The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
Psalm 42:11quoted before a song to illustrate choosing hope over discouragement
11 Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.
referenced as the source of the potter and clay verse used before the offering
1 Oh that you would tear the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence.
2 As when fire kindles the brushwood, and the fire causes the water to boil; Make your name known to your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at your presence!
3 When you did awesome things which we didn’t look for, you came down, and the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 For from of old men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides you, who works for him who waits for him.
5 You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, those who remember you in your ways. Behold, you were angry, and we sinned. We have been in sin for a long time. Shall we be saved?
6 For we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 There is no one who calls on your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have consumed us by means of our iniquities.
8 But now, Yahweh, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you our potter. We all are the work of your hand.
9 Don’t be furious, Yahweh, and don’t remember iniquity forever. Look and see, we beg you, we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, is burned with fire; and all our pleasant places are laid waste.
12 Will you hold yourself back for these things, Yahweh? Will you keep silent, and punish us very severely?
cited as the passage warning that stumbling blocks will come and woe to the one who causes a little one to sin
1 He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come!
2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.
3 Be careful. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.
4 If he sins against you seven times in the day, and seven times returns, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
6 The Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you would tell this sycamore tree, ‘Be uprooted, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
7 But who is there among you, having a servant plowing or keeping sheep, that will say, when he comes in from the field, ‘Come immediately and sit down at the table,’
8 and will not rather tell him, ‘Prepare my supper, clothe yourself properly, and serve me, while I eat and drink. Afterward you shall eat and drink’?
9 Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded? I think not.
10 Even so you also, when you have done all the things that are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants. We have done our duty.’”
11 As he was on his way to Jerusalem, he was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee.
12 As he entered into a certain village, ten men who were lepers met him, who stood at a distance.
13 They lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” As they went, they were cleansed.
15 One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice.
16 He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks; and he was a Samaritan.
17 Jesus answered, “Weren’t the ten cleansed? But where are the nine?
18 Were there none found who returned to give glory to God, except this stranger?”
19 Then he said to him, “Get up, and go your way. Your faith has healed you.”
20 Being asked by the Pharisees when God’s Kingdom would come, he answered them, “God’s Kingdom doesn’t come with observation;
21 neither will they say, ‘Look, here!’ or, ‘Look, there!’ for behold, God’s Kingdom is within you.”
22 He said to the disciples, “The days will come, when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.
23 They will tell you, ‘Look, here!’ or ‘Look, there!’ Don’t go away, nor follow after them,
24 for as the lightning, when it flashes out of the one part under the sky, shines to the other part under the sky; so will the Son of Man be in his day.
25 But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
26 As it was in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man.
27 They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ship, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
28 Likewise, even as it was in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built;
29 but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all.
30 It will be the same way in the day that the Son of Man is revealed.
31 In that day, he who will be on the housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away. Let him who is in the field likewise not turn back.
32 Remember Lot’s wife!
33 Whoever seeks to save his life loses it, but whoever loses his life preserves it.
34 I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. The one will be taken, and the other will be left.
35 There will be two grinding grain together. One will be taken, and the other will be left.”
37 They, answering, asked him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the body is, there will the vultures also be gathered together.”
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Pastor Ray McDaniel preached through the passage known as "Suffer the Little Children," drawing from Matthew, Mark, and Luke together as part of the ongoing Harmony of the Gospels study. The sermon looked at how Jesus responded when his own disciples tried to keep children away from him, and what that means for how the church treats children today. It landed right in the middle of a morning that had already welcomed a new children's ministry coordinator and celebrated the launch of Awana.
What was said
The old King James phrase "suffer the children" simply means to permit or allow them, and that word for "allow" turns out to be the same word used elsewhere for releasing or forgiving a debt. Pastor Ray walked through how Matthew, Mark, and Luke each add something to the scene: Matthew names the children, Mark specifies that people were bringing them to be touched, and Luke adds that they were even bringing babies. The parents were doing the bringing. The children had no choice in the matter; they went where they were taken.
What stops the moment cold is that it is the disciples, not the Pharisees, who rebuke the parents and push the children back. Pastor Ray noted that the Bible has a way of making you uncomfortable precisely because the ones getting it wrong are not the obvious villains. These are Jesus' closest followers, people who had been with him for three years, and they still did not understand.
