Can Children Take Communion?

The Shepherd's Church

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to this special edition of the Shepherd's Church podcast.

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Normally, we reserve this for our sermons, but this week, we got a question in on our weekly newsletter that we thought would be a helpful question to unpack in a more deliberate way, in a more thorough way, and in a way that seeks to honor not only the question, but to give it the gravity that it deserves.

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So, the question that came in this week in our newsletter was, hello, what is the church's position on kids taking communion?

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Now, this, of course, is a very serious question. And while entire books could be written on this topic,

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I do want to take a moment to lay out some foundation points on it, and I want to offer a few helpful questions that parents can be asking as they approach this issue for their children.

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And then at the end, I want to present what the Shepherd's Church's position is on this topic.

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So, first, let's talk about some foundations. What is communion? Well, communion is one of the two sacraments that the

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Lord Jesus installed for his church. It's a covenant meal for covenant members who proclaim and participate in new covenant realities until Jesus returns.

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Paul, in perhaps the most comprehensive passage on this topic, says in 1

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Corinthians 11, 23 through 34, I'm going to read that passage, and then we're going to unpack what

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Paul is teaching us here. So, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, for I received from the

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Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed, he took bread and he gave.

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And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

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And the same way he took the cup also after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant my blood.

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Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the

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Lord's death until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the

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Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink the cup for he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.

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For this reason, many among you are weak and sick and a number of you sleep. But if we judge ourself rightly, we would not be judged.

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And when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.

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So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that you will not come together for judgment.

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The remaining matters I will arrange when I come. Now from this passage, we learn several critical things and none of what

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I'm going to share right now is going to be completely exhaustive. But I do want to share some high level points that Paul is making so that we will start to have a foundational view of what

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Paul is talking about. The first is communion is communal.

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Far than just being a pithy, illiterated statement, Paul tells us that when Jesus gathered his disciples together for that final

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Passover meal on the night that he was betrayed, it was in the context of a communal gathering of his disciples.

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That was the context in which they first gathered for that first covenant meal. And then Paul tells us also in this passage, which is about 20 years later, that Christians were still taking that meal in a covenant community setting.

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And while the Lord's Supper originated from within the Passover tradition, which is wonderful and beautiful, and that's a topic all by itself, it did eventually become its own communion or communal meal.

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And the earliest Christians, all the evidence that we have is that they took it together in community.

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So that's the first thing we learn is communion is communal. The second thing we learn from this passage is that communion is frequent and perpetual.

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Since these believers gathered as a church and since they took the supper whenever they gathered, I believe it's right to assume that they took communion on a weekly basis.

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And while I realize that many churches do not take the meal on a weekly basis, I do believe that this is the most biblical and faithful method based on this passage.

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It's also clear that the taking of communion was not a seasonal endeavor. It wasn't something that they did weekly for a season or for a year or for a decade or for whatever.

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No, we do this continually until the Lord Jesus returns. This is a perpetual covenant meal for the covenant people of God.

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So it's both frequent and it's perpetual. That's the second thing. The third thing that we learn is that communion is more than food.

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It's more than bread. It's more than juice. It's more than the physical elements. There's something significant that is happening in this meal.

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Paul tells us that Christ broke the bread and he poured the cup and he blessed the elements and he gave them to his followers as a representation of Jesus's body and blood.

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Now, understanding what that representation is and all of the practical implications that come with that has caused a tremendous amount of confusion all throughout church history that I want to unpack just for a moment so that we will have a proper view.

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And then after we share a few historical facts about how the church has understood that body and blood and how it's represented and how it's given to us, after we talk about that for a few moments, then

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I'm going to tell you where the Shepherd's Church views this. First, you have the

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Catholic view and it developed over time. But around the 14 and 15 hundreds, it was a solidified view and a heretical view that communion is necessary for salvation.

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Because of that, the Catholic Church wrongly, and I would even say shockingly, believes that when

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Jesus blesses the bread and the wine. And then he gives those elements to his people, that what he's doing there is that he is causing those elements to become his real body and his real blood that is going to be re -sacrificed for the believer's sin throughout the church age.

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This view is called transubstantiation, and it's the view that the bread and the wine become his physical body and blood so that when you eat the bread, you're eating

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Jesus's body. When you drink the cup, you are drinking Jesus's blood. And instead of them viewing his one -time death on the cross as being sufficient to cover the sins of Christians, the

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Catholic Church believes that Jesus must be sacrificed again and again and again, and that believers must eat his real flesh and his real blood if they are going to have forgiveness of sins.

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Because in the Catholic view, you sin every day, so Jesus must be sacrificed every time you come to the table.

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And it's no good for you unless you eat it. And again, they believe that it's his physical body and his physical blood, which is not only wrong biblically, but it equates to the sort of divine cannibalism, which we thoroughly and utterly reject.

