WWUTT 2061 Let the Little Children Come to Me (Matthew 19:13-15)

Jesus said to his disciples, let the children come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to these. Jesus drew children to him during his earthly ministry. Don't you believe he's drawing children to him now?

When we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Matthew 19:13-15 and the Parallel Account in Mark 10

Thank you, Becky. I apologize that this is a little bit late, but I could not have recorded this if I wanted to. I did not have much of a voice on Christmas Eve, late Christmas Eve, when I was planning on recording this particular lesson.

And then I was kind of out sick on Christmas day. Yes, I was ill Christmas day. So this is the lesson that would have been uploaded for Christmas day as I try to play catch up here. We're back to Matthew chapter 19.

And I'm gonna start reading in verse 13 and go to the end of the chapter. We'll finish the rest of the chapter and then I'll show you how all of this breaks down. So let me begin here reading in Matthew 19, 13 out of the legacy standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. Then some children were brought to him so that he might lay his hands on them and pray. And the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, let the little children alone and do not hinder them from coming to me for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

And after laying his hands on them, he departed from there. And behold, someone came to him and said, teacher, what good things shall I do that I may have eternal life? And he said to him, why are you asking me about what is good?

There is only one who is good. But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments. Then he said to him, which ones? And Jesus said, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The young man said, all these things I have kept. What am I still lacking? Jesus said to him, if you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me.

But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus said to his disciples, truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

And again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And when the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, then who can be saved?

And looking at them, Jesus said to them, with people, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. Then Peter answered and said to him, behold, we have left everything and followed you. What then will there be for us?

And Jesus said to them, truly I say to you that you who have followed me in the regeneration when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you also shall sit upon 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

And everyone who has left, houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms, for my name's sake, will receive 100 times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first.

Now this lays out the same way that you read this account in Mark 10. That would be the parallel to what we're reading here in Matthew 19. But Mark has a slightly different intention with the way that he lays out these three exchanges.

It begins with the children wanting to come to Jesus and then the disciples trying to stop them. Then you have the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus and Jesus challenges him with the law. And then you have the disciples come back to Jesus and say, well, what do we get because we have left everything to follow you?

Mark has a different theme that's going on there. It seems to all be tied into children in Mark 10. So the disciples need to be like children. In fact, Jesus addresses his disciples as children in Mark 10, but he doesn't call them that here.

This is something altogether different. Matthew is trying to draw something else out of this. It's the same exchange. It's not that Mark is going, no, no, no, I remember it a little bit different. But Mark has a different intention with his writing.

Matthew is trying to draw something else out. And remember that Matthew's gospel centers more around the kingdom of God. So you see this emphasis placed here upon that, where Jesus promises that the disciples are gonna rule, they're gonna reign, they're gonna sit upon thrones and that they would judge the 12 tribes of Israel, but they must be willing to humble themselves.

In this life, they must be humble. And with the children, they were not acting that way. So remember Jesus' instruction to them before, you must become like children to enter the kingdom of God. That comes back into this.

He doesn't say it explicitly, but the same lesson that we heard previously in Matthew plays here where Jesus is telling the disciples not to hinder the children from coming to him for such, to such belongs the kingdom of God.

So the disciples must humble themselves and be like children. You have this rich young ruler and the disciples are expecting that if they are like the rich young ruler, then we can enter the kingdom of God.

So they're astonished when Jesus says, this man's rich and he ain't making it. It is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to get into the kingdom of God.

So the way that this breaks down, we have Jesus blessing the children. You have Jesus exchange with the rich young ruler and then Jesus telling his disciples, kind of giving them the lesson of all of this at the end, that many who are first will be last and the last first so that they will understand humbling themselves in this life, in the work and the service that they are to do unto Christ.

And if they do that, they will sit on glorious thrones in heaven. Okay, so let's come back to verse 13 here. Then some children were brought to him so that he might lay his hands on them and pray and the disciples rebuke them.

Now, remember, so since we're starting with this word then in verse 13, this is carrying over from what we just finished up. In chapter 19, verses one through 12, we had Jesus' lesson on marriage and divorce.

You had the exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees. Then the disciples, when they heard what Jesus said about marriage, that it's gonna be a man and a woman for life. And if anybody divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another, then he commits adultery and causes her to commit adultery.

And the disciples are going that if this is the way that it's gotta be, it's better to not be married. And Jesus says, this is only for those to whom it is given. In other words, if you get married, you must remain married.

You must be committed to your marriage for life. But for those who don't enter into marriage, well, the same instruction is not given to them. To those who can't even get married because they can't consummate that marriage, they don't have any desire to be married, then they have a different calling in life.

