07/01/2007
The Faith of a Child (Matthew 18: 1-6)
Intro:
VBS – I have spent a big part of my week here with the kids and working on VBS, and I was a little worried about having the time to really immerse myself God’s Word for our Message this week. A good message is kind of like coffee, I study God’s Word and soak in it all week and the message percolates in my mind.
Then I realized that I had been soaking in God’s Word this week with the Kids at VBS. So the message this week became about the Children and who they are, and what they are about.
We spent a lot of time this week teaching the kids about God, but we also spent a lot of time this week learning from the kids.
Jesus used a child to teach His disciples. Our passage this morning is Mt 18: 1-6.
Leading up to this passage Jesus had been teaching the telling the disciples about the things that were going to happen, that he would be betrayed, and was going to suffer and die, and be raised to life on the third day.
This got the disciples thinking about the Kingdom of God that Jesus taught about.
They were still thinking about a material Kingdom here on earth. They figured that when Jesus rose from the dead, it would be time to establish the new Kingdom, and they were worried over what position each of them would have in the new order of things.
Always thinking of themselves. Pride and ambition were getting in the way of seeing the truth. That happens a lot.
They came to Jesus with a question:
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" 2 He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3 And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
PRAY
Children:
I. We should be more like them.
II. To Welcome them is to Welcome Jesus.
III. We have a responsibility to them.
I. Children: We Should Be More Like Them
Mt 18: 1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" 2 He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3 And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
In the first 4 verses of our passage, Jesus tells the disciples that they need to become like a little child.
They were wrapped up in their own glory and were worried over what position they would have in the Kingdom.
Jesus told them that unless they change and become humble like the child standing before them, they won’t even be IN the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now that should snap them out of their daydreams about their own glory
It’s a wake up call for us too
Pride and ambition blinded the disciples to what was truly important
Pride and ambition had the disciples of Jesus focused on the wrong thing.
They were focused on themselves, they were focused on their glory in stead of glory for Jesus.
They needed to change, they needed to shift that focus, they needed to center themselves on Jesus, they needed some humility.
Jesus used a child to show them what that looks like, and he still uses children to teach us the same thing today.
Working with Children can be a humbling thing. Kids don’t play any of the games we adults play to help each other feel better about ourselves.
I heard a story about Billy Graham, he arrived in a small town to preach. He had a letter he wanted to mail, so he stopped a small boy to ask where the post office was. After the boy told him, Billy Graham said “If you’ll come to the church tonight, you can hear me tell people how to get to heaven.” The little boy said “I don’t think I’ll be there, you don’t even know how to get to the Post Office.”
Kids speak more honestly, they won’t tell you how wonderful what you say is if they don’t really believe it. They will say what is on their minds
They have a way of putting you in your place without even knowing it
When you are worshiping with kids, if your heart is not in it, they will pick up on it, and it affects them. They follow your lead, they think there must be something wrong with praising God with all of your energy, and they have plenty of energy available.
But if you put yourself all they way into it, if you let it all hang out and you go for broke praising God, then the kids feel free to do the same thing. It is a beautiful thing to see Kids worshiping God with everything they’ve got.
There is a purity to the worship of Kids –
There is no agenda, it’s not a show, they usually aren’t too worried about what other people might be thinking of them. They will praise God with their whole being.
We had a VBS Motto for this past week. – We went over it during the Children’s Message:
Praise Him
Trust Him
Follow Him
The One True God
Praise Him – we just talked about that – Kids have it together when it comes to Praise, it’s easy for them to forget themselves. That’s the secret they have, forget yourself, your reputation as a grown up, your image, what other people might think about you: you, you, you. If you can be like a child and forget yourself, it is easier to focus on Jesus and praise Him with everything you have, Praise Him like a child. Children – we need to be more like them.
Trust Him – This is another one that Kids are good at. When they are small, they are completely dependent on us as their parents. As they get bigger, they can do more and more for themselves, but they are still very dependent on us, and as we show them time and time again that we will take care of them, that we will give them what they need, trust comes naturally.