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That's the Catholic view. The Lutheran view was brought about by a man named

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Martin Luther. Now, around the 1500s, Martin Luther came up and he rejected the Catholic view.

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That this was Jesus's real flesh and blood. And he rejected also that this communion was salvific, meaning we do not do it in order to be saved.

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And if we do not partake of it, we do not lose our salvation. So Luther affirmed those things are wrong.

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But Luther also affirmed from this passage and from others that the Lord is sharing his real presence at the table.

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With the disciples and with all of us as we take this meal, Luther determined that while the bread and the wine did not physically change.

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Into the body and blood of Christ, Christ was nonetheless somehow physically present at the meal with his people, this understanding caused

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Luther to hold a high view of communion, and it's a view that we now call con substantiation.

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And it's a view that when Luther articulated it, he had trouble articulating it, by the way, but he would say that while the body and the blood are not physically present on the plate, that Jesus somehow is is with the elements.

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He is present in the elements. And when we stand at the table to take the

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Lord's Supper, we entertain Jesus Christ himself as our guest at the table.

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So Luther would see communion as a meal where we are physically dining with Christ.

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That's how Luther would see it. Now, the next generation of Protestant reformers brought about two different views.

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John Calvin agreed with Luther that the Catholic Church possessed a heretical view and that the elements do not physically change.

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But he disagreed with Luther that Christ was physically present at the table. Calvin cited many passages from Scripture where Christ is physically present in heaven.

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He is seated at the right hand of God. He rules on his throne. And unlike the father who is beyond space and time, and unlike the spirit who inhabits every single believer all at the same time,

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Calvin rightly argued that Jesus has chosen to limit himself to a physical body and that that physical body is in heaven where he lives in rules.

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And Luther, not Luther, Calvin would have probably cited Philippians 2, 5 through 11 in his argument there that Christ is physically present in heaven.

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He does not come and physically join us at the table. So for this reason,

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Christ cannot be physically present in two locations. Calvin called this the bilocality of Christ, and he rejected that.

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But Calvin did hold a high view of the table. And I would say that he did rightly recognize that something is happening at the table that is more than just a symbol.

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Christ is present in some way, but it's not physical. And it was this understanding that led

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Calvin to say that while the physical presence of Jesus was not at the table, the real and spiritual presence of Jesus was at the table.

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Meaning that the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Jesus Christ is what he's called in scripture, is spiritually present with us as a body of believers when we gather at the

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Lord's table, which means when we take communion, it is one of the most sacred and holy things that we could ever do as a believer.

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It's not just a ceremony and it's not just a symbol. The church gathers around the real and the spiritual presence of Christ, meaning the

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Holy Spirit is extra specially present when Jesus's church gathers together to take communion.

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And we must have a high view of the table. That's what Calvin would say. The second view that emerged in response to and disagreement with Luther was the

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Zwinglian view, Ulrich Zwingli. He was another Protestant reformer and he rejected both

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Calvin and Luther. In fact, he stated that there's no special presence of Christ at the table. It's just a memorial.

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It's just a symbol. And he would even say that there's nothing inherently more significant about communion than the other aspects of our corporate gathering.

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So when we read the word, sing the word, preach the word and take the elements of communion, they're all on similar and equal footing.

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And admittedly, this is the majority position that is held in evangelicalism today.

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So that's essentially the four views. And they all came out of the Reformation era.

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Now, the Shepherd's Church, we reject the Catholic view completely and outrightly as heresy.

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It is not a Christian view. It is akin to divine cannibalism and we thoroughly and utterly reject it.

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But I will say this, we do show grace to our brothers and sisters in the Lord who take the

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Lutheran and Zwinglian view. Meaning those who believe that Christ is physically present at the table and those who believe that Christ is not present at all at the table.

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We show them grace because they're brothers and sisters in the Lord. But given the biblical data, we firmly and resoundingly acknowledge that communion is more than just a ceremony.

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While Jesus is not physically at our table, his real presence is there and it's nourishing us and it's feeding us and he is communing with us through his spirit.

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And for that reason, we want to have an extremely reverent and sacred view of the spiritual realities that are happening at the supper.

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Christ established this as something special. And we want to treat it as such.

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In fact, we believe that it should be the most sacred, sober and serious moment in our service.

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So that's the third thing we learn from this passage and from history is that communion is more than food.

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The fourth thing we learn from this passage is that communion is participation and proclamation of Christ.

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Since we covered this above, I just want to say it here. Communion is participating and communing with the real presence of Jesus.

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When we take communion, we are participating in him and not just with him.

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And by doing that, we are proclaiming his death until he returns. So communion, we learn fourth, is participation in Christ and proclamation of Christ.

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Number five, communion is for believers. We learned that right here in this passage, and it must be stated that the elements of the

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Lord's Supper represent realities that only the believer can or will affirm.

