Let the Children Come to Me

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0:14Isn't it great that we have a child-sized passage about children? I want to begin with asking the little ones among us a question. If you're a child, I want to ask you a question. First, why don't you raise your hands? It's so cool to see how many of you are among us. So just look around you. How many children are around us? I want to ask you a question. What do you want to be, children, when you grow up? And adults, I want you to think back. When I was a child, what would I have said? "I want to drive a bus. I want to be an ER doctor." What did you want to do? Children, what do you want to do?

0:55What did you want to do as a child? What do you want to be when you grow up? Regardless of your dreams, whether it's driving for F1 or playing in the NFL, whether it's being the best mom on the planet, or whatever else, children, what we want for you most, and adults as well, is that you would love and trust Jesus every day of your life. Your final breath would be taken relying upon Christ, and that's what this passage is about. The main idea of this passage is that the people of God are to not hinder but encourage the children in their lives to come to Jesus. But there's more. They're also supposed to get in line behind these children coming to Jesus, and they are to come to Him as well, adults, in childlike faith.

1:54That's where this text is going, and we're going to look at it deeply. God's Word is so rich, and we're going to look at it in three parts. You see, these people that were bringing children to Jesus were actually making a request. They wanted something. They were asking Him for something. So we're going to look at that in the first half of verse 13. And then there's dueling rebukes. We've seen this before in Matthew when Peter says, "No, you can't go to the cross," and then Jesus turns and rebukes him. We get the same kind of thing in this passage. Two rebukes. The disciples rebuke those that are bringing children, and then Jesus rebukes them, and that's in the end of 13 and into 14.

2:40And then finally, we're going to see Jesus' powerful and amazing reason why it is so wrong for them to rebuke the children, and this is going to feed our souls greatly. So because God wants us to be childlike in our faith, let's begin by acknowledging our great need for Him in prayer. Father, thank you for this scripture. Thank you that it has so much to reorient us. Lord, whether we see it or not, there's so many ways that our children in this world are hurt, harmed, taken advantage of, and prevented from coming to Jesus. And there's many things in the hearts of adults that overlook them and don't bring them to you.

3:37And we desperately need to run to you, as we just sang. So Father, would you please come and meet us by your Spirit and help us this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, keep your Bibles open. And children, Pastor Brian Lichee mentioned these kids sermon note pages. So if you don't have one, somebody can sneak out and help you grab one, or you can grab one next week. But those are very valuable, and I'd encourage you to use those. Well, we're going to begin with the request, and what we want to figure out is what do they want, and is this good? What do they want, and is this good?

4:14Matthew 19, verse 13, "Then the children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray." In order to understand this, we need to understand that many other people already in the Gospel of Matthew have been brought to Jesus. Depending on how you count it, according to my numbers, this is the seventh time where people are brought to Jesus. This is the second time that that's taken place, and I think that's significant. Oftentimes in the Bible, the seventh is the culmination of the most important, and this is the last time that people are brought to Him. So who was brought to Jesus in the past?

4:54If you flip back, you don't have to, you could. If you flip back to Matthew 4:24, it gives us a summary statement of many of the different occurrences of those that were brought to Jesus. Matthew 4:24 says, "And they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics." Each of these individuals had grievous maladies or were oppressed by harmful spirits that were hurting them, and no one else could help them. No doctor could heal them. Nobody could remove this oppression from them. They were brought to Jesus.

5:39And Matthew 9:2 has another instance of somebody who's brought to Jesus, and it helps us see that it's more than just physical needs. There's deeper spiritual needs as well. "And behold, some people brought to him," that is to Jesus, "a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Take heart, my son. Your sins are forgiven.'"There's an even greater need that people have for coming to Jesus than to have him heal their illnesses or free them from oppression. There is a spiritual condition that needs to be healed. Do you believe that you need to be brought to Jesus?

