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eighth installment, our 48th
episode, if you will, of this study. As we continue, we'll
be in the gospel of Mark chapter 10 this morning, gospel of Mark
chapter 10. And I'm going to go ahead and
open in prayer, and I'll let you, those that are finding their
spots, do so, and then we'll get into our study. this morning. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
Lord, thank you so much for the day. Thank you for the Word of
God that we can continue to return to it. And I thank you for this
study in the Gospel of Mark. I thank you for the insights
you've given to us, Lord. And I pray that today would be
another excellent opportunity for us to learn and grow and
understand you better and understand ourselves better, Lord, in the
light of of your word, so please speak to us, may we have ears
to hear and eyes to see what you have for us today, in Jesus'
name, amen. So we'll be in Mark 10, and just
this short little passage here, verses 13 through 16, where Jesus
blesses these children, we're titling this section, Faith Like
a Child. And as we think about children
and ministry to children, and that's not even, I don't think,
Totally the main focus, I think there's a couple of different
focuses in this little passage. This was originally supposed
to be part of last week's lesson when we talked about God's design
for the family. And we talked about marriage
and divorce and remarriage and things and the different views
on that. And we looked at Jesus' statements there and originally
intended to include this section as part of that, as the idea
of family there. But in a sense, I'm glad that
This one is on its own because there's just so much to think
about even though only four verses here. But a lot of truth as we'll
be looking at other passages as well. And we think about,
as we think about ministry to children, because that's really
what Jesus is doing in this passage. We're gonna see that in a moment
when we get into the text. But Jesus is giving us example
of and participating in ministry to children, and so it brings
up a question. Why are children's ministries
so important? Why do churches, and ours is
one, go to such lengths to provide relevant and exciting Christian
education for kids? We have our VBS starting next
week, so I'm plugging that, of course. But then we also have
SummerQuest, which is our Wednesday night kids club. We have Awana
that runs with the school year. We have Sunday School. We have
Junior Church. And we're gonna be expanding
Junior Church coming this fall to include an older group of
children. But what is it about children
that causes this focus, purposeful expenditure of time and resources
on them. I found this little chart here. It is a little bit dated, it's
from 2019. After COVID, I noticed some of the statistics really
got affected by that, just like everything did. But if you start
at the top here, and this is back from 2019, ministrytochildren.com
is the website. They surveyed 400 Kidmen leaders,
which kids ministry, Kidmen leaders, reviewed all the latest research
and here's what they learned. Let me get it to where I can
see it here. Conversion, greater than age 21 is rare, and we know
this too. Only one fourth of believers,
according to the research they've done, are saved after the age
of 21, 43% came to Christ when they were under the age of 12.
And of course, I think we've talked about that even here.
Half of children who come to Christ are led by parents. 29% of the Kidmen leaders listed
children's ministry, or I'm sorry, 29% of those that came to Christ
as children listed children's ministry as a factor. Two thirds
of Christians came to faith before 18. 86% of kid men leaders serve because
Jesus loves kids. And that's really one of our
big focuses in this tax is God's view of children. 42% of parenting
age adults belong to a church. 65% of kid men leaders go online
for ideas and encouragement. By the way, we need to be praying
for our kids ministry leaders. if you're not. I know many of
you do. You need to keep doing it. They serve in such a critical,
if it's true that two thirds of people come to faith before
age 18, then our children's ministry has to be one of our most critical
focuses as we look. Not that the others, to the exclusion
of the others. The others are important, There
needs to be an emphasis, and I think our church does that
well. 51% of leaders surveyed have greater than 25 children
each week. Now, that varies, of course. 62% of leaders surveyed said
financial support was limited. I don't think that's the case
in our church right now. God has blessed, and I'm thankful
for the generosity and the way that that's allowed us to grow
our kids' ministry. Two-thirds of leaders surveyed
are unpaid volunteers. I think that would be an even
greater percentage in our case. They're not being paid, not even
a dime, most of them, to prepare, spend a chunk of their week preparing
a Sunday school lesson, for example, and they're teaching it right
now. So they're preparing a lesson, They're getting other things
ready. They bring object lessons in. They might bring snacks in. Our junior church leaders, the
same thing. They're preparing. There's songs
there. There's puppets. They have teens they're working
with. Rachel's been working with the teens in junior church this
summer, taking them down there in groups of two, helping them.