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Jesus says that this is his body that is broken for us, that it's his blood that is shed for us.

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The us in this equation applies to the true church of Christ. It's an exclusive meal for believers in Jesus, and it cannot and must not be taken by anyone who cannot resoundingly affirm that they are a part of the us.

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It cannot be taken by unbelievers. The Bible is serious about this, and we want to be serious about this as a church.

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Number six, the sixth thing that we learned from this passage is communion is for the repentant. Along the same lines, communion is not an absolute right for the believer, without exception, meaning that the believer cannot, just because they've placed their faith and hope in Jesus Christ, have a low view of communion and treat it only as if it's just a celebration.

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Though there's things that are going on in Corinth that we have to learn from and understand that communion is not just for the believer, it's for the repentant believer.

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Paul corrects these Corinthians for both their low view of Christ and their own sin and also their low view of everyone else.

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He admonishes them for their unrepentant sin that they have in their life, that they're unwilling to confess. But he also rebukes them for their wicked treatment of their brother and sister, which has caused disunity within the community of God.

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Essentially, what you see undergirding this passage is the great commandment. These followers of Christ have not loved

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God with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and they have not loved their neighbor as themselves. So they must repent before they can take communion.

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So again, beyond a believer who is simply reverent in how they approach the table, we have to also begin to see that communion is only available to those who are pursuing repentance to Christ and reconciliation with man.

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If we're living an unrepentant lifestyle, we must not participate in the table. If we have an issue with someone in the community that has not been dealt with, we must not participate at the table.

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These are biblical qualifications. They're real. They're right there in the text. And I want all of us to not only know and understand them, but I want us to take them seriously.

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Number seven, communion is also a curse. Paul tells us that the reason some of these church members were sick and asleep, and that word asleep is just a euphemism for death, was because they flippantly approached the table of God.

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He's saying that there are real world and corporate level consequences for not getting this right, which ought to immediately grab our attention.

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Again, this happens when an unbeliever comes to the table and is not lovingly protected from that.

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This happens when a believer comes to the table, who's living in unrepentant sin to God and is not protected from that.

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And this comes when a believer approaches the table with a broken relationship in the community and is not protected from that.

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We must work hard to ensure that we are right before God and others before coming forward, because while communion is a great blessing, it can also be a curse for those who are out of union with Christ.

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People were getting sick and people were dying. And I want to just be humble enough to say that if the

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Bible says this, that I want to believe this and I want to approach this table with reverence.

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But the eighth point, and I don't want this to be lost here, is that communion is also a massive and tremendous blessing from God to us.

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It's participation in and with Christ. It's for our joy and our satisfaction that we would take it.

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I mean, think about it this way. If we're not taking the table for whatever reason, if we are in a season of our life, not taking communion at church,

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I believe we should feel in a very real sense that we are not only missing out on a real grace that God has provided for our life, but we're being biblically disobedient.

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And this is cause for repentance because we are not only being disobedient, we are also cutting ourself off from a special grace that Jesus has for us.

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You see, often repentance is not just doing the thing that makes God angry. It's not doing the thing whereby

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God will bless you. See, that's really, really, really important. We're not just missing out if we choose to disobey

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God in this area and we're afraid that we're going to make God angry. We're missing out because we've cut ourself off from an avenue of God's tangible and real grace in our life.

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Therefore, I want us to yearn for that. I want us to treat it also as holy.

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It is both a blessing and a curse. Both are true. Nine, the ninth thing that we learn from this passage, again, this is not exhaustive.

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These are just basic things that are right there in the text. Leaders are going to be judged more severely on this than the congregation.

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Just like Paul wrote these challenging words to the leaders of the Corinthian church, I also realized that Derek and I are going to stand before the

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Lord on how we lead the church in this area. Since adults and children of believing parents participate in communion at our gatherings, we have to have some theology behind this decision or we are also being flippant with the text and we're worthy of the

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Lord's rebuke. And this understanding causes both of us to approach this issue with fear and trembling.

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But I'm going to be honest, the ninth thing that we learned from this text or the 10th, I've lost count now, leaders have to also have a responsibility to learn.

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Because of the severity of this issue, Derek and I take it as our sacred responsibility to continue studying the topic.

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For 10 years, I have personally read and studied all of the passages on communion. I've tried, honestly,

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I've tried my best to understand the covenantal framework that's undergirding this meal and this supper.

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I've studied various books on different theological positions on this.

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I've looked back in history. I've read articles from pastors who are trying to help me understand how to administer these elements.

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I've watched lectures. I've taken seminary classes on this. I've written papers on this. And after all of that,

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I'll be the very first person to admit to you that I still need more study. This issue is too important not to.

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Jesus instituted two and only two sacraments for his church, baptism and communion.

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And we must be careful to understand them rightly. And in many ways, there are very few things that have been more misunderstood.

