This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to our second day of looking through Matthew chapter 18.
Yesterday we began this week looking at the fact that you and I have to change
and become like a child and depend on God. Today we're going to look at what
Jesus had to teach about how God cares for his children.

Once we change, once we become like a child and depend on him, how does God care
for us as his children? Listen to what Jesus taught. Beginning in verse 5, Jesus
said, "Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.

But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would
be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned
in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause
people to sin. Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come.

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It's
better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two
feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge
it out and throw it away.

It's better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be
thrown into the fire of hell. See that you do not look down on one of these
little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of
my Father in heaven. What do you think?

If a man owns a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, will he not leave
the ninety-nine on the hills and go look for the one that wandered off? And if
he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about
the ninety-nine that did not wander off in that same way. Your Father in heaven
is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.

So here down through verse 14 we just read Jesus talks about God's children. Now
is he talking about little children or is he talking about us as believers? Well
earlier we saw in verse 6 he says, "Any of these children who believe in me.

" So he's talking about believers. The Bible speaks of everyone as being a
creation of God, but not everyone as being a child of God. In the way that the
Bible speaks about us, we might use that term "child of God" to refer to all of
God's creation, but God reserves it for those who have trusted in his promise
through Jesus, who are in a relationship with him.

Those are his children, he says in the Bible. And in these verses he talks about
how he cares for his children. As I read through these verses for you, I hope
you picked up on some things that you and I can do.

The question I have as I look at these verses is, how can I be like Jesus? How
can I care for God's children like God cares for his children? And we see four
specific things that we need to do here.

You welcome them, he says. You don't look down on them, he says. You don't cause
them to sin, he says.

And you seek them to find them. First he says, you welcome them. Welcome them.

Jesus says if you welcome them, it's like welcoming me. So when you see someone
who's a child of God, maybe you don't know them yet, but they've just come into
the church for the first time or you're traveling and you see them somewhere.
Jesus says you welcome them into the family.

This is true for new believers. This is true for people who have been believing
a long time. This is true for the first time you see someone.

This is true, and maybe even harder, the hundredth time that you see someone.
You keep welcoming people in. You continue to welcome people with hospitality.

You're a part of the family. I'm glad you're a part of the family. It's like a
home, a family, where every time somebody walks in, you say hello to that
person.

You don't let them just walk in the door and ignore them. That starts to happen
in families sometimes. But you welcome people when they come in the door.

We got to welcome people in God's family. There's this friendliness, this
kindness to each other. That's one of the things we do to care for God's
children.

A second thing we do, Jesus is very clear about this. He says don't cause them
to sin. The warnings he gives are strong here.

Jesus says don't cause them to sin. If you cause one of those little children to
sin, you may as well hang a millstone around your neck and throw yourself into
the deepest part of the sea. When Jesus talks about the punishment for sin that
comes upon those who hurt believers, who intentionally teach in such a way or
act in such a way that one of God's children is hurt, he's reminding us of a
truth about our sin.

You see, we all face the same punishment for our sin, separation from God. Sin
separates us from God. If I come to Jesus Christ and trust in him, that
punishment is wiped away.

But if I do not, I'm going to be separated from God for all eternity. Jesus
talks about that later when he says it's better for you to have part of your
body lost than to lose your salvation. Please come to me, he says, because
there's nothing more important.

That's eternal. As Jesus talks about this millstone hung around the neck and woe
to him through whom this comes that sin would be invited into the life of a
believer, Jesus is telling us here that some people are going to face greater
eternal punishment for their sins. We all face the same result of our sin,
separation, but some will face greater eternal punishment for their sin,
especially those who cause God's children to stumble into sin.

Especially those. Now on earth we don't always see that. It looks like people
are getting away with things.

But God reserves judgment. And those who cause God's children to sin for their
own selfish ends, they're going to face great judgment for that. Now I never
want to look at a scripture and think about just others.

