Welcoming Children

Harvest Pointe Methodist Church

That's where we're going to be this morning.

00:00:06

I don't sing on microphone often, but last week, Jackson, my oldest son, who works back there in the sound booth, he told me that I accidentally had my mic on for the last song last week. So there you go. I serenaded you along with the. With the crew. So.

00:00:24

All right, turn with me to Mark, chapter eight. Because I'm a little self conscious of that sometimes. Because Jack, one time he told me when I leddehe a song, he said, well, he said, that was good, but let me know what four keys you're going to be in next time. You know which. Hey, look, I am no singer.

00:00:41

That's why we've got other people doing that kind of thing. Hey, stand with me once you've found mark, chapter nine. And we're going to read starting with verse 30. Notice these words here. This is the word of God.

00:00:59

Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, the son of man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him. And three days after being killed, he will rise again. But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house, he asked them, what were you arguing about on the way?

00:01:35

But they were silent. For on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. Then he took a little child and put it among them. And taking him in his arms, he said to them, whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

00:02:09

And whoever welcomes me welcomes not me, but the one who sentence me. Lord Jesus, thank you for your holy word. We pray now that the same holy spirit who inspired these words for our benefit would be among us and enlighten us and call us to himself, and then transform us and empower us, Lord, to go and be about your business. We pray this would happen today in this room. In your name, Jesus.

00:02:42

Amen. And you can be seated.

00:02:50

Well, we come to this text here, and maybe it's one you've read before, maybe not. Maybe it's your first time hearing it. Jesus prophesies something here. And of course, we've got a little scuffle with the disciples. And then he brings a little child among them in front of them, which is a fairly famous story in Jesus life, where he does this but sometimes for us modern readers, some things are lost on us because we don't really think in terms of the first century world, all right?

00:03:24

And so if you may, let's just dial it back for just a second and think in terms of the first century and read it in such a way that we're back in ancient times, right? And if we do, we'll see that this little child being brought before them is quite shocking. In fact, in the ancient world, children were of no avail. What were they going to do, okay? Especially little children, all right?

00:03:50

They can't produce anything. They're not going to help your bottom dollar. They're not going to spend any money. And so for the ancient world also, they died often, okay? Most kids didn't make it past one year old, and even the ones who made it past that, it was even less, okay?

00:04:08

And then most people, you know, shoot back in, what was it? I think, like 1800, the average life of a male was like 43 years old. That's my age. That was like normal to be dead by that point, okay? Like, statistically speaking.

00:04:24

Again, now we've elongated that all the way into seventies. Now, like a male is like 74 or something. But not in the ancient world. Not an ancient. You have to remember that little things would kill them, okay?

00:04:36

Things that, like, for instance, my wife had an appendectomy once, r