A Childlike Picture of the Gospel

Mark 10 verse 13-16. We are going to pick up right where we left off last week. Jesus is ministering in Judea and the Pharisees once again approach him. They try to manipulate the conversation into Jesus incriminating himself by speaking out against divorce. He makes the bold statement of what biblical marriage should look like, one man and one woman becoming one married unit that has been ordained by God and is not to be separated.

In our passage today, he continues this teaching on the family unit by speaking about children.

Mark 10:13–16 ESV

13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

Prayer

Children are a gift. We have all heard this and most of us have probably said this. And the consensus in the room would probably be such. But when we take a journey throughout history and throughout cultures, this would not be the consensus. See, children are not viewed as a gift by most people, but often as a burden. Think about the world that we live in. In the last 50 years in the US, there have been 63 million children killed by abortion. If children are considered a gift, then why are we killing them.

Children are not viewed as a gift by the world. But for the Christian, we must be different about how we view children. Jesus is teaching this here to his disciples. Even in the time of Jesus, children were not viewed as something good. Abortion rates were extremely high in the Roman world just like divorce rates were high. I think it is very intentional that this is right after Jesus talking about marriage. How we view children, just like how we view marriage, is very important.

There is an obvious message in our text today about how we need to view children. But as we dig deeper into it, we have an underlying message as well. So the main point for today as we uncover what God’s word says to all of us in this text is that…

We must fully depend on Jesus Christ

I love it when the text gives us the most obvious point ever.

There are a few levels to this text that we are going to look at. There are only a few short verses here so if you want to keep your bible open to this text to continue looking at, that will be the easiest. Instead of looking at each verse individually, we are going to look at the different people in the text.

Disciples

First, lets look at the disciples. They play a very important role in this text because without them, Jesus would not have made the statement that he made. The biggest thing that we need to see about the disciples here is that we don’t exactly know what is going on with them. What we do know is that these parents are bringing their kids to Jesus and the disciples are trying to stop them.

There could be various reasons why they do this. Maybe they truly feel tired because of the busyness of ministry. Jesus had been ministering very hard lately. They had been doing some traveling, and I know that I don’t like traveling. I am a home body. I like staying put. So maybe the journeys have worn them out and they are just tired.

But also, there may be a possibility that they thought this ministry was below them. That this was not important ministry. See, there was a general concensus that children were of less value. So to minister to children would be below them. They aren’t the important ones.

Too often do we overlook and neglect our greatest ministry opportunities. Our human flesh rears its ugly head up and we get prideful. We get puffed up and think that we are above certain ministry opportunities when the fact of the matter is that if God did not want you to do it, it wouldn’t be there.

God, in his sovereignty, has put you in the place that you are in and around the people that you are around for a reason. And that reason is to glorify God. Jesus did not pick and chose based on economic or cultural status as to who he ministered to. In fact, there would be a great case to be made that he ministered to the unfortunate in a greater way than the fortunate. We should never, and I mean never, treat our ministry opportunities as obstacles to something greater.

The disciples slipped up quite often in this way. They would think that they had things figured out, and Jesus would teach them differently. It wasn’t too long before this that Jesus taught them about how to value children.

Mark 9:36–37 ESV

36 And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

How often does our human flesh get in our way. We would love to play Monday morning QB and say we would do things differently. But would we really? Our track records are no better than the disciples. What we can learn from the disciples is to rely on Jesus Christ for our direction and follow him wherever he leads us. It may be to the homeless shelter down the street or it may be to a street that we can’t pronounce in a country we have never heard of before. Rely on Jesus.

The Parents

Next, I want us to look at the parents of the children. Although there is very little about them in our passage, they play a very vital role. The parents brought the children to Jesus. When we look at verse 13 here, it says “they” were bringing children. We can take this as the parents of the children.

Remember how society viewed children at the time. They were not productive citizens so their value was very little. These parents went against the grain of society. That is what we are called to do as believers too. We are to be different. When the world tells us that children get in the way of life, we tell the world that children are a blessing to us. When the world tells us that children have no value and we should murder them before they are even born, we tell them that every single person is created in the image of God and is valuable. We go against the grain.

