We're continuing our suggested topics sermon series, where we look at topics that were suggested by you. And we're at number 37 today, and we're looking at suggestions that fit under the category of Christian living in the home. And the topic we're looking at today is how to know when a non-communicant is ready for communion. Not everybody would be necessarily familiar with that language. In our ARP churches, as well as in a lot of other Reformed denominations, we use the designation of communicant and non-communicant members to distinguish between little children who are not yet admitted to the communion table and adults who are. So the adults would be communicant members and the children would be non-communicant members. Once the noncommunicant members are admitted to the table when they profess their faith, then they're then designated also as communicant members. So this question could be phrased like this, how do we know when children are ready to come to the Lord's table? That would be another way to say it. So before I address that question, I want to go to our New Testament reading. And it is from 1 Corinthians 11, where we have the institution of the Lord's Supper. So we'll begin with verse 17, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17, and we'll read to the end of the chapter. So this is the word of God. 1 Corinthians 11, 17. Now in giving these instructions, I do not praise you, since you come together, not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you that those who are approved may be recognized among you. Therefore, when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant of my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. And when we are judged, we're chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home. Lest you come together for judgment and the rest, I will set an order when I come. Thanks be to God for his holy word. Now, let's consider our topic. How do we know when children are ready to come to the Lord's table? This question is raised because we're not expressly told about children and the Lord's Supper in the scripture. There are things like that in scripture. We're left to deduce what our practice ought to be from what we are given in scripture. And we sometimes in matters like that come up with variant practices within the bounds of what is within acceptable principles that God has given us. And so this is something that is somewhat like that. There are many examples. We're told that, we are not told the order of the elements of our worship service. Like what's supposed to come first? Should the Lord's Supper come before the preaching or after the preaching? We're not told things like that. Should we sing all through the service as we do, like at different times in the service? Or should we have a particular time when we do all of our singing? We're not told that either. Questions such as, how large should a church be? When is it too large? We're not given direct answers to that. What is the minimum age for an elder? We don't have that. How ought we to dress when we come to church? How are the chairs to be arranged? Those things are not addressed. We have to use sanctified wisdom and common sense, and we will have variant practices. That's okay as long as our practices are within the bounds of the scriptural principles that we are given that pertain to those matters. For example, when we think of the minimum age of the officers in the church, obviously the qualifications that are given are that they should be an elder, for example. And the qualifications would exclude those very directly that are young and inexperienced. But when it comes to an age, we have to make a judgment about when a person is in that way or not. We have to make a judgment about that, and some churches will have younger elders than others. For example, you might have a really, really large church, and they have a lot of seasoned, mature men, and they bring in younger elders that they can you know, because they can work with them and help them to mature and develop and train them looking at the next generation. Maybe another church would say, oh, those men are too young. They have a smaller church and they don't have that mixture there. Another church, it might be a different situation where they don't have any older people that are qualified. And so they bring in younger elders. We did that here when we first got started because it was a church plant, there were no elders coming from another church or anything, so we started with younger men. With our subject today, we definitely see a lot of variation when it comes to the age at which children are admitted to the Lord's Supper. Now, some things here that you're going to look at that churches do are clearly wrong because they're outside the principles of scripture. Others are things that are within those bounds. So some churches do not fence the table at all. In other words, they don't restrict who comes. They allow visitors who are not even professing Christians to come, or they allow little children to come, or those living in open defiance of God if they want. Whoever wants to, it's just a wide open thing. Now this is certainly a violation of what is appropriate. The supper is for believers and it's not for those that are living scandalous lives or who are living in maintaining heretical doctrines, things that are not true, maybe that they deny that Jesus is a way of salvation even. They shouldn't be coming to the Lord's table. Some churches have been known, okay, a second thing here, some churches have been known to give babies the bread and wine. They fence the table in other ways, but they give babies bread and wine by putting it into their mouths before they can do it themselves. This certainly gets away from the command to the individual to take and eat in remembrance of me. When a baby can neither obey the command to take and eat, nor the command to do it in remembrance of Christ, of Christ crucified, the baby is incapable of doing