WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.500 --> 00:00:01.300 Be seated. 2 00:00:04.900 --> 00:00:08.200 Grace mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord 3 00:00:08.200 --> 00:00:09.200 and Savior Jesus Christ. 4 00:00:11.700 --> 00:00:12.900 Amen. That's a long text 5 00:00:12.900 --> 00:00:16.100 so I'm not going to preach on the whole thing because I have to make 6 00:00:16.100 --> 00:00:20.300 choices and I decided to go for the beginning verses where Jesus said 7 00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:21.700 to them the disciples. 8 00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:27.400 Oh man, I say to you unless you turn around do about face and become 9 00:00:27.400 --> 00:00:27.800 like children. 10 00:00:29.500 --> 00:00:31.600 You will surely not enter the kingdom of heaven. 11 00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:34.000 This is our text. 12 00:00:35.500 --> 00:00:38.900 You know, I've always been amazed by the response of Jesus to the 13 00:00:38.900 --> 00:00:42.900 disciples question about who will be the greatest in the Kingdom of 14 00:00:42.900 --> 00:00:43.100 Heaven. 15 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:49.200 I'm first of all amazed that the disciples were stupid enough to ask 16 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:49.500 that question, 17 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:53.800 frankly. Who will be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, but, you 18 00:00:53.800 --> 00:00:55.200 know inquiring-minds-want-to-know. 19 00:00:57.100 --> 00:00:58.400 But then there's his answer. 20 00:00:59.800 --> 00:01:01.300 You want to enter the kingdom of heaven? 21 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:04.000 Be like children. 22 00:01:05.500 --> 00:01:07.400 And if you don't think it won't enter the kingdom. 23 00:01:08.700 --> 00:01:09.200 Really? I mean 24 00:01:10.900 --> 00:01:13.700 what is it about children that Jesus had in mind? 25 00:01:14.500 --> 00:01:20.000 I grew up in the age when children were to be seen and not heard. Me 26 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:21.800 and my mom had to deal with seven of us 27 00:01:21.800 --> 00:01:25.000 and I don't think our behavior in church is what Jesus was thinking 28 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:26.800 about when he talked to his disciples. 29 00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:31.500 In fact, I remember one of my parishioners telling me when her kids 30 00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:32.000 acted up. 31 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:36.500 She would just mention the free baby box at the mall where you can 32 00:01:36.500 --> 00:01:38.400 drop off your kids when they were misbehaving. 33 00:01:40.300 --> 00:01:45.300 So what is it about children that Jesus would use them as an example 34 00:01:45.300 --> 00:01:47.100 for his disciples to emulate. 35 00:01:48.500 --> 00:01:51.600 You know we're pretty quick to jump to the truism that It's the 36 00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:54.600 innocence of children that Jesus is upholding here. 37 00:01:56.200 --> 00:01:59.200 I'm sure there's something to that but that seems a little too easy 38 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:01.000 and frankly the children 39 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.300 I've encountered has not always been so innocent. 40 00:02:04.100 --> 00:02:08.000 In this present age innocence is something frankly hard to come by and 41 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:10.800 covid-19 and everything else. 42 00:02:11.900 --> 00:02:17.100 I sometimes wonder how Jesus words are heard today children are not 43 00:02:17.100 --> 00:02:19.700 always seen as the gifts Jesus implies 44 00:02:19.700 --> 00:02:24.200 they are. Nor are they welcomed into the world by many who see them as a 45 00:02:24.200 --> 00:02:26.400 burden as an inconvenience. 46 00:02:28.500 --> 00:02:31.900 And it's hard not to sympathize when your own are acting up, you know, 47 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:35.000 and then didn't get that bring you a picture they drew or something 48 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:38.400 they made at school, you know, and it just changes the whole 49 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:38.900 perspective. 