Why We Keep Kids in Worship (March 26, 2023)

Why We Keep Kids in Worship: Biblical Precedent

Well, you can turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 31. Deuteronomy chapter 31. We'll be back. We'll pick back up with the Gospel of Mark next week. And then we will finish out the Gospel of Mark over the next three or so weeks.

But today, we're in Deuteronomy 31. And this will be a little bit different sermon than I normally preach. So normally, what I like to do is take one passage of scripture and just kind of work our way through it.

But today, this morning, the sermon is going to be more topical. We're going to anchor ourselves in Deuteronomy 31. And we'll depart from it and come back to it and go away and come back to it. But we'll go to these other scripture passages as well.

And for the topic, we're continuing to look at the church, which we've done as we've kind of put some messages about the church as we've taken some pauses in Mark over the last several months. And what I want to do this morning is I want to drill down on a topic, something that I mentioned last week and something that I've alluded to on a number of occasions.

And so for example, last Sunday in the sermon, I said that in the ministry of our church, we want to emphasize ministry to families or households over age-segregated or highly demographically-driven ministry.

And the week before that, I said that one of our distinctives here at First Baptist is that we keep kids in the worship service with us and we encourage families to worship together. And so I've mentioned those things.

We've practiced those things. But it's probably time that we look at why we practice those things. Why do we speak that way? Do we have any reasons from the Bible? And so the question before us today is this.

Why do we keep kids with us in the worship service? So you look around, you're going to see kids of various ages. We have babies on up to teenagers. And we have babies on up to senior adults. We have all ages in this room.

We want to lean into the fact that we're an intergenerational church. You look around, you see children. Why do we keep them in the worship service here at First Baptist? I mean, they make noise sometimes.

Mom and dad have to take them out to discipline sometimes or go to the bathroom. Oftentimes, a sermon is maybe over their heads. I mean, wouldn't it just be easier on everybody, parents especially, just to do something special for the kids?

Now, the answer to that specific question is yes. It would be easier. But I believe that's the wrong question to ask. Because very rarely in this life does what is easy and what is best, do they align.

Very rarely in this life is what is easy and what is most fruitful, or what is easy and what is most wise, very rarely do those two things align. And so we want what's best for our children, right? We want what is most fruitful for our children, what is wise for our children, right?

And so I want to give one word before we read our text in Deuteronomy 31. You might be thinking, well, I don't have kids. I haven't had kids in a long time. They're grown up. I have grandkids now, and they're grown up.

So this sermon doesn't really have to do with me. I don't say wrong for these few reasons. One, we as the church have kids, right? We have children here with us, and so it has to do with you because it has to do with us.

We're one body. That's the first thing. Second, I would say, you're in here with the kids, and so it has to do with you. It's relevant to you. And then lastly, the reasons that we want kids to worship with us is the same reason we want you to worship with us, the same reason we want anybody to worship with us, and so it has to do with all of us.

So with that in mind, let's read God's word, Deuteronomy chapter 31, verses 12 and 13. And God's word says this. Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.

Amen. This is the word of God to us this morning. So the context here in Deuteronomy is Moses is teaching Israel. Moses is commanding Israel to read the law to all of Israel every seven years at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel appears before the Lord God.

And Moses commands that the elders assemble the people, men, women, little ones, sojourners. All are to appear before God, and hear his word, and learn to fear God, and learn to do his word, to do his law.

Now, one objection that someone might have to me using this passage to talk about kids in church would be, obviously, this isn't just a church meeting. It's back in Deuteronomy. This is a once every seven year thing that he's talking about.

And so I agree, this isn't a one-to-one analogy for the church. But I believe there are indicators in this passage that point us to similarities and give us warrant to make application for our church.

One of those indicators is in verse 11. So just one verse prior to what we read, it says, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord our God, to appear before the Lord our God. And that's what we do in corporate worship, right?

We come here to appear before God. We come before God in corporate worship. We'll come back to that theme here in just a little bit. The next indicator is in verse 12, where he says, assemble the people.

