Jesus and the Children

Luke 18:15-17

INTRODUCTION

Luke 18:15-17: Now they were bringing even infants to Jesus that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Look at this from the disciples’ point of view.

Jesus was a busy man.

Important people have important things to do, and children are not that important.

In their minds they were doing Jesus a favor by shooing away these parents with their little ones.

Jesus surely had more important things to do than having children crawl into his lap or standing around him and holding his hand.

Jesus had people to teach, sick people to heal, disciples to train.

Now look at the scene from Jesus’s point of view.

Jesus always had time for the least important people—widows, and beggars, and tax collectors, and Samaritans, and poor prostitutes.

And Jesus had time for children, too, because children were important to him.

St. Francis of Assisi was a great saint, but he was a humble man. One day he had a very busy day ahead of him, and he gave orders to his attendants that he must on no account be disturbed. If anyone came desiring to see him, that one must be sent away. But after giving these strict orders, he paused and said, “But if a child should come—let him or her in.”

Now look at this scene from the point of view of  the parents of these little children.

Did you know that in those days about 1/3 of children died within the first year?

By their sixteenth year 2/3 of the children born would be dead.

Sometimes a mother would give birth to many children and few or none would survive to care for her in her old age.

Life was very fragile, and children were precious.

It’s not surprising that when parents heard about this miracle-worker, who could heal lepers, make the blind to see and the lame to walk, they might take their little ones to him to be prayed for and blessed.

Remember the picture in your Bible story book. The children are gathered around, touching Jesus, holding his hands, sitting in his lap.

I suppose that for the older ones, it was an experience they never forgot.

I also believe that God heard Jesus’s prayers and blessed those children and their parents for bringing them to him.

I. It is a good thing to bring our children to Jesus.

A. Some of you had children of your own. I think that you did what you could to bring them to Jesus.

Some of us have had another opportunity with our grandchildren to help them come to Jesus.

Some who have no children of their own but you taught others—in school or in Sunday school.

Some of you who had no children of your own were important in the lives of nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and grand-nephews.

There was a sweet lady who lived at Village Ridge and always came to our services. Evie had given birth to two children and both had died in infancy.

But Evie had a heart full of love.

She told me that at church, a little boy always came to sit with her and keep her company during the service.

I met a woman named Esther in a nursing home. Esther had no children, but she taught Sunday school for many years.

And when they graduated from her Sunday school class, she kept in touch with them—sometimes for the rest of their lives. Who can tell how important Esther was in bringing those little ones to Jesus?

B. We have many ways to bring our children to Jesus

We bring our children to Jesus by showing them with our lives what it means to love others and to love God.

We bring them to Jesus by reading Bible stories to them and by taking them to church.

We bring them to Jesus by praying with them and for them.

We bring them to Jesus by taking them to church.

We bring our children to Jesus by encouraging them when we see something good in their lives.

But now our children and even our grandchildren are grown up. What can we do?

We can let them know we love them with cards and notes of encouragement and little gifts.

We can do the most important thing of all. We can pray for them.

We can let them know in little, quiet ways that we love Jesus and that we trust him.

II. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all preserved this story because Jesus used this occasion to teach one of the most important lessons for life.

A. Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you…”

My Bible says “Truly I say to you…” But the word that the gospel writers use is the word that Jesus actually spoke in his own language, which is “Amen.”

We say “amen” at the end of our prayers to strengthen them and confirm them.

Jesus said “amen” at the beginning of especially important statements to label them as certain and reliable. He stood by them and made them binding on himself and his hearers. The amen was an expression of Jesus’ majesty and authority. (Dictionary of New Testament Theology).

B. Jesus tells us that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.

Jesus never tells us to be childish. There are too many childish adults.

These are the qualities of children that open our lives to Jesus.

Children are weak, and they know they are weak.

Children are dependent. They know what they can’t do for themselves.

Have you ever seen a child jump into the arms of his father or mother. Little children are trusting.

Children are not embarrassed to receive gifts, and salvation is a gift.

Little children are eager to learn. Look at a little baby as it looks around—listening and learning and trying to talk. You can almost see the sparks flying between the synapses in their little brains as they are making connections. Little children find the world full of wonder as they explore the world and learn new things. I remember taking walks with my little granddaughter. We would stop every few minutes to look at bugs, or pick flowers, or to pick up rocks. We would get back home with my pocket full of rocks to interesting to leave behind.

We are ready to come to Jesus when we know we are weak, and dependent, and trusting, and ready to receive God’s gift, and ready to jump into the arms of our Father who loves us.

C. One of the outstanding things about the Gospel of Luke is the prominence of insignificant people. In Luke we see Jesus responding to poor people such as the widow of Nain and the woman with the flow of blood. We see Jesus’s kindness to lepers, to tax collectors, to Samaritans, to lepers, to widows, to prostitutes…and now children are added to this unlikely list.

CONCLUSION

Someone said, “I used to think that God’s gifts were on shelves, and that the best gifts were on the higher shelves. So as we grow we can reach the gifts on higher and higher shelves.

But I learned that the best gifts are on the lowest shelves. So as we grow in grace we learn that the best gifts are on the lowest shelves, and only as we humble ourselves and become lower and lower in our own eyes. When we become low in our own eyes, we can reach the best gifts.

Because the way up in the kingdom of God is the way down.

No matter how old we become on the outside, we need to keep that little child inside and never lose that humble, trusting, wondering spirit of a little child.

A quote from C. S. Lewis: “When little boys and girls grow bigger and older they should grow from the outside, leaving a little boy or girl in the middle…But some unlucky people grow older from the inside and so grow old through and through.”

Even as we grow experienced in the things of God, we must never lose that childlike trust and dependence on God, and our need for the gift of grace.

We must never forget that in ourselves we are insignificant; it is only as children of the Father that we are important.

And like Jesus we must always have time for the little ones, the needy ones, for anyone who is hurting and needs attention and encouragement.