Children: illustration of good or bad?

I have been thinking about this topic for some time now. It first originated with a conversation I had with a good friend at the BGCT convention in Houston back in November. Now, I could not tell you how we got on this topic, but nonetheless it left me with something to think about and so I decided to put my thoughts down on here and see if there were any thoughts on the subject, or if I am once again delving into things that no one else really seems to care about. :)

The topic I am referring to is the use of children in sermon illustrations. I have not been a Christian that long (coming up on 10 years in August, and really those first 3 years are what I refer to as a nominal Christian. Nominal meaning that I went to church, but Jesus had no influence on how I thought, treated others, used my money, saw the world, etc. In short, Jesus was just something I added to all the other things of my life). Anyway, with all that being said, since I have become a pastor I have really started paying attention to sermon illustrations more closely. I have always enjoyed a good sermon, in fact that is usually my favorite part of the service, and a service can be ruined for me quickly if it is a sermon I feel is unprepared or just really bad theology (i.e. using the phrase "be sober minded" as a text to tell people to abstain from alcohol). Since I have started paying attention to sermon illustrations I have noticed that ALL of illustrations using children are to point out how sinful we are. Why is this?

Now let me say this. I am not arguing against original sin, or even saying that it is a bad thing to use children as an illustration of our fallen nature. You can watch kids interact and see immediately they are selfish and self-centered at times (of course you can add other things to the list here). However, it seems to me that we fall short when using children as sermon illustrations if we only use them to illustrate the negative.

The reason this is troubling to me is that Jesus (particularly in the book of Matthew) seems to always hold them up as examples to people when answering how to enter the Kingdom of God, or when teaching them about characteristics of kingdom citizens (KoG belongs to such as these; to enter the KoG you must become like little children, etc.) If Jesus does this when it comes to children, why don't we? Where did this idea come from that we can only use children to illustrate our sinful nature?

When I look at children interact, I see far more qualities of being like Christ than I do when looking at adults. For example, in our nursery we have two little ones that are the about the same age. Now of course they have their bad days and they get moody if another takes the toy that "belongs" to them. However, 10 minutes later after having just fussed at each other, you can see them playing together as if nothing happened. In other words, they didn't keep a record of wrongs (attribute of love found in 1 Cor. 13).

Or if you were to take a group of people, with diverse socioeconomic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds and put their children in one place, and the parents in another room. I would venture to guess that if you came back in an hour the kids would all be interacting with each other and playing games with one another and you would think that they had been friends for years! On the other hand, if you went into the room of adults, my guess would be that you would find different groups huddled up in different places and they would be marked by some kind of common bond (either socioeconomic status, cultural, or ethnic). Now some might say this is just a hypothesis, but I have seen this happen in real life. And the reason this is so is because children haven't been taught (either implicitly or explicitly) the prejudices of the world in terms of other groups of people. I believe this is what Jesus is talking about when he tells us to become like little children. To see the world through the eyes of children, to see beyond the outer appearances, and embrace those around us as if we have been friends for years.

I could go on and on about positive examples that I have seen in children. Giving a homeless person money (yes their parents gave them the money). But the excitement they exude when giving is something that I have always hoped would be in me.

All this to say, I understand why ministers use children to illustrate sin and our bent towards being self centered, etc. But I do not understand why we don't hold them up as examples the way Jesus did.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic as well!