Christian dedication involves more than ceremony; it anticipates the personal moment when one truly comes to know the Lord. The message contrasts Old Testament dedication, seen in Samuel’s childhood, with the New Covenant promise that all who are born again will know God personally. Jesus’ blessing of the children teaches that entry into His Kingdom requires the simple, trusting faith of a child. Genuine faith does not rest on ritual or inherited religion but on receiving the Kingdom through trust in God’s Word and His gracious promise.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Now, how we are going to proceed this morning is by going through the three passages in the Synoptic Gospels. We call Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Synoptic, which means they’ve got some commonality, see things through one similar eyesight. And we’re going to go through each of those in turn and to learn something about what this idea of dedication is. And it was very interesting that the song that we just sang, thank you for leading such, that song is about Christian dedication. You might even say Christian consecration. And these words, dedication, consecration, submission, they’re ones that have similarity or connections of meanings, but they’re not all exactly the same.

[00:00:53] And when we have the three episodes in the Gospels, in the Synoptic, that’s Matthew, Mark and Luke, they’re called the Synoptic Gospels, of this incident of Jesus blessing the children, you’ll find that there’s different things that can be brought out. And what we’re doing this morning is going through those three passages and seeing some things so we can understand what it is to be dedicated to Christ. And the initial idea of dedication, of course, comes in the Scriptures, in the Old Testament. There’s that beautiful story about Samuel when he was a baby, Elkanah, and I can’t remember her name. Anyway, the name of the parents, Hannah, I think it is, were without children.

[00:01:43] But Elkanah had another wife, Peninnah, who did have kids, and that brought about an enormous amount of difficulty for Hannah. And she didn’t have any children. And there was in the family, because often there are in families when there’s two wives, attention that grows as to who is the favourite, etc. And Hannah resorted to going down to the temple and praying to God to give her a son. The answer to the prayer, of course, is Samuel. And he becomes the first of the line of prophets that God has used. It’s very interesting because in bringing Samuel back to the temple, she actually gave him to live with Eli, the old priest, and to be brought up amongst all that was involved in the priesthood running the temple scene with all the sacrifices.

[00:02:43] And it was a sense in which that dedication by Hannah of this young boy, child, was a part of God taking him up. And God’s the one that initiated it in the first place by letting Hannah have the need and then praying and then the prayer being answered. But it is a sense, there is a sense in dedication where it’s something that we can do with our children. And because of that, some of the denominations, Christian denominations, follow the Roman Catholic idea that there is a ceremony that happens at the beginning of a child’s life in which it is baptised, to use their language. The idea of it is that the church has been given a role in order to have sacraments. And these sacraments are the vehicles through which the miracles of heaven come down to us. And by doing the sacrament of baptism,

[00:03:43] that puts the child in the kingdom of God. Now, we don’t believe that because there’s nothing in these three passages as we go through them you’ll see that back set up and in fact if you go to one of the occasions in the Old Testament I just referred to which was Samuel if you go to his story you discover something very interesting I didn’t ask you to find this verse but it’s in Samuel and I think it’s about chapter I’ll find it in a minute this is trouble having two books I’m not sure which one to look at but anyway in the little incident with Samuel when God comes and calls him it is in the calling of God that he becomes a prophet because prior to that the scripture says back in Samuel it says after then Samuel did not know the Lord this is very interesting because if we with New Testament eyes

[00:04:46] read the Old Testament we would misinterpret that statement because we use, because of the teaching of the New Testament, particularly in John’s Gospel, which is not a part of Matthew, Mark and Luke, but John’s Gospel is somewhat different, but it’s the one that teaches that for you to get into the kingdom of God, you’ve got to be born again. And it even words that, to as many as received him, gave he the right to become the children of God. So the New Testament, through the Gospel of John, teaches that for you to get in to the kingdom, you have to be born again. But that is not an Old Testament doctrine. Yet it does speak about Samuel, in his younger time in the temple, not knowing the Lord. And it says, up until this moment when God called him, Samuel did not know the Lord.

