Well, I wrote this sermon over the past week, but it has been several years in the making. I'm a chronic overthinker, sometimes to the detriment of myself, and sometimes my family reminds me, James, you're overthinking this, you're thinking too much. But for about a decade now, I've been studying this topic of baptism. I was as one well-known 20th century Baptist theologian put it, born, bred, and buttered a Baptist, Southern Baptist. And I'm so grateful for many of my Baptist heroes. I look up to many men. I don't have anything against my upbringing at all, but Over the last couple of years, the Lord has been leading me, I trust it's been the Lord leading me, to reevaluate some convictions specifically surrounding baptism. And so today, you're going to have what hopefully is a condensed fruit of this study. It actually makes it a lot harder to write a sermon when you've been studying something so much. So this was a tough one for me, but I'm gonna give it my best go to glorify the Lord and to serve all of y'all here right now. So the question that I'm gonna do my best to answer in one small part, one small part is why do we baptize babies and little children? Why do we baptize babies and little children? We will not be delving into a full-orbed theology of baptism today. There will probably be questions, regardless of your convictions on this matter, that pop up in your mind as I am preaching that I will not answer. There will be several questions that I might even draw out that we'll just have to leave to the side. Today, we're only going to be dialing in on why we think it is consistent with the Bible to baptize the young children of believers. And we'll be working primarily from this text in Luke 18. Our first point today is this. We are commanded to let the little children come to Jesus. We are commanded to let the little children come to Jesus. But notice in our scripture passage today, if you do have your Bibles open, notice how Luke records this. How are these children actually getting to Jesus? God's word tells us, quote, that they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. These children were not coming to Jesus on their own. They were being carried, most likely, by their parents. They did not ask to be brought to Jesus. They didn't have any mental or cognitive knowledge of who Jesus was. They were entirely passive in this process. But Jesus still regards these infants who are brought to him as people who are coming to him. This is reflective of the truth that no one can come to Jesus on his or her own initiative. No one comes to me, Jesus tells us, unless the Father which sent me draws him. Or as Paul tells us, no one seeks after God, no, not one. So if you have come to Jesus, it is because you have been brought to Jesus. You did not come to Jesus on your own. You may not have been carried like these little babies, but you were no more active than they were. In fact, these infants who were brought to Jesus, I'm sure, went more willingly than many adults, some of whom, and maybe some of you know of this in your own testimony, like C.S. Lewis said about himself, were dragged, kicking and screaming into the kingdom of heaven. That's how he, as a violent atheist and a very bright man, felt that he was brought to Jesus, dragged, kicking, and screaming. Now, why were these children being brought to Jesus, so we might ask? Luke tells us that it was so that he might touch them. This is interesting, because usually in the Gospels, when people come to Jesus so that he would touch them, or when people bring others to Jesus so that he might touch the others, it's because they need healing. They need healing. Jesus was a healer. But none of the Gospels mention these children being blind or lame or sick or needing healing in any way. So why bring the children? Or as the disciples might have asked the question, why bother the master if there isn't an emergency right now? Well, the answer is twofold. First, these parents or other loved ones, they wanted the best for their children. They wanted to take every opportunity they could find to give their children the best. And what parent doesn't want this? Every parent, every good parent wants the best for their children. They have probably heard these parents that Jesus is a godly, compassionate, miracle-working rabbi, and he's in our town right now. And they've probably heard that when he touches people, they receive blessing. Now, we don't know if these parents believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of Israel. They may have, but odds are they didn't. They may not have even known that that was a possibility, that anyone had thought he was the Messiah. No, these parents, I think, just wanted what was best for their kids, and they thought that maybe this new Jewish rabbi might be able to help. And he did. God's word says in Mark, Jesus took the children in his arms, he laid his hands on them, and he blessed them. But there's a second reason also why Jesus commands the disciples to let these children come to him. And it is because even though there may not have been anything physically wrong with these little ones, they were nevertheless spiritually dead apart from the grace of God. Even the cutest little baby is by nature a sinner. We are, as King David laments, conceived in iniquity. Even from the moment of our conception, we are sinful and we are guilty before God because of our sin. And these children, they likely, like we said, didn't need physical healing, but they absolutely needed spiritual healing. Now, does that mean then that when Jesus blessed these babies, he gave them the gift of faith and they were born again? I don't think so. I don't think that's what this means. But I believe Jesus was nevertheless demonstrating, as he was in all his