When a Child Is Taken to Heaven – Part I

I preached this sermon, "When a Child Is Taken to Heaven - Part I," to my congregation after a young man in our church tragically drowned days earlier. I wanted to bring scripture to bear on the situation, which meant looking at the accounts in the Bible of people losing children. This is Part I, and here is Part II: Do not Grieve as Those Who Have no Hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). https://youtu.be/-tf0dDD5DAE I preached this sermon, "When a Child Is Taken to Heaven - Part I," to my congregation after a young man in our church tragically drowned days earlier. Table of ContentsSermon Notes for When a Child Is Taken to Heaven - Part ILesson 1: it’s okay to be upset.Lesson 2: God isn’t punishing you.Lesson 3: Jesus takes believing children in his arms.Lesson 4: Jesus will raise believing children.Lesson 5: go to the Lord with your loss.Lesson 6: you can be confused.Lesson 7: death reminds us life is temporary. Sermon Notes for When a Child Is Taken to Heaven - Part I Please open your Bibles to 1 Kings 17. After the events of this past week, I didn’t feel like I could preach the sermon that I had prepared on wisdom. I wanted to bring scripture to bear on the situation, which means examining the accounts of people who have lost children. It occurs in scripture more often than you might expect, and I believe it’s because it occurs in our lives more often than we might expect. We live in a fallen world, and this is one of its most distressing realities. Many of us have experienced miscarriages and I hope these sermons will encourage you too…but with that said, while miscarriages are difficult, and I don’t want to seem insensitive to people who have experienced them - especially late in pregnancy - I don’t think they compare with the loss of a child that has been born. One other reason this sermon is important is even if you’re fortunate enough to never lose a child, as a member of the body of Christ, you need to know how to minister to people who have. We know how much the Raleys have been through, so I did ask them if they thought these sermons would be too personal for them, but they said they thought they’d be good for them and the congregation. This sermon will be different in that, instead of being expositional, it will be more devotional. I didn’t think this was the best time for a deeply theological or academic sermon, with you feeling like I’m preaching at you. Instead, I hope you feel like I’m talking with you. This is the first sermon I’ve ever preached that I didn’t look at any commentaries. I wanted to share what God gave me to share, rather than something I gained from someone else. Let’s begin with 1 Kings 17… 1 Kings 17:17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” This woman just lost her son, and we can learn from how she felt…and this brings us to lesson one… Lesson 1: it’s okay to be upset. I’ve told you before that the bible contains imperatives – or commands – and indicatives – or statements. The imperatives are prescriptive and the indicatives are descriptive. The descriptive accounts often tell us how people are feeling so we can identify w/ them. They will be upset, angry, depressed, sad, emotional. This is especially evident in the Psalms. This is one such account. The verses don’t indicate why the child died, and in most of the other accounts we’ll look at we also don’t learn why the child died. So that’s not the point. The point is that we get to see how this woman felt. She was upset and God is showing us that through these verses so any parents in her situation can identify with her. If there’s one time in all of life that people are going to be upset, angry, depressed, and emotional, it’s going to be when they lose a child. We shouldn’t give ourselves over to these emotions and sin…but these feelings are normal…and it seems God wants us to know that through accounts like this. Lesson 2: God isn’t punishing you. She mentions her sin and seems to think that’s the cause. But God wasn’t upset with her. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Losing a child is one of the worst things people can experience, and one of the only things that can make it worse is when parents think God is punishing them. God wasn’t punishing this woman, and parents who have lost children need to resist the temptation to think God is punishing them. A close secondary temptation is for parents to punish themselves. This mother wondered if it was her fault, but: She shouldn’t be blaming herself. She had nothing to do with her child’s death. She needed to do her best to convince herself of that truth. The most common way people punish themselves is by playing through all the, “What-ifs…” If a child was hit by a car the parents could be tempted to play through so many different scenarios: What if we had done this… What if we hadn’t let him do this… What if we had been there… This is a form of punishing ourselves, and again parents need to do their best to avoid this. Look at verse 19… 1 Kings 17:19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. One of the difficulties at times with scripture is figuring out tone. We must guess the way people said things. I think Elijah said this very gently to the woman. He lived with her and her son for three years. He provided for them during the drought and the accompanying famine. They must have become close. When he said, “Give me your son,” I’m sure he said it tenderly. Then he took the boy in his arms and carried him up. And this brings us to lesson three… Lesson 3: Jesus takes believing children in his arms. If we want to know what Jesus is like in heaven we can look at Him on earth. I don’t see any reason to think He’d be different in heaven than He was on earth, especially since Heb 13:8 says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. When we were at the hospital Wednesday night, on more than one occasion people said, “Brandan is in Jesus’ arms.” People said this to Jim and Kris to encourage them, and Jim and Kris said this to themselves to encourage themselves. And I don’t think it’s a sentimental thought that we tell ourselves that has no backing in scripture. When I share about Jesus taking up a child in His arms it’s more than a devotional thought, because the bible describes Him doing this: Mark 9:36 [Jesus] took a child…and TAKING HIM IN HIS ARMS, he said to them, "Let the little children come to me." Mark 10:16 [Jesus] took [the children] IN HIS ARMS and blessed them, laying his hands on them. If Jesus would take children up in his arms during His earthly life, why would we think he wouldn’t do the same thing in heaven? So I love the language of this verse. I imagine Jesus saying, “Give me your son,” and He takes the child in His arms and carries him up into the upper chamber where he lodges. If you ever lost a child, you might turn to this verse and read it and be encouraged. Look at verse 20… 1 Kings 17:20 And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” 24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” Obviously, this account – and some of the others we’ll look at — break down at one of the most important points. This child was raised from the dead, but in our live,s children aren’t raised from the dead. This needs to be addressed. The New Testament states the Old Testament provides us with examples: Romans 15:4 Whatever things were written [in the Old Testament] were written for our learning. 1 Corinthians 10:6 These things [in the Old Testament] took place as examples for us…11 All these things happened [in the Old Testament] as examples So it’s not a question of, “Do we learn from the Old Testament?” or “Are these examples for us?” The question is: “What do we learn from the Old Testament, and how do these examples apply?” The best way to understand this miracle, and the other miracles in scripture, is this… They are physical pictures of what God does for us spiritually. Let me use Jesus’ ministry as an example: When He healed blindness: That’s not supposed to make us think He wants to heal every blind person. But He wants to heal our spiritual blindness so we can spiritually see. When Jesus healed deafness: That’s not supposed to make us think He heals every deaf person. But He wants to heal our spiritual deafness so we can understand spiritual truths. When Jesus healed the paralytic: That’s not supposed to make us think He heals every paralyzed person. But He wants to heal our spiritual lameness so we can walk w/ God: Romans 6:4 just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we SHOULD WALK IN NEWNESS OF LIFE. When Jesus raised people from the dead: That’s not supposed to make us think He’ll raise people the moment they die. But He has victory over sin and death, and He wants to give us eternal life. There is spiritual application to these physical realities. ...