Genesis 18:17-19 (Strong Children Pt. 1)

The Shepherd's Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

10

00:09

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the

00:16

Word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

00:22

Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you.

00:33

As we begin this morning, I wanted to kind of open with a interesting little historical tidbit.

00:41

As someone who likes to fancy himself a student of history, I find it not very difficult to look back, look into the past, and kind of anachronistically question the thought processes of different men and women through the centuries.

00:55

You know, in hindsight, you know, for example, it's easy to look at someone like George Custer, if you're familiar, and you know,

01:01

Battle of Little Bighorn, thinking when he led this attack against this Native American alliance, these group of tribes, you know, it's one of the biggest blunders in recent military history, but two -thirds of his regiment was killed, including himself, that day when he did that.

01:21

And so it's easy to look back and say, what was he thinking when he did that? But there's certainly in those moments things that maybe we didn't have sight to, and always we know hindsight is 20 -20, as they say.

01:33

And so it's easy, again, to look back and kind of Monday morning quarterback certain decisions, certain things throughout history.

01:40

But again, not generally is that a fair way for us to evaluate historical figures. On the other hand,

01:47

I do find that there are some decisions historically that make such little sense that it's difficult not to even scoff that these decisions were made at all.

01:56

These ideas existed. For example, some of you may have heard of a group called the Shakers. This is a very fascinating group of professing

02:05

Christians, really got their rise mid -18th century in England. And they have a quite a few interesting distinctives, something people will probably say about us as well.

02:15

But they have quite a few interesting distinctives that, I can't go into all of them, but one of them that is particularly of interest this morning that I wanted to highlight, is they were a celibate community.

02:27

Meaning there was gonna be no way for them to have children of their own, naturally. In time, again, they kind of got their rise mid -18th century in England.

02:36

In time, they moved, or some of them moved, to the American colonies. They established a number of sort of communities, communes, similar to like how we would imagine the

02:44

Amish to live today. And over these past couple hundred years, since they made their move over here, they've had a very interesting experience.

02:53

But from a numbers perspective, they really began to see a rise, actually, in the mid -19th century.

02:59

So less than a hundred years after they came to the American colonies at the time in the United States, their numbers across the country was starting to grow into the multiple thousands.

03:08

Just a handful of people growing into the multiple thousands by the mid -19th century. And what started, again, a very small group, was now growing.

03:17

So not bad. Not bad productivity. Seems to be a pretty good trajectory. Of course, though, they hit a little bit of a snag eventually.

03:25

Some societal things are happening in the United States, mid -19th century, obviously, leading up into the

03:31

Civil War. And so there's a lot of things that are happening, a lot of things that cause changes for how people approach things like religious sex and fanaticism.

03:41

And they started to see a very sharp decline in their membership. And obviously, they have no way to add to their number from within their own community.

03:50

Again, celibate, no natural children. And so that decline really turned into a freefall over time to where eventually today, or actually in 2022, they did like a census,

04:00

I guess, of the size of this group, the Shakers. And even though they had enjoyed that modest growth in that first hundred years, now the global population of the

04:12

Shakers is two. Not 2 ,000, not 200, not the two billion professing

04:19

Christians that we have around the world. Two, just two. And frankly,

04:24

I'm a little surprised it lasted so long, to be honest with you. But I think the takeaway is very clear as we begin this morning.

04:31

It's one that seems so obvious, again, that I can't even believe they didn't see it coming. Like, okay, who would even think that that would work?

04:37

But they did. And it was working for a little bit. But without the ability to grow their number through the bearing and raising of children, their survival was entirely dependent on new converts.

04:48

And because of that, it was incredibly tenuous, at best, that they were going to last for very long.

04:55

At least without a more systematic approach to conversion, which we'll talk about this a little bit later on.

05:07

I'd say like modern public education probably would have served them well if they had control over that at the time.

05:12

But anyways, we won't go into that. But today, we are going to consider a principle that I think makes the true

05:18

Christian faith very different than this fanatical offshoot. In fact, I'd say it's a near total opposite when it comes to how it fulfills its end, right?

05:28

The Shakers had a view of the end that caused them to make that this was one of their distinctives.

05:33

They're going to be a celibate people. But we have a view as Christians of the end that causes us, that makes us do something very different, near total opposite of how we will fulfill our end.

05:44

Over these past several weeks, we've covered what it looks like to be built up in strength, right?

05:50

To be a strong community, have our loins girded up, as it were, to be a people marked by biblical generosity, marked by the biblical masculinity of our men and the biblical femininity of our women.

06:02

And today and next week, we're going to consider the often overlooked or the afterthoughts of our community, the biblical view of our children.

06:10

And with each of these topics, there is an eye towards, again, building up the church in strength.