50 00:02:38.900 --> 00:02:42.100 I still have the t-shirt that says number one dad. 51 00:02:42.100 --> 00:02:43.900 You know that my boys gave me. 52 00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:49.100 So what is it about children that the Son of God who was 53 00:02:49.100 --> 00:02:53.800 also the Son of man goes so far as to tell his disciples that heaven 54 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:56.300 is populated with them. 55 00:02:56.300 --> 00:02:59.100 I can just see St. 56 00:02:59.100 --> 00:03:02.400 Peter saying in a wait till I get have to be this short to enter not 57 00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:08.600 maybe this short has no. The short answer is Jesus doesn't to tell us what 58 00:03:08.600 --> 00:03:09.200 the reasons are. 59 00:03:09.200 --> 00:03:11.700 It's almost as if he just expects us to know. 60 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:17.400 This is something that should be should we say innate to us. 61 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:22.100 And the fact that it isn't means something has gone terribly wrong with 62 00:03:22.100 --> 00:03:22.500 this world. 63 00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:26.100 I mentioned innocence before. 64 00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:32.100 This virus our racial divide our politics. 65 00:03:33.700 --> 00:03:36.800 We've lost our innocence that everything is going to be okay. 66 00:03:38.700 --> 00:03:44.000 Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, maybe that's why he says woe more than 67 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:49.500 once in our text. Woe to the world by which scandal comes. Woe to those who 68 00:03:49.500 --> 00:03:50.100 bring it. 69 00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:55.800 Notice he does his children sermon though right there in front of the 70 00:03:55.800 --> 00:03:58.900 disciples by bringing one of the kids right into the middle of them 71 00:03:58.900 --> 00:04:00.800 all as if to say, isn't it obvious? 72 00:04:02.500 --> 00:04:05.300 What would that little child had preached to those disciples? 73 00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:10.100 I think even in his silence he would have preached things like 74 00:04:11.300 --> 00:04:12.500 vulnerability, 75 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:15.400 dependence, 76 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:24.000 total trust, total recognition of the need for Grace no ability to do 77 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:24.100 anything. 78 00:04:25.500 --> 00:04:26.600 Recognition 79 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:31.900 but this child was not his own he or she in for that matter did not 80 00:04:31.900 --> 00:04:33.400 bring himself into this world. 81 00:04:33.400 --> 00:04:36.200 He was brought into this world by someone else. 82 00:04:37.400 --> 00:04:41.200 Two people ideally who love him and who cared for him. 83 00:04:42.900 --> 00:04:46.300 You might have preached recognition that he was the future, 84 00:04:47.500 --> 00:04:49.800 not the past. And yet in no doubt 85 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:54.100 preached innocence too. Knowing there was nothing he brought to the 86 00:04:54.100 --> 00:04:58.900 table, but that he still welcomed to the table and he's fed and he's 87 00:04:58.900 --> 00:05:00.000 taken care of anyway. 88 00:05:01.300 --> 00:05:05.600 Now granted most likely it would be an innocence that would be lost 89 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:08.500 soon enough longer any of us live in this world. 90 00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:14.700 But it is also an innocence regained because of the God who became a 91 00:05:14.700 --> 00:05:15.400 child. 92 00:05:16.400 --> 00:05:21.700 For us and for our salvation. The Son of God became the Son of man 93 00:05:21.700 --> 00:05:26.800 totally innocent in order to declare us innocent. 94 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:32.200 So what is it about children that they so readily enter the Kingdom of 95 00:05:32.200 --> 00:05:34.100 Heaven ahead of their elders. 96 00:05:35.900 --> 00:05:39.600 On the one hand Paul tells us to leave childish things behind and to 97 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:41.100 become mature in our faith. 98 00:05:42.500 --> 00:05:46.700 Then again Peter says like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk 99 00:05:46.700 --> 00:05:48.100 So then by it 100 00:05:48.100 --> 00:05:49.700 you may grow up in your salvation. 