The First Gospel - Kids in the Kingdom w/Scott McConnell

Let me get centered in front of the camera where mom if you're watching online, good

morning.

They're on their way from Kansas City from visiting my sister.

So they're going to try to look it up.

I gotta let my eyes adjust too.

It's bright up here.

I'm surprised you don't wear sunglasses.

A little bit about me.

As far as the chair goes, so you're kind of aware.

Tashauna, would you bring up the water bottle?

I already forgot that.

I was injured in 2015, so I am a quadriplegic now.

Two of the things that go along with my disability that make it a little challenging for me are

one is my blood pressure.

Basically the two are related.

My blood pressure runs as low as about 70 over 40, which if you're familiar with blood

pressures, that's pretty low.

So I adjust myself in my chair quite a bit.

So you might see me going back and forth and you'll probably notice that a lot of the times

I'm reclined in my chair.

And sometimes I recline more.

And that's why it's so I don't pass out.

And I haven't passed out in a few years now, but it does require some awareness.

And then I also, probably because my blood pressure is so low, I get cold pretty easy.

My blood's not flowing real fast.

So the hat and the hood that I wear aren't a fashion statement.

It's not a desire to scare people off.

I let my face do that.

It's not what the hood is for.

I just go around glaring and trust that to communicate.

So those are a couple things about me.

My mouth also gets dry.

So I take lots and lots of water breaks.

But we'll enjoy that.

This morning, I'm going to connect Jesus to Pokemon.

That's my little intro.

I'm going to say that if Jesus were here with us this morning, he would be really interested

in Pokemon cards.

Not because Pokemon themselves are especially interesting, but because to a lot of kids

here, and one kid in particular I'm thinking of, Pokemon cards really matter.

And kids really matter to Jesus.

So if there's something that really matters to kids, then I think it would really matter

to Jesus too.

So that's the little connection we're going to make.

We'll take a little while to get there.

But that's where we're going.

Looking at Mark, let me open with prayer and then I'll get back to Mark.

Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity to gather this morning.

We thank you for your word.

We pray that you'll lead us and guide us.

I pray that you would be with my body and my mind, that I would be able to speak clearly,

that I would not become distracted as I deal with some of those things.

And I pray that you would help us to open up our minds to laugh together, to listen

together, and hopefully to hear your spirit say something.

Amen.

So we've been working through Mark and my favorite verses in Mark, because they really

set the table, are verses 1, 14 to 15.

And they read, after John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good

news of God.

The time has come, he said.

The kingdom of God is come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

So toward the beginning, Jesus starts his ministry by announcing, pay attention, something

new is happening.

It's something you've been waiting for for a long time, but it's also different from

how you'd imagined it.

You're going to have to pay really close attention to notice what it is and figure out the priorities

that it has, because it's different from anything you've understood before.

Now last week, Pastor Greg walked us through how Jesus had now been identified as Messiah

in chapter 8, halfway through.

So we don't have a lot of time left in Mark.

And chapters 14, 15, and 16 are mostly made up by the betrayal, the crucifixion, the resurrection,

those things.

So we have a precious few chapters in there from when Jesus first predicts his crucifixion

in chapter 8 through to the end of Mark.

And chapter 9, he predicts his crucifixion again.

He's only going to do it three times.

So the pressure is mounting and mounting what's going to happen next, what's going to be accomplished

in this ministry.

Now one thing that the disciples are concerned about is they're advancing toward Jerusalem.

This new kingdom is coming.

The Messiah has been identified is this.

Who is going to be the most important among them?

Who's going to be the leader?

Because Jesus is not going to have 12 equal advisors in his kingdom as they probably would

have thought.

He'll probably have one or two main advisors, main people that he appoints for his kingdom.

And so we find that they're having this conversation in Mark chapter 9 verses 33 through 37.

Mark 9:33–37

It says they came to Capernaum.

When he was in the house, he asked them, what were you arguing about on the road?

But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

Sitting down, Jesus called the 12 and said, anyone who wants to be first must be the very

last and the servant of all.

He took a little child whom he placed among them.

Putting the child in his arms, he said to them, whoever welcomes one of these little

children in my name, welcomes me.

And whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but the one who sent me.

So when is it example of the kingdom of how the hierarchy of the disciples is going to

work?