either one of those things. Sometimes it is asked of a baby who is a child of the covenant will not miss out on the blessing given to the believers in the church through the sacrament. And the answer is the blessing of the sacrament comes through partaking in remembrance of Christ with understanding of who he is in the time of partaking. You see, it's something you do over and over again, and each time you do it, then you look for the blessing of communion with Christ. It's not something you do once, like baptism, that carries out for the rest of your life. A child is not capable then of performing this act of faith, but that does not prevent the Lord from blessing that child, the Lord can bless people. If you are somehow in a situation maybe where you're isolated from the church, maybe you're in jail or something like that, and you can't participate in the Lord's Supper, the Lord can still bring the blessing that you get when you come to the Lord's table just as much as if you had it. Though, while you were in prison, you would look forward to getting out so that you could, again, participate in what God has appointed for his people. But if he hasn't appointed it for certain people, It's not even suitable for them at a certain age or things like that, then there's no need for anxiety about that. Now, moving on, some say that a child can come as soon as they can reach out and take the bread and drink the cup, they can obey that command. Well, in this case, they can perform the physical action to be sure. But the more essential act is coming in remembrance of Christ and what he did again each time we come in a little child, cannot do that at a certain age. It tends to promote the notion that the blessing is in the eating instead of in the eating with faith, in the believing. We receive blessing by faith in what is represented there, not blessing just automatically conveyed because we're doing some ritual. That's not the way it works. It becomes a dangerous heresy to think that way. You could just go out and baptize everybody, sprinkle water of baptism all over them, baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You could go up in New York on a skyscraper and dribble water down on everybody. That's not the way that things go with God. Many say children should come as soon as they make a profession of faith. And I believe this is true. This is where we have variations within boundaries of what is acceptable practice. There are variations in what is constituted an acceptable profession of faith. It ranges from people saying that a toddler who says, hey, I want to participate, I love Jesus, and reaches out their little fat hand to take the bread and, you know, to take the cup or whatever. They want to be part of God's people. They say, hey, that's enough. They want to be with God's people. They know they're at church. They know that Jesus is at church, you know, something that is involved in church. So, you know, it's a good thing and they can do this. Now, we'll talk about this more in a bit. Others would say, well, no, a child should be where they're more independent age, like when they come to puberty and they start to think for themselves and they have more sense of what they're doing and ability to understand. Others say, no, no, no, it should be when they're really more grown up than that. and they've been fully taught over the years and they're ready to move out of the home and establish their own home. Then they come and profess their faith at that time and go out to, they can participate in the Lord's Supper then. Again, we'll say some more about that as we move on. I'm just kind of presenting the overall things here. There's also, though, a question that's a little bit of a different nature about who is responsible for deciding when a child is old enough. And there's some variation with that, too. Some churches leave it up to the parents entirely. Some leave it up to the child entirely. Some to the congregation, some to the elders. So, you know, there's variation. Still others see it as a combination of these. And I suppose most see it as a combination of these, but who actually has, who makes the call? Biblically, I believe that it is the responsibility of the elders to receive and remove persons from the local assembly. Okay, that's what we're shown when Jesus was teaching in Matthew 18. And he talked about someone that has to be removed from the church because of sin. He says, when, you know, they won't repent and you've somebody, you know, and you've talked to them and they won't repent. You take someone else with you. They still won't repent. He says, bring them before the church, bring them to the assembly, to the ecclesia. And now, does he mean what is the ecclesia? What is the assembly there? Is it the congregation or is it the assembly of the elders? Well, it could be either one, couldn't it, when you just look at that? But how do we know? Well, what was the practice all the way through the Bible? People were brought before the elders. Talks about that even in the New Testament, that the elders of the synagogue would put people out when they professed in Jesus. The wrong reason. But it was their task to decide who's in, who's out. Who communes, who doesn't. And so then we carry that over and say, OK, when Jesus was teaching on this, he was teaching in the context of a practice that was already going on. He's not presenting some new practice that now the elders used to do this, but now it's going to be the assembly of the congregation. The word assembly there refers to elders. He refers to it later as two or three. that agree together when they're making decisions. Often there would be two or three elders in a local congregation. So that makes it clear that he's just saying carry out the same practice. Now, if that's true, the elders decide who can come to communion or not, then would it not also be that on the end of receiving people when they have come to a place where they have a sufficient profession or