Children's Church
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

It is because I was once a child that I remember that children are baffled by the pasts of their parents. Because our parents have been adults all our lives, we tend to assume, when we are small, that they were adults all of their lives. Long before we make it to adulthood, however, we learn the secret of where adults come from—children.

Such a thought not only surprises us looking at our parents backward, but frightens us looking at our children forward. Not only were our parents once children, but our children will one day be parents. How they do with our grandchildren has much to do with how e do with them. And if we would train them well for adulthood, we not only must train them during childhood, but in childhood. If our children when grown would be godly men and women, they must both now, and then, be godly children. They must be when they are grown, the kind of child that their Father Abraham was, when he was grown.

It is both easy and wise to be awed by our Father Abraham. Many biblical heroes impress us, but only one is called "the father of the faithful." Moses standing tall, with the Red Sea rent asunder knocks us over, but Moses merely led a nation. Abraham birthed that nation. He is bigger than life, a spiritual colossus. All because he had faith as a child. Samson, you will remember, was gifted with extraordinary strength. Joseph had the ability to interpret dreams. Daniel knew the future. Abraham, on the other hand, had something far greater than all these—he believed God.

It is here, I believe, that we get at the center of what Jesus means when He enjoins us to be like little children. He isn't encouraging us to be short, or to have short attention spans, or to prefer peanut butter and banana sandwiches over duck and avocado on pan-seared focaccia bread. What He wants from us is the faith of children, a fides implicitum, an implicit faith.

My father helps explain the meaning of this when he complains about one of the many brief creeds dotting Christian bumpers across the land. One explains, "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." His complaint isn't over the reality that God speaks. Neither is His complaint that people believe it. Nor does it get his goat that the matter is settled. His sound conviction is that it is not our believing that settles it, but His saying it that settles it. If God said it, the matter is settled, whether you believe it or not. We are supposed to believe God, whatever the circumstance. Let God be true, and every man a liar.

Imaging if you were Abraham, trying to chop a little logic. God told you that your son would be your heir, that from him would come kings and nations, that all the promises you received would flow through him. That same God told you to kill that same son. Now, how is that going to happen? Remember that not only did Abraham live before Christ, but he lived before Elijah revived the widow's son. Resurrection had never happened before. Enoch walked with God and was no more, but no one had yet returned from the other side. Abraham, however, reached the conclusion simply enough—for me to kill him, he has to die. For him to bring forth kings and nations, he must live. Therefore he must die first, and then live. Like a child he believed and obeyed.

If Abraham is then the father of the faithful, then we are the children of that faithful father Abraham. God has made us brothers of Christ, as we are joint heirs with Him. He has made us His slaves, His friends. His own body. He has made us into a woman, into His one bride. And stranger still we who are His bride the church are His children, birthed by the church. We are our own mother. Hard to believe. I know. It takes a child to do so.

It is a difficult thing to forget that the local body where I serve, Saint Peter Presbyterian Church, is rather unusual. When I look to the congregation from the pulpit I am overwhelmed by how bountifully God has blessed us with so many covenant children. But there are, of course, other churches He has so blessed. I am delighted to behold the saints who have been brought in form afar, who were once not a people, but are now the people of God. But there are other churches through which God has so worked. What is strange about our church is that so many of the people therein have moved here to be a part of this church. They have done so, however, not because we believe children are a blessing nor because we believe in bringing in the lost through faithful labors. I pray also that they aren't here because of some laundry list of distinctives, that here is a church that believes both in Reformed theology and in liturgical worship, that here is a church that believes in feasts and in fasts, that here is a church where we believe in repenting for our sin, and believe in rejoicing over His grace. I don't want those outside the church to think, "There's a church that believes in homeschooling," or "At Saint Peter they believe in the sacraments." Instead I pray that what draws some people and repels others would be one thing, that both would agree in describing us as, "Those people who believe God."

We are not a purpose driven church. We are not a seeker sensitive church. We are not an old light church, nor a marrow-men church. We are not a high church, a low church, nor a middle of the road church. We are not a social gospel church, nor a quietest church. We are becoming, I pray, maturing into the children's church, where we delightfully sing, "Child Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Child Abraham..." So let's just praise the Lord.