Attitude of a Child

I have in a file at the house a number of miscellaneous items, but this one is some excerpts from a work called More Children's Letters to God, compiled by Eric Marshall and Stuart Hempel. So I'm going to read a number of these to you. Dear God, I read your book and I like it. Did you write any others? I would like to write a book some day with the same kind of stories. Where did you get your ideas? And that's best wishes for Mark. Another one. Dear God, should we call you Sir? That's what we call our principle. Do you have a beard? He doesn't. Love Sarah. I don't really know the age level of these young people who have written in. Dear God, I've been reading all the things that happened long ago. When the sun stood still, and David and Goliath and Daniel with the lion's den, and the story of Ruth and the fall of Jericho, a lot of things sure happened back in your day. Yours truly, Joe. Dear God, if you made the rule for kids to take out the garbage, would you please change it? Very truly, Maurice. Dear God, when it didn't rain, I was sure my violets would not grow. But then they came up. What you did was pretty good. Love, Betty. Dear God, I'm sorry I was late for church, but I couldn't find my underwear. Serious problem, isn't it? That's from Norman. Dear God, sometimes I'm very scared in my room at night, but I know you're there to protect me. Your friend, Diane. That's from Debbie. Dear God, I don't think you were listening when I asked you to make me a better ballplayer. So I am sending it by mail so you can read it when you have the time. And here is my picture so you will know who I am. So long, Bobby. Dear God, you should see our grass. Did you do that? Lou. Dear God, my daddy says he would not want your job for anything in the world. He is an electric engineer. But could you make it so he doesn't work all the time? And you should not work so hard either. Love, Myrna. Dear God, which do you like better? People or animals? I like animals. Is there someone like you for them? And that's from Gwen. Insightful thought. For animals, is there somebody like God for humans? Dear God, do good people always have to die young? I heard my mommy say that, and I'm not always good. Yours truly, Barbara. Dear Holy God, would you make it so there would not be any more wars? And everybody could vote and have plenty of food for meals. And everybody should have a lot of fun. I hope you don't think this is too selfish. One of your friends, Nancy. Dear God, how are you? I am fine. You do good things. I'd like to know why you do it. Anyway, I'm glad. And I hope you enjoyed this letter. Your friend, Terry. And then one more. Dear God, I want to be just like you when I'm your age. Okay? Tommy. I like reading those letters. Nothing like insight into a child's mind. But a little child is trusting and open, unashamed, genuine, simple, down to earth. And, you know, we big people tend to grow up. We get hurt. We have kids make fun of us. We start putting up these shells. We start changing. And during Christ's ministry, he held up a little child and said, you need to become like his little child. So let's look at Mark 9. Mark 9. Look at a couple of places here where he referred to us needing to be converted and become as a little child.

Mark 9. The beginning of verse 33. It's interesting here that it adds this little part of the story as he came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, referring to the disciples who had traveled with him, what was it you disputed among yourselves on the road? And they kept silent. Well, because they knew that what they were doing, he was not going to be very happy with. For on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest. And he sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, if anyone desires to be the first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. Then he took a little child and set him in the midst of them. And when he had taken him in his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one of these little children, in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives not him, but him who sent me. Now, next chapter, chapter 10, verse 13. Then they brought little children to him, that he might touch them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. And when the puzzling for us looked back with two thousand years of hindsight, puzzling to wonder, why did they think they were taking up too much of the Lord's time, of Master's time? Apparently, they rebuked those who brought him. But when Jesus saw it, he was greatly displeased, and said to them, Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, will by no means enter it. And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. So, there are those who twist this scripture to say that children have to be baptized when they're born, or when they're little children. But, of course, the Bible is, if you look at the biblical examples, you have people baptized who were of an age of maturity, of a level where they could make that commitment. But to be converted is to change from one state to another. And I've used the example before. If we have a glass of ice cubes at room temperature over time, it's going to be converting from the solid state to the liquid state. And it could be heated on a pan back in the kitchen, and we'd see it even further change to water vapor. But it's interesting that these accounts that we just read, three out of four of the gospels record these events, which tells me that it must be very important to God. Let's turn over to 1 Corinthians 7. And here we see that children are holy to God. Children are holy. And here we're talking, or Paul is writing, about the marriage state and the fact that there are some where you have a... one spouse is a believer and the other spouse is not a believer. And in those households, the children are sanctified. They are holy to God. Verse 14, 1 Corinthians 7, verse 14, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, the wife being a believer. And so there is a special protection, a special favor that God gives to that spouse.