Assemble the people. This is what the church is. It's an assembly. The word for church in the New Testament, ecclesia, that's what it literally means, assembly. And then we see that while this specific instruction in Deuteronomy is for appearing before the Lord every seven years, we do it every seven days.

We come to worship God and appear before the Lord and assemble before him every seven days on the Lord's day. And so I think we can make application from this passage to answer our question, why do we keep the kids in the worship service?

And the first reason for that is biblical precedent. Biblical precedent. We see it in the scriptures. So we see it in this passage that I just read, Deuteronomy 31, men, women, and little ones. We see it in Joshua 8 .35, when we see where the fulfillment of this, where Joshua obeys Moses's command.

In Joshua 8 .35, there was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel and the women and the little ones and the sojourners who lived among them. We see it in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, when King Jehoshaphat gathered the people to worship.

And it says, meanwhile, all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives and their children. We see it in Nehemiah chapter eight, after returning from exile, Ezra gathers the people to read them the law.

And who's gathered? Men, women, and those who could understand. So at least we have, at least older children in that passage. In Joel 2, though, he said, when Joel called the people to a solemn assembly, God said, gather the people, consecrate the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, even the nursing infants.

Psalm 148 that we read in the call to worship. Children are called to praise the Lord alongside adults. Young men and maidens together, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord. We see it in the New Testament, in Acts chapter 20, when the church is gathered on the Lord's day, we see the boy Eutychus as part of the assembly.

Now granted, this might not be the best illustration or the best example for me to point to. If you remember the story in Acts chapter 20, the preacher preached too long. That was Paul. And Eutychus was sitting in a windowsill three stories up.

He fell asleep and he fell out the window. I'll try to keep it short. Lastly, we see it in both Ephesians and Colossians. These are letters that are written to churches for this letter to be read aloud to churches gathered for worship.

And what do we see? Paul addresses children specifically and directly, presuming that they would be there to hear him. Children, obey your parents. Children, obey your parents. Y 'all hear that? That's what Paul says.

So we have biblical precedent, Old Testament, New Testament of children being included in the assembly of God's people, worshiping God with the larger body. As an aside, we have historical precedence as well.

Throughout the history of the church, we've seen this same practice. It wasn't until rather recently, historically speaking, that the practice of separating kids from adults became accepted in practice.

And so one question we might ask is why? Why was the practice of children and adults worshiping together, appearing before the Lord together in the assembly, why was that the norm for so long? And so the reason for that, or one of the reasons for that, is that the family, or we might say the household, is the fundamental unit of society.

The household is the fundamental unit of society. So we live in an era of human history that gets one of the most basic questions of society and culture wrong. Because we make the mistake of believing that the fundamental unit of society is the individual.

That's not true. The fundamental unit of society is the household. We see this in Genesis. It is not good, it was not good for man to be alone, and so God made Adam a wife and he instituted the family.

And so what we have that make up the world, there are three different governments. There are three governments in the world, three spheres of authority, family, church, and state. And the family is fundamental because churches and nations are both made up of households, okay?

Now granted, we're not downplaying the importance of the individual in any respect there. Households are made up of individuals, and individually we will all stand before God. We will all give an account for the deeds done in our body.

We will all give an account for what we have done, and we will all have to have individual personal faith. But the family as an institution is the fundamental organizing unit of society. And so if you take away the family as an institution, and we just operate just as individuals, then everything begins to disintegrate and fall apart.

And so if you'll notice that we as a culture, to the extent that we have allowed radical, expressive individualism to take priority, to take precedence, to take preeminence in our society, to that extent our institutions are failing, family, church, and state.

This is because we're raging against God's good design. And so why do we keep our kids in worship? Because we want to live within God's good design. And that means operating as households like Deuteronomy 12 says, and there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice you and your households.

Worship as Appearing Before God and Being Formed by It

Now, take a quick time out here. One thought that may be going through your mind is, well, what about those from broken homes, broken families? What about those who are unmarried or those whose spouse or maybe their children have died?