Mark records that when Jesus saw what was happening, he was indignant. Pastor Ray spent time on that word and on the other moments in the Gospels where Jesus is described as angry: when people's access to God is blocked in the temple court, when religious rules are used as a reason to refuse help to a man with a shriveled hand, when the hardness of the human heart is on display, and at the tomb of Lazarus, where B.B. Warfield's reading was that Jesus' rage was directed at death itself and at the one who holds its power.
The point Pastor Ray drew from that list is that hindering people, and especially children, from coming to Jesus puts you in the same company as the money changers in the temple. He was direct that this is not a problem caused by outside institutions. Parents and church members on any side of any cultural argument can block a child's path to Christ, and the place to start is with an honest look at your own walk.
Jesus responds by calling the children to himself and telling the disciples to release them and stop forbidding them. The word is doubled for emphasis: let them come, and do not stop them. Then he makes a claim that cuts both ways. The kingdom of God belongs to such as these, and whoever does not receive it like a child will not enter it at all. The posture of a child, trusting what has been done for them rather than what they have done, is the only posture that works.
Pastor Ray brought in a Barna-based statistic showing that roughly 85 percent of people who come to faith in Christ do so between ages four and fourteen, with another 10 percent in their teens, meaning 95 percent come before age 30. He connected that to his own story, remembering a Sunday school teacher named Zany Bennett who first made John 3:16 register for him, and a church camp where a sermon he can no longer recall still landed in his heart. He trusted Christ at eleven. He also told of praying with a ninety-year-old man who described himself as a contented agnostic for most of his life but said on his deathbed that he was not nearly as content with not knowing as he once was.
The sermon closed with a practical note. Jesus took the children in his arms, blessed them, and moved on. The kids received the blessing. The disciples received the admonition not to get in the way. Pastor Ray made that concrete: someone slapping a hat off a child's head in the lobby is the same impulse as the disciples rebuking the parents, and it pushes children away from the very place they need to be. The goal is to be the kind of people who make access to Jesus easier, not harder.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Ray said his family's motto is that their biggest contribution to the kingdom of God isn't what they do but who they raise. What does that idea stir up in you, whether you are a parent or not?
Pastor Ray pointed out that it was the disciples, not the Pharisees, who were turning children away from Jesus. Why do you think that detail matters, and where might we be doing the same thing without realizing it?
Alright. Good morning, everybody. How are doing? It is very good to see you on this beautiful, beautiful morning. Glad you're here to worship with us.
And would you stand, and we'll begin by singing the Lord's prayer. Father, let your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven right here in our hearts. That's our prayer, our song.
I'm gonna we'll see what the announcements are together. How about that? Out there on the board, as you're walking out the front doors out there, on the right there is a Bible study board. Check it out in the lobby. You can find a study, contact a leader and connect to it.
We had so many of them last week that I just said, go look out there. Alright. That's great. There are a lot of studies going on right now. It's early enough in the fall that you can get in on the front side of it.
Please go back there and check it out. Lots of studies going on. The look up tour, with Will Graham is happening at the Mountain America Center, September twenty third and twenty fourth. Youth night is the twenty third, twenty fourth is for, folks of all ages. That's coming this month.
It's coming fast. So that's this next coming weekend. So if you want to know more about it or if you want to try to kind of carpool, we'll try to help, with that if we can. But you let us know how we can help, we'll try. Discovery class is happening also next Sunday, September 24 between services in my office.
It's the second door on the left on the way to the coffee the fellowship hall. If you go that way, it'll be, Gary Geek will be leading the discovery class. You can find out more about, First Be if you'd like to know more about us. Youth group is meeting. Middle schools are meeting on Sunday from three to five right down the Hall in the Fellowship Hall.
At least they're beginning there. They might spread out from there. And high school is meeting on Thursday evenings, 06:30 to 8PM at the TMC, the tribe ministry center on Broadway across from Whole Grocer and Carquest. So that is youth group, three to five on Sunday for middle school, 06:30 to eight for high school on Thursdays. Connect hour, we are needing volunteers for that.
If you would like to be a part of getting kind of a breakfast brunch snacky time ready in between services, we'd do that. Also, Monday nights are on pause, but we are starting Awana tomorrow night. Anything you wanna say about that?
