INTRO.- ILL.- A couple had two little boys, ages 8 and 10, who were excessively mischievous. They were always getting into trouble and their parents knew that if any mischief occurred in their town their sons were probably involved.
The boys’ mother heard that a preacher in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The preacher agreed, but asked to see them individually. So the mother sent her 8-year-old first, in the morning, with the older boy to see the preacher in the afternoon.
The preacher was a big man with a booming voice. He sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly, "Where is God?"
They boy’s mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there with his mouth hanging open, wide-eyed. So the preacher repeated the question in an even sterner tone, "Where is God!!?" Again the boy made no attempt to answer. So the preacher raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy’s face and bellowed, "WHERE IS GOD!?"
The boy screamed and bolted from the room, ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother found him in the closet, he asked, "What happened?"
The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied, "We are in BIG trouble this time, dude. God is missing - and they think WE did it!"
ILL.- Child’s Perspective on Retirement. A teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their vacation. One child wrote the following:
"We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live here in a big brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida and now they live in a place with a lot of other retarded people.
"They live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on big tricycles and wear nametags because they don’t know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wrecked center, but they must have got it fixed, because it is all right now.
“They play games and do exercises there, but they don’t do them very well. There is a swimming pool, too, but they all jump up and down in it with their hats on. I guess they don’t know how to swim.
“At their gate, there is a dollhouse with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out. Then they go cruising in their golf carts.
“My Grandma used to bake cookies and stuff, but I guess she forgot how. Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And they eat the same thing every night: Early Birds. Some of the people can’t get past the man in the dollhouse to go out. So the ones who do get out bring food back to the wrecked center and call it potluck.
“My Grandma says Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded some day, too. When I earn my retardment I want to be the man in the dollhouse. Then I will let people out so they can visit their grandchildren."
God bless the children! They need to be blessed by us. In our text, Jesus blessed the children. The disciples apparently thought that Jesus didn’t have time for children, but they were wrong.
One writer said, “The disciples thought that Jesus needed protection from bothersome children. But what Jesus points out is that the children needed protection from bumbling adults.”
Jesus said, “Do not hinder them,” meaning “do not hinder them from coming to me.” And we adults do that at times. How so? We hinder children by deed and by direction.
Our own deeds indicate or show that we are not as interested in Jesus as we ought to be. We put things before Jesus and the church. And children see this. THEY ARE NOT FOOLED. They see where our values are.
ILL.- When daddy or mommy take off some weekend to go play golf or whatever and make no effort to go to church, the children see this, learn from this and are hindered in their faith. OUR CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US AND LEARNING.
We also hinder by direction, that is, by the direction we point them.
ILL.- Some father may say to his son, “You don’t need to go to church. All those people are a bunch of hypocrites. Besides, there is no god anyway.”
I know that we wouldn’t say those things to our child, but some people would. However, there may be times when we do give our children bad advice about life. For example, someone might say to their kid, “It’s ok to drink a little beer once in a while. It won’t hurt you.”
BUT WHAT IF IT DID HURT THEM? What if it started them on the road to become a drunk? That would be pretty bad advice, wouldn’t you say?
Sometimes we well-meaning parents give our children bad advice and a bad example. But Jesus wants all children to come to Him! After all, they belong to Him in the first place!
PROP.- In the light of VBS and life in general, we must bless the children. They are the hope of the world. How do we bless them?
1- Attend to them
2- Pray for them
3- Model for them
I. ATTEND TO THEM
Mark 10:14 “Let the little children come to me…” Jesus paid attention to children and so must we.
ILL.- Have you ever heard of the Sitton Truck lines out of Joplin, MO? A man by the name of Dave Sitton started the Sitton truck lines. Here’s the lowdown.
Sitton Motor Lines was born on the Fourth of July, 1979, in Joplin, Missouri. David L. Sitton and his two sons, Richard and Michael, celebrated the nation’s freedom by turning a long-time dream of starting their own trucking company into a reality. Combining their nearly 50 years of experience and their life savings, the Sittons began serving 13 states with five owner operator tractors, 50 new trailers, and a deep faith in God.
