Children - Audio
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If you have a Bible, go ahead and open up to Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18. We'll jump around a little bit, but we'll start there. Pretty incredible week of EBS, huh folks? And Forest Home coming up today, they leave today, and then Haiti, we will pray for our Haiti team at the end of this service. This is an incredible week really for Coach Bible Church, so we're just leaning on the Lord for what he has done at EBS and what he will do today, and this week at Forest Home and then what he will do again next week as we send a team to Haiti this Saturday. Looking back on the past week of EBS, it brought to mind just an important topic of course that we usually like to discuss now and then at Coach Bible Church, and that is the subject of children. We've been in a series entitled "The Rest of Life Resurrected," in which we've asked the question, "How can we look at everyday elements of life through resurrected eyes?" And among the many things that are everyday, that are in front of our eyes all the time, I think that children rise up on that list, perhaps more than anything else. We are always, always, always around children. And as we consider this series, which it's purpose, is to take those things that we see and do and interact with on an everyday basis and resurrect it through the eyes of Jesus, the topic of children really becomes an important one. Now some people might think these elements are mundane or kind of useless or meaningless, but Ben Witherington has a quote we've read it before, I wanted to read it again, it's on your outline. He says, "What about the rest of the normal life of a Christian? The concern of this series has been the normal weekly events in the normal Christian life. Things like work, rest, play, worship, spending, studying, eating, relating. The thing that has struck me in doing this series is how little, serious, theological and ethical reflection has been given to what some might call mundane existence. But it is not the job of the church to baptize the status quo of normal life and call it good. It is not our job to merely halo the ordinary, no, it is our task to follow Paul and other New Testament writers and have an extraordinary perspective on the ordinary, a kingdom perspective. I'm struck by the words mundane existence because you see when people consider children, not everyone, but when many people in society cultures around the world and civilizations down through the centuries, when many of them consider children, they consider them to be mundane, to be trivial, to be kind of meaningless. It happens all the time, folks. Our society is often very, very dismissive of the blessing of children. I think of the grumpy old man at the marketplace watching a poor young mom struggle to shop for groceries with three children hanging off of her cart. He looks upon her and says, "Looks like you've got your hands full. Maybe having three wasn't such a good idea." True story, by the way. Our society is often very dismissive of the blessing of children. I think of a pious and a proper woman in church, an older woman, so pious, so proper, so respectful that church is merely and only a sacred and respectful and obedient place. Frustrated that woman is, that the occasional noises of the children behind her are interrupting her ability to sing the hymns, and so she turns around with a piercing look in her eyes. Can you please be quiet? Our society is often very dismissive of children.
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Our society is often very dismissive of the blessing of children, but Jesus wasn't! Pastor Neil speaks on the part children should have in our lives, the church and especially the gospel.