Three thoughts here. One is, I'm speaking in norms and generalities, not to every specific situation or to the exceptional cases that are there, but I do want to recognize those specific situations exist and exceptional cases exist, and just to be clear that no aspersions are being cast in any direction there.

I would also say this reality is why I prefer the term or like the term household, because it's broader than just nuclear family and can include those that are not blood-related. And then thirdly, I would say this as well.

I think this highlights the importance of church, of the church, where even if your family is broken or for one reason or another, you remain unmarried or childless, you're included in the household, the family of God.

And while those two are not necessarily interchangeable, your church family can mitigate some of the negative aspects of hard providence in family life. And so we recognize the variety of situations that we have, and yet we still emphasize what we see in the scriptures as far as the fundamental kind of organizing principle of society.

But back to our question, why do we keep kids in worship? We have biblical precedence, we have God's design of households as a basic unit of society, and then thirdly, we have a right understanding of what worship, what corporate worship is, and what corporate worship is for.

We have a right understanding of what corporate worship is. You see, if we misunderstand worship, what it is and what it is for, then we'll make some mistakes in our practice. And so there are probably a lot of popular misunderstandings about worship.

I wanna focus on two briefly this morning. Two misunderstandings about worship that lead to with good intentions, separating families for worship. The first is to see the worship service primarily as an intellectual exercise, where information is transferred.

It's like we're coming for a lecture that we happen to sing a little bit in front of. And the main point is the sermon, and it's an intellectual thing. And so if that's how we view worship, then the very well-intentioned response is to provide something for the kids on their level.

Now, it's true that the sermon is a part of the teaching ministry of our church, and it's true it has an intellectual component, and preaching is a priority for us on Sunday mornings because God has ordained it to be so.

But it is not true that preaching is only an intellectual exercise. It's only a lecture. That's not the case. And it's not true that preaching is all of what we do. No, we come together to appear before God, and as the body of Christ, we sing, and we pray, and we confess our sins, and we're assured of forgiveness in Christ Jesus, and we hear the word read, and we give our amen, and we take the Lord's Supper.

We do these things, and all of it is important. And it's not all a matter of being able to intellectually receive and comprehend. That's not what worship is. This isn't a lecture. This isn't a classroom.

A second misunderstanding of worship is that it is for our entertainment or our enjoyment. If we view worship in that way, then the well-intentioned response would be to provide a space for children to be entertained and to enjoy according to kid interests and preferences.

Now, I hope you enjoy worshiping with God's people on Sunday mornings. We want to make this a pleasant environment. We want to take into consideration the culture of our people, the culture of our community, and the culture of the specific people that are a part of our church.

We wanna do that. We want it to be a pleasant experience. But, and follow me closely here, we do not gather on the Lord's Day to cater to anyone's preferences except God's. We want to cater to what God wants.

What does God want? Our worship must be regulated. It must be according to the scriptures. How does God want to be worshiped is a question we need to ask. Now, that's a topic for another day. But for now, suffice it to say that worship exists for God, not for man.

Including our kids. The worship of God's people is about and for God. So, if worship is not a lecture with singing beforehand just to, you know, meant solely for intellectual stimulation, and worship is not a religiously-themed entertainment gathering, what is it?

What is it for? Well, first, we can go back to Deuteronomy 31, and we see that when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord, it says in 31, 11. Then I can read to you Hebrews chapter 12, verse 22, when to the church, the writer says, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering.

You see, when we gather on the Lord's Day, we gather to appear before God. And we spiritually, not physically, but spiritually, we ascend into the presence of the Lord. We ascend to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the heavenly Mount Zion, into God's presence, to appear before him.

And so we don't invite God to meet with us. We don't invoke the presence of God to come down to us. God calls us to him. Think about it, in the White House, does the president, do the staffers call to the president, and he comes to their office?

Or does he summon them to the Oval Office? He summons them, right? Or if you have a big company, does the CEO, do you call the CEO down to your cubicle? Or does the CEO call you to his office? This is why I'm specific at the beginning of the service to use the term call to worship.