A deep faith in God. Yes, they are Christians. And how do I know about them? Here is how. Dave Sitton, who went to be with the Lord in 1994 at the age of 66 years, used to drive a truck with the same outfit my dad drove for. I knew Dave when I just a little kid, probably 4 or 5 years old, maybe older.
Dave used to come over to our house and visit with dad and mom. Dave would also talk to me, tease me, play with me, and rub my legs when they hurt. He also had a nickname for me. He called me “Hard Rock.”
I thought very highly of trucker Dave Sitton. DO YOU KNOW WHY? Because he paid attention to me. Even though he teased me, I felt like he cared about me and that he loved me. And all children need this kind of attention.
ILL.- A father of four boys came home to find them all engaged in something of a free-for-all. Addressing his remarks to the most aggressive of the four, he asked, “Butch, who started this?” “Well, it all started when Harold hit me back,” exclaimed Butch. Children will be children.
ILL.- In a Peanut’s cartoon Lucy addressed Snoopy: “There are times when you really bug me, but there are also times when I feel like giving you a hug.” Snoopy replied, “That’s the way I am, huggable and buggable.”
And that’s some children as well. Some are very huggable but many are buggable. However, they all need attention.
Pay attention to them – play with – listen to – look at – touch – tease - hug – hold – kiss – bless.
No connection with children means no attention and no affection. No attention, no affection also means no positive influence.
II. PRAY FOR THEM
Mark 10:16 “And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.”
Certainly some children require more “hands on” them than others but all children need to be blessed by us. What did Jesus do to bless? Perhaps he said, “I bless you.” That’s like saying, “God bless you.” And I supposed we should be saying those words to all children as well, as in, “God bless you, honey.”
Also, Jesus may have blessed them by praying for them. And this is something that I definitely think we should do. IT IS ALWAYS RIGHT AND GOOD TO PRAY FOR PEOPLE!
ILL.- I am sure all of you heard about 11 year-old Brennan Hawkins who was missing last week for four days without food or water in the mountains of Utah. He apparently managed to elude thousands of searchers by defying conventional wisdom: He went up instead of down.
Brennan Hawkins was found alive and in good condition Tuesday by a 43-year-old house painter on an ATV who was out looking on his own, miles outside of active search grids.
Sheriff Dave Edmunds had earlier said Brennan would have been more likely to head down a river valley from his 530-acre Boy Scout camp deep inside a national forest. "Typically children walk downhill, along the least path of resistance," he said.
The search was concentrated into those areas, but Brennan had hiked some 600 feet higher and more than five miles into the mountains when searcher Forrest Nunley found him before noon Thursday.
"I turned a corner and there was a kid standing in the middle of the trail. He was all muddy and wet," from walking over the saturated ground, said Nunley, who dialed 911 on his cell phone and said he was lucky to find a signal.
The boy had seen some volunteer searchers on horseback but avoided them because he was scared, Nunley said. "He was a little delirious. I sat him down and gave him a little food."
After downing bottles of water and eating all the granola bars carried by a group of volunteer searchers, the boy asked to play a video game on one rescuer’s cell phone, the sheriff said.
Brothers and sisters, that situation was a frightening deal and I think most people thought the boy was dead. BUT NOT HIS MAMA! Mother Jody Hawkins said, "People say that the heavens are closed and God no longer answers prayers. We are here to unequivocally tell you that the heavens are not closed, prayers are answered and children come home.”
It does pay to pray! Praying pays off. In this case, it paid off big time with the return of a child. God had mercy on that child and his family. PTL!
But what about our children who stray away from us and/or the Lord in life? They are just as lost and need to return. What can we do? WE MUST PRAY FOR THEM! Heaven is not closed. God does answer prayers.
James 5:16 “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” If you are not praying for your children or some children that you know, THEN GET WITH THE PROGRAM! A day shouldn’t go by without praying for our children, grandchildren and other children.
And even better yet, pray for them in their presence. Huh? Yes, that’s right. It does something for a person to be prayed for in their presence. If it does something for an adult, what about a child? We parents should pray for our children by name and in their presence! We should pray that God will bless them and direct them in life. LET’S DO IT! Our children need this blessing!
