Jesus, Friend of Children - Part A

It is much different when a child dies than when an older person dies.

It's never fun. When anybody dies, it's always a shock and always a tragedy. But when a child dies, it is much different because with older people, there is an expectation that they're going to die. But when a child dies, it seems so cruel, out of order. Something's wrong. This isn't right. One person said, likened it infant death.

To a period that is placed before the end of a sentence. Few things are more heartbreaking or difficult to understand than the death of an infant. In a cruel world, this is often the harshest reality we face. In fact, this sensitive and emotional issue is often a deal breaker for people when it comes to believing in God. After all, how could a loving God ever allow a baby to die? Well, today here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, Skip Heitzig tackles this difficult subject and brings some truth and hope into the issue.

But first, we want to let you know about this month's Connect with Skip resource offer. It's pretty obvious that this world is filled with imperfect people, and that's on purpose. God is into restoring human beings. You know, He could make perfect people and then populate heaven with perfect people, but He doesn't do that. He takes people who are dinged up, who've been beat up, bruised by time, damaged by sin, and He does a full resto job on them.

Complete restoration. Celebrate the joy and beauty of redemption with the morning that changed everything with Skip Heitzig. This DVD collection of six hope-filled Easter weekend messages is our thanks to you when you give $35 or more today to help connect more people to God's word and the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. Creation is based on redemption, and redemption is tied to resurrection.

To give, call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. We're in Matthew chapter 19 today for our study, Jesus, Friend of Children. To get us started, here's Skip Heitzig. Today we look at a very tender topic, a very difficult topic. In fact, it's one that I have never devoted an entire message to as I will today. It is an issue Stephen Curtis Chapman faced. Some of you heard about that. His five-year-old girl, Maria, was struck and killed in their own driveway. It was a tragedy. It hit the Christian community. It was all over the news, but it hurt more than anything the heart of those dear parents who lost their five-year-old girl. People magazine covered the funeral event, and the magazine said the family raised their arms as they sang songs of worship and sought comfort in their faith. And then Stephen Curtis Chapman told the press, One of the most difficult things in life to face is the death of a child. I watched my parents bury one of their sons. He was much older, but I saw the hurt, the pain, how it ravaged the emotions. And I stood at the grave of many a child that with the parents we laid to rest.

Very, very difficult. And this last month I officiated at two funerals for babies. And at one of them I was at the cemetery earlier than the rest of the funeral party before the hearse got there, before the little casket arrived. And I was just walking around the section of the cemetery devoted solely to little children. And I read the gravestones. It was very, very emotional to read what parents wrote and to read the child's life one year old, four months old, two days old.

24, 48 hours, and then gone. It is much different when a child dies than when an older person dies. It's never fun when anybody dies.

It's always a shock and always a tragedy. But when a child dies it is much different because with older people there is an expectation that they're going to die. But when a child dies it seems so cruel, out of order, something's wrong, this isn't right. One person said, likened infant death to a period that is placed before the end of a sentence.

It's out of place. What happens to babies when they die? Do they automatically go to heaven? Do they go to a place called limbo? Anybody ever get taught that, as I did as a child, that the soul goes to a place of contentment but not perfect joy in the presence of God because of original sin?

What happens? You might be asking, why this sermon? Why a whole message on this? Because you might be thinking, Skip, this doesn't relate to my life. You don't know that yet.

You don't know what your life's going to bring. In the very least, through this message, you will be equipped to help bring comfort to those parents who have lost precious little ones. It's been estimated that 25% of all pregnancies will not complete the 20th week of pregnancy.

That's a staggering number. One out of every four pregnancies, at least, will end in miscarriage. We had two miscarriages in our family, and many of you have faced them as well. That's just miscarriage. Then there's neonatal death, death inside the womb. Then there's perinatal death, death at the time of delivery. And these are in staggering numbers, proportions. Of course, the number one cause of death of children between one week and five years of age is called Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, SIDS.

And the numbers are amazing. It's estimated that two million babies will die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide. Now all of these are eternal souls. Where do they go?

What happens to them? It's a question that we really need an answer to. And we need an answer more than just an emotional answer of what we want. We need a biblical answer. And to say, as many in churches do, I don't know, or we can never know, that's not very comforting.

I believe we can know, and I believe unequivocally that when a child dies, they go directly into the presence of God. And I want to show you that from Scripture. Now the text we're going to look at is Matthew 19, three short verses, verses 13 through 15. Then little children were brought to him, that is to Jesus, that he might put his hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

And he laid his hands on them and departed from there. Before we jump into unpacking this text, let me just tell you what this text does not refer to. It does not refer to infant baptism.

I don't know where people get that from, you really have to stretch the meaning of the text, but they do. They try to quote this verse as a proof of infant baptism, those who believe in baptismal regeneration. Second, this verse has nothing at all to do with bringing little children into the main church service.

Okay, can I just get that out there? You would be surprised over the years, especially before we had that wonderful family room, how many parents would be stopped by ushers when they wanted to bring their little babies in, and the mothers or fathers in anger would say, Jesus said, let the little children come to me. Well, first of all, I'm not Jesus, so we'll get that out of the way.