physical healings, that he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, and that only through faith in him and no one else could these little sinners find life and salvation. His blessing of these children was also like his preaching. The preaching of the word of God is life giving. But it is not automatic in its work of salvation. God's word pierces to the very depths of our soul. And it is the means that God uses to give us the new birth in Christ. But not everyone who hears a sermon gets saved. So also these children were being blessed by God himself in a real way. But we cannot say from this text, or even from a broader theological perspective, whether that means they were truly his children by faith. We don't know. All we know is that they received a true blessing from Christ, as all children who are brought into the presence of Christ, even today, do. Another reason we are commanded to let the little children come to Jesus is because babies and little children can have true, genuine faith in Christ. And we have no authority to prevent them from meeting with their Lord. That is not under our purview. I think of that first little baby who expressed faith in Christ, John the Baptist. While he was still in his mother Elizabeth's womb, he leapt for joy when Jesus, mind you, who had just been conceived in Mary's womb, very, very young, when Jesus came into his presence, John leapt for joy. John had faith in Christ in some mysterious way even before he was born. Or think of when Jesus came to the temple during the last week of his life. The Bible records only one group of people in the temple that truly worshiped Christ. Listen to what Matthew tells us happens after Jesus cleanses the temple. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant and they said to him, Do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, Yes, have you never read out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies? You have prepared praise. When this event happened, Jesus had already made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He has already been recognized by a great crowd of people as the King of Israel. He has cleansed the temple of those who defiled it by their greed and worldliness. And still the religious leaders don't get it. They memorized that Psalm, I'm sure many of them. Psalm 8 is what Jesus is quoting. They had memorized it. But they don't get it. But the infants and nursing babies do. These are children who could not come to Jesus on their own. They did not bring themselves to the temple. These are children who could not walk or talk. I don't know if they were 18 days old or 18 months old, but it doesn't matter. These were infants and nursing babies, and they were praising Jesus. Or think of Psalm 22. David, in the midst of great anguish, calls on God to be merciful to him by reminding God of his love for David and for his people. And David prays, you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breasts. On you was I cast from my birth. And from my mother's womb, you have been my God. This Psalm is ultimately pointing to Christ. Christ would fulfill this Psalm in its entirety and even quote from it on the cross. But it was nevertheless David's experience as well. God had been David's God since before he was born. And David is not unique in that. In his description of how the people of God grow and flourish over time, the Apostle Paul describes Israel, the people of God, as an olive tree. And over time, the tree grows and new branches shoot out and olives bud from them. And this happens naturally. It happens organically. God's covenant people frequently grow through faithful Christian parents having children, bringing them to church, and raising those children to know and love the Lord. You know, sometimes in our modern evangelical world, people get caught up on, instead of just being faithful to Scripture, out of a good desire to see more people come to the Lord, they get caught up in what's called church growth. And there are church growth consultants, and there are church growth strategies, and there are whole parachurch ministries devoted to helping churches grow. But you know that even Even the Baptist-based, evangelistic, and very godly, wonderful Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, even they report that in their studies, they found that 94% of people who come to faith in Christ do so because of their family. That's the number one church growth strategy right there, is to have children and raise them to the glory of God. That's it. That's how the church ordinarily grows. But I don't believe David's only talking about being a member of God's external or visible people when he says that God made him to trust him at his mother's breast, that God gave him the gift of faith and taught him in some mysterious way, genuine way to rely on God, even from the womb and from the cradle. That's what he means. David's not just saying, I was born into a Christian home. Because just being born into a Christian home will not save you. That will not be the basis of your salvation or the assurance of your salvation. But what David's saying is that in some mysterious way, God had given him faith even from his absolute youngest days. Now, I'm not saying that that means, therefore, that every infant born to Christian parents is automatically born again and has that living and active faith from conception and birth. That's not true. But in the ever-expanding nature of the new covenant, which is a better and more gracious covenant than the old covenant made on stone on Mount Sinai, in that covenant, shouldn't we expect that this type of faith would be granted more and more often as we reach that final day? That the church would see fewer children walk away from the faith than Israel did. Israel