Believe Like a Child

Today we are considering what Jesus meant when He told us to ‘Believe like a child.’

This is at a time when Jesus was trying to teach the disciples, and the people following Him, the new way of looking at, and living, their faith. The rule and ritual-filled Jewish church had lost sight of what God was wanting for His people. Jesus was trying to show them the way back to a real relationship with God.

We start with a passage from the Book of Mark in the New Testament. This incident in Jesus’ life can also be found in two other Gospel books: Matthew 19:13-15 and Luke 18:15-17.

Mark 10:13-16 NIV

13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them.

14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

Why was this short portion important to Jesus? In the midst of all the people and their needs, Jesus takes the time to hug and play with children. He tells the people that they need to have faith like those children to be able to receive the ‘kingdom of God’.

What is the Kingdom of God?

The Inspirational Study Bible gives us this definition:

“The eternal sovereignty or kingly rule of God; manifested in its acceptance by men on earth and the hope for the future; the central theme of Jesus’ teaching.” ¹

The NIV Study Bible tells us, ‘The kingdom of God belongs to those who, like children, are prepared to receive the kingdom as a gift God’. ‘The kingdom of God must be received as a gift; it cannot be achieved by human effort. It may be entered only by those who know they are helpless, without claim or merit’. ²

The term ‘kingdom of God’ (occurring 66 times in the New Testament) is, for all practical purposes, equivalent to the term ‘kingdom of Heaven’ (which occurs 32 times in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke).

Merrill Unger states that, “the ‘kingdom of God’ is evidently a more comprehensive term than the ‘kingdom of Heaven’ and embraces all created intelligences, both in heaven and on earth, who are willingly subject to God and thus in fellowship with Him. The ‘kingdom of heaven’ …is a term descriptive of any type of rulership God may assert on the earth at a given period.” ³

In your bulletins, there is a handout of this next part of the look at Jesus’ liking the children.

William Barclay’s ‘The Book of Mark’ gives an idea of why Jesus liked the children:

1. There is the child’s humility.
   Ordinarily the child is embarrassed by prominence and publicity. He has not yet learned to think in terms of place and pride and prestige. He has not yet learned to discover the importance of himself.
2. There is the child’s obedience.
   True, a child is often disobedient, but, paradox though it may seem, his natural instinct is to obey. He has not yet learned the pride and the false independence which separate a man from his fellow-men and from God.
3. There is the child’s trust.
   That is seen in two things:
   The child’s acceptance of authority. There is a time when he thinks his father knows everything and that his father is always right. Instinctively, the child realizes his own ignorance and his own helplessness and trusts the one who, he thinks, knows.
   The child’s confidence in other people. He does not expect any person to be bad. He will make friends with a perfect stranger. He still believes the best about others -that trust is a lovely thing.
4. The child has a short memory.
   He has not yet learned to bear grudges and nourish bitterness. Even when he is unjustly treated – and who among us is not sometimes unjust to his children? – he forgets, and forgets so completely that he does not even need to forgive.

Indeed, of such is the Kingdom of God! ⁴

Jesus is explaining how simple it is to have the ‘kingdom of God’. He wants us all to receive the gift that He is offering. That is what He asks Martha at the death of Lazarus in the eleventh chapter of John.

John 11:25-26 NIV

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;

26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

Again, Jesus tells the crowd the truth of this gift in the twelfth chapter of John.

John 12: 44-46 NIV

44 Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me.

45 The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me.

46 I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

People try to make it difficult to find God. God tries to make it simple to find Him.

What is the workable in between?

Believe like a child!

Now join me in remembering this gift that God gave us and still gives us today, as we worship God in Communion.