SermonStudio

How many of you have older brothers and sisters? (Let them answen) If you do have older brothers and sisters, how many of you are also the youngest child in your family? (Let them answer)


Now for those of you who are 'the baby of the family,' I want to ask you some questions. What is the best thing about being the youngest child? (Let them answer) What is the worst thing about being the very youngest in the family? (Let them answer) Actually, what I really wanted to ask is: how come the youngest child always gets the raw deal, the short end of the stick?


Maybe it ïs not true in your home, but in a lot of families, the youngest children feel like they are in a battle for their rights all the time. They feel that their older brothers or sisters don ït treat them fairly. When it comes to deciding which television show to watch, who gets how many pieces of pizza, or who gets to sit in the front seat of the car -- if these things were always left for the kids to decide by themselves, youngest children would never get their way! Am I wrong? Does anyone know what I am talking about here? Most times, the stronger ones get their way, and the smaller ones have to live with it.


Now, if you were the youngest child in that situation, what would you do? Who would you go to? (Let them answer) That ïs right, you would go to a 'higher power' -- to mom or dad -- to try to get some fairness, to try to get some justice. In fact, that is one of a parent ïs jobs: to try to make sure that all the children, even the youngest, are treated fairly. Parents have to make certain that the last in line gets to be first some times.


Well, a long time ago, the people of Israel needed help from a Higher Power. They were slaves in Egypt. They were worked hard every day building pyramids for the pharaohs. Their slave masters were cruel. They were hungry and beaten and suffering and dying.


Then God came to help, and He made Pharaoh let the Hebrews go. God brought His great power to earth, not for those who already had power, but for those who did not. Not for those who were strong and famous, but for those who were weak and invisible. God came to help the little people, because God ïs people are the little people of this world.


There are a lot of such 'little people' in the world today. In fact, there always have been. They are all the people who are poor and hungry, all over the world and right here where we live. They are all the people who are out of work. They are all the people who do have jobs but are still poor, like the children who make our toys in faraway factories, or the people in our own country who pick the food we eat in the fields, or change the beds we sleep on in the hospital.


They are all the people caught in the middle of violence and wars -- in countries like Ireland or Rwanda or Israel, and in our own cities and towns. They are the people who are hated because of their color or their religion or the accent with which they speak. They are all the sick and lonely and sorrowful and dying.


We tend not to pay attention to the little people. We tend to notice the big people, the popular, the powerful people. We put them on television and pay them lots of money and want to buy the same brand of sneakers they wear. If we had been visiting ancient Egypt, we would have noticed Pharaoh and the splendor of his magnificent court. We might not have noticed the Hebrew slaves at all.


But God noticed them. God showed that He is the kind of God who holds the little people of this world in a special place in His heart. As people have said for many, many years, God must really love the little people of this earth because He made so many of them. Of all the wonderful things we can say about God -- all we could say about His power, His love, His Son and everything else -- I think one of the most wonderful things to say about God is that He takes the little people and makes them His own. Amen.