She teaches and they watch, and then they each get to teach a
lesson. So she spends three weeks at a time with each team, trying
to help them grow and disciple them in children's ministry.
Why all this effort? Well, we know that our enemy, Satan,
hates children. If you weren't aware of that,
you are now. Satan hates children. We see it throughout scripture
and even into our modern day. So if we go all the way back
to Exodus 1, remember it's the children that suffered under
Pharaoh. Pharaoh commanded all his people saying, every son
who is born you shall cast into the river, every daughter you
shall save alive. Every son who is born, this is
post-birth abortion, it's murder of children. Babies, newborn
babies, Pharaoh said, cast them into the river. If we jump into
the New Testament, Matthew 2.16, Herod, when he saw he was deceived
by the wise men, was exceedingly angry. And he sent forth and
put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in
all its districts from two years old and under, according to the
time which he had determined from the wise men. When God has
victory and Satan is defeated, he takes his retaliation out
on children over and over and over again. I did a little bit
of research into the Holocaust and learned some things. When
World War II began in September of 1939, this is information
from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. When World War
II began in September of 1939, There were approximately 1.6
million Jewish children living in the territories that the German
armies or their allies would occupy. When the war in Europe
ended in May of 1945, so six years passed, more than one million
and perhaps as many as 1.5 million Jewish children were dead, targeted
victims in the Nazis' calculated program of Genocide and from
the slide here. They were especially vulnerable
They killed approximately 1.5 at Nazi Germany its collaborators
killed about 1.5 million Jewish children tens of thousands of
Romani or gypsy children and then five to seven thousand German
children with physical and mental disabilities living in Institutions
as well as many Polish children and children residing in the
German occupied Soviet Union and It's just staggering and
sobering when you read the statistics and you read about these women
and children being put on these trains, they would come into
the killing centers, Auschwitz and others, and they were immediately
marched into the gas chamber and executed. Children, little
children, like the ones downstairs right now. Why are we saying
all this? To point the fact out that Satan
hates children. And he's doing everything he
can to target them, to kill them, sure, but also to attack their
minds and attack their consciences and to draw them into his nefarious
designs, his traps. He's trying to destroy them.
The thief comes to kill, steal, and what? Destroy. Jesus, of course, knew this.
Children are among the most vulnerable. That's why he does it. Therefore,
they should be among the most protected, the most cared for.
In this passage today, we're gonna see Jesus. He is God. He
perfectly represents the Heavenly Father. He's going to make it
clear to us what God thinks about children. And it helps us understand
maybe why Satan hates them so much. So we've divided up these
verses into four main points. The children are gonna be brought
to Jesus, beckoned by Him, their belief, their faith acknowledged
by Jesus, and finally they are blessed by Him. If you're following
along, you're taking notes. Roman numeral one here, children
are brought to Jesus. Look with me at Mark 10 verse
13. Then they brought little children
to him, to Jesus, that he might touch them, but the disciples
rebuked those who brought them. The word for children here could
mean any age from infant through preteen. So up through about
from zero to 12 is the, age that these children would
have been. And we see that the parents were
bringing the children there for Jesus to touch them, to bless
them, if you will. It's a desire of him to maybe
place his hand there and pray over them and pray a blessing
proclaim a blessing on their life. They recognize Jesus as
a rabbi, as a rabbinical person, a person with some authority.
We've already established that all the way through Mark. It's
one of Mark's main themes, the authority of Christ. They've
seen him heal and they've seen him love children. So they see
him as this person, this rabbi that they want to bless. This
actually is an ancient biblical practice during Old Testament
times. If you go back to Genesis 48, When Joseph brings his sons,
Ephraim and Manasseh, if you remember, into Jacob, what does
he want Jacob to do? To bless them, and Jacob does
the old switch here and puts the right hand on the younger
one. And Joseph's like, Dad, you got
it wrong. And he says, nope, this is what
we're gonna do. And you can go back and read
that in Genesis 48, verses nine through 22 is the passage. But
it's that same idea. They were asking Jesus for this
blessing. But notice the disciples' response. What did the disciples do? They
rebuked them. They rebuked them. The word here,
rebuke, it's a very strong expression. It actually means to allege as
a criminal, to treat as a trespasser, if you will. Someone who is breaking
the law. Chuck Swindoll, in his commentary,
I thought said this well. These socially insignificant
people commanded too much of the Messiah's attention. Now
this is in the view of the disciples, not in the view of God. One does
not become king by associating with poor and powerless people.
