Sermons

When we think about children, we usually think of them in terms of their naivety and their dependence upon adults to survive and thrive in the world. But adults have much to learn from children, and in particular, Christians have much to learn from the simplistic, humble, receptive nature of childlike faith. Watch this sermon as we consider what Jesus has to teach us through his interactions with children.

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  I'd like to begin today by giving you a thought. Some people might suggest that we live in a post-Christian world, and they see that as a negative because it means that more people are turning away from the Christian faith. We're losing Christian values. That may be happening for the first time in places that had once been strongholds for Christian faith, like the Bible Belt. That's why stories like this end up in the headlines.

  On the other hand, I'd like to suggest that in certain pockets, it may be possible that we're moving into a post-secular world rather than a post-Christian world. This is more subtle. It’s a little bit more difficult to detect, and therefore you probably won't read about it in the news. But I see it happening in places like New York and California, and perhaps even within some of our elite universities. In some of these places people have already undergone a secularizing phase, and they're coming out on the other side, which makes Christianity something of a curiosity again. In that context, many people may find that the other options that they had pursued in order to try to create a meaningful life didn't pan out the way that they thought, so as a result, they're open to something new. I see this, therefore, as a positive. Rather than hostility or indifference toward the Christian faith, there is a new openness toward spirituality. Against that backdrop, we may find that the person of Jesus is strangely compelling and attractive.

  For that reason, this summer we're engaging in a series in which we are going to take a fresh look at Jesus through the eyes of the people who met him. Already we have considered Jesus’ encounter with an unnamed man at the Pool of Bethesda in John 5. We've considered Jesus' meeting with a centurion in Matthew 8. This morning, I'd like us to focus on Jesus' meeting not with a single individual but with an unlikely group — a group of children. Let's look at Jesus' encounter with little children, and as we do, let’s see what Jesus has to teach us about 1) the status of children, 2) the value of children, and 3) the model of children.

  Matthew 18:1-6

  ¹At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” ²And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them ³and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

  ⁵“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, ⁶but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

  Matthew 19:13-15

  ¹³Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, ¹⁴but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” ¹⁵And he laid his hands on them and went away.

  The Status Of Children

  First, I'd like us to consider the status of children. In the first passage from Matthew 18, Jesus' disciples come up to Jesus and ask, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” That should strike you as a little bit odd. Who are these guys? Who asks a question like that? “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” But upon reflection, maybe it isn't as strange as it seems. That disciples know that status and position are the way in which the world works within human society. But what about God's society? If Jesus is ushering in the kingdom of God, if he's bringing about his administration, who's going to end up on top? That's what they want to know.

  Jesus makes clear that when God brings heaven to bear on Earth, the future world that God has promised, will not be determined by survival of the fittest. It will not be the strongest, the fastest, the proudest, the angriest, the loudest who get ahead of everyone else. But there are more surprises here than that. “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” You might expect Jesus to say, the righteous, the pure, the good, those who do good to others, the prayerful, the knowledgeable, those who really know their Bible.

  But that's not what Jesus says. Instead, in response to the question, he engages in a dramatic action. He summons a child to himself, and he places that child in the midst of the crowd. The Greek doesn't actually tell us if it was a boy or a girl — it could have been either — but just picture the scene in your mind. Here's a young child standing in the midst of a large crowd of adults. I imagine that young child would have been a little timid, shy, nervous, unsure of him or herself. Then Jesus says, forget about greatness. You won't even enter the kingdom of heaven unless you completely turn your life around and become like this little child. As long as you're focused on becoming something great, you're headed on the exact wrong track.

  But the question is: Why did Jesus select a child? What's the significance of a child? It's easy for us today to romanticize children. We might assume that Jesus is highlighting a child because of their perceived purity and innocence, or their creativity and imagination, or their openness and optimism. But you have to realize those are completely modern ways of thinking about children. That's not an ancient conception of a child at all.

  The reason why Jesus singles out a child is because they had absolutely no status. Children had no status in the first century. They were of no importance. Children were not doted upon. They were not spoiled. They were not coddled. They simply were not valued. Especially given the mortality rates in an agrarian society, children were not prized until they actually survived childhood and had something to contribute to the family. Children were looked after; they were not looked up to. Jesus singles out a child because he's saying, you could never even enter the kingdom of heaven unless you become like a child. Why is that?

