
00:00
00:00
00:01
ប្រតិចារិក
1/0
Luke chapter 18 tonight, Luke chapter 18 will also be in Mark 10. If you will turn to both of those places, that would be wonderful. And while you do, I'm gonna move some of these things a little out of my way. I don't know that I'm gonna move around a lot tonight, but I'm afraid I will because I didn't get to preach this morning, so I blame Brother Schrader. All right, very good. Now, we have here a parallel passage we talked about last week, how we approach the last of the major passages of Luke that are singular in the book of Luke. And so, much of what we find in the rest of the book of Luke is Redundant, I don't wanna say it that way, that sounds bad when you say it that way, but they're the synoptic gospels because there's a lot of parallel texts that run throughout them, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And so we have these passages in three of the writings. This one's also found in Matthew in chapter 19. We're not gonna read that one tonight, though it says almost identically to what the book of Luke says, but Mark provides a little extra detail as God enabled him to write that. If you will stand with me, we'll read these three verses here, and then we're going to turn over briefly to the book of Mark, as I'll reference that a few times tonight, because it provides a detail that I believe is vital as we study this text. And then we will begin to work through it. So Mark, or Luke, I believe, Luke in chapter 18 and verses 15 down to verse 17 says this. It says, And they brought unto him, also infants, that he would touch them. But when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not. For of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. Now turn over to the book of Mark and chapter 10, and there verses 13 through 16 says this. It says, and they brought young children to him that he should touch them, and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased and said unto them, suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and bless them. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truths that you provide for us, the principles, Lord, that you desire us to learn from. And Lord, we desire to do that tonight. So please, Lord, help me to articulate only the things that you would have, nothing more, nothing less, only what's in your word. And Lord, we ask that you would bless the service. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so we have before us this rather short account, three verses here. Again, not a lot of context provided about where it is or who exactly is involved in this group. All we find is a group that brings infants, it says, and we also see that his disciples are there and that Jesus is there. And so that's what we know of who is there, and we know nothing of the location. And yet, it's fascinating that this little account is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And we know first and foremost it's because the Holy Spirit led each one of them to include them, to include this account in those Gospels. But as we think about Mark in chapter 10 and verse 14, I think we see something that helps us to understand why they may have included this or something that would have stuck out to them at the time. And that in Mark chapter 10 verse 14 was when they did this, when they rebuked those who brought children, it says, but when Jesus saw it, that's what he saw, he was much displeased, much displeased. Now we see Jesus correcting his disciples and his apostles from time to time, and we can think of a number of accounts where he did that, but we can't think of a lot of accounts where it says he was much displeased. That Greek word that makes up this term that we see here, much displeased, it is a combination word, it is a combined word, and it's two words simply meaning much or great and grief. So it's not displeased in that he was angry at them, he was grieved by what they did. And not just grieved, greatly grieved, greatly afflicted, sore displeased. In some ways moved with indignation. He saw what they did and he was saddened by it. Perhaps they would have preferred a scolding. Right, I mean, you imagine that, you are following Jesus Christ, you're there with him for three years, they know he is on his way to Jerusalem, he's told them that he is on his way to die now, and they're out there doing whatever Jesus would have them to do, and these children are being brought to them, and they're like, no, get away, leave the master alone, he's busy right now. And they can tell he's upset. And maybe when they saw how disappointed he was in them, they would have thought, man, if he would just give us a good tongue lashing, that would be okay right now. If he would give us one of those Peter lectures, you know what I mean? Like when Peter deserved it, like those types of things. But that's not what he did. He just looked at them in some way. It doesn't even say how he looked at them. All we see is Mark saying that they knew he was much displeased. They had rebuked those who brought children and Jesus didn't like it and they knew it. But Jesus didn't scold them, he did what he does. He corrected them in love. As loving as ever, but still, something about it sticks with him. Sticks with him so much that we find it in three of the Gospels. I think that's very fascinating when there's so little detail here that it sticks out this much. And so with that in mind, I wanna consider three different things in this text. And again, just trying to work through it expositorily, looking at what we can glean from what God has preserved for us. And so the first thing we are going to see tonight is the efforts of the parents, the efforts of the parents. Again, verse 15 in our text says this, and they brought unto him also infants that he would touch them. So the first thing we see is that there is a group of people here, we'll presume it's the parents, because I don't think at this time in history there was a lot of services. I don't believe it was a daycare center that would have brought them out, right? I mean, families were tight-knit units, and so presumably it was parents, maybe grandparents that had