That's why it's printed on your bulletin, call to worship. So while I say the phrase, the Lord calls us to worship, and it's why we, at the beginning of the service, we start with God's word, because we want to hear God's word, not man's word.

Call us to worship, because God, he initiates that we might come and respond to him. Because God calls us and we respond. God calls us and we spiritually ascend to the heavenly Jerusalem and to the presence of the Lord.

And so I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that worship is, in some sense, a weekly trip to heaven, to appear before God. That's the first thing worship is. It's appearing before God. Secondly, worship is hearing from God and responding.

In the worship service, through his word, read and sung and prayed and preached, we hear from God. And then having heard from God, we respond, we give thanks. Having heard from God, we praise. Having heard from God, we declare his excellencies and we commit ourselves to his service.

So worship is for the praise of God. But then third, worship is for our sanctification. That is, worship is formative. Worship is shaping our worship habits. The things that we do over and over and over again, week in and week out, they are productive.

They do something. They will inevitably produce something in our lives. And so we want to be wise and careful about what it is that we do over and over and over again. Because we're gonna be shaped in one direction or another, in one way or another.

Principle that we find in the Bible is that you become like what you worship. You become like what you worship. What you behold in reverence, you will become like. We see this negatively in Psalm 115, where the psalmist speaks of those who make and worship idols, idols that can't speak and do not hear.

And the psalmist says this in Psalm 115, those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. You become like what you worship. So think about it. Those who week after week hear God call them to worship and respond in faith.

Those who week after week confess their sins. Those who week after week hear assurance of their forgiveness and the mercy of Christ. Who sing the glories of God. Who hear the name of God exalted. Who hear God's commandments about what He is and how He has taught us to live in this world.

Those who are reminded week after week after week of what Jesus has done on the cross. Those who offer up their tithe week after week after week as representative of offering up their lives as living sacrifices.

And those who week after week go out with the blessing and the benediction of God upon their heads. What kind of person will that form? What kind of person will that make? Will it be one who has his eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

One who has his ears attuned to Jesus and His words, the words of the living God. One who has his heart aligned to Jesus. One who has his heart aligned to heaven. What kind of person will that make? One who is conformed to the image of God's son, Jesus.

So we appear before God. We hear from God and we respond, we're conformed into the image of Jesus. And I don't want anyone, not kids, not adult volunteers, not any of us to miss out on that. We don't want anyone left out of appearing before God.

If you're going to Disney World, you wouldn't leave the kids at home. When we're taking a trip to heaven to appear before the Lord of hosts, we don't want to leave the kids out. Worship is formative. So last thing, we keep our kids in worship.

To use the language of Deuteronomy 31, that they might learn to fear the Lord, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord, your God, and be careful to do all the words of His law. Psalm 127 says that children are a blessing and they are.

Psalm 127 says that children are a blessing and they're like arrows in the hand of a warrior. But we should note that children are not blessings because they're cute. Children are not blessings because they say funny things sometimes.

Though they are cute and they say funny things sometimes. Children are a blessing when they grow up to be sharp arrows, dangerous to the enemies of God. Children are a blessing when they will not put their father to shame when he speaks with his enemies at the gate, Psalm 127 5.

So this means that children are not automatic blessings, but they must be trained. They must learn to fear the Lord and to do all of His law, like Deuteronomy 31 says. This is why Deuteronomy 6 tells parents that they're to teach their children diligently, not haphazardly or not outsourcing it to someone else, but diligently when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, when they rise up.

It's why Ephesians 6 tells fathers to raise your children in the fear and instruction of the Lord. And so there's a certain all of lifeness to child training. But if we become like what we worship, then that means that worship is a key part of our child training.

It's a key part of parenting. And it means that children need to learn to worship in order to become more like God, in order to be formed and conformed to the image of Christ. They need to learn to worship.

Now it's true that as people, our default setting is to worship. Worship really is inescapable. We were just talking about this in Sunday school. Worship is inescapable. All people worship, even the atheist worships.

