OPEN: In my files I ran across these nuggets of wisdom from little children:
Patrick, age 10 - "Never trust a dog to watch your food."
Hannah, age 9 - "When your dad is mad and asks you, ’Do I look stupid?’ don’t answer."
Taylia, age 11 - "When your mom is mad at your dad, don’t let her brush your hair."
Andrew, age 9 - "A puppy always has bad breath -- even after eating a Tic-Tac."
Lauren, age 9 - "Felt-tip markers are not good to use as lipstick."
Alyesha, 13 - "When you get a bad grade in school, show it to your mom when she’s on the phone."
Joel, age 10 - "Don’t pick on your sister when she’s holding a baseball bat."
But my favorite was from Eileen, age 8 who said: "Never try to baptize a cat."
I love kids. I’ve always loved kids. In fact, one of my greatest pleasures in ministry has been when I’ve been allowed to teach young children.
• They’re eager to learn.
• They trust their teachers.
• They like to play and color and do crafts.
• And they’re just a lot of FUN to be around.
Even when the kids are unruly and I have to yell at them a little to get them under control… they’re still fun to be around.
So, I’ve always found it a little bizarre that these disciples would get so upset about parents bringing their little children to Jesus. Why on earth would this upset them?
In Mark 10:13 we read “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.”
Rebuked?
Why would these disciples not want these kids to be around Jesus?
And as I pondered this, it occurred to me that the disciples were simply exercising a principle that many trendy churches are embracing nowadays called “targeting” their audience. “Targeting” an audience is the practice of fine tuning your ministry to reach a select group of people.
• For example I visited one denomination’s website who counseled their member churches to ask:
Who is my church’s target audience and where do I find them?
• Another trendy church resource website challenged their subscribers;
“Have you spent much time thinking about who you want to reach in your ministry? To whom is your church trying to communicate? Ministers often overlook this basic question. The better you clarify your ministry’s audience the more you will be able to meet their needs.”
This site went on to say “A target audience represents your focal group—those you hope to communicate with and where you should FOCUS your attention. Without focus, you won’t be able to reach anyone effectively.”
You know what those folks are saying?
They’re saying that there are just certain kinds people out there that you want to reach, so you need to target your ministry principally to their needs.
Essentially, that’s what the disciples were doing.
They had a target audience – a special focus group - in mind, and it didn’t include little kids.
Jesus was a busy man.
He had people to heal, demons to cast out, important people to talk to.
And these were just little kids
They weren’t important.
They couldn’t contribute.
They had no influence.
They were nice (and all that) but they weren’t worth Jesus’ time.
AND SO the disciples tried to shoo them away.
The disciples had a target audience in mind.
And only certain kinds of people deserved Jesus’ attention
Now, churches have done this for ages.
Churches have long had target groups - long before it was a trendy thing to do.
• For example, there have been churches who’ve targeted THE INFLUENTIAL in town. They go after the lawyers, the doctors, the business people.
Why?
Well they believe that in order to be a successful church, they need to be influential in their community – and these are influential people. Also, it takes money to exercise this kind of influence… and these folk have money. It’s a twofer! (Two for the price of one).
I once knew of a church that was one of these influential congregations. Anyone who was anyone wanted to belong to that church… and it ultimately destroyed them.
• Then there are churches who target their CLIQUE. They want people who look like them, dress like them, think like them. They want to be comfortable with the person who sits next to them.
And we thought we were done with cliques when we left High School. Silly us.
• And – of course – there are ALSO churches that target kids. They have all the toys and programs that any congregation would want to pull these children in. But why do you think many churches go after kids? Many (though not all) churches target the kids because… they believe if they can get the kids they can get the parents too. They fear becoming an “old congregation” and so they go all out to build the best youth program possible. Not actually for the kids themselves, but in hopes of bringing in their parents.
Even the phrase “Children are the church of tomorrow” (have you heard that?) tends to reflect this same mindset because children aren’t looked at as individuals in their own right. They are seen as having value only in the FUTURE… not NOW.
This is a dangerous tendency, this desire to “focus” on groups - to try to TARGET ministry only for a preferred audience. Because when you get started down that path, the temptation is to bend your ministry only for those who will benefit YOUR ministry. And ultimately that can become a focus on only those who are wealthy, powerful, strong, and intelligent.
Unfortunately, that’s how Jesus’ disciples looked at little children.
Now, notice how Jesus responds to this:
“When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’” Mark 10:14
Jesus was INDIGNANT!
He was angry.
These children were important to Him.
Not because of what they could do for His ministry.
