Being Like Jesus to Your Kids
Matthew 19:13-15
February 3, 2008
NOTE: THE ME/WE/GOD/YOU/WE FORMAT USED IN MY MESSAGES IS BORROWED FROM ANDY STANLEY’S BOOK, "COMMUNICATING FOR A CHANGE."
Introduction:
Three men waiting in the room for expectant fathers waited for word on the arrival of their infants.
Some while later a nurse comes in and announces to one of the men that his wife had just given birth to twins. “That’s amazing he said - I play for the Minnesota Twins!”
About twenty minutes later another nurse comes in and announces to the second gentleman that his wife had given birth to triplets. “WOW” - he stated, “I work for the 3M company!”
Upon hearing that the third man fell off his chair and fainted - after those who were present were able to revive him, they all inquired as to why he had fainted. He said, “I work for the 7-UP!” (Sermoncentral.com. Contributed by Joseph Plata)
Me: I mentioned last week that I like kids, and even love a few of them.
And we talked last week about the fact that God loves kids, and that kids were God’s idea in the first place, because one of the first commands we find in all of Scripture was for Adam and Eve to have children.
But being a parent now for going on 18 years, I find that one of the biggest concerns I have is that I will be someone who points his kids to Jesus by both word and by example.
Will they see Jesus in me? Will they look at me and see the love and acceptance that Jesus has for them, reflected in me?
Because in this passage we’re looking at, Jesus tells his people that they are to let the children come to Him and to not get in their way.
How am I doing in those regards? Only time will tell, of course, but in the meantime I need to be intentional about reflecting Jesus accurately to them.
We: If I were to take a poll, my guess is that all of us who claim to be Christians want our children to grow up to love and serve Jesus in whatever occupation they find themselves, right?
Well the key to seeing that happen is them seeing Jesus in you and seeing you act and talk like Jesus toward them.
I also believe that no matter how old your kids are, you can take what we learn from Jesus here and put them into practice.
God: Last week I mentioned that access to Jesus is all-important for your children.
And the idea was that we should make opportunities available for children to gain access to Jesus and that shouldn’t do anything that stands in the way of that access.
Matthew 19:13-15 (p. 696) –
Most of my comments will be geared toward parents, but they are applicable to anyone around children.
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." 15 When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.
It was a common practice back in Jesus’ day for children to be brought to the rabbis and elders to be blessed, usually by the placing of hands on the child (Expositor’s Bible Commentary).
As we mentioned last week, Jesus was a busy guy. He was traveling, teaching, preaching, healing, feeding crowds, driving out demons, and all sorts of stuff.
He hardly had a moment to Himself, and my guess here is that the disciples were just trying to get Jesus away so He could either rest or deal with people who were really important – you know, like grown-ups.
You see, kids were deeply cherished in Judaism, but in some ways they were second-class citizens. Their job was to listen, learn, and be respectful, not be in the way of the grown-ups.
That doubtless had something to do with the attitude of the disciples’.
And so the disciples were getting after the grown-ups who were bringing more distractions to Jesus.
But what was Jesus’ attitude? “Bring ‘em, on, guys! I love kids. I have time for them and I want to bless them. You just bring them right on over, okay?”
One of the most important words in the Christian vocabulary is this one: Christlikeness.
If you call yourself a Christian, then you are called to be Christlike – like Jesus in every area of our lives, through the working of the Holy Spirit using the Word of God in our lives.
Christlikeness impacts those around us, and it especially impacts the children around us.
And if we want our kids to have Jesus for themselves, believing in Him and loving Him with their heart, soul, mind, and strength, then we need to be Christlike in how we interact with our kiddos.
So here’s the lesson I want you to take home with you today:
When you are like Jesus to your kids, they’ll see Him and want Him for themselves.
> He was open to their presence.
> He touched them affectionately.
> He spoke protectively about them.
Model Christlikeness and help them to be Christlike themselves.
Expose them to Jesus – bring them to Him, as this passage says, and don’t get in the way of them finding Him.
Folks, I’m convinced that when people are exposed to the Jesus of the Bible – not the Jesus of our own making, not the Jesus of our particular group or denomination, not the Jesus of the current politically and socially correct attitudes, but the Jesus of the Bible - they’ll want Him for themselves.
And that includes our kids.
After all, what’s not to like about the Jesus of Scripture?
When most people reject Jesus, they’re not rejecting the Jesus of the Bible, because most of the time they don’t know Him.
Most of the time they’re rejecting the Jesus they see in others – especially in their parents or others who talk the talk but don’t really live for Him.
But if you are Christlike, then your kids can see Jesus for who He really is.
You: Commit to being a person that others, especially children, can see Jesus in.
How can we do that?
First of all, and this isn’t in your notetaking guide, but you can simply make sure that your life reflects Christ by obeying His commands and by living according to His priorities.
But I want to speak specifically about what we see Jesus doing in this passage that we can put into practice.