  Jesus shows us that the kingdom of God turns the values of our world upside down. He completely reverses our conception of social status. Greatness doesn't come through status and power but rather through humility and self-forgetfulness. In the kingdom of God, you don't achieve greatness through what you do, but rather you receive greatness simply through your relationship to Jesus. That's all that matters. Status is irrelevant. The only status that matters in the kingdom of heaven is your proximity to Jesus — the degree to which you depend upon him like a young, helpless, vulnerable child.

  Why is a child a picture of humility? I don't exactly know, but I'd like to make a guess. C.S. Lewis once said that humility is not thinking less of oneself but it is thinking about oneself less. Here's the thing about children: Children don't tend to belittle themselves. They don't imagine that they're smaller than they actually are. They don't pretend with false humility. They don't belittle themselves. They don't assume that they're smaller than they are, and yet they know that they are small in comparison to adults. Humility is simply knowing how small we are before God. Part of our problem in our modern world is that we've lost a sense of the greatness of God, and therefore we don't remember how little we are in comparison to him. We've forgotten the lines that we were taught to sing: “Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong.” The humble are those who know that they are weak in themselves and yet strong in God, because they depend upon him, they rely upon him for everything.

  We tend to think that humility and weakness are nothing but things to be ashamed of, but Jesus suggests that humility is all that counts within the kingdom, because pride and arrogance destroy human lives — one's own life as well as the lives of others. But Jesus isn't just using children as an illustration of humility. No, he cares deeply about children. He's concerned for children.

  The Value Of Children

  Let's turn from the status of children to the value of children in Jesus' eyes. In the second passage from Matthew 19, people start bringing children to Jesus so that he might bless them. This was a common practice in the first century, especially given those high mortality rates. Many people would bring their children to a respected leader or an elder so that person might pray for them and bless their child, protect their child. But the disciples thought that this was inappropriate when it came to Jesus, so they tried to block the parents. They rebuked these parents verbally, and they barred them from approaching Jesus physically. Why? Because they think that Jesus is a VIP, and Jesus is too important. He's too busy to be bothered with children. Children, in their view, were nothing but a nuisance.

  Do you realize that this is one of the few places where Jesus gets really frustrated with his disciples? He becomes irate, and he rebukes them in return. “Let the little children come to me … for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, he's saying that the kingdom of God belongs to children as much as it belongs to anyone else. In the first century, children had no status. They possessed no intrinsic value in the eyes of others. But with one stroke, Jesus elevates their position. The kingdom of God belongs to them as much as it belongs to anyone. And that is why we were so glad that we could host 100 children here for Vacation Bible School this week.

  Jesus doesn't just lift up children as a living example of humility, however; he values them as children. That's precisely because they are so little. And precisely because they are so little and weak and vulnerable, they need to be protected. That is why Jesus issues perhaps one of the severest warnings that you will ever read in all of Scripture in Matthew 18:6. A millstone was a large circular stone with the center cut out, and it was used to grind corn. The largest of these stones had to be pulled by a donkey. This is hardly the kind of thing that you would wear as a necklace. So Jesus is using overly dramatic language here. There would be far easier ways to drown someone, if that's what you wanted to do. But Jesus warns us that it would be far better to be drowned far off in the sea with a millstone fastened around your neck before ever leading a little child astray, either through false teaching or through false living. If only church leaders in recent decades had taken these words of Jesus more seriously.

  Let me show you something else. In Luke's account of the blessing of the children, Luke emphasizes that people are not just bringing children to Jesus. Luke says they were bringing even infants to Jesus. What's the significance of that? Luke, you may know, was a medical doctor. Luke, therefore, was well acquainted with the Greco Roman practice of infanticide. Unwanted babies — especially young girls — were often abandoned, left to die of exposure or to be eaten by animals. Until Jesus arrived on the scene, this practice was legal, morally accepted, and practiced by every social class. But inspired by Jesus, the earliest Christians began scouring the hillsides, looking for those abandoned babies in order to adopt them as their own. Eventually the early Christians became so famous for their care for children that people began leaving babies on the steps of monasteries and churches rather than on garbage heaps. It's the same thing that inspires us as a church to come alongside our ministry partners — like Safe Families For Children and Avail — because we want to be able to say that we're doing everything we can to ensure that there really are no unwanted children in New York City. Because we'll do whatever we can, as the Church in New York, to care for them.