06:16

And we want to build up the strength of the church, this church in particular, with and on the strength of our families.

06:24

Because the many hands of strong families throughout this community will make for a lighter work for all of us.

06:32

In Christ, we work in unity together to see his church built here on earth, and for us specifically, here in our small footprint within Massachusetts and parts of New Hampshire.

06:42

As a church that's smaller and younger in existence, it's tempting to be lulled into thinking that church is just about that once -a -week event.

06:49

You know, let's give them a great, great experience on Sunday morning. It's easy to drift into thinking that, you know, slapping together a coherent service every now and then is all we really need to do.

06:58

Or even that's all we're required to do, right? It's even easy to think that. But the truth is, we know that we are, as Christians, called to much more than just attending

07:06

Lord's Day services at a local church, although we are certainly called to do that. All Christians are called to an obedience to God in all things, all of Christ, for all of life.

07:17

You see, some succumb to the lie that Christians aren't required to attend to the moral law of God or his directives, right, for obedience.

07:24

They'll cry legalism to anyone who would dare to make a claim like that. Others pick and choose what they want to obey, and then they'll claim grace as their portion to kind of cover for their disobedience.

07:35

While the righteous path acknowledges our inability to keep the law perfectly, as we talked about earlier, that's why we need the perfect Savior, the

07:43

Lord Jesus Christ. But we also, even knowing that, we strive to obey our

07:48

God, because if we love him, we will keep his commandments. And so, what we've aimed to accomplish over these past several weeks, and if you've missed any of these,

07:56

I do encourage you to circle back and listen to them, just to get a sense for what is it that we're focusing on, what are the things that we're emphasizing.

08:03

What we've aimed to accomplish is a consideration of the things that we, as a community here, want to be known by, and that we believe will help our fellowship here to grow strong, not only for today, but for generations to come, to be a community that can be a beacon of light to, and a preserving salt to the lost and dying world around us.

08:25

The world would have you believe that masculinity is a disease that men need to be cured of, or that women need to attain towards if they want to, or that femininity is the only right option if you're a man, otherwise you're an oppressor, not an ally, and femininity can be good for women, but only if they really want it, and even then, maybe not.

08:47

And that childishness is only representative of one's physical age, right, not their ability to engage in the world around them with maturity, which

08:55

I think is why we've seen the rise in child mutilation and state -sponsored kidnapping.

09:00

Of, from parents who refuse to go along with things like that, even the idea that pedophilia is a legitimate practice from the wicked and perverse.

09:11

And ironically, in all of this foolishness, what you worldly -minded people have been the poster children for childish engagement and behavior in the public discourse, adult men and women today often lack maturity to such an extent that they can't help but act like spoiled children when someone disagrees with them, or things don't go their way, or someone tells them they can't have what they don't want.

09:30

I think of that, that video of what I think was a woman, you know, screaming when Donald Trump beat

09:36

Hillary Clinton in 2016, just, just screaming. No words, like, no, just screaming. It's a wonder.

09:43

That's what I think we, culturally, what we have fallen into is that our adults act like children, and yet we don't really know what children are.

09:53

And so, if we are going to be a people built up for the long haul to withstand the foolishness of the age, to overcome the powers of darkness around us, and to fully prosper, really, in the decades and generations ahead, then we must understand what it means to know all of Christ, and for all of life, even in the earliest years, this really overlooked, often ignored part of life, and yet it's so critically important to God's purposes in the world.

10:25

And so, with that, our purpose for this week and next, again, it's going to be kind of a two -parter, I would sum up as follows.

10:31

This is, again, a message for all of us to hear, no matter how old we are, no matter what our station, this is important for us all to hear.

10:38

Key principle this week that we're going to discuss is that children matter to God. Children matter to God.

10:45

And therefore, this we'll cover more next week, we must all live in light of that.

10:51

So, parents, your children, they matter to God. Adult men and women here, who, maybe you have grown children, they're out of the house, or you don't have children yet at this stage of your life, that children in your midst here matter to God, and you have responsibility with and for them.

11:09

And children, you matter to God. And so, in our text today, we're going to see that God deeply values children as members of, and participants in His kingdom, and so, if you would, please turn with me to Genesis 18, and we're going to look in verses 17 through 19, as we're going to establish, again, that biblical principle that the children matter to God, not only as people made in His image, but particularly as one of the primary means through which

11:36

He is going to bring about His purposes, His culminated kingdom. So, Genesis 18, verses 17 through 19.

11:47

Hear the word of the Lord this morning. The Lord said,

12:07

This is the word of the

12:19

Lord. Let's pray. Lord, as we consider Your word this morning, we do pray for Your help,

12:26

God, that You would help us to come away believing Your promises and Your intentions all the more.