saw almost all their children walk away. There was only a tiny remnant that was faithful to Yahweh. But the church, that will not be the case for us. We know that more of our children will receive the second birth not long after their first birth, or possibly even before their first birth, like in the case of John the Baptist. That is something we can ground our hope on because of the nature of the ever-expanding and conquering new covenant in Christ's blood. God promised that He would grow His church. that He would be with us until the end of the world, that in the full realization of the new covenant, God promised that every single one of His children would truly know Him, and would have a new heart, and that the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Now, we're not there yet. As you know, you can look around the world and see that that reality is not present right now. We have not seen the final consummation of the new covenant yet, but it has been inaugurated in the blood of Christ. The new covenant has been opened to us. It has begun and its end is certain and sure, even though it is not realized yet. God will fulfill His promises and we are seeing this happen even today. The world in many ways looks dark. Can everyone agree that the world in many ways looks dark today? Our culture has departed so far from what the Bible wants us to be and to do. So far that I've heard from some conservative commentators that we live in a post-Christian world, that the West is a post-Christian world. There's some truth to that. I'm sympathetic to that. And I feel that feeling sometimes. But I think it's far more accurate to say that we live in a pre-Christian world. Because before this world ends, God will be acknowledged as King of Kings and Lord of Lords by all peoples. And in the end, in the end, all those who are part of his visible church will also be true members of his everlasting church. Like I said, we're not there now, but shouldn't we expect, shouldn't we expect that if we train up our children in the way that they should go, namely, if we train them up to know and love God, that when they are old, they will not depart from the faith. We don't presume our children are automatically born again through birth or through baptism, but we should trust that God will work through his ordinary means of the preaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments or ordinances, which are baptism in the Lord's Supper, the prayers of the saints and faithful Christian parenting to save our children from their sins. And I think we should expect that for many of our children, he will save them very early in life. So that was a lot on point one. Point one is we are commanded to let the little children come to Jesus. And really we bled over a good bit into point two, to be honest. Point two is this, babies and little children have always been included in the people of God. Babies and little children have always been included in the people of God. In God's wonderful plan of world redemption, He chose to use the ordinary means of parents having children, and then those children in turn having children, and so on and so forth, as one of the means by which His covenant and His kingdom expands. Even in the first mention of the gospel, what theologians call the Proto-Evangelium, you see the importance of children in God's plan of redemption. This is immediately after Adam sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. God pronounced a curse on all of creation. but especially on the man and on Satan. The curse on the man was that you'll have to work by the sweat of your brow, the field is not going to yield its fruit for you, and also all of your descendants will be born spiritually dead. That is a massive curse that we incurred in Adam. But then, Then God adds this beautiful promise to the woman, to Eve. In Genesis 3, he says to Satan, he says to Satan, but the promise is to Eve. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise or he shall crush your head and you shall bruise his heel. That's the first mention of the gospel, that Eve's offspring, Jesus, would crush the head of Satan. Even amidst disobedience and death, right here in the first few chapters of the Bible, we see God promising deliverance through the seed or offspring of the very ones who first disobeyed God. And Adam, just one chapter later, similarly, in a similar vein, one chapter later, Adam will name his wife Eve, which means the mother of all the living. Or another way that we could render that is life giver. Think of that. She was the one who was deceived. She was the one who took that forbidden fruit and gave some to her husband, Adam. Now the curse came because of Adam's sin. He was totally derelict of his duty. But think of how it must have felt for Eve, the one who must have felt the weight of bringing that judgment on her family to then be named life giver. the one through whom all life is descended. She is the mother of all of us by generation. And as the Genesis narrative progresses, you see a divergence even right in those first few chapters. You see a divergence between the godly line of Seth who is a godly man, who called upon and worshiped the Lord, through whom saints such as Enoch and Noah came, some of the godliest men ever to walk the face of this earth. You see a divergence from Seth's line, and then the ungodly line through Cain, through whom the wickedness spread upon the earth, that first murderer. So for the sake of time, we're going to have to jump straight from there and fast forward all the way to the covenant God made with Abraham. Now, as we continue to unpack our second point today, babies and little children have always been included in the people of God. In Genesis 17, we read these words. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you in the nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. And God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh, an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. Here in Genesis 17, we see God establishing a covenant with Abraham, who is, humanly speaking, the father of our faith. He's Father Abraham. And a covenant is a solemn bond made between two or more persons. It is something that's unbreakable, like marriage. Marriage is a covenant. It's not everlasting, but it's lifelong. It's a solemn bond made between two people. And the parties in this covenant, this everlasting covenant, are God, the initiator on one side, and Abraham and his entire household on the other side. The very nature of this covenant includes, and if you'd listen to those words, well, this covenant is bound up in Abraham's children. Like the promise given to Eve, this covenant is pointing down the corridors of time to that one particular offspring who will save his people from their sins. That offspring is Jesus Christ our Lord, the true seed of Eve and the true seed of Abraham. But even though Jesus is the ultimate seed of Abraham, All of Abraham's household is included in this covenant. And they are, in fact, essential to this covenant. And God emphasizes this by commanding that every male in Abraham's house be circumcised. He says, whether they're your natural children or not, if they were members of Abraham's household, they were to be given the sign of God's gracious covenant. And then if any baby boy did not receive the sign of the covenant, which is circumcision, he, the baby, the baby was regarded as a covenant breaker. If he did not have the flesh of his foreskin cut off of his body, then he himself, God tells us, would be cut off from the people of Israel. This is serious. And to add to the seriousness, God says multiple times, by the way, this is an everlasting covenant, a covenant which will endure throughout all generations. Now fast forward to the new covenant. At that great Pentecost sermon, the apostle Peter stood up to preach and he quotes from the prophet Joel chapter two. This is Joel's prophecy of the Holy Spirit being poured out on his people. Quoting Joel, Peter says this, And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, even on my male servants and my female servants. In those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. Just listen to how Joel and Peter speak of God pouring out His grace on His people, both young and old, both natural born Israelites and those bought by Abraham, brought into His house with money. That describes us. We are not ethnic born Israelites, but by faith in Christ, we are bought by the precious blood of Christ. We are brought into Abraham's house. And then even those people bought by Abraham, Their natural children, then, are included in this covenant, and they are included in this everlasting inheritance. God's Spirit on both young and old, men and women. Well, in that same chapter of Joel, just 12 verses before the prophet utters the words quoted by Peter, listen to what he says, beginning in Joel 2.16. Blow a trumpet in Zion. Consecrate a fast. Proclaim a solemn assembly. Gather the people. Sanctify the congregation. Assemble the elders. Gather the children and the nursing infants. Have the groom come out of his room and the bride out of her bridal chamber. Let the priest, the Lord's ministers weep. between the porch and the altar and let them say, spare your people, Lord, and do not make your inheritance a disgrace with the nations jeering at them. Why should those among the people say, where is their God? Then the Lord will be zealous for his land and will have compassion on his people. That is the passage that Peter is quoting from. Joel says, if you want the Lord to spare you the judgment you deserve, and instead of judgment, if you want the Lord to pour out His Spirit upon you and bring about salvation for you and your people, then this is what you need to do. Gather everyone together, gather all of God's people together, including the children and the nursing infants and sanctify them to the Lord and have your ministers pray to God that he would be merciful on his people. And the Apostle Peter then tells the men assembled at Pentecost, that day that Joel prophesied about is here. And the men realize what's going on. That's when it clicks for them. We have killed the Lord of glory. We have killed Jesus Christ. We were supposed to proclaim a solemn fast. We were supposed to weep. We were supposed to gather the priests and ask the priests to pray for us. And we didn't do any of that. We didn't do what the prophets told us. They told us, be on the lookout for the day of the Lord. And we were found sleeping in our sins. We didn't repent. We didn't have faith. Instead, we crucified the king of kings. How then, they were cut to the heart. How then, they say, can we obtain mercy from God? How can we be saved? What must we do? And Peter said to them, Acts chapter 2, verses 38 and 39, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. This language of promise for us and for our children should remind us of that great promise made to Abraham. God said to Abraham, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your children throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And God said he would give to you and to your offspring, he said this to Abraham, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. I will be their God. God made an everlasting promise to Abraham to be God to him and to his children. And we know this doesn't only mean his descendants once they have grown up and repented and trusted in Yahweh as their Lord. It's not only for his full grown children, We know this because the sign of the covenant was circumcision, and