6:28Do you believe that you need Jesus' healing, that you are just as desperate as all the others in the Gospel of Matthew that were brought to him? I've been helped recently to consider spiritual blindness and where it shows up in my own life. If you are an unbeliever, that is, you are here, we're so glad that you are, but you know in your heart that you are not trusting Jesus Christ. Do you know that Acts 26:17 and 18 gives you a diagnosis of spiritual blindness? It says, "I am sending you, Paul, to open their eyes," that is the eyes of the unbelievers, "so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God." Do you see that?

7:19But believer, do you know that the same reality is true for you as well? You have spiritual darkness. You have spiritual blindness. You have things in your eyes that prevent you from seeing the truth. We learn this from Jesus as well in Matthew 7:3-5. Listen to this and pay attention. Where is there blindness here? "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye?" This is teaching your brother. This is teaching for those within the church. "But do not notice the log that is in your own eye." How blind do you have to be to have a huge plank sticking out of your eye and you don't notice it?

8:04But this is true of us regularly. The Lord has revealed these kinds of things to me in the last few weeks. That you do not see the log that is in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Jesus is speaking to the kingdom community, and we often judge others, look with them in critical ways, thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, and it blinds our eyes spiritually, and that's just one example. Before we ask ourselves, do I bring children in my life to Jesus? We need to ask if I want to be brought to Jesus, if I want Jesus to put his hands upon me, and bless me, and pray for me, and heal me.

9:01This text is calling us to childlike faith. It will at the end in very crystal clear realities. But first we have to see, do I need to be brought to Jesus? As I prepared for this message, God, in his kindness, reminded me I need Jesus' healing. I need his help. And I shared some of those heart needs with him and sought him for it. Is that your heart? Is that your disposition? That's what this text is calling us to. So what does it mean that he wanted to lay his hands on them and pray for them? How many of you have seen a child dedication here at the North Church? We have a pastor come up and lay their hands on each little child. That is a part of our tradition, but we don't often just have people lining up outside of that to bring children to leaders or elders. Why did they bring these children to Jesus?

10:03If we understand this, we'll understand why the rebuke was so wrong. Laying hands on Jesus, we can understand from God's Word, was meant to bless them. So if you're familiar with the end of the Book of Genesis, there was a patriarch, the head of a family that God had said, "I'm going to bless you, and I'm going to bless your offspring after you." Joseph brought his two sons to his father, and over and over again in chapter 48 of Genesis, it talks about Jacob laying his hands upon them. That's the focus. It talks about laying his hands, "But no, your hands are in the wrong places." He gives them a blessing, a powerful word that he knew would take place.

10:56That's what these people are asking Jesus to do. They're asking him to lay his hands upon them and speak a word over them. So what is a blessing? A blessing is an overheard prayer that is spoken. It's calling out to God and spoken over a person that God would bring about their highest and best spiritual good. So in the Old Testament, one of the most famous blessings that perhaps you've heard at the end of many of our services is Numbers 6:24-27. Now, we don't know what type of blessing Jesus spoke over these children, but this one can illustrate it and help us understand what was going on here.

11:40Numbers 6:24 says, "The Lord bless you and keep you." That means may the sovereign God work in your life using all things in a Romans 8 type of a way to bring about your greatest happiness in him, and may he also protect you. That blessing goes on and says, "The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you."That means may God, in a sense, lift up his smiling face upon you and your life, and cause goodness to take place, and cause his Spirit to flow through you and use you to spread his light. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. May he draw near to you.

12:32May he work and rescue and save you from all the realities that are hindering you and hurting you, and may he give you peace. Now, children, I want to ask you, was it a good thing? You can just whisper to the person next to you or just think in your own head. Was it a good thing that people wanted to bring to Jesus children for him to do that for them? Was that a good thing? Just consider the very one that gave the Numbers blessing was standing there or sitting on a rock or whatever Jesus was doing. He was physically there. So any blessing that Jesus gave in the name of the Lord, he was giving in his own name.

