Bring Your Children to Jesus

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Well, you turn in your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10. If you're using the New King James Pew Bibles, once again you'll find that on page 893. 893 of Mark chapter 10 beginning at verse 13.

Many commentators, as they look at this section, will call this family matters. Things pertaining to the family. So last week we looked at marriage and divorce. Now it seems logical that Mark would introduce us to a passage on children. So children. Mark chapter 10, beginning at verse 13, and we'll read through verse 16 together. Hear now God's perfect word.

Then they brought little children to him, that he might touch them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was greatly displeased and said to them, Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. And He took them in His arms and He laid His hands on them and blessed them.

Prayer for Illumination

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word. And we pray now that You would give us Your Spirit, that You would teach us and guide us into truth, that we would have the same attitude, the same heart as Christ has instructed us to have. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Sermon

If I talk to you about the Apostle Paul, And I talked to you about his missionary travels. And I talked to you about Paul going in with all of his evangelistic zeal. And I talked to you about him being beat and ripped and shipwrecked, and how he had this amazing conversion story. You would say, yeah, the Kingdom of God belongs to someone like that. And then I was to talk to you about someone like Peter. And we talked about Peter, the spokesman of the apostles, and Peter, you know, the one who would always stand up and say the hard things, and even though sometimes he said things that weren't so great, even he was instituted by Christ to love Jesus' people and was willing to go to Rome and even be crucified for Christ. And he would say, yeah, the kingdom of God belongs to someone like that. Or if I talk to you about someone like the apostle John, Jesus is beloved, and he was to be the type of person who I could tell you amazing stories about.

They tried to kill him. The emperor of Rome tried to kill him by boiling him to death. It didn't work. They could never kill him. You would say, man, this guy went all over the Roman world, and surely the kingdom of God belongs to someone like that. And then I said, and there was this little baby named Asher. The kingdom of God belongs to someone like that. You might scratch your head. How is that the case? Is it true that the kingdom of God belongs to infants? To babies? To little children?

Jesus says yes. But it might mean that we need to understand what Jesus is getting here. And it might mean that we need to understand what our role in salvation really is. And so yes, the kingdom of God belongs to such as these, even infants and little children. And look with what happens in verse 13. I'm going to use these as applications and different steps of the sermon.

And so I'm going to call you to bring your children to Jesus. Bring your children to Jesus. Notice verse 13, then they brought little children to him. Why would people want to bring little children to Jesus? Right? Why would they desire to bring their little babies to Jesus?

And just in case you think, well, it doesn't say little babies here. You're right. In Mark, it says little children. But in Luke's retelling of this, Luke chapter, I can't remember if it's chapter 17 or 18, the word is brethe, which is babies, infants, nursing babies. They bring their nursing babies to Jesus.

Why? Why would they do that? Why would you not want to take your children to go see Jesus? Right? The question shouldn't be, why would they take it? The question should be, the Messiah has come, the prophet is there, the teacher is among them. Why would you not want to take these children to Jesus? To go be blessed by Him, to go have them touch Him, to go hear from Him, to be able to, for years and years later, say, you know, we took you to go see Jesus.

Could you imagine the stories with these kids? Right? Kids know this as they grow up. You know this as adults. There are things that you swear are in your memory. Right? You're like, oh yeah, we lived in that house and we did those things and grandma and grandpa brought these presents. And then you realize, no, I was only a year and a half old. I don't remember any of that. But my parents told the story so often that it's like burned in my memory and it's like my own now. This is what would happen for these children.

They were brought and the parents would tell them, we brought you to Jesus. You couldn't walk there but we carried you and we went there with him and he put his hands on you and he blessed you and it would become this story that would be ingrained in the hearts and minds of the children. They went there because it's the most natural thing to do. The most natural thing for a loving father and a loving mother to do is to go take them to the one that they think is going to care for their souls. to go take them to the one who's going to bless them. You haven't noticed the story, right? I love the honesty of the Gospels. Not everyone wants the busy teacher to be bothered with a bunch of babies.

Notice the bouncers in verse 13. Notice the bouncers. What do I mean by bouncers? Well, those are like the people who stand outside of a nightclub or something and say, you're not allowed in here. You know, check the IDs. No, no, you're not allowed in.

Right? This is what the disciples are acting like here. But the disciples rebuked them who brought them. See, kingdom building in their mind is serious work. Right? The disciples are thinking, Jesus needs to teach the crowd, Jesus needs to heal people who are demon-possessed, Jesus needs to teach about the kingdom, Jesus needs to build up his army, because the Messiah is coming, and we got serious work to do here, and this is what we need to do. And when they see people bringing their little children to Jesus, they say, He doesn't have time for that. That's not what He's here for. That's exactly what Jesus is there for.