whatever, that it would be the elders who would ultimately be responsible for making that judgment. rather than the parents or someone else, the child himself. Again, in consultation with the parents, it's a thing that's developed. Okay, so how do we, so we've got this diversity. And some of it we have principles for that we can say, yeah, we've got some guidance here. But in that kind of middle section, okay, is it three year olds, five year olds, 12 year olds, eight year olds, 15 year olds, 20 year olds, where do we go with this? There's diversity among churches. So we need to be charitable about differences in practice in an area like this. Our confession reminds us in chapter 1, paragraph 4, that the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory and man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture. unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the spirit or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things are revealed in the word, and that there are some circumstances, like the ones we're talking about here, concerning the worship of God and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the word, which are always to be observed. Okay, so we use kind of a judgment here. When are people mature to do this or that? We have to use some wisdom in coming up with those things. We do not need to get into a big quarrel if one church has young people wait until the time when they're kind of moving out of the home. And if another church says no, it's more of a thing around, you know, the puberty when they kind of come into the teen years. And another one says no, it's a very simple profession that a four-year-old could easily make. The leadership properly, the session in each congregation is responsible to guide the way here, and we will not all be the same in different denominations. Presbyterians and synods can also set basic guidelines. It's something that they can do in these matters. But they're wise to leave a lot of it up to the elders of the local congregation and the kind of ministry they have, how they are ministering, how they teach, how they do all these things. It all works together in a ministry within a church. And in determining what is the right practice, then what we want to do is to avoid deviation as I said before, from scriptural principles. To put the matter another way, we want to be sure and encourage others to be sure that their practice is within the boundaries that scripture sets. We neither want to deviate from these or to countenance those who do deviate. For example, if a church does not fence the table at all, we would definitely want to address that in an appropriate way and show them what scripture says. As we saw when we studied about ecumenism in this series, this suggested topic series, that was one of the topics we did, our goal as God's people is to grow together in the unity of the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God. We want to grow up into maturity in the church so that we all say the same thing, that we walk together in the truth. We want to truth in love. Remember I told you that speaking the truth in love is actually just truthing in love. We don't have a word like that in our English language, but that's what the idea is. If we deviate from the truth, We should want to know it is God's people. And if other people deviate from the truth, we should want to lead them to consider the truth. So with that said, we're ready to move on now. While we are not told expressly when children may come to the table. In 1 Corinthians 11, we are told that those who come do not come in a worthy or an appropriate way unless they examine themselves and discern the Lord's body when they come, in the coming. So the words of 1 Corinthians 11, 27-29 are this. Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." Now there's a context to this. Okay, those who are in the church of Corinth who are not coming to the supper in a worthy manner. Paul describes this in verse 17 through 24. So this congregation, many of them were not coming in the right way. In this letter, Paul addresses a number of problems in the church that need to be corrected all through this letter. And most of these problems have to do with their importing into the church, bringing into the church things that they had done when they were Gentiles. In other words, when they were not part of the family of God. When the New Testament calls someone a Gentile, it's saying that they're not part of the family of God. In the Old Testament, of course, Israel was the Jews, and then there were the Gentiles that were the nations that were outside of Israel. And when you became a believer, you came into that nation. And so now in the New Testament, when it carries over, we are the the Israel of God today who believe, but we're not like a constituted nation. We could be a, you know, a Canadian or American or whatever and be a Christian. We don't become part of a particular nation in that regard. And so we that we look at it when we say Gentiles now, we're talking about those that are not part of the family of God. So that's that's how it's used in the Bible. And the reason I mention that, because you see these people at Corinth, most of them had religious backgrounds. And you can see this from chapter 12, verse two, just down a little bit from where we read, where he says, you know that you are Gentiles. And carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. as if it was generally true of the people in this congregation, you were Gentiles. You were people that were not part of the family of God. They mostly were not Jews who had come to the faith here at Corinth. They were idol worshipers, and so they brought, they imported practices from their idolatry into the church. So in verse 17 through 24 of chapter 11, he describes how they had mingled the Lord's Supper in with common feasting. Even, not just common feasting, but with ritual pagan feasting. That they had brought some of those elements into the