13:22Any blessing that he was pronouncing over them, he was actually on Earth to earn the right for it to be fulfilled. We just need to step back and say what these parents, people, siblings, we're not sure who it was, but whoever was bringing these children to God was doing absolutely the best possible thing they could be doing on that day. Better than going to the beach, better than going fishing, better than going to play in somebody's backyard. They were bringing children to Jesus to have him authoritatively speak words over them in prayer. That is amazing. And that's the next thing that it says, and to pray for them.

14:14We often say we end a prayer in Jesus' name, and sometimes that becomes a throwaway phrase. But to pray in Jesus' name means with his authority, through his worthy righteousness, because of him, Father, hear what we're saying to you and answer. As you smile upon him, smile upon this request for your kingdom to be built. How much more when the one who's praying it is the King? The King of the universe, who is both truly God and truly man, was there in the flesh praying over these children. The Father absolutely heard what he had to say. We talked earlier about lifting his face, drawing near, his smiling countenance upon them.

15:09The light of the world was smiling upon these children. How amazing is this picture? What a scripture. What a scene. What a truth about our God. Our humble, kind, drawing near God. The prayer being requested here are in Jesus' name because they are from his very lips. Praise him. Well, that was what was going on, but the disciples rebuked them. They wanted to stop this. There are duly rebukes in this text, and the second half of verse 13 says, "The disciples rebuked the people." So we first need to understand what is a rebuke? What is a rebuke? That is a sharp, stern correction. Like somebody stepping in, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is way out of control.

16:15Stop this. We're not doing that. We have another plan. All of you, go away." Now, when we understand what was going on, that is absolutely out of place. Absolutely out of place. So let's try to understand what is going on here. Why are they rebuking these people from bringing children to Jesus? Look carefully. Before we go much further, look carefully at who was bringing the children, who was rebuked. If you look in the text, the ESV translates it as the people. The people. The Greek words behind this are not precise. Notice that it does not say parents. It says the people. It very well could have been siblings, as I mentioned earlier. It probably was several parents. It could be grandparents.

17:21I think what's beautiful about the way that Matthew has written this is that it helps communicate that it takes a church, not just parents, to raise children in the faith. The Bible is very clear, and we'll see in a few weeks from Ephesians 4, that pastors and leaders are to equip the saints, all believers, to build up the body. It's not just parents that train and raise up and help. We all have a role. So those people in general were being rebuked. Why were they rebuked? There are several speculations that are presented by commentators and those that study this. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, and this is sort of a section that Matthew has knitted together with sort of discipleship within the home. We just looked at marriage last week, and this is talking about children, and there's going to be other things coming down the road from this sort of discipleship-teaching connectionBut it's possible that maybe the disciples were like, "Hey, this is teaching time.

18:32We don't want the children around here." Or perhaps they were like, "We have a tight schedule to keep," or, "I'm getting really hungry. This is going to take a long time. This is a long line. We're not doing that. We're going to go over here." We don't know what the reasons were, but all of the reasons that they could possibly be have one underlying reality amongst them. The disciples were elevating the desires of adults above the needs of children. That is a reality that has been true in our world since the fall. We have a culture that seeks to elevate the desires of adults above the needs of children, and oftentimes they are hurt and harmed. Just consider a few examples in our world.

19:26Some children are brought into this world through surrogacy, where a child will be forever separated from their birth mother. Some children in our world today are being raised by same-sex parents, where they will forever be raised without a mother or father. Abortion is a very clear example, where children's lives are snatched away. And if you look further into the statistics, your heart continues to break even more when you consider those with Down syndrome, their lives are taken at a much higher rate, 60% to 90% of those that are found to have that or other disabilities. There's so many different realities, and the list could go on.

20:17You can do your own research, but there are so many different things in our world where the desires and wants and thoughts of adults are pursued at the expense of children. Why am I telling you this? If you were to go back to Jesus' day, there were some ugly and awful practices happening in the Roman Empire to children, where again, adult desires were raised above the needs and safety and well-being of children. And the church, the people of God, with his word and his truth and his priorities, stepped into that culture and spoke up for children and began to change the society. And we can do that, too.

