Baby Dedication Service
November 20th, 2005
Intro:
What we are about to do together as a congregation has great significance. We do not baptize infants in this church, believing that Scripture clearly teaches baptism as a personal choice for the believer and a response to God’s call on your life and the Salvation experience of an individual. Clearly a child cannot make the decision to be baptized or not to be baptized at a very young age, they would have no choice. So, we follow in a tradition and heritage that is centuries old of presenting our children to God by way of dedication. We see this in the gospels when Christ’s mother and father brought him to the temple to present him to God. This time is really a public confession on the part of the parents to raise their children according to God’s word and to teach them to obey His commands and to do everything that they can to bring them to a saving knowledge of Christ.
So, the ceremony, this time we are entering into has nothing to do with the salvation of the child. It is not a magic formula whereby the child receives a free pass into heaven. It is a promise, on the part of the parents, to follow god’s call in raising their child and setting their child apart for God’s service.
Read Mark 10:13-16
It was the custom of the day for the parents to bring their children to the teacher or Rabbi and ask for God’s blessing on the child. As the parents began to bring their children to Jesus, the disciples (always just not quite getting it!) begin to rebuke the parents and send the children away. Maybe they thought Jesus was too busy to be bothered, maybe they thought that the children were not important and that Jesus shouldn’t have to deal with the distraction. Whatever their reasoning, Jesus made it clear that children had a special place in His heart and that the parents were right in their thinking., He encouraged the parents to bring the children to Him. And what a shock it must have been to those poor disciples when Christ took time for each child, He didn’t simply touch them, we’re told He took them into His arms and you can picture here the joy on His face as He interacted and played with the children. What a beautiful picture this gives us of Christ, but that’s another sermon for another day.
So, the parents today follow a noble heritage of bringing their children and dedicating them to the Lord, acknowledging the awesome responsibility of raising them to be godly in a godless society, and asking God’s blessing on them.
Dedication of Baby
In the passage we read this morning, Jesus not only shows his love and affection for the children, but he uses the moment to teach the disciples a lesson. He says that the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these, those who are like children. Then He elaborates and said: “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
Christ was saying that in order for us to enter into the kingdom of God and to receive the salvation that Christ has for us, we need to display some of the characteristics that all of us are born with, but most of us grow out of as we learn some of the hard lessons of this world. There are many child-like characteristics that I think Christ was hinting at here because there is so much purity and innocence in a child - but I want to look at three specifically that we need to make sure are a part of our life and that we can be reminded of as we look at the children who are being dedicated here this morning.
II Dependence
The first Child-like characteristic that we need to have is dependence. God wants us to look to Him and depend on Him to supply those things we need to live out our days in accordance with His will for us. You don’t have to teach a child to be dependent. They have no choice.
I remember when we brought Ethan home form the hospital and walking through the door of our apartment and thinking, OK, now what? They don’t send you home with directions and I remember feeling like somehow they shouldn’t have let us go with this baby so soon because we didn’t know what to do. Our baby was completely dependent upon us to supply all of his needs.
I remember waking up that first morning (actually waking up for the fifth or sixth time that morning!) and Ethan was in the bed with us and he was just looking at me. We stared at each other for a long time and it hit me what a great privilege and responsibility it was to be able to care for this little guy. At that moment I wanted to take care of anything that he needed because in that moment, I was convinced that no one could care for him like I could. He was dependent on us and he still is to a large degree. We fed him, we cleaned him up, we comforted him. For the first time I understood God’s love for us.
God wants us to depend on him to meet our needs because He knows there is no one that can care for us the way that he can. He has the resources to care for our needs.
We can depend on Him for:
Strength: Ps 46:1 – God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Phil 4:13 – I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
There is tremendous comfort in knowing that He can provide strength that we simply do not have when we depend on Him. I know many of you can give testimony to that in your own life. There are others who are growing weary from doing things in their own strength and need to learn dependence.
Wisdom: James 1:5 – If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without fault, and it will be given to him.
There are so many times that I have called on this verse. If we learn to depend on God for wisdom, the choices we make in life will begin to fall more in line with where he wants us to go and what he want us to do.
Protection: 2 Thes 3:3 But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.
Ps 121:1-3 I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip – he who watches over you will not slumber.
God stands ready to protect and deliver, yet so often we continue to allow sin to rule in our lives. We need to depend on god for his Protection.
Provision: Just like my children depend on me for what they need daily – For shelter, food, love, and so many other things, we can depend fully on God to provide for us.
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
Phil 4:19
There is no situation that we find ourselves in that surprises God, He can meet our needs if we depend on him to provide.
God wants us to be like a child and wholly depend on Him for what we need on a daily basis.
Dedication of Baby
will you depend on God to provide ……..
III Trust
Another quality that is found in children that I believe God is saying that we need to have in our lives is that of TRUST. Now, dependence and trust have a lot of overlap and are very similar, but there are enough differences that I wanted to include trust on its own. Dependence is more of an acknowledging that God will supply our needs and care for us. Trust is believing that God is who He says He is and will deliver on the promises He gives us in Scripture. It is following where He to go and doing what He says to do without question because you believe that He knows best and has your best interests at heart. It’s really taking dependence one step further.