Yeah. So tomorrow is the kickoff for for Awana. So 05:45, and we'll be right here in the front in the in the entryway there to check-in your kids. And if you have not enrolled your kids yet in Owana, there are brochures in the back. I'd like to be in the back there.
And there's a QR code and you can register them. But it's going to be a really good year
this Yes. We're excited. The volunteers met last week, and it's a group of enthusiastic volunteers that love kids that are looking forward to tomorrow night. Is there anything else? I know that there's one more.
If you want to sign up for a weekly church announcement emails so that you can find out what else is going on, you can do that at firstbjackson.org or just let us know and we will sign you up. But other than that, I wanna invite forward Ray Espinoza, Brittany Espinoza, and the Espinoza kiddos. And here they come. So Ray has Liz Owings has been our children's director volunteer coordinator for some time now, but Ray is taking that on. And we don't have a microphone for him up here, but we will soon.
It's on the way. I'll let you introduce yourself.
Good morning, everyone. We have a family motto and that is that our biggest contribution to the kingdom of God isn't gonna be what we do, but who we raise. And so when God started the process of bringing us to Jackson, you know, the most important thing for us was seeking out the best place for our boys. And so I really wanna start out by thanking pastor Carl, Mike D, Liz, Diane, Nick, and all the volunteers from the children's ministry. Your reputation and your faithfulness to this work led us here all the way from Texas.
We don't know if we could have made the jump without that. So thank you very much that everybody I'd like to just give you guys a round of applause. All you volunteers, thank you. You know, couple weeks ago, Brad Yates shared a passage about the parable of the talents, about being faithful and multiplying. And I know that one day because scripture says that, brethren, you know, I hope that very few of you wanna be teachers gonna be held to higher standard.
Well, with that in mind, I know that I'm gonna have to look God in the eye, and he's gonna ask me what I did with these kids. They're the talents that have been entrusted to us. And not just me, but my wife who knows the burden of serving in church because we've been doing this for years. But it doesn't just stop with the Espinosas and, yes, we're all in, especially Josiah. He is all in.
But this legacy of this church, Susie and Steve Bulldog. Susie was Britney's teacher in elementary school. She's been praying first for Britney since she was a baby. Susie and Steve Landis, who raised one of Britney's best friends. Sandy.
Oh, Sandy. Sorry. I'm a little nervous. You know, Dancing Dan Tolson, who I heard Dan share a beautiful story referencing the passage of scripture about the arrows in the quiver. So you see, this isn't just Ray stepping in the huge shoes I have to fill for Liz Owens.
I'm like I said, just wonderful. But you're getting this legacy, this generations of people that have been praying and now are gonna be bringing up your kids. And most of all and finally, because all the friends and a lot of you know, like pastor Ricky Emlen and some other pastors in town that we reached out to you before we came up, they said, Ray, make sure that they teach, honor, and love the Bible. So most of all, pastor Ray McDaniel, thank you for your faithfulness and your sincerity, and we knew the second we walked in, this was our home. So let's I'd like to do the Thank you everyone.
We're going to do our best.
Thank you, Ray. Hey, man. And you know what, I was feeling a little underdressed. I have it with me, all right. That's awesome.
Would you stand with us? I'm thankful for you, Ray. And, Britt, would you stand with us? We're gonna sing in Christ alone.
Can I share a psalm just in vain with that song? Right in line with it, it's Psalm forty two eleven. It says the psalmist says, why am I discouraged? You ever felt that way? You know, what is wrong with me?
What why'd I wake up today just feeling like this? And says, why is my my heart so sad? Why am I why am I feeling heavy? And then there's the turnaround. He goes, I I'm gonna put my my my hope in God, and I'm gonna praise him again, my savior and my God.
Really, we do have a choice in those times when we are feeling discouraged and heavy hearted. We have we've got a choice to put our trust in him. Let's keep singing.
Such an awesome God, so mighty, so holy, wonderful. Such an such an awesome God so so so wonderful Jesus, the son of God. Jesus the son of God. All on the cross to die. You're such an awesome God.
You're so mighty. You're so whole, so wonderful.
Amen. You can have a seat here for a moment. This is the worship through giving part of the the service. I'll invite the ushers to come on forward, and we're gonna sing. Canvas and Clay from Isaiah 64, maybe a familiar verse.