21:09We can do that, too. I'm very thankful in this last year, as I've become aware of it, of an organization called Them Before Us. It's a group started by Katie Faust, and the idea is to look at our world and highlight the realities where we need to flip the script, put the needs of children above our needs. I would encourage you to make yourself aware of what is going on in our world and what is going on in your specific world where the needs of children are being subsided and where the desires of adults are being raised. But it's not just in our wider world. It can even happen in our own homes and in our own lives.

21:54How many of us have been guilty, and maybe right now, be guilty of pursuing success at work or even in ministry or at church at the expense of the children in our lives? How about seeking our own comfort as parents over doing the hard work of parenting and discipline and discipleship? Or how about choosing me time or just, "I need to rest. I need y'all to go away," rather than caring for and being with our children? There are many ways, and those are just a few, where we can seek to elevate our own desires, our own wants at the expense of children. We need to ask the Lord to search our hearts and see where we are doing that.

22:41So what does Jesus say to correct his disciples? How does he rebuke them back for their rebuke? If you look carefully, there are two commands and a primary goal in the text. Two commands and a primary goal, and the reason it's important for us to see that is because if they're commands from Jesus, we need to see, how do I need to obey this, Lord? The first one is behind the word "let." It means permit. Jesus wants them to allow or make way for and welcome the children to come to him. He doesn't want anything to hinder them, as we'll see next, but he wants the doors to be flung open for them to be able to move closely and quickly to Jesus.

23:32I just want you to know God has given our church much grace in this, and I want you to rejoice in that as a participant and member of this church. A few weeks ago, how many of you remember the snowstorm? We had a very small group of people gathered here, and during the second service, I got to sit in and be a part of helping in one of the nurseries. And I will tell you, I knew about the nurseries, but to see them firsthand and to hang out with the kids was amazing. We welcome little children. They walk through this little gate, and they're like, "Oh, so glad to see you," and they're known by name.

24:11They come back, and they play. They're cared for and loved by all sorts of different adults. They sing about Jesus with them. They lead them over a little carpet with a chair, and somebody speaks to them about the truths of who Jesus is and why he's so amazing.They get to eat snacks. How many of us like snacks? Like little graham c******s and stuff like that. But while they do that, just like this text, an adult comes alongside of them, puts their hand on their little shoulder, on their back, and prays for them out loud by name. If you want an example of this text, right down the hallway in our nurseries, it's happening.

24:53Rejoice in that. Rejoice that our church is a little strange. We're a little weird. We're a little different. We love to have children in a worship service with us. We don't necessarily send them off or go do this, that, or the other thing. We want them to be among us, to be watching us. On Easter morning, I was over there in the last service, and the highlight of my Easter morning was singing songs about Jesus' resurrection as a little girl was leaping for joy in her mother's arms. I was blessed by being in worship with little children.

25:33Such a gift to us. We want to do everything we can in this service and in our church, in our homes, for children to be brought to Jesus. And this is something that we can all help with. Oftentimes, Pastor Steven ends the service saying, "Show the warmth and welcome of the North Church to those around you." We should do that with people of all ages. We should get down on our knee and get to know little children and encourage them and thank them or give them a little bump and thank them for being here. We can pray for them. We can pray for them, and we can encourage parents. It's challenging to have children and to be working towards training them. I'm thankful that Pastor Steven sent an email a few weeks ago called "Worshiping Together with Our Children" to give ideas and resources and encouragement to the whole church to help us do this. This is biblical. This is good.

26:40You should rejoice when little coloring crayons or things, or little cars or whatever, roll underneath your chair from the seat in front of you back to you. It will happen with children in service. And you can give them back to them and thank them and smile at them and love at them, or in worship, when they're looking back at you and watching you as you're singing to Jesus, you can smile at them and keep singing and pray that these children would love Jesus. It takes all of us. We need to encourage and pray for and bless and thank God for this good thing.

