Word of Salvation – Vol.48 No.6 – February 2003
The Things Babies Can Teach us
Sermon by Rev D VanGarderen
on 1 Peter 2:1-3
Scripture Readings: Matthew 18:1-14; 1 Peter 2:1-12
Congregation in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everyone who is halfway serious about being a parent, teacher or children’s caregiver, agrees that this is a huge task and responsibility. Failure rates are high and have serious consequences. It is commonly agreed that bad parenting and teaching lies at the heart of many of our social woes.
It seems that, on the whole, Christians who are parents and teachers take these concerns even more seriously than the rest of society. Courses on ‘good parenting’, accompanied by dozens of popular books on the subject, find an especially receptive market in our circles. For example, the Christian author, Dr James Dobson, has sold millions of books. Many of you will know that the theme of most of his books is about being a successful parent.
In nearly all of his material most of the emphasis is on what parents and those involved in raising and nurturing children should be for children. On what YOUR job is as a responsible Christian adult.
You may recall the questions that are used whenever one of our covenant children is being baptised. The third question is of special importance. It highlights how parents and the covenant community promise to instruct and cause our children to be instructed in the basic truths of the Christian faith. God’s Word commands us to love them, teach them, train and discipline them. To bring them up, nurture them in the fear and discipline of the Lord. You only get one shot at it. Work earnestly and pray for that moment when your children, looking back on their childhood, will rise up and bless you for what you were and did for them.
Important and totally serious as this may be, that is only part of the picture. This teaching and training is not simply from us to them but, as I would like to share and remind you of this morning, also from them to us! I would like to show you from God’s Word that their impact and role in nurturing and shaping us is as important as the other way round. We are not only the children’s teachers, but also to be their students. We must not just learn about them, but also learn from them.
This business of learning from children is one that the Lord Jesus Himself demonstrated and emphasised – not just to parents, but to all of His disciples then and now. For example, in Matthew 18 the disciples were once again seeking Jesus’ advice and counsel on their favourite topic – their own standing and the great future they believed they had. They really were filled to overflowing with a sense of their own importance. Little did they realise that, by this attitude and view of themselves, they were endangering their own salvation. A little like the wicked stepmother in the Snow White story, they looked at themselves and thought they were the greatest of them all. Mirror, mirror on the wall… ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ (18:1).
In what was to be one of the most important lessons of their lives, Jesus called a little child and had him stand among the disciples. And He said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (18:3).
Let the example of a child teach you the fundamentals of being a disciple, a citizen of the kingdom of heaven! In verse 5 the Lord Jesus went on to say that if you want to welcome Him, learn to welcome these children into your heart. Let children teach you how to be a true disciple (cf Mk 9:33-37; Lk 9:46-48).
In Mark 10:13-15, which describes the scene when the disciples rebuked people who were bringing their children to Him, Jesus was indignant (10:14). He emphatically – using the well-known, “I tell you the truth” (truly, truly) formula – says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (10:15). Learn from the children. Being taught by children is as least as important for the outworking of your own salvation as teaching them.
Note something else. This call to learn from children is not just for their parents. In the examples mentioned it is very likely that the child Jesus had stand in front of the disciples may have been Peter’s – and the point would have been driven home with special emphasis for him personally. But the child is used by Jesus to teach all of the disciples.
The same holds true for this community. Not all of us are parents. Not all of us are teachers. But by His grace the Lord God, in forming us together as a covenant community, the body of Christ, has placed babies and infants at the very heart of our community. In the question addressed to the congregation whenever our children are baptised, we all agree to receive these children as fellow members of the household of faith. These children – including some of the noisy, rowdy, smelly ones – are incorporated into this church to be a source of instruction and enrichment for us all. The call and challenge is for YOU to make yourself open and available to these little ones – for the sake of your own as well as their eternal well-being.
That the Lord Jesus expects us to learn from and be enriched by babies and infants is clear. But how do these children do this and, finally, what do they teach us?
First the ‘how’ question. That’s simple enough. Our children do not (or should not!) be teaching and instructing us by telling us what to do or assuming they know better than we do. (I know that’s obvious – but some of the little two and three year old dictators I have seen in shops – especially in supermarket trolleys – don’t seem to believe that. They have mum under control like perfect slave masters and mistresses.)
In terms of discipline, formal instruction of truth – especially biblical truth – the steering wheel and authority is firmly in our hands as parents and teachers. This had better be the case!
Children teach us – or ought to be able to teach us – by what they are and by what they do. In order to be able teach us in this way, children don’t need to be able to talk or give verbal explanations and instructions. Their instruction is much more basic than that. Look at what they ARE – and learn. Look at what they DO – and learn even more.