Trust comes harder for us adults. God shows us again and again that He WILL take care of us, that He will give us what we need, but still we hold back, we say we Trust Him, but then He tells us to jump, He promises to catch us, but we stand frozen with fear.
Remember little Katie standing of the edge of the platform up here? She jumped because she trusted me. I am her Daddy and she knows that I would never let her fall.
We stand at the edge and we say we trust Him, we SAY we know that He will never leave us, never forsake us, but we stand there, frozen and we don’t leave our feet, we don’t jump, we don’t FOLLOW.
Follow Him: It takes real trust to Follow. Kids are born followers. If they trust you, they will follow you. If you violate their trust, you lose them. As long as you hold up your end of the Trust, you have their loyalty, their love, and they will follow you.
God always holds up his end of the Trust, He never lets us down, He never lets us fall, and yet we don’t always follow, we don’t always obey Him.
He says “you can trust Me”, Go ahead and jump, I will catch you – I will never let you down. We say we believe Him, but we don’t jump, we don’t Follow
We need to be more like the children. Did you see Katie’s face when she jumped off of this platform? She was smiling great big, beaming, she was having fun. She had absolute confidence in the outcome. She KNEW I would catch her. She trusted me.
I need to be more like Katie, we need to be more like the children.
And who do we Praise?, who do we Trust?, who do we Follow?
The One True God: He is the creator of the universe, the King of Kings, Almighty God. Who else could you possibly put your total trust in?
In the Children’s Message, we looked at these in reverse order:
He is the ONE TRUE GOD, and that is why we FOLLOW HIM, because we absolutely TRUST HIM, and we PRAISE HIM for all that He does, has done, and for all that He is.
Because of who He is we Love Him. That is another area where our kids excel.
Show them some attention, show genuine concern and interest, show them a little love,
And they will show you how it is done in the love department
They are eager to Love, the want to Love, they are basically just waiting for permission to Love, and they pour it out. They Love like nobody’s business.
I am inspired by the Love of our kids.
God says Love is extremely important, in fact:
Gal 5: 14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
We need to become more like the children
II. Children: To Welcome them is to Welcome Jesus
Mat 18: 5 (NIV) "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.”
Do you remember being told “Children should be seen but not heard?”
How about “Be quiet, the adults are talking” as if We have something to say of earth shaking importance.
In the days of Jesus, children were given little thought outside of the home. In public they were expected to pretty much stay out of the way and sight of the adults.
You know how it is, we adults are busy doing important stuff, we can start to feel like we are pretty important ourselves and we don’t have time for intrusions by kids
Jesus was the busiest man who ever lived. He had a lot to do, and He knew that his time was short, He had a date with the cross.
The disciples knew he was busy, which is probably why they tried to stop some children from approaching Jesus in Matthew 19
Mt 19: 13-14 (NIV) 13 Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. 14 Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
Jesus didn’t ignore them. Jesus wasn’t too busy for them. He said whoever welcomes a little child in My name welcomes Me.
I believe He is talking about actual children as well as people who have a child-like spirit of humility. Anyway children are definitely included.
Suppose your house or your business had a waiting room, like in a doctors office.
I have an office in our house and I work there quite a bit working on sermons and studying, so it is pretty easy for me to imagine.
Now suppose that Jesus was sitting in your waiting room, waiting to spend some time with you. Would you put him off, or would you clear your schedule? Would you jump out of your chair and run to the door to invite Him in?
How about your children? Or your niece or nephew, or your neighbor kid? What if they were in your waiting room, waiting to spend some time with you?
My kids get so sick and tired of hearing “Not right now”. “Not right now, Daddy’s busy”, “Not right now, Daddy has a lot of work to do”, “Not right now, the adults are talking”, “Not right now, I want to see this TV Program”
The next time your son or daughter, or grandchild, or niece or nephew or the lonely kid next door asks for some of your time, Just imagine that Jesus is standing there next to them, with the same question – “ How about now, will you spend some time with us now?”
Jesus said whoever welcomes the children in His name welcomes Him.