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So it requires that we be diligent and that we learn. And until the

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Lord Jesus returns, we must, as elders, be wrestling over this issue to make sure that we are not only loving you rightly, loving the

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Lord rightly, but we're protecting you and shepherding you well in regard to this topic. Can you imagine the rebuke that these

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Corinthian leaders had because they allowed these things to happen in their church?

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Of course, there's individual culpability that was going on, and Paul calls that out.

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But for a leader to study and to know and to learn and to not say something garners a much more stern rebuke.

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So we want to be careful in this. We want to be reverent in this. We want to be faithful in this.

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And we want to do that as a service to you. Eleven, leaders have a responsibility to teach.

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Along with continuing to learn, leaders have a responsibility to communicate these things to the people.

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Paul did not expect these leaders to simply read his rebuke and then to stay silent about it.

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He didn't expect that they would get together in a small group study and they would repent privately and they would never bring it up to the congregation.

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He expected them to gather the church together to read these words out loud and for repentance to come not only among the leaders, but corporately where it was needed.

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And this particularly is why every single service, we take a moment to teach aspects of communion from various passages in Scripture so that all of us would have a growing understanding of what the supper means, that we would understand why we take it, who can take it, what heart level position that we must be in when we're taking it.

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We try to cover all of the things like this because we want to teach orthodoxy.

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It's important. We want to be like the men who led the

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Corinthian church who didn't just assume that they were tracking with Paul, but they made sure that everyone in the community was tracking with Paul.

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But even while saying that, I must admit that we have a lot of room to grow in this area and there is cause for some repentance that I want to be honest about.

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To the best of my knowledge, Derek and I have not taught the entirety of what it means to take communion.

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We've taught aspects of this at the gathering. We've went through passages of Scripture, but we've not given a full treatment of this like we're doing here.

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And for that, I'm sorry. I want to apologize and repent to you that I have not done that and I am sorry for that.

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I also want to say that as an aspect of this, the question has caused me to realize the question of can kids participate in communion has caused me to question and I realized that I have not yet taught parents how to approach this issue on behalf of their children.

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I might have done a fair job of preparing individual believers to be able to approach the table and take the supper.

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And I've taught that and Derek has taught that in our services, but I haven't yet unpacked how parents are supposed to approach this with their children.

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And for that, I also apologize. And I want to repent because this is an important issue and we need to take it seriously.

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And we want to seek to correct this from now on moving forward. Now, with those 11 or 12 foundations in place, and there's more that we could go into, but I think that's a good place to stop.

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I now want to give you some questions that will guide you not only as an adult.

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And if you don't have children, these questions can still be very helpful for you and how you approach the table. But I also want these questions to be especially helpful for parents when determining if our children are ready to participate in communion.

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And I'm going to break these down into the three categories that we discussed above. Communion is for believers.

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It's for believers who are repenting and in good standing with Christ. And it is for believers who are in good standing in the community of faith.

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That is essentially the three qualifications that Paul gives in this passage. So the questions that you can not only use to examine your own life, but also for the life of your child is this.

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Number one, is my child a Christian as outlined in scripture? Does my child possess or profess

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Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? And do they know what that means? Does my child exhibit and embody the fruits of the spirit?

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Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, all of them. Does my child embody that?

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Do I see evidence of the Spirit's work in the life of my child so that they experience sorrow when they sin and an eagerness for repentance as evidence of the indwelling work of the

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Holy Spirit? Do they have those things? If not, am

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I willing as a parent to not only wait, but to withhold communion from my child until such time as I am convinced of my child standing before the

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Lord? Am I willing to be faithful in that? And am

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I also willing as the pastor, shepherd, leader of my home, am

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I willing to have further conversations with my child in order to disciple them towards this? When we think about union with Christ, we could ask several questions as well.

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The six or so questions that I just asked a second ago, we're really getting at is my child a believer, but what about union with Christ?

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Is there anything in my child's life today, maybe they're a believer, but is there anything in their life today that would prevent them from participating in communion today during the service that we're getting ready to have?

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And maybe a follow -up to that is, does my child understand the reality that is even taking place in this moment?

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And if not, if they don't fundamentally understand what they are doing, is it a good idea for them to participate?

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And if they don't understand what conversations can and should we be having as parents to help them understand the reality of what's happening here?

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When we think about union, not only with Christ, but also union with others, a really challenging question that we have to ask, and I'll admit

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I don't have a great answer for it yet, is has my child been baptized into Jesus's body?

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Has my child obediently, as Jesus commanded, been baptized?

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Because if my child is a believer and has not been baptized, then I have to ask the question, is my child being obedient to Christ in this area of their life?

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If my child is a sincere believer and they have the cognitive faculties to understand who

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Jesus is, but they have not yet been baptized, that's a tough question. Especially when we're talking about participation in communion.