Not because of their power or influence or money.
They were important to Jesus because they were already important to God.
The Kingdom of God belonged to such as these!!!
In fact, children were so important to God… that He has assigned angels to them. In Matthew 18:10 Jesus said "See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”
Children were important to Jesus.
Jesus gave them immediate access to His presence.
Not because of what they could DO for Him… but because He loved them.
For that reason alone – they were acceptable to Him just as they were.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Not all “targeted ministries” are wrong to have. It’s just that a church has to be careful to target the same people Jesus did. Whom did Jesus focus on?
Jesus said that He “… came to seek and to save what was lost." Luke 19:10
The lost were His target group.
The sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the people who’d messed their lives up so badly they didn’t think God would ever have anything to do with them.
Now this irked the Pharisees and Sadducees. These sinful folks weren’t “acceptable” to them. They weren’t part of their target group. They wouldn’t be allowed into “their” church.
But these kinds of people were acceptable to Jesus.
Jesus spent His time with sinners.
He ate with tax collectors.
And He sat down and talked with prostitutes.
He spent time with people that many churches today would not find acceptable.
But they WERE acceptable to Jesus.
And that’s the kind of people the early church reached out to.
I Corinthians 6 says the church there was made up of people who’d been homosexuals, and adulterers, and liars and thieves.
All kinds of “not nice” people.
But then it goes on to say:
“And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” 1Corinthians 6:11
God declared that HIS church would be made up of nasty people who’d been converted to the point where they could worship beside “nice folks”. In Isaiah He declared
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” Isaiah 11:6
(see footnote at the end of the sermon)
This was a prophecy about the church!
Have you ever heard of a person being “wolf in sheep’s clothing?”
Or a “snake in the grass?”
Or “as gentle as a lamb?”
We use animals all the time to describe the characteristics of humans. And that was what the prophecy in Isaiah was doing.
In Isaiah 11 God was saying that - people who’d ordinarily chew up and spit others out (like wolves and leopards and lions) - would peacefully co-exist in God’s church along those who had been easy prey and were generally as innocent as lambs.
Now, notice in Isaiah’s prophecy - a little child leads them.
In the same way, Jesus declared that little children would lead us in faith.
Jesus said “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Mark 10:15
We need to FOLLOW the example of little children to be pleasing to God. And in order to get into heaven. There are things that children can teach us that will make us better Christians.
What possible thing could children teach us?
• Well, they can teach us to know God so well, that – even when we don’t fully understand Scripture - we can still understand Him.
ILLUS: A young 4 year old boy was struggling to learn the “Lord’s Prayer” and began reciting it this way: “Our Father who art in heaven… I know you know my name.”
Now, that child obviously mangled that verse. But even in this misquoting of Scripture, he managed to get his theology right. Because – to his childish mind, that’s what God was all about.
In the same way, we should be like that child in knowing God’s mind so well, that even if we mangle a Scripture or two… we reflect the God that we serve.
• They teach us righteousness.
Children see the world in terms of black and white. For children – there is right and there is wrong… there’s no gray. Good people do good things. Bad people do bad things. Children know this intuitively… because they are little, and fragile and easily hurt. They know they NEED to be protected. And so righteousness and justice make perfect sense to them.
In the same way, we need to understand that righteousness is not just something we need to do, it is a something we should embrace because of the value it has for us.
• And they teach us humility.
They know they’re little people. They have no reputation to defend and no experience to brag of. So (as a rule) they aren’t generally pretentious or filled with false pride.
One person observed that “Children sing whether they sound good or not.”
I remember in my home church, that young children would often present specials. They sing, or play instruments. And it could often be a very painful experience because they were often not very good. But that didn’t matter to them (and it didn’t matter to their parents, or to the congregation). Why didn’t it matter to them? Because they weren’t so much driven by pride as by the desire to share something they’d learned.
So, children teach us how to stand for God even when we don’t always know the Bible as well as we’d like. They teach us righteousness, and they teach us humility.
• And they also teach us faith.
Hebrews says “Without faith, it’s impossible to please God” (Hebrew 11:6)
Children trust easily. They’re not old enough to have become cynical or impressed by their own wisdom.
You tell them there’s a God that cares for them… they believe it.
You tell them God is big enough to create the world in 6 days… and they believe it.
AND you tell them that prayer is a powerful tool, and they don’t just believe it… they pray.
ILLUS: Years ago I was the Dean of a 5th grade group at a Church camp in Houston, Ohio. Part of my support team was a young couple from the church I served named Gary and Christie. They were my “recreation team” and were responsible for leading the kids in special activities each evening.
