Move Up Sunday: A Simplicity of Faith

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Some of you might not know me because I actually joined the Awakening staff March of 2020.

So if you can imagine, I didn't get to meet a whole lot of people right off the bat.

So I want to introduce you to my family.

We're gonna have a picture of them up on the screen.

My husband Christian and I have been married for seven years, and we have these two adorable children.

We have Luke, or Lukey, as we all call him.

He is one and a half, and he is just this burst of joy and excitement and energy all the time.

And then there's Ella, and she is five and a half, and she's starting kindergarten this year.

And so this move up Sunday has been really fun and extra special for me.

I've been through a lot of move up Sundays over my years in ministry, in both youth ministry and kids ministry, and now I'm getting to celebrate this day in my own family, so it's been really fun and exciting.

She was talking about it all week that she got to move up to kindergarten today.

And at the phase she's in right now, at five years old, she has about a million questions every single day.

If you've ever been around a five-year-old, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

She even says to me sometimes, wow, I sure have a lot of questions.

Sometimes these questions are silly.

Like, what would happen if I mixed peanut butter with my scrambled eggs?

Often the questions start with, why?

Why do I have to brush my teeth?

Why do I have to clean up my toys?

Why did the eggs taste so bad with the peanut butter on them?

And sometimes her questions are ones that just stop me in my tracks to answer.

The other day, she was skipping around our house as five-year-olds do.

And she said to me, Mama, who is I made to be?

And this just made me freeze because of the magnitude of this very casual question that she asked me.

And I responded, a child of God.

And she said, Well, Mama, who are you made to be?

And I said, A child of God.

Then she went through the rest of our family.

She went thata, she went through Luki, and she wanted to know who we were all made to be.

And I responded the same way each time.

And this was surprising to her, but also sufficient.

She didn't have any more questions, amazingly enough.

But at just five years old, kids ask some really profound questions that even as adults, we're still asking.

Like this question, who was I made to be?

Ella's asking that at five years old.

Our fifth graders, right now, who just moved up to middle school, they're asking that question as they move into a new phase of their life.

Our high schoolers are asking that question as they're looking ahead to college.

Our college students are asking that question, wondering what comes next.

And we continue to ask this question in our 20s, in our 30s, our 40s, our 50s, and into retirement: who was I made to be?

And these are the types of questions that our souls are longing to find the answers to.

And the way that Jesus approaches kids gives insight to who we are as his disciples.

And that's what we're gonna unpack this morning.

The way Jesus interacts with kids shows us both how we are to interact with kids and also how to relate to him.

Today we're celebrating kids and youth all morning.

As they're moving up a grade and finishing, I think what we can all agree was one of the craziest school years ever.

But why would we do this move up Sunday and make it such a big deal?

Why would we pause our sermon series, bring all the kids and the youth into the tent, and celebrate them as a whole church?

We wanted today to be a celebration, not just of what these kids and teens and families have accomplished over the last year.

Today isn't just about this milestone or them moving up in our ministries.

Today is a day where kids and youth get to know that they are welcome in the kingdom of God.

As we celebrate them, as they were invited into the tent with all the grown-ups and you all cheered for them, this communicated that they are a valued part of our church and that they're a part of God's kingdom.

We believe that kids are a part of the kingdom of God.

And we believe this because of how Jesus interacted with kids.

We see lots of stories of Jesus interacting with adults, but there's one key story that we see Jesus with kids.

And what Jesus says in this moment is really challenging and important for both parents and also those who aren't currently raising kids to hear.

This is for all of us.

It's important for the kids, and it's also important for us.

In Mark 10, it says, People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place their hands on him, but the disciples rebuked them.

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.

Truly 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.

Kids matter to Jesus.

Plain and simple.

This is why we as a church are celebrating these kids and youth today.

Jesus made it so clear to his disciples that these little ones matter to him.

Now, the first thing that I want you to notice, you know, we often jump to this wonderfully convicting phrase where he says, Let the little children come to me.

And we'll get there in just a second.

But there's something vital that comes before that in the text.

Notice that the kids weren't coming to Jesus on their own.