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And I just want to be honest here, this is a question that we're still wrestling with. And while I will tell you my personal perspective on this is

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I currently do not see this as prohibitive, meaning I do not,

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I'm not yet convinced that if you've not been baptized as a child who understands and believes the gospel, that you then cannot take communion.

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I'm not yet convinced of that. It's a question that is worth exploring. It's a question that we're committed to continue thinking about and praying about and researching about.

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But right now, here's how we're processing this as the elders of this church and the ones who are going to have to stand before the

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Lord on this issue. And I would also say as pastor, shepherd of your home, you can also process through this with us as well.

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And I'd invite any feedback if you've done research on this, or I would love it if this particular question would even cause us to return to the scriptures and to study and to learn and to think and to process.

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Praise God if that is the outcome. What a wonderful outcome that would be. But here's how we're processing this.

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If Paul says to this church that communion, the

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Lord's table is offered to believing, repentant and covenant members of the church, that Corinthian community.

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And if those covenant members were baptized as believers, then should baptism logically precede participation?

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Meaning, should baptism come first and should communion be allowed only for those who have been baptized?

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Now, at this point, I will tell you, my conscience is clear that children who have not yet been baptized may participate with their parents so long as their parents are resolved that their children are believers who meet the biblical qualifications for communion.

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And there is a plan in place for their child to be baptized when that is appropriate. But I would also say that if that child is in a position to understand the dynamic of communion, to know for sure that they are a follower of Christ, that that child is, unless there's good evidence why not to baptize them, that child is ready to be baptized.

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And that would be a conversation I would love to have. That's just, I want to throw that question out there because it's a tough one.

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I don't yet fully understand all of the dynamics that play in it biblically, but I am committed to continue studying and I wanted you to know where I'm at on it.

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It's a question worth asking though. So I commend it to you to ask. Another question, when we think about union with other people, does my child have a biblical understanding of what's happening communally at the table?

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Do they understand that Christ is present spiritually at the table among his believers? And if not, in what ways can my child grow in this understanding?

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What conversation should we be having as a family? And because we've taken the effort to put this podcast together and because we've taken the effort to put this out there as a blog article, it could be an opportunity where over the course of the next several weeks, you're able to have conversations with your children on every single one of these points that we're bringing up and use this document as a teaching text for the conversations that you have with your kids at the dinner table.

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You can obviously turn these things into much less weighty and adult -like concepts because I've clearly written this and I'm speaking to adults.

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You can take this and you can bring it down on a child's level and you can use this as a way to engage your child in conversations because I really believe that our children must understand what's happening in communion if we're going to allow them to participate.

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Because we have a responsibility to protect them as well, just like the leaders in the

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Church of Corinth had a responsibility to protect their flock from the damaging consequences of participating in the table wrongly.

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So think about that. Does my child understand this and what am

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I going to do to help them understand this through conversation? Now, the last question that I want you to wrestle with, and this is an important question.

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This is really the heart of it all. This is the question above all questions. This is the one that I would say requires the most honest and ardent exploration.

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Given everything that I've read above, am I settled in my own conscience before the Lord that my child should participate in communion?

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And if you don't have children, turn that question around and say, given everything that I've read above or listened to on this podcast, am

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I settled in my conscience that I am in right standing to participate in communion? And this is not just a question ultimately where you say, am

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I in right standing to participate in communion at all? Ask this question every week. Given everything that I've read above, am

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I settled in my conscience that today I'm in good standing or today my children are in good standing with the

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Lord to take communion? So those are some things to ask as you process this.

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Now, the final little section of this podcast today as we explore this together is practical application.

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Here's some things that I want you to think through as you process through the data that we've just given.

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Number one, there is a biblical accountability that we have as parents. That is most certainly true.

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Like a pastor who presides over a congregation, parents are held accountable to the Lord for how we shepherd our children.

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They're the little flock that we have at home, and by God's grace, we've been called to shepherd them. Since there's no biblical age that is specified in the

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Bible for when a child may participate in communion, it is our role as a parent to have confident answers for the questions that we've just asked.

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Instead of the church making a one -size -fits -all declaration that no child under X age or no child unless they've been examined, etc.,

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instead of us making that one -size -fits -all approach, what we've decided is to allow our fathers and our mothers to prayerfully make this decision for their children because they know their child best and because they're in a better position to make this determination week in and week out than we are.

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So that's the first practical application is that you have a biblical accountability before the

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Lord to steward your relationship with your children and to help them by making this decision for them and with them.

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The second practical application is that there must be healthy communication. I would encourage every parent who is reading this article or listening to this on the blog or on the podcast that they would not wait to make this decision just moments before we take the supper at church, but to make it in advance and to incorporate it into the conversations that we're having with our families.