it was required to be given to the children in his household. And remember, this is an everlasting covenant. And God really was the God of Abraham's children after him. But it still might be objected that the promise, though, is to those who repent and believe. That's what Peter says here. He says, repent and be baptized. Well, that's not really an objection, it's just correct. Yes, the promise is to those who repent and believe, but that doesn't mean that we still don't give our infant children the sign of the covenant. Why is that? Romans chapter 4 gives us the answer. Romans chapter 4 says that Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith. And yet he was still required to give it to his children. So it shouldn't surprise us if baptism is also a sign and seal of faith and repentance, which it is. And yet we are still to give it to our children. In the New Covenant, baptism has, in fact, as the Bible tells us, replaced circumcision as the covenant sign. We know this for several reasons. In Colossians 2, the Apostle Paul says that we were circumcised with the circumcision of Christ when we were baptized. We were circumcised with the circumcision of Christ when we were baptized. Now Paul is speaking here actually not of physical circumcision or of water baptism. He is not speaking of that. He is speaking rather of spiritual circumcision and spiritual baptism. Circumcision and baptism point to the exact same spiritual realities, even though they differ in their outward sign. All throughout the Old Testament, we see the prophets, beginning with Moses, telling God's own people that physical circumcision will do you no good if you do not receive spiritual circumcision. Deuteronomy 10 tells us this, but we could quote from several places. This is just the first mention of this phrase, Deuteronomy 10. Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them. You above all peoples, as you are this day, circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn. Or as Paul tells us in no uncertain terms in Romans 2, he says, circumcision is not outward and physical. I imagine some of the Jews thought, what in the world does that mean? Of course it's outward and physical. And I bet some of the boys were thinking, yeah, it's outward and physical. My brother just got done screaming his head off from it over there. It's a very physical act. But Paul's saying that's not the heart of the matter. That's not touching the essence of circumcision. Circumcision is not outward and physical. Rather, Paul says, it is a matter of the heart. Romans 2. In the same way, therefore, that physical circumcision points towards spiritual circumcision, that is the cutting away of your old sinful heart, so physical or water baptism points toward spiritual baptism. We see in the washing away of the dirt from the flesh a testimony to the work of the Spirit in washing away our sins and granting us righteousness in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. Circumcision was a sign of regeneration, of being born again. Baptism is a sign of regeneration. It's a sign of being born again. Same reality. And Paul tells us in Galatians 3 that those of us who have faith in Jesus are Abraham's sons. And what are Abraham's sons supposed to receive? They're supposed to receive the sign of the everlasting covenant. And what are they supposed to give their sons? They're supposed to give their sons the sign of the everlasting covenant. And now, since the Mosaic administration of God's covenant is now over and done, as Hebrews makes perfectly clear, the sign of the covenant has been changed from a bloody, painful sign reserved only for baby boys, to a cleansing, painless sign reserved for all of God's children. Girls now, in the new covenant, have the exact same sign as boys. There is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus as regards salvation. There is neither male nor female. All of God's children, in fact, the Bible tells us, receive the inheritance of Christ as if they were sons. Now, today we might not think that means much to us, but in the ancient world, girls got nothing in the inheritance because their husbands were expected to take care of them. If they didn't have a husband, their brothers were expected to take care of them. Now, that's still true that husbands and brothers ought to be taking care of the women in their life, but in Christ, What Paul is telling us is that you girls who may not in those days have received any physical inheritance whatsoever, you get the spiritual inheritance as if you are a natural-born firstborn son. That is amazing grace. All of God's children receive the inheritance as if they were sons because of his only begotten son, Jesus Christ. And in this newer, better covenant with a newer, better sign given to more people, just going from boys alone to boys and girls doubles the amount of people receiving the covenant sign. In this newer, better covenant, do we really expect God to say, ah, but let's not include any of the children anymore? I know the old covenant sign was for babies and this new covenant sign is more expansive, but let's take all the babies out and no more babies getting this covenant sign. I know that the children were an integral and central part of my covenant people for millennia, but now, now that that covenant is fulfilled in the new covenant, now they're out. Now the babies and the children are out. No more infants counted among the people of God. No more infants receiving the covenant sign. Church, I just could not see in Scripture how that could possibly be the case. That was probably the first domino to fall for me in accepting infant baptism years ago. While I was still firmly entrenched in believer's baptism, the first domino was A consistent Baptist theology says that