Isaiah humbly recognizes who God is and who we are in light of him, and he says, and yet, oh, Lord, you are our father, and we're the clay, and you're the potter. We're the work of your hand. Before we say, Ray,
would you pray? Sure. God, thank you. I'm in awe this morning. So grateful to be here, so grateful to be alive and breathing this fall air.
So grateful, Lord, overwhelmed by it even. You are so good. So, so good to us, Lord. I pray, Lord, that others would come to know how good you are. Lord, would you direct our steps in such a way that people would be in our pathway, that need to hear the word of the Lord, that need to hear your praise from our lips.
In Jesus' name, Lord, we ask that our words and our actions would affirm who you are and what you do in lives. God, I pray for this offering time right now that everything that is placed in these plates, whether it's physical, financial, whatever stuff, or if it's the agreement with you to spend our time in ways that matter with people. If it's a time in prayer to intercede on behalf of others. If it's a time to serve anybody, children, the elderly, the athletic, the young, the poor, the wealthy. Lord God, may we have a word, swelling in our hearts that overflows out of our mouths, giving you praise and honor and glory.
In Jesus' name, we ask you, Lord, that you would superintend, that you'd be all around us, that you would use us, Lord. You say that we are your poema. We are your masterpiece created in Christ Jesus for good works. Would you show us what they are and give us the power to accomplish them? In Jesus' name, we ask for your blessing on this offer, and do your will, Lord, among us and through us in your way.
Amen.
There's a healing light just beyond your clouds. I see
Amen. And it's time for children's church downstairs. And there they go. God, thank you. Thank you for the kids in the room.
Amen. Harmony of the Gospels. Here we are. We're back. Oh, yes.
Not yesterday, day before yesterday. Yesterday, I got to do a wedding, yesterday evening at Blacktail Ponds Overlook with a moose present. It was so nice. We needed an extra witness. It was great.
But this is the bride for the wedding yesterday. This was Friday morning at String Lake. What a beautiful place we live, right? I don't get up and get out of the house early and go places that are pretty as often as I need to. But String Lake at 07:00 in the morning, there it is so placid and so beautiful.
And so her fiance at the time, husband now led off and was baptized, and then she was baptized. And the photographer was somebody I married four years ago. And last week, there was a couple that was here that just kind of surprised me. They've been married for eight years. The next day, somebody came in that had been married for ten.
And I love weddings. Just love it. There's somebody here this morning that's getting married tomorrow. I love it because I think that it's God's institution, right? We say it at the beginning of service.
It's God's institution, and it's how He transmits His love and His truth to the most significant of human relationships, which is what produces. Right? And that family is so, so, so important. And I just love getting to be a part of that. And it's been overwhelming me this week.
I'm so thankful for that. We're back to a harmony study, a harmony of the gospels. This time, Luke has been speaking alone for the past few sermons, but here we are. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all speaking. And this is the passage, suffer the children.
Suffer the children. That's the old King James version of that, unless you're really, really a Shakespearean person. Suffer the children doesn't sound like a good thing. It reminds me of pretty bad services I sat through as a child suffering the children. Suffer the little children to come on to me where I would take pieces of paper and try to make army men out of them to have something fun to do.
And they're not that. It's an antiquated thing. Suffer the children is according to Merriam Webster, we know the first three, but we don't use it to allow something, to permit or to allow especially by reason of indifference. That's the current usage in the Merriam Webster, right? But I'm going to go New American Standard instead of suffer the children come unto me.
Here is all that we're going to cover today. It's the same passage basically. There are new little nuances. Each one of them has a little something to add to the mix and we're doing a Harmony of the Gospel study. We've been going through the New Testament for eleven straight years.
And we're closing in on the cross. We're probably just a couple of weeks out from the cross if you're tracking chronologically. So Jesus' teaching at this point is probably in the area of Perea or just across the Jordan into Judea. And it says, then some children were brought to him. Passive voice.
They were brought to him. They didn't have a choice. Where do children go? Wherever we take them. Right?
Then some children were brought to him so that he would lay his hands on them and pray. They were seeking the blessing. Whoever was bringing him, it doesn't say in Matthew, they were brought to him. Could be a divine passive. God brought them to Jesus.