[00:05:44] Now that means that if you were to take the Old Testament pattern, you’re taking a pattern that doesn’t necessarily get you to know the Lord. In fact, the ones that got to know the Lord the way that Samuel did, are the prophets, the priests, and the kings. Maybe there were some others who were involved in very special works, like building the temple or building the tabernacle. They had to get it exactly right, and the Spirit came on them and controlled them, so they could. There are people being controlled or filled with the Spirit in the Old Testament, but they do not know the Lord the same way as in the New Testament. That’s not just my summing it all together and making that statement. It’s actually the predictions of the Old Testament

[00:06:31] that there would come a time, it’s called the time of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant had people seeking to obey the law that God gave through Moses and seeking to be the people of God by obeying all the provisions, but they did not individually necessarily know the Lord. And little Samuel, having been dedicated by his mother, by his being given into the temple and brought up there, he did not yet know the Lord. And only when God called him did he come to know the Lord. Why am I saying all this is because that’s Old Testament as far as God developed it for people to be his people. And the people who belonged to the Lord and were a part of Israel, they certainly belonged by so being, but most of them did not know the Lord the way the prophets and the kings and the priests did.

[00:07:29] There were special persons who helped design, as I said, the tabernacle and whatever, who also did, when they were filled with the Spirit. But no, Samuel did not know the Lord by being dedicated when he was little in the temple. And yet we have the phenomenon today of there being denominations who teach that when you come and get yourself, or when your parents get you baptised, you get in the door and you are a part of that group of people who know the Lord by the baptism. Theologically we call it having an idea of there being a way God comes with his grace down through the sacraments. So it’s called sacramental theology. Some Baptist ministers, not well trained in the colleges that they go to, will use the word sacraments interchangeably with ordinances when we have the communion

[00:08:27] and confuse people to understand. And the word sacrament just means how you have the Lord’s table or whatever. But it just isn’t. The idea of sacrament is the actual belief that it’s a conduit of God’s grace coming down and getting to people. There’s the sacrament in the Roman Catholic system of there being a confession of your sins. And when he says you’re forgiven, you are forgiven because the sacrament conveys it to you. But that’s not biblical. there’s a sense in which it follows the Old Testament in a way but it’s not New Testament because the big difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that the Old Testament had you keep the law of Moses as the way to be in God’s favour but the New Testament the promise of the New Covenant that is in the Old about the New

[00:09:17] says about when the New Covenant comes it says they shall all know me from the least until the greatest men and women, boys and girls, the lot all know me in the new covenant but the old covenant didn’t make everybody know the Lord and it says of Samuel, though he was already dedicated he did not yet know the Lord it’s a New Testament phenomenon for there to be the new birth whereby we get into the kingdom and we’re born again and we know the Lord and everybody who’s come to Jesus and has come to Christ knows the Lord in a way the Old Testament people did not necessarily so do to understand that difference and how it applies to our denominations and not get mixed up with what dedication, consecration these words may mean, they’re good things there’s nothing wrong with a baby, we’ve just had one

[00:10:18] we gave him into God’s hands and prayed for him a part of the prayer is that one day he would come to know the Lord or she in this case little Emily and that’s what we had because where we have a regard for the teaching of the New Testament and are beseeching the Lord that he will see to it that little baby Emily will come to know him I think it’s fantastic that we have that dedication ceremony it’s a prayer to God and that’s why we get you all to stand in it because we all join together as a church to pray for this child that she will come to know the Lord isn’t that a fantastic thing at the end of this service I’m gonna have the finish of that prayer I won’t have to bring the baby out again but we’re gonna be praying in the light of what I’ve been telling you in these three passages.

[00:11:18] Well, that’s a little bit there about Samuel in the Old Testament. Thank you. Let’s go and look at Matthew and see how he words it. I won’t labour each of the passages or we’ll be here until tonight. But looking at the three passages, the first one is in Matthew and Matthew 19, 13 to 15. I think you… Yeah, there we go. Then the children. Now, do you notice that in these three passages sometimes they’re called children, sometimes they’re called new babes? Now, what that teaches me when you put the three together that this is not a statement just about little babas as we had today. This is a statement about something to do with childlike faith and with something to do with humanity as the humanity comes out of the womb. Now, I’ve got to say this carefully, or I could mislead you.