III. Children: We have a responsibility to them.
Children are such a blessing, they are truly a gift from God
Ps 127: 3 (NIV) “ Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.”
The gift does come with responsibility though.
Dt 6: 5-7 (NIV) 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children.
We have a responsibility to teach our children the things of God.
His commands, His Love, His beauty, His Power, His Saving Grace.
We have a responsibility to lead our children to Worship God
To Praise Him, Trust Him, Follow Him, the One True God
(Wow, that would make a good motto!)
And our responsibility is not just to our children, but to all children in our life that we interact with.
Sometimes we do dedication ceremonies for little children.
When we do that we are acknowledging our responsibility and commitment as a church body to help bring the children in our church up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Men, if you have a family, you are a minister, a shepherd with your own flock.
You are a shepherd to your family, you are meant to be the spiritual leader of your household, it is your God-given responsibility.
Ladies, you are meant to be a teacher for your children, so they learn to love God’s Word, so they learn to love Jesus.
And if the father is absent or is unwilling to lead, then the task is yours to lead your children spiritually with the help of your church.
This is the biggest single responsibility we have as parents. Nothing is more important.
Nothing else matters if we fail in this.
Good grades mean nothing if our children do not learn to love Jesus
Excelling in sports, being in good physical shape, knowing how to work hard,
None of it means anything if we fail to teach our children about Jesus
It is all meaningless if we do not encourage them to love Him and give their life over to Him.
It can scare you a little if you dwell on it, and actually that’s O.K.
This is serious business.
Jesus tells us it would be better to tie a large millstone around your neck and drown in the deep of the ocean than to lead one of these children to disobey God.
There are a lot of ways we can cause little ones to sin.
We can set a bad example with our behavior. We can simply do nothing and fail to teach them, fail to live up to our responsibility.
One day there will be a reckoning, we will have to account for our entire life, and it will be made known, the times we caused another to sin, to stumble.
I don’t want to see a list of times I caused a child to sin.
God forbid there is a list that shows that I led a child away from Christ, encouraged a child to reject Christ.
He says one of these little ones who believe in me. Yes kids can have real faith.
And they can have real questions. When they start asking, we really need to pay attention.
On the way home from our VBS parents night program, Katie and I were alone in the car on the way home, Alex had gone on to a birthday party after the program. Katie is 7 years old now.
Katie started asking all kinds of questions. Good ones too. I was amazed at some of the questions she was asking.
She was asking about whether Jesus heals everyone, or just people who love him.
She was asking if Jesus heals people after they are dead and in heaven.
She was asking if it was true that some people will not be in heaven. She asked if it was because they don’t believe in Jesus, she had heard that those people go down below with the Devil.
She wanted to know if she would be in heaven. She really wants to be in heaven.
She wanted to know if we know who we will be sitting by in heaven. She wants to sit with her Mom on one side and her Dad on the other.
These are big questions. These are real questions.
We need to be listening as parents when these questions come.
We need to know our kids well so we can determine how much information they can handle.
When Katie asked about Jesus’ ability to heal, she doesn’t need to hear a deep theological dissertation on the subject of healing.
We focused on the fact that He loves everyone, he has the power to heal anyone, he doesn’t always heal us while we are here on earth, but when we get to heaven, He heals us completely and we will never be hurt or sick again.
I do think she was ready to know that there is another place other than heaven and that some people will be there instead of in heaven, and that it is a bad place to be.
So what does God want us to do with this information today?
He wants us to be more like children when it comes to humility.
When you look at your kids this week, He wants you to see Jesus. He wants you to give them your time and your energy. Be extra patient, be extra loving, be Christ like.
He wants us to take our responsibility toward children as parents and as a part of this church body seriously.
Have you been thinking about starting a family devotion time daily or weekly? Why don’t you go ahead and start this week.
Been thinking about taking that Father-son camping trip? Get it on the calendar this week.
Children: We need to be more like them, To welcome them is to welcome Jesus, and we have a responsibility to them.
Pray - Invitation
