Restoring Childhood

START WITH THE DEMONSTRATION.

DEMONSTRATION QUESTIONS

How did it feel looking at the money, but knowing you couldn’t pick it up for yourself?

Why did you go first? What was the strategy?

Matthew 18:1–4 (ESV)

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them

and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 19:13–15 (ESV)

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people,

but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

And he laid his hands on them and went away.

Good news and bad news.

The bad news: We broke childhood.

The good news is: We have what it takes to fix it.

The church fixed it before (free lunch, public schools, child labor laws, community hospitals).

We can fix it again.

I believe that in the process of restoring childhood, we can restore Kingdom order to all of our relationships.

If you read Matthew’s gospel closely, you will recognize that one of the main organizing principles for this Matthew was teaching themes

He maintains enough chronological order to move the story forward.

But, his main focus is to collect the teachings of Jesus in some kind of thematic groupings.

From the beginning of chapter 18 through the middle of chapter 19, Jesus is teaching His disciples how they should order their relationships in the Kingdom of God

Jesus bookends this teaching with two interactions with children.

(explain bookend)

I want to look at these two interactions with children in a sermon called “Restoring Childhood”.

In Matthew 18, Jesus’ disciples come to him with a question: WHO IS GREATEST IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

The question clearly grows out of some kind of debate that they had been having over which one of them was the greatest.

To answer this question, Jesus calls a small child to himself and sits him on his lap. (Be converted and become…humble yourselves like)

Important to note that Jesus is not talking about becoming childlike in terms of the characteristic qualities of children.

We like to lie about children (so sweet, so innocent, so pure)

Proverbs 22:15 says “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.”

There is no fear of God in a child’s heart.

You’ve never met anyone so selfish as a newborn baby.

Jesus is not talking about becoming a child in essence. The disciples are arguing about social status and Jesus points them to the social status of a child.

A child was a person of no importance in ancient societies (Jewish or Greco-Roman).

A child subject to the authority of his elders,

not taken seriously except as a responsibility,

one to be looked after, not one to be looked up to.

A child is completely dependent, for her well-being, upon the goodness of God expressed through the generosity of others.

Jesus is saying, “If you want to be great, take on the status of a child”.

Forfeit your rights.

Bypass your privileges.

Attach your success and well-being to the generosity of other people.

You wanna be great? Stop thinking that you can make it in this life on your own.

You need help.

You need God’s help.

God is going to use the people around you to help you.

After a few more lessons, Jesus demonstrates the final lesson in this section through a child (just as he had done the first).

Some parents or caregivers of small children try to bring their little ones to Jesus so that He could bless them, but the disciples shoo them away.

This makes Jesus very upset. (Mark’s account says “indignant”)

Not a nice little saying…

More like, “Hey, what are you doing, man?”

Why was he so upset?

(Again, we have to look at the context) He had just been teaching about marriage and divorce. He taught this expectation that in the Kingdom of God, a marriage is a lifelong commitment that one should not break.

The disciples’ response is basically “well if you can’t get divorced when marriage gets hard, it is probably better not to marry”

They conclude that marriage and family is too much of a burden on a person’s life.

And they respond to these children out of that sense that they are nothing more than a burden. An unwelcome interruption of Jesus’ ministry.

Jesus is indignant at the idea that children are a burden because it runs 100% counter to the truth of God laid down in Psalm 127 that children are not a burden, but a blessing.

I believe that they are moral, biological, and ethical grounds for Christian to fight for legal protections for unborn children.

But, I also know this. That Jesus is more concerned that the church fight against the cultural assumption that children are a burden rather than a blessing.

That’s a fight we can’t fight in court.

We can’t fight at the ballot box.

We fight that fight with how we treat pregnant women (married or unmarried)...

do we drown them in judgment or surround them with tender love and kindness.

Beloved, regardless of what the law says, abortions will go down when the church gains a reputation of being a place that values children so highly that we cherish the opportunity to surround a mother and a family with tangible love of Christ.

CHURCH, WE EXTEND GENEROSITY TO CHILDREN…AND TO THEIR MOTHERS…AND TO ALL WHO ARE VULNERABLE. WHY BECAUSE WE RECOGNIZE THAT WE TOO ARE DEPENDING ON THE GENEROSITY OF OTHERS

We live in a world that increasingly despises childhood. But in the Kingdom of God, we Cherish Childhood.

To cherish childhood means that we live our lives being generous and joyfully depending upon the generosity of others.

If you never learn to receive generosity, then you limit yourself to only ever being able to accomplish the thing you can do all by yourself.

But everything great takes partnership.

Everything great requires somebody else’s help; Somebody else’s ability.

If you’re going to do anything great, you’re going to need somebody to be generous with their

Time

Money

Relationships

Information and knowledge

Wisdom and experience

In the Kingdom we understand that I’m not going to make it to my purpose unless somebody helps me.

And once we’ve understood this principle of depending upon the generosity of others, we understand why Jesus got so angry when the disciples tried to shoo away the children.

IT SUCKS TO LIVE AS CHILD IN WORLD FILLED WITH STINGY, SELF-IMPORTANT PEOPLE.

Jesus’ teaching is that When a person recognizes their place of need,

accommodate them.

Facilitate them.

Help them.

Do not stand in their way

BECAUSE WITH EVERY ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF NEED, THEY ARE A STEP CLOSER TO RECOGNIZING THEIR GREATEST NEED WHICH IS THE NEED FOR A SAVIOR.

Beloved here’s the upshot of my sermon: If we are going restore childhood, we must learn to cherish childhood.

Cherish Childhood as a model for Kingdom living.

Live generously, beloved and go forward joyfully depending upon the generosity of others.

This is the essence of the gospel. To Receive Jesus takes a childlike disposition

You have no right to salvation: justice demands that you personally pay for your sins.

You have no capacity to save yourself.

But, God has been generous. “For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only son that whoever believes on Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.”

When I say that I’m a Christian, that does not mean that I am super spiritual and that I figured out how life and death and sin and eternity works. No, it simply means that I am depending on the generosity of God in Jesus Christ…I am trusting Him to transform me in this life and secure my eternity in the life that is to come.