He didn't start to identify who is first and who was last, but he brought a child in the

middle and said, here's our example.

Here's how the kingdom is going to work.

And so the disciples and probably the readers of Mark, probably us today are going to be

surprised to hear that as Jesus lays out his kingdom, children become a focus.

A little bit later on, we find in Mark chapter 10 verses 13 through 16 that people were bringing

Mark 10:13–16

little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them.

But the disciples repuked them.

Remember the time is short.

They're on the way to Jerusalem.

The Messiah is going to be betrayed and then he's going to come into his kingdom.

Everything's about to change.

Jesus does not have time to be blessing children individually.

He has work to do.

He has to have important people to meet with.

He's doing his teaching for the disciples, the last time for teaching that he has.

So the disciples working to prioritize to advise Jesus time the best they could started

sending people away for bringing the children to Jesus.

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.

Only I tell you anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God, like a little child will

never enter it.

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

In both of those passages that I read, one thing that I really enjoy is that it says,

and he took the children in his arms.

It shows an intimacy and a beauty there that's special blessing them.

You could imagine blessing them with oil on their foreheads or having a child come and

stand in the middle and the teacher discussing them.

That may have been more dignified.

It might be something more, more used to thinking of when it came to Jesus, but it says that

he took them in his arms as he blessed each child.

When he called the child into the middle of the disciples to give them an example, he

took the child in his arms.

It's beautiful, but the disciples were still trying to make sense of this.

They struggled to understand the place of children in the kingdom, why they were the

example being used.

I want to take a moment now to shift this morning to think about kids today.

What keeps them from being honored in the kingdom?

What can keep them in our culture from being recognized in their rightful place as honored

as folks that are special to Jesus, even in the midst of their imperfections?

Those of us who know kids well, which I think we've all had encounters with children, know

that kids can lie.

Kids can cheat.

Kids can steal.

So I don't mean to idealize them in such a way that they're always little cherubs and

that we're always to treat them that way.

But despite knowing their weaknesses and their flaws, Jesus still gave them this esteemed

status.

Now today, and especially lately, I've heard more about how kids today have it easy.

A lot of times you hear how kids today are soft, how the culture that we're in coddles

them too much.

And I just want to put that in perspective for a moment.

I heard a comedian in his 50s, not long ago, saying that he always had to get, he always

had to change the channel for his dad.

His dad would call him to change the channel on the TV.

And his son asked him, why didn't you just tell your dad to do that himself?

And he said, yeah, tell my World War II Marine dad to get up out of his chair and go over

and change the channel himself so I wouldn't have to.

That was never going to happen.

And if it did, it would only happen once.

Now the example being that each generation looks at the generation after it and has some

of the same thoughts.

Imagine the generation where electricity started to be a normal thing.

What do you think the generation before them thought, these kids are going to be soft.

They've got it made.

They just flip a light switch and the lights come on.

And there is a generation after that where cars became to be more and more prevalent.

Tractors where you didn't have to go and plow the fields with ox or with horse.

That generation is going to have it easy.

They're probably going to get soft.

And so we see that that's not a new thing.

The kids today that we look at today, the generations that we look at today will probably

say the same things about their kids.

You think 10G is slow?

We had 5G back in my day.

It was nothing like it is now.

Who knows having to swipe on your phone, having to drive your own car, who knows what other

things that they'll look at.

So we should very much hesitate before we look at kids today and think to ourselves

or say they've got it easy.

They're going to be soft.

They're not going to know how to work.

They're going to be lazy.

Probably every generation has looked at this generation after them and said those same

things.

Be careful not to judge.

It's never easy to be a kid.

It's never been easy.

It never will be easy.

I think of some of the things that our kids face today that those of us in this room never

did.

I still remember when Columbine happened.

I was in junior high.

The idea of a school shooting, of a mass shooting was so foreign, it was the changing of tide

in our culture that something like this had happened.

Where did we go wrong?

Was it video games?

Was it single parent homes?

Was it teachers?

All of these things, everything was quenched.

Was it the TV shows that we watched?

But today, to hear about a school shooting, it's more of a question of where and how many.

How many were killed?

How many were shot?

What type of weapon was used and we can probably guess.

Those things aren't things that most of us grew up with.