Of all children on earth, or of all people on earth, children
are the most poor, right? The most powerless in and of
themselves. would-be kings curry the favor of the rich and powerful. So the disciples, they had thought
of themselves as Jesus handlers, began to discourage parents from
bringing children to the future king of Israel. We don't have
time for you. He's way too important for you
to bring these children. You need to get them out of here.
And it was a forceful rebuke. how quickly the disciples had
forgotten Jesus' teaching. Just back in Mark 9, 37, whoever
receives one of these little children in my name receives
me. Remember this verse? He identified the reception and
ministry to children as ministry to himself, and whoever receives
me receives not me, but him who sent me. The Godhead has declared
that receiving children is important. This helps us understand why
Satan hates them so much, because they're so precious to God. Anything
precious to God is immediately hated by the devil. He's opposed
to everything God is for. He has an opposite value system,
if you will, that he operates under. So when he sees God loving
children, they become objects of his hatred. When we think
about these disciples, Once again, they failed to see the situation
the way that God sees it. They failed to see the people
that were in front of them through Jesus' eyes, which is a good
way to sum up our own failures. So often we forget or even refuse
to see the people around us the way that God sees them. We see
them through our own lens and we make assumptions about people
and we make judgments about people. And we're quick to do that at
times. We're really not, at times, very much different than the
disciples were with the children. Sometimes that person, that irritating
person, That annoying person in our lives, we're quick to
push away. God is looking at that person,
though, in a different way. He sees them, first of all, as
someone He created. He formed them in their mother's
womb. They are made in the image of God. They are His image bearer. They're a soul for whom Christ
died. That's how God sees them, and that's how He sees these
children. And so we must strive to, to not fall into this selfishness
that the disciples were in here, focusing on this idea of the
kingdom. And Jesus is gonna tie that together
in a moment. But let's go into the second
part here. The children are beckoned by Jesus. And we're gonna see
that kingdom statement right here in verse 14. But when Jesus
saw it, he saw what the disciples were doing. He saw them rejecting
the children. He was greatly displeased and
said to them, let the little children come to me and do not
forbid them, a positive and a negative command. Just to make it clear,
let them come. Do not forbid them, notice, for
of such is the kingdom of God. Here these men were trying to
build Jesus' kingdom for him, to protect their king. He's too
important for the children. Jesus says, no, you've got it
backwards. This is the kingdom. This is part of the kingdom. This is important to me. And
this passionate response here, the word greatly displeased,
he is pained, he is vexed, he's indignant. There's a passion
in Jesus' tone here. He was always under control,
but his authority is nonetheless there, his passion. I think it
probably took these guys by surprise. Whoa, this is something really
important to him. We thought we had this figured out. But
once again, Jesus has stooped down and reached for the lowly
and the least of these. Yes, Herman. It's interesting
that 12 disciples, all of them said to stay away from Jesus
and the children. Possibly, yeah, possibly the
women that follow Jesus might have handled this better, that's
possibly true. But yes, all 12, or at least the ones that were
there, did not want these kids around. It's like they had forgotten
the text we looked at, Mark 9, 37. But they'd also forgotten
all of Jesus' ministry, or much of Jesus' ministry of reaching
down to the lowly. It's like they forgot where they
came from. They forgot who they were before Jesus called them.
Remember, at least four of them were fishermen. Not a dishonest
or dishonorable trade, but a definitely rough trade, this blue-collar
work. And there's, again, nothing wrong
with, I was blue-collar. It's a great thing to be in the
trades. But that's where they came from.