I need to warn you, even in many churches today, there are bouncers, there are people who are roadblocks and will say, no, children do not belong here. I'm telling you, you guys are doing something weird right now in the evangelical church. You guys are oddballs. You let children come into worship? Don't you know that there are other churches in the area that they will let you have a Sunday morning off?

So just adults can come and worship and the kids can go and they can do their own thing and be given little stories and have fun time, but it's just for the adults to worship and to actually hear God's Word? That's the type of church I was raised in. Relegated to Bible stories, not actually getting the Bible. Many churches today just assume children aren't going to understand, so they don't belong in church. They can't sit through a worship service. God forbid that somebody, a baby, cries. Don't let them be baptized. And I'm not talking about even babies here. Don't even let little kids be baptized, because what if they don't actually mean it? What if they said the Lord's Prayer, but it wasn't really true? What if they've said that they've accepted Jesus into their hearts, but you know, they're not old enough to vote or drive a car yet. So maybe we just hold off on them.

The broader evangelical church, this is just statistically true, right? The broader church loses more and more and more children every passing generation. You know, this wasn't always the case. One of the things that absolutely shocked me when I came into a more traditional reformed church, was one of the elders got up and he was reading the word. And then he went down and sat down. And the pew behind him was his children. And a few pews behind that was his grandchildren. And I thought, what type of weird place is this?

Because in the church I was raised in, you had little kids' church, but there was no integration where you moved from little kids' church and youth group into the big people worship service. You never learned to love the preaching of the Word. You never learned to sit underneath the tutelage of the pastor. You never learned what it was to have your heart pierced by the Spirit, because all you were given to you was a sugary gospel. Week after week, Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you. And while that's true, we were never taught to eat meat.

We were entertained with games. And then the parents wondered, once the kids went off to college, why didn't they come back into the worship service? We were never allowed there. We had rented pews. By rented pews, I mean they were only open to us when we were invited maybe once or twice a year. This is the way many churches operate. It's the way that the disciples are operating here. Right?

No, no, no. These children aren't important enough to hear God's Word. They aren't important enough to come to Jesus yet. They aren't important enough. They don't have a place in the kingdom yet. They aren't thinking clearly yet. And so they're segregated. They're put onto a lower class.

And Jesus, the word says in verse 14, but when Jesus saw he was greatly displeased, that's, he was indignant. He was burning hot mad. Jesus, this is not how Jesus' kingdom operates. The kingdom, Jesus tells us, belongs to even children. It's what Jesus teaches us in verse 14. Yes, even babies. But when Jesus saw it, he was greatly displeased and said to them, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them for as such is the kingdom of God. Do children really have a place in Jesus's kingdom?

I mean like really. I mean, I have a really good friend from when my days at Trinity who, he's a pastor, I mean, I'm talking about a big church in California. I'm not talking like RP big, like 200 people big. I'm talking about there are 3,000 plus people who go to my friend's church. And my buddy will sit there in sermon after sermon after sermon, when he talks about children, he says, those uncircumcised Philistines.

And everybody laughs at it. And I think, man, I'd hate to be your children. My children are not uncircumcised Philistines. That is not how Jesus sees our children. Jesus clearly says here, of such is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus takes these children and he blesses them. He cares for them. He loves them.

And there are some who are going to say, well, isn't faith, don't you have to repent and believe? Well yeah, absolutely you do. Yeah, unless a man be born again he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. We're not negating any of that. But what we're saying is if you say absolutely not, you have to reach some sort of an age of accountability.

You got a real hard time with John the Baptist leaping in his mother's womb when Jesus came near. You're going to have a real hard time explaining to David when his son dies and he says, I shall not see him again, but I will go up to him because he will not come down to me. His infant son dies. David's infant son dies. And he has hope that he is going to see him again.

David had that type of hope. How could John the Baptist leap in his mother's womb? Because God had chosen them. Because they were members of this covenant. Are infants really in the kingdom of God? Yeah. Yeah, I think Jesus teaches us that they are, because he's the one who says here, such is the kingdom of God. And some here will say, well see, there's got to be a... If they're really part of the kingdom of God, then let's get this theological knot untied until they'll invent something called an age of accountability. That somehow children, as John Locke would teach, are a tabula rosa, right? They're totally neutral. Children aren't sinful, right?

And it's not until they come to an age of accountability, whenever that mysterious age is, that they become cognizant of their own sinful nature. Well, the problem is you have both inherited guilt and actual guilt. The problem is that we're, as we saw in the Shorter Catechism today, we're all in a state of sin and misery because of our original sin. But the other problem is, if you've ever been around a child for more than a day, you know that children sin.