Well, I know that. And the whole point of the nursery and Sunday school is to, in that environment, get them to Jesus as soon as we can, in that age-appropriate way. Now, these verses have everything to do with who Jesus lets into His kingdom, when He says, for such is the kingdom of heaven.

Now, today what I'd like to do is just sort of look at two main things. There are at least four parties involved in this little meeting. There is Jesus Christ. Then there are the disciples. Then there are the parents, presumably, who bring, number four, the children to Jesus.

There may have even been a crowd of people watching this, so there might be five independent parties involved. We're going to deal, really, with two sections. That is the parents and their spiritual concern for their children, and then Jesus and His special care for children, those two items as outlined in your bulletin. Let's look at verse 13 a little more carefully, and notice it says, Then little children, now mark that phrase in your mind.

We'll get back to it. Little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray. Now, this was a common practice. To bring children to a rabbi, to have the rabbi lay his hand on the child, and to bless the child, and to pray for the child's safety and future, it was a common practice. And it goes all the way back to the time of the patriarchs, back in Genesis 42. Do you remember the story when Joseph, who had his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, born and raised in Egypt, he wanted to get those two kids to his father, Jacob, their grandfather, and have grandpa lay his hands on the children and bless them.

And remember the story? It says Jacob was an old guy, and he couldn't see, but he knowingly pulled a switcheroo. That's not how the scripture says it, but he crossed his hands, and he placed his right hand on the youngest. And Joseph said, no, no, no, he's the youngest.

And Jacob said, I know what I'm doing. The younger is going to be more prominent than even the older. And even the Jewish Talmud instructed parents to bring their children to a notable rabbi, a spiritual leader. So it became accustomed that on the anniversary of the child's birth, the first birthday, they would bring to the synagogue the little children to be blessed by the rabbis. And here they bring children to Jesus.

Notice it says little children. The Greek word paideia, toddlers, are actually all the way from infancy up to a young child. Now, in Luke's same account of this text, it says, and they brought infants to him, breathos.

And so all the way from infancy to young childhood, that was the age of those who were being brought to Jesus here. Now, we've sort of followed that custom. We have baby dedications. By the way, it's not to take the place of infant baptism. We don't hold some superstitious element and say that, well, you've got to get your child dedicated or else. No, we do it as a way to incorporate that new, wonderful life of these children being born into our fellowship in a way that we can all stand behind those children and those parents. Well, no wonder parents would want to bring their children to Jesus and place their kids in his hands.

They've watched those hands heal people, give sight to blind eyes, unstopped deaf ears. Who wouldn't want to get their children into the hands of Jesus? So why did they bring their kids to Jesus? Because every parent loves his children. Every parent wants the safe passage and journey for the children, wants their children to go into the kingdom, wants them to go to heaven.

So they brought them to Jesus. I suggest the same for any parent. Get your kids to Jesus as soon as you can. In those earliest years, when you think, they don't even know what I'm talking about, mention his name. Instruct them. Charles Spurgeon used to put it this way, before a child reaches seven, teach him all the way to heaven. And better still, the work will thrive if he learns before he's five.

As young as you can, because a parent is a partner with God in discipling children. So it's a beautiful story, they're bringing their kids to Jesus. But notice, but the disciples rebuked them.

How weird is that? You think, wait a minute, these disciples have been now with Jesus for at least two years. They've heard his messages, they've seen him.

They obviously don't share his heart for children. It's a very strong word, by the way, rebuked. It means to scold or sharply reprimand.

Something like, get out of here. Why would disciples do that? I can think of a couple reasons. Possibility number one, these disciples were influenced by the worldly idea of what children were. The Greco-Roman idea that children were insignificant. That childhood was the most insignificant part of a person's life.

They're just children. Did you know that 2,000 years ago, in the pagan cultures, unwanted children were simply abandoned, just cast out, just thrown out, abandoned out in the open field? And especially if they were a girl, unfortunately, there was a lot of discrimination in gender. Because, you see, a daughter in a poor family would mean a future financial burden, but a boy could contribute to the economy of the family in those days. So the girls were cast out. Here's a little excerpt from a letter.

A little over 2,000 years ago, from 1 B.C., a man writes to his wife. He's out on the battlefield. If, he says, if, good luck to you, you have another child. If it is a male child, let it live.

If it is a female, cast it out. And so these babies that were abandoned were collected at night and placed into the city forum. Most of them didn't survive.

The ones that survived were made slaves, gladiators, or prostitutes. So it could be that just that kind of thinking about children in the world had influenced these disciples. And you might say, well, I don't buy that. They were Jewish, and they were Jesus' disciples, so they probably didn't think that way.

You might be right. In fact, it could be that they were tainted by the very religious view of children. You say, what do you mean by that? The very religious view. Yeah, did you know that the most religious people of Jesus' day, the Pharisees, they didn't think very well of children either.