Then secondly, what children teach us – or at least should be able to teach us – is demonstrated and applied in an unforgettable manner in 1 Peter 2.
Peter is writing especially to Jewish Christians – people who, because of their love for Jesus, were increasingly hated and rejected by their own families and communities. They felt like strangers and unwanted aliens in a hostile world that hated them. They found this unjust, cruel and often mindless treatment very difficult to swallow. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. They didn’t deserve it. If God was God and loved them so much, why does He allow them to be treated in this cruel, humiliating and destructive way? Big questions that were at the very heart of everything they believed and hoped for. God’s answer lies in what He wanted to teach that generation of suffering Christians (and ours) by means of these children.
Look at what a child is, or – as in 1 Peter 2:2 – a newborn baby is. Yes indeed, a baby is a member and very much a part of the sinful, fallen human race. It is, as David attests, conceived and born in sin (Ps 51:5). But for all that, it has no history. It does not have a memory in the form of a record of everything that he or she is owed. There are no schemes for revenge or hidden agendas. There is no pretence, no double-talk or guile. There is no desire or plan to embarrass or humiliate or even to hurt you.
Brothers and sisters, each and every baby that God puts into your life is a mirror into which you are called to look and discover what you really are. By looking at a baby, God is inviting you to look at yourself. Discover what you have become and are in the process of becoming as you travel life’s journey.
This applies to all stages of the journey of life. If you are here as someone who can take or leave God, who hides behind the timeless excuse, “I’m alright! Nothing the matter with me. Yeah, I’m fine!”, then have a good look at a baby or little infant. What has life turned you into? Peter uses some very close to the bone words: malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander. How much hurt have you dealt out on others – even when you rationalise by suggesting they deserve all they got from you? How much haven’t you turned into a cynic – someone who looks at yourself and simply shrugs? Is it really true that life makes sense by minding your own business and looking out for number one? And have you ever thought about how you have treated God? Discover what you really are by taking the time to look at a child. It’s much more necessary and effective than looking in a mirror.
Likewise, if you are here as a believer, learn the lessons a child will teach you. I think you will agree with me that the greatest and most powerful sin that afflicts even Christians is pride. In the eyes of the world, the most common and persistent criticism directed against us Christians is that we are – to put it politely – stuck up and people who believe themselves to be somehow better and morally superior. We are seen to be snobs who think we have a monopoly on the truth. We really think we are something.
Now look at a baby. Look into its eyes. Touch its skin. Make a comparison and see just how far you are from what you know God really wants you to be. See how the baby is God’s instrument to show you the truth about yourself.
But look beyond what the baby is – also look at what it does best. Whenever those sweet little creatures (!) wake up, no matter whether it is 3 pm or 3 am, they are ravenously hungry and scream out with the most piercing cry that penetrates through the whole house! Everyone knows when a baby is hungry!
It takes a really courageous mum (I leave out dads because, from personal experience, they always fail this test!) to leave a hungry, screaming baby unattended for as long as 20 minutes. When baby is hungry, mum obliges. Breast or bottle – just look at the way baby goes for it! You’d never realise that it had been equally ravenous for milk only four hours earlier.
Once again, God is teaching you something about yourself by means of this baby. The apostle Peter dwells on it in 1 Peter 2:2. That craving, that all-consuming hunger for mother’s milk, that “I must have milk or I’ll die in your arms”, presents a real challenge to you.
Mum, as you feed baby, reflect on the question, “Am I as hungry, as ravenous for God’s milk – for God’s word of life, word of encouragement, love and instruction as my baby is? Would I really shrivel up and die spiritually if I didn’t have my daily doses – every four hours – of pure spiritual milk?”
If a mother or parent refused to feed her newborn baby, we’d call her cruel beyond measure. If we refuse to feed our children pure spiritual milk, aren’t we doing something worse and even more disastrous?
Furthermore, as any good mother and father knows, when the baby isn’t craving for milk, there’s something wrong! If baby is off her or his food for the day, we get all worried! Loss of appetite points to sickness! Let the children teach you! If you have no real craving for pure spiritual milk, if you can take it or leave it or even go without, check your spiritual health! God the Holy Spirit is giving you a signal that is crystal clear. You need to see a doctor who can attend to your spiritual needs, lest you starve yourself to death.
In conclusion, congregation, girls and boys, babies and children have been given to us by God: We, grown ups and you bigger sisters and brothers, must look after, train and teach the little ones, the babies.
But there is, as I have tried to show you, another side to it as well. God has given us babies and children to challenge, teach and train us!! Learn from what they ARE and also from what they DO!
Let’s read 1 Peter 2:2-3 out loud together:
“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
Amen.