[00:12:20] Please listen carefully and don’t put down to me if you’ve got it wrong. But when a baby’s born, they’re born with a positive attitude. They’re still sinners. I’m not denying the fact that they’re born into a sinful race and they have inheritance of sin that’s going to be something they’ll struggle with all their lives. But they’re born with an awareness of it being appropriate to be related to God. I don’t know how many of you remember your pre-conversion time. I got converted at nine, became a Christian at nine. But I can remember my pre-times that I, I want to tell you, loved the Lord. I didn’t know him and I didn’t know that I didn’t know him. But there have been some particular events in my life that don’t happen to everybody. I had polio and got healed from it by the students of Dad’s College.

[00:13:21] And I always thought I was special. And I went along to church and I used to answer all the questions and I used to be someone that sat for Sunday school exams. I got top of the state, two years running, and basically thought that I was some good little Christian. But I did not yet know the Lord. How I know that is because there came a time when I did. So dramatically different it was when I came to know the Lord. The scripture came alive more than it ever did before. But I do think that it’s natural for little children to have a sense, unless the parents teach them different, or unless there’s some terrible circumstance that makes it hard for them, that they come into the world with a sense that God is one of a topic they like to listen to.

[00:14:21] That God is someone that when you teach them in Sunday school, they love to hear. I think that it’s natural for little children to appreciate that there’s a God in heaven and that the little children naturally are happy to come to Jesus in the sense of let him pat them on the head, let Jesus look after them, pray for them. There’s something about childlike faith. Some of us may have noticed it when we had our children, that there is something about the way little kids can believe. And yet later on they register that moment of getting properly converted. That’s what I’m talking about. I was one. And I was someone so keen. So keen was I, as I saw myself as a Christian, that when my dad was recruited to help in the Billy Graham crusade, that I may have got myself squeezed in the door

[00:15:24] or run out at the last minute or someone get to sit there when the Graham team came to talk with my dad. I listened in with big ears and considered a wonderful thing that our family was going to go every night. And I went there and observed the crowd. I can still remember becoming aware of a presence of God in that crowd. In the talking somehow, there was a presence. I know what and who that presence was. It’s Jesus. Because in the last Sunday afternoon, I came to know him, realising it all the time before, I did not know the Lord. Because it’s natural for children to love God. He’s made us as having that as the natural thing. It’s only sin that eventually drives us further and further away. And you need to be born again, yes. But it doesn’t mean that children don’t have some innate knowledge of God

[00:16:34] and awareness of God by virtue of being his creation. And you see that with the little kiddies. The thing to do, though, is to realise that Jesus accepted them like that. Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. Now, what that means as to the status of children who just naturally know God when they’re little in terms of do they still need to be born again? That’s what I’m now chasing down. We’re looking at some things in these three passages. But one thing I notice at the end, he laid his hands on them. And it’s telling me about Jesus that he’s not just someone to draw a recognition or draw a medal, a cent or to draw an obedience or to have someone dedicated as a child. It is that there’s something about us and Jesus that he talks about belonging

[00:17:47] to the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them. I think he was praying for those little kids back then. That they would, like Samuel, one day come to know him in the deeper sense that John’s gospel talks about. And he laid his hands on them. But I also notice that finishes in the episode as recorded in Matthew, he went away. Because for the moment that was how he was ministering to those little kiddies. If we go to the next passage, which is in Mark, in Mark’s gospel, chapter 10 and verses 13 to 16. It says here, They were bringing the children to him that he might touch them. I just want to underline that the business of Jesus when he was on earth was not just to have children own him, not just to have children taught, but that he might touch them. How you interpret that touch as happening to us today

[00:18:57] might turn about to be differently. Different people have different testimonies. But it’s very famous in some of the music, He Touched Me. And it’s not just necessarily saying that someone suddenly had a whack on their arm, just a physical touch. It could be meaning in a metaphorical sense. But there’s something in the touch of Jesus that He wanted to administer. He touched them. And He was ignorant. In the first case, we learn in one of these Gospels, I forget which, but it was the disciples He was rebuking for trying to keep the parents away. But in this passage, let the children come to me. Do not hinder them. Don’t put things in the way. And this can be good advice for us to be cautious as to how we bring up our kids, that we don’t do things in the family that make them come to some later moment