Christie was a very small woman… and she was very (very) pregnant at the time. The first night they came and led the recreation was very, very hot. And when they went home that night, Christie got ready for bed and started bleeding.
Pregnant women ought not to bleed. And Christie cried all night long.
The next day they went to see their doctor and he sadly explained that her child had become separated from her womb and her chances of keeping the child were not good. He told her to go home, lie down for the next two days, and then come back in for another examination.
In the meantime, her husband dutifully came out to the camp to fulfill his obligation to the kids (Christie had told him to). Gary was in tears as he shared their situation with me. I told him that we should pray together… but Gary had never liked to pray out loud. I told him – “If you’re going to pray out loud, now would be the time.” And humbly he began to pray with me about his wife.
About a half an hour later, the kids came into the auditorium for morning worship. I explained to them about Christie’s situation and I informed them that they needed to pray for her the rest of the day. When you tell a bunch of 5th graders to pray, it’s like saying “sic em” to a dog. And they prayed… all day long for her.
A couple of days later Christie went back into the doctor for her checkup. After he examined her, doctor looked at her with a quizzical look in his eye. He explained that what had happened to her before her first visit was an uncommon condition… but what he was seeing now was even more uncommon. The child inside her had REATTACHED itself to her womb. He explained that everything was normal and that (with some restrictions) she was free to live life normally without fear of endangering her child.
That day, Christie came back to camp and told the kids what God had done.
We had more conversions that week of camp than any that I’d ever seen before or since. Because a group of 5th graders prayed and God had answered.
Children have much to teach us about living for God; about a love righteousness; about a sense of humility; and about the ability to believe God when He speaks. That’s the kind of people – childlike – that Jesus wants to have leading His church.
But in this world, people are used to following the example of the rich/powerful/influential. I mean, there’s a reason these people have become rich, and powerful and influential. And if I want to become what they are, I should learn from them. Right?
Well, not as far as God’s concerned. God’s not interested in having that kind of role model in the church.
WHY NOT???
Because – as He explains it in 1 Corinthians 1:26-28 “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things— and the things that are not— to nullify the things that are”
Here’s the deal.
When it comes to children, Jesus accepts them because He loves them.
And when it comes to sinners, Jesus accepts them because He loves them.
And that’s what God expects of us as His church.
He doesn’t want a church that “targets” a particular focus group. He wants a church that targets the people the rest of the world regards as insignificant.
ILLUS: In the 3rd-century a pagan named Celsus said to a Christian leader named Origen, "When most teachers go forth to teach, they cry, ’Come to me, you who are clean and worthy,’ and they are followed by the highest caliber of people available. But your silly master cries, ’Come to me, you who are down and beaten by life, and so he accumulates around him the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity."
In other words, even a pagan named understood that the true church always seeks out the losers and the nobodies of society. He realized that Christianity has always worked with the insignificant and the unimportant of this world.
And in reply - Origen responded: "Yes, they are the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity. But Jesus does not leave them that way. Out of material you would have thrown away as useless, he fashions men, giving them back their self-respect, enabling them to stand on their feet and look God in the eyes. They were cowed, cringing, broken things. But the Son has set them free."
CLOSE: And this is the hope that God wants to place into our hearts.
God loves the losers, the failures, the insignificant, the nobodies, and the broken and tattered of this world. And if He loves them - if He’s willing to accept them - then the wonder of it all is that He will accept me too.
Years ago, George Beverly Shay sang a song that has inspired and comforted many Christians down through the years. If you know it, sing it with me:
(Verse) There’s the wonder of sunset at evening, the wonder as sunrise I see;
But the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul is the wonder that God loves me.
(Chorus) O, the wonder of it all! The wonder of it all! Just to think that God loves me.
O, the wonder of it all! The wonder of it all! Just to think that God loves me.
GIVE INVITATION
Footnote on the Isaiah 11:6-9 prophecy:
End-times preachers often cite this prophecy as being a description of physical lions, leopards and wolves co-existing with literal lambs and fatlings. However, they do this without any substantiation from the text itself… or from any other reliable source.
However, the verse that immediately follows this part about lambs and lions says this - “IN THAT DAY the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious.” Isaiah 11:10
In other words – in the same day that lions and lambs co-existed, the Root of Jesse would become a banner that would rally all the nations to Him.
Paul quoted Isaiah 11:10 in Romans 15:12 and declared that it applied to the church of his day.
Therefore, since Paul said that Isaiah 11:10 applied to the church… so must the verses before it.