The passage says, people were bringing little children to Jesus.

It actually took someone scooping them up, bringing them to Jesus, and making an introduction.

And that is when Jesus says this famous verse of, let the little children come to me.

It was so important to him that the little children got to meet him, that he even went as far as rebuking the disciples for turning them away.

There's something so notable about people bringing children to Jesus.

We don't know if these people were their parents or grandparents or an aunt or uncle or even an older sibling or a friend, but what we do know is that somebody cared about these little ones so much that they wanted to make sure that they got introduced to Jesus.

This is discipleship.

Jesus calls all of us to make disciples.

The Great Commission, you've heard it before, go and make disciples.

Many of us have heard this verse, and many of you are doing that right now.

You're leading a small group, you're talking to your coworkers about the gospel, you're walking through something difficult with somebody that you love.

But some of us read that verse and sit back thinking, what does that even mean?

How do I make disciples?

Isn't that the job of maybe a pastor or a missionary?

You know, I'm not sure I want to do those things.

But in this passage, we get a glimpse into one of the most tangible ways to make disciples.

By introducing kids to Jesus, by bringing them to Jesus, by talking to a kid about Jesus, you are answering his call to make disciples.

Someone once said to me about their own kids, well, they have their whole lives to follow Jesus.

Implying our family's not making that a priority right now.

Because our kids have too much to worry about between school and sports and friends and fun.

But I want to say the same thing to you, but differently today.

Kids have their whole lives to follow Jesus.

If they meet him now, they get to walk with him for a lifetime.

Think about your own life for a moment.

Think about what your life was like before you knew God compared to after.

What were your choices like?

Who did you care about?

How did you spend your time?

How did you make decisions?

Now, some of you have known Jesus from a young age, and that is such a gift.

And if that's you, think for a moment of how your life could have been different if you didn't know God at such a young age.

But for many of us, we didn't know God as a small child.

I gave my heart to Jesus when I was 17 years old, and at 17, my life choices began to radically change.

So I want you to think for a moment of how your life could have been different if you knew Jesus since you were little.

And now not in a regretful sort of way, because each of our stories are special and unique and they lead others straight to the heart of God.

But just imagine if when you were five years old, you knew that God loved you no matter what, and that you had been introduced to Jesus, who wanted to be your friend forever, and that you knew that you were created in the image of God.

What might your life look like at 15 or 25?

How might the foundation of what you believe about yourself and about others be different?

Kids have their whole lives to follow Jesus.

And they need someone to introduce them to him.

Someone who knows Jesus and sees the value in walking with him for a lifetime.

Someone who will consistently show up in their lives to walk through the questions they have and the experiences that they're going through.

Someone who will point them to Jesus at every opportunity.

Someone who will disciple them.

Most of you probably don't really know what I do here.

Sure, you know I'm the kids' pastor, but I would guess that the picture that you have in your mind of what that looks like has something to do with changing diapers and coloring and passing out snacks.

And most of that is true.

But kids' ministry is so much more than wiping icky noses and playing duck duck goose.

It goes beyond childcare or babysitting.

And that's why we don't even call it that here.

Instead, what we do is we create a safe and joyful environment for kids to get to experience God, to build relationships with other kids, and to be cared for by Jesus-loving leaders.

The vision of Awakening Kids is this Awakening Kids exists to awaken the kids of this generation to the wonder of Jesus and the truth of God's word.

And everything we do in kids' ministry, right over there, everything we do is connected to that vision.

Kids matter to Jesus, and we want them to know that they matter to the heart of God and that they're actually a part of his kingdom.

So it looks like this.

We share stories about Jesus in a way that invokes their sense of wonder.

We do activities that use their innate sense of curiosity, and we do both of those to point them back to the God who put those gifts in them.

The story of Jesus is so amazing, so we share it in a way that communicates that to their hearts.

We also point them back to Scripture.

We teach directly out of the Bible.

We don't water down the stories for them, but we share the truth about who God is and who they are, all found in Scripture.

And as they're rooted in Scripture, some of the big questions in this world feel a little bit less scary because they know the God of truth, and that truth is found in the Bible.