They weren't always Jesus' disciples. He called them out of their places
of work to follow Him. One of them was a tax collector,
despised. That was a dishonorable trade,
if you will. A dishonorable job. None of the
12 had really any clout or power or prestige or position in and
of themselves. They were the 12 most unlikely
people to be the disciples of a rabbi, but they were the ones
Jesus called. I think they forgot where they
came from. A few other examples. In chapter one, also, he, remember,
healed a leper who was a social outcast. In chapter two, a paralytic was
healed and a man with a withered hand there in the synagogue in
chapter three. All of these would have been
lowly on the culture scale, if you will. The demon-possessed
man was cured in chapter five. Remember, he was living in the
tombs, but Jesus went and cured him. And then, also, the bleeding
woman, who was declared unclean, and for all she knew, would have
been unclean for the rest of her life, had no ability to go
in and worship in the synagogues or the temple. She was rejected,
but Jesus healed her, and then, of course, Can't forget the young
daughter, the child. Remember my little daughter,
Jairus? Jesus healed her, actually raised her from the dead. He
went on in chapter six to feed 5,000 men, but who did that number
not include? Women and children. Children were fed. Children were
ministered to there. And then in chapter six as well,
he healed many sick. Many socially degenerate, if
you will. Chapter seven, it's a lowly Gentile
woman's daughter. Another child has her demons
cast out. And then later in the chapter,
a deaf mute Gentile man was healed. Chapter eight, we find another
large group of people. 4,000 men were fed along with
women and children. Most of those were likely Gentiles,
and then a blind man. One that was probably accused
of sin, that's why he's blind. That was the common understanding.
And the disciples even asked Jesus about one of these guys
that Jesus healed. Who sinned, his parents or him? It's not
if they sinned, it's they did. Just who? Jesus healed him. In chapter nine, Jesus comes
down off the mountain of transfiguration, and what does he immediately
do? He casts demons out of a boy. We're not sure his age. But the
son of his father is pleading, Jesus heals him. Along the way, all along the
way, all through Mark, Jesus has been stooping, reaching down
and pulling up and ministering to and caring for the lowly and
the downtrodden and the social outcasts. Those who were less popular,
those who could not give anything in return, for the most part,
were those that he healed. And now we come to chapter 10.
Once again, Jesus sees and cares for those that are overlooked.
The overlooked, that's who Jesus looks at, Jesus sees. If you're
feeling overlooked, Jesus is seeing you. He has a special
place in his heart for those that are overlooked, and in this
case, it's children. One thing I wanna address quickly
is you might have heard, you might have come across that,
because this statement gets used to promote infant baptism or
child baptism or even giving children communion, which, the
Bible's pretty silent on. In fact, infant baptism is not
mentioned once in the Bible. There's some verses that get
used to promote it, which I wasn't aware of until I did some reading
on this. When we have these verses that talk about entire households
being baptized, in Acts 16, Lydia, she and her household were baptized,
and it's the argument, well, there must have been children
or infants in the household. Well, it doesn't really say that.
But let's move on and later in that chapter we have the Philippian
jailer and immediately he and his family and of course that's
in italics in the New King James meaning it's not part of the
original manuscript but it's there for context and it seems
to fit. But does it mean that none of
them, or some of them at least, were not of believing age? We
believe that baptism by immersion is for those that have put their
faith in Jesus. And in fact, the Bible seems to bear that
out. One more example, Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 says he baptized
the household of Stephanas. So I'm just throwing this out
here to give you kind of, I think I'm representing the argument
well, I'm trying to. that Jesus' statement to let
the children come to me gets used as a proof text, if you
will, for paedo-baptism, infant baptism. But when we look at,
now these are groups of people, but whenever we look in the Bible
where an individual is baptized, it's one who's already placed
their faith in Jesus. Classic example is Acts 8. and
Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, they went down the road, they
came to some water, the eunuch said, see here's water, what
hinders me from being baptized? I wanna identify with Jesus.
That's really what baptism is doing, right? And baptism has
gone on for a long, long time. There was people being baptized
all the time in Jesus' day. They were baptized into something.
into the water, but into the idea of I'm identifying with
this group. And this eunuch, he knew that. He said, I want
to be identified with Christ. Is there anything stopping me?
Notice Philip's answer. Philip said, if you believe with
all your heart, you may. You see the order? Belief, then
baptism. And he answered and said, I believe
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So he put his faith in Christ.
And of course, if you keep reading the passage, Philip goes down
and baptizes him. But when it's groups of people,
it's kind of hard to understand. What's this mean household? But
when it's individuals, and this is just one example of several
in the New Testament, it's always belief followed by baptism. It always comes after. And that's
the thing about understanding scripture that we need to understand
is that We don't go to the obscure passages, those that are hard
to understand, to develop our theology. We go to the clear,
easy to clearly understand passages to interpret the hard to understand. So we have to, and we develop
our theology and our belief system that way. Baptism is an outward
expression of an inward reality, which is exactly Jesus' point
here. And we're gonna come back to that idea. Children, we're
gonna see they illustrate a certain quality of faith for all of us
to see, that all people, regardless of age, must choose to exercise
if they're to place their faith in Jesus. Jesus recognized the
importance of this, and he's using this teaching moment for
his disciples and for us as the reader to understand the importance
of children within the home, yes, and also within the kingdom,
and in fact, for Jesus to connect children to the kingdom of God
is extremely significant. We touched on this earlier, but
for these disciples, they had made up their minds that these
children were not important enough to bother Jesus with. Jesus totally
flipped that around and said, no, they are among the most important
for me to have interaction with. I need to reach out to them.