What about you and I? The truth is you would say I would never cause someone to
sin by false teaching. But when I look at my life, your life, sometimes we can
cause one of these little ones to sin by our example.

I've got to ask myself in these verses, am I giving some kind of an example in
my life that would draw a fellow believer into sin? The apostle Paul talks a lot
about this when he says don't do anything that would hurt a weak brother or
sister. And Jesus amplifies the importance of that in the verses that we've just
read together.

You see, when you take fellowship seriously, when you take God's children
seriously, you realize I'm not just living for myself. I'm also living with an
example for others. And that example means something.

Jesus tells us here how much it means. I'm not saying you would lose your
salvation and go to hell if you gave a bad example. That's not what Jesus is
teaching here.

I'm just drawing from what Jesus teaches here about false teachers to say you
and I have a responsibility to as believers, to these little children, to these
fellow believers. So Jesus says don't cause them to sin. Jesus says welcome
them.

And then he says a third thing. He says don't look down on them. I love that
phrase because Jesus is talking here about the importance of every one of God's
children.

Christians in this world, Christians often don't look that impressive. In fact,
the picture the Bible gives of us is that we're sheep. We're these vulnerable
sheep.

Satan's the lion. We're the sheep. What's more impressive?

A lion. But we're the sheep. Satan's the scheming serpent.

We're the innocent dove. So Satan seems to be the more powerful one for a time.
He's not, but he seems to be.

But Jesus says do not look down on even the lowliest, the seemingly lowliest
Christian. There is more to them than you see. There's an eternity more to them
than you see.

In fact, Jesus says this phrase, their angels in heaven see God's face. You read
that phrase and you think first, what? We have an angel in heaven?

Yes, that's what this says. You have an intercessor in heaven, even better than
that, in Jesus interceding for you, praying for you all the time. You have an
angel, a messenger of God.

Now what do our angels in heaven do? How do they serve us? What do they say on
our behalf?

I don't know. The Bible doesn't say. It just indicates here that we've got one,
which I think is pretty cool.

And it also says they always see God's face. That's a picture of the truth that
God never forgets you for a moment. They always see God's face.

You're always in his thoughts. And that same truth is there for every believer
that you meet. So Jesus says don't look down on a fellow believer.

The fourth thing Jesus says is you seek them to find them. He tells this story
that he tells in other places, this parable about someone who leaves 99 found
sheep to find the one lost sheep. Jesus is encouraging us here in how we receive
people.

See everyone that you meet today as a lost child that needs to be found or a
lost child that already has been found. The truth is we're all lost. We're all
separated from God.

It's not like any of us were born found. We're all born lost. We're all born
separated because of sin in this world, because of sin in our lives.

And God through Jesus Christ came into this world to find us. And you and I as
believers, we have the opportunity to let people know that good news. We have
the opportunity to reach out to people and be an example of that good news.

And when you are doing that, you have the heart of God toward his children.
You're helping his lost children to be found. That's one of the great privileges
that we have.

God has a great heart, we read in these verses. Jesus, God in human flesh, is
teaching us this towards his children, his little children, his believers that
are beginning to grow. And you and I need to hear that heart that God has for
us, for ourselves, but we also need to reflect that heart towards other
believers.

So let's pray for both together right now. Would you pray this with me? Just
pray, God, Father, help me to see your heart for me, that you welcome me, that
you're always thinking about me, that you're the one who found me.

Help me to see your heart for me, God. And out of that confidence that grows out
of that, help me to have your heart for your other children. God to welcome
them, to not look down on them, to not do anything that would cause them to sin.

Father, to be always thinking about where is there a lost child that you have
found? And Lord, to be willing to leave the 99 to go out and find the one, not
to get so comfortable where I am, that I'm not willing to go out and have your
heart for a world that needs to hear the good news of who you are. God, give me
that heart today.

I need your strength. I can't have your heart without your strength. So I pray
for your strength to have that kind of heart towards your children today.

And I pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow we're going to talk about what to
do when a believer sins against you.