The apostle Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 7, I wish that all of you would remain as I am, that you would remain single like me so you could devote yourself to the word. But to some, they really wanna get married.

And so Paul says that get married, they've done nothing wrong. That's the counsel that you see there in 1 Corinthians 7. I don't mean to get into that, but this ties in with what Jesus is instructing the disciples in here in chapter 19.

You have their devotion to the kingdom of God that's emphasized there. And so then right after that, right after this exchange that Jesus has with the Pharisees and then telling his disciples, then some children are brought to him so that he might lay hands on them and pray.

And the disciples rebuked them. And it's astonishing to me that they did that because it was just in the last chapter, in chapter 18, where Jesus had a child stand among them and he said to them, truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever therefore will humble himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea.

And here are the disciples trying to keep children from coming to Jesus, rebuking them. But Jesus said to the disciples, let the little children alone and do not hinder them from coming to me. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

And after laying his hands on them, he departed from there. Almost as if he had to give this lesson to the disciples again. Did you not hear what I just told you about these children? To them belongs the kingdom of God and you must become like them.

If you are gonna enter the kingdom of God, you must humble yourself like them. One of the first things that I did when I became a pastor, when I became senior pastor for the first time, one of the first things that I did was I eliminated children's church.

And that was not popular. When I say children's church, I'm talking about the church that little kids go to while the parents have big church. I'm not talking about Sunday school, you know, where kids have their own Sunday school classes.

I'm kind of of different opinions about that. I've told parents, if you wanna put your kids in a little kids Sunday school class, that's great. We've got classes for them. If you would rather they come with you to big Sunday school, that's fine too, we're not gonna stop you.

So they don't have this idea that my kids have to go to little kids Sunday school, they can't stay with me. No, they can stay with you if you want them to. But when it comes to corporate worship, the worship that we do together, that main service on Sunday morning, we wanna be family integrated.

We want whole families worshiping together. So I eliminated that children's church so that whole families could be together. I think we still had a nursery for, you know, just in case a mom who was there, because in the town where I was first pastoring, if y 'all have been listening to the podcast for a long time, you know this, in Junction City, Kansas, it was very military town.

You would have a lot of husbands that would be deployed. And so you'd have moms with little kids that would come to church and there's nowhere for their kids to go. It's hard for mom to be able to have an opportunity to sit and listen to the service because she's probably having to wrangle her kids in the middle of all of that.

So we did have a nursery. We had something going on so that mom really could get a break. And we also had this thing worked out with members of our congregation that, hey, if you see a mom that seems to be struggling with her kids, why not go and offer to take her kids for her?

We had a few select families that we talked with about that, people that we could trust and we knew that the moms would be able to trust them. So anyway, that was the way that we had that system worked out, but we still wanted it to be family integrated.

We wanted whole families worshiping together. And at our church, Providence Reform Baptist Church in Casa Grande, that's the way it is, we're family integrated. We have a nursery for kids, little kids, if they get unruly and mom and dad need to take them out or something like that, and there's somebody to be able to watch the kids.

But overall, we encourage families to worship together. Let the little children come and be part of all of this. I remember when I was a little kid and there would be children's church and I didn't like it.

I really didn't like when my parents said, okay, it's time for children's church. So you go with the teacher, she'll take you downstairs. And it was fine, it was just like another Sunday school lesson, but I didn't care for it.

I would rather have been in big church sitting with my parents. I'm grateful that that's what my children want. They would rather be in the service together with us instead of sent away to go have church in another place.

We've visited churches before where they had a Sunday school like that or a children's church rather like that. And sometimes my kids have gone and sometimes they didn't, but I think the overall review was still, yeah, I like big church better.

I don't think we've ever gone to a church where my kids went to children's church and came back from that going, why can't we do this at church? They still like being with mom and dad. So you have this lesson from Jesus to his disciples, let the little children come to me.

Now I bring all this up, not to rip on children's church, that's really not my intention, even though my opinion would be, you should have your kids with you in big church because otherwise you're just kind of teaching them age segregation is the way that church should be.

And we need that multi-generationalness. But how much is being communicated to our children that we want you included, you need to be worshiping God. We're not trying to push you away. We want you to come be a part of worship with us.

We all worship together. And it's not that my worship is different than your worship. And maybe there's a mindset of if the kids are not baptized yet, then they can't be in big church because they can't partake of the Lord's table and things like that.

But I think our children need to be with us even during that time so that they can see the Lord's table being practiced and then ask those questions, why can't I take it? So that we can have those gospel conversations with our kids, which I would expect you're doing anyway with family devotions and things like that.

But it puts something in front of them that they recognize I'm not yet part of this. So what needs to change for me to be included in that, to become part of that and be able to further those conversations with our kids and talk about Christ and what it means to be part of his body and things like that.

