Childlike
Notes
Transcript
Good morning
Does anyone know the biggest cause of dry skin?
Towels
I am so glad that all that cold weather is gone!!
Continue to pray for those that are sick.
Misty had a successful surgery and she is healing.
We didn’t have a lot of people for the work day, but those that did show up, we got a lot done. Thank you to those that showed up.
Next week starts our Edna McMillan offering. Please be praying about how God wants you to give. All month of March we will be taking special offerings for our state missions. Next week we will have a week of prayer for them.
Today we will be in Mark 10:13-16.
Last week we saw what Jesus had to say about divorce. We saw that God hates divorce. We talked about how bad divorce is and that it effects almost all of us. We also talked about how divorce is not the unpardonable sin. That does not mean that it is ok, it just means that God does forgive those who have caused the divorce. We have made it to easy to get a divorce here in the US with the no fault divorce. We are like the Rabbi’s who taught that you could divorce your wife for whatever reason you wanted.
Today we are going to look at Jesus and children. Once again Jesus uses children as the center of His teaching. You can not read about the life of Jesus and not understand that children are important. We saw a couple of weeks ago that Jesus taught about how bad it is to cause a child to sin. He was frequently healing and blessing the children that were brought to him. Jesus loves children. Let’s see what He has for us today.
Please stand as we read God’s word.
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.
Pray
The Jews looked on children as a blessing. We can see that in several stories in the Bible. Sarah, Rebekah both were troubled when they could not have children. They were looked down upon in their barrenness. It wasn’t until they were older that they were thought to have value. When they could start working on the farm or a family business, that is when they became valuable. For a woman to be without a child, that brought sorrow and disgrace to her and the family.
It was a custom for the parents to bring their children to the rabbis for a blessing. It makes since that they would bring their children to Jesus for the same reason. These children were younger in age, from infants to around 3-4 years old. That is what the Greek word used for children is referring to a younger child. These would have been small children.
As they were bringing them the disciples were rebuking them. This is a harsh reprimand. They were getting on to the parents for bothering Jesus with their children. They must not have been listening to what Jesus had been teaching them in the last few weeks and months. They were a slow lot. I think that they truly thought they were helping Jesus by protecting His time and His energy. They saw how busy Jesus always was and what it took out of Him to teach the crowds and all the healings that He was doing. They got to see first hand how tired Jesus would get. They thought they were doing him a favor. They did not consider the children to be important. Their attitude was strange because Jesus had clearly taught to receive the children in His name and to be extremely careful not to cause one to stumble. They had short term memory issues. They had already forgotten what Jesus had taught them. This probably caught the parents off guard and caused some confusion.
When Jesus saw what they were doing, it says that He got indignant. Again we have another word with a strong meaning. Jesus wasn’t just agitated with them, He was upset with them. Indignant means expressing strong displeasure at something considered unjust, offensive, insulting. I’m sure that this reaction from Jesus caught the disciples off guard. Here they thought they were helping Jesus and He rips into them. They should have known better. Jesus loves the children. He said to let the children come to Him, don’t stop them. He wanted to bless them and to hold the little ones. We serve a compassionate King.
Then He tells them that the children are better kingdom examples than the adults were. We tell the children to act like adults, but Jesus just told the adults to act like children. So what does it mean to be child like in our faith. How are children an example for us to model?
In their humble dependence on others.
Their receptivity.
Their acceptance of themselves and their position in life.
Jesus was speaking about the unspoiled child here. He was not talking about a child who was trying to be like an adult.
A child enjoys much but can explain very little. It doesn’t take much to make a little child happy. Just give them a big box and they can be entertained for hours. But they could not tell you why they liked it, they just do. Little children live by faith. They have to, they can not take care of themselves. They have to depend on others to provide for them. By faith they accept their lot. All a little child really needs to be happy is love. They don’t need a lot of money, toys, TV time. They just need love. We can see true faith when we step back and watch little children. They can contribute nothing to their little worlds, yet they are truly happy and they accept who and where they are. The little children are extremely trusting of others. They need the other people to take care of them and they are ok with that. It isn’t until they get older that they think that they don’t need anyone.
We can learn a lot from watching the little children.
We enter into God’s kingdom by faith, like little children. We don’t understand but we accept it. We did nothing to get their, we just believed. Just like the little children, we are helpless to save ourselves, totally dependent on the mercy and grace of God. We enjoy God’s kingdom by faith, we believe that the father loves us and will take care of our daily needs.
What does a child do if they are hurt or have a problem? They take it to their mother of father. What an example that they are setting for us to follow in our relationship with our heavenly Father. We to often don’t take our hurts and problems to our father. We try and handle them ourselves. God wants us to bring them to Him. Yes, He already knows about them, but so do many of our mothers and fathers already know of our troubles and hurts, and they still want us to bring them to them. God wants to have a father child relationship with us. He wants us to have faith in Him and to bring everything to Him. Just like the little children do with their parents.
Yes, God wants us to be like childlike, but not childish! There is a huge difference in those two. Childish is the bad side of being immature. Throwing tantrums and demanding your own way. Those are not good things. Any parent can tell you that!
If we are to enter into the kingdom of God, we must be like the little children. We must have their faith and dependence.
If you have the chance to watch a little child, do it. Take notice of how they act. They have no control over what goes on around them and they are ok with it. They can’t do anything for themselves. They need others and they are ok with it. They can’t explain how anything works or why it works and they are ok with it. They take all their troubles and pains to their parents, they enjoy telling them everything. This is what God wants from us. Our faith must be like that of a child. We can’t do anything to save ourselves, we can’t explain God or His ways, we need to take everything to Him in prayer.
When we leave this place today, I pray that we leave more childlike and not childish!
Let’s pray.