church. They had done it to such an extent that he says, when you come together, you're not even eating the Lord's, you're not even coming together with the intention to eat the Lord's supper because you're so far off in what you're doing here. You're supposed to come together to eat at the Lord's Supper, but you're not. This is what was done at their idol feast. He tells them it was indulgent feasting. It was people that were getting drunk and people that were gorging themselves with food. He tells them if they want to do feasting, do it in your home, not in the Christian assembly. They'd actually lost sight. of the fact that they were coming together to partake of the bread and wine in remembrance of Christ. They weren't doing it in remembrance of Christ. They were just having a big meal. In 1120, he says, when you come together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper. And then he describes how they did not wait to eat until everyone was gathered in the assembly, and how some people had nothing to eat when they got there, when they arrived, and how some got drunk. A common feast can be eaten at home. The Lord's supper is a sacred feast that is to be done in the church's official assembly of worship. So as he says in verse 18, they were doing this, quote, when you come together as a church. So he's talking about when they are assembled together as a church, a Christian assembly. In verse 17, he says that they were coming together Not for the better, but for the worse. That's when you gather for church, it'd be better if you didn't even do it because you've lost focus of what you're doing here. We ought to come to honor God and to receive his blessing, but they were dishonoring him and receiving his curse. So as elsewhere in scripture, a rule is given for a particular situation here in First Corinthians 11. about the way they were coming wrongly to the Lord's table. And that rule applies more broadly than just to that one situation. Most of the things that we have as rules in the scripture are given that way, where they apply to a certain situation, they speak to a certain situation, we're brought up by a certain situation, and then they apply more broadly to lots of other situations. In this case, what is said here applies more broadly to whoever comes to the Lord's table. The rule given here, the rules given here are that those who partake of the supper must examine themselves. Says, but let a man examine himself and so let him eat, verse 28. And he must discern the Lord's body, verse 29. In this way, one would not come to the table as if coming to a common feast, okay? If you're thinking about your conduct before the Lord when you come, You're coming before him in a holy ordinance, and then you're thinking about this represents the body and the blood of Jesus Christ was crucified for my sins. I am having communion in that sacrifice that he made. Then it's a whole different picture than if you're just stuffing bread and drinking wine. Self-examination, discerning Lord's body are always to be done. in coming into the sacred assembly to eat the Lord's Supper. So what does it mean to examine yourself and discern the Lord's body? A person who comes to the Lord's table, examine yourself first, examine themselves to see if they need to repent of anything. We're to ask God to show us if there is any wicked way in us, to lead us in the way everlasting as it says. And if we find something, then we need to repent of it. It's a time to renew things. Jesus advised that when we come to worship, if we have something against our brother, we've done wrong to him, we haven't dealt with it. He says you should go first and deal with it before you come to worship me. You need to rectify the wrongs that you've done. Don't leave an outstanding offense. Likewise, Peter told men that their prayers would be hindered if they're not treating their wives right. Well, how much more if they try to come and commune with the Lord in the assembly and they haven't been dealing with their wives right? God won't hear me. It says the same thing in Malachi that you come with tears to my altar and you say, why don't you hear me? It says you're dealing treacherously with your wives, that's why. When Jesus instituted the Lord's table as recorded in the Gospels, he set them to self-examination, didn't he? declaring, what did he say to them? Right when they were coming to the Passover meal where he was going to institute the Lord's Supper, he said, one of you is going to betray me. How's that going to happen? I think they thought it might be done by mistake. Is it I? Is it I? They were asking this. And then he went further. He said, all of you are going to forsake me. They're examining. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't forsake you. Peter is vehement, of course. You know the story. Put them to examining themselves as they were coming. to the ordinance. They wrongly concluded that they were all okay and that they wouldn't forsake him. We often might miss things, but it's still something we're supposed to do. We can examine ourselves all day and not see stuff. And God is very gracious to us and he leads us and brings about where we come to the light later if we're his people. But that's the way it sometimes is, but it's something we're supposed to do. The supper is a sacred covenant renewal service, and we're to come solemnly as those who are looking to see like, OK, Lord, I want to walk with you. I want to live in a way that's pleasing to you. And we're we're considering our way before him. And we're looking to renew ourselves, refresh ourselves and focusing on what Christ has done for us. Resting in him is our only savior. So we're to rejoice in the forgiveness that we have from Him at the table, and we're to look to Him for help. To the second thing as well, the second rule that we have at the Lord's table, that we're to do at the table is to discern the Lord's body. Verse 29, in supper Jesus takes bread and he says, this is my body