.

So those kinds of segregation are ways that people are kept from Christ, but especially, and especially in a lot of ways, often they work to the detriment of children. Now, also, pastoral inaccessibility.

This is a common one. This can happen both by the nature of the way the church is set up or by the pastor himself. I had a pastor when I was very young, probably only four, who had a reputation among the other kids.

Now, I was a very good kid. I would keep my eyes closed. I wasn't a very good kid in all different kinds of ways, but in this particular way, I was a good kid. I would keep my eyes closed while we were praying, right?

But now, the other kids wouldn't, and so they would look around, and that pastor, while he was praying, would make scowling faces at them and try to get them to close their eyes while he was praying. I don't even know how he did it.

But I heard that he had this reputation, so one day, I decided I'm gonna open my eyes,.

I'm gonna see.

And so I did, and I looked, and certainly, he was doing it. He was scowling at all of the kids while he was praying. Now, this is not to say that kids can't be so disorderly, that it requires some kind of correction from the pulpit.

Yeah, if there's mockery of the word of God happening on that, it would be an appropriate time for correction from the pulpit. But that kind of attitude that is hostile towards children in general is not helpful.

And on top of that, a lot of times, churches can be structured so that they are so large that the pastor does not have time. They're so large, and the pastoral staff is so little, the preaching staff is so little, that there is no time for the pastors to help those who are younger.

Once again, in high school, I once wanted to ask the pastor a question, but there was always a line, always a long line to talk to him at this church that I was going to at the time, that my family was going to.

And I felt very bad about getting in that line and taking up his time, because I knew so many adults had much more important questions to ask him. I wanted to know about the death penalty. I knew that this was not a pressing need, like a lot of the other needs of the people that were talking to him.

But I got in line, I asked him, I was very thankful for his answer. And then, you know, I never asked him again, because I knew that that was very precious time. It wasn't, that he didn't have a lot of time for.

And so churches constructed themselves in ways that the pastor is inaccessible. Kids, don't ever feel like that with any of the pastors here. Okay, I'm not saying bypass your parents. Your father's the primary one in your life for instruction.

You should talk to your father if you have any questions. But then, feel free to come talk to us pastors. We're not inaccessible. We're not too busy to come and talk to you. Now, this happens in the home as well.

Children are rejected in the home as well. One of the primary ways that this happens is through not having family worship. Now, you see in family worship being described, family worship being described in Joshua.

It says, now therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your father served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose to stay whom you will serve, whether the gods that your father served in the region beyond the river or the gods, the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Now, a lot of people hear that, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And they think of it as a matter of obedience, that you will obey the Lord along with your family.

But what's being talked about here? We're talking about idols. We are talking about religious worship that is happening. This word that is used here to describe worship is the same, or describe service, is the same word that is used to describe the worshipers of Baal in 2 Kings 10.

It describes worship. And we even say that sometimes ourselves. We talk about the service, right, or sacred service, phrases like that. This is describing worship. And so he's saying, if all the rest of Israel is not worshiping the Lord, we will still be worshiping the Lord.

This is not talking about a worship that is happening in a larger gathering. This is talking about worship that is happening in a family. Families ought to be worshiping the Lord together. It means reading the Bible.

It means praying. It means singing. And if you are worshiping the Lord together, you are introducing your children to Christ. All of scripture is about Christ. All of it should be introducing your children to Christ.

Now, even if you are doing family worship, there's still ways that children are rejected from the Lord. A lot of times, people will use children's Bibles for family worship, right? So rather than introduce them to the real word of God, they have a picture book that has a few phrases, and they choose not to introduce them to the actual word of God.

The word of God is powerful. Introduce your children to the actual word of God. Moreover, teach them the whole Bible. Your instruction does not need to be restricted to just Proverbs or just very small passages that you think are appropriate for children.

All the Bible is appropriate for children. There are some parts that they will not be able to understand until later on in their life, and that is okay. But all the Bible is for children, and you should be introducing them to all of that.

Now, along with that, it says in,.

It says in Deuteronomy 6 of the commands of the Lord, you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

So there are two kinds of instruction, right? There's this kind of instruction that's very formal, like family worship, and there's the kind of instruction that's just throughout the day, that's happening throughout the day.