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As parents, we must prayerfully consider whether our children are in the faith and that they're walking with the

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Lord. And this is not a decision that happens on a Saturday evening. This is an ongoing thing that we're going to be thinking about as parents, and this is essential.

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And we also must pray not only if our children are saved, but we're also praying for them that they would have a healthy approach to their walk with Jesus and their relationship with others in the body of Christ.

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That's good and right. But even beyond that, I think whatever decision that we come to in regard to participation and communion, we can't just leave it in the private conversations that we're having among husband and wife, that we have to bring these into the conversations that we're having with our children.

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Now, let me be clear in this. I want to state this right up front because I want us to understand how this conversation needs to be had.

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Our children are in no way deficient as image bearers of God if we, as their parents, decide that they are not yet ready to participate in communion.

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The messaging to our children cannot and must not be, you're not good enough, you don't meet the standard, you don't measure up, nothing like that.

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Because if we say it like that, then we're going to give them this terribly wrong and destructively religious idea that participation in the supper is based on what we can do for Jesus and it is not.

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Both salvation and participation are gifts from God. We're not saved by what we do for Him and we do not participate in the table in order to appease

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Him. All of it is a gift from God. All of it is grace. Therefore, our communication with our children must be

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God -centered and I believe that it must be rooted in the adoption that we have in the family of God.

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And I'll explain that as our third practical application from this is that we must have a theology of adoption.

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A theology of adoption. As parents who are seeking to communicate these things to our children,

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I've found just in my own life as a parent that unpacking a theology of adoption has been the most incredibly helpful thing that I can do for my children to teach them that God is

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Father. To teach them that Christians are adopted into the family of God and that we are

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God's kids because of what Christ has done. To teach them that if we want the benefit of being in God's family, then we have to be a member of God's family.

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And listen, what a wonderful conversation that that is. When we're having that conversation, we're able to teach our children about communion as adopted members of God's family.

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That means we get to present the gospel to our kids. We get to share how God is a loving father and how

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Christ has rescued us as our true and older brother while we were yet orphans. We get to share with our kids who instinctively and innately understand what it's like to be a part of a family, how they can be a part of the family of God through Christ.

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We get to show them how someone is made into a child of God through his death, burial, and resurrection and through our profession of faith in Christ and what amazing love the father has for his newly adopted children than to make us sons and daughters.

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Just like a human father bends down and dotes on his baby child, our father, because what

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Jesus Christ has done, treats us that way. And we get to teach our kids that they're loved that way by God when they are

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God's kids. And we get a chance to talk through that. We get to teach them about the family rules that children in God's house follow because they love him and they want to obey him.

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Just like every single family has rules that they obey to help the family function, well, we get a chance to talk about the rules that are in the family of God.

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We get a chance to share what fun traditions that this new family has, you know, like some families do elf on a shelf or some families do other traditions that set that family apart is unique and special.

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And it gives the children a sense of identity in the family. Well, as men and women and children in the family of God, we have certain characteristics and things that make us unique as God's people.

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We get to participate in the church, which is like family reunions. We get to participate in baptism and in communion and reading the word.

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And I simply bring all of this up because I want us to open up the lines of communication on things like communion by rooting it in the theology of adoption so that we get to tell the story of the gospel and why all of this is so important.

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Instead of the conversation being rooted in, well, you can't do this, which is religion.

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It needs to be rooted in here is what you can have my child in Christ, which is about relationship.

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Instead of us saying you cannot take communion today, we get to joyfully sit them down and walk through how this is something that they are going to get to experience when they are members of the household of God.

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And that opens up the lines of communication on not you don't get to, but soon you will be able to.

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And I just think that that is a beautiful way of framing the discussion. And I hope that that distinction makes sense.

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The fourth application that I would say is that we have to have ferocious courage.

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If you're a parent and you do not know, or maybe you're not yet confident on whether your child is truly in the faith, whether they're repentant, whether they're in good standing in the community,

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I just would say you have to have the courage in that moment to obey the

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Lord on behalf of your unbelieving or not yet believing child. It is more loving to sit them down and have a conversation on what communion is, why we take it, who takes it, how serious it is to God, than to allow our children to participate in something that they're not yet ready for and they do not fully understand.

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So that requires courage. I think it also requires a committed commitment to exploration.

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Children participating in communion is a very deep theological and important issue where so much could be said, and we're already at 45 minutes now.

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There's a lot that needs to be said and probably has not even yet been said. There's things that I have not mentioned that I probably should have.

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But with that said, both Derek and I are going to make ourselves available to any parent or any person in this church who would like to further discuss these issues because it is important that all of us, not just the elders, it is important that all of us would continue to explore these details in depth so that we understand them and that we rightly are participating in them.

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And one of the ways that we'll do that is if you want to call us on the phone, if you want to meet and talk about these over coffee or in person, or if you would like for us to point you in the direction of good resources so that you can continue to study that.