These parents didn’t care what the world told them. They knew that children had value. We aren’t even told that something was going on with the children. In previous stories, there was something going on like sickness or demon possession. The parents of these kids just wanted Jesus to touch them.

This is so pertinent to today. Because the world is telling them that something is not of value while they are trying with everything that they have to get them to Jesus. If you get something out of reading about the parents let it be that it is so important to get others to Jesus. As parents and guardians of children, it is our duty to take them to Jesus. Not to just take them to church, which we should do. But to take them to Jesus.

What do you mean take them to Jesus? I mean having meaningful conversations with them that revolve around having a relationship with Jesus. I mean opening up the bible one on one and talking with them about the bible. I mean discipling them and teaching them the truths of scripture. This is so important to do. Our children need proper biblical instruction.

But let’s not stop there. Because children aren’t the only ones who need proper biblical instruction. All Christians need to have proper biblical instruction. There are too many people who have spent decades in the church and you would consider them spiritual infants. We don’t want that here at Immanuel Baptist. Yes, it is good to put an emphasis on raising up children to grow in Christ. But it should be an whole congregation ministry. Our mission as a church is to Build the Kingdom and Impact our community. The strategy to see that happen is to know, grow, and go. To know Jesus Christ, to grow in our relationship with Jesus, and to go and take this faith into the world.

We are always looking for ways to improve in this area. This is what we call discipleship. This is what Jesus is doing with his disciples. He is instructing them and correcting them and showing them how to be followers of him. At the end of the service today, I am going to present to everyone a new tool that I believe will greatly improve our ability to grow in our faith.

Let us be like the parents in our passage today and bring people to Jesus.

Children

We have 2 more things to look at in this passage. And it is the two most important pieces. The next is the children in our passage. The parents bring the children and the disciples try to stop them. Jesus tells the disciples to not hinder the children from coming. So what should we see about the children in our passage. I want us to look at what Jesus says right here.

Mark 10:14–15 ESV

14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

As a preacher, sometimes it is difficult to come up with really good illustrations. I try to avoid using so many personal stories. Sometimes they just lend themselves to the topic. One thing that will always lend itself to almost any topic is stories about kids.

One reason is that we have all been children at some point, many of us have had children. And above all else, children are often times unpredictable. You don’t know what kids are going to do sometimes. Maybe this is why the disciples didn’t want the kids there.

But Jesus flips the script on who is unpredictable here and he does something the disciples were not expecting. He picks up the children. He picks them up, the invaluable children, and blesses them.

For each and every one of us here, there was a time when we were a small child. We could not speak, we could not walk, we could not provide for ourselves. We were fully dependent upon others. In the passage before this, Jesus explains God’s design for the family. Part of the design for the family was for each child to have a mother and a father to provide for and protect them. Why? Because they can’t do it for themselves.

We don’t know much about the children in the passage here. We don’t know if they were boys or girls. We don’t know how old they were. They could be babies, toddlers, or somewhere between that and being young adults. I think we can assume they were younger because Jesus picked them up. Maybe you are wondering why a detail like this is important?

They were at an age that is young enough that they had to be brought to Jesus by someone else. They were brought by their parents to Jesus. They were young children. The point of this is that the younger the child, the more they have to rely on someone else.

Growing up, my mom and dad worked crazy schedules. My dad would work a lot of night shifts and would not get home until around 6 in the morning. After working 12 hours the night before, when he got home from work, he had one thing that was important, sleep. Now, this becomes an issue when you have children at home, especially when it a Saturday morning. Because as a young boy, I had plans every Saturday morning. Cartoons.

There was this conflict here. We had one person, or more, trying to sleep. While at the same time, the more important thing for someone else in the house was cartoons. So, I learned at a young age, and I am not sure how good I was at it, but if I wanted to get up and watch cartoons on Saturday morning, I had to be extremely quiet. The older I got, the easier it would be. But I can remember that when I was younger, I needed help. I would get up and go to the living room, turn on the tv, and watch my cartoons. You may be wondering what I needed help with. The biggest thing that I apparently needed help with was the volume on the tv, because my dad would get up to come and turn the volume down for me. The older I got, the less I needed help. But the younger, the more you rely on someone else.

