For August 23

 

Sermon Notes: Jesus And The Children

Intro: I’m certain we’ve all seen a newborn baby and been in awe of the miracle of those tiny fingers, hands, and toes. If you held that baby, you were probably very careful because of how small and fragile it seemed. I was 14 when my sister was born, and I remember just staring at her, lying there in her crib, and every once in a while just touching those tiny little fingers. Just as miraculous as when each of  my own children were born. You wonder how anyone could ever hurt such a child. It’s always been such a comfort seeing Jesus’ compassion for children, welcoming them to Himself, and even warning against harming any child. And feeling angry hearing about the horrible things people, even parents, do to harm children.

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I. Foster Family Ministry

A. The reality is that child abuse is more common than we want to recognize. Abuse that includes killing unborn children by abortion, or at birth because it wasn’t wanted. Or seeing a child grow up in an abusive home, then hearing the results of such abuse when a young person ends up in prison, or tragically dying on the streets.

B. But the Church can offer hope for such children. Hope that somehow we, as individuals, and as the body of Christ’s Church, can reach out to such children and make a difference in their lives. One of those ways is why I’m pleased that we have become involved in the Foster Family Ministry, and have the chance today to meet Ashley and AJ, the foster family we’ve been blessed to support.

C. Our church’s involvement began with a phone call from Pastor Brian, whom many of you know from the Lafayette church, making me aware of a presentation about the Foster Family Ministry which I wasn’t aware of. Nadine, Cathy, and I accepted an invitation to attend. The main speaker was a young man in his late twenties I’d guess. He told his story about him and his sister running from their home in pajamas late one night to escape a beating from their drunken father. They found a nearby church, with a door that had been ‘inadvertently’ left open, and went in to get warm. They “borrowed” money from a jar they found to get some breakfast. I liked the imagery of a church door open to those in need, and offering warm relief. Not long afterward, Child Services removed them and their two siblings from that abusive home, and placed them in foster care. He spoke of having been fortunate to have been placed in a Christian foster home, and after aging out of the system, had found the means to be accepted into college and seminary to become a pastor, and later became an advocate for the Foster Family Ministry program.

D. Foster Family Ministry is a program where churches like ours support foster families, like Ashley and AJ, helping them not just to meet the physical needs of foster care, but to offer them Christian support for their spiritual needs, with the hope as we sang in our Hymn of Preparation, for a Happy Home where Christ is there. Church leaders, like Nadine, Cathy, Bonnie, Andrea, Dottie, Debbie, Jeff and Ann had  background checks and training allowing  them have personal contact with foster children.

E, While his story had a happier ending than others, foster care still has significant failings with unhappy endings. Many kids go from foster home to foster home until they age out at age 18. You may remember me giving you the grim statistics of those aging out of the foster system, where unemployment, homelessness, teenage pregnancies, drugs, and prison produce tragic dead end lives.

F. But God never intended life to be difficult for children. In the OT, God is praised as the Defender of the fatherless, or orphans, and the widow, and passes that responsibility on to His people. God is especially compassionate toward these vulnerable ones, because orphans and widows were without rights in Jewish society, dependent on charitable giving. In fact, in Hebrew, the word for charity is justice. Justice because life is sacred to God.

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II. Psalm 139: 11-18

A. In our OT lesson, the psalmist recognizes that God is a part of an unborn’s life, from conception to birth. God is seen as forming, creating, a child’s inmost being within its mother. He praises God that he, like all He gives life to, are fearfully and wonderfully made. So, it follows that since all life is God given, as no other God or person can do, it is sacred to the God who created us. So precious, that we are never out of His sight, or His love, even those who don’t love Him.

B. When Israel had become so sinful, God sent it into disciplinary Babylonian exile.  After the walls of Jerusalem had been torn down, and the Temple, the place where God was believed to dwell, was destroyed, they grieved that God had turned His back on them and had abandoned them. But in Isaiah 49:15, God asks them, through the prophet Isaiah, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” Life has always been precious and sacred to the loving God, not just for Israelites, or for those who worship Him, but for each life. Every life.

C. By comparison, pagan nations often sacrificed their children to their false gods, often to gain the favor of their god, or gods, for prosperity. Baal and Molech were the most notable, evil gods demanding child sacrifice. Worship in the temple of a god involved sexual acts with temple prostitutes, considered priestesses, as well as homosexual acts, with men dressed as women, and women dressed as men.

D. Children born to the prostitutes were unwanted and usually cruelly sacrificed to the gods. Children born into poor families could be sold to a wealthier family and used as their sacrifices to appease their gods.

Child sacrifices that had no regard for the sacredness of life were not only an abomination to the Holy God, but not even an influence God wanted his risk His people being exposed to. So, if you’ve ever wondered why God often ordered all people killed in a conquered pagan city, and God appeared to be such a cruel God, this would be such a reason. Unfortunately, Israel began to emulate such practices as they turned from God to idol worship. And the more Israel turned from God, the more they  worshipped false gods with their immoral practices.