given for you. And he takes the cup and he tells them that this is my blood shed for the remission of your sins. Do this in remembrance of me. Now we're not to come to this table as the Corinthians did. oblivious to the fact that we have bread here that represents his broken body and we have wine here that represents his shed blood. You come wrongly to the table if you're not mindful of that, if you're not cognizant of that. It doesn't grip you, not that the bread and the wine turn into his body and blood, but rather that Christ gives to us the benefits of his body and blood of him being crucified. When we come to the table, we have a share in the blessings that convey to his people through what he did for us on the cross. So we do feed upon him. He is present. spiritually and we feed upon him spiritually when we with faith eat the bread and the wine. But if you don't have that faith, then the spiritual feeding part is not there. It's only the physical feeding part. And without the spiritual feeding part, you don't receive any blessing of fellowship, communion with Christ. You're not communing with Christ. You're just having a piece of bread and some wine. And it's kind of worse than that because that bread and wine was set apart to be as sacred to represent that, and you're oblivious to that. And so you're missing in what is supposed to happen there. So you see, this means that we're not merely to put the bread in our mouth, Drink a cup where to do it, how like just like it says in remembrance of Christ, discerning Christ crucified to understand what this means and where to return thanks to God, where to see Christ represented at the table and where to look to have true communion with him when we partake. So these are things that pertain to us all every time we come child, adult, whoever. The larger catechism, question 171 and 174, describes what is to be going on with us when we come to the table. And I recommend this very much that you go home and spend some time considering what the larger catechism says of the Lord's Supper. It's very, very pastoral and helpful. We won't be able to go into a lot of detail here. I'm just gonna read it, really. But question 171 says, how are they that receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to prepare themselves before they come unto it? Answer, they that receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper are before they come to prepare themselves thereunto by examining themselves of their being in Christ, of their sins and wants, the things that are missing, of the truth and measure of their knowledge, faith, repentance, love to God, and the brethren, charity or love to all men, forgiving those that have done wrong, of their desires after Christ and of their new obedience, and by renewing the exercise of these graces by serious meditation and firm prayer. So even when you're at home, before you come to church, you prepare for coming to the Lord's table, you examine yourself. In question 174, what is required of them that receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the time of the administration of it? So 171 is about what's required when you prepare. This is what happens when you're actually doing the eating. It is required of them that receive the Lord's the sacrament, the Lord's Supper, that during the time of the administration of it with all holy reverence and attention, they wait upon God in that ordinance, waiting upon him, looking to him, you see, to do something, wait upon God in that ordinance, diligently observe the sacramental elements and actions. So you see the bread and the wine, you see the bread broken and so on. He fully discern the Lord's body. Okay, so take heed, his body given for you is represented here. And affectionately meditate on his death and sufferings. I'm so thankful for what the Lord has done for me. And thereby stir up themselves to a vigorous exercise of their graces. of the new life that God has given them by grace, the graces that they have in judging themselves and in sorrowing for sin. How could I sin against this Lord Jesus Christ who has done this for me in earnest, hungering and thirsting after Christ? I want what he has to give me. feeding on him by faith, receiving of his fullness, trusting in his merits, rejoicing in his love, giving thanks for his grace and renewing of their covenant with God and love to the saints. So there's a renewal part that I was talking about before. All of this is renewal, really. We're engaging with Christ when we come. Now, how does this help us in determining when it is appropriate for children or anyone else to come? First of all, it shows us that we don't just come passively. Merely ingesting of the bread and wine is not sufficient. We are to come actively engaged in responding to Christ as he is presented in the sacrament. We're to feed on him by faith, and faith requires understanding on the part of the one eating. We do not feed on him by mere eating, but eating with active engagement that we just read about in detail in the larger catechism. A person lacking the ability to understand cannot do this receiving of Christ by faith in this way, through this sacrament. They can receive those benefits, but they can't do it through the sacrament If they don't have the ability to understand this sacrament and its connection to Christ, a little child can receive spiritual blessing from Christ. But the means of receiving that blessing is not for them. by eating with faith at the Lord's Supper, any more than it is for a child that's not yet born. That's not how they receive the blessing. You receive the blessing in different ways. If you're in prison, it's not how you receive the blessing, where you can't eat the Lord's Supper. You receive blessing different ways that God has given you. The Lord's Supper is to be used only by those who are capable of examining themselves and of discerning the Lord's body. The Westminster Larger Catechism addresses this specifically in question 177. where it