That's a way of looking at it. But what does Mark say? Mark says, and they were bringing children to him so that he would touch them. They, that's somebody. That's not necessarily God or they may be acting in cahoots with God.
They were bringing children to him so that he, Jesus, would touch them in the days. What does Luke say? Luke says, now they were bringing even their babies. Oh, isn't that sweet? So that he would touch them.
The people bringing their kids were the parents. Well, that stands to reason. Kids go where their parents take them. But they were bringing even their babies to him so that he would touch them. It was a blessing.
That's what they were seeking for their kids from Jesus. And the disciples rebuked them. Oh, come on. Couldn't it be the pharisees rebuking them? I think that just about the time we get comfortable with who the good guys and bad guys are in scripture, we realize, uh-oh, it might be us.
It keeps you humble to believe what the Bible says, doesn't it? Because these are his disciples. These are the 12, and they are following after him, and they recognize that he's their master and lord, and he's there to be adored, and he's there to be listened to everything he has to say. But when kids get around these insignificant little snot nose breaths for crying out loud, what are they doing here? Get away from here.
The disciples rebuked them. Now they're them. This is interesting too. Them. Who is them?
Look, it could be that the disciples rebuked them, some children. That's possible. Mark said, but the disciples rebuked them, same thing. And they were bringing it could be the parents too. Could be the children.
But when the disciples saw it, we saw what was happening. Oh, they're encroaching on Jesus. Can you imagine? What a waste. All that divine wonderful teaching is going to waste on these little brats.
Narrative wells. What in the world? What kind of a parent would let them sneak up to the front of the line like that? So they began rebuking them. I think it's probably the parents.
The disciples, the followers of Jesus were the ones that were keeping children at arm's length and keeping their parents at arm's length, even though the parents were bringing them to get a blessing from Jesus. But Jesus said, leave the children alone and do not forbid them come to me. This week, as I was studying this passage, I looked and I thought, leave the children alone. Dehelo. Yeah.
Dehelos. Leave them alone. Let them be. Come on. Leave the children alone and do not forbid them.
It's a double. It's like, let them and don't forbid them. Don't keep them away from me. Now the word there is I use this word all the time. In premarital counseling, this word comes up every single time that I do this.
Let me look for something. Oh gracious. Does it have to be this? It probably does. Okay.
Y'all heard mic drop before? Means let it go. That's probably bad for that, isn't it? I'm gonna leave it right there. Should have had a brick up here.
It means to send it away. Send it away. In first John one nine, when it says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to affie me. It's it's that word, to send our sins away from us. He's faithful and just to be forgiving our sin.
So to let go, to release, to permit to depart, let it go like Elsa. Alright? To remit or to forgive, forgive. The payment has been made on the cross and it can be let go or to permit. And some of the reasons why we don't want to forgive is because we feel like I'm permitting that person to get away with it.
That's exactly what you're doing. Every sin will be either mercifully forgiven or justly condemned. That's up to God. That's not up to you. What he commands us to do is be forgiving.
Be sending that away. Be letting it go. Be releasing it. So I love that. Now he's talking about kids here.
He's saying release them to come to me. And Jesus called for the little ones. He's like, no. No. No.
No. No. No. Josiah, come on up. I know you're monkeying around.
Come on. Come to me. Don't worry about it. Come on. But Jesus called for the little ones, saying, this is Luke, allow the children, same word.
Same word. Affate. It's actually second person plural if you're a grammar nerd. Y'all be letting them come. Y'all be sending them to me.
Allow the children to come to me. Don't forbid them. It's double. It's let them come and don't stop them from coming. If they're of the inclination, by all means, get them here.
Now how did he say that? I like to imagine Jesus with a smile most of the time, and I think he had a smile most of the I think he smiled when James and John wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans. I think he's like, come on, guys. I know you're with me, but come on. I don't think you get you get what's going on here.
You're missing the point. Saying, allow the children to come to me. Do not forbid them. Mark says, and when Jesus saw what was happening, he was indignant. It upset him.
It made him angry. Indignant is angry. The word there is this word. I won't even try to pronounce it. To grieve much.
It grieved Jesus that his disciples had been with him for three years and still didn't know. But just let him come. I'm fine. We're gonna be alright. Grieved much, was indignant, was angry, even to be incensed.