  Jesus was shockingly countercultural because of the value that he placed on children. We live in a city where children are often supposed to be seen but not heard. But this is a church where children are supposed to be both seen and heard, because they're not second-class citizens. The kingdom belongs to them as much as it belongs to everyone. The children are valuable, not only because they represent the future. No, they’re vital participants within the life of the church now. Thanks to our amazing staff, thanks to the leadership of Leila Bragg and our volunteers and our parents, we're building an inspiring community of faith among our children and among our youth. But we need your help.

  I wonder if you've ever heard of the book “Sticky Faith.” According to certain studies, roughly 50% of involved Christian students walk away from the church after they graduate high school. That is why Fuller Youth Institute conducted its College Transition Project, studying over 500 Christian high school seniors from across the country during their first three years in college. They published their findings in a book entitled “Sticky Faith.” They uncovered three main shifts that need to take place in order to help young people develop a faith that sticks:

  1) Shift from a behavior-based gospel to a grace-based gospel. When asked to describe what it meant to be a Christian, many of the students in the study pointed to a list of behaviors. They believed God would like them better if they behaved well. This type of faith is analogous to a jacket; it can be put on and taken off, but it doesn’t change what’s on the inside.

  2) Shift from separating teenagers from the rest of the church to integrating them into the overall life of the church. The research shows a strong connection between intergenerational worship and relationships and a mature, lifelong faith. One of the best ways to integrate children and youth into the overall life of the church is by simply knowing their names. That’s one of the most statistically significant things that determines whether or not a child who grows up in the church will develop a lifelong faith: whether adults in the congregation know them by name. And let me add: It doesn’t count if the pastor knows their name. That is not statistically significant. It doesn’t matter if the pastor knows their name; you have to know their name!

  3) Shift from a “dry-cleaner” view of parenting to parents taking the lead in the spiritual formation of their children in partnership with others. What do they mean by a dry-cleaner parent? Dry-cleaner parents drop their kids off at youth group or other Christian programming expecting to pick them up afterwards all clean and pressed. In other words, they’ve learned to outsource their kids’ spiritual development.

  But here at Central we value children for their intrinsic value to Jesus. We want to do everything that we can through the resources that have been entrusted to us through the relationships that we can cultivate in order to ensure that our children and our youth develop a sticky faith — a faith that sticks.

  The Model Of Children

  The fact is Jesus affirmed the status and the value of children like no one before or since. But that's not all. Jesus also lifted up children as a model of faith for all of us. Children show us what it means to be a Christian. But why is that? When Jesus said, “unless you turn your entire life around and become like a child, you'll never be able to enter the kingdom,” and “to such belongs the kingdom of God,” what did Jesus mean? Jesus was not suggesting that we should become childish. That's not how children are a model of faith. We're not supposed to become childish. He's not telling us to be immature or naive or gullible.

  The apostle Paul warns us against childishness. You may recall 1 Corinthians 13:11, where Paul says “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” He goes on in 1 Corinthians 14:20 to say, “do not be children in your thinking … in your thinking be mature.” We're supposed to grow up into maturity in order to reach the stature of the fullness of Christ. So what is Jesus calling us to? He's not calling us to be childish but to be childlike.

  What, therefore, is childlike faith? Here's the answer. The default mode of every human heart is self-salvation. We assume that if we want to win God's favor, his acceptance, his blessing, if we want God to take us to heaven when we die, if we want to attain happiness, if we want to experience the good life, then it's all up to us and what we do. It's all based on our accomplishments, our attainments. But Jesus is saying no, the kingdom of God is not something that you could ever earn or achieve or win; it's something that you can only receive as a free gift of his grace — or you can't receive it at all. If that's true, then children have a distinct advantage over most of us adults. You know why that is? Because children love to receive gifts. Have you ever gone up to a child and offered a gift and he or she didn't want it? Could you ever imagine saying to a child, “Would you like a present?” and they say, “Nah.” Every child loves a gift. Every child is ready to receive. They allow themselves to be given things.

  But that's not always true of adults. We don't always want to receive things from others. We don't want to be indebted to others because of what they've given to us, because of our misplaced pride. Therefore, children, unlike the rest of us, are in a better position to receive the kingdom because they're under no illusions. They know that they don't have anything to offer God. What can they possibly offer God? They know how small they are before God. That seeming incapacity actually turns out to be their greatest strength because children know that they have nothing to give, nothing to offer, nothing to show, nothing to prove. All they have to do is simply receive what God gives, and what God gives is himself. They can simply accept and appreciate relationship with Jesus, proximity to Jesus that they've done nothing to deserve. It's that childlike trust and dependence that Jesus is seeking to cultivate in all of our hearts. Can we humble ourselves like a child and simply receive what he has to give freely? That's how you shift from a behavior-based gospel to a grace-based gospel. If greatness in the kingdom comes simply through relationship with Jesus and proximity to Jesus, then that means that even a child can lead us.