This idea of living their own truth that's so prevalent in our world becomes living God's truth because God's truth becomes their truth.

Kids' ministry and youth ministry are made up of an incredible team of volunteer leaders who spend their Sunday mornings investing and discipling kids so that they can know Jesus.

If you asked any high schooler or adult what it was that had the greatest impact in their life, you rarely hear a program or a curriculum or a sports team or even a church.

It all goes back to a person, right?

Someone who invested in their life.

A teacher, a camp counselor, a family member, a sports coach, a kids' ministry leader, someone who believed in them, someone who loved them, and someone who invested in them.

So I've mentioned making disciples a few times, so I want to paint you a picture of what that looks like in the day-to-day.

It's the parent of young kids who's reading Bible stories at home.

The little ones, the toddlers, their babies.

They don't yet know Jesus.

And you get to be the person to introduce them to him.

It's the aunt or uncle or grandparent or sibling who shows a deep, unconditional love to the child in their life and points them toward Jesus through the experiences that they share with you.

It's the college student who's working as a nanny and teaching and playing and sharing the love of Jesus by how you care for those kids.

It's the single young adult who has friends with kids, and you choose to not just spend time with your friend, but with the whole family, and you build a relationship with those kids.

It's the volunteer who gives their time and serves in kids' ministry or youth ministry, because that's what's going on over there.

It's discipleship.

It's talking to kids and walking with them as they have big questions about God and faith and life.

And it's the tired parent who has been distance learning for a whole year, and then their kids finally get to go back to school, and then six weeks later, somehow it's already summer break.

And yet, you still choose to pray over your kids every night as they're going to bed.

This is what discipleship looks like.

It isn't limited to parents or pastors, it's all of us.

As we invest in the kids and youth of today, building a foundation of faith in their lives, we're helping to create the world changers of tomorrow.

As they know and love Jesus at a young age, because someone, because you invested in them, we're gonna see them do amazing things.

These kids could be the ones to dismantle racism in America.

The kids that you're discipling could become foster parents who give a home to kids who desperately need it.

And the kids that you saw this morning, they could be the ones to put an end to world hunger or sex trafficking.

And the first step to all of that is found in Jesus' words, let the little children come to me.

So we've talked a lot about kids because kids matter so much to Jesus.

But there's also more in this verse that he says.

The second part of this verse is maybe even more challenging because Jesus wasn't even talking about kids anymore.

It was directed to the disciples of how they needed to respond to Jesus.

This part is about us, the grown-ups in the room.

He says, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

Matthew, in his gospel, he records it a little bit differently and maybe even more strongly.

He said, Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus calls us to teach and disciple kids, and he also calls us to learn about faith from kids.

This is an invitation from Jesus to every one of us to step into his identity, to our identity as a child of God.

When we choose to believe in Jesus as our Savior, we are adopted into God's family as his sons and daughters.

Our identity becomes being a child of God.

And there's so much that we can learn from kids about how to walk out that identity.

Kids teach us a simplicity of faith.

Now, I want to make this really clear.

This does not mean to not have a well-thought-out faith.

It's not, this doesn't mean be gullible or uneducated or naive.

It doesn't mean to water down scripture or your relationship with Jesus.

Absolutely not.

But what Jesus is saying here is to approach your relationship with him like a little child does, with a simplicity of faith.

Something we often say around awakening is there is no junior Holy Spirit.

And our former family pastor, Kirsten, she put that into the culture of our church.

And what that means is this when we accept Jesus, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Every one of Jesus' followers has the Holy Spirit living in them.

And that includes kids.

There's no distinction between an adult follower of Jesus and a kid follower of Jesus.

We're all the body of Christ.

And we all have the same Holy Spirit.

So when Jesus says change and become like little children, what exactly does that mean?

I want to share some of the faith lessons that I have learned from my own kids.

Three ways that I'm learning to have this faith like a child and how to relate to God like little children do.

First of all, kids ask all the questions.

That's what I started out talking about, right?

Is all the questions that I'm asked every single day.