It's not easy to be a kid today.

Metal detectors, sniffing dogs, a lot of those things that kids face today are different.

In the Cold War, I hear about, I didn't live through, but in the Cold War, I hear about

kids getting under their desks and putting books over their heads because you were worried

about a nuclear strike from the Soviet Union, the Cold War.

Now kids do safety drills.

They know where to go in their building if there's an active shooter.

They know how to prepare, who needs to lock the doors, where to go, signals to put on

the inside, outside of the rooms, all of these things.

It's not easy to be a kid, is it?

We should be careful before we pass judgment about what it's like to be a kid today or

how easy it is.

We think of the social media that kids face today, TikTok, these different things.

Now I think again, it's good for us to remember kids didn't invent that stuff.

A lot of times we look on judgment on how much kids stream, how much they text, how

much they use these different devices, the attention culture, trying to get likes.

Kids didn't invent any of that, did they?

That came a generation before.

The idea now we understand of kids being addicted to social media or younger people, that wasn't

by accident, was it?

We found out as different things happened that actually there had been algorithms and

different things that were specially designed to get people addicted, for our brains to

respond, for those likes and those different things, not just to be selfish or appealing

to our own vanity, but to try to hook us in for greed, for monetary profits, to find different

ways to get us more involved, to keep us clicking.

And it works on us adults too, doesn't it?

Our brains are more formed where we might be more able to filter that through, but the

kids are not.

And by kids I admit, and I apologize to teenagers or older kids in the room, I am using kids

to cover a spectrum.

I'll go even all the way up through high school today.

I know that's not fair.

I know it's probably annoying, but at the same time to differentiate between the generations

in there would be tricky.

So I'm going to throw in kids.

So I apologize for that.

When I was 16, I didn't want to be told I was a kid and hear the issues kids were facing

today, but I think it's important for this morning for us to get a grasp on some of these

things.

So when kids or youth or whatever they are, when they're struggling with some of these

things, identity, bodies, body shaming, suicide, depression, isolation, they did not invent

the factors that contribute to these things, did they?

They didn't come up with the internet.

They usually don't go out and buy their own phones, do they?

Those come from adults, the access, those different things to the internet, the content

that's on the internet.

They're not responsible for that.

It's not easy to be a kid.

They face a lot of things today that even my generation, and the more I say that, the

more I realize 36 is older than I want it to be.

I work with a 20 year old and it really helped me to start to realize when she mentioned

her fall drip, I had no idea that drip was describing clothing style.

And then I heard it in a commercial and I was kind of excited because I was like, I

know what that means.

And then I heard the term goblin mode.

Has anyone heard of it?

Okay, that makes me feel better, Bradley, because I heard it and I was all excited because

I read it in an article probably on CNN that was like the new thing that the kids were

saying and the new thing in the dictionary.

And then I asked a bunch of kids, like, we don't know what you're talking about.

Like, dang it, I'm still old.

I'm trying to use a phrase that kids might like and they don't know it anyway.

So I'm still not the person going up and saying, you know, hey, I know the new term you kids

are using and they have no clue what I'm talking about.

Missed it again.

But even just working with a 20 year old, I find myself saying a lot, you know, in my

generation, or your generation, I even thought one day when I saw the kids and youth group

coming up here and helping lead, which was so cool, I thought to myself, it's so good

to see young people today participating in the church.

And then I thought, okay, grandma, I specifically remember old ladies coming up to me in church

when I was a teenager and saying, it's just so good to see young people in church today.

It's so good to see you involved and enjoying being here.

I worry about kids your age.

We see fewer and fewer of them in church.

And I remember rolling my eyes and being like, what are you talking about?

Whatever.

I'm just here.

I enjoy being here, but also my parents make me come.

And yeah, now I say it today.

It's so good to see the young people up there saying the prayers, singing the songs.

So I'm there with a lot of it.

But yes, I recognize that the generation before me also probably thinks my generation is soft.

And now the generation, including mine, is complaining about the working from home and

it's going to ruin everything.

And there's probably some truth that there's value in being in the office.

But every generation looks at the one after it and says, boy, they're really going down

the tubes.

Still here.

I think about some of the things like participation trophies, some of that stuff that you hear

people complain about.