  Let me give you one example of how. In 1960, Robert Coles was a 31-year-old psychiatrist who spent two years serving in the Air Force in Biloxi, Mississippi. He was eager to return to his native Boston in order to continue his career as a child psychiatrist. But before returning home, he decided to take a detour to New Orleans because he was curious about how the threats and the violence against the Civil Rights Movement was affecting the emotional health of children, specifically in the African American community. He drove by William Frantz Elementary School one morning during desegregation and watched as young 6-year-old Ruby Bridges approached the school with her bodyguards and made her way through a screaming mob of 200 people. He was so impressed with her quiet dignity and her resilient courage that he resolved to interview her parents, her teachers, and Ruby herself. Her teachers marveled at how well Ruby seemed to hold up under the pressure, but being a skeptical psychiatrist, Coles had his doubts. He said, “No, not all is as it seems. Ruby appears to be strong, but eventually, she'll crack. She's probably in denial, or she's hiding behind some kind of defense mechanism. But give it a little more time, and she will show all the signs of psychological wear and tear.” Coles knew that Ruby and her family attended church every Sunday, and Ruby's parents said that their faith sustained them through this whole ordeal, even though they received death threats and her father lost his job. But Coles was dismissive and cynical about people — especially children — who talked about God or who derived their views of right and wrong from the Scriptures. Instead he tried to fit everything into the psychological categories in which he had been trained. But then something happened one day that forever changed Coles’ life.

  On one particular day, one of the teachers at the school was watching through a classroom window, as Ruby approached the school with those federal marshals. As she made her way through the crowd, a woman spit at Ruby, but missed. Ruby turned to her and smiled. A man shook his fist at Ruby, and she turned toward him and smiled as well. Then when she got to the top of the steps outside of the school, she turned around and faced the crowd. She smiled once more, and then one of the teachers noticed her lips moving. Coles was intrigued to find out, what was it that she said? Then this is what he later reported.

  “I said, ‘Ruby, your teacher told me today that she saw you talking to those people in the street.’ She said to me, ‘Doctor, I told her that I wasn’t talking to the people.’

  I said, ‘Well, who were you talking to, Ruby.’

  She said: ‘I told her I was talking to God. — ‘Why were you praying to God?’

  She said, ‘I was praying for the people in the street.’ — I said, ‘Why were you doing that, Ruby?’ ‘Because I wanted to pray for them.’ — ‘Ruby, why would you want to pray for those people?’

  She looked at me, and her eyes widened, and she said, ‘Don’t you think they need praying for?’

  That stopped me cold. ‘Where did you get that idea, Ruby?’

  ‘Well, my mommy and daddy have told me that, and the minister told me that at church. I pray for them every morning, and I pray for them every afternoon when I go home.’

  Then I said, ‘Ruby, those people are so mean to you and they are so nasty to you, you must have some other feelings toward them besides wanting to pray for them.’

  She said, ‘I just keep praying for them. And I just hope that God will be good to them.’

  ‘What do you say in the prayer, Ruby?’ – ‘I always say the same thing.’ – ‘What’s that, Ruby?’

  I always say, ‘Please, dear God, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing.’ Now I had heard that someplace before. And I heard it in that kitchen, in that extremely impoverished house, and it silenced me.”

  “Please, dear God, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing.” I've heard that someplace before too, and we can hear it again at this table. As we do, perhaps we will learn afresh that unless we turn everything around and become like a little child, we’ll never even enter the kingdom of heaven. But whoever humbles himself or herself like a child is the greatest in the kingdom.

  Let's pray.

  Father, we thank you for the ways in which Jesus elevates the status of children, deepens their value, and lifts them up as a model for us all. Father, we pray that you would stir within us a childlike trust in you that simply wants to receive from you, to be close to you, to enjoy proximity to you, so that we might become more like you. We pray, Father, that this would be a church that so values the children that we not only seek to lead and instruct them, but we pray that you would use them to lead and instruct us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.