12:35

Lord, help us to rejoice at the truth of Your scripture, Lord, rejoice in the ways that You have revealed to us what

12:44

You are doing, but not only this, Lord, but even how You intend to do it, Lord, that You would help us to be a people who would follow after You, engage in the work that You'd have for us,

12:54

Lord, to be a people who love to obey our God. Lord, help this morning, and the delivery of this sermon as well, or this message, that You would have

13:04

Your word stand before us this morning. Lord, may it not be the whims and fancies of a man,

13:11

Lord, but may it be Your word, Your scripture that rings true here today. We pray for Your help, in Christ's name.

13:19

Amen. So again, our time this morning, we're going to focus on establishing that underlying principle of why children are important to God, and then ultimately to His kingdom.

13:28

And we're going to do that mainly from the text we just read. And then next week, Lord willing, we will consider how

13:34

God has demonstrated this importance through redemptive history, not only in stating it, but how

13:40

He even demonstrates it to us. And further, we're going to consider how this importance of children applies to us.

13:47

So a lot of application next week, not only to the children, but for all of us, and how we are to engage in this work that God's given to us in light of the principle, hopefully, that we come away with today.

13:59

So it goes without saying that children are different from adults. As we stress the importance of children as on par with that of adults,

14:07

I want to be clear not to erase distinctions between them. They are different. Male children are not the same as male adults, and female children are not the same as female adults.

14:15

There are good and obvious differences between them, mainly in their frame, right? Children are less able and strong as adults, hopefully, not only physically, but also emotionally.

14:27

But again, culturally, we see quite a different story. But there are obvious differences between them, and thus good, and what should be obvious differences in their roles in the kingdom.

14:36

One area where there is no difference, though, biblically, is their place in gathered worship. We often don't talk about that our children are here among us, because we don't want to draw unnecessary distinctions between God's people.

14:47

But for those who have, if it's your first time here, or you've been here for a couple years, surely you've noticed that the children are here, and that's important to us.

14:55

That's not accidental. It's actually a very intentional thing. That we're doing, but it might be a novel concept to many.

15:03

Maybe even a source of frustration at times, which, you know, we are sensitive to, but is something that we are, again, aware of, and there's great purpose in it.

15:14

And again, it may be a source of frustration. You're not crazy for that, potentially. You might be, but not for that reason.

15:20

And so again, I thought it was necessary to mention that today, just because we are talking about children specifically, and we don't often call out their presence.

15:29

But I will say that it's an important thing for us all to understand why they're here, and there's great purpose in it.

15:36

So we actually have published a great blog on this from a few years ago. Maybe we could even include it in this week's newsletter, because it is really helpful to understand why they're here.

15:46

But I'll summarize of why children belong in service with us for these two main reasons. One is the same reason why it's important that you're here, is that God is uniquely present when his people gather.

15:57

We see this clearly stated in Matthew 18, 20, when Jesus says, It's really throughout the scripture we see this principle as the reality that God is present when his people gather to worship him, and they gather in his name.

16:14

So again, children should be there in the presence of God, just like you should be there in the presence of God. Second reason, children throughout the scripture are included among God's people.

16:25

This is demonstrated many times when children are directly addressed in the

16:30

Bible. Texts like the fifth commandment, Exodus 20, verse 12, That's the command to children.

16:37

It's really a command to all of us, but certainly the first and obvious application is to children.

16:43

And Paul repeats this in Ephesians 6 when he says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. And he does so again in Colossians 2.

16:50

So, point being that these letters read to the church expect children to be there to hear them.

16:58

And so if these things are true, then children must be included in the gathering of God's people today, no matter what the cultural practice might be.

17:05

Again, this might be an anomaly to us today, but historically and biblically, it is the norm and standard.

17:12

Again, children belong to God's people in this visible sense, and as a church, we are resolved that we will treat them as such.

17:19

Children of all ages will be afforded the joy and blessing of participating in our

17:24

Sunday morning services, knowing that God has covenanted, He's promised to bless them with His presence.

17:30

And so we don't want to withhold them from that. And secondly, we don't want to create a program that could never live up to, never be as good as what

17:38

God promises here. We couldn't create a program as good as what God already offers to give. We don't want to give our children a second best, and we also don't want to give the volunteers who would have to keep an eye on them a second rate type of service as well.

17:54

So again, I share that as a bit of an aside, but to speak to something that I think is an important reality of our gathering here, we don't discuss very much for reasons, but it's a very important distinctive of why we do the things that we're doing.

18:07

And I think that the principle that we take from our text today is really the driving force. So we'll return to that.

18:13

Genesis 18, we're going to find in this text the principle that's going to lead us into that demonstration and application to come next week.