And the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, in the case where the husband is the member. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. And so that's what the Bible actually says. Children are holy. They are sanctified unto God.

When we look at what we read in Mark's account about the events of Christ's blessing them, He focused... He wanted them to focus on the attitudes so uniquely and beautifully expressed by little children. And He also wants us to focus on these childlike attitudes, because these attitudes are necessary for receiving the kingdom of God and reigning with Christ. And so we need to make a study of the attitudes of children, and then emulate what we see that is right and good. Not everything a little child does is going to be right and good, but there are so many wonderful, wonderful traits. So I'm going to start with a list, and we'll see how far we get.

I have more written down here than we can cover, but let's start, number one, with humility. A little child is largely devoid of the pride, the vanity, the spirit of self-promotion or self-assertion that older people often... You know, too many times can pick up. They have no illusions of grandeur. They have no great aspirations.

They're not seeking the chief seat. They're not in pursuit of power or recognition. They're not arrogant. You take a young boy, and he can go walking around in a public place with his fly unzipped, and it does not embarrass him.

Then we get civilized as we grow up, and things like that we get horribly embarrassed because our focus is on self.

We would be devastated. But you think of the biblical personalities God began working with at early ages.

And I wrote down a number here. I think of Samuel.

And of course, you know, even before he was even born, Hannah going and praying, and what Eli said to her, and what led to the birth of Samuel. And then he was devoted to God's service from birth, and was there with Eli, that not so faithful priest at that time.

Timothy. Paul wrote Timothy. Timothy was serving in the ministry, but he reminded him that from a child you have known the Holy Scriptures that are able to make you wise unto salvation.

And he spoke another place of his mother and his grandmother, and so he was a third generation Christian by the time we got to the story there of Timothy.

Mary, the mother of Christ. She's probably relatively young whenever she marries.

Don't know, can't really say, we aren't given any clues. Whether she may have been late teen, somewhere around 20ish or so, but that's young.

And you think about Mary, you think about what little we know here and there. What a special, remarkable person she had to have been.

Moses. Moses from the time the little babe, the little ark of bull rushes, pushed out into the Nile.

And 40 years, of course, he was there growing up in Egypt, and then God began working with him in a more remarkable way later on in life.

David. David is the little shepherd lad. He's the youngest one of the clan. He's out there when Samuel comes to the household of Jesse.

And the first, what was it, seven sons? No, this is not the anointed.

And then David was called in from keeping the flocks.

Josiah was just about age eight when he came into responsibility. Esther probably would have been rather young.

Jeremiah was told, God said, I knew you in the womb. God worked with him for a long time.

And of course, Joseph, as we just read from Genesis 39, Joseph was just a young man whenever God was working in his life. So we have so many examples we can turn to. Let's turn over to 1 Peter 2 and read verses 1 and 2.

Because here, Peter also tells us, lay aside so many of the sins we pick up.

Pick up, lay aside the pride, and become like newborn babes, hungering for God's word.

1 Peter 2 verse 1, Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby.

Let's go back to Philippians 2.

Philippians 2, and just simply read verse 3.

Verse 3, Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.

And that is so contrary to human nature. Human nature spotlights self. Human nature promotes self.

Human nature glories in self.

And Christ, Paul here tells us to follow Christ and put that aside.

And in lowliness of mind.

Verse 8, Being found in appearance as a man, speaking of Jesus, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

God wants us to be humble, genuine. He wants us to be a people reliant upon Him.

He wants us to be those who tremble at His word.

Let's go to Isaiah 40.

And read a few verses here beginning in verse 15.

Because God wants us to be overawed at the grandeur, the power of God.

He is sovereign. He rules over all nations of the earth.

He's always right. He doesn't make mistakes.

And we should tremble before His word and before His wisdom.

And tremble before His creation. Isaiah 40, verse 15, Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket.

Here we live in a world today that's an armed camp.

And we have saber rattling going back and forth.

We have all of this jockeying and positioning around.

And God looks down, and you know the greatest superpower on earth today is still the United States.

And we're on the way down. We know that.

We've lost a lot of ground in the last 30 years.

But we still are the lone superpower since the iron curtain fell and the breakup of the old USSR.

God looks down, we're just a drop in a bucket.

We don't know our own way. We're just little children. We don't know it.

And are counted as the small dust on the scales.

Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.

And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, referring back to Lebanon when He had all the cedars covering the mountains.

Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.

All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless.

To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him?

The workman molds an image, the goldsmith overspreads it with gold, and the silversmith casts silver chains.

Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution chooses a tree that will not rot.

He seeks for himself a skillful workman to prepare a carved image that will not totter. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told to you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.

Do we see ourselves as just being dust before God?

Dust we are, and dust we're going to go back to being. Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

He brings the princes to nothing and makes the judges of the earth useless.

So God is sovereign, and He wants us to be in awe of His glory, His majesty, His wisdom, and His power.

So number one is humility. Number two is faith.

A little child seems to have a special faith.

A little child trusts parents to always be there for them.

Now we have a lot of people in this world who have had their personality, they've had their whole psyche damaged.

Because they didn't have parents or a parent in an extended family there to fill that void.

And that's tragic. You have people who carry baggage for a lifetime because the foundation was never set.

You had parents who weren't there for them.

A little child has faith that when it's time to eat and drink, mom's going to bring them something to eat.

They're going to have a peaceful place to sleep, for the most part.

I think a lot of us had memories of that. Some of you may not have.

But we have lots of people on this earth who are from the...

Look at people in some of these war and tort areas where they never have that peace of mind to lie down, have comfort at night.

Little children come home from school, pre-school, kindergarten, and know somebody's going to come back and get them. Take them home. Keep them safe. They're filled with faith.

I remember with each of ours, they might be on the top bunk, and if I'd say, you know, Ben, jump.

He'd just jump. He knew I'd catch him. Thankfully, I always did.

Jenny, jump. And she'd jump. We're in swimming pool. John, jump to me.

You know, let them jump in the water, splash. They come up, and then you grab them.

And a little child has that faith.

But, you know, as we grow older, it's kind of like...

Who was it? Lucy and Linus there in peanuts?

And he'd go to kick the football.

And whoever'd pull the football back...

So, anyhow...

We serve, in so many ways as family, we serve as surrogate God.

We teach them a great deal.

We serve in a way that we teach them about God.

And the time comes, you know, the child grows up seeing Dad and Mom take care of everything and anything.

And hopefully we grow up in families like that, and children grow up in families like that today. And they, with time, with maturity, begin looking at their Heavenly Father that way.

He's always there on His throne. You know, human fathers, somewhere down the line, are things we can't fix. We can't do. We can't always be there.

But God's always there. And we can cry out to Him at any time.

Let's go back to 1 Samuel 17 and mention David a while ago.

And David, of course, has been, it seems like, it's kind of on the side to a degree. He's been anointed to become the next king when God saw fit, but that was years down the line.

And then in chapter 17 of 1 Samuel, we have the story of the armies of Israel being gathered in a battle array there against the Philistines. And the Philistines had this great big dude named Goliath.

And he would go out and he would bellow out his challenge. Let's see. Anyhow, the challenge for some man to come out and fight me.

Now, who was the biggest guy in Israel?

Who was described as being head and shoulders taller than any man?

Saul, the king himself. Who was a man of war?

He was quite the warrior himself.

But he was the biggest guy in Israel.

And here comes the Philistines' biggest guy, only he was a whole lot bigger.

No wonder we read, you know, Saul was happy to let this shepherd boy come. But at any rate, let's read verse 26.

As David comes, he's sent to take supplies to his brothers and bring back word to his father how they're doing.

And David heard what happened.

Verse 26, and David spoke with the men who stood by him, saying, What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? Now, what age was David? We really don't know. He's young.

For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?

You know, there's a man of faith.

I read one commentary. I probably told you this before, and I wish I could remember who it was. But one author looked at the story of David and Goliath, and he was writing about the topic of faith.

And he said, Israel looked at Goliath, and Israel said, The guy is too big to fight.

And David looked over there at Goliath, and he said, The guy is too big to miss.

And, you know, I thought that was a pretty good way of putting it, in teaching us about faith. Well, let's skip down a bit to verse 31.

When the words which David spoke were heard, they reported them to Saul, and he, Saul, sent for him David.

And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.

And Saul said to David, You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are a youth, and he is a man of war from his youth.

Well, what did David say?

David said to Saul, Your servant used to keep his father's sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth.

And when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it.

Your servant has killed both lion and bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, saying he has defied the armies of the living God.

He wasn't on a glory kick here. He wasn't acting out of arrogance and pride.