E. We see examples of child killings in pagan Egypt, where the Hebrew male babies, like Moses, were to have been killed at birth, to control the number of slaves. But God not only has Moses rescued but he’s raised as a prince of Egypt in Pharaoh’s courts, where God later uses him to confront Pharaoh to let God’s people go. Even when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Herod had all the children who could have been the newborn king murdered, trying to kill even the Promised Son of God.

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III. Matthew 18:1-10;13-15

A. But Jesus significantly revealed the love of God for children during His earthly ministry. Our Gospel lesson records the disciples’ concern about which of them would be the greatest in heaven, expecting Jesus to provide a list of righteous acts by which to measure His standards for greatness. To their surprise, He takes a little child as His measure, telling  them that they must become like little children or they would never enter the kingdom of heaven. The disciples had given all they had to follow Him, served Jesus loyally... and He considered this child as the greatest?  But a little child’s faith is loving and trusting, unconditionally, as our faith in Him should be.

B. When parents brought their children to Jesus, to ask Him to bless them, the disciples turned them away, saying Jesus was too busy to take time out for children. But Jesus corrects them, telling them to let the children come to Him, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. He even tells the disciples that whoever welcomes one such child in His Name, welcomes Him.

C. My favorite mental pictures of Jesus includes one of Jesus with children, laughing, and playing something like Ring around the Rosey with them. If you’ve watched Season One of the Chosen, there are heartwarming scenes where Jesus meets with several curious children about 8 years old. He treats them like special friends, and enjoys talking and listening to them, while teaching them some important life lessons. You could feel Jesus’ sincere love for them through the actor’s portrayal of Jesus.

D. But also within our Gospel Lesson is that very stern warning that whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble, that is, harm them or lead them away from God, it would be better for them to have a large millstone tied around their neck and drowned in the depths of the sea. The depths of the sea were thought to house terrorizing evil spirits So, having a large, heavy millstone, used to crush wheat and olives into their usable forms, tied to an abuser’s neck, would do more than cause them to drown, but rapidly take them to the depths, where evil spirits were believed to be waiting to cause great terror. Jesus was emphatically making His point.

E. Jesus’ coming into the world seems to have caused the evil gods to retreat somewhat. Christianity began to take root in former pagan strongholds as evangelists like Paul established churches in Europe and Asia Minor. By the fourth century, even Rome became a Christian nation under the emperor Constantine. As the Christian influence spread, pagan practices, like child sacrificing, became forbidden by the laws of Christian nations. America was founded on such Christian principles. Although freedom to worship God was fundamental, allowing worship of God in different denominations, the church was a fundamental part of American life, as one nation, under God.

F. With the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s  many from farms that had depended on families, parents and children, working together with strong family and religious values ,migrated to work in factories. As industrialization grew, factories offered low paying jobs so that even children needed to work, very often in unsafe, unhealthy environment, to meet family income needs. Children were killed or seriously injured in such conditions, sacrifices to the god of industrialization. As America became more prosperous, other gods emerged as corruptions increased. As we heard Jesus teach last week, when an evil spirit is cast out, and returns to find his former home empty, but clean and neat, it will settle in, bringing 7 times more evil spirits with it. America’s soul was becoming empty as it began to turn away from God, and pagan gods of Satan’s evil empire began to reemerge, filling that emptiness.

G. In 1973, the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, made abortion a nationwide legal right. Many millions of legal abortions have been performed in the United States since that Supreme Court decision. Biblically, abortion is the taking of the sacred life of an unborn child. Sacred because it is God given. As we saw in Psalm 139, God created us at conception and has woven us to become fearfully and wonderfully made, precious in His sight. And God has been with us since that time, even if we ignore or neglect Him.

H. Medically, although cases are made to justify lifesaving abortions, in reality abortion has become a means of birth control. Discussions are even ongoing to extend abortion to after birth. Adding to these numbers of child murders, children are being sacrificed through sex trafficking, pornography, and abusive crimes against children.

I. But this now brings us back to the urgent need for Foster Family Ministries because of situations where parents have died, or when parents don’t want a child, are unable to properly care for them, or are abusive. Foster families provide temporary solutions, but unless those homes do more than just provide meals and a bed, children often run away, or age out of the system and then exposed to tragic living conditions.

 

Conclusion: And that’s where the Foster Family Ministry becomes a valuable assist to foster homes no only sheltering children from the evil influences of this world, but also providing Christian support to teach them about Jesus. Proverbs 22:6 says to “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”  And Waltz Church can be a useful asset to that ministry. We can be the hands and feet of Jesus to foster homes, and the face of God to the foster parents and foster children. Through this opportunity to support Foster Family Ministry, may God bless us with hearing children proclaiming Jesus with their hosannas, rather than later dealing with broken lives who never knew the Savior’s love for them. Amen