Don't hold them back from me. The disciples were adults, and
the bulk of Jesus' ministry was to adults. And so they're thinking
this way. They had seen Jesus minister
to children, but I think this was a difficult concept based
on their response, that children matter to God in his kingdom. Every Jew, remember, and I believe
the disciples based on Acts chapter 1, when they say, okay, is it
now the kingdom after he's risen back from the dead? They were
looking for the kingdom, which is why they were so broken when
he was crucified, because they really believed the kingdom was
coming. They didn't understand the teaching and the prophecies
the way that they should have. And so they're looking for a
Messiah to come and rid them of the Romans and establish the
kingdom. But now Jesus is connecting little children, helpless, defenseless,
certainly they're not even able to take care of themselves, much
less overcome Rome. So why are you connecting them
to the kingdom? I think that was shocking to
them. And Jesus is still beckoning
children today, isn't he? He's calling children to himself
today. Let the little children come to me. I don't believe for
the purpose of baptism, but I think for the purpose of sharing the
gospel. Let the little children come to Jesus. This is why we
share the gospel in our kids' ministries. This is why we're
gospel-focused, and this is why we invest so much time, so much
of our resources go to children and teen ministries. Jesus is
calling them. He's beckoning to them. We'll
see in the next verse the eternal purpose. children's belief acknowledged
by Jesus. Verse number 15, Jesus goes on
after telling them to let the children come and to tell them,
for such is the kingdom of God, verse 15, assuredly, I say to
you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little
child will by no means enter it. So we come now, this is like
the summit. This is the peak of where he's
going with this. He's been driving at this point
the necessity of childlike faith. I got another quote for you from
Swindoll. He ordered his disciples to let
the children come to him because they were ideal illustrations
of genuine discipleship. Not because they're innocent.
Children have twisted, fallen natures like all people. If you've
been around kids long enough, you will know this is true. Not
because they're pleasant. Anybody who has experience rearing
children can tell you that they can occasionally be absolutely
horrid. I got an amen on that, actually. It's true. Jesus praised children. Sorry about that. Jesus praised children because
they were incapable of pretense. They come just as they are, no
affectation, no hesitation, no inhibition. They trust completely. They haven't
yet learned to be suspicious or proud. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Man. Yeah. Yeah, so Barbara was just making
the point that there certainly was a physical, let the children
come to me physically, let the parents bring them, but also
there's a spiritual component, let them come to me in faith.
Don't hinder them, give them an opportunity. And how that
sometimes people get the idea that kids can't believe or something
like, excuse me, something like that. And of course, I think
this passage proves out the fact that Jesus believed that they
can believe. He believed that their faith
was possible. Now, obviously, I believe in
an age of accountability. I believe that an infant has
not, yes, they have a sin nature, per se, but they have not made
a choice to sin. I think the Bible plays out that
those that die at that age will be in heaven. because they haven't
made a conscious decision to sin. But the point is that when
they're old enough to make a conscious decision to sin, it seems very
logical and very God-like. And I think the scripture backs
it up that they're also capable of choosing to believe. So when
they get that point of understanding and their choice, I believe that
they can believe. And I think that's what Jesus
is pointing out. about their faith here, and you
think about how a child comes to a parent. We'll talk about
it more in a moment, but as we go back to the verse here, there's
no pretense. When we come to Christ, it's
the same way. A child comes with no hesitation, no inhibition,
nothing holding you back, this humble, trusting faith. because
he is the one who died for our sins. He was buried and rose
again. That's the Jesus we believe in.
He's the one that's worthy. And that's what makes, I think,
the gospel so beautiful is that it can be understood by children.