children, and they were bringing them to Jesus. Now, these weren't as others who went to Jesus, right? We can think of a lot of people who went to Jesus. We think of lepers who went to Jesus and they wanted to be healed, right? We think of the blind and they wanted to be able to see. We think of the deaf and they wanted to be able to hear. And so they would go to Jesus. We can think about others who had questions. Can you tell us what this means, Jesus? There were some that went to Jesus with a matter that needed settled. My brother refuses to split the inheritance with me. Tell us who's right, Jesus. Others wanted to know when he would reign. You're the Messiah. We believe you're the Christ. When are you going to come and rule and reign? But we don't have that group of people here. Rather, we have a group of people that go to Jesus so that he would touch their children. Matthew 19, 13, it tells us this of this event. It says they brought him to Jesus so that he would put his hands on them and pray. They just wanted Jesus to bless their children. These parents did what any parent should do. They took their kids to Jesus. The main thing we can do as a parent is take our children to Jesus. What an opportunity that these parents had, right? Jesus is on the earth. He is going about healing people everywhere. He's doing miracles. He is preaching the word of God. He's exposing the Old Testament scriptures, showing people what they truly meant, leading them to him so that they could have eternal life. And now, as Jesus begins to teach more and more, and he becomes more and more well-known, parents start hearing of him, and they're following him, and they're hearing his preaching, and they're hearing his teaching, and they understand that he's the Messiah, and they're like, I gotta get my kid to him. Wouldn't you? I hope we would. Many want all sorts of things for their children today. Most of what a parent desires for their children, though, is skewed by society. And we see that all the time. As we have begun studying 1 Corinthians, and that's our Sunday morning series, we have looked a lot throughout just a few chapters there about how that culture was infiltrating the church. We see that everybody was trying to bring in their own customs, their own culture, their own societal influences into the church, but the church and society were never meant to integrate. People were meant to get saved, and then they were meant to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Society was to stay out. We were to bring Christians into the church, and they were to act like Jesus. They weren't supposed to say, oh, but we need to bring a little bit of this in from the outside, and we need to take that idea over there, and we need to incorporate this. No, society and Christianity are two different things. We are in this world, but we're not of this world. We have to live here and we are meant to reach people, but we are not meant to bring the culture of today into this church. But it happened in the Apostolic Age, it happened throughout the Middle Ages, it happened in the Dark Ages, and it's happening today. And we can see it in all sorts of ways. We think about parenting and One of the things that was really eye-opening on our trip to Sri Lanka last year when we went there for our missions trip was the extreme obsession with parents to get their children educated. It was such an overwhelming desire. The parents would do anything to let their kids be educated, hoping that their children would find a good job that would allow them to leave their country. That was their goal. The primary goal of most of the Sri Lankans was to get out of Sri Lanka. And so they would make any trade-off possible to get their children well-educated. So their parents may give up custody rights and send them to live with a relative or send them to live with a friend or send them across an ocean to live with somebody they've never met just so their child has this opportunity to get into America so that they can live a different type of life. Mom and dad, they didn't need anything. They would be happy and content if their child just had that opportunity. Very much a cultural perspective, not something like I've ever seen in America. But we come back to America and we see that it is interesting that many Americans do have the same focus on education of their children that the folks in Sri Lanka had. Now, our purposes are different. Most parents here are looking for their children to be what they deem a success or to be financially well-off or perhaps even to take care of the parents themselves. It can happen in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it's simply a cultural matter. We want to educate our children so that we can keep up with the Joneses and the Smiths. And so, there's a lot of parents that do whatever they can to educate their child as they deem best. It becomes an obsession. The kids need to become more, and so they start educating their children really young. People are like, why is Daniel not in kindergarten yet? Because he's a boy and I want him to be a boy. Right, he's got a lot of living left to do. He'll catch up. It'll be fine. And I am just a believer in the innocence of children, and let's keep them as innocent as possible. Once you start educating them, they start also getting educated. You know what I mean. Let's keep our children innocent. Parents encourage their kids to engage in all sorts of extracurriculars. They want them to take specific courses. They want them to take those AP courses and those early college courses. And they want them to do things to get their children to have every advantage possible. It's a cultural norm. It happens. It's permeating our culture. And it's begun to infiltrate our churches. Now, listen, I'm not saying education's bad. I am saying that many parents are bringing the culture of an extreme focus on education into the church, though. School is being elevated to the level of a primary importance above everything else. And there are many parents who are so focused on getting their children to focus on studying and on education and on school, that even though education is good, they are