And here's why. The Pharisees believe that you earn your salvation. And because a child is incapable of earning their salvation, the kingdom of God does not belong to children. They can't do anything to earn their salvation.

Thus, they're insignificant. Now, I won't have you turn to it, but the account that we're reading, these three verses, they're so important. They're found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three synoptics. In Luke's account, listen to this. In Luke's account of the same passage, Jesus said this right after he told a parable.

And I want you to see how it fits together. It says, Jesus spoke a parable to those who trusted in themselves that they were more righteous than others. And he said, two men went up to the temple to pray, remember that story?

A Pharisee and a tax collector. And the Pharisee stood and prayed with himself. And he said, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And I thank you that I'm certainly not like that tax collector over there. He was boasting in his own good work. Jesus continued the parable, but the tax collector wouldn't even raise his head up, but he pound his breast and he said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Literally, the sinner. And what did Jesus say? That man went down to his house justified, and the righteous religious guy did not. Right after that, Jesus said, let the little children come unto me. Don't forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

You get the connection? In other words, it's not the self-righteous who are justified. It's not the spiritually elite.

It's not the moral achievers. It's all those who, like little children, recognize their own helplessness, their own hopelessness apart from Christ, and they completely and totally depend on his grace. There's something to note about these disciples and their response. I think that children want to come to Jesus Christ.

Once they find out about Jesus, I've even noticed this among children of unbelievers, that children often want to come to Jesus Christ, and it's too often the adults that get in the way. I heard about an atheistic lawyer who had a plaque in his office, and the plaque read, get this, God is nowhere. This little girl was in his office one day, looking up at this plaque, God is nowhere, and she was just sort of killing time, waiting for Dad, and she took a couple pieces of paper and kept copying that motto, kept copying it. But as she copied it, she made a mistake, and she put a space between, in the last word, the W and the H. So it read, God is now here.

Completely changed the meaning and upset her father. That little illustration just points to how kids on their own, God, I think, put that within their hearts. Well, this is, as Skip mentioned, a very tender topic. But fortunately, we serve a very tender God who knows exactly what it feels like to lose a child. If you've ever wondered where God was in the face of a tragedy like the death of a child, know that He's right there, weeping in pain and hurt along with us, while at the same time providing hope and comfort with the promise of resurrection in Jesus Christ. Well, before we go today, Skip and Lania have a few more thoughts they'd like to share.

Lania? Skip, the topic today is just so, so tender, and it's close to us because we have dear, dear friends who have experienced this, and the loss of a child has to be the most painful of all human experiences. Witnessing the grief of a mother up close is so, so tragic. What guidance can you give us so that we would become agents of healing to those who are suffering loss rather than hurting them any further?

I remember I watched my parents lose their son, my older brother, and I watched in one instant how my mother's visage physically changed in hearing the news of her son's death and how different she was after that, and it made a profound impact. And then the statistics are pretty amazing that two million babies worldwide die in the first 24 hours of that life. So there's an enormous amount, and somebody once said that heaven will be populated with more babies than adults, just because of infant mortality, because of the abortion rate, a number of things. So I would have our audience realize a basic truth to life. Every pregnancy, no matter how that pregnancy occurs, is part of God's idea. It was his idea to have reproduction take place this way.

So God had a plan in that pregnancy, and even if that pregnancy was cut short, even if there's a child's life that was not long enough, is to focus on the purpose that God had in that pregnancy for the parents, even for that child, even for those people that that child had or will impact because of that life. There's a number of reasons. We don't always see the reasons, but we need to find the resources in the midst of the pain, because when it comes down to it, we don't really need reasons. We do need resources. We don't live off reasons.

Even though we want them, we live off resources. So be an agent to give God's comfort, God's resources, God's truth, God's word. And sometimes, you know, you've often said sometimes it's just to be quiet, to be there, to be present.

You know, we lost a pregnancy, too, in fact, had failed pregnancies. And there was a couple who came to the door and just showed up. They were just there with their presence.

And admittedly, they said they didn't have the right thing to say, the right thing to do, but they were going to hug us and pray with us. And I think presence just speaks so much. It's a ministry just to be there, because it speaks that the Lord is there.

It's just a reminder of that. And I put this message that we talk about in this radio program, I put in booklet form, and we've sent this all over the world, and we've had so many people get impacted by having it in written form. So I'd encourage those who want to be healing agents to get a hold of this and just to digest it, understand some of the truths and be able to share some of those great things. But share truth and walk softly around a broken heart. That's the rule. And share it incrementally. Don't be a fire hose.

Just a little drip here and a little drip there when they're ready. Well, thanks, Skip and Alenia. Really encouraging thoughts today. And if you'd like to get a copy of this teaching, Jesus, Friend of Children, it's available on CD for just $6, plus shipping. Call now 1-800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com. We'll continue to explore this very sensitive issue next time here in Connect with Skip weekend edition.

So be sure to join us for the conclusion of Jesus, Friend of Children. Connect with Skip weekend edition is a presentation of Connection Communications. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection, connection. Connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.