Everybody gets a trophy.

Kids did not assign themselves trophies, did they?

They didn't all get together one day and say, let's have a meeting.

This year when we distribute the trophies at the end of the soccer season that we as

eight-year-olds organized and recruited people to coach, we've decided that we're going to

give out the trophies this year to each person that participates rather than to one team

that did really well.

We're responsible for that, aren't we?

Someone in here came up with that and decided to go with that.

And judging how many parents are involved with sports teams, right, it wasn't just one

parent that decided to do that.

Nobody wanted to say no.

Nobody wanted to hurt the kids' feelings.

So it's not their fault.

Being a kid isn't easy.

It wasn't easy then in Jesus' day.

Kids were often overlooked.

They did not have the value that Jesus was trying to show that they should have.

The special place that they have in the kingdom then, but it's still true now.

Going ahead now to look back one more moment at what Jesus saw in kids that he said, these

are the focus of my kingdom.

Now this is what I call speculative theology right now.

Okay I used to Jesus also.

Where I'm going to choose to decide what I think Jesus was thinking and make it fit my

sermon.

Hopefully it's not quite that egregious.

But I think that using Scripture as a whole and using what we've learned through the church

over the generations and what we recognize ourselves, we can try to put together some

of what Jesus saw in kids that connected to his kingdom.

One thing that I love as I look at kids and now I'm talking about younger is how excited

they get about a small gift.

Doesn't the father want us to recognize the gifts that he gives us and get excited?

To not take them for granted.

To not get up each day and say, oh geez what do I have to do?

What's on today's list?

We had one foster kid, I'll call him Jeff, he would run to my room every morning and

knock on the door and say, Scott are you up yet?

Are you up yet?

Because he was so excited to see me that morning, he was so excited to get a hug, tell me what

he was thinking and feeling that day.

And it was wonderful, it was beautiful, I loved it.

That's the kind of joy that's so much fun to experience.

If my wife did that I would be totally freaked out, I'd be like whoa chill.

Fortunately neither one of us are like really big high energy morning people, she is more

than me.

But she does not roll over and say, hey it's a great day.

I don't think I'd like it if she did.

But kids also value gifts differently.

I decided that I was going to get one of our foster kids who had been with us for a while

a new bike.

He loved to ride the bike and the bike that he was riding was a bike that my parents had

found by the side of the road that was painted different colors and had no brakes.

So I made him get off it like a block away before we got to an intersection and he had

to walk his bike because I didn't want him to roll through the intersection.

So it was not a pretty bike.

I always felt a little embarrassed when we would go around the neighborhood that he didn't

have a little bit nicer bike.

It wasn't the safest bike, I felt bad about that.

And so I got him a new bike and when I got him a new bike I wanted to get him a pretty

nice new bike.

I was excited.

I'd always wanted this kind of bike when I was a kid.

I wanted him to have something to ride that he was really proud of.

And so I did this big reveal for his birthday.

I have an elevator in my house for my wheelchair but I thought it would be cool to put the

bike in the elevator and open the door.

And so I opened the door, bring out the new bike and I look at his face and I'm expecting

a response and he gives me kind of a confused look.

And he said, but I have a bike.

It's laying right over there.

He didn't see the need for it.

He wasn't worried about the paint job.

The three different colors were okay with him.

Why worry about brakes when you can just slide your feet on the cement?

I mean after all I buy his shoes what is he doing?

You can just wear him out every other week.

He doesn't need brakes.

And it taught me a good lesson that he saw the world very, very differently.

That he didn't need gifts to look a certain way.

He was grateful for what he had and he would have much preferred a five dollar baby Yoda

from five below.

Which I'm guessing he got to then this new bike when he already had one.

I went to a kids program not too long ago and they were making valentines and I was

asking the kids who they were making valentines for and the little girl looked at me and she

set the one for her mom aside and she started making a new one and I said who's that one

for?

And she said it's for you.

You're my new friend.

And she started I told her I like that she was painting a black valentine.

I had never seen it.

One with black on it.

And so she immediately started putting my new favorite color on it.

Asked how to spell my name.

All those things.

Ran out of room you know so like half the words you know ran over from one side.

That cute way that kids do.

I think that type of friendship that type of love that type of affection isn't that

what the father wants from us.