18:21

And what we have here in Genesis 18 is a scene in which Abraham is having a conversation with the covenant

18:28

God, with Yahweh, Jehovah. In your Bible, when it's L -O -R -D, all caps, that is the

18:34

Hebrew word Yahweh. That is referring to God by his covenant name, his personal relational name with his people.

18:43

And so the Lord appeared to Abraham at the beginning of chapter 18 by the Oaks of Mamre with two other men.

18:50

These are angels, messengers of the Lord. And so Abraham pleads with the

18:56

Lord to have a moment with God and these angels in his home, that they would come by, they'd be refreshed, and then sent along their way.

19:05

And it's in the course of this conversation that the Lord reveals to Abraham for the second time, first being the previous chapter, chapter 17, that he will have a son within the year.

19:16

And that, not just any son, because Abraham did have a son with Hagar, his wife's servant.

19:22

And they named him Ishmael several years before. But this son would be born of the womb of Abraham's barren wife.

19:29

Barren meaning no children, his wife Sarah. And notoriously in this scene, if you remember,

19:34

Sarah is listening in and she laughs at this prospect that her and Abraham, being of old age at this point, and again, her being barren her entire life, being well past the age of childbearing, it says in verse 11, she laughs at this idea that she's going to have a child within the next year.

19:53

But to the Lord, of course, this is no laughing matter. And the Lord reminds Abraham of his power.

19:58

He rhetorically asks him in verse 14, The answer, obviously, is no.

20:06

The Lord reiterates to Abraham that he's going to return in a year and it will have come to pass. Sarah will have given birth to a son.

20:14

You know, and we may wonder, why is this significant? Why does it matter so much that we see

20:20

Abraham have a son? And Abraham and Sarah specifically have a son. Why did the

20:26

Lord have to appear even to deliver this news that they would have this child? You know,

20:31

I've personally had four children. Never once had this happen to me. You know, usually it's a conspicuous, you know, pregnancy test kind of laying around the bathroom for a few days before I really notice it.

20:42

That's normally how I found out. But this is not an abnormal occurrence in the

20:53

Scripture. I should say, throughout your life, this is not something you'll find in the books. You know, what to expect before you're expecting or when you're expecting.

21:00

You don't expect to hear a word from the Lord of what is happening. But in the

21:06

Scripture, there are a few examples of this that really describe these relatively or certainly rare instances, remarkable instances.

21:16

They're not normative of what we see. But six times in the Bible, we do see this. In Genesis 16, the angel of the

21:22

Lord comes to Hagar and tells her that she's going to give birth to Abraham's son, Ishmael. This instance here,

21:28

Genesis 17 and 18, the Lord telling Abraham and Sarah that they're going to have a son who will inherit the promise, being

21:34

Isaac. Genesis 25, a couple chapters later, the Lord tells Rebekah, Isaac's wife, who's also barren, that she is carrying the twin sons of Isaac, Jacob and Esau.

21:46

Esau being the older, and the Lord tells her that the older will serve the younger, has very important covenantal implications, which we'll touch on.

21:55

Later on, jump to Judges 13, the wife of Manoah, also barren, the angel of the

22:01

Lord appears to her and tells her that she will give birth to a son, and this son will end up being Samson.

22:07

And then in the Gospels, we have to jump all the way to the Gospels for the final two examples. Luke 1 really covers these really well.

22:15

But the Lord appearing, the angel of the Lord appearing to Zacharias in the temple to tell him that his barren wife,

22:22

Elizabeth, will give birth to a son, and that they would name him John, this being John the Baptizer, not the

22:28

Baptist, John the Baptizer, and that he would come as a forerunner to the final instance, and that being the

22:35

Lord Jesus. God sends the angel Gabriel to tell the Virgin Mary that she will give birth to a son, and that he would be the savior of his people.

22:46

And obviously, with Jesus' birth, different than the rest, in that God miraculously opened barren wounds.

22:52

He opened closed wounds in a miraculous way for these other five births.

22:58

But he did that using the natural reproductive means that humans use to have children.

23:04

God opens the wound in a miraculous way with Mary. Very important that we believe this, obviously, as Christians.

23:10

Mary was a virgin, and God supernaturally, miraculously conceived the child through his

23:16

Holy Spirit, through supernatural means, did not use natural reproductive means, obviously. Now, again,

23:22

I'm not going to go into extreme details on all of these, but what we'll notice is the incredible covenantal significance of all these births.

23:29

It's clear that God, when covenantal matters are in view, promise matters, you know, covenantal and promise means, so the promises that he made, when that is in view, he will, he has, and he will intervene for his people, even defying what seems natural or normative in doing so.

23:45

You know, people often say things like, well, if God is real, then why doesn't he do something miraculous to show us?

23:51

Well, he does, we just have to pay attention. But even more importantly, we actually have to believe the promises that these miraculous interventions are displaying, right?