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And I'll tell you that right now, currently, I'm going to take a season. And by season,

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I don't know how long that is because it does take me a little bit of time to work through resources in this current season that I'm in.

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But I want to start compiling a list of the helpful, accurate, faithful, and godly resources so that I can get a list together so that I can have that list ready and available if any parent would like to dive deeper or any person in our church would like to dive deeper into this issue.

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So with that, I just want to say that have an attitude of committed exploration in this topic and be willing to study it and go further into it because it is a worthy topic for our understanding it.

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And if you don't yet understand it, let me know, and I'd be more than happy to have the conversation.

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Next is fearless leadership. I would say that we have to give ourselves and our kids a lot of grace in this topic because we don't want to make decisions for our kids out of anxiety or fear.

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We want to make decisions in the courage and the wisdom of the Lord. And there may be seasons where we are reasonably convinced that our child is a believer and then there's other seasons where we just don't know.

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Our job is not to know with certainty whether our child is a

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Christian. That is God's job. Our job is to lead them to the Lord every day, to point them to Jesus Christ in every aspect of their life, and to help them prepare to take the table rightly.

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As a parent, until our child is making decisions on their own, we have the right and responsibility before the

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Lord to not only make those decisions for them, but to also lead them towards godly decision making.

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You see, there's a moment in our parenting where we stop making the decisions entirely for our children.

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For instance, when Addison is on the floor and she's crawling towards the oven, I don't talk to her about that particular moment.

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I make the decision for her and I move her so that she is not going to get burned. She doesn't have the ability yet to reason through that.

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I make that decision for her. But with Graham and with Haley, if I see them moving towards something where they're going to get hurt or they're going to make a poor decision,

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I don't physically stop them at that point. I sit down and talk with them.

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I lead them. I communicate with them so that they can begin learning how to make a godly decision.

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Now, if they still persist and they still want to make an ungodly decision, I will increase my leadership in that moment, which may cause some sort of restraining so that they, not physical restraining, but some sort of restraining where they're not able to do the thing that they want to do.

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There's grounding or there's other forms of punishment where we've given them the opportunity to consider these things and they've still gone the way of sin and that's appropriate.

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But when we're talking about children who are in that discussion of whether or not they can participate in communion, we got to have these conversations with them so that they can start learning how to make godly decisions on their own.

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And the real win would be if in the conversation with our child, they come to the conclusion based on the biblical data,

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I don't think I'm ready to take communion. What a win that would be. But if they're not yet ready to understand, if they don't meet the biblical qualifications and they're not yet ready to understand why they shouldn't take it, well, as a parent, don't we have the opportunity and the responsibility to make that decision for them, to protect them and to care for them.

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Just like a pastor would care for a congregation, we as parents are pastors of our homes.

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So we have to take this seriously. Next application, I would just say you have a joy -filled freedom if your child is a believer.

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And to me, this is probably one of the coolest things ever. If you're a parent and you're convinced that your child meets the biblical qualifications, then

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I want you to have the most crazy, joy -filled freedom that you could possibly have to not only walk your child up to the table and to not only lead them in taking it with you, but to also celebrate alongside of them at the table.

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More than the simple parent -child dynamic that is true in your relationship with your kids, when you, this is so cool, when you sit or stand with your believing child at the table of Jesus Christ, you are standing with your equal in Christ.

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You are standing with little co -heirs of his promise. When Paul says there's neither slave nor free, there's neither

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Jew nor Greek, think about this, there's neither parent nor child at the table of Christ.

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And as you stand there with your child taking communion, you're really standing with a brother and a sister in the

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Lord that for a season of your life, God has entrusted you to care for. What a cool visual of our responsibility to not just our kids, but co -heirs in the promises of Jesus Christ.

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I just think that that's such a beautiful image. Finally, the last practical application

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I would give you before I share with you a summary of the Shepherd's Church position on this issue is just an example of how to have this conversation.

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What I wanted to do is I wanted to give everyone a practical example before we conclude this episode on how to talk about this and how to incorporate these things into your conversation.

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Now, I know that you're going to be having these conversations, but this is what I would do if I were going to have this conversation as a father, because God has called me to spiritually lead my family and to have this conversation.

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So I want you to imagine with me that you've driven to the Shepherd's Church. It's Saturday evening.

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And before going in, because it's so easy to just take the keys out of the car and just bolt in because that's the next thing on our to -do list.

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But instead of doing that, imagine having a moment where you say, hey, guys,

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I'm talking to my wife and my kids at this moment. Hey, guys, we're about to enter God's house.

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How exciting is that? And we're going to go into this place, this thing that we call the church, where we're going to gather with God's people to worship him and experience his presence.

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You know, the Bible says, kids, that God's presence is present, special, in a special way when we gather as the church.