promoting education over the church. And that becomes a problem. They are encouraging sports and community involvement more than they're pushing Christ. Parents are more involved in the school than they are in the church. It was never meant to be this way. Parents are following culture, they are getting their kids educated, they are getting them the best education possible, and they're doing whatever it takes to be what they deem is a success for their kids. But successful at what is the question? And the only answer is successful in this world. Because when you pursue the education of this world, you're going to find the success of this world. It's the only logical conclusion. And yet, while culture teaches that, that stands in direct contradiction to what God says. What does God say? Thou shalt have no other gods before me. What's to be number one in any parent or any child's life? God. You can't elevate education to where education is above God. God has an education he wants for your children, but what does it say about that? Psalm 78, among many other places, but it says this, Psalm 78, verses one through seven. Give ear, O my people. Listen, Christian. Listen, give ear, O my people, to my law, incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us. Now listen, we will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, not focused on education, focused on the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he hath established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children. Why? That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. That's the education your child needs. That's the education all of our children need. They need an education in God. Why? So that they might set their hope in God. There's only one hope in this world that's going to do any good, and it's not in the educational system of America. It's in our God. We are to bring our kids not to an intense love for education, but to an intense love for God. These aren't mutually exclusive, you might say. Can't we have both? But if God is not first, then education will become their hope and not God. If you push education and push education and push education, you need to do this, you need to pursue that, let's pursue this, let's pursue that, and you're pushing them and you're pushing them and you're pushing them, while it may not be your intent, eventually education is going to become their God. And again, I'm not saying education is not important, it is important. It's very important. You know me, I live in school, I love school. I love taking classes. But education needs to be well below where God is. Education should not be stressed. God should be stressed. Extracurriculars should not be the focus. God should be the focus. Kids need to be educated, and they need to be motivated to do their best. But if a parent is not careful, they are going to diminish the importance of God, and they're going to get things out of order, and education is going to take primary importance in their lives. Think about it this way. Do you want your kid to be taken care of? Do you want your child to be safe? Do you want your child to be successful? Well, who do you trust more with that? The educational system of America or God? Why? Because who can take care of your child? God or diploma? God can. I mean, God sets up and God tears down. You can get your child that diploma, but if your God doesn't want that child to find a job, that child's not going to find a job. He is in control. Who can keep your child safe? What education is going to do that? That's in God's hands. What would you like to be the idea of success for your child? I would like them to be rich and well-known, this, that, or the other. What's more important, that or success in the eyes of God? Because God can open any door and close any door that may bring success. If you, as a parent, will focus your training on the things of the Bible, everything else will actually fall into place. You just focus on God's principles, right? You teach your child to serve God, and God teaches them to work hard. Right? And then they will work hard in school. Colossians 3.23, and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men. Our focus should be saying, child, son, daughter, listen, God wants you to focus on Him, and He wants to give your all for Him, and that should eventually become something that is innate within them, and then they will just naturally do it in school. But you're not pushing school above God, you're pushing God because God is the primary important. He's the one of primary importance. Teaching your child to serve God teaches them to give their all. 1 Corinthians 10 31, whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, how? Do it all to the glory of God. You can push school, you can push school, and you might make your child well-educated, but will it be at the expense of God? Teaching your child to focus on God first and foremost will bring you as a parent greater joy than any education. Because a child who loves God will be a child who lives right, will be a child who has the blessings of God, will be a child who cares for his parents, who loves his parents, who honors and obeys his parents, and who is a blessing to everyone around them. We can't say that of someone who just receives an education. If you want your children to receive the greatest things that they can in their lives, the best thing you can do for them is point them to Him. Take every necessary effort. Now think about these parents. They took their children to Jesus, and we can just read over this sometimes, but consider what that would have taken. Where did they live? At what time did they live? They didn't just hop in the car, turn on the air conditioning, and drive down the road to meet Jesus. Right, Jesus is traveling along his way from Galilee to Jerusalem. They have to track him down. They have to go in desert places. They may have to go up mountains. There's some pretty decent mountains there in Israel. They may have to go into the desert. They may have to sleep on the ground. They may have to carry all of their food. They may have to go without for a meal. This wouldn't have been