He acted out of the fact that he loved his God so much, he couldn't stand to hear this man defy the Almighty God.

And at any rate, you know the rest of the story. Verse 37, He delivered me from the paw of the lion, from the paw of the bear, and he'll deliver me from this Philistine.

And Saul said to go forth, As a teen, David had absolute faith that his heavenly Father would be there for him and deliver Goliath into his hand.

Denise and I chuckled a few years ago, our grandson, who's now 10, our grandson, he'd want to say the prayer before meal.

And there was something, I forget what the phrase was, there was one phrase that he would use, and then after prayer, he'd say, I said that because that's what he calls me Big D.

That's what Big D says in his prayers.

So, I took it as a compliment.

Anyhow, a little child has faith, a wonderful faith.

They should grow up knowing dad and mom, siblings, big brother, big sister, extended family, grandparents, that they'll be there for me, no matter what happens.

Number three, a little child is teachable.

They are so remarkably teachable when they're little.

They hunger to learn and understand.

The foundation for life is laid by the time they're five or six, and maybe even when they're three or four.

There's so much that they receive that will be with them for the lifetime.

But little children want to be taught, they want to learn.

I remember one, our oldest one, who's getting up there now.

December, he'll be 35. Wow! He was just born the other day.

He was a little bitty guy, about two, and I heard his mother working with him to say, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and I thought, he can't learn the books of the Bible.

And wasn't it by the time he was three, he could say 66 books of the Bible in order.

Now, a few of them had trouble pronouncing.

Everybody would laugh when he would say, he queasy nasties.

But we knew what he meant.

And she worked with the kids, teaching them to count in Spanish.

Especially out in West Texas, some of you, it was important to know.

And so, uno, dos, tres, you know, and they'd lose that in a little while, but in no time, they could count one to 20 in Spanish.

We've heard it said that it's a lot easier to learn something brand new than to unlearn error.

And there is so much truth to that. And it's so much easier to learn when we don't have the mind cluttered with misinformation and with error and confusion.

A little child can grow up learning languages.

They can grow up and be bilingual or trilingual without hardly trying.

Adults, some seem to have a knack for it, a gift for it, and most of us have to struggle hard to learn even phrases in other languages.

Ephesians 6. Let's go to Ephesians 6.

A little child is teachable, and so should we be teachable.

Ephesians 6, verses 1 through 3.

Paul writing to the children, Children, obey your parents in the Lord. That's an important phrase because, you know, sometimes as a young person, you have a parent and the way they're leading you or what they're telling you or asking you to do isn't within the Lord. By that, it's not in harmony with what the Bible teaches.

For this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.

So a long life is promised to those who learn from and honor parents, and what kind of price can we place on that?

You know, the book of Proverbs were written to teach wisdom. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs 1.

That's why as God's children, we need to go to Proverbs. Probably a lot more than we do.

I go through spells. I go back and I'll start rereading through the Proverbs. It always amazes me. Something strikes me in a certain way. I think, I never saw that before. The Bible's written that way. We spend a lifetime reading it, studying it, and there's always something new to learn. Proverbs 1 verse 8, My son, hear the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother, for they will be graceful ornament to your head and chains about your neck.

Chapter 2 verse 1, My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding? Yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God, for the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. So, the Proverbs are written to teach wisdom, and we need to be teachable, moldable tools in the hands of God.

Alright, number 3 is teachable. Number 4 is open. Little children are like an open book. What you see is what you get. There's no cover-up. They're not playing games. They're not putting on a front. They don't blame it on others. Yeah, I find that I'm often my own best worth of bad example, so I'm going to tell a story. When I was 5, my brothers then were 7 and 8, and we had some cousins visiting. There was one particular cousin that whenever Randy visited, it seemed like we always did things to get in trouble. We never did. He didn't make us do it, but it was just like a bad combination.

One of the older guys got cigars somehow. Don't ask anything more about that, but they got some cigars. I had my first cigar, or part of a cigar, when I was 5, because we were down, of all places, in the hay barn, learning about life and learning about what smoke does when you've never had it in your lungs before. Wherever we were on the farm, when it was time for company or for a cousin's family to go, they'd go out and honk the horn on the car or the truck. We knew we might be a half mile in any direction, and we knew time to go beat-feed it onto the house. We're down there with these cigars going off, and the horn goes.

We all put them out. I think the older guys stuffed theirs down in their boot. We all