27:18The second command is do not hinder them. This means do not exclude them or hold them back from coming to Jesus. Let me just ask you a question. I was encouraged by some of the pastors to do this in our weekly meeting. How many of you came to Jesus, you started to trust Jesus for salvation when you were 18 years or under? Just raise your hand. It's true of me. Just look around how many hands that is. Do you know that our world, in many ways, is seeking to keep that from happening? If we look around the world, a very clear example is in China. Formal religious instruction of children under 18 is prohibited, and it's not just something that's on the books.

28:10It's something that they work hard to carry out and enforce. In some ways, in our own state, things are done to hinder children from coming to Jesus. For example, in April of 2023, our governor signed a bill into law that prohibits mental health professionals from seeking to change an individual's sexual orientation, this is taken from their writing, sexual orientation or gender identity if the client is younger than age 18. They can't speak the truth of the gospel. They're warned not to. There's fears put into them from presenting the life-changing message of Jesus Christ, how he invites all to come to him, how they can be given help to pursue and fight desires so they might follow after Jesus in obedience.

29:10It's preventing them from being warned that anyone who continues in an unrepentant lifestyle in some of these sexual immoralities will not see the kingdom of heaven. It's preventing people from obeying and trusting Jesus and hearing about his life-changing message. Again, why am I telling you this? So that you can pray and know. But what about us? What are some of the ways that we may be working against, we may be hindering the children around us from coming to Jesus? Here's just two examples. One is hypocrisy.

29:52Perhaps for some in a room this size, you are one smiling, worshiping way at church and a very different type of person at home, and your children see it. Or maybe, as happens probably every week, you got up and things were just off, and everybody in the house knows it, and then you show up and get in your row, and you're finally like, "Okay, turn the happy on." And your kids know it. Our children are very good at smelling hypocrisy. And if you are presenting a message to them that this is all pretend, you are speaking lies with your lifeBut praise God, He is the redeemer of hypocrites. And aren't we all at some times? We can come to Christ and say, "Forgive me.

30:51Change my heart." We can go to our children, and we can actually bring them to Jesus by confessing our sins to them and telling them of our great need for Jesus. A second one is priorities. Some of our children are hindered from Jesus because of the ways and the opportunities that we want to give them. We give them so many things and so many activities, and the standard is so high that either they aren't able to come and gather with God's people, or they're too exhausted to pay attention to our great God or see Him clearly because they're wiped out. These are just a couple examples, but we should examine, are we hindering the children in our lives from coming to Jesus? And that's the final beautiful thing. Notice the goal.

31:44Why does Jesus give those commands? "Let the children come to me and do not hinder them." Let's just pause for a moment and rejoice in the beautiful reality that we have a God that desires that we would come to Him. I was thinking, and this is not true of this one, if I had a brand new Bible and a highlighter, and I set out as it being my mission that I was going to highlight every reality from the beginning to the end about this theme of coming near to God, drawing near to God, God drawing near to us, Him calling me to draw near to Him, I would have a very colorful Bible. It is a very big theme in Scripture.

32:30The Garden begins with God with His people. The Fall means that they were rejected and moved out of presence with God, but He continually, relentlessly moved towards them. For example, consider Exodus. These people were in slavery, and God came to them to free them, that they might worship Him. He gave them His law that He might dwell among them. He gave them a tabernacle so He might move into the neighborhood. He wanted them to be a distinct people for whom God was near. This is our God. Fast-forward to Christ. Jesus took on flesh that He might draw near to His people. He, the word literally in John, is tabernacled among them. He did the same thing to teach them the truth, to draw them to Himself.

33:29He drew near to us, and then He went to the cross, suffering that He might bring us to God. This is a massive theme throughout Scripture, and the ending of the book in Revelation 21:3, a voice from the throne will say these words: "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God." The nearness of God is our good. Do you believe that? Do you desire that? Is God being in heaven the greatest treasure for you? Is that what you want? Before we can draw the children in our lives to God, we need to first want that.