24:00

Because you could say, oh, someone got pregnant, big deal. You know, Sarah finally got pregnant. What's, you know, what's the big whoop, as it were?

24:07

Well, the promise, if you believe the promise, then you'll see the birth for the miracle that it is.

24:12

So it's really important for us to understand that. This instance here in Genesis 18, again, is no different.

24:18

There's significant covenantal underpinning to God's declaration of intent here to give

24:24

Abraham and Sarah a son. Looking at, again, verses 17 through 19, God is, after God has restated that he's going to give a child within a year, he says,

24:35

Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?

24:44

For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the

24:49

Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him. If you were tempted to wonder why the

24:57

Lord shows such an interest in Abraham, the reason for God's desire to give he and Sarah a son, and ultimately the reason why this text provides such an important principle understanding of the point that the children matter to God, that he has great intention for them in his purposes in history, this text should be the place that we look for the answer,

25:16

I believe. God is hearkening back here in this conversation to a number of previous conversations he had with Abraham, but most importantly, all the way back to the first conversation he had with him with Abram in Genesis 12, 1 through 3.

25:30

Genesis 12, 1 through 3, when God calls Abram for the first time. Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you.

25:42

I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.

25:48

I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

25:56

And now, so that was chapter 12. Now in chapter 18, the Lord is reiterating what has already been revealed by promise in chapter 12, that in Abraham and through his seed,

26:06

God will make a great and mighty nation that will bless the entire earth. And because God has said that, it will happen, right?

26:12

God is saying that I've already promised that. This is going to happen. And so now he's asking kind of rhetorically, really, in verses 17 and 18, he's going to be the father of a multitude of nations, and his nation is going to bless the entire world.

26:25

It's going to be a great and mighty nation. So the Lord, in that rhetorical question, is simply restating what

26:30

Abraham has already received by faith. And he's saying that I'm going to continue to reveal more and more to Abraham as a means by which he will bring to Abraham all that he has spoken to him.

26:42

So the Lord's restating this promise, rather succinctly, restating the promise and now providing more information to Abraham as far as how he's going to go about bringing this to pass.

26:56

God is going to deliver on his promise to Abraham to be a father of an entire earth -blessing nation, and he's going to do it with children, with a household.

27:08

And so God is going to, this is why the birth of Isaac is so important, God is, he's showing

27:13

Abraham, I'm going to give you a son who will inherit the promise, and all of this is because I'm bringing to you what

27:21

I promised to give to you. So Isaac is given as a seed that will help to, that will be part of God's work to fulfill his promises to Abraham.

27:30

But what's more, God's going to deliver by giving much more than one son. God says to Abraham at another point in Genesis that he will provide more than one son, he'll provide descendants more numerous than the stars in the heavens and the sand on the seashore.

27:44

But again, Abraham's old. You know, his wife is barren. They've been promised one son, but I, you know,

27:51

I can count a grain of, I can count more than one grain of sand and more than one star in the sky. So how is

27:56

God going to do this? How is God going to bring about this world -swallowing kingdom?

28:03

And the answer to this question is that God will send the seed of Abraham, right? God is going to send

28:09

Jesus Christ, the son of God, in whom all nations will be blessed. Jesus is the seed of Abraham in the truest sense that Isaac is only a picture of, right?

28:19

Isaac's a shadow to us of the Christ, the son of promise that is to come, that is

28:25

Jesus Christ. And Galatians 3 .16 teaches this clearly to us. Paul says, Paul is saying that through Christ, who is the true seed of Abraham, that through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

28:45

All the promises of God to Abraham will be fulfilled in him. And this is true. This is gospel.

28:51

We must cling to that. This helps us to properly understand what the scripture teaches from beginning to end, the connection between the

28:58

Old Testament and new, Old Covenant and new, how God has worked in all of history, right, and how

29:03

God will work as we look ahead in redemptive history. If we don't understand this, we can't possibly understand the past or the future as Christians.

29:12

And so we must cling to this truth for all eternity that Christ is this promised seed of Abraham.

29:20

We must hold fast to that because Christ has been established as the son who is the king eternal.

29:27

Having said that, I do think that we are prone to maybe an overstatement of the implications of this truth.

29:36

And we have to be mindful of this so as not to fall into the entrapments that come with that.

29:44

Because it actually causes us to no longer, I think, properly understand and apply how God's promises apply to us.

29:52

Sadly, again, many Christians today not only allowed this to fester, kind of these going too far on some of the implications, but they've fallen headlong in an embrace of it.

30:02

We do know God will fulfill all promises to Abraham through the seed, which is Christ. We believe that, right?

30:08

Again, we have to be careful of how far we take our implications there. The question is, by what means will

30:15

He do that work? What is it that Christ will do to build this kingdom so numerous that you can't even number it?

