4. Children of God's People Live as God's People

By Gerry Straker, 25 May 2022

In these five articles we are looking at what the Bible says about the children of God’s people: 

1. The Status of the Children of God’s People
2. Children of God’s People in the Promises of God
3. Children of God’s People Join God’s People
4. Children of God’s People Live as God’s People
5. Conclusion: Children of God's People are God's People

We are building a picture to show that in both the Old Testament and New Testament, children of believers are welcomed in by God as his people.

 CHILDREN OF GOD’S PEOPLE LIVE AS GOD’S PEOPLE

In our first article we saw the status of children in God’s people. In the second article we considered the promises that God makes about children. In the third article we considered children joining God’s people. In this article we look at how children live as God’s people, as they gather, worship and are taught.

1. Children were part of the gatherings of God’s people

Children were there at the gatherings, at the festivals and sacrifices, joining in the celebrations and mourning, and to hear the Word: 

• ‘Moses answered, "We will go with our young and old, with our sons and daughters, and with our flocks and herds, because we are to celebrate a festival to the LORD.”’ (Exodus 10:9). 

• ‘Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel.’ (Exodus 34:23 ESV). 

• ‘There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the LORD your God has blessed you.’ (Deuteronomy 12:7). 

• ‘And rejoice before the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name--you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, the Levites in your towns, and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows living among you.’ (Deuteronomy 16:11). 

• ‘Then Moses commanded them: "At the end of every seven years, in the year for cancelling debts, during the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before them in their hearing. Assemble the people--men, women and children, and the aliens living in your towns--so that they can listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law.’ (Deuteronomy 31:10-12). 

• ‘There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the aliens who lived among them.’ (Joshua 8:35). 

• ‘Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters.’ (1 Samuel 1:4). 

• ‘All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the LORD. Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite and descendant of Asaph, as he stood in the assembly. He said: "Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem!”’ (2 Chronicles 20:13-15). 

• ‘There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.’ (Ezra 8:21). 

• While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly. (Ezra 10:1). 

• And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away. (Nehemiah 12:43). 

• ‘Gather the people, consecratethe assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast.’ (Joel 2:16). 

• Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. (Luke 2:41-42). 

• The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children. (Matthew 14:21). 

• But when our time was up, we left and continued on our way. All the disciples and their wives and children accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray. (Acts 21:5). 

2. Children praise God and Jesus

‘But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they were indignant. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “Have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?”’ (Matthew 21:15-16). 

Jesus is rebuking them, for although they have read this: ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.’ (Psalm 8:2) they are not applying it correctly.

Praising God is even possible in the womb. John the Baptist didn’t kick at a coincidental moment, rather, he leapt for joy when he heard the mother of Jesus’ greeting. (Luke 1:44). John recognizes Jesus, his cousin as Saviour! 

2. Children are taught as part of the church family

Children are to be taught the glorious deeds of the Lord: 

‘We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD,
his power, and the wonders he has done. 
He decreed statutes for Jacob
and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, 
so that the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.’ (Psalm 78:4-6)

Children are to be taught by their parents (Genesis 18:19; Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:18-21; Proverbs 1-9 and 23:15-21 which are directly addressed to ‘my son’; Ephesians 6:4; 2 Timothy 1:5; 3:14), but they are also taught by church leaders, and not just at the special occasions listed in point one above. 

Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians like this: ‘Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus…’ (Ephesians 1:1) He is writing to saints. Later in the letter he addresses children directly: ‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.’ (Ephesians 6:1). 

It's the same in the letter to the Colossians: ‘Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse…’ (Colossians 1:1). And then later in the letter: ‘Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.’

These are not special cases for special churches - the letter to the Colossians was also to be read at Laodicea (Colossians 4:16) and Ephesians is considered a round robin letter to several different churches. 

Children are saints. Children heard the whole letter read and taught. Paul expects children to have heard the whole letter and the grace and blessings in chapters 1-3 before they hear the instructions for them in chapter 6! It is hard to imagine the Ephesian Church suddenly pausing the reader and rushing out to bring their children in from outside where they were playing in the street, to hear these commands directed to them, (taken out of the context of God’s amazing grace in those first three chapters!), before they were sent back outside after their paragraph had been finished.  

Instead, whole households would have been there: wives, husbands, children, slaves, and masters for the reading and teaching of the letter, just as Paul envisaged when he wrote the letter. Children are fully part of the church and are to be called saints. 

 4. Children are in the Lord and please him

The status of children means that they can do what God wants and live lives that please him. Again, Paul writes: ‘Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord’ (Colossians 3:20) and: ‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.’ (Ephesians 6:1).

In Ephesians, members of the household are to treat each other as befits their relationship with Christ and children are no exception! It is because of the standing of children through the work of Christ as described earlier in the letter (chapters 1-3) with all the wonderful things that Christ has done for the children, that the children are to obey their parents.

For all the people of God - including children – it is grace first and then obedience. The abundant blessings are for the children, and then as receivers of grace they are commanded to obey their parents. 

At what age does that obedience in the Lord begin? From the very beginning! Just as obedience to parents begins at the very beginning: babies in the womb are carried where the mother goes; babies leave the house when the mother chooses and so on. Babies learn to do what their parents want (what is best for them). As soon as parents start get a baby into a routine, we are beginning to teach them to obey us.  I can see no justification for introducing an age requirement on these blessings or commands. Children of believers are considered to be ‘in the Lord’ and are to obey their parents.  

And by doing this, children can please the Lord. Only believers can please the Lord. God hates sinners (Psalm 11:5), but he loves those who put their faith in him and follow Jesus. That any of us can please the Lord is astounding. Here’s how C S Lewis puts it in The Weight of Glory: ‘To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.’[1]  This wonder is for our children too.

[1] C S Lewis. The Weight of Glory, https://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Lewis%20Glory.pdf