34:21We need to see that it's a good thing for them to know and love and trust God. So how do we come to Him? Well, we can sit at His feet and listen to Him in teaching, by getting alone with Him in the Word. We can pour out our hearts before Him, all of it, all of the junk, all of the joy, asking Him to shepherd us and help us and unite our hearts to fear His name. We can regularly cry out to Him and ask Him to help us. In order to value children coming to Jesus, we need to value coming to Him ourselves. Do you want that? Do you want that for the children in your lives? Finally, this text shows us a beautiful reason for wanting the children around us, the children in our world, and the children in our lives to come to Jesus.

35:24The last half of verse 14 says, "For to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." Again, raise your hand. How many of you were here when we were earlier in Matthew in the series, and we preached to you the Beatitudes? The Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. Okay. Well, this is a hidden Beatitude way over here in chapter 19. The sentence construction is very similar to two of the Beatitudes. I'll read you one. I'll read you two. Chapter 5, verse 3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It's very same construction. Or 5:10, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It's almost as if Matthew is saying, "Blessed are the childlike in faith, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." But it's helpful because it gives us more understanding of "theirs is." What does that mean? It belongs to them.

36:21Just like the Beatitudes, what this is doing is it's saying a person that has this type of fruit in their life, who exhibits these realities, who pursues these priorities, they are showing that the kingdom of God belongs to them. There's assurance for them. They can see the fruit in their lives and look at that and say, "Oh, God has taken out my heart of stone and given me a heart of flesh and caused me to walk in His ways, and I'm seeing this, and the kingdom belongs to me."Jesus wants us to look at children and say, "Those who have faith like them, the kingdom belongs to them." So three ways that children display this type of faith. The first is humility.

37:11Matthew 18:4 talks about humbling yourself like a child. It's believing that you greatly need Jesus and you can't do it on your own. That's counter-cultural. That's counter heart intuition for all of us. "I can do it. Just get out of my way." That's how we are wired. Supernaturally, we can be wired that my only hope is Christ. Secondly, they have a powerful trust and deep confidence in God. I was helped by an article by John Piper on this. I am a very anxious person, and that's one of the ways that I need Jesus to help me and to make me more childlike. But just think about some children are certainly anxious, but the majority of them have a deep trust in their parents. So pick an example. Let's just say that there's something wrong with your car, and you are bringing a little child, whether it's your grandchild or somebody like that, into the mechanic, and they're starting to tell you about the bill, and your anxiety levels are going up, and you're like, "How am I going to pay for this? And what else is wrong?" And you don't even know all the problems, and you're just like, "Ah." And the kid's just like, "Doop-a-doop-a-doo, Dad's got me covered.

38:31I got a ride here. I'm getting a ride back from here." That's how children think and operate. Children have a deep trust in the one that is helping them, and we need that too. Finally, they regularly seek help. Childlike faith is somebody that regularly seeks help from God. Throughout the scriptures, for example, 1 Corinthians 1:2, Christians are described as those who call on the Lord. A more accurate translation would be those who continually call on the name of the Lord. Have you ever spent time with a child? Probably within 10 minutes, they'll ask you 15 different times to help you with something. "Can you tie this? Can you lift that? Can you put this together for me?

39:19Can you get that down off the shelf for me? Can you help me with this?" Do you know we are supposed to be like that with God? How else do you pray without ceasing? "God, would you help me with this? I can't do this. I desperately need you for this." And that actually is a good thing. We live, operate, and serve in the strength that He supplies. It's not about self-reliance. When God transforms a person to be like this, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That's what this text is calling us towards. Does that describe you? Where do you need more of that? Maybe spend some time with children and ask the Lord to show you.