It can be absorbed by them. Here's the facts, kids. Here's
Jesus. This is what he did. This is
your problem. It's a sin problem. Here's the
punishment for sin. Here's the answer. It's Jesus. Believe in him. He's the one
that died, buried, and was and rose again for you. And because
of that, you can trust him. He loves you. And the call for
children to put their faith in Christ. I think even in our services,
when the gospel is given during a sermon, I'm so thankful we
do that every week, because it does a number of things. It shares
the gospel with the unbeliever. It also shares the gospel repetitively. So children that are struggling
to understand, they're hearing that over and over again. It
also is teaching us how to share the gospel. When we hear it over
and over again, it kind of solidifies it in our mind. So these are
important things. Brad. Just real quick, that's
why like Alana is very strong in not using phrases like, ask
Jesus in your heart. Right, right. You want it to
be clear, and make him believe it, understand the truth. Otherwise,
what does ask Jesus in your heart mean? Right, so we wanna be really
clear, not confusing, and Brad brought up Awana as an example
of that. They're very clear on the gospel,
very straightforward. The word assuredly here, as we
get back to our text, you might say verily in the King James
if you have that. It's the word for amen. It emphasizes
the importance of the statement. He's saying, guys, listen to
me, catch this, assuredly, verily, I'm telling you that in my mind,
Jesus is saying, what I'm about to say is a certain unchangeable
truth. You've got to get this. It's
a matter of fact, no possibility of change. And again, think of
how a little child receives something. I think of a little child at
their high chair, and mom puts something on the tray. What's
that child gonna do, most likely? They're gonna put it in their
mouth. They put everything in their mouth, right? It doesn't matter what it is.
I saw a mom with of child, just a few months old, and a baby
carrier on the front of her. And he was facing out, and they
were walking along, and she was holding her phone. Guess what
that baby was trying to do? He had his mouth, I want that
thing in my mouth. Thankfully, the mom wasn't letting
him do that, but the point is there's this innocence, there's
this trust. It's like whatever she gives
me, I'm gonna take. And that's what God is asking us, not just
for believing in Jesus, by the way, but that's how we're supposed
to be living our Christian life, with this unquestioning, trusting
faith unwavering in what God has for us. I think about the
song. Andrea sang this morning, the
blessing song. What if what God is doing, as
hard as it is, is actually a blessing in disguise? I just, I love the
message there. But how do we, and the song even,
and I noticed the words, if you saw it on the screen there. It
talked about how God is calling us to just trust him, to have
that faith, to believe that God can take that difficult situation
and do something amazing with it. And that's just his specialty,
it's how he operates. The woman that wrote that song,
she wrote it out of a terrible situation. Her husband almost
lost his life. And it's just an incredible story.
If you ever look it up, the song Blessings and why that was written. Jesus does not bless these children,
as we're gonna get to in a moment, because of what they bring to
him. He blesses them because of what they lack. He does not bless us because
of what we bring to him. He blesses us because of what
we are lacking. Children, they just come as they
are. They're not sophisticated, right? They're just plain and
simple, and they come empty-handed. No power, no prestige. no sophistication,
no influence, they have no political advantage, they have no credit,
they have no claim to fame, they're just, their little chubby hands
are empty. And that's how they come, and
that's how we need to come to Christ. In the pillar commentary,
James Edwards, a little child has absolutely nothing to bring.
And whatever a child receives, he or she receives by grace on
the basis of sheer neediness. rather than by any merit inherent
in him or herself. Little children are paradigmatic
disciples, for only empty hands can be filled. Only empty hands
can be filled, whether it's the gift of eternal life, because
we have to come empty-handed. We can't bring our good works
with us. We can't bring our own ideas. It's Jesus or nothing. And then as we live our lives,
same deal, we walk through life. He's calling us to walk through
life. God can put something in, God can take something out, but
when we start grasping and trying to grip onto things, it's when
things seem to, we seem to struggle. There was a hand up over there.
What was that? Yes, Mike. Yes. Yes, receives. Sure, yeah, there's a trust element
in receiving because you're receiving it because you trust. So I think
there's a bit of separation, but I think they're tied together.
There's a strong connection, definitely. Yeah, so let's go
on to the last statement here. As we finish up, children are
blessed by Jesus. Let's see what Jesus does here.
And he took them up in his arms laid his hands on them and blessed
them. What a beautiful description
this is. When we do a baby dedication here, it's kind of along these
lines, it's kind of where we understand that there's no salvific
power in that, it's just simply parents saying, We wanna proclaim
before our church family that we wanna raise our children to
the glory of God, and the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And
we're looking to do that, and we're asking for your support.