101 00:05:49.700 --> 00:05:52.800 Now that you have tasted that the Lord is good as we're going to be 102 00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:55.500 doing and just a little bit. So which is it? 103 00:05:58.200 --> 00:06:04.000 Both the whole point of being a child is the potential to grow but 104 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:04.600 growing to what? 105 00:06:06.200 --> 00:06:11.000 Well, I hate to tell the younger generation but for good or for real 106 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:14.400 you usually grow up to be more like your parents than you think you 107 00:06:14.400 --> 00:06:14.600 will. 108 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:22.200 We are our parents children with all that means, but that's not all 109 00:06:22.200 --> 00:06:22.500 bad 110 00:06:22.500 --> 00:06:26.800 either. I mean listen to what Matthew's fellow disciple John wrote about this in 111 00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:28.000 First John chapter 3. 112 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:32.800 He says, see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we 113 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:34.800 should be called children of God. 114 00:06:36.400 --> 00:06:37.700 And so we are. 115 00:06:38.700 --> 00:06:42.100 Reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 116 00:06:42.100 --> 00:06:43.600 He says beloved, 117 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:48.600 we are God's children now and what we will be has not yet appeared, 118 00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:50.500 but we know that when he appears 119 00:06:51.900 --> 00:06:53.100 we shall be like him. 120 00:06:54.200 --> 00:06:55.900 Because we shall see him as he is. 121 00:06:57.900 --> 00:07:00.200 We are the children of God. 122 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:05.500 With all that that means imagine that parent-teacher conference. 123 00:07:05.500 --> 00:07:12.700 We are known by one who brought us the whole world and he brought this 124 00:07:12.700 --> 00:07:14.400 existence as well. 125 00:07:14.400 --> 00:07:16.600 And he doesn't just know about us, 126 00:07:16.600 --> 00:07:20.100 He knows us. Just like parents know their children. 127 00:07:21.400 --> 00:07:26.200 And he still loves us and is actually looking forward to when we come 128 00:07:26.200 --> 00:07:28.200 back home not to live in the basement. 129 00:07:28.200 --> 00:07:32.000 But in one of those many rooms that he's prepared for us already. 130 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:36.600 When he appears to bring us home. 131 00:07:37.800 --> 00:07:42.800 We shall be like him John says. Think about that the next time that you 132 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:47.800 listen to the news or hear about covid-19 or politics or whatever it 133 00:07:47.800 --> 00:07:47.900 is. 134 00:07:47.900 --> 00:07:52.200 There's much more to life than meets the eye are what you see on the 135 00:07:52.200 --> 00:07:56.500 evening news, or see on Facebook arguments or Tik Tok it whatever. 136 00:07:58.300 --> 00:07:59.500 And children know this. 137 00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:01.800 They know there's more. 138 00:08:03.200 --> 00:08:05.400 And that's why even in the midst of the craziness. 139 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:08.500 They can actually play. 140 00:08:10.700 --> 00:08:13.800 And perhaps at the end of the day that is one of the characteristics 141 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:14.700 God 142 00:08:14.700 --> 00:08:16.500 most enjoys about children. 143 00:08:17.300 --> 00:08:18.600 They know how to play. 144 00:08:18.600 --> 00:08:23.000 They know how to enjoy what he's giving them even in the midst of 145 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:23.600 the craziness. 146 00:08:25.300 --> 00:08:28.900 Because they know there is a whole future ahead for them. 147 00:08:28.900 --> 00:08:34.200 There is a whole future ahead for you one that you can't even imagine. 148 00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:39.100 An undiscovered country just on the horizon. 149 00:08:40.900 --> 00:08:43.400 Jesus back to calls it Paradise. 150 00:08:44.700 --> 00:08:49.500 That's what your father has in store for you his children. 151 00:08:50.400 --> 00:08:55.300 And so my prayer for you is that God may give you that joy that 152 00:08:55.300 --> 00:08:59.300 willingness to play in his world that he's giving you. And to rejoice 153 00:08:59.300 --> 00:09:04.500 ultimately in the fact that you're going to see your dad in heaven and 154 00:09:04.500 --> 00:09:07.300 you're going to be there with him to rejoice in all the gifts 155 00:09:07.300 --> 00:09:08.200 He has to give. 156 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:12.400 May it be so for Jesus sake. Amen. 157 00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:18.000 And the peace of God which passes all human understanding shall keep 158 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:21.500 our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus until life 159 00:09:21.500 --> 00:09:23.200 everlasting. Amen.