Simple, Childlike Faith
(NLT) Jesus Blesses the Children
Mark 10:13-16 One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.
14 When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.
15 I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” 16 Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.
Childlike trust
Conversation between Maddie and Brittany about her being healed
I was getting my haircut the other day and Brittany was telling me about a conversation that she had with her daughter Maddie. If you don’t. know, Maddie as a degenerative eye disease that is causing her to go blind at a very young age “10”. She has seen all the doctors and all the specialists, and it has been a long process that she has gone through.
But the conversation with her and her mom, which I don’t remember the full scope of had this element to it, Maddie made the statement that when Jesus heals her, it will be just like he hits the healing button. And Brittany responded by trying to give her hope that the doctors are still working and that they are praying for the medical breakthrough. But Maddie was insistent in the fact that with Jesus, all he needs to do is hit the healing button whenever he’s ready. And she was OK with that.
As I thought of that conversation over the next couple weeks, I couldn’t help, but think of what a great picture of childlike faith!
See,
To receive the kingdom like a child means having complete dependence on The Lord.
by having complete faith in Him
We see the same account in Matthew
Matt 19:14 But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”
What does he mean, like these children?
He didn’t mean innocent, gentle, or pure.
That’s not how kids were looked at in the ancient world.
He is talking about those who come in complete trust and dependence on the Lord.
This isn’t nearly as hard for children
Young children spend their lives in complete dependence on their parents.
Studying their parents.
How do you think they know where all of your buttons are?
They don’t care about titles
They are teachable,
and willingly dependent on their parents.
They trust their parents completely.
as adults who are learning to trust the Lord for the first time.
When we begin this journey, we have to get past a lot of things.
Baggage
Bad information
Bad habits
Fear
Anxiety
Greed
Our own comfort can be the hardest to get past.
Let’s face it, we are so comfortable,
when was the last time that you felt
like you were actually desperate
for the Lord?
How often do we have to rely on him?
Family tragedy
Empty bank account
Terminal illness
Outside of some scenarios like this,
we have safety nets everywhere.
Unfortunately, prayer at times seems like your last resort
Every year the praise, all we can do is pray?
When prayer should be the first thing in any situation, every hour of every day.
Unfortunately, too often we don’t realize this until we are in enough pain.
When all we need to do is surrender and reach out for his love.
We all need to come to a point where we realize our desperation.
There is an account in the book of Mark that tells us of a woman who was desperate for the Lord!
Mark 5:25 A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.
30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”
31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”
32 But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done.
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34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”
Jesus credits the healing to the woman’s faith: “Your faith has made you well”.
It was not the magical power of Jesus’ robe.
It was God’s gracious response,
to her faith in Jesus’s authority,
and power to heal.
Jesus says the same thing when he restores Bartimaeus’s sight
(NLT) Jesus Heals Blind Bartimaeus
Mark 10:46 Then they reached Jericho, and as Jesus and his disciples left town, a large crowd followed him. A blind beggar named Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) was sitting beside the road. 47 When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
48 “Be quiet!” many of the people yelled at him.
But he only shouted louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
49 When Jesus heard him, he stopped and said, “Tell him to come here.”
A cry, a prayer in faith, can stop God!
So they called the blind man. “Cheer up,” they said. “Come on, he’s calling you!” 50 Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus.
51 “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.
“My Rabbi,” the blind man said, “I want to see!”
52 And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road.
The writer of the book of Hebrews reminds us in chapter 11, verse six;
Heb 11:6a And it is impossible to please God without faith.
Why is this such a struggle for us?
Why is it so hard for us to believe in what is unseen?
We we live in a very materialistic culture.
We are able to see, test, taste everything before we buy it,
will believe it.
That’s one of the reasons that Beth and I go to Sam’s Club on date night
We live in a world where we don’t feel like we can believe anything anymore
We have been lied to buy every foundational institution in our nation
Institutions and organizations that have been trusted over the years have failed us.
We want things to be proven to us.
Thankfully, there are accounts, recorded in the Bible, where Jesus does prove himself!
