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The word ‘suffer’
in the KJV means to let, allow,
or permit [them to come to Me]. Or even, ‘send them to Me.’
Yes, there are many suffering children out
there, but not many who are ‘suffering the children’ to come to Jesus.
As we have VBS this week we are striving to suffer the children, as we do
all year long.
Don’t you love children?! They really do say
the darndest things!
Joke -- 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!"
Joke -- A Sunday School teacher asked her
students, “Do you believe that story about Lot’s wife looking back and
turning into a pillar of salt?”
One little boy said, “Sure I do. Just yesterday my mother looked
back and turned into a telephone pole.”
Joke -- A mother asked her son, “What did you learn in VBS today? “That God
created the world in eleven days.” “But that’s wrong.” “In that case, I
didn’t learn anything.”
Joke -- A youngster went home after VBS and said to his father, “Today we
heard a wonderful story from the Bible. The teacher said the Jews were
chased out of Egypt by Egyptian tanks.”
“When they came to the Red sea, the Jews saw the Egyptian tanks coming after
them so they built a bridge and went over safely. But when the Egyptians
kept coming, they blew it up with an atomic bomb and the Egyptians were
destroyed.” His father said, “Did the teacher really tell you the story that
way?”
He replied, “No, but if I told you how he did tell the story, you’d
never believe it.”
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.”
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, “forbid them not,” 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.
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!
In light of VBS and life in general, we must
bless the children. They are the hope of the world. How do we bless them?
I. ATTEND
TO THEM
Jesus paid attention to children and so must
we.
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!”
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 appropriately – 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 them up in his arms,
put his hands upon them, and blessed them.”
Certainly some children require more “hands
on” than others but all children need to be blessed by us. We do this thru
prayer among other things.
All the time in the news we are hearing about
missing children who have wandered off or gotten lost on camping trips and
such. Immediately we become people of prayer for those children.
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.
We should pray for them all the time. No
generation has needed prayer more than this one. And even better yet, pray
for them in their presence. You may say, “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. Our children need this blessing!
III. MODEL FOR
THEM
1 Timothy 4:12, “Let no man despise thy
youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in
charity, in spirit, in faith, 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!
1 Peter 5:1-3, “The elders which are among
you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of
Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the
flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by
constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the
flock.
ILL.- A preacher said one time, “Watch the
deacons in the church. Keep an eye on them. Whatever they do, you can do.”
Afterward a deacon approached the 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.
We criticize actors, politicians, and those
in the public eye for being bad examples, but what are we doing in our own
homes?
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.
We have a lot of young families here. As a
matter of fact, almost everyone here right now knows what it means to be a
young family at Grace. Even a few of you who were here 30 and 40 years ago
know what that was like, and I hear you talk about some great examples [by
name] that you had, and now you are being terrific examples to a new
generation, and now we have a great responsibility to our kids!
Proverbs 27:17
Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the
countenance of his friend.
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?
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.
[much material above from great sermon by
Steve Shepherd, “Bless the Children.”]
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