This is one of the most difficult things for many Christians. It’s hard to trust God. We learn in this life to be very careful where we place our trust and who it is that we trust. A child doesn’t have that problem – a child trusts even when it doesn’t make sense for them, - when Ethan was little, I’d put him up high on something and hold out my arms and he’d jump right in - he didn’t stop to think or look around to see what might happen if I dropped him – he trusted me – so he jumped. Christ is saying that we need that ability to trust in God – in any circumstances – whether we fully understand what’s going on or not.
A. We need to trust that He’s there for us
Dock Illustration
This story proves that I’ve never been particularly bright! But it also illustrates beautifully the trust in my father. I knew he would catch me when I jumped.
God rewards the faith of those who are willing to jump in with both feet and trust that God is big enough to catch them and to hold them even if it feels like you’re going under. He will keep you above the surface and give you an abundant and exciting life with Him. So many people get their feet to the edge of the dock but they don’t jump because they don’t really trust that God is there.
Give series of conditions and rules 6/4 they jump & God’s saying “just trust me, believe what I say is true & jump!”
B. We need to Trust that He’s Working on our Behalf
So much of life doesn’t make sense. For a child, they just assume that their parents are always looking out for them and always have their best interest in mind. We can trust God for the same.
Romans 8:28 – And we know that IN ALL THINGS God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes.
That’s His Promise. Even when we don’t understand, even when times are hard and we don’t think we’re going to make it, God is working on our behalf. We’ve got to trust that that’s the case.
Hebrews 10:23 says that we can trust what he promises, he will do!
Without wavering let us hold tightly to the hope we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promises.
God knows best and He will not lead you in the wrong direction. When God speaks, it’s always true & right – every word is true.
Ethan when told I was wrong.
He trusted that I was right in any situation and he would defend that. In this case he was wrong, I wasn’t right and didn’t always know best, thank God we can put our trust in one who really does know best!
Listen to God’s promises to those who trust:
YOU WILL:
- Never be forsaken
- Rise up and Stand Firm
- Your Righteousness will shine like the sun
- You will not be shaken
- God will direct your paths
- God will provide and care for you
That’s quite a list, but we’ve got to learn to trust in God like a child with his parents.
Dedication of Baby
Will You Trust God?
The third characteristic that I want to look at this morning is not one that is usually thought of when this passage is taught. That’s that fact that children are:
IV Persistence
Have you ever been shopping with a three-year-old? They make it very clear that they would like to own one of everything in the store. Have you ever watched a young child try to get their parent’s attention while the parent is talking to someone else? They want a response and they are persistent in making sure you know they are there. Have you ever told a child they could have candy later – they will ask you 785 times if it’s later yet! How about a newborn, when they’re hungry – can you leave them sit for 20 minutes while you finish something up? Absolutely NOT! They are persistent in letting you know they’re hungry. Children are born persistent – they will ask over and over again for what it is that they want. Now most of us would look at this as something negative but Christ says that it is a quality that we are to have when we approach God’s throne in prayer.
In Luke 18 he tells his disciples this story and we are told that it is to teach them to always pray and never give up. He tells the story of a judge who is a terrible person and does not care about men nor did he fear God. A widow comes to him with a request for justice and she asks again and again. He refuses her request for a long, but she is persistent and approaches hem again and again. Finally, he grants her request because of her persistence. And then Christ says if this is how the unjust judge reacts, how much more will God listen to and answer the cries of His chosen ones.
God wants us to be persistent, Christ says that our prayers will be answered but that we are to persist in them until God moves. So many times in my life if I don’t see the answer I want immediately, I assume that God is not going to answer and I either stop praying or try to fix things on my own. As I was thinking about this, my mind went to my mother-in-law, Erin’s mom. Erin’s mom left their family when Erin was a freshman. For months I prayed that God would bring her back and change her heart. As the time passed, the prayers became less and less frequent. Today, I rarely give it a thought but she still needs her heart turned back to God. Christ’s parable tells us that we can’t give up – we must be persistent as we see in the lives and actions of children.
What a privilege it is to approach the throne of God, the Creator of Life, are we taking advantage of the opportunity that we have or do we give up too easily? God wants us to be persistent in our prayers to Him.
One way that we can do that is to continually lift up our needs to God. I have been praying daily for this ministry and pleading with God to make u s force for change in this place. I hope that you will join me in persistently approaching God and asking for His favor and blessing and leading for this ministry. We also need to pray for those in our ministry who need God’s healing touch. The next child that we are going to dedicate is one that I hope all of you are being persistent in praying for. The greatest gift that we can give to the Davis family is praying for them. The greatest help, the greatest support, the greatest love we can show them is to have a single-minded childlike persistence before God in our prayers for Evan and their family. We will wait with expectation to see what God will do!
Dedication of Baby
Will you be persistent…….
What a privilege it is to be involved in the life of a child. There is so much that we can learn from them. The children we have dedicated to God this morning are precious to Him. The vows that the parents have made this morning are solemn and are a huge responsibility. They don’t carry that burden alone however, as the body of Christ and as their church family, it is our responsibility to come along side of them and to help in any way we can. Encouraging them, praying for them, and helping to teach their children and point them to the Savior – it is all our responsibility to do everything that we can to give these children the knowledge of the Truth that they need.
Some of you will teach them in Sunday School – some will have them in youth group – some will direct them in plays and choirs – others will commit to praying for them. I am going to ask you all to stand with me now and to acknowledge your role in the lives of these children.