(NLT) Jesus Heals a Paralyzed Man
Mark 2:1-12
When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. 2 Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door. While he was preaching God’s word to them, 3 four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. 4 They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. 5 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”
Imagine for a minute you are the paralyzed man, what would you be thinking?
that’s great, thank you, but ahhhhh…
6 But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, 7 “What is he saying? This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!”
8 Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts? 9 Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk’? 10 So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, 11 “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”
12 And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, “We’ve never seen anything like this before!”
5 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus knew, that we needed to see something with our eyes.
We can’t see, sins forgiven,
So, to prove, that he does have the authority
to forgive sins
He also heals the man, to the point where he can jump up from his paralyzed state and walk home
The healing was to show mercy on this man,
but even more than that,
it showed Jesus authority over sin!
We, needed to see that
When we explain to a child, that Jesus forgives, they just believe it.
It’s done. They have the faith to just accept it.
They haven’t learned to be cynical
They haven’t learned how to hold a grudge
I watch my grandkids, and there are two of them. They’re very close in age.
They cannot wait to get together to play
And when they do, they fight like cats and dogs!
It only last for a moment
Then it is forgiven and they move on
They have the faith to know that they are loved
If the leaders, in verse six, had this childlike faith, they wouldn’t have questioned, the claim
that his sins were forgiven.
They would have accepted Jesus at his Word,
and the celebration would’ve began right there.
Last week, Pastor Matt gave us a scripture that teaches us how to build her faith
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.
The more we read the word of God,
the more our faith will build
The more time we spend with the Lord, the more our trust in him will build
I’m going to try a little experiment
It’s a rare occasion when I can hold out my hands to one of my one-year-old grandkids who are being held by their parents, and they will actually come to me.
Why is that?
It’s because they are so intimately comfortable with their parents
They know me! They don’t question my love or my intention. There’s no fear.
But there is an intimate love between them and their parents which can’t be duplicated
That is the kind of relationship
that the Lord wants with us!
The kind of desperately clinging relationship that I want to have with the Lord.
That we need to have with the Him!
The intimate loving relationship that we have with him that we wouldn’t give up for anything.
That we wouldn’t follow anyone else or go to anyone else for anything.
As we build our faith into a childlike faith,
we too, will be able to hear the Lord,
read his word and just accept it without hesitation.
No, once we have recognized our need independence on the Lord we have to mature in him.
Refusing to do so takes us from childlike to childish.
All too often we get this confused with a thought process that says,
like a child,
he doesn’t really expect anything from me.
We use this scripture of being childlike,
to justify our lack of growth and maturity
The attitude can become;
He wants me to be like a child
He will forgive me, no matter what I do
He loves me just the way I am
God knows my heart…
Even the disciples argued about who would have seats of honor among themselves in the kingdom
(NLT) The Greatest in the Kingdom
Matt 18:1-4
About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”
I can just imagine Jesus hanging his head, looking down to the ground, trying to find a way to make these guys understand.
2 Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. 3 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Throughout the New Testament, Paul addresses the need for us to be mature believers
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1Cor 14:20 Dear brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your understanding of these things. Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil, but be mature in understanding matters of this kind.
Col 1:28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Eph 4:11-14 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. (NLT)
1Cor 14:20 Dear brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your understanding of these things. Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil, but be mature in understanding matters of this kind.
We should never mature out of a childlike faith
Remember, strive to be completely and desperately dependent on him as a child is on their father
Remember the Rich young guy that came to Jesus and said what must I do to inherit eternal life in Jesus gave him a list of things and the guy said all good I’ve done all of them,.
Jesus said just one thing left, sell everything and give it to the poor and follow me.
The guy left rejected because he was too dependent on his wealth. He was too dependent on his riches. He wasn’t ready to be dependent on Jesus.
Jesus’s response, it’s easier for a camel to pass through an I of a needle…
Worship team
When Jesus first sent the disciples out on their own, they went 2 x 2 about where to take nothing. No money, nothing to trade, nothing to sell. No luggage, no change of clothes, no extra sandals, not even a walking stick.
He needed them to rely on him to supply
How hard it is to learn to tithe? Teach your kids when they are young
Remind them the benefits of obedience!
Lets stand
The struggle is real!
you are not alone
But rewards are incredible!
Here and now, and also in the time to come!
Psalm 34:8, taste and see that the Lord is good!