Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTN

The commanding officer was furious when nine GIs who had been out on passes failed to show up for morning roll call.

Not until 7 p.m. did the first man straggle in.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the soldier explained, “but I had a date and lost track of time, and I missed the bus back.

Being determined to get in on time, I hired a cab.

Halfway here, the cab broke down.

I went to a farmhouse and persuaded the farmer to sell me a horse.

I was riding to camp when the animal fell over dead.

I walked the last ten miles, and just got here.”

Though skeptical, the colonel let the young man off with a reprimand.

However, after him, seven other stragglers in a row came in with the same story—had a date, missed the bus, hired a cab, bought a horse, etc.

By the time the ninth man reported in, the colonel had grown weary of it.

“Okay,” he growled, “now what happened to you?”

“Sir, I had this date and missed the bus back, so I hired a cab .”

“Wait!” the colonel screeched at him.

“don’t tell me the cab broke down.”

“No, sir,” replied the soldier.

“The cab didn’t break down.

It was just that there were so many dead horses in the road, we had trouble getting through.”

NEED

Maybe, when it comes to this building we’ve begun, you’re a little like this Commanding Officer with his GI’s: you’ve listened to the story, seen the building excitement of all this building, but you’re still a little hesitant.

You may have even voted for us to proceed with the project, but, in the back of your mind, you’re still asking some questions like:

Where will we get the money?

Do we really need more space?

Why can’t we just make adjustments and avoid all this expense?

Or you may be asking on the other hand, “Hey, even though I believe we need more space, how can we take on this debt load right now the way the economy is?

Or maybe you’re here this morning and you’re asking, “Hey, why are we spending all this cash on space when other ministries around the world or even right here in Wilson could put this money to use and have much more immediate needs?

Well, this morning, I want to take some time to just remind of us of the reason and I want to do that by taking us to a very familiar passage of Scripture.

Its found in Mark 10:13-16

13 Then they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked those who brought them.

14 But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. 15 Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”

16 And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them.

Now if you understand the time in which the disciples lived, you won’t be so hard on them.

In that day, children were thought to add nothing to the family’s economy or honor and really did not count.

If you had a child and didn’t want them, you just threw them out.

Seeing your neglected baby, stingy wicked men would collect them and raise them to be gladiators or prostitutes and even disfigure their faces so that they could collect more money while begging.

So, with such an attitude in society, you can hardly blame the disciples for their dismissive attitude.

It was ingrained.

But not so with Jesus.

He opened his arms to them.

You can’t read this passage without coming to one very obvious conclusion: Children matter to Jesus.

So much so that this is one of the handful of times you read of Jesus becoming angry.

They mattered to Him and, if they mattered to the master, they need to matter to us as well.

Now, I’m sure that you probably agree with me, but you might also be saying.

“Yes, Rusty, I know that children are important, but that still doesn’t explain why you have to have a new building to house them.

Well I believe the application of this passage of scripture to our situation can help explain why all of this is so necessary.

You see children matter to Christ and they must also matter to us for a couple of reasons.

First, Children must matter to us because:

DIV 1: THEY ARE VULNERABLE

EXP

Now the reason many give to explain why Jesus was so concerned for children is often, I believe, wrong.

A lot of people explain His concern by supposing that childlikeness has some inherent quality that children possess that make them more appealing and more likely to be saved, like humility, trustfulness, transparency, hopefulness, modesty or willingness to believe.

But one commentator counters that children can also be demanding, short-tempered, sulky, stubborn, thankless, and selfish.

That’s why they call it, “childish behavior.”

I don’t think that the reason Jesus was so concerned for these children because of their goodness, for like you and me, they too were sinners.

He, I believe, made such a great deal of them because they were vulnerable, and they were vulnerable in at least a couple of ways.

Notice in v 13 that it says that these children were being “brought” to Jesus.

The term for “child” here speaks of pre-adolescence between the ages of 0 and 12.

These children were being brought because they could not come on their own.

Their littleness contrasts sharply with the overbearing disciples, who want to assert their own power and influence.

Jesus is angered by this injustice and commends the children.

They were commended because they were dependent.

They had to be.

They are also vulnerable, not only because they could not bring themselves, but also because there were adults (the disciples) who actually stood in their way!

Now we don’t know what caused them to have such an unwelcoming attitude.

It may have been that they were exhausted and trying to save time, or it may have been that, because the society so looked down upon children, that they didn’t think it proper for Jesus to be bothered with them either.

APPLICATION

Whatever the reason, they were not the first to hinder children from believing and they will not be the last.

Now, our society doesn’t devalue children in the same way that the people of that day did, but our society does hinder children from coming to Christ.

Some of it is unintentional, some of it is very intentional.

There are at least a couple of ways in which our society seeks to bar children from the presence of Christ today.

They first attempt this through innundation .

What our kids face today makes us wish for the “good old days” when kids watched four hours of tv per day!

They can spend hours in front of their video games or youtube without restraint if their parents do not take concrete action to stop it.

And the impact is predictable.

One report says that research on media violence and its relationship to real-life aggression is substantial and convincing.

Young persons learn their attitudes about violence at a very young age and, once learned, those attitudes are difficult to modify.

Conservative estimates are that media violence may be associated with 10 percent of real-life violence.

Several longitudinal studies have linked exposure to sex in the media to earlier onset of sexual activity.

they air unprecedented amounts of sexual situations and innuendoes in their primetime programs.

And, when it comes to substance abuse, witnessing smoking scenes in movies may be the leading factor associated with smoking initiation among youth.

In addition, young persons can be heavily influenced by alcohol and cigarette advertising.

More than $20 billion a year is spent in the United States on advertising cigarettes ($13 billion), alcohol ($5 billion), and prescription drugs ($4 billion).

Media use is also implicated in the current epidemic of obesity worldwide, but it is unclear how.

Children and adolescents view an estimated 7,500 food advertisements per year, most of which are for junk food or fast food.

Contributing factors to obesity may include that watching television changes eating habits and media use displaces more active physical pursuits.

The media are a major contributor to the formation of an adolescent's body self-image.

In Fiji, a naturalistic study of teenage girls found that the prevalence of eating disorders increased dramatically after the introduction of American TV programs.

Just the sheer amount of media our kids experience at the very least, distracts them and can even actively prevent them from coming to faith by presenting a one-sided, negative picture of Christianity.

So, how can a children’s building help with this?

Well, it can help us fight innundation with saturation.

On Sundays our teachers will stand before our children in that new building and proclaim the good news about Jesus Christ in an environment that is conducive to learning.

And we hope to take it beyond Sundays to the rest of the week.

We hope that, sometime in the future we can offer either daycare of mother’s day out to afford us an opportunity to counter the negative message so prevalent today.

We want to fight innundation with saturation.

But the problem goes beyond innundation to actual indoctrination.

Make no mistake about it: Our culture is out to reprogram our kids.

May I give you an example?

33 years ago, when I was in high school, homosexuality was just on the fringe of acceptance.

I graduated in South Florida, a fairly politically liberal area, but even there, it was limited to back alley bars.