children are not God's people, that they are pagans, that they are not members of God's church. They do not enjoy the benefits of Christ. And I just can't see that in Scripture. And it makes no sense in a newer, better covenant in which Christ intentionally welcomes children in. It doesn't. I don't understand it. So I don't think that's what's going on here. There is much more that could be referenced throughout the Bible about babies and children always being included in God's people, but we're gonna have to keep jumping forward. The fact that each of the historical covenants, the one note between God and man include children in the covenant itself, all of the historical covenants, not only the promise in Genesis 3 and the covenant of Abraham, but also the covenants with Noah, with Israel through Moses, with David and his children, they all prominently feature children and children are central to the fulfillment of all of those covenant promises. Or we could talk about the importance of the family line and the attention the Bible gives to genealogies. We in the West in the 21st century, what in the world? Three chapters of nothing but genealogy. What's going on here? God is highlighting that this is how he expands his kingdom and fulfills his purpose in the world, is through the generation of people. Or we can look at Paul's letters and see that Paul says to the churches, he calls the children saints, and he refers to them even from birth as holy. if they were born to at least one believing parent. And he instructs them to obey their parents in the Lord. You wouldn't tell a Muslim child to obey his parents in the Lord. I mean, if you had a Muslim friend and he was being disobedient, you might say, oh, you better obey your parents. But it wouldn't make sense to say, obey your parents in the Lord. They're not in the Lord. He's not in the Lord. The children of believers are in God's kingdom. Further, Paul says, in no uncertain terms in Ephesians 6, that the covenant promises given to Israel apply to them as little children, not just when they grow up and express mature faith, but the promises apply to them. And he says, you will be blessed by God. And we're just gonna mention one more important aspect of God's inclusion of children in his covenant people. And that is what Jesus says here in Luke 18. Namely, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Christ tells us that it is little children who hold the deed to the kingdom of God. He says, the kingdom belongs to little children. Now, some opponents of infant baptism will say that this means that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like little children. And that's absolutely true. That's 100% true. We would agree. Jesus says that. He says to the disciples, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. We would all say amen. But I would ask, who is more childlike than a child? Who is more childlike than a child? Who can be more humble than a child? It's hard for adults to be humble. Children, they are sinners, yes, but they do have the gift many times of just astounding us with their humility, with their quick to forgive, with their quick to understand that sin brings shame. They are humble. You cannot throw out the natural child for the sake of the spiritual child. And further, these statements of Jesus's, they don't exist in a vacuum. Jesus was not an ivory tower theologian. He was a pastor who lived and labored among the sheep whom he loved. And the context of his teaching is important here. Here, in Jesus's statement about childlike humility, the context is abundantly clarifying. Listen to what Matthew writes in his gospel. about this same event. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So the context of his pronouncement about humility was the disciples asking, who is the greatest? Really humble, right? I mean, they couldn't have been missing the point here more. Who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus answers by grabbing a literal child, setting him down in the middle, and putting him on display. Much like in our main sermon passage today, people were bringing the little children, even infants and nursing babies to Jesus, that He might touch and bless them. And Christ says that you have to receive the kingdom of heaven like these little children. So He is absolutely emphasizing to the adults that they need to be humble and trusting and repentant and receive the kingdom like a child. He is absolutely saying that. But he is holding up infants as the example of how to do this. For they are brought to Jesus. They don't proudly think they can enter the kingdom on their own. They are carried to Jesus by their parents, and he sits them in his lap, and he puts his physical hands on these physical babies, and he blesses them. Nothing could be clearer than that little children can be brought to Christ, that little children should be brought to Christ, and that little children who are truly brought to Christ as he commands are members, heirs, and model citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Babies and little children have always been part of God's covenant people. So why in the newer and better and more gracious covenant in the blood of Christ would the children no longer be included? Why in the better version of the Old Covenant, of what the Old Covenant pointed to, would these model citizens be cast out and rejected? The New Covenant is a covenant of expansive and widening grace to include not only ethnic Jews, but all tribes and tongues and nations. Of course, it would include children of believers as well. And to clarify, I feel like I've said the word covenant like 50 times this sermon. To clarify, the New Covenant is not new in the sense that it is totally different. from the Old Covenant. It's not