HOCF SERMON 2023

Matthew 19: Be Like Little Children

Matthew 19:13-15

13 Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them.

14 Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." 15 When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

13 Karon, may mga tawo nga nagdala sang magagmay nga mga bata kay Jesus agod tungtungan niya sang iya kamot kag pangamuyuan. Pero ginsaway sila sang mga sumulunod ni Jesus. 14 Nagsiling si Jesus sa ila, "Pabay-i lang ninyo ang mga bata nga magpalapit sa akon. Indi ninyo sila pagpunggi, kay ang mga pareho sa ila nasakop sa paghari sang Dios." 15 Dayon gintungtong ni Jesus ang iya kamot sa mga bata kag ginbendisyunan niya sila. Pagkatapos sadto naglakat siya.

SERMON:

Good morning Church! Matthew 19 has a lot of points where we could draw wisdom, but today the Word highlighted the verses 13-15 that speaks about Jesus blessing the little children.

In the passage, the disciples tried to rebuke the people who brought children to Jesus so he could bless them, but Jesus told them not to stop the children from coming to him because the kingdom of heaven belongs to children like them.

I remember not long ago during one of our lessons in the School of Unlearning, we were doing our practical activity in discernment where we practiced seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting in the spirit, so it was very quiet that time, because everybody was silent and trying to focus, except for two little kids (kilala niyo naman na kung sino na sila ah) who were unmindfully playing and laughing.

Kung wala ka pasensya daw mairita ka kay teh ga concentrate ka tani sa nabuhat pero kagahod sa ila. Katingil sang mga tingog nga Ga kinadlaw, ga dugsing. Then the Lord made me realize that what we are hearing is actually what heaven sounds like.

In the true to life Christian movie Heaven is For Real, which is a story about a 3 year or 4 year old boy who had near death experience, when he woke up, he claimed that he visited heaven.

At first, nobody would believe him because of course, he was just a little boy. And you know kids, they like to imagine, they like making up stories out of their fantasies, so nobody really took it seriously at first.

Until the boy started to innocently talk about details that he is not supposed to know about yet he spoke about it. One instance was when he told his mom that in heaven, a little girl hugged him and said that she is his sister.

At first, she thought that it was her other sister, but he said it was a different girl and started to describe her to his mom. The mom was confused so She asked him what was the name of the girl but the boy said, she doesn't have a name because the mom and the dad never gave her a name.

Then the mom started to tear up then said, "we never knew, that she was a girl."

It turns out that his parents lost a baby some time ago and they never knew her gender that's why she was not given a name. So they wondered how he knew about it. He was just a little boy after all and it happened even before he was born. How is he supposed to know that if he didnt really visit heaven.

On another occasion, the boy told his dad that he met his grandpa in heaven. His father's grandfather. When his father started to describe his grandpa as an old man, the boy said that "in heaven, everybody is young." daw kanami lang noh, sa langit puro bata. Di na kinahanglan mga anti-aging. Unfaded beauty ang ara didto.

The father then went to dig into the old chest of pictures and got a picture of his grandpa when he was a young boy. Remember that this young never met his grandfather. So when the father found a very old picture of his grandfather and brought it to the kid, he unmistakable said. "That's grandpop!"