contrasts baptism with the Lord's Supper. It says, wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper differ? Answer, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper differ in that baptism is to be administered but once with water. It's not done over and over again. To be a sign and seal of our regeneration and engrafting into Christ, something that only happens once, right? Regeneration, new birth. It only happens once, our grafting into Christ, we become partakers of His salvation through union with Him. And that even to infants, okay? Because infants, they can be united to Christ in that way. God can bring them into Christ. Whereas the Lord's Supper is to be administered often. and the elements of bread and wine to represent and exhibit Christ as spiritual nourishment to the soul and to confirm our continuance and growth in him. And that only to such as are of years and ability to examine themselves. So you see that last bit of years and ability to examine themselves. So the question comes down to this. When can a child appropriately discern the body of Christ in the sacrament and examine themselves. This is where there can be difference. The Jews typically understood that parents were responsible to see that a child kept God's commandments until about puberty, when then the child was responsible for keeping the commandments. The bar mitzvah is not really a service so much. There is a service, but it's just a service when a child comes to an age where they move from being responsible. I mean, not being responsible. Their parents are responsible for them. to them taking that responsibility themselves. And they become a son of the commandments, mitzvah. So it is significant that this age is given some attention in Scripture when we're told of Jesus going up to the temple at age 12 and remaining to talk to the priests and teachers there and asking questions in the maze. Why is that significant? Because they had the same thing that we have. When men, you remember what it says about men in the Bible in the Old Testament, that they were required to go up to the three annual feasts at Jerusalem. The women and children were not required. Okay, so when does a boy become a man? When does he become a man? Who knows? Well, they seem to say around this age. It seems like that's kind of given some sanction here. when Jesus goes up to the temple. It was sometime when they went from that one stage to another, they were designated as responsible to go up and not responsible. So these are, it carries some significance, doesn't it? Children grow into this responsibility, but there does come a time when they become more independent and able to bear responsibility. This is an age at which they can enter into a covenant with understanding. which is different than being in a covenant with their parents, who bear responsibility with them. See, parents can make a covenant that's binding on their household, and the children don't even know what was done. They don't even know that any decision was made. Like, to buy a house. You know, that family is now responsible to pay for that house. All of them are, kind of. Kind of. But when you're older, then you're capable of making that kind of a decision. Until that age is reached, parents renew the covenant at the table. When the children mature, then the children renew it at the table. Since elders are responsible for examining and receiving members in the church upon profession of faith, and then for keeping watch over them and excluding them from the Lord's table if they become in some way deficient to come to the Lord's table, if they are embracing heresies, damnable heresies, or if they are living a scandalous, rebellious life, It follows that the elders are responsible for determining when a child is fit to come to the table. When the child and parents think that that time has come, they can call upon the elders to examine and determine whether to receive them to the table or not. A few other considerations are important. First, it is important for parents to submit to the elders of their church in this matter. Some sessions are going to tend to receive children sooner than others. There's no need to make a great quarrel about this matter. We can express our opinion about it, but there are benefits in a slower process as well as benefits in a faster process, an earlier process of receiving children. Some don't like for anything to be subjective. But if you're like that, if you have to have everything objective, then I've got something to say to you, you need to get over it. Because there are things that are just like that, okay? That's the way things are. Professions of faith are like that. When the elders meet with someone, they make a profession of faith, they have to make a judgment. And some elders would say, oh, that's not a suitable profession of faith. And others would say, oh, yeah, that's absolutely, man, that was really great. And you're going to have variations in that. Maybe one of them is clearly wrong, or another one is clearly wrong. But there's going to be a variety, and it is subjective. And some people say, this guy needs to wait. I was like, no, this is, you know, this is good. So we need to work together with this and to realize that, okay, who's given the responsibility in the church? You know, the elders are. If they're way out of line, yeah, you can talk to them and people can begin to say, you know, look, I have a problem with this. But as a general thing, you know, we work together, we live in the unity and peace of the church. And again, if they receive them too soon, well, what's really the big deal? The child can grow up into a fuller understanding, or the person who has just come to be admitted that maybe was, you know, in a situation that's not really clear and not for sure whether they're converted or not, they're just gonna say they received them too soon. Well, it's OK. It's going to come out. If they're not, it's going to be clear and then they can be removed