an easy thing. And yet they said, it's so important that I get my kid to Jesus that we're all gonna do this. We got this family exercise. I'm gonna take you to Jesus. And we think about that. And we know it's not an easy process to bring our kids to Jesus, but it is the most important thing you can do. And we think about that and we see that illustration and we need to understand that we need to do anything and everything we can. We need to use every bit of our influence to get our child as close to Jesus as possible. And it's going to take work. And it's going to be hard. And there's going to be good days and there's going to be bad days. But there is nothing better you can do than to show your child who Jesus is and bring them to Him. And so the first thing we see is the efforts of the parents. They brought their kids to Jesus. The second thing we see is this. We see the efforts of the disciples. So we compare the efforts of the parents with the efforts of the disciples, and again, we start there in chapter 18, verse 15, it says, and they brought unto him also infants that he would touch them, so that's the parents, but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. they rebuke them. So the disciples, you think about them, they're an interesting group of people. We can think about the 12 apostles as part of the disciples, and we know what five of them did. We know there were four fishermen, and there was one tax collector, and we don't really know a lot about the rest of them. But then, among the disciples at large, and this says this is the disciples, it doesn't limit it to the apostles, we think about those who followed Jesus. There were the very wealthy, and there was the very poor. Right? We see those. We see the old and we see the young. We see those who were formerly possessed with devils. Those who were healed by Jesus, following Him. And we don't know which ones were here, but the disciples knew Jesus. They believed that Jesus was the Messiah. They believed that He was the Son of God. They believed that He was come to restore Israel to its former glory. They believed that He was the Christ of God. And now, it seems like they have also found themselves to be his protector. And that seems to be what's going on in this text. Now, it can be easy from our perspective to think, what were these disciples thinking? Don't they know that Jesus loves children? It's easy for us to think, we have nurseries, and we have Sunday school classes, and we have junior church classes, and we have summer camps, and we have various activities, and all promoted, we got vacation Bible school, and we're trying to do things to bring people to Jesus. How did these disciples get this so wrong? But before we cast a stone, let's try to think about it from their perspective. These men and women who were young and old, who had been possessed with devils and who had suffered various diseases, they make up his disciples. They were often ones who were healed by him. They were ones who had been tormented by evil spirits. They were ones who had faced a great number of things. They were with Jesus who was here on earth to build his kingdom. They heard Him talk about His kingdom. They heard Him talk about building His kingdom. They heard Him preaching, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. They heard him talk about who would enter into the kingdom of God, and they heard him talk about who would be cast out and who would face an eternity in hell. They heard him talking about his kingdom, and then they saw him demonstrating the power that he had over his kingdom, and when he would heal, when he would raise the dead, when he would curse a fig tree and it would die, when he would do various miracles, they saw his kingdom and what it meant. They saw His resoluteness about building His kingdom. They saw Him staying awake all night and laboring in prayer and fasting. They saw Him on His face before God Almighty begging Him. Some of them saw Him transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration. They saw Jesus. They knew He was very serious about what He was doing. They saw Him get up a great while before daylight and go beg God, what do you want me to do today? And then they saw Him go to the woman at the well. to a Samaritan lady. Why? Because God sent him. Everything was about his father's business. Everything was in furtherance of his father's will, all to build his kingdom. And then you think about the Sadducees, and you think about the Pharisees, and you think about the scribes. The disciples see this group of people who send spies to Jesus to try to catch him in a lie so that they can accuse him of blasphemy, and they want to stone him, and they want to kill him, and they hear threats against Jesus. They saw the anger that many of the Jews had towards him. And the disciples, they would have perceived much of what was going on, and they would have taken it very seriously. And in so doing, they wanted to protect Jesus. Jesus was trying to do a great work, and they are there to help him, and they want to help him accomplish this mission. That's why when we hear James and John, when there's a village that doesn't want to receive Jesus, saying, hey, do you want us to call down thunder and lightning upon them? Do you want us to burn that city like Elijah did? We think about James and John again saying, can we sit on your right hand? We want to be your right hand guys. We want to be part of this kingdom. He wants to be this governor and I want to be the mayor. Or we think about Judas. Why would have Judas, the betrayer of Jesus Christ, followed Jesus? Because he thought he could get something out of it. Because he's going to set up a kingdom and Judas wants to be part of it. He wants to be the treasurer. He's going to be the richest guy in the kingdom. We think about Peter and Malchus comes up along with the chief priest and such, and you know, Malchus is just a bystander as a fisherman tries to swing a sword. Peter's gonna protect Jesus. They loved Jesus, they wanted to protect Jesus. They knew his kingdom was real. And what we may wanna say, what were the disciples thinking when they drove these children