And so it's a beautiful thing, but here, there seem to be more
than one, right? It's them, it's plural. Several children, not sure how
many. Could have been quite a long line. And I tend to think that
there was, just based on the disciples. If there had just
been a couple, seemed like the disciples, it wouldn't have been
that big of a deal. I think there was quite a crowd, actually,
of parents holding their children, waiting in line to be blessed
by Jesus. But notice what Jesus does here.
He takes the necessary time to hold them, to bless them, pray
for them. I'm not sure exactly what he
said, but he took personal, special time. The parents, if you go
back to verse 13 in your Bibles, then they brought little children
to him that he might what? Touch them. I think they were
just planning to hold or take the hand and Jesus, okay, and
next, and touch that one. Oh, God bless you. But Jesus
doesn't do that. He reaches out and takes that
child into his arms and takes that special moment Not in a
hurry, not in a rush, not in some cold, lifeless, mechanical
way, but in a warm, loving way. To take them in and show that
he was genuinely enjoying. I think Jesus loved this part. I think that's part of the reason
he said, don't stop them. These are some of the best people
to hang out with in my world. He's got the Pharisees attacking
him. He's got the crowds pressuring
him. He's got the disciples not understanding him. But now he's
got these little children. They're just a delight to him.
I think they still are today. I think he genuinely enjoyed
being with them. And he made sure that both they
and their parents felt welcomed and loved. You know, children's
ministry is a ministry to both children and parents. We need
to understand that. So when we spend our resources
and our time and our effort on children's ministry, it's not
just for them, it's for their parents, it's for the entire
family. This morning we dismissed our junior church kids. Mrs. Steele and the teens she's working
with went downstairs with them. and that's a ministry to the
kids. They have songs, they have a Bible lesson, they have puppets,
they have crafts, they have games that they do. Coloring, lots
of fun stuff for them, all centered around the Bible and the gospel. But you know, that ministry is
equally a ministry to parents because what is happening, it
gives them an opportunity to sit here and listen to the message
and enjoy some time and focus on things without the distraction
of children that just aren't gonna sit still at that age.
And I think Jesus, in doing this, gave us an example of how to
be effective ministers to children, yes, but also to families. And so our desire needs to be
to touch the lives. I know not everyone is a kid
men worker. Not everyone is cut out for that,
and that's okay. but to support and uphold and
encourage and pray for our Sunday school teachers. Pray for our
Awana leaders, Summer Quest, VBS, Junior Church, and many
other things. Even in our nurseries, there's
need for prayer. Sunday school teachers. Children,
the children here were blessed by a personal interaction with
God. That's what they got out of it. What a blessing. And the
parents were blessed seeing their children loved and cared for.
Let's conclude. Not only do we need to receive the gift of eternal
life with childlike faith, We are also called to live out the
Christian life with that same simple, trusting faith. And loving and ministering to
children, is that really a family ministry? I got one final quote
here. D.L. Moody, and this kind of
goes along with what Barbara said about that children can
believe. Look what Moody said here. It is a masterpiece of
the devil to make us believe that children cannot understand
religion, meaning truth from the Bible. Would Christ have
made a child the standard of faith if he had known that it
was not capable, or that he or she was not capable of understanding
his words? I think Jesus said it all when
he said, let them come. Such is the kingdom of God. The
faith of a child is required to be saved, and I believe required
to live the Christian life. Let's pray. Father, thank you
so much for our children's ministry. I thank you for those teachers
that are teaching right now. They're finishing up their lessons.
Thank you for their dedication, their desire. and for the many
others, Lord, in our church that serve in various capacities to
our children. Father, the enemy hates them,
he's out for them, he's targeted them specifically through the
media and through any way that he can. So Father, please help
us to be vigilant, help us to be prayerful, help us to be dedicated
to reaching kids and to loving them and to caring for them.
Please help us to do that, Lord, give us wisdom for it. and we
ask you to bless our efforts. Please fill our empty hands,
Lord, with your blessings, the things you'd have for us, and
we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks, guys, have a great
day.
Faith Like a Child
Series The Gospel of Mark
| Sermon ID | 86241648444940 |
| Duration | 46:39 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Language | English |
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