Ezekiel
33:7-9 Romans 13:1-10 Matthew 18:1-20
Grace
mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Amen. Our text today is the gospel lesson just
read, especially these words, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn
and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Thus far our text.
Dear
friends in Christ. School has started,
and this week at Immanuel (Next week at St. John’s) Sunday school starts as
well. The confirmation kids are ready
for another year of work, and LYF will soon as well. How appropriate then to have a text that
says, “whoever humbles himself like a little child is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven.” How great to hear
how faith like that of a little child is so necessary.
You
see Jesus is saying that we need faith like a little child, faith that believes
wholeheartedly, without question, without reservation. Faith that knows and trusts that Jesus is
exactly who he says he is.
Unfortunately
for so many of us we have been taught to be skeptical. We have been taught to have our doubts about
scripture and what it teaches. For so
many of us, that childlike faith that believes without questioning has been
explained away through the years.
Throughout
our lives, we are told that religion is just a big pile of hooey, that it can’t
possibly be true, and that everything has a natural cause. The world was created after a mysterious big
bang that exploded billions of years ago.
We are given countless “scientific” guesses that are supposed to
disprove what we believe.
We
are told there is no such thing as a god, for if there were there would be no
pain, no hunger, no hurt, and no sin. Or
if there is a god, that he must not be the Christian god, that any other god
would be better than the one we confess.
There are even people out there who wrongly say that we all worship the
same god only in different ways.
There
are so many different view points, and different ideas, that so many people now
have thrown there hands up in the air and said, “I just don’t know.” I can’t figure it out. I feel like there should be something, but I
can’t tell what it is. And through all
of these things, our childlike trust and faith becomes a healthy adult skepticism.
All
of these opinions that are floating around are the result of Satan’s work in
this world. Friends, Satan doesn’t want
you to trust Jesus. He doesn’t want you
to look to him, but spends all of his time and efforts trying to get you to
believe in anything else. He wants you
to trust in science. He wants you to
trust in politics, and opinions. He
wants you to trust in your money and your intelligence. He wants you to take your eyes off of Jesus
because he doesn’t want you to be saved.
You
see Satan is the epitome of sin. He is
so self-centered and selfish that he doesn’t want to spend eternity in torment
alone, he wants you to come too. He
wants you to abandon your faith, and instead to give in to your own
desires. And we do give in to our desires
don’t we? Our hand causes so many of us
to sin as our children hit their brothers and sister, as we steal things from
places we shouldn’t. Our hand causes us
to sin as it runs the remote or the mouse going to websites we shouldn’t. Our eye causes us to sin as it ogles the
opposite sex, and as it covets the things those around us have. In all of these things we lack childlike
faith and instead have our own adult pride, pride that says, “I can decide for
myself.”
But Jesus calls us today to a childlike
faith, a faith that looks to him alone.
A faith that hears what Jesus has done, and firmly and unswervingly
trusts that Jesus did what he did for me, and for my sins. Friends, Jesus came, whether you believe it
or not, he came and was a sacrifice for you.
Instead of giving into his own selfish desires, he did what God desired
him to do. Instead of being skeptical of
God’s existence, he trusted that God would raise him from the dead. Jesus had that childlike faith that so many
of us lack, and so Jesus fulfilled this will of God completely.
That involved a sacrifice. It involved pain, it involved payment for sin
at an old rugged cross. And as Jesus
gives up his own life, He calls you to faith.
He speaks to you, and says be mine, believe in me with all your heart
and you soul and your mine. And Jesus
doesn’t just demand this faith from you expecting you to do it on your
own. He knows you can’t. Jesus calls you, and then gives you the means
to actually believe in him.
Jesus comes to you, while you are still
dead in your skepticism. He comes to you
before you can even do anything for yourself.
He comes to you in baptism. There
is no better example of childlike faith than baptism, where when you were too
small to even do anything for yourself, he came to save you, and gave you all
the gifts of eternity. When Jesus came
to you in baptism, he promised that you would believe and not waver. And Jesus still comes to you in bread and
wine saying, here I am for you and for your forgiveness. Here I am.
Belive in me.
Friends Jesus is there whether we want
him to be or not. He is there because he
promised to be, and now he calls us to believe with childlike faith, faith that
looks to him alone for forgiveness. A
Childlike faith looks without doubt. A
childlike faith looks and believes even if it cannot be proved or explained. A childlike faith can only come from Jesus,
and it is that faith that he gives you here today. Jesus says, Truly, I say to you, unless you
turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4
Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven. You have entered heaven. Amen.