off from Jesus? What they were thinking was, we're going to build his kingdom. And we can learn from this. The kingdom of God is not a lighthearted matter, right? Jesus does not rebuke them here. Yeah, he's disappointed in them. He's sad at what they did. He doesn't rebuke them. They're trying to help him. That they have seen the truth of who Jesus Christ is. And they have heard the most serious message that the world will ever hear. The truth that Jesus Christ has come to allow sinful men to be saved. And they said, we want part of this. And they're going to do everything they can to help him build his kingdom. They want people to understand that Jesus Christ is God. And those who don't accept it will suffer in hell for all eternity. And they take it very, very seriously. And while we may want to cast stones at the disciples, it's an unfortunate thing that many of us don't take the commission to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ as seriously as these disciples did. It would be hard for any of us to say we take it that seriously. Which one of us has left everything and followed Jesus? Which one of us has left mom and dad and husband and wife? Or which one of us has left child? Or which one of us have left lands? Or which one of us have left our father's fishing company and we left all the boats and we left everything, our inheritance, and we just followed Jesus? Which one of us have given up everything? They left their homes, and they didn't even have a specific destination to go to. Jesus said, the son of man hath not where to lay his head. They left their jobs. They didn't have anything to rely upon. Those fishermen, they just walked away from them. You think about those tax collectors. You think about Matthew, just, you know, I was a tax collector. I was making good money. I'm out. I'm following Jesus. They left their families, they left their friends, why? Because they knew that Jesus was the most important thing in this world. We need to let this sink in. There's a lot of things that are important, but nothing is more important than the thing for which Jesus left heaven. There's no more important business than continuing to engage in building the kingdom of God on earth. Our commission is to work to that end, to strive, to labor, and whatever we can do to bring people to Jesus Christ, we need to do it. I believe this is the reason Jesus didn't rebuke them. Sure, they were wrong in turning away the children, but they were right in their zeal for Him. They were right in doing what they knew they should be doing to build His kingdom. And what they knew to do, they were doing. Were they often telling the children to go away? Absolutely. But they were focused on bringing people to Him. They were focused on building His kingdom. So when we read the disciples forbidding people to bring their children to Jesus, we probably shouldn't condemn them so quickly. I think they worked harder than us. I don't know what was on their mind. We can't possibly know because the Bible doesn't tell us. But the proof of what was in their actions was that they loved Jesus and that they would give anything to build His kingdom. This should be our hearts. to give everything we can for Jesus. We should be zealous. We should work hard in His kingdom. And yeah, we might err from time to time. God knows our hearts, though. He knows when we're all in for Him. And though we may need rebuke, He is long-suffering, He's merciful, and He's kind, and He knows our true intent. And so we see the efforts of the parents, and we see the efforts of the disciples, but then we see the intent of Jesus. Final point tonight, the intent of Jesus. So, the parents wanted to bring their children to Jesus. The disciples wanted to protect the work of Jesus Christ. So who was right? Were the parents right to bring their children to Jesus, or were the disciples right that the children should stand in the way, or that the children would stand in the way of Christ accomplishing His will? Well, we know the answer. We saw it in the introduction. We see it in the passage. How could these disciples, though, who had been following Jesus for so long, who had heard so much of His teaching about His building His kingdom, about being fishers of men, about reaching the world for Him, how could they be so far off as to turn away children from Him? Now, the only answer here seems to be they were focused on the wrong thing. Perhaps they were focused on Christ as the Messiah, and so they felt like they had to build his kingdom, and they were just off there. We don't really know. The Bible doesn't tell us. All we know is that the disciples, when they saw people bringing to Jesus, they rebuked them. They found it to be something other than appropriate. How or why, we don't know. We can make assumptions. We can think about how a lot of older people kind of might look down on younger people, especially in eras gone by, thinking that they're not ready to really be productive quite yet, or they may be always into something. We don't know. But Jesus wanted everyone to come to him. And so let's read our text again and just focus on three words that we see and we'll think about that for just a moment and then we'll be done. But again it says this, But Jesus called them unto him and said, Suffer who, little children, to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as how a little child shall in no wise enter therein. So the people brought infants. This comes from the Greek word brephos, and it means literally an infant, a baby, a young child, one that you would hold in your hands. The word little children comes from pavion. We looked at that a little bit last week of Mother's Day. And that word again is from Greek, and it means a childling, my favorite word that I have learned of late. A half-grown boy or girl. I was gonna use Daniel as an example tonight, but he is out cold, okay? Haddon or Quinn, do you wanna come up here and talk to me on the platform for a minute, or are you guys not in for that? They both said no? All right. If you want to, come on, and I'll use you for an illustration. If you don't want to, that's OK. All right, very good. Awesome, Quinn. All