Making Disciples Among Children

Written By Rev. Law Hui Seng

Posted By Teresa Han

6^th April, 2009 (GB &BB)

Matthew 19:13-15

Main Idea: To teach the congregation how to make disciples among children.

Objectives: a. Teach ways to make disciples among children. b. know the children psychology.

1. Introduction.

- Under normal circumstance, we always give the best to our children. We may think, learn, and plan and do our best and give the best. After seeing what happens to so many other families out there, are you sure you are giving the best to your children?

- What is the best you can give to your own children and children who are under you?

- Let us see how Jesus treats children and from there we see what is the best thing to do for them. How do we make disciples among our children?

2. What does it mean to let the little children come to me…?

- Protestant like Methodist uses this passage to explain the need for infant and children baptism.

- According to verses 1 to 12 before today’s passage, you see how Jesus emphasize much about marriage and said in verses 4 to 6 when Jesus was asked by the Pharisees in verse 3, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” Jesus said, “Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that at the beginning the Creator made male and female,” and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?’ so they no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

- Obviously, this passage is placed before the little children passage by the author because marriage gives rise to children.

- What does it mean when Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

- One thing clear is this: we are to bring the children to Christ and we must not stop them from coming to Him. The reason for doing so is Jesus will bless them and give them kingdom of heaven.

- Now, the question is how to bring children to Christ to be blessed? One concrete way our church believes is by infant and children baptism.

- In baptism the blessing received is the blessing of salvation.

- It is very difficult if not impossible for us to explain how the church of Christ will usher children into the kingdom of God if we do not baptize children.

- Also, it is very important to appreciate that when Jesus lays hand on anyone, when Jesus prays for anyone, more than temporal things happen. Today the Methodist church authorizes ordained ministers to do that job.

- Some Christians are opposed to infant and children baptism because they cannot believe. But that is adult understanding of belief and faith. Jesus can pour in faith when He prays and touches people. Jesus can give faith to infants.

- Infants trust their mothers from the earliest moments? Similarly, infants can trust God from the earliest stage of their lives.

C. How to let children come to Jesus? How to make disciples among children?

- 1. Children’s place in the kingdom of heaven.

- Obviously, you need to begin the process with baptism. Do not have the attitude that wait until they can understand. By doing so, you deny lots of grace upon them. For those of you who stop your infants and children being baptized, you literally stop them from coming to Jesus and you could deny them a place in the kingdom of God.

- You may not mean it because you are innocent. Today, you need to change your mindset. Once an infant or a child is baptized, that is the first step to give them a place in the kingdom of heaven.

- Then, you think of how to help them to follow Christ; they become a disciple of Christ even when they are young. As parents, you must take it upon yourself that your infants and children are your most natural disciples. Yes, Boys’ Brigade, Girls’ Brigade officers, the Sunday School teaches or youth fellowship advisors can disciple them to a certain extend, but parents spend the most hours of time with your children, you need to take up the responsibility to disciple them.

- 2. Offer Jesus to your children and other children.

- How do you disciple them? Offer Jesus to them. How? I think hard about this question and God bless me with this answer. If I give other answers, I believe they are not the best and this is the best. In view of what Jesus has done for you on the cross, you must offer godly characters to your children and other children. I strongly believe that at the end of the day, what sustains your children’s faith, your children’s relationship with God is characters. You do that wherever he or she goes, they will survive well and survive morally.

- How do you bring across your characters to them? How do you nurture them with godly characters? You got to do it through these 3 means of grace shown by Jesus. You see Jesus gives the children time by allowing them to come to Him; Jesus touches children and Jesus still uses your hands to touch his children; He blesses them by praying for them and you need to pray for your children. In bringing across godly characters you need to give your children time, touching, and prayer.

- The challenge is: Can your life offer Jesus? Offer godly characters to your children? Listen to this illustration of the character of love.

- In China, a young couple married. The wife is called Ruth. The mother-in-law is called Naomi. Their relationship was never good. Ruth hated the mother-in-law for asking her to do so much house chores. Ruth could not stand the pressure anymore and she planned to kill the mother-in-law. She wanted to do it slowly so that nobody noticed so that people thought she died of natural death. She went to the herbal store and consulted a Chinese sin she how to kill her using herbs. The sin seh said that he needed to think of it and withdrew from the counter and went in to prescribe the herbs. Then, he came up and told her the prescription and dosage. And with only one condition, that was, in order to deceive her to drink the soup with the herbs which was supposed to slowly poison her to death, everyday Ruth must show actions of love towards her. She must praise her; encourage her; tell stories to her; listen to her; hug her; serve her, etc. Ruth happily agreed to do all that in order to slowly kill her. As time passed, Ruth did exactly as required. She was happy every day as she would get rid of her. At the same time, as she willingly loved Naomi, the mother-in-law also loved her. She in fact also helped in the house chores and even cooked for her. After a while, Ruth began to worry because she felt so loved by Naomi that now she did not want her to die anymore. She regretted her move to use herbs to slowly kill the mother-in-law. Then, with regrets, she quickly rushed to the sin seh to find a solution to detoxify, to neutralize the poison. The sin seh with a big smile on his face and said, “Do not worry, woman, I only prescribe vitamin to boost your mother-in-law’s health.” She was so happy and from then, she went home and loved the mother-in-law and they lived happily together.

- You see how you should nurture the godly character of love in your family; in GB, BB, Sunday School, youth fellowship, small group, etc?

D. Know your children psychology.

- One other point I find we must learn in discipling our children is this: we need to know our children psychology at different age. I am very much learning in this case.

- Very often, we impose our adult psychology upon our children and they could not understand us and we could not understand them. As a results, we face lots of frustrations and conflicts. In fact, we try to love them but the love cannot get through. The reason is because we have not got the psychology right according to their age.

- Now, take for instance, for primary one, for them to go to school on the first day could be a scary experience especially your child depend so much on you and now you have to let go of him for 5 hours in school. If he cries, you can understand why and you will not get frustrated and you just have to bear with it.

- Now, take another example, for the youths, as they try to enter adulthood, they are trying to leave childhood. They need to let go of the dependence on adults. This psychology of leaving childhood causes conflicts with parents on the one hand. And for the parents, their responsibility is to control them and not let go. Actually, the youths try to leave the parental control and at the same time try to leave the psychology and psychical body of the childhood. Knowing all these psychology will help reduce the frustrations and conflicts to the minimum.

- Hopefully, then, you can better disciple them. You can bring up your children to be god fearing and they own a strong faith in Christ.

4. Conclusion.

- I pray that you are helping your children to own a faith in Christ which will bless him for the rest of his life.