[00:20:04] when they’re little, they might have loved God, loved Sunday school. But then something happens in the family and the result happens where the kids turn off Christianity. And I think Jesus is aware that something can turn a little one. Do not hinder them. Let the children come to me. Immediately He’s talking about don’t stop them coming for me to pick them up and bless them. But then He gives an explanation for to such belongs the Kingdom of God. There’s something in which the Kingdom of God is so close to little kids. And if they come to know Christ, then they can know Him more deeply. And as I said, the Old Testament promise of the New Covenant made the distinction between the Old Covenant and the New Wizard in the New Covenant, they shall all know me. You’re not in the New Covenant

[00:21:06] till you’ve come to know Christ. And little Samuel in the Old Testament, he was destined to be a prophet but until the Lord called him, he did not know the Lord. And so it is with us in the New Covenant time, if you’re in the New Covenant, that you’ve been called to know him. If you’re here this morning and you’ve come into Christianity through the way your family held the tradition or your denomination exercised it, but as you listen to my words, something in you has been raised to question, do I know the Lord? Then what you need to do is go home and get on your own, in your room, and tell the Lord that you’ve always meant to know him. But if you don’t know him yet, you’re asking him to come to know you, to come and speak to you and bring you in the door. Then the next verse 15 says, Truly I say to you,

[00:22:18] whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it, and this is very helpful interpretive because it’s talking about receiving the kingdom of God. But it doesn’t say that you have to receive the kingdom as a child. It says that you’re to receive the kingdom of God like a child. It’s actually describing the fact that all of us, whether we’re young or old, when it comes to that moment of doing business with God for the forgiveness of sins, when it comes to that moment of sensing that he’s calling you to know him, not just worship him, not just someone who’s been dedicated as a baby, but someone who’s come and had a personal experience with him. What he asks of you is that you have faith like children do. It’s a simple trust. How does that translate?

[00:23:15] It translates that you don’t ask him to have proven it philosophically. It translates that you do trust the way he does, has chosen to speak to us through the Gospels. And the fact that this passage is here in these three occasions of Jesus taking children, it says, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. It’s a simple trust in the promise of God, the word of God that makes a person secure. If you come to faith in God by a series of reasons alone, your reasons may have been helpful. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with us having good reasons. Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord in the Old Testament. He’s all for reasoning together. But there’s a faith that’s necessary that simply accepts him at his word.

[00:24:20] Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Now tell me he’s not aiming at the children hearing that and, you know, swallowing hard. He’s aiming that for those who later read the word of God, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to know that it isn’t just when you’re a child, you have to get in the door. It is to have childlike faith that trusts his word. He gives a promise. And connected to any person who truly gets converted along the way, if not at the beginning, maybe along the way, is that God’s promises are there and they get called on to step out on the promises of God. There’s a moment, there’s been a moment, and I’ve got in my library, I have books by very famous people and when you read their biographies as to how they got to be preachers,

[00:25:20] you discover almost an identical sort of scenario in every one. not the details thereof, but certainly a moment when in earlier times they sort of rested in their reasoning or rested in their assumption because of family and church or rested in the church, as they say. But there came a moment when God called on them to rest in the word of God, to rest in the fact that when God speaks, little children, naturally, listen but when you really as an adult rest in God’s promise and that can come about to you through a special moment when God speaks to you, can come about through you in a certain circumstance where up to now you’ve been desperate because you’ve been trying to get it to go well and then at last you have to give in but you couldn’t somehow get rest that way You’re like a person that’s got a terrible problem

[00:26:25] and they’re praying to God and they’re wrestling, Lord, I’ve got the deed and they can’t get me rest. And then they come and there’s many a story you read in different biographies of someone that says, but then I said to the Lord, Lord, you have your way. Whatever you want to do, I’ll trust you. That’s being like a little child. And you’d be amazed at how many times in the adult Christian life there come moments when things like, oh, maybe I should make a change and change my job or maybe I should do and you get restless, not knowing where’s the right way to turn. But maybe the right way isn’t one of those choices at all. Maybe it is that you say, God, you bring about what you want. I’ll rest in you like a little child does. And let the children come to me.