We see this word used to Jesus just a couple of times in scripture. But I I wanna examine that right here too. It's not a not a long passage. It's just a few verses and three gospels. But what makes Jesus angry?
Well, this passage, hindering children from coming to him, and it's his disciples. It's not the Pharisees. You know? It's not the public school system. Okay?
I get that a lot. I hear that a lot. It does not matter whether you're on the extreme right or the extreme left. There are ways that you hinder your children from come to Jesus, and you should pay attention to your own walk and your own life and see what it is. Especially if you are a parent, you pay attention to how sincere of a walk you are having with your Lord.
That will make more difference than anything else around. Hindering children from come to him makes Jesus indignant. Blocking people's access to God. If you ask people, did Jesus ever get angry? Almost everybody will say, yeah, flipped over the tables in that temple.
He did that twice, by the way. Once at the beginning of his ministry, once at the end. That's up to a little argument, but looks like he did it twice. And he did it because those folks were blocking people's access to God. The court of the Gentiles open to everyone.
My house should be a house of prayer for all of the peoples and anybody that was blocking access and selling sacrifices and trinkets and whatnot for gain, it upset him. It was upsetting. And so that made Jesus angry. Lord, would you show us how we're blocking people's access to God? And rather than you having to flip over the tables, may we just close-up shop and open the door for people to come in, sincerely.
If our denominational stuff is pursuing us more than we are pursuing you. God, forgive us. Allow us to open the door for people to know who you are, never hindering any child from coming. This is another one. This is where it says, when people refuse to help a man with a shriveled hand for religious reasons.
Remember, he's in synagogue on Sunday. He's within the assembly, and there's a man, and he starts. And they said, no. And it says, and Jesus was angry because they refused to help someone because it was a Sabbath day. They had a religious reason for it, but their refusal upset him.
The very hardness of the human heart. This one is as much saddened as it is angry and upset. Oh, that you would recognize the day of your visitation when he cried over Jerusalem and was upset. He was upset at the hardness of the human heart. Immediately before this in a couple of the gospels or all three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there's a section on divorce.
And when the pharisees are coming to him and asking him about it, asking him what's your reading on this? What do you say about this Jesus? It upsets him because the hardness of the human heart is it's it's it's rough. It's pretty rough. And then death itself.
Death itself. It says that Jesus was angered by death itself. That's the only ones that I have found. If you found others, let me know. If you disagree with these, let me know.
It won't make me mad. B. B. Warfield, this is one of the things I read this week that I thought was really good. B.
B. Warfield says that this is at Lazarus' tomb and we know that's right where Jesus wept, so there's strong emotion. And a lot of times our emotions are mixed. Right? B.
B. Worsfield says, it is death that is the object of Jesus' wrath. His anger right there. And behind death, it is him who has the power of death, the evil one, and whom he has come into the world to destroy. Tears of sympathy may fill his eyes, but this is incidental.
His soul, Jesus' soul, is held by rage, not in cold unconcern, but in flaming wrath against the foe that Jesus smites on our behalf. Isn't that pretty? One other time, Jesus gives a very, very strong warning. Now he said to his disciples, we covered this a few weeks ago in Luke 17, it's inevitable that stumbling blocks are going to come. They're going to come.
This is the world. Live in a fallen world and it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to the one through whom they come. It's better for him if a millstone is hung around his neck and he's thrown into the sea than that he may cause even one of these little ones, these children to send, be on you all's guard. It's collective. Again, be paying attention.
Do your best not to hinder kids from coming to Christ. We've mentioned Awana. We've mentioned having a new children's director, coordinator. We are to be on our guard against causing an issue that would hinder a child from coming to know Jesus. But allow this.
When Jesus said this, he was when he saw this, he was indignant and he said to them, to the disciples, allow the children to come to me and do not forbid them. Allow them. Same word. Release them to come to me and don't prohibit it. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.
Wow. That's Matthew. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. Mark says, for the kingdom of God. Is there a difference?
Kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God. I don't see a distinction. I did a long rabbit trail on that myself this week, but I don't see a strong distinction between kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven here. But the kingdom of God belongs to such as these children's minds are expanding and open. There is an innocence about youth, even the strong willed kids.
I was one of those. My mother had a dog eared copy of Dobson's books. The Strong Willed Child. The kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I remember my Sunday school teachers.