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And while we're here, I just want to tell you, we're going to sing some songs of praises to God. We're going to listen to the word of God read and preached.

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And you and I are going to get to experience Jesus's presence at the table of communion.

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But before we go in to church today, I want us to just take a moment to make sure that our hearts are in the right place.

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Is there anything at all that we need to talk about as a family before we go in?

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Is there any sin that's still weighing on your heart? Is there any relationship that has been broken?

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Is there anything that you want to confess to Jesus right now before we go in and we join the church in praising

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God and experiencing God? Is there anything? And fathers, as you're doing that, and if you took two separate cars and mom has the kids, and mothers, as you were doing that, you allow your children to prepare well for church.

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You allow your children to get in the space of, I'm leaving the van or I'm leaving the car and I'm going into a sacred space.

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You give them the opportunity to see the high calling that we all have as participants and to see that the

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Lord is worthy of our careful examination. We don't need to examine ourselves before we go in to eat.

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We don't need to examine ourselves before we go into the house. We don't need to examine ourselves before we go out on the playground.

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But when we go into the church, we get the awesome responsibility and privilege of examining ourselves before the

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Lord so that our hearts are ready to receive what he has for us. It allows our children to become comfortable sharing their struggles with us.

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How many children, because they're afraid of what their mom and dad are going to think of them, have so much trouble and fear sharing their sins with their moms and dads?

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And along that line, it gives us as parents the opportunity to be vulnerable. One of the things about being a parent and leader of my children is that I don't ask a question that I'm not willing to answer myself.

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When I ask the question, is there anything on my heart that I need to repent of? If there is, then

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I need to be faithful to my family, to admit that to my family in vulnerability and to say, this is how

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I've fallen short this week. This is the relationship that I have wounded this week. I need to confess this to you, to the

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Lord. But I'm going to tell you guys what's going on in my head and my heart. And that's a great opportunity to even say, in the book of 1

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John, it says, confess your sins one to another without shame or fear or guilt. I want to confess to you guys that I've fallen short from the glorious standard of God this week, and here's how

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I've fallen short, and here's how I want to repent, and here's how I'm going to pray about it. As a father, when you lead your family in that way, your kids come alive.

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They get to see that dad is vulnerable and that he is strong enough to share these things with us and praise

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God, because that points them to the true father who loves them and who wants them to come to him.

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If you're a father or a mother who makes it difficult for your children to come to you and to confess their sins, and if you're a father or a mother who makes their children look at you like you're an austere and angry authority in their life, then

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I want you to know that if they see you as vulnerable and humble and if they see you as approachable, then they're going to know that they can approach

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God as their father with boldness. They can run into his presence and they can admit their sins, and they can run out of his presence in the joy of the

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Lord, because they've seen it modeled for them. So these are just a few suggestions on how to handle this issue, and again,

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I know they're not exhaustive. I know that there's more that could be said, and I know you're probably thinking, well, there's a lot less that could be said too, and perhaps that's true, but I wanted to give you those nine or ten practical things along with the foundational things so that you could have a full view of what is going on in communion.

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Finally, I'm going to end with this. The Shepherd's Church has a position on this, and because of this question, we've now written it down.

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Before this, the position was just in Derek and I's head, but we wanted to be faithful to write this down.

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The question came to us, and we want to be faithful and responsible to say, you know what, God probably brought this question to us so that we could write it down and so that we could share this with our people.

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So that's what we did, and we came up with seven points that we believe on this issue. We believe that only

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Christians may participate in communion as outlined in Holy Scripture. We believe that only repentant

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Christians who are in good standing before God and man, not living in habitual, unconfessed sin, may participate in communion as outlined in Holy Scripture.

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We believe that children are not yet capable of making this decision entirely on their own and must come under the godly leadership of their parents.

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We believe that parents play an active role in discipling their children as believers or as future believers to love

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God above all else and to love their neighbors as themselves. We believe that the church is called to assist moms and dads and to prepare them for taking communion, not only as individuals, but to prepare them on how to lead the children in their home in this issue and in every other issue.

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We believe that the Shepherd's Church must be willing and available to provide any and all assistance to our members so that parents feel well equipped to love, lead, and shepherd their families at home.

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And finally, we believe as pastors called to shepherd this little flock, we must be men who will continue to study

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God's Word so that we are qualified to lead this church in a way that honors the Lord and also ministers faithfully to you.

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I know that's a lot of information, and I know that you probably still have some questions.

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So if you have anything that you are still looking for answers on, please don't hesitate to reach out.

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I hope this has been helpful for you, and I cannot wait to see you all as we gather together on Saturday.

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Grace and peace to you. The Jewish rabbis, would we see him coming to life in us?

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Would we see us dying daily so that he could be more and greater inside of us?

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Lord, would we have moments where people see Jesus in us instead of seeing us?

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Lord, I ask these things in your name.