Kids aren't afraid to ask questions.

I think sometimes, at least I do this, we read a Bible verse and we have some questions at the end.

But we don't want to ask the question and reveal to somebody that we don't already know the thing that we haven't learned yet.

So instead, we close the Bible, the next day, we move on to a different chapter or a different book.

We sweep these things under the rug and we pretend like we understood what it said, and we move on with our lives.

But then the next time that this passage comes up, we still have the same questions, but we shrug it off.

After a few times of this, it starts to feel too late to ask the question that we're dying to know the answer to.

I think as adults, we don't ask questions, maybe sometimes out of pride, and maybe sometimes out of this fear of judgment of what other people will think if we ask this question.

But see, kids aren't like that.

Kids have a question and they ask it right away.

They don't debate if it's a question worth asking, they don't think about how they might be perceived by the people hearing the question.

They just ask it because they're curious and they just want to know more.

As I've taught kids in kids ministry for many years now, I have seen time and time again, kids have so much curiosity that it just starts to bubble out of them, and they are just so excited to find out the answer to the question that they have.

And now that I'm reading the Bible with Ella, these questions have been more of a daily occurrence in my home.

Questions that I've never even thought of, that I ever never even thought that maybe I knew the that I needed the answer to.

One morning recently, during breakfast, completely out of the blue, Ella said, Mama, where did Noah come from?

And I answered a little snarkly, from his mama.

This was not the response she was looking for.

I didn't actually know the answer that she wanted.

And so this put us on this journey of reading through scripture together and then eventually texting Chris because my answers were not good enough for her.

We can learn so much from this way of asking questions.

The ones that seem silly or too simple or like we should already know the answer, it keeps us humble and in a position of learning.

Last week, after about a hundred questions in a row, Ella said to me in her sweet five-year-old humility, there's things I don't know yet.

And when the more I say why, you tell me those things and I learn more.

As a child, she is aware and willing to admit that she doesn't know everything.

She asks questions because she's curious.

And she's curious about the world and about God, and she just wants to know more.

Asking questions inspires our curiosity and it reminds us that we don't yet know everything about God.

Our relationship can continue to grow with God year after year, because there's always more to learn if we're willing to ask the questions.

Second, kids talk to God in prayer like they actually know Him.

And it sounds so simple when I say it like that, right?

But we tend to complicate prayer.

We want to make it sound good or flow well or we want to ask for the right things.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's so much power in praying scripture or in liturgical prayer.

I practice both of these.

But there's something so sweet and relational about just talking to God like we know Him.

Like we're sitting with a friend just telling them about our day.

Ella loves praying.

She was on many of our awakening prayer Zoom calls on Sunday mornings that we used to do.

And the way that she prays is bold, simple, and consistent.

Every single night, and many of those prayer calls, she prays for specific things.

First, that God would heal the crazy world and heal the people that are sick.

This is how our family has talked about the pandemic with her.

Second, that he would fix the broken hearts.

This is her cry for racial justice.

And lastly, that he would fix the winding road.

And this is about Highway 17 going to the beach because she gets car sick.

I don't know about you, but I don't think I have ever once prayed for God to fix a road that I didn't like.

Sure, I've complained about it, maybe to the people in the car or the people when I got to where I was going, but prayed for God to fix it, that is this childlike way of prayer, isn't it?

She fully believes that God can do something about this situation and believes that he's listening to her.

To her, these big prayers of ending the pandemic and ending racism, and this small prayer of just not wanting to get car sick on the way to the beach, they don't have these separate boxes of big prayers and small prayers.

She says these all in the same sentence.

She isn't worried that maybe God has bigger things to deal with.

These are all things that she is bringing to God because she knows him and because she knows that he cares about her.

Kids make it simple and they bring everything to God in prayer.

They're bold, they're specific in what they ask for, and they're consistent.

They don't give up when they don't get the answer that they wanted the first time.

If we took this approach to prayer, praying like we actually know God personally, like He really cares about all the things that we care about, and continuing to pray those same things over and over.

I can't imagine a more intimate relationship with God.