I am going to leave that hanging and come back to it in a minute while we look at our last piece of the passage, which is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ

If we tried to make the children the center point of this passage, we would be wrong. Because it is Jesus. Without Christ, we would not have this passage. He is the one who attracts, he is the one who teaches, he is the one who blesses the children. So let’s put him in the center of this story where he is supposed to be. I want to look at the entire passage while we look at him.

Mark 10:13–16 ESV

13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

In our passage, the parents brought the children, and the disciples rebuked them. It says that Jesus was indignant. This word means to show anger. This word was not a typo in the bible nor was it misused. Maybe your bible says that he was much displeased. I think that this carries the same message. Jesus was not happy with how his disciples were acting. And that is because Jesus understood the value of children.

He even says that for the little children, they belong in the kingdom of God. This is how important they are. He even picks them up and blesses them by laying his hands on them. He is showing his disciples how important children are to the kingdom of God.

I fully believe that we see how important children are to the kingdom of God here at Immanuel Baptist. We love children and want to focus on them to help them grow in their faith. An old statistic, and I am sure that it is much worse now, said that at the age of 18, the church loses 70% of children. They leave and don’t come back. I am sure the statistic is much worse today even.

What lengths will we go to so that this statistic does not happen in our church? Many of you may even have children or grandchildren that were once part of the church. And I said that statistic and you thought of them because they were one who left the church and never came back. Let us end this statistic. Let us raise up children within our church who only leave our church when God calls them somewhere else like the mission field. We have a good population of young children in our church. As we grow in numbers, this will grow in numbers. And as we grow, it becomes more and more important that we are doing what we need to do so that these children are growing disciples of Jesus Christ.

I am going to give us an action application for this and then I am going to bring this whole passage together for a heart application.

Action - the action application would be how can we physically apply this to our lives. Today, we have a great need for people to disciple our children. Becky has poured a lot of herself into this area along with my wife. And as the children get older, Peyton and Lucy are pouring into those children. But we need more people that will commit to discipling our children. As we grow, our need will grow. Right now, Becky needs help with the kindergarten age group. We have nursery aged children who need people to hold them and rock them and sing hymns to them and tell them the truths of the gospel even when they can’t speak. We have older kids who need closer discipling. If you have raised a teenager, you know how much it would benefit them to have someone who is not their parent to meet with them once a week and take them to get ice cream and talk about life. We need people who will do things like this. We need people who are intentionally discipling the next generation because if we don’t, the world will. And that 70% goes up to 100%. Are you willing to serve in this area? And men, don’t let the women out do you on this one. Children need to see men who are passionate about Jesus too and are willing to sacrifice time to disciple them too. So this is a call to everyone. We need you, the children need you. So what I want you to do is to take out your bulletin and write down on it where you are willing to help out. Or come and see me or Becky after the service.

Heart - This is what we take from the message and we dwell on it for the week. I said earlier that the children were fully dependent on someone else to take care of them. In verse 15, Jesus gives us a picture of how we are to be. Mark 10:15 “15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”” Jesus is clear here, if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you must receive it like a child. Some may call this a child like faith. In our context, I would call it a child like dependence. See, with Christ, if you are not fully dependent on him for your salvation, then you will never have salvation. Because if you think you can do it on your own, even just a little bit, then it won’t be faith in Christ, but faith in your own ability.

Christianity is not faith in Jesus plus other things. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Just like children are fully dependent on parents, we need to be fully dependent on Christ for our salvation. He is the author of our salvation and he is the sustainer of our salvation. He continues to hold our salvation for us. And this is because we cannot do that for ourselves.

Maybe you are here today and you have struggled with that. You have tried and tried and tried to hold on to control of your life. The call that Jesus gives us is to have child like dependence upon him. Surrender yourself to him and be dependent upon him. If this is you and you have finally given Jesus rule and reign in your life, I want you to let me know.

If you are someone who has been a believer for any amount of time, when you read this passage and hear this sermon, it should bring up joy in your life. That you are a child in the kingdom of God. Not because of anything that you have done, but because you knew you couldn’t do it on your own and Jesus is the one who takes care of you. This is why we must have a childlike picture of the gospel.