30:24

And what I'm submitting to you today is that this is what God is telling us in Genesis 18. He's telling us how

30:29

He is going to do this. How is God going to give Abraham and Abraham's seed the kingdom that He promised?

30:38

He's saying, I've made these promises to you, Abraham, and they're going to come to pass, but how is it going to play out? What am

30:43

I expecting now of you in the playing out of this promise?

30:49

Is God going to raise up sons of Abraham out of the stones for this great and mighty nation?

30:55

He certainly could, right? Jesus says as much in Luke chapter 3 that He can make sons of Abraham out of the rocks. Perhaps God will have us, like the early

31:03

Christians in the book of Acts, go to the pagans, go to the Gentiles, and evangelize them all. That this might be the most effective way for us to build the church in the long run, is to be hyper -focused on missions, missions, missions.

31:15

And for many today, it's this latter approach that seems to be the favored choice. And I probably would agree, it's better than the rocks strategy.

31:21

But is it the strategy that God would have for us? Again, many today favor that evangelistic method of mission, sending people out, sending people out as the means through which

31:33

God will accomplish His ends of the world -swallowing kingdom. And this isn't only even in that kind of moving, you know, across the world, around the world, or on the other side of the world.

31:43

You know, moving to the Congo, or to Turkey, or to China. That's not the only type of missions that I have in view here that I think people overemphasize.

31:50

But it's also in this kind of common trope of Christian pastors, I think, to say things like, who's the one person you're going to invite to church this week?

31:59

Who's that one visitor you're going to bring next week? And overemphasizing this as almost a test of faithfulness, and a test of your willingness, and even maybe your

32:09

Christian faith. And to be clear, neither of these are bad things, right? These are actually, I'd say, they can be good things in and of themselves if they're done rightly, and under particular missions, under proper oversight of the church.

32:23

But modern Christian culture, I think, overemphasizes this approach as the strategy. This is the way for you to overcome the world.

32:32

You know, in the who's your one thing, that's a good thing. Like, I think it's actually good to be intentional about the relationships that you're building, and the people that you invest in, unbelievers included.

32:42

And it's a way, you know, Lord willing, to over time, again, if it is his will, to lead someone to Christ, and to be, you know, may that glorify

32:50

God forever. I think that is a good thing to do. But I do think that churches maybe overemphasize, and overpressure people that this bringing of visitors, because they're almost looking to satisfy the wrong metrics, right?

33:04

They're trying to accomplish through very short -sighted means of, we're going to overcome the world, because we're all going to invite one person to church.

33:10

And it's short -sighted in its endeavor. And it's looking to accomplish what, in that way, what

33:17

God has said, it's going to take a long time. I want you to do this in a more patient way. And because the Lord is patient. He's far more patient than we are.

33:23

We are very impatient people. You know, the Lord is patient to wait for his elect to come to him.

33:29

And so we should join him in that patience, and not impatiently work in a way that he hasn't called us to work.

33:36

So having said that, again, neither of these is a bad thing, necessarily, in and of themselves. They're just overemphasized,

33:42

I would say, in our modern context, as the way that we're going to win down here. If you think we lose down here anyways,

33:48

I guess it doesn't really matter. But if we're going to win down here, that's if these other ways are overemphasized.

33:53

And I think that we do that culturally to justify our avoidance of the way that God actually has called us to build his kingdom.

34:02

Right? So we overemphasize these other ways, because we don't want to look at the way that he has told us to do it.

34:09

And I would argue that, again, God has given that to us in our passage today. In addition to his reiteration of the promise that he made to Abraham, God has given us the means by which he will bless all the families of the earth through the seed of Abraham, which is

34:26

Christ. So look at verse 19 again, and we're going to see this is how God is actually telling us, I made this promise to you,

34:32

Abraham, here's how I'm going to do it. He's actually telling us this in verse 19. Again, obviously understanding these things are all subservient to Christ.

34:42

Christ is the seed that all these things are pointing to, but that God would have us to work in a certain way as we see

34:48

Christ's kingdom come. Verse 19, Why has

35:03

God done this? That the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him. God has known

35:09

Abraham. He's been a friend to Abraham. He's covenanted with him. He's made promises to him. He's revealing things to him.

35:15

And why is he doing that? So that Abraham would teach his children and his household after him the way of the

35:21

Lord. And why does the Lord want Abraham to command his children in this way of obeying

35:27

God, to do righteousness and to do justice? So that, when you see so that, that's because, that's answering the question why.

35:36

Pay attention to those. Why does God want Abraham to teach his children? So that the Lord can bring about the promise that he made.

35:43

I'm going to give you what I promised you, Abraham, and the way I'm going to do it is for you to teach your children and to teach your household.