As we pray like little children, in this simple way, as we pray like we actually know God, we build this beautiful, real relationship with the God of the universe.

And lastly, kids approach God in awe and amazement.

Have you ever noticed how over and over in Scripture, stories about Jesus end with, and the people were amazed.

But it seems like sometimes we've lost that wonder to be amazed by Jesus, doesn't it?

We've read the stories, we've heard the miracles, and we've lost a bit of that amazement over time.

We need bigger and better to be amazed.

But kids, they're just filled with wonder, aren't they?

Last Christmas, my little guy Luke, he had just turned one.

And I remember the day we put up our Christmas tree and all the lights were on it.

He crawled over to it and looked up and said, Wow! And then through from that moment on, through the rest of the Christmas season, every single time we saw lights on a house, in a store, on someone's tree, he had the same reaction.

Wow.

Over and over again.

And sometimes when it was really amazing, he said, wow, wow! And that awe didn't fade over the season.

The wonder in his eyes and in his heart and in his mind were so strong, and he was so amazed every single time.

Kids naturally have this wonder in them.

Everything is amazing.

But we've lost that wonder over time, haven't we?

When we drive by the Christmas lights on the houses, we barely give it a second glance.

Sometimes we don't even notice.

Earlier this year, Awakening did a Bible reading plan together through the book of Acts, and we had a kid's version of this Bible reading plan.

As I was reading this to Ella each night, we got to this story in Acts where Peter preaches to the people and 3,000 people believe and get baptized.

Many of us have heard this story, and the wonder of that can fade a little bit over time.

But as I read it to Ella, her first time hearing this, she turned to me with her eyes wide and said, 3,000 people?

She was so amazed by this, by what God was doing.

And it made me pause and think, when did I lose that type of wonder?

And more importantly, how do I return to this wonder of Jesus?

How do I receive the kingdom of heaven like a child?

And I think the answer lies in the heart of what Jesus says in this scripture.

In this passage, these aren't actually two separate ideas.

You know, bringing kids to Jesus, discipling them, and having this simple faith like a child.

He says this all at once.

He says, Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

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

I want to draw your attention to something right in the middle of this verse.

Such as these.

This small phrase in the middle of these two big ideas.

This refers to two groups of people.

The such as these, they are the children.

They're the ones Jesus was saying should be allowed to come to him.

Such as all these kids and youth who are in here this morning, the ones that we celebrated, the kids and the youth that you know and you love dearly, the ones we're investing in and discipling.

The kingdom of God belongs to them.

And also the such as these, it's us.

When we approach God the way that little children do, it's when we have the wonder of Jesus.

We are the such as these who the kingdom of God belongs to.

When we invest in kids, we bring the experience that we've had with God.

And they bring the wonder that God has placed in their hearts.

And we all get to experience the kingdom of God together.

And this discipleship that we've been talking about this morning, this introduction to Jesus, this isn't limited to kids.

If there's someone on your heart right now who maybe isn't a kid, introduce them to Jesus.

Invest in them.

And allow their newness of faith to inspire you to return to wonder of Jesus.

You have the opportunity to enter into someone's story.

Choose to invest in a child's life.

Point them toward Jesus, scoop them up, and bring them to him.

Their life will be deeply impacted by you.

Imagine what these kids could do to change the world if they walked with Jesus for their entire life.

Now, back to Ella's question: Who was I made to be?

Baby, a child of God.

Mama, who were you made to be?

A child of God.

As we invest in kids, they get to learn that they were made to be a child of God.

They experience this wonder of Jesus and they get to know that they belong in his kingdom.

And as we invest in kids, we get to learn that we were made to be a child of God.

We return to the wonder of Jesus, and we get to know that we belong in his kingdom.

Church, let's pray together.

Jesus, thank you that you've given us children, that you've given us, that you've invited us in to invest in their lives.

And Jesus, that we get so much in return.

Thank you that you teach us through these kids.

Lord, thank you that you have invited us all into your kingdom, all into your family, and all into this identity as a child of God.

Lord, would you imprint that identity on our hearts today?

Lord, we love you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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