[00:27:21] Do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child, that doesn’t lock our soldies out. Whoever receives the kingdom like a child, whoever doesn’t do it won’t get in. And he took them in his arms and he blessed them, laying his hands on them. It’s interesting in one of the Gospels it says at the end, and then he went away. And the reason why he went away is that their coming to trust in him would probably happen at a later adult time. A bit like the man that came to Jesus. And the Lord actually tested him on this. He was a ruler and he had a son that was unwell. And Jesus simply said to him, go your way and he’ll be well. And what does the man do? Stay there pulling on Jesus’ garments? Please say a prayer in my presence?

[00:28:22] Please do something, you know, special? Jesus just says, you go your way. And when he went, while he was going back home, he tested it because his servant came out and said, the boy’s been made better. The man asked, when it happened? And it was the very moment Jesus just gave the statement. And when you can lock in on the trustworthiness of Jesus’ statements, that’s in his word, whether it’s him speaking to you personally or whether it’s just you’re reading his word. And when you lock in, that you’re going to rest your case in the revealed word of God and leave it there. That man’s son got healed right at the time that he believed and obeyed Jesus. And what’s something common I’ve noticed because I get all these biographies and I like to read them of preachers because I was called to be a preacher.

[00:29:20] And because of that, I get all these biographies. and what turns out so common in person after person is that God had to bring them to trust not in their dedication but their simple trust in God’s dedication to them, his statements of promise, rest in them. And you discover that’s the face like a child and the whole issues, they just dissolve. You sometimes don’t know anymore but you just know that God has got you and you’ve got him. Let’s look at Luke’s Gospel. The final one, Luke 18, 15-17. Now they’re bringing even infants. So when it says even infants in flies, they’re bringing kitties as well. But amongst the kitties were even little bubbers that could just go muah, muah, muah. You know, they’re infants to him. That he may touch them. Notice again, Jesus is in the business

[00:30:29] of getting into the physical needs or getting into that which is a gesture of his care of the whole of us. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. Stupid disciples. He was rebuking people for bringing their babies to Jesus. But Jesus called them to him saying, let the children come to me. Do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Then he repeats, as I’ve already told you, truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom like a child shall not enter it. I finish with the question, has your faith gone past the place of resting in a ceremony a church might have done? Has your faith gone past the moment when you say, I’ll dedicate myself to him and started recognising that you can trust that he’s dedicated himself to you?

[00:31:29] Find a special promise where he so speaks in the scriptures. Make it your special promise. No matter what else, Lord, you said and you’ve got a special promise that God has given you. If you don’t quite know which one to pick, ask God to give you a promise of his word to rest your faith on because the faith that is you resting on his word is a million times better than a faith resting on your memory, your commitment. I’ve been truly committed. No, it’s not you being truly committed that counts. They’re good things to be truly committed. But the faith is not resting on your commitments enough. It is on the promise of God. I have found in children’s ministries, it’s always been helpful when someone comes to you and they’re not a little child anymore, but they say, Lord, I’ve never been,

[00:32:31] they say, whatever your name is, they say, I’ve never been sure that I’m in the door. Sometimes I think I am and then something makes me wonder. And I take them to some relevant Bible promise and ask them, does Jesus tell a lie? Is it true if it’s said by Jesus? Will you just rest your case on it? And I’ve read stories, this is a story I’ve read in the book, of a woman who has had a child dying in hospital and she’s pleading with God. It seems as though he hasn’t answered until exhausted in spiritual ability to go any further. She just tells the Lord, Lord, if you want to take him, you can. I’ll just trust you. The story anyway gets better. If God chose to take the child, that surrender is a type of commitment that’s different from, I’ll do the hard yard, surrender and sacrifice.

[00:33:54] My Saturdays to do this or that for the church or do something. But it’s a trusting in what God promises to do and resting in his word. And you’ll discover that that’s the answer when you leave it with Jesus and you rest in what he will do. Let me have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the joy of today. Lord, if there’s someone here who’s wanting a child and one has never come, will you help them to give that to Jesus? that’s what they can give to Jesus this morning. Whether you decide to change the status of a womb or whether you are simply receiving someone’s trust to rest in you, let that be their story, we pray. And Lord, if there are those who are seeking assurance of what you’ve already promised, help them to let that assurance be found in a promise that you give them, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.