Let’s look at how you can be Christlike to your kids. Four things:
1. Talk about them in front of others.
I’m going to camp on this for a bit. The others will go a bit more quickly. But this is something that I don’t think we don’t do enough of, and I’m as guilty as the next person.
We all know how to talk to our kiddos, although some of us need to learn how to talk to them in ways that don’t knock them down or hurt them.
I’m saying we need to talk about them in front of others in ways that tell others – and them – that they’re special to us.
Zig Ziglar tells a story about how a friend of his was introducing his children to Zig for the first time.
Instead of giving their names, he said things like, “This is the one who whines all the time, this is the one who always makes us late, this is the one who doesn’t like to take baths…”
I can’t remember exactly what he said, and it’s not really important. What’s important was that in presenting his children, he chose to downgrade them in their presence to other people.
Folks, I don’t know how to say it any other way – that’s just shameful and I hope I never witness anything like that from you.
I heard that story many years ago, probably before I even had children. But I remember thinking to myself that I would never talk about my kiddos that way in front of others.
So one of the things I’ve done is that I’ve given all my kids special names that I try to call them all the time, especially in public.
They’re names that communicate my love for them and my desire that others know my love for them.
I don’t call my kids “booger-head” or anything like that. I wanted names that they wouldn’t be embarrassed to hear me say in front of other people.
Try not to say negative things about them in their presence, especially around anyone who isn’t their mother.
And don’t compare them to anyone else. “Why can’t you be like your brother? He never breaks things or gets into trouble.”
Comparing your kids to someone else is one of the worst things you can do.
Kids should not have to live in fear that when they go out in public with Mom and Dad they’re going to be embarrassed by how they’re talked about in front of other people.
Talk positively about your kids to others in their presence.
2. Touch your kids in front of others.
You may not be a “touchy-feely” kinda person, and that’s okay. I’m not saying you should try to be someone you’re not.
But anyone can give their child a pat on the back, put a hand on their shoulder, or even hug them.
It doesn’t have to be a big sloppy kiss, especially if you’re with your son. Let Grandma do that.
And don’t give them a touch that’ll give their friends a reason to tease them later. You don’t want them to get beat up later, know what I mean?
But let them feel and let others see you give an affirming touch. Jesus did that, and if it’s good enough for Jesus…
To be like Jesus to your kids you need to talk about your kids in front of others. To be like Jesus you need to touch your kids in front of others. And third, to be like Jesus to your kids, you need to…
3. Bless them in front of others.
We’re going to talk next week about some specific ways you can bless your child in front of others.
There are a number of ways you can do that, and since we’re going to discuss that in more detail next week, I won’t go into specifics here.
But the bottom-line of this is to express your love for them and your desire that they will be blessed as they live for Christ. And it involves that affirming touch.
The idea behind blessing them is to give them something they will remember from you that they can cherish for a lifetime.
Not money or an inheritance – a heart-felt blessing that will honor them and help them desire to live for Christ.
Here’s the fourth way you can be like Jesus to your kids.
4. Pray for them in front of others.
That’s pretty self-explanatory, don’t you think?
Now in this passage, we don’t see Jesus praying for them, that’s true.
But we know that Jesus prayed for people, prayed for His disciples, and even now prays for us, according to Hebrews 7:25.
And I guess that if you are a parent, you pray for your children all the time. I do, that’s for sure!
But if you have an opportunity to pray for your child in the presence of others, will it be in a positive manner like asking that God would protect them and give them Christlike character?
Whatever you do, don’t pray something like, “Dear God, please keep my kid from totally screwing his life up so that I end up supporting him for the rest of his life. Please keep him from embarrassing me in front of my buddies. And don’t let him get thrown in jail so I look bad to the guys at work.”
You might pray that privately, but don’t do it in front of your kid, especially if others are around.
A quick caution here: you don’t do these things in front of others to show off. These are things you do to show your love to your children.
Jesus talks about doing things for the sake of show, and He doesn’t like it all!
Do it because you love your kids and want to accept and honor them like Jesus.
I mentioned earlier that no matter how old your kids are, you can put this stuff into practice in their lives.
If they’re young, then you have unlimited opportunities to instill the love and acceptance of Christ into their lives.
And I honestly believe that even if you children are out of the home, maybe even have children or grandchildren of their own, you can do these things. Nothing I’ve talked about today from this passage is limited by age.
Are you willing to make this a real part of your relationship to your kids? I hope so.
Some of you may have to try and mend some fences, and that’ll be tough. But I think that being Jesus to your kids will be worth the effort.
We: I dream at times about how I want people outside our church to respond to what they find at our church, especially on Sunday mornings.
I want them to see how friendly we are, and that we’re serious about helping people find restoration in their relationship with God through Jesus.
But you know what would be really cool? If they were to notice how we interact with our children.
They would see that we don’t let them run all over us, because Mom and Dad are the boss, but they would also see that even though we are the authority, we interact with our kids in ways that bring honor to them and reflect the love and acceptance of Christ to them.
Whaddya say we all work to show the love of Christ to our kids?
Let’s pray.