35:50

The Lord is going to bring about the world -swallowing kingdom through Abraham's investing and teaching, disciplining his children and his household to know

36:02

God as God has known Abraham. God will bring about his promise to Abraham's seed, to Christ, and he's going to do that through knowing us.

36:11

Abraham is a picture of us in this situation. God is going to bring about the culmination of history, this kingdom that covers the entire earth.

36:21

God is going to bring this about through knowing us, his people, so that we will then teach our children and teach our households.

36:28

That is God's means for doing this. And this shouldn't surprise us. I, I do think that, again, we try to avoid obedience as, as human beings.

36:39

In our flesh, we want to avoid obeying God and the things that he's called us to do, and we want to take short -sighted means because we're impatient people.

36:48

But this shouldn't surprise us that this is God's, this is God's method. This approach that he would take, it's, it's, to me it's general revelation that this is the right way to build a kingdom that would cover the entire earth.

37:02

How else would you build long -term change and have a, a huge kingdom apart from children?

37:10

Again, I think it's general revelation and you don't have to look any further than modern public education. I really think that it's built on this idea that the way to build your own kingdom, or any kingdom, is young people.

37:25

You go for the young people. Again, they know this full well. Their ideology hates children, actually.

37:30

Leftists, they hate children. You know, if it doesn't end in a death in your own mother's womb, you'll be inculcated with, you know, a godless sexual ethic.

37:40

You'll be chemically castrated. You'll be corrupted into lives of sodomy and despising marriage, loving divorce.

37:48

And if you make it through all that gambit, you'll even still refuse to have more than just a couple children.

37:55

Maybe as many children as dogs. Dogs are great. And this system, it just keeps replenishing itself, right, with every generation.

38:05

Because parents, I think until recently, have really not woken up to what is going on, what these people are trying to do.

38:11

They're coming after your children. And they're doing this because this is the only way that a culture of death, you know, very similar to the

38:18

Shakers, are a culture of no children, right? So they have to find converts, right?

38:25

Modern leftists, very few children. They have to find their converts. And so they're doing this in a very deliberate way.

38:33

And it's something that we, as Christians, need to be aware of. It's not a boogeyman that we need to be scared of, by any means.

38:38

But we need to be aware of it so that we don't allow for our children to fall into these traps.

38:44

But their women are killing their own babies. Half their men are sodomizing each other. The other half are castrating themselves.

38:50

And so they fix their sights on the children of the righteous, the children of the godly. And again, we need to be aware of that.

38:56

We need to get our children out of public schools. And I'll say that from here. If your children are in public school, you've got to get them out.

39:02

And we'll help you to do that if you do need help with that, to be clear. And so, are children important to God's plans and purposes in the world?

39:09

Yes, as they would be to any king of any kingdom. They are critically important. Again, I think this is something that we should receive generally.

39:17

And so, therefore, it should lead us to embrace this all the more. That we know. Maybe we've rejected in our lives this idea that that is the way that God would have us to build.

39:26

But no, in general, this is the way that God has called us to build. Other ways that are great, to convert, to go into the

39:34

Gentile nations, or to go proclaim the gospel on UMass Lowell campus, as we've had brothers and sisters here do.

39:42

Those are good things. But how does the Lord seek to build his kingdom? He seeks godly offspring.

39:48

And so, again, the Lord has given us the answer as to how he will do this work. We need to hear his teaching here to us.

39:56

And we need to believe him. We need to heed it and pay attention to the least of these around us, who we so typically ignore or put up with.

40:05

All right, we need to embrace children. But I'll go into application next week. I won't go too crazy on that one right now. So, again,

40:11

I hope this is an encouragement to us because the Lord has made it so clear. Right, he has made it clear what his intent is and how he will go about fulfilling it.

40:20

You know, as a church that one of our distinctives being that we're, you know, post -millennial, right, we have a very optimistic view of the future.

40:27

We believe that God is going to bring about his kingdom as we're seeing here. He's going to fulfill his promises to Abraham and to Abraham's seed.

40:35

And we're gonna, you know, it's gonna be one of those things where this kingdom will have no end. It will continue to spread.

40:41

And the Lord will be glorified, and we believe in that strongly. We're very aware of this war for the cosmos that is going on.

40:49

And we're even engaged in it. I think that's a good thing, right? We need to remain engaged in it. Because we believe that Christ is king, that the

40:56

Father intends to give the Son all of the earth as his kingdom, and that through his spirit, he's actually using the church, he's using his people to expand the borders of his kingdom.

41:07

But one thing we have to be careful not to do is allow that high -level theology to dictate the way that we look at our lives.