Now, there's a temptation to unduly entrust others with this task. There are gonna be some times when you do entrust others with this task. This is what you're doing right now. If you have your children right now, you are entrusting me with the task of introducing your children to Christ as they hear the words of God read and proclaimed.

And so there are times where that's going to be appropriate. There's times when there's going to be extreme needs that require you to rely on others to play this role in your children. But for the parent, this is primarily the parent's role in the child's life.

So there are ways that you can unduly entrust this to others. Now, if we're talking about the formal, the formal ways that this is happening, you could expect the church to do all the work and not think that it's important for you to worship with your child.

You could think that for the informal work, that is something that someone else could do. This is very common. The Deuteronomy 6 -7 is describing something that is happening throughout the day. It's happening in the morning, it's happening in the evening, it's happening throughout the day.

Now, if you entrust the spiritual formation of your children to a school system, once again, there can be extreme needs that lead to that. But will this not, entrusting others with this unduly, will that not have a serious ramification for your children?

And don't think that just avoiding public schools is going to necessarily fix all the problems. If you are trusting some Christian school to do this, you will find that your own instruction is the best.

God has placed you in your child's life. It doesn't matter whether or not you feel like you know scripture well enough. This is primarily your role. Embrace it as much as you possibly can and do not unduly trust others with the work.

But do not be surprised if you give your children to others and then this is not done in those later years, right? If you do not water a plant, do not be surprised if the plant dies. Now, these disciples are rebuked.

As I said, Mark describes them, describes Jesus as being indignant. This is something that is wrong. Though we might understand their concern about the importance of the Lord himself, this is something where they are wrong for their rejection of these children.

Now, what's wrong here? The problem is not that they consider Jesus too important. Okay, Jesus cannot be considered too important. He is the most important person that has ever lived. I would also argue that the problem isn't necessarily that they see the children as being of too little importance.

There's a sense in which that is true. Children have souls. This is not a matter like the interview about North Korea where the children are of no concerns. Okay, adults have souls, children have souls.

Souls are important regardless. It's important to pray for children. But is it enough to say that they value the children too little if there's nothing to compare? Compared to what? It's not compared to Jesus.

Jesus is of infinite importance. What is it in comparison to? It's in comparison to themselves. Okay, it's in comparison to themselves that they consider themselves too important to deal with the children.

They consider the others who are coming to Jesus too important for Jesus to deal with the children. This is the real issue, and it's very ironic given that the disciples, especially the 12, were chosen from such lowly positions.

They're being brought up from lowly positions, but they're thinking that others are of too high positions in order for Jesus to entertain the concerns of children. It's also ironic because in order to leave some kind of spiritual legacy, you have to lose the self-importance that would focus only on you, and you have to be able to focus on another.

If you're not able to leave spiritual inheritance, you are working to your own harm. You are self-sabotaging, right? Your self-importance is at war against leaving a spiritual legacy, so you should not be filled with any kind of self-importance that would be at war in this way.

You should instead consider the context of this passage, the context of this passage being the Pharisee and the tax collector, being the fact that you are one who is not worthy, one who has no special status, one who is in desperate need of God's mercy.

If you realize that, then there's no reason that you would consider children less than yourself in that regard in their need for Jesus Christ. So he says here, let the children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.

So we are to encourage children. We are to encourage children in their pursuit of Jesus Christ. Once again, many ways that this is not done, many ways that children are rejected. There are a couple of kind of Baptist-specific ways of rejecting children as well.

You know that because we recognize that it's important not to give children a false assurance of faith and to really desire them to be born again. There's a temptation to splash cold water on their professions of faith.

And if a child professes faith in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter if that's happening at a very young period in their life. That is to be encouraged. It is not to be, you are not to meet enthusiasm with doubt.

Another common way that this happens is by discouraging them to pray. A lot of people feel that it is not right for children to pray if they don't have Christ as their mediator. First, once again, you do not know the work that God has done in the child's life.

And so if you do not know, if you do not have such, you know, those kinds of spiritual goggles, you should teach your children to pray, not teach them not to pray. It's very harmful to them. Now, prayer, unlike all the other elements of worship, it is an element of natural worship.