a separate covenant from the Old Covenant. It's the exact fulfillment of that promise given to Abraham. It is the same covenant, in fact, but it is under a newer and better administration. It's not the exact same in all its ways, but it's like how we will receive new bodies in the resurrection. When we die, our bodies go into the ground and they rot and decay. And we say things that aren't really true to comfort people like that's not him in the coffin. He's in heaven. Well, that's him, too, because that body is still his body. But then we also say things like. We will receive new bodies in the resurrection. And we will. We absolutely will receive new bodies. But those new bodies are going to be those old bodies, renewed in such a glorious way that they were sown in weakness. They will be raised in power. They were sown in mortality, in death. They will be raised in immortality, in life. Same body, renewed and perfected. That's what it means by new covenant. Not something totally different. We are getting those bodies back of our loved ones. They're going to get their bodies back, but they are going to be more glorious and better and free of sin and sickness and sorrow and death and amazing. And that's what we have in the new covenant. It is the seed of the old covenant, the bud of the rose in the old covenant in full flower. Beautiful display. That's the new covenant. So that was point two. Babies and little children have always been included in the people of God. And that bleeds right into our final point for this sermon. And that is this, that entire households were baptized in the New Testament. Entire households were baptized in the New Testament. You might say, James, I've appreciated some of the things you've said so far. I think I might even agree with a lot of it. But there isn't a verse or passage that clearly and undoubtedly speaks of the baptism of infants. Well, first off, I would say that's not entirely true because the New Testament does refer to the crossing of the Red Sea as a baptism, which all of the congregation of Israel, including infants, participated in. And he's making a point about baptism there. And he says, all our fathers were baptized, including infants. And Peter does say that the flood was a picture of baptism in which righteous Noah and his household, who are not mentioned as being righteous and all of whom were not saved, But because of Noah's faith, Peter says they were all baptized. They were all saved through water. But the point still stands. Is there any mention, specific, explicit mention in the New Testament of an infant in the New Testament having Christian baptism? No, there is not. There are no verses in the New Testament which clearly and undeniably say that we must baptize infants or that infants were even baptized in the early church. That's true. But this should not make us worry. Rather, it should just drive us into deeper study. And one of the things we should study, of course, that we haven't touched on yet is how baptism was done in the New Testament. Let's look at the cases of New Testament baptism. Sometimes we see these general descriptions of large groups of people being baptized. There are, of course, the 3,000 men who are baptized at Pentecost. And then there are the many baptisms prior to the formal inauguration of the new covenant, like the countless baptisms performed by John. But we don't really know the details of who exactly got baptized in those cases. And there is also some debate if John's baptism was the same as Christian baptism. We can't get to that point today. At Pentecost, it seems only men were present and that they were all Jews that had traveled into Jerusalem from various nations. That is, it appears that they all came to Jerusalem without their families, that just the men came because they were coming from so far, which was a provision in the law, that only the men had to come. But of the new covenant baptisms that describe and single out individual people, there are nine. There are nine total baptisms in the New Testament that are singled out for description. At least five and probably six of those were household baptisms. In one case, in the sixth one I mentioned, it's not really clear in English, but I think, and I'm not alone in this, I think the Greek seems to indicate that the sixth was a household baptism as well. So it's likely that six of the nine baptisms, which the New Testament writers single out for further description, were of entire households. This includes Cornelius and his household, the Philippian jailer in his household, Lydia in her household, Crispus in his household, and Stephanus in his household, and likely Gaius in his household. Of their, I think that was six, Cornelius, Philippian jailer, Lydia, Crispus, Stephanus, Gaius. Of the remaining three instances of baptism, which are singled out by New Testament authors, we have these. These are the only baptisms, they're not household, that we have a description of. The apostle Paul, the Ethiopian eunuch, and Simon the magician. These three were baptized by themselves with no other household members as far as we can tell. Now, what do we do with this information? Is this just circumstantial? Or could God possibly be teaching us something about how baptism is normally to be administered? I think that's what he's doing. I think we can learn something about how baptism is to be administered from these cases. I think what we're learning is that when a head of household believes in Jesus, he was baptized, or she was baptized, if there's no husband present, and his entire household was baptized along with him. Why then are there three cases where there are no household baptisms? Well, first, we know for a fact that the Apostle Paul did not have a household. He was single, he had no