from the church if it is. And they'll go on and grow. On the other hand, oh, they wait too long. Well, that's okay, too. God's gonna still, if that person is converted, God's gonna be, and they're ready, say, if it's a child, God's gonna be working in their life the whole time. He's not gonna say, oh, I'm not gonna work in their life because they weren't admitted to the church. God's not like that. He's gonna work in them, and when the time comes, so we don't need to be all anxious and worried about these things because there's a subjectivity here. And I think it's very important for us to understand that. And the elders bear the responsibility for making those decisions. But again, parents and children have a part of it. So some families maybe will kind of see their children as ready at an earlier or later time, too, and the elders are going to kind of be sensitive and a lot of churches will work with that. Some elders will be more sensitive to that. Some will not be as sensitive. That's OK. This is all OK. These are not things that you divide churches and make separate churches about and that kind of thing. And now a word to your children who are not communicants yet. You need to understand that you were baptized because your children, I mean, because your parents are believers, because your parents are people who have trusted, are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. They love him. They know him as their savior, and they want to serve him and be part of his people. They have come to to live with the people of God. And because of that, then you were baptized because God says we saw last week we didn't hear the sermon last week talked about how that the promise of God is to you, the adults who believe, and to your children, so that they are regarded. God says that you're my people and your children are my people. While they're still children. He's not just saying when they grow up, they're my children. He's saying they're my children now. So we bring them. You were abroad and you were baptized and you were recognized as one of God's people with your parents. But when you were a baby, you didn't even know what was going on. You didn't know that, you know, you got, you know, you got some water on your head. You know what's going on? You didn't have any idea, but your parents did. The church did. God did. And then as you grow up, you're brought up is one of God's people until you come to a time when you get old enough to say, OK, this is what this is where I'm going. This is what I'm going to do. And then you go forward to serve the Lord. See, right now you're learning what it means to trust in Jesus and you're growing and you walk with him under the guidance of your parents. They're responsible for you. You never would have even come to church if your parents didn't bring you to church when you were a little two-year-old. But you come because they come. And they're teaching you, and they're guiding you, leading you in the way. And then when you get older, then you'll be able to make a profession yourself and say, yeah, I affirm this. This is what I want to do. You'd be thankful for the togetherness that God has given us. Word that we use sometimes is solidarity, that the parents and the children have a solidarity that God says, you know, if you parents are my people or even just one parent of a child, then I receive your children, too, I count them as my people. And when they get older, they're going to speak for themselves. But now their parents speak for them. That's the way that God has arranged things in his house because children can't say so. Parents know another word, another word to you also. We naturally understand and desire when we have a little baby. and we're Christians, to have some kind of an event and recognition of like this child's, how are they with God? And God has given that to us with baptism. He said, yeah, these are my people too. They're not in limbo somewhere or they're not outside. These, with you, they are my people. I include them in my household to be nurtured and and taught in the way of the Lord, and I'll work in them by my spirit. And we talked about that again last week. I can't go into all the details of that. But we have a desire to have some kind of a thing that would mark that out. And so what do churches do that don't baptize children, infants? They say, oh, well, we'll make our own little service. We'll have a dedication service. And they almost always do stuff like that, because there's something missing. if you don't have it. But God has given it to us, so we have it. And then what happens when your children get older? It's kind of an interesting thing because the Jewish men, when they're boys and their girls get to be 12 for the girls usually and 13 for the boys, the bar mitzvah and the bat mitzvah, when they get to that age, then the Jewish men actually rejoice because I'm not responsible anymore. Now, they're responsible. It's an interesting thing to think about. We have a desire for that too. We want our children to grow up and we teach them. And we don't want them to just come to church because we're going to church and to follow and drag them along on a leash or something. We want them to say, this is where I am. This is what I want. I believe this. I want to follow Christ. I want to serve him. I want to honor. To profess their faith and to accept that responsibility and to enter into that covenant. Sometimes I ask children, I say, you know, When we're talking to them, and it's a little child, and we're talking to them about whether they're ready, I'll say, well, now, if your parents went off to the Mormons or something like that, what would you do? Some of them said, oh, I would submit to my parents. OK. You're not ready. Because you don't understand. And others will say, well, I guess I would call someone to take me to church. I'm not going to do that. And OK, this guy, he's not just a tag along. It's fine to be a tag along when you're little. That's all a baby can