right, so a half-grown boy or a half-grown girl, what does that mean? It means that they're young, right? They're little. All right, Miss Quinn, are you full-grown or half-grown? All right, very good. That is an excellent, perfect answer. You know what that tells us? If you don't know yet, you're probably half grown, right? Because when you get full grown, your dad knows all the answers. Does your dad know all the answers? No. OK, let me ask you something. If your dad tells you something, do you believe it? Yes. Why is that? It's a hard question, isn't it? Because Daddy knows everything, right? Yes. Yeah, because Daddy knows everything. Because Daddy's smart. Is Daddy real smart? Yes. Yes. All right. Very good job, Quinn. Everybody give her a round of applause. You did so good tonight, Quinn. You can go be seated. All right. Now, Daddy's smart. Daddy knows everything, right? And is that not how half-grown children, childlings think? They just believe us. Daniel, he's a childling as well, a half-grown child, a little fella, right? And when it comes to faith, if I tell him something, he simply believes it. Why? Because I said it. If Shawn tells Quinn something, she believes it. Why? Because he said it. If Shawn tells Hadden something, he believes it. Why? Because he said it. Jack, if your dad says it, do you believe it? Yeah, why? Because dad said it. And that's the way children are. They have this simple faith. There is no reason required. Why? Because mom and dad has never lied to them. Right? Mom and dad tells them the truth. Mom and dad directs them. Mom and dad tells them things. Now, I think about little Daniel up here. And, you know, we talk about a lot of things and he pays a lot more attention to things than I think he does sometimes. And so Daniel has, he sits in church and he sits in Sunday school and junior church and he hears about heaven. Now he regularly asks me, Daddy, when's heaven day? It's like my favorite question. It's a question we need to ask ourselves more often. For some reason earlier this week, I think it was Tuesday, Daniel came up to me and he's like, Daddy, I think it's heaven day. Okay, like I know there's not supposed to be signs, but when my four-year-old tells me and I'm like, okay Lord, are you coming right now? I don't know. It was like it just kind of blew my mind that he said it was heaven day. I was Rapture's happening today What I love though is that It doesn't take me explaining why God made heaven It doesn't take me working through the days of creation doesn't say Daniel. Here's about heaven and heaven's real. I Right? Because that's childlike faith. He just believes it. Daddy said it. Daddy said it's out of the Bible. That's it. Now I'll be like, Daniel, I love you more than anybody in the world. He's like, no, Jesus does. Why? Because he's heard me say that Jesus loves him more than I do. And I say, do you love me more than anybody? No, Jesus does. OK. All right. Childlike faith. It's wonderful. It's absolute. It's unwavering. It's complete. And salvation. is about more than faith in heaven, though. It's about faith in sin and faith in Jesus Christ. And we think about sin, and there are many who struggle with having childlike faith when it comes to sin. They struggle to accept what the Bible says when the Bible says you've done wrong. No, I haven't done any wrong. I'm a good person. People struggle with that. People think, oh, I am a good person. They think, well, when I look around in society, if I weigh my works against their works, I'm really good. I'm definitely on my way to heaven. But the Bible says, for all have sinned. And a lot of people, they can't get their mind around the fact that they're sinners. It does. It takes faith to believe you're a sinner. You have to believe there's a God and that He has a code of conduct, so to speak. Right? He's determined what is right. He has determined what is wrong. And if you have done anything against His Word, which you have, because God says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, then you are prohibited from entering into the gates of heaven. We have to have faith that we're sinners. Childlike faith. I tell St. Daniel he's a sinner. What are you, Daniel? I'm a sinner. He knows he's a sinner. But then there's childlike faith in Jesus. A person must see their sin, but they must also understand and have faith to believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God himself, took on the form of flesh and he walked upon this earth. He walked a sinless, perfect life. He never did anything wrong. Why? Because there had to be a blood sacrifice. There had to be a human blood sacrifice, but it had to be a perfect sacrifice, and there wasn't one that could be found in all of the world. And so Jesus said, I'll go. And he came. And he lived this perfect, sinless life. And at the end of this life, he knew what was to happen next. He knew he was to go to Jerusalem, what we've been reading about, the series of events that's going to eventually bring him to Jerusalem here in about a chapter and a half. And he says, I'll go, and I got to go to Jerusalem because I must there suffer, and I must bleed, and I must die, and I must raise again. And so he goes. He goes to Jerusalem. Why? Because he knew he had to take the sins of the world upon himself. And so he gets betrayed and he gets brought before the Sanhedrin, and the Sanhedrin, they accuse him of things. And he's found guilty of the most interesting of crimes. Blasphemy. Why is it interesting? Because he is God! He could not commit blasphemy. Everything he said about himself was true of himself. And yet he is found guilty of blasphemy. And they carry him before Pilate. And Pilate says, I find no fault in him. And what do they say? Crucify him. Crucify him. And he says, there's not. No, crucify him. And they talk over Pilate. And they say, we don't care what you want. And for whatever reason, Pilate is persuaded to just go ahead and crucify Christ. And he doesn't argue. He's led as a sheep to the slaughter. Why? Because he knows he was willingly putting our sins upon himself and then he's crucified. He's nailed to that cross so that not only can he take