And they know they're sinning. And sometimes they enjoy their sin. I know it's a newsflash. You can put it on the headlines. Children sin. And everyone... No, children sin and they need the grace of Jesus Christ just like everyone else. It is not an issue of do children sin and this idea of age of accountability that actually age of accountability does more theological damage than it actually helps.

But it's because God is sovereign over election. As the Westminster Confession of Faith says, even elect infants are saved. God can choose people even as little infants. He can put people into covenant homes and by His sovereign grace, He can even pour out His Spirit on little children.

And this is the case all throughout the Old Testament. It's always been true in that children have had a place in God's covenant. God gives His promise to Abraham. He gives His promise to Abraham, and He says, I'm going to make you into a great nation, I'm going to bless the nations by you. And how does He do this? He's going to give him a son. He gives him a son, and what's the first thing Abraham's supposed to do on the eighth day? Circumcise him. Show this little child who has nothing to do with it, give him a sign that you truly are part of God's people.

Now, does that guarantee that everyone who would receive that sign of circumcision would be part of the covenant? No. No. No one's ever believed that. Nobody says just because you're circumcised it guarantees that you're part of God's people, for not all Israel is Israel. There are those like Ishmael who were circumcised and yet were not part of the covenant. Rejected the covenant. Did not want to be part of God's people. Did not want God's blessings.

But God makes it absolutely clear that children are His. Especially amongst His covenant people. This is seen in Jesus' own life. When Jesus is born, After Mary goes through her time of purification, did you know that they make a trip to Jerusalem? In Luke chapter 2, Jesus' parents do something important. They take him to Jerusalem and they consecrate him to the Lord. Because the firstborn of every animal and one of God's people was dedicated to the Lord. The firstborn son of every family was to be devoted to the Lord. They were his.

And when God's people started forgetting about this, and they started acting like they're children of their own, and they went in idolatrous ways, they did something horrible. We talked about this a little bit a few weeks ago, but the Israelite people would... Man, it's hard to even talk about this stuff. It's so disturbing. They would take their children, and in their idolatry, they would take them to Chemosh and to Molech, and they would take them to the Valley of Hinnom, and they would take their firstborn children and they would put them into a fire, burning up their firstborn children.

I want to read to you just one verse from the book of Ezekiel, how God himself felt about that. God says, you have slain my children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire. God says, these were not your children, these were my children and you made them pass through the fire. Do you notice God says, these are mine. They are my children. This idea that children are part of the covenant is baked in all over.

You cannot escape through the Old Testament without seeing that God's children are there. Even when we get to the Shema, we love the Shema, right? Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

And then what follows right after it? Teach your babies. Instruct your children. Have a home saturated when you're walking along the way, and when you rise up, and when you sit down, when you go to eat. God's Word is supposed to be all over your children's lives, right?

Because they really are gods. They're not your own. But again, we don't just say, okay, well our children are Jesus's, and so we just... You're Jesus's, so you're done. Your faith is stagnant now. No. No, children, we want your faith to grow like a rose. Right now, it's just a little bud. It's just the beginning, but someday we hope that you continue to blossom and blossom and blossom for all the world, all the nations to see how beautiful your faith is. We hope that your faith is like a sunrise.

That right now it might just be a little glimmer on the horizon, but as the days continue, it might grow brighter and brighter and brighter. That you might love Jesus more and more and more, and the holiness of Jesus would so mark your life that by the time you are dying as an old person, you are shining brightly for Jesus Christ. I'd be remiss, there's a theological point here, I need to warn you about some dangers with this. There are some dangers with this. The first danger is an over-objectification of the sacrament. We specifically tie this to baptism.

Surprise! I know it's not a shocker to you. By the way, I didn't pick this sermon. We just picked the next verse and preach it, so I know that not everybody here is fully settled on this topic. I know you will be someday, but that's okay. What this is talking about, right, is some people will take the sacrament of baptism and they'll say, oh, this is so a part of the covenant that when the pastor pours the water on that baby, that is efficacious automatically for salvation. If that water is poured on that child, then they're Christians. Well, no, we don't believe in hocus pocus, right? It's meant to be a sign and a seal. We don't believe in baptismal regeneration. It's not the waters of baptism that change a child's heart. It's only God who does that.

The other over-objectification is the over-objectification of the idea of the covenant. As if just because a child is a member in the covenant family, that they have every right and privilege to the church, including the Lord's table. Our friends who are paedo-communionists will try to argue that way, and we say no. No, because it's the scriptures who tell us what is available to us and even to our children. And inherent in the Lord's Supper is the idea that you have to rightly discern the body and blood of Christ, lest you eat and drink judgment upon yourself. A two-year-old can't do that. Now, there are eight-year-olds I think who can. And there are 17-year-olds I think who can't. So when the elders come and they interview children for the Lord's table, we're looking for age-appropriate faith. And do they discern the blood and body of Christ? Are they broken over their sin? Do they understand repentance?