I remember miss Zany Bennett. Her name was Zany, really. Zany Bennett. And I remember miss Bennett asking, what's my favorite Bible verse? And I thought, aren't they all good?
Never had concern. Been in church my whole life. I never had thought about one of them being better than the other. Pastor gave pretty equal treatment to the Bible. And then she brought out John three sixteen, like it might be a good one, you know.
And I never heard it like specifically, never registered before, but I thought, man, that is good. And as a child, it registered with me. I was probably eight, nine years old. And then going on to church camp and being in places where people had taken me gets just because. That's what you do.
When you're a child, you go where they send you. And I remember the pastor's name, but I don't remember his message, but I do remember it landing in my heart. And then I think of Zaynie Bennett and how she lived her life and how she used her words. And her love for me was without question. And God's word took root because of that.
And at 11, I trusted that it was true. It was a lot more I needed to learn. You know, there's a lot more that I came, into contact with throughout high school and college and early married life and throughout the rest of my life. There's plenty more to learn. But the kingdom of God was given to me to be a child of God.
It's amazing. Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Luke says, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. And truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child, it has to be in humble innocence. It has to be.
That's the way that it can be accepted, is not trusting in what you've done, but trusting in what has been done for you. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all. I just swiped this off the Internet. It's an amalgamation of Barna study and a few other studies.
And the age four to 14 is where most people who are Christians come to trust in Jesus. Four to fourteen. 85% of them that come. Fifteen to thirty teenage years are tough and some of that drives kids towards Jesus because you can see the error of your friends ways and sometimes. So 10% there, that's 95% of people come to Jesus by age 30.
4% after that, and praise God, there are still those afterwards. I got to pray with a 90 year old man a couple of years ago to receive Christ on his deathbed. I'm glad. It still happens. But his only regret at that point was that he hadn't trusted early, earlier.
So we've got a choice. Anybody actually, that guy said, when he introduced himself to me the very first time, he said, hey, I'm so and so and I'm a contented agnostic. Okay, that clears things up for me. I don't have to dig around for you. Contented.
But on his deathbed, he literally said, I'm not nearly as content as I was with not knowing. And God's word is still active. It's still sharp. It's still able, but you just turn off opportunities. There are opportunities here for kids.
There are opportunities in the other churches in town for kids. There are opportunities for you as parents to share with your kids your walk, your way. Mark says, and he took them in his arms and he began blessing them. No matter how it started. No matter how it started with the disciples rebuking whoever they were rebuking, It ends up with Jesus taking them in his arms and beginning to bless them and laying his hands on them.
Allowing access to Jesus brings his blessing. That's what we wanna be doing. He took them in his arms. He began blessing them, laying his hands on them, and then I'll close with Matthew right here. Matthew 19 says this, and after laying his hands on them, he departed from there.
Kept on going. Those kids received the blessing. We received the admonition. Right? We received the admonition as Jesus' disciples to not get in the way.
I've heard more than one tale of coming into church, kid comes into church with a hat on his head, and somebody slaps the head off his head and says, we don't do that in church. That is hindering a child. Do I need to just call that out? Yes. I understand.
Respect is important. But someone who doesn't know Jesus doesn't know any better, and not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I don't care. Hats, no hats. I don't care.
I want for you to know who Jesus is. I want for you to see him. He didn't slap kids' hats off of their heads. Let's do the best that we can to deal with children in a loving and caring way. Would you stand?
I'm gonna ask the band to come back up, and I wanna pray. God, I pray that this would continue to be a safe place for children. I wanna thank you for for those who are here in this congregation who are teachers and administrators of schools. It doesn't just stand for this place during this hour, one day a week or two days a week. Lord, Would you bless the teachers here who are believers to be able to transmit your love and your mercy and your forgiveness and your grace to the kids in their care?
I pray, Lord, you'd do that for parents too. That where we fall short, Lord, we'd be willing to be humble before you and admit it and humble before them and admit it. I pray, Lord, that you would use us, to reach the next generation for the kingdom of heaven, for the kingdom of God, that we would be a blessing to the community. In Jesus' name, amen.
As I wait the heart of
God satisfied
and sustain
May the Lord bless and keep you. May he make his face to shine upon you. May he give you peace, and may you be a spreader. Amen.
