People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. “But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them (NRSV).
Proposition: We need to be advocates for our young people on their Christian journey.
Now more than ever, it is imperative that we become advocates for our young people on their Christian journey in order that we may help them gain access to that which is needed for their success. Unfortunately, many of us do not act as advocates but as hindrances to the success of our young people. Instead of helping them we are hindering them. We hinder them when we see them as unimportant. Oh you know what I mean, we have that “young people ought to be seen and not heard” attitude. We say, “Participate in Sunday school but I don’t want to know what you think about it, that is, how it can be made better,” “come to Bible study but don’t make a whole lot of noise down stairs,” or “I want to know that you’re in the sanctuary but I don’t want to hear a peep out of you.” Then, we hinder them when we become too busy to offer any assistance to them. Lets face the music there are some things in this world that our young people just can’t have access to or do without our help. Brothers, how are the boys going to learn to be men if you are never around? Sisters, how are the girls going to learn to be ladies if you are not there to teach them? Furthermore we hinder our young people by the examples we set. Young people learn more by what they see us do than what they hear us say. When we give up to soon the only thing we teach them is that when things get hard then, go ahead and quit. When we harbor unforgiveness in our hearts toward one another they begin to think that’s the way to deal with people. When we have fickle relationships—we smile and act cordial to folk at church but as soon as we get home we get on the phone and start backbiting. Inevitably our young people turn out having the same kinds of relationships with their friends. And some of us, out of our lack of understanding, hinder our young people when we stop them from doing things that would actually benefit them.
This is not the case in our scripture passage. The people in Mark’s narrative were real advocates of young people because they took an interest in their lives and helped them to establish a relationship with Christ that would change their lives forever. And this is what you and I must be in the lives of our young people—real advocates—helping them to succeed on this Christian journey. What does a real advocate for young people do? How do you know that you are advocating for young people and not hindering them?
ADVOCATES GET INVOLVED
Well, real advocates get involved in the lives of young people. Mark says in verse 13 that “People were bringing little children to [Jesus]….” These people got involved. And in order for us to see our young people’s lives changed for the better we have to get involved. Many of us will sit back and talk about all that’s wrong with the young people and how things are not like they were when we were growing up but we never do anything positive to get involved with them.
Notice, too, that these people didn’t sit back making excuses as to why they couldn’t help. They didn’t say, “I’m too busy” or “I got too much on my plate.” The fact is that all of us are busy people. We live in a world that doesn’t stop so that we can get off and rest. And I’m sure that the people in our text had 10 other things they could have been doing but they still made time to help some young people get to Jesus. I don’t want to sound unsympathetic. I know that some of you have legitimate reasons that prevent you from getting involved. But if you could be involved with them would you? Or do that reason for not getting involved present a good cover for not doing so?
Everyone’s Responsibility
What I find so interesting about verse 13a is that Mark uses the word “people” not “parents” when referring to those who got involved (cf. New Revised Standard Version). That’s important. Because, many of us think that since we don’t have kids or the kids we are asked to help are not our own then we don’t have to be held accountable for getting involved. That’s just simply not the case. All of us need to help out. If we are truthful with ourselves, we didn’t get to where we are today only by our parents help. There was a Sunday school teacher or school teacher, a deacon, a brother or sister in the congregation who we were not related to that went above and beyond the call of service and took time to make sure we learned our Christmas part when momma had to work late, bought us clothes because they knew that our parents didn’t make nothing, stayed after school or met us some where to help us learn to read or understand some mathematical concept we were struggling with, they listened to us with a non-judgmental ear and steered us on the right path when we felt that we couldn’t go to our parents. Listen, a whole lot of young people are getting pregnant before they graduate high school. Some are not even finishing school. They’re contracting diseases or being tried as an adult in an already unfair court system simply because we don’t want to get involved. But true advocates get involved in young people’s lives.
ADVOCATES HAVE GOOD INTENTIONS
Furthermore, real advocates have good intentions for getting involved. The only motive these people had for getting involved with the young people was to have them touched by Jesus. Now the New Testament was originally written in the Greek language. And the word “touch” in the Greek language means more than a casual touch such as what we do when we shake one another’s hand or hug someone. The word implies the kind of touch that would “exert a modifying influence” upon the object being touched, in this case, the young people. These people knew that the young people’s lives would be changed for the better once they came into contact with Jesus. This is the sole reason for why any of us should involve ourselves in working with young people, that is, to see their lives radically changed for the better once they have truly come into contact with the Lord. We need to check our motives for why we do stuff. When we do decide to get involved with young people, is it because we want to see their lives changed? or do we have some other reason for getting involved? (Let me say parenthetically that because these advocates were bringing these young people to Jesus so that he would touch them, implies that their lives had already been touched by Jesus. Could it be that one of the reasons for why we can’t get our young people to come to Christ is because they don’t see any change in our lives? They’re thinking “why should I go to church? My daddy don’t like them people anyway. My momma comes home every Sunday and Wednesday mad with someone new all the time.") The people, perhaps, wanted these young people to experience the life changing power of Christ in their lives that they (the advocate) had already experienced. Advocates have good intentions for getting involved.