What that means is that the other kinds of worship that we are given to do are things where God has to command us in order to do them. You know, he has to tell us to preach in order for it to be right to preach.

He has to tell us to sing in order for it to be right for us to sing. If we were to sing without his authority to do so in a way that is religious and ceremonial, that would be very sinful for us to do, but he has authorized these things, and so we do these things.

Prayer, on the other hand, is an element of natural worship. That means it is so natural that if God has put his thumbprints on creation itself, if we are to recognize that he exists, according to Psalm 19, according to Romans 1, that even apart from the word of God, we would recognize him.

Then, of course, it is natural that we would call out to him in prayer. So prayer is an element of natural worship. This is something that even pagans are to be doing, that they are also to be calling out to God.

Now, whether or not that is accepted is a different question because that is something that needs a mediator, but they are to be calling out to God. If they are to be, then so is your child. Another thing that's interesting here is a lot of parents teach their children to sing, right?

Almost every parent teaches their child to sing to Jesus Christ, but then the same ones who teach their children to sing to him teach them not to pray often. And so it's hypocritical on that point. If you're going to teach your child to sing to God, what is singing?

If it is to God, then it is simply prayers that are sung. So if you're going to teach your child to sing, you should teach your child also to pray. Now, you are to encourage your children in coming to the faith, in coming to Jesus Christ.

How do you do that? You do that by identifying those things that they do that are to be encouraged and encourage that. When a child professes faith in Jesus Christ, you encourage that. When a child expresses interest in the things of God, you encourage that, especially if you see them independently serving the Lord outside of your command, outside of the something that they are already being told to do.

If they are independently serving him, that's something that is especially to be commended. On the other end of that, four things where you are to also discourage those behaviors that are bad, right? If you see apathy in your child or in children, that is to be discouraged.

Now, a lot of people feel that it is rather to be tolerated and coddled. A lot of people do not bring their children to church because their children don't want to go to church, and they think that it's best not to force this on their child and to make it their own choice.

Well, one day it will be your child's own choice, but your responsibility right now is to raise them up in the way that they should go so that they would not depart from it. Your responsibility is to bring them to the worship of God, and this continues on so long as you have children in your home.

If they are under your household, if they are under your, then they are under your authority in that sense, and you should still be bringing them to the worship of God and requiring that of them in order for them to continue in your home.

That is not something that is just to be restricted to young children. It's not that, okay, you bring young children with you, but then once they're teenagers, they get to make their own choice. No, so long as they are in your household, bring them to the worship of the Lord and discourage any behavior that would go contrary to that.

Now, on top of that, you should pray for your child. You should pray for their spiritual conversion. You should pray for any kind of temptation that they might face. It's your job in particular as a parent to know your children and the kind of temptations that they might be especially subject to, and pray along those lines.

Now, let me address a few other categories here. What if you are one who your children are already out of the home? If your children are already out of the home, you can still pursue their good spiritually.

You can encourage them in following the Lord. You can still pray for them. You see what it says in 1 Timothy, it says, I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well.

Okay, so he's talking about Timothy, one of the more important figures in biblical history who is led to the faith by his grandmother and his mother. And so even if your children are out of the home, you can still invest in grandchildren.

So this is not something that ends with children being in your home, but you can continue to make an investment of it, and God will very much reward these things. Now, what if you have raised children and you very much regret the way that you raised them, that you feel that you did not lead them in the way they ought to go while you still had an opportunity to do so?

There is a great forgiveness that is available in Jesus Christ. None of what I'm saying today means that there is not forgiveness for you if you have not led your children in the way you ought. Consider what Jesus was accused of.

First of all, consider how he is a perfect sacrifice for this, right? He is one who perfectly cared for children. Okay, so if you are guilty of the sin of not caring for children, okay, he is perfect in this regard.

Now, on top of that, why is it that he suffered? What is it that he is accused of? In John chapter 11, it said that it's best for him to die in order for the children of God to be gathered who are scattered abroad.

He's accused of separating the children of God, of not caring for God's children. Okay, so this is what he's being, this is the sin, you know, that he's being saddled with is the sin that he is dying for is the sin of not caring for the children of God.