41:16

And let me be clear in how, what I mean by that. Often, I think, well, we all know the expression, you miss the forest for the trees, you get too focused on the small stuff, you're not seeing the big picture.

41:27

One of the dangers with the heavy emphasis, or not dangers, or potential pitfalls of heavy emphasis on this high -level post -millennial doctrine is that we actually miss the trees for the forest.

41:37

We're too busy looking at the big picture. Like, oh, that end is gonna be glorious. The whole earth is gonna be covered with the glory of God.

41:44

There'll be Christians everywhere. There'll be kings that are Christian. There'll be, you know, it's amazing.

41:51

Like, that is good. I can't wait for it. I get excited about it all the time. But we have to be careful not to let that be where we stop with our eschatology, our view of the end and how

42:02

God is working. We have to look at the trees. Because the larger, the forest is not our fight.

42:08

That's God's fight. He's moving his troops around to do the things that he wants to do.

42:13

We're just soldiers. We have to engage in the battle right in front of us. And so, if we're gonna be a part of building

42:20

Christ's kingdom and seeing the promise to Abraham and his seed fulfilled, we need to be a people who not only recognize that grander war, but recognize where our fight is in it, right?

42:30

So that's why this emphasis on being men in the biblical sense, engaged in God's work in our homes, in the church, in our communities, being women engaged in God's work in our homes, in the church, in the community, and being children engaged in God's work in our homes, in the church, and in our communities.

42:50

It's incredibly, incredibly important that we know how to apply our optimism, and we know how to apply

42:57

God's law to our lives so that we actually are engaged in moving the ball forward, right?

43:05

So this is critically, critically important. Really, next week, like I said, that's where, from a children's perspective, where we really want to dig into what does that look like, not only for the children, but for us as well, to help them.

43:17

And so we have to be engaged in this. We have to be thinking about the battles that God would have for us, and try to understand that how we can engage by faith and through the power of the

43:27

Spirit to be obedient to his commands, because this is, again, how he intends to build his kingdom.

43:34

Again, next week, we'll dig into that. In the meantime, let's pray that God would help us to appreciate these least of these among us, the ones that we either ignore or put up with, typically.

43:48

Let's appreciate them not as vipers and diapers. I'll tell you, I really, I'm gonna be really honest with you.

43:55

I hate that expression. I hate that expression. I really do. You may have said it before.

44:03

I forgive you. I still love you. But I really hate that expression. Our children are not vipers and diapers here.

44:11

And not just here. Christian children are not vipers and diapers. And I think we really do them a disservice.

44:16

And I think that we offend God when we talk like that about our children. Our children are blessings.

44:24

And they can be curses if we don't raise them right. But we'll talk about that. But don't get me going.

44:31

Two for one. But that is a, we need to appreciate our children for how

44:37

God views them, not how the culture would make us think about them. They're blessings.

44:43

They are, I don't want to cheapen it with the word, but they're a strategic priority to God.

44:49

He views the children as critical to what he's doing. And we need to look at them the same way.

44:55

So as we close this morning, let's do so in acknowledgement that the Lord will build his kingdom, and it will cover the whole earth, and it will bless all nations and families.

45:04

He will do these things because he promised to do them. And he's going to do these things through the work of the Spirit, working in his church, and children included.

45:12

And so we should honor that call for godly offspring. Hear his voice when he warns us against dismissing these little ones.

45:20

Jesus says, He's talking about children.

45:29

We're not going to spiritualize it and say that's childlike faith. He's talking about children, real children. The kingdom belongs to such as these.

45:36

Let's appreciate them and help them as their brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers.

45:43

Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you. This morning for the children. Thank you that they're here.

45:49

Thank you that you have called them just as much as you've called us to be in your presence, Lord. You have sovereignly placed these children in the homes that they're in, that they would be brought up in the faith.

46:01

Lord, help us to believe that. These things don't happen by accident, Lord, but rather you have placed these children in the families you've placed them for the purposes of them knowing you.

46:12

Lord, hearing your gospel. Lord, hearing, being in your presence as the church gathers.

46:18

Lord, to participate in the sacraments of baptism. Lord, in communion.

46:24

Lord, help them to help us to appreciate them more. Lord, not just for their cuteness, not for what we hope they will be.

46:35

Lord, help us to appreciate them for what and who they are. Lord, they are your people.

46:41

They belong to you. You have called them holy even. God, help us to appreciate again and rejoice to have them here with us celebrating that they are growing up under the means of grace.

46:56

God, help us all as a people to love you, to worship you, and obey you in all things.

47:01

God, these things are hard sometimes to learn, different than what we're used to. Lord, help us to be a people who embraces what your scripture teaches, even if it does kind of challenge the traditions of men that we're used to.

47:18

God, help us to be people who love your word, love your truth, and rejoice in it. In Christ's name, amen.