my sin so that he can take my punishment. He takes the suffering that I deserve for all eternity upon himself and he dies. And then three days later he resurrects. Praise the Lord, God is alive. Jesus Christ is who he said he is. The resurrection is the event that lets us know that Jesus is not a liar. If he didn't raise again, there would be no truth in anything he said. He would be a liar, but he came back to life, he took his life again, he resurrected, and it proves that he is God. It proves that this religion, the religion of the Bible, Christianity is the only real and true way to God. You have to believe that. You have to have childlike faith. That's hard to believe to some people, right? They've been raised that evolution is where there's big bang happening. That's where the universe came in. And then over billions of years or billions of years or whatever number they're using right now, that's how long it took for us humans to get here. And we've been on the earth for however long. But before that, we were Neanderthals. And before that, we were apes and this, that, and the other. That takes a lot of faith to believe, folks. I simply believe in the one who said, I am God, who died and then took his life again and said, yep, that's me. My God lives. But we have to have faith to believe that. We have to have faith that we're sinners and we have to have faith that Jesus Christ died for our sins. But then we have to repent of our sins and we have to call upon his name and he will save us. Jesus says, don't forbid children to come unto me, suffer them to come unto me. Why? Because of such is the kingdom of God. Do you want to be saved? The only way to be saved is by having childlike faith like Daniel and like Quinn have. Like Haddon and like Jack. That simple faith that Jesus said it, it's true. If I'll call upon Him, I can be saved. And we think about the apostles or the disciples and how could they turn children away from Jesus? Didn't they know the song? Jesus loves the little children. Well, it probably came after that, right? They probably learned this, they probably wrote it, like Peter the next day is like, okay, I gotta keep a note of this one, don't turn the children away from Jesus, let's write a song about this, Jesus, you know? So I think Peter wrote that song, I'm not positive, but that's not true, okay? I have no idea who wrote that song. So anyway, you think about that, and in some ways this account seems inapplicable to us. But now think about the principle we're seeing here, okay? So we see the parents are bringing children to Jesus. The disciples are saying, no, don't come. Jesus is saying, listen, of such as the kingdom of God, just like those little children, you have to have childlike faith. So what is the principle? Why is this recorded for us? What are we supposed to learn from this? Yes, we know that children need to be saved, but I think there's a deeper understanding that we need as well. I mean, the plain on its face understanding is this, a child can be saved. Right, I have a cousin, Crystal has a cousin who was saved at four. I didn't understand enough to do anything at four, okay? Like, I didn't have that faith at four to be saved. That was not me, okay? That was, you know, like maybe seven I started to think a little clearly, but at four, no. But Doug Keppel, pastor at Whittier Lane Baptist Church, he knows he was saved at four, and I believe he was. Because it only takes childlike faith. But I think there's a second truth here as well. The disciples are preventing people from coming to Jesus by not allowing them to see him. And that's why Jesus is displeased. He's not allowing the children to see him. But is this not what we do when we neglect to share the truth of Jesus with other people? Sure, we're not turning people away. We're not saying, we're not going door to door, right? Knocking on a door saying, you know, and somebody opens the door and you're like, you can't have Jesus. You're too ugly to have Jesus. You're too rich to have Jesus. We're not doing that. We're not rebuking people. I don't even know how that would work. But when we don't share Jesus with others, does it not have the same practical effect? One way or the other, people are not able to see who Jesus is, and whose fault is it? We should all be pointing our fingers at ourselves. It's our fault. Jesus has told us, whosoever will may come, right? Whosoever will can call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. He has called upon us though as believers, everyone who is saved. He has instructed us plainly. He has instructed us clearly. He has commanded us, go into all the world, right? We are to preach the gospel. We're to teach everyone about him. It's our job to go out and tell everyone. But as we think about that command, one that is intended for you tonight if you are saved, I want you to imagine with me now the way that Jesus looked at his disciples when they say he was much displeased. Just try to get in your mind the way that Jesus might have looked at you if you were one of his disciples at that time. As far as we know, he didn't say a word. None of the three texts about this passage says he says anything. All Jesus did was look at them. And they knew that they had displeased Him. They had much displeased Him. Why? Because of what they saw in His face. Now, this life that God has given us is short. Time just keeps on passing. We're all running out of days. However many days God allows you to live, that's it. For some of us, unbeknownst to us, this may be the last day of our life. It may be the last week of our life. It may be the last month or the last year. Others of us, we may have much longer. But whatever it is, the time you have is short. The time you have is precious. And we take this time and we use it for a lot of different things, but one day in the not-too-distant future, your life and my life, they will be over. And if you're saved, you'll stand there before Jesus Christ. You will stand before God Almighty who chose to love you so much that he came into his own creation and lived just like you and me. He endured a life just like you and me because of our sin. He walked upon