III. MODEL FOR THEM
I Tim. 4:12 “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, BUT SET AN EXAMPLE for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”
The apostle Paul was giving some good advice to the young preacher Timothy. He said, “Be a good example to your people in these areas of life.” I have discovered that people do watch preachers! The people may not follow after him in regard to the faith and the church, BUT THEY DO WATCH HIM!
ILL.- I remember one time a church member saying to me many years ago, “You sure keep your car clean. How many times a week do you wash it?” I guess he was keeping track. Maybe he thought it should be dirty like his car. Or maybe he thought that I shouldn’t waste my time by washing my car. HOW PETTY CAN YOU GET? But I have discovered that people do watch you. And it’s not just preachers!
I Pet. 5:1-3 “To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.” Examples to the flock.
ILL.- I heard a preacher say one time, “Watch your elders in the church. Keep an eye on them. Whatever they do, you can do.” Afterward an elder approached that preacher and said, “Hey, cut that stuff out.” The preacher replied, “NO, YOU CUT IT OUT!”
In other words, they were doing some things they shouldn’t be doing and needed to cut it out.
All people are examples to others. All people. From the rich and famous right down to us poor people.
ILL.- Regrets – pop singer Madonna has a few. Now that she is writing children’s books, she is expressing concern over her once raunchy antics. She is concerned that her cone-shaped bras and naked hitchhiking pictorials may have negatively influenced her young fans.
She said in an interview with Ladies’ Home Journal, "Sometimes I was being overtly sexual for the sake of showing off when I didn’t need to be. I think I hurt myself. Ultimately, none of us wants to be judged, or approved of, or loved because of the way we look, or how sexy we are. One minute I was saying believe in yourself, and the next minute I was saying just be sexually provocative for the sake of being sexually provocative."
And to think that it was just two years ago that Madonna tongue-wrestled with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera onstage at the MTV Music Awards.
MADONNA BABY, it may well be too late for you, that is, to clean up your example for the younger generation. You’ve made a very strong impression. You’ve been quite a model.
Brothers and sisters, it is probably never too late to clean up our act in order to be a better example. We all need to be better examples to our children. We need to be a model for them, that is, someone for them to model their lives after.
You can never be too faithful to Christ and to His church. Or too faithful in Bible reading, prayer and Christian service.
ILL.- One of the finest elders I ever met in a church was Ralph Riemensnider of the First Christian Church of Iberia, MO, where I ministered from 1974 to 1984. Ralph is in his upper 70’s now and experiencing some health problems. He has macular degeneration and has lost his eyesight. He can no longer drive to church but his wife still drives.
When I preached for that church Ralph was the President of a local bank and he was one of the best elders I’ve ever seen. He did everything at the church and for the church. He taught a SS class and also taught the midweek study whenever needed. He would preach a sermon when the preacher was gone. He led the singing most of the time. He also sang special music and was good at it. Any time there was physical maintenance needing done around the church, Ralph was there to help. Ralph was also great with people. Everybody loved him. He was very positive and had a positive influence in our church.
I was so impressed with Ralph’s commitment and enthusiasm for the Lord and the church that I asked him one day where he got it. He said there was another elder in the church who served years before him. His name was Virgil Burks and was very committed to Christ and the church.
Virgil did everything he could for the Lord and the church. And he also had a very positive influence on Ralph and motivated him to action. PEOPLE DO INFLUENCE PEOPLE.
Prov. 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
Brothers and sisters, we all need to be the best model we can for all children in regard to the Christian faith. WHAT KIND OF MODEL ARE YOU? Faithful? Committed? Occasional? Spasmodic? Lethargic? Lukewarm?
CONCLUSION--------------------------------------
ILL.- SOME WOULD GATHER MONEY
Some would gather money
Along the path of life
Some would gather roses
And rest from worldly strife.
But I would gather children
From among the thorns of sin;
I would seek a golden curl
And a freckled, toothless grin.
For money cannot enter
In that land of endless day,
And the roses that are gathered
Soon will wilt along the way.
But oh, the laughing children,
As I cross the Sunset Sea
And the gates swing wide to heaven
I can take them in with me.