children. He tells us that clearly in 1 Corinthians 7. So obviously his household would not have been baptized. Second, the Ethiopian eunuch. The adults in the room can understand this one pretty easy. For the children, a eunuch is someone who is physically unable to have children. He can't have any children. Something's wrong with his body and he can't have children. And in that culture, and with the role he had as a high court official for Queen Candace of Ethiopia, he would certainly not have been married. He had no household. He too was single. And finally, Simon the Magician. Now, we don't know if Simon the Magician had a household or not. But he is the last person from this list that we would want to see as a positive example for us to follow because he does not even appear to have been truly saved. After his baptism, Simon asked the apostles if he could buy the power of conferring the Holy Spirit through the laying on of his hands. And this is what Peter answered him saying, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have neither part nor lot in this matter for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that if possible, the intent of your heart might be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. He clearly was not saved. And for a mature adult person, you should not be baptized unless you are professing genuine, true faith in Jesus Christ. So that's not an example. Even people convinced of believers only baptism would not want to look to Simon for an example here. He may have repented and been truly converted after this. We don't know. Simon could be in heaven, but it's never mentioned that he had a household. And it seems apparent that he was not in any way a model to follow for baptism. So we have nine baptisms in the New Testament, and every single one that the person has a household, the whole entire household is baptized. That's 100%. To me, I don't think that's just circumstantial. To me, I think that's pretty convincing. Every baptism in the New Testament where there was a household and the head of household believed, the entire household was baptized. Now in a number of these households, by God's grace, everyone believed all at once. That's good, that's wonderful, that's good news, that's what we want. Everyone in the household to believe. But that isn't clear that that's the case with all of them. What is clear is that nowhere in the New Testament, nowhere in the New Testament, and to my study, I have not found any instance in the early church either, where we see any father getting baptized and his children not being baptized with him. I have not found any example of that. And at Pentecost, when the 3,000 men get baptized and there were no children present, Peter then says, to make sure they understand, the promise is to you and to your children. They were undoubtedly thinking of Abraham there. They were certainly thinking of the everlasting covenant. Now we could object that there may not have been babies or little children in any of these households mentioned in the New Testament. And maybe that's the case. That could be the case. I think it's unlikely based on the ancient understanding of the household. And honestly, it's irrelevant. Because whether they were infants or not makes no matter if we establish that the whole household is to be baptized. Because we all agree, infants can be members of households. So if there were infants present there or not, it doesn't matter if the principle is household baptism. And that is the principle we have. It's not just infant baptism. We're not sneaking into the daycare one morning and just sprinkling water on all the children's heads as we run through and as the daycare workers shout at us because we really want them to be baptized. That's not the principle. It's not. Infant baptism isn't even really the best term. The better term is household baptism. That's what we're understanding we see in the New Testament here. And that's what we're seeking to practice as a church. Now, I know this has been a longer than average sermon today, so I'm going to close us here. And I feel that we've neglected a lot of aspects of this question. Why do we baptize babies and little children? But my point today is to show that infant baptism or household baptism has a strong biblical undergirding. And whether we all come to the same understanding on who should receive water baptism or not, that's not even the most important thing. That's not even what's most important about the sacrament of baptism itself. It's not most important who receives this physical sign. The most important thing about baptism is that we all receive the baptism of our hearts. the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And this is received by all those whom God has given the gift of faith in Jesus Christ, his son. So when we baptize these children here very shortly, we are pointing them and all of us here and anyone else who happens to be watching to a living faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ. May He grant us His Spirit and an abiding trust in Him even today. Let's pray. God, we thank You for Your goodness to us. We thank You that just like infants, Lord, we can bring nothing, we can do nothing on our own to save ourselves. We can't care for ourselves, we can't provide for ourselves. God, we thank You that we must all come to You, all of us, as spiritual infants. God, we thank You that Your grace, we can see a picture of it so clearly when a little one is baptized, Lord, that You are the one doing all the work. that we are passive in this arrangement, that all we bring to you is our sins, and that we only love you because you loved us first. God, we thank you and we ask for your continued grace as we worship you now. In Christ's name, amen. All right.