When a Child Is Taken to Heaven is the sermon I preached 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. Children die in God's Word 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 the worst realities of it. I looked at the account of Elijah raising the widow's son in 1 Kings 17:17-24 and Elisha raising the Shunammite's son in 2 Kings 4:18-37.
Many people have experienced miscarriages and I hope these sermons will encourage them 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.
This sermon is different in that instead of being expositional, it was more devotional. I didn't think that this was the best time to have a deeply theological or academic sermon with my church feeling like I'm preaching at them. Instead I hoped they felt like I'm talking with them.
This is the first sermon I've ever preached that I didn't look at any commentaries. I wanted to do my best to share what God gave me to share, versus something I gained from someone else.
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Scott LaPierre is the teaching pastor at Woodland Christian Church in Woodland, WA, an author, and conference speaker. He holds an MA in Biblical Studies from Liberty University. Scott and his wife, Katie, have nine children and they are passionate homeschooling advocates. Scott...