this earth for roughly 33 years, and He took upon Himself our sins, and He was crucified, He was knelt to a cross, and you think about that, and you imagine just the anguish and the pain and the suffering He took upon Himself. And then as we talked about, He died, He rose again, and He retained those scars. He retained those nail scars in his hands and in his feet. I imagine he has the prints from the crown of thorns on his head. We think about the hole in his side. Jesus Christ, God Almighty, he retains these scars. And one day when life is over, you're going to stand before him and you're going to give an account of your life. He's going to expose every aspect of your life before every believer that is there. He's going to allow you to remember everything that you ever thought, everything that you ever said, everything that you ever did. But the thing that matters most to Jesus is this, the purpose of your life. What did you do with it? What did you do that's lasting? In 1 Corinthians, or 2 Corinthians 3, he says, what is gold, silver, and precious stone? And what is wood, hay, and stuff? But what's going to last? What's not going to last? That's the question. What will endure eternity? What can you bring to heaven? What can you bring to heaven? There's only one thing you can bring to heaven. A soul. There's nothing else. There's no, Brother Gibbs used to tell me that Lester Roloff used to say, so we got hearsay after hearsay here. You've never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul, right? There's no stuff going with you to heaven. It's not happening. There's exactly one thing that can last eternally and it is the human soul. So what do you have that will last? What do you have that's eternal? What do you have to show Jesus? Maybe I should ask it like this, from whom have you hid your Savior? And now with that in mind, imagine you're there before Jesus, you are there and it's the judgment day, it's the judgment seat of Christ and there you say, and Jesus, he is on his throne and here we are and we're looking upon him and he is looking at us. We're surrounded by all the hosts of heaven and all those who are saved. You probably don't even notice all them because you're looking at God Almighty, you see Him in the person of Jesus Christ, and now you, for the first time, though you believe in Him now, you see the scars in His hands, and you see the scars in His feet, and you see perhaps the hole in His side, and you're just in awe of Him. And you just are worshiping Him, you just want to fall down before Him, and yet He is there and He says, I've got a question to ask you. What did you do that lasts? Did you forbid the little children to come unto me? And you're going through your mind, okay, what did I do to last? I made a lot of money, I had a career, I had friends, I had a house, I had hobbies, and I was good at those hobbies, I was a great golfer, I was a good hunter, I was a great shoe buyer. You did this, you did that, you did whatever. You were kind, you were good, you had charities that you supported. But what do you have that is gold, silver, and precious stones? What will last? And the only answer is souls. What did you do that will endure? You can try to think about this in many different ways. You can try to go through arguments in your head here and now, but when you stand before God Almighty, your thoughts won't matter. The only thing that matters is what you did for Jesus. The only thing that matters is what you did for Him. And He knows every thought you had, He knows every word you have ever spoken, He knows everything you've ever done, and He certainly knows if you have done what you could to bring people to Him. And with that in mind tonight, I just ask you, as we close, while you're standing before Jesus, how is He going to look upon you? Just imagine. standing there before God and you're seeing him very literally, you're seeing the scars, you're seeing the one who died for you. And I just wonder as we think about that and the one thing he's commanded us to do above all others, to go into the world and teach other people about him, to reach them for the cause of Christ, to share the gospel, how is he going to look at you when that answer is no? Because if we don't share the gospel with anybody, I imagine the look we are going to see is the very much displeased look of Jesus Christ. And to think about him being the one who died for me, and him being the one who gave everything for me, and him being the one who loves me so much that he went through everything just for me, for me to have nothing that I did in return for him in a way that pleases him, that's going to be unbearably hard to bear. So is that the face you'll see? or will you see a Savior who smiles upon you? Can you imagine that? You're a soul winner, you're a faithful soul winner, you're telling people about Jesus as often as you can. We can't control who gets saved and who doesn't. We can control what we do, and you're out, and you're passing out tracts, and you're telling people about Him. And just imagine Jesus looking upon you with a smile and delight, saying, well done, thou good and faithful servant. You know, the choice is ours today. You get to decide how you spend every moment of every day. Nobody else does. You get to decide if you're gonna pass out tracts. You get to decide if you're gonna share the name of Jesus. You get to decide if you're coming to come out on Saturday. You get to decide it all. Why? Because God gave you a free will. He gave you a free will. He did give you a command, go into all the world and teach the gospel. And we see in his disciples, when we stop people from coming to him, it sorely displaces him. He's much displaced. But man, he's pleased when people come to him. When we get to eternity, how is Jesus going to look at you? I ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes tonight.
Child Like Faith
ស៊េរី Study of the Gospel of Luke
លេខសម្គាល់សេចក្ដីអធិប្បាយ | 519251715366652 |
រយៈពេល | 51:51 |
កាលបរិច្ឆេទ | |
ប្រភេទ | ល្ងាចថ្ងៃអាទិត្យ |
អត្ថបទព្រះគម្ពីរ | លូកា 18:15-17; ម៉ាកុស 10:13-16 |
ភាសា | អង់គ្លេស |
បន្ថែមមតិយោបល់
មតិយោបល់
គ្មានយោបល់
© រក្សាសិទ្ធិ
2025 SermonAudio.