Suffer the Children to Come

In one paragraph

Pastor Ray opened a passage that all three synoptic gospel writers tell, the story of parents bringing their children to Jesus, and worked through how each writer adds something a little different. The sermon pressed the congregation to ask whether anything in their own habits or attitudes quietly keeps children from getting to Christ. The passage shows up in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 18, all...

Read together

1. 1 John 1:9 cited as the mechanism of forgiveness, where God is faithful and just to send away our sin
2. Matthew 19 children brought to Jesus so he would lay hands on them and pray
3. Mark 10 they were bringing children to Jesus so he would touch them, disciples rebuked them, Jesus was indignant
4. Luke 18 they were bringing even their babies to Jesus, Jesus called for the little ones
5. John 3:16 shared by Sunday school teacher Zany Bennett as a favorite verse about belief
6. John 11:35 Jesus wept at Lazarus' tomb, cited in discussion of what made Jesus angry
7. Jeremiah 17:9 referenced as saying the human heart is very deceptive and deceitfully evil

Talk about it

1. Pastor Ray mentioned that the word 'suffer' in 'suffer the little children' actually means 'to allow or permit.' Where else in your life have you seen religious or traditional language create distance between people and what God is actually saying?
2. When Jesus saw the disciples turning the children away, Mark says he was indignant, grieved deeply. Can you think of ways, even unintentional ones, that we personally or as a church might be hindering children or outsiders from getting to Jesus?
3. Pastor Ray walked through several moments in the Gospels when Jesus was angry, and a common thread ran through all of them. What was that thread, and what does it tell you about what Jesus cares most about?
4. The Barna study cited in the sermon showed that 85 percent of people who trust Christ do so between the ages of 4 and 14. Pastor Ray also shared the story of a 90-year-old man who came to faith in the ICU. What does that tension between those two realities mean for how we pray for and pursue the people in our lives who do not yet know Jesus?
5. Pastor Ray closed by asking whether our own religiosity might unconsciously block people from coming to Christ, and he gave the example of someone slapping a baseball cap off a kid's head at church. Where have you seen that kind of thing happen, and what would it look like practically to 'release' rather than hinder the people around us?