And by the way, if any of you have become members before, and you think your process was hard, wait until your children. Right? Because children have it worse. Right? When young people come to the session here, we interview the children. That's normally where your interviews stop, but we interview the children. alone, and then we interview the parents, and then we interview both together. Because it is that serious. We don't so over-objectify the covenant as to say, well see, the Lord's Supper is the exact same as baptism. That's not true. Jesus has instituted both, and they have their specific place in the church. But there's going to be an objection to this.

What about kids who walk away? What about kids who have been baptized and they have grown up in the church and they're gone? Is there any hope for them? What about them? Doesn't this show that we shouldn't do this? Maybe we should wait until they're old enough. Well, let me just say I have family members who waited until they were well into their age of accountability who got baptized and walked away from the church, walked away from the teachings of Christ. And so age is not a good determinant factor.

But we ought to grieve. We ought to grieve for children who had all the rights and privileges, heard the preaching of the gospel, had it in their homes, had prayerful parents. And for some of you, some of you are even struggling with this now, even with your own children.

Never stop praying for them. Because we don't know what God will do with their hearts. As long as they are living, as long as they are breathing, you have opportunities to love them, to tell them the gospel, to care for them, to evangelize to them, and to call them back to the truths that they had taught them when they were children. Never give up on your children.

But there are some There are some who will leave the church even though they are baptized. They will leave the teachings of Jesus Christ. They will walk away and fall in love with this world. And they're covenant breakers. They are those like Esau who will sell their birthright for the world. Even though being circumcised they'll say, I don't want it. I'd rather chase after the things of this life. I am sure I'm sure Isaac's heart broke for his son when he heard that his son didn't care about his birthright, but would rather just have some stew.

Not alone in that. But not all those who are members of the visible church are members of the invisible church. But that doesn't mean that we keep them from Jesus. That doesn't mean that we keep children from Jesus. Because children teach us something very specific. Jesus teaches us that here in verses 15 and 16.

Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. And he took them up in his arms laid his hands on them and blessed them. How does a little child receive the kingdom of God? A baby can't earn the kingdom of God. A baby receives with passivity. A baby must be humble, receive the kingdom with humility.

See, children teach us that salvation is a gift from God. That is by God's grace alone that we are welcomed and received into the kingdom. Children trust that their parents are going to feed them. Children trust that their parents are going to care for them. Children have humility to understand, I don't have to earn my dinner. All I have to do is tell mom and dad I'm hungry. Children teach us That we receive the kingdom with humility, with gratitude.

That as the old writers would say, that nothing to the cross I bring, but only with an open hand I cling. And we don't bring anything to our salvation, but we humbly receive it. There are some, though, who will say, well, look at verse 15 and see, you see, whoever receives the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. So, see, we need to just have a very simple faith. We need to just have a very simplified faith. We need to boil it down and get it down to the absolute ABCs of the gospel and never move beyond that.

Well, the writer of Hebrews has something to say about that, right? There is a point that we give children milk But if you're a 36-year-old dude and you're still drinking nothing but milk, and you don't know how to chew meat, you're going to be malnourished. Right? That's not the point here.

The point is that we stay humble. God stays in His place and we stay in our place. Because nothing is more tempting in the Christian heart than to let the idea start creeping in, maybe I earned this. Maybe I keep this. Maybe I'm good enough for the kingdom. No, we have a basic trust. We have a rooted faith in God's supremacy. And as Christians, we have a humble reliance upon him for his grace.

So children, You've got a place in the kingdom. Children, Jesus invites you to come to him and wants to bless you. For those of us who are adults, realize you didn't do anything to earn your salvation. Come to Jesus Christ with humility, with a faith like that of a child. and rest in his love and care for you. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would convict us more and more that we didn't do anything for our salvation. other than the sin that made it necessary. But you have welcomed us into your kingdom. God, we pray that your Holy Spirit would be poured out into our hearts more and more, that we would cry out, Abba, Father. That we would trust in you, that we would rest in you, that we would love you. And Father, we pray that you indeed would care for our children. We pray that your Spirit would be in them. We pray for those, even children of the congregation, who have grown up and left the four walls of this church and have walked away from your covenant. God, we pray that your Holy Spirit would arrest their hearts, remind them of the truths of your kingdom, and they would see that the deceitfulness of wealth and the cares of this life are choking out the seed that was planted. And we pray, Lord, that you would bring them back to yourself. Father, please, teach us to have faith like children.

In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.