do. They come wherever you take them. And as you get a little older, you get more, then you start to be, you're going on for yourself. So with the parents, again, parents, you have a desire for your children to get to a place where they're taking this ownership. And churches that don't have that, that have paedo-communion, children come to the communion when they're babies, they add also a time when they have the children come forward and and to make vows and things like that, that they're going to affirm these things. But you see, I think God has given us that. He's given us these two sacraments, one of them that we give that is appropriate for our little children and the other one that we give them when they are ready to be able to come before God and to examine themselves and discern the Lord's body and to make a responsible commitment to go forward in serving him. That's when we bring them to the Lord's Supper. And so then that becomes a marker. that God has given us, and we're very thankful that he has given us these things. We don't have to make up a little ceremony of our own because God has appointed a way for this to happen in his church. It's integral to the church. So what do we want to do then? God calls us to baptize our little ones, committing them to God for his saving work of cleansing by Christ and by his spirit. When they grow up, He calls them to take responsibility for their own walk and to affirm his covenant by coming to the Lord's Supper. We need wisdom to receive them at the appropriate time, but we do not need to be overly anxious about it having to be some exact appropriate time. If we receive them on the early side, they can grow up into a fuller profession of faith. If we receive them on the later side, then that's going to help to see the solidarity with the parents longer. And how that they're not excluded just because they haven't yet professed their faith. They're not excluded from, they're still part of the church. So let us not forget that our Lord is not a hard master. He will work in them whether we receive them sooner or later than we should even. He delights in a broken and contrite heart. That's what draws out the mercy of God. When before Him we are humble, when we seek to honor Him in what we do, bring that to Him, that broken and contrite heart. Look to Him to help you in your parenting. You can be sure that God will not forsake you. Elders are there to decide when your child is ready or not. pray for them and submit to them unless they're violating scriptural principle in which they need to be addressed. But when you do that, you and your children will surely be blessed by the Lord. He's not one that doesn't like to bless his people. He delights in doing so. But please stand and let's even give thanks to him about that. Oh, Lord, we do give thanks to you that you're a God who delights to bless your people, that you're not a hard master who wants some kind of exacting subjective decision that we aren't capable of of making, but that you give us guidelines and principles and a real human situation that we live in and you know that we're. We blunder and we're weak and we don't always know what we're doing. And we sometimes make judgments that are not all that great. But we thank you, Lord, that you. delight in those who have a broken and contrite heart before you, those who come to you humbly, realizing as we examine ourselves that we are sinners and realizing as we look upon Christ that he is our only savior and our only hope, that he is our righteousness and that we don't have that in ourselves, that he is also our source of strength, that by his spirit that we're able to follow you and to live for you, and that by his grace that we will be brought to glory at last, we and our children with us. And we pray, Father, that we would indeed present our children before you when they're born as those who you said are my children, the children of your people. You said you and your children or I am your God and you are my people, your descendants after you. We pray that we would receive them and acknowledge them as such, and that we would do so, Lord, not just in a ritual way. Yeah, the ritual is a part of it, but that we would do it with a significant meaning that is precious to us and that is instructive to us about how we treat the children. And Father, then when the children get older, that they come and say, yes, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I am committed to him. I know no other way. I trust in him alone for my salvation. I'm a sinner and I need him for my salvation. And I am committed to follow him. And we see that they are responsible and they're ready to undertake that responsibility, that we would then welcome them to the Lord's table and rejoice in the work that you have done in them. We pray that we would also not be hesitant to remove those who rebel against you and who refuse to come to Christ and to repent and acknowledge him as our only Savior. We pray, Father, that you would help the elders. They would have wisdom and help us to work together in a helpful way. with the congregation, with the children and the adults both to work together and that all of us, Lord, would come to the table in a manner that is worthy of our Lord, that we would come to the table as those who do properly examine ourselves and who properly discern the Lord's body. We thank you for the helpful words that we read about that, that about what we are doing when we do that. And we pray, Lord, that that would be something that characterizes us when we participate in these ordinances that you have given us. Bless us now, Father, you who delight in blessing. Bless us, your people, Lord, with your grace and mercy. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Believe now the blessing of the Lord, our God, you and your children. The Lord bless you out of Zion, and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Yes, may you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel. Amen.