I'm saying all of this so you understand the importance of drawing the children in, bringing them near so that they understand a closeness to Christ. We're not creating a church in which we're constantly pushing them away.

We have a church environment in which they're constantly being drawn in. Come closer, you too can be a part of this fellowship with Jesus. We're not pushing you away because you're too young or you can't understand this.

Even children can come to Christ. So yes, a seven-year-old or a 10-year-old can understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Now, when I ask them questions about their faith, I ask different questions than when I ask an adult.

Because what does a child know about taking up a cross and following Jesus? Do they really have a concept or an understanding of what it means to die to yourself and live to Christ? There are children that do.

They do understand that concept. But you see, I'm asking those kinds of questions so to see that they get what it means that I'm a follower of Jesus now. I'm not gonna go after my way, but I'm gonna go after God's way.

I'm talking with their parents. What kind of fruit do you see in their lives? What are they showing you at home in their behavior? What kind of questions are they asking? What kind of conversations are you having?

But again, creating this environment for kids in which they feel that they are being pulled closer to Christ, not pushed away, but coming nearer to God through Jesus Christ. Jesus saying, let the children come to me.

Do not hinder them from coming to me. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. What a wonderful passage. And I so appreciate that so that I understand that as I'm communicating with my kids, my five, six, seven-year-old can get this.

They are not too young to be Christians, to be followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus even lays his hands on them. It says in verse 15, spending time with them, drawing them close to him. So my friends, don't you know that if Jesus did this during the time of his earthly ministry, drawing children near to him, don't you believe that he's doing it now?

That through the Holy Spirit, he would draw children to him? Continue to pray for your kids that they would become followers of Jesus Christ. But if you are diligently leading them in the word, praying with them, doing devotions with them, you're gonna see that happen a lot sooner than you probably expected.

Maybe you thought my kid wouldn't get baptized until he or she is a teenager. When they're finally old enough to get this and make that decision on their own, but are you seeing evidence of them understanding this even sooner than that, even younger than that?

I gave my life to Jesus Christ when I was four. It's one of my earliest memories. I don't remember hardly anything at age two or three. I really don't know that any of the memories that I have of my youngest years were somewhere in that two to three-year-old window.

But I remember when I was four, getting on my knees in my room and committing my life to Christ. I still remember that. And I went and told my parents that I did that, and they really weren't all that impressed.

They were like, okay, great. I don't know, they just thought I was being a four-year-old, I guess, I don't know. But ever since then, I remember that, and ever since then, desired to live a life of following Jesus.

Now, I messed up a lot when I was in grade school, later years of grade school, and then middle school. I lied a lot. I was quite a liar, and lied just because I could. It wasn't even that I had anything to gain from it.

I just wanted to tell a lie. But I hated it every time, hated myself about it every time, and just always wondered, why do I do this? Why do I lie for no reason at all? Convicted in my heart and in the privacy of my prayers, I would ask God to forgive me, and continued in that sanctification.

My parents would punish me when I would get caught. I would receive my punishment. And though I might have tried to argue with them about it at the time, once time would pass and I would look back at that situation, I would go, yeah, I was an idiot.

What was I thinking? I was a liar.

I lied to my parents. And so the Lord continued to grow me in the midst of those things, kept me from doing way stupider stuff that I could have ended up doing, and I was baptized when I was a teenager.

I still ended up doing some very foolish things when I was in college, when I was living on my own, when I was a bachelor. But thankfully, again, by the grace of God, as said in Psalm 119, verse 109, though I take my life continually in my hands, I will not forget your law.

And though I would do stupid things and sometimes go after the passions of my flesh, I would still remember those principles that my parents had taught me from a very young age that would convict my heart, made me realize my sin, ask for God's forgiveness, and desire to walk in holiness.

So again, that happens for some younger than it happens for others. But continue to teach your kids, help to bring them to the throne, bring them to the cross of Christ that they may understand they are sinners and there is forgiveness for their sin, and that forgiveness is found only by faith in Jesus.

Jesus drew children near to him during his earthly ministry. I truly believe, friends, he will draw your children near to him now. Let's finish there, and then we get to the rich young ruler tomorrow, the next lesson.

Well, what would be the Tuesday lesson? That's what's coming up next. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here, and I pray we're able to rightly apply it. Even if we don't, if there are those listening who don't have children, how does this apply?

Well, it goes back to the lesson that Jesus had given his disciples back in chapter 18. You must become like a child to enter the kingdom of God, humbling ourselves, depending completely upon our Father who is in heaven, and you who have forgiven sins will draw us close and bring us into everlasting life.

As Jesus says to his disciples, a lesson that we'll get to later, with man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. Guide us in this truth, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com, and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand the Text.