Something. But because of the corruption of sin, we do not by default worship rightly. That is people by default don't worship the one true and living God. And even when we do, we don't by default know how to do so in the right ways.

We must learn. And God has made us to learn by imitation. You see it with small children. I see it with my son, Asher. Like he mimics me. We see that with kids, right? For good or bad, they imitate their parents.

Their mannerism, their words, all of it. And so parents, have y 'all ever had the experience where your children are all worked up and you're like, why are you yelling? And then the light bulb goes off and it's like, because I'm yelling.

It wasn't the answer I was looking for. We learn by imitation. First Corinthians 4 .16, I urge you then be imitators of me, Paul says. First Corinthians 11 .1, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Philippians 3 .17, brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

First Thessalonians 1 .6, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord. Second Thessalonians 3 .7, for you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us. We keep our kids in worship that they might learn how to worship by imitating their parents and other church members.

That they would know when to say amen. That they would know when to bow their heads. That they would know how, what language to use to confess sin. That they would know that their sin is forgiven in Jesus.

That they would sing with gusto unto the Lord. That they would know how God instructs His people through preaching. That they would know how to be a good Berean and follow along in their Bible and see if the things that the preacher's saying are so.

They would imitate. And yes, it's true. Some of the content of the sermons is gonna go right over their head. Though, they understand more than we give them credit for oftentimes. They're absorbing things at a rate we don't quite comprehend sometimes.

We were having this conversation yesterday, Shannon and I were, about how in our culture, often the bar is set really low for children. Bar set really low for teenagers. But they are made in the image of the Almighty God and are capable of much more than we give them credit for.

And so we want to be a community, we ought to be a community that raises the bar for our children. That raises the bar for our teenagers. But yes, it is true. At three years old, at four years old, some of this stuff is gonna go right over their head.

But, that's not the only thing we're here for. Because week after week, they're coming with their parents to appear before God. They're coming to hear from the Lord. Week after week, they're being formed by their habits.

Our habits shape us. And week after week, for years, decades, they're learning what it looks like to be a Christian in the presence of God. They're learning that this is my God and these are my people.

They're having their loyalties trained and cultivated and aimed at Christ and His people. And yes, they might get unruly sometimes. And yes, they might make noise. And yes, you might have to take them to the back, take them outside, or you may have to nurse them, or you may have to do something to entertain them in some way.

Yes, they might distract others. Yes, they're gonna have to go to the bathroom at inopportune times. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But parents, I want you to hear this clearly from me. You're doing a good work.

And it pleases your Father in heaven. And church members, I want you to hear this clearly. We are doing a good work when we welcome children among us and when we, like Jesus, say, let the little children come.

And it pleases our Father in heaven. And God is doing a good work in your children. It's the type of work that He does when you plant a seed in the ground and you can't quite see what He is doing beneath the soil until one day it breaks through the dirt and shoots up towards the heavens and bears fruit.

It may be hard, but it's good. And let us not grow weary in doing good. For in due season, Galatians 6 tells us, in due season, we will reap if we do not give up. If we do not give up. Let's pray together.

Our Father, don't let us give up in doing good. Give us endurance in doing good, hard things. Father, I thank you for the children in this room. May our sons be as plants grown up in their youth. May our daughters be as pillars sculptured in the palace style.

May you put your spirit in each and every one of them. Call them to yourself. Give them new hearts that they might serve you all their days. Teach them to fear the Lord and to worship your holy name. Father, I thank you for the parents in this room.

I pray that you would encourage them, that you would give them strength, that you would give them wisdom. Do not let them grow weary in doing good, but may they pour themselves out for their children.

And help our church to be a community that welcomes and loves children. May we live and may we worship in such a way that we could say in good conscience, imitate me as I imitate Jesus. And lastly, Father, we thank you for Jesus and his work on the cross.

I know that in my own life personally, there's nothing that makes me more acutely aware of my sins than fatherhood. And I thank you for the work of Jesus that washes away every last one of them by the blood of Jesus.

Thank you for raising us up to new and everlasting life in Jesus and making it possible that we obey you. We pray all of these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.