ADVOCATES DO NOT INTERFERE WITH PROGRESS
Next we must notice that advocates do not interfere with the progress that young people are making. As these people were bringing these little ones to Christ “the disciples spoke sternly to them.” Luke account of this same story says that “they . . . ordered them not to do it.” The operative word in this narrative is the word “bringing” which means that these people were in the process of bringing their young people to Christ. The text does not tell us where they started from but because they were in the process of bringing the children we know that they had made some progress from wherever they started from. So much so that they were now in the presence of Jesus because v. 14 says “But when Jesus saw . . ..” And as the children were getting closer to Jesus the disciples interfered with their progress and told the people to stop bringing their children to Christ. During the hurricane that we had this year, I can remember sitting upstairs in the dorm lounge where I live watching TV. The wind was blowing real hard outside and the rain was coming down. I wasn’t bothered by it at first because I was inside a comfortable place watching a program on TV. While the program that I was watching was nearing the end, all of a sudden the power went out and it was three days later before it came back on. Of course I was greatly disappointed at the time that it went out and even more disturb at how long I had to sit in the dark with out any power. Some of us act as power outages in the lives of our young people. They want to sing the songs that they like when they worship the Lord but we force our traditional songs on them. Power outages. They want to dance and clap and be free in worship but if they gyrate too much we give them such an appalling look. Power outages. You would be surprised at the talent that some of our young people have. They can rap, they can sing, they are innovative thinkers but many of us don’t know that because in times past when our young people stepped up to contribute we cut them off. Power outages!
Out of all the people who could have interfere with the progress of the young people, it was the disciples. The ones who had been with Jesus the longest. They knew that Jesus had a heart for young people because they seen his compassion for them when he raised Jairus daughter from the dead (5:41), delivered the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter from a demon (7:29-30) as well as a father’s son who was possessed with a dumb spirit (9:25-26). The disciples had also witnessed Jesus set a little child in their midst and say to them “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me” (9:37). Yet, in-spite of what they knew they still interfered with the progress of these young people. Why is that the folk who has been around Jesus the most are the very ones causing trouble? And it’s the same way today; the people who have been in church the longest, who have read the Bible almost in its entirety are the ones causing the most trouble. There seems to be a separation of what we read in scripture and practice in our own lives. To be a real advocate we will not interfere with the progress our young people are making on their Christian journey.
ADVOCATES RELY ON DIVINE INTERVENTION
As we move a little further in our text we find that real advocates rely on divine intervention when met with opposition. Understand something my brothers and sisters, whenever you are walking in God’s call for your life you’re going to be met with some opposition. And unfortunately that opposition might come from the very folk who should (for all practical purposes) be supporting you. The tendency, when this happen, is to get mad and fight back. But let me inform you that you don’t have to say a word. Just hold your peace and let the Lord fight your battle. Don’t you try to handle it. The Lord sees everything that’s going on and he will step in. The people in our text didn’t say a thing to the disciples. Verse 14 says “But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; . . ..” These people didn’t have to get themselves all riled up because they couldn’t get the disciples to understand what they were trying to do with the children. They just sat back and watched the Lord work on their behalf. So when you are working with young people and you come across a roadblock let the Lord have his way.
ADVOCATES UNDERSTAND THE INVESTMENT CHILDREN MAKE
Finally, real advocates recognize the investment young people make. Notice that Jesus says to his disciples “for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” [emphasis added]. When Jesus uses the word “as” he is using a figure of speech known as a simile, which compares two objects. In this case adults and children. Jesus particularly places more of the worth on children because it is not the children who have to be like the adults to get into heaven, it is the adults who have to be like the children. In other words, young people can teach us a thing or two about how we ought to come to God. I was watching Judge Mathis one day when they had these parents on the show who were squabbling over an altercation their children got into. Apparently, one young girl broke the tassels off of her friend’s bike that happened to be her next-door neighbor. Well, the parent of the girl with the bike got mad at the next-door neighbor’s kid for destroying her little girl’s bike and decided to have a few words with the mother. Some how the squabble between the two parents had escalated to the point of them going to court over the matter. Judge Mathis, as myself, was appalled at the fact that the two parents would bring their children to court over such a matter. After asking all the questions he needed to ask, Judge Mathis turned to the little girls (who were standing along side of their bickering mothers) and asked the one who broke the tassels did she apologize to her friend. Come to find out, within minutes of her breaking the tassels she had apologized and the girls were back to playing together. Judge Mathis concluded that the parents could have learned a lesson on how to forgive from their children.
Children are forgiving and humble. They’re willing to share what ever they have with you and they are very helpful. Most of all, children exercise simple faith. It doesn’t take a whole lot to convince a child of the existence of God or Christ or their need for salvation. As a matter fact, one Christian researcher discovered that most Christians get saved in their childhood. And as advocates we will recognize that there are some things young people can teach us.
CONCLUSION
As I conclude we find that as a result of the advocacy of these people, the children were able to establish an intimate relationship with Christ. The text says “And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.” A child cannot get any closer to you (physically) than to be in your arms. These people’s advocacy paid off. Their children were in the arms of Jesus enjoying intimacy with the Lord. If we could place ourselves in the minds of these people when they saw their children climbing into Jesus’ arms, we probably could hear them saying “look at my child in the arms of Jesus. It was just last year that they were hanging out in the streets but now they’re in Jesus’ arms” or “Look at my child in the arms of Jesus. It was just last year that they were being kicked out of school but since Jesus has touched their lives, they’re doing better than they have ever done,” “Look at my baby in the arms of Jesus. I’ve been waiting for this a long time, and the time has finally come that my child is in church singing praises unto the Lord.”
But my brothers and sisters before I take my seat I want you to see that just as these children, all of us needed an advocate. Because as we were coming to God we were being opposed by sin, opposed by self, and opposed by Satan. And when we couldn’t defeat our opposition God stepped in and spoke a word to our opposition. It took forty-two generations for that word to come, but when that word came he removed our opposition by dying on the cross. The gospel writer said that when Jesus died the veil in the temple—that was keeping us from coming into an intimate relationship with God—was ripped in twain. Now we all can come close. Closer than we’ve ever been before . . ..