When the disciples are debating who's the most important.

Is it possible that that's what Jesus was calling a child and in the middle for.

To remind them of some of those things some of those lessons that were true of kids today

and true of kids then.

Now how do we handle kids here at the house.

Our church is a special place for children.

We value children very much.

When we had tree house back there you could hear the feet of kids.

I never heard anyone complain.

Now we have tree house out there.

Is it convenience.

No is it loud.

Yes.

Does it look kind of funny to have those temporary curtains up when you come in.

Yes.

But Pastor Greg did you think twice about any of that stuff.

I want to go out on a limb and say no because kids are important here.

And that's focused on more than anything else.

We do a food pantry at Earl Hansen.

That's the name right.

I always hesitate.

Michelle leads it.

And can you wave hi Michelle.

Just so I know she hates it.

But if you want to volunteer to learn more that's who you go talk to.

This last week.

The last time we had it was it two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago over 50 kids received food from the food pantry.

Over 80 people we have each person that comes in sign in and write down how many people

were in their household and how many kids.

Over 50 kids.

Over 80 people.

That's beautiful isn't it.

I think it's awesome and it's so much fun to meet the people as they come through.

I learned that some of the people coming through speak language Karen.

And that they moved here from Thailand but their families were originally from Burma.

It was really cool.

It was so interesting.

And now I have my little list of words that I'm trying to learn in Karen.

It's going to be ugly but I'm going to try.

And it's so fun to see the kids they interpret for their parents.

They have so many jobs.

Being a kid isn't easy.

But Jesus wants us to see how they behave and model it in the kingdom.

We do angel tree.

We do closet to closet.

We do all these things.

And now I'm going to wrap up.

What else.

What else can we do.

Or could we do.

Two simple things.

Learn a kid's name and ask a kid a question.

That would bless kids in our church.

A lot of us know kids.

But learn one kid's name that you don't know.

I had a conversation with.

I'll go ahead and call my friend Wallace.

I don't know if he'd call me that but I'm going to call him.

I asked him what are you looking at.

He was looking at Pokemon cards.

And he immediately started to tell me about the Pokemon.

Now I know a decent amount about Pokemon from growing up.

From kids with Pokemon cards.

I still had no clue what he was talking about.

If you knew about Pokemon five years ago you have no idea what's going on now.

It's all changed.

But not only could he tell me about the Pokemon.

He could tell me what store he got each deck at.

And who he was with.

I got this one at Target with my dad.

We got it two weeks ago.

And he could tell me each store how much they cost at that store.

Who had the best packs.

The best cards in it.

He could tell me so many things.

And so I got to learn a lot about his world.

Who he spends time with.

Where he goes.

How he spends his money.

Or his parents money.

But what he values.

And it was such a fun moment.

And so you don't have to know about Pokemon.

You don't have to know about what kids are into.

You don't have to know what interests them to break into their world.

To bless them.

And to be a church where we know about kids in a special way.

Where we know their names.

Kids that we didn't bring to church.

Or aren't friends of our family.

I think would take us to the next level of honoring kids and showing them their special

place in the kingdom.

Amen?

So if you learn a kid's name and ask them a question.

I'll have a prize for you next week.

Kids will do anything for a prize won't they?

They don't even have to know what it is.

So we're going to operate by that principle.

Next week either after church today or at a community table or before church next week.

Ask a kid their name and ask them a question.

I love to ask what did you have for lunch today?

What did you have for breakfast?

Something even as simple as that.

What's your favorite thing at school?

Lunch or recess?

And you know what do you like to do at recess?

There's always another question you can ask.

Alright let's pray.

Do I do communion directly after that?

After I pray?

Alright.

Pastor Chris and Pastor Jen if you guys would come up and then we'll do communion.

I'll pray first and then we'll pass it out and I'll pray again.

Father we thank you for kids.

We thank you for the blessings and comforts that kids have today that they haven't had

in the past.

But we also recognize it's not easy to be a kid.

It's not now.

It never has been.

It never will be.

And you call us to protect them and love them in a special way.

Help us to fulfill that.

Help us to ask kids their names and ask them questions.

And I thank you for the way that we honor kids in our church every week, every day.

And we thank you for leaders that value that.

In Jesus' name, Amen.