40:09"Help me see their example. How can I have faith like them, more faith like them in you, God? Help me." Well, our passage ends in verse 15, "And he laid his hands on them and went away." Now, it sounds a little abrupt. That's not Matthew's intention. He's not just saying, "Well, Jesus kinda did it quick and then got out of there." No. If you read one of the parallel accounts in Matthew, it's beautiful. It says that Jesus gathered the children in his arms. Can you imagine being a kid and sitting in Jesus' lap or just being picked up by him? I love holding my granddaughter. It's one of my favorite little things.

40:53Sometimes she steps on my belt, and it's amazing that Jesus did that with children. He didn't just say these things. He put it into practice, and he laid his hands upon them and blessed them. Oh, it would be amazing to be able to travel back in history and listen to what he said, and then have it translated for you so you could understand it, and then to be able to know what was being said over these children and what would take place in them because of who was doing the blessing and praying. He went away, and we're going to see next week the person that he encounters, and he has the same call for him, and we'll find out whether he receives it or rejects it next week.

41:34As we conclude, let me leave you with three brief applications that I believe connect to these verses. We, as adults, need to seek to bring children, the children in our lives, into Jesus's presence. That could mean bringing them to church or into the worship service, helping train our children to do that if we're parents. Grandparents, that could mean seeking to help them to get to God-filled places like Bible camp or things like that, or to come to your house and to hear about Jesus. It could mean getting good Christian resources into the hands of children. It could mean supporting some of our global partners or people that are working with children, that the gospel message might get to them.

42:22It could mean mentoring a child in our life or a child that we're serving at church in reading God's Word in prayer. Not just reading God's Word to them, but helping them sit at Jesus' feet and learn how to listen to him. It could mean supporting the many efforts in our church, like volunteering if that is your gifting, or just giving regularly to our church to support the many efforts to serve our children. Seek to bring the children in your life into Jesus's presence.Secondly, bless the children in your life in the name of the Lord. Bless the children in your life in the name of the Lord. That might be a little bit hard to try to think through how do we do that.

43:08If you're a parent of children, several leaders in our church over the years have done a practice of blessing their children nightly when they tuck them in for bed, proclaiming a scripture over them like, "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace," and other things like that. There's a great article on Desiring God called "How Do I Bless My Children Before Bed?" You can learn about that. For others of us, if we have older children or grandchildren or other people in our lives, we can bless the children around us with our words.

43:49Pastor Sam is great at writing notes. You can do it too. Trust me, you can. And you can write little blessings in there to the children in your lives. You can speak to your children as they're going into something big like, "May the Lord bless you as you go take the ACT." You can do that. You can do it in texts. You can text them, "I'm praying for you today. May God shine his face upon you." Whatever scriptural truth is most on your heart that you just want to proclaim over them for them to hear and for God to hear. The third thing is bring the children in your life to Jesus in prayer. I'm sure that all of us need to grow in this reality.

44:33Whether it's the children that sit around us at church, whether it's the children in our small group, whether it's the children in our own lives, we need to pray for them, and we need to pray with them. Pray regularly for the children in your wider family or your wider church family. I cannot think of an action that more clearly represents bringing children to Jesus than bringing them to him through prayer. Let's ask God for more help to do that.

45:09And let me transition and pray for us right now. Father, thank you for prioritizing children. Thank you for giving them to us, those in our families and those in our church. Lord, would you draw near in a special way to those who are eager to have their own children, and yet to this point you've said no. Would you draw near to them and help them and comfort their hearts even right now? Father, would you help our church to protect our children? Would you help our families to make a safe place for our children and to be wise in how we shepherd them and care for them? Would you help us to put up good guardrails for their safety in all the ways?

45:55Lord, would you please help our children to be drawn to you and love them? Would they join the ranks of the people that raised their hands and said, "I trusted in Jesus before I was 18." Lord, would you please give us childlike faith? Would you help us to love you and humbly come to you, bringing our hearts to you, revealing our neediness to you, and rejoicing that you are a God that will not despise those that ask for wisdom, and you'll empower and help us to live for you. Thank you, Jesus. You are good. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Jump to live
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