A short message following the dedication of three children during worship
Good morning, Friends! I just want to say a few words during our Bible time this morning.
We’ve been spending a lot of time this fall, reading stories about people from the Old Testament together. It’s been interesting. We’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned some new things.
Today I want to read a short story. It’s one we’ve all probably heard before. It’s about a baby, and his family. I think it’s a good story for us all to listen to today.
Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.
When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
“Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him.
When the child grew older, his mother took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
Exodus 2:1-10
I just want to say a few things about this story.
The first thing is, that all children are precious. This story says that even slave babies are precious in the sight of God.
The next thing I want to say is, that it took more than just a mom and dad for everything in this story to work out all right. The baby’s older sister was really important.
She was brave. She was courageous and quick-thinking. She had to be patient, to watch her little brother for hours and days down there in the swamp. When there was an emergency, she saved her baby brother’s life.
Pharaoh’s daughter was an important part of this story, too.
She was lonely. She was childless. She had compassion. If she hadn’t cared, the baby would probably have died. She didn’t steal the baby. She found out who the birth mother was, and gave her financial support to care for and nurse the baby. The baby lived, and the mother lived, probably the whole family lived, because Pharaoh’s daughter cared.
Later on, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted the baby, and raised him, and brought him up.
Adoptive parents are really special people. They care for children who weren’t born to them. Adoptive parents don’t get nearly enough credit for all the love they give, and for all the care they give. God has a very special place in His heart for people who adopt children.
This story also tells us, that children are precious, because we don’t know what they’ll do when they grow up.
Most children are ordinary They’re beautiful, and we love them, and we treasure them.
Some children are special, because they need extra love. Often, these children with special needs wind up sharing so much more love back with us, that we don’t even think about the gifts abilities that they don’t have.
Children with special needs are precious, because they reflect the love of God to all the rest of us. They have in their hearts what all of us need. They’re a gift.
But some children, are like the baby in today’s story. His parents had no idea what he would grow up to do. He was precious to them already, but the love that he got from his sister, from his mother, from his adoptive mother, and later on from God Almighty – that love was enough to free his people and to change history.
All children are precious, because we never know – we never know how they’re going to grow up.
All children are loved by God. Maybe you remember how Jesus paused, right in the middle of the greatest journey of his entire life – Jesus stopped by the road, and he gathered up a group of random children, kids he’d never met, and might never meet again.
Jesus gathered them in his arms, and hugged them, and blessed them. If you can imagine, what it would have been like, to be one of those children that Jesus blessed. If you can imagine, what it would be like, to grow up, with the memory that Jesus held you in his arms.
Would your life be different, because Jesus blessed you? Would your life be different, because Jesus held you in his arms when you were little?
If you knew that you were a precious child, would you live differently? If you knew that your child was a precious child, would you treat them the same as you do now?
When we bless children like these, the way we’ve done today, we remember that all children are precious children.
We love these children today, because they’re so beautiful, and because they bring so much joy to their parents, and to their families. We pray for nothing but the best for them. We pray for their health and safety, and for them to have long and beautiful lives.
But we can’t know, today, what life will hold for them. We pray for God’s love and protection. And this church is now part of their extended family.
We are here for them. We want to be here to watch them grow up. We plan to share with them, the love of God and how important it is for all of us to trust the Lord, and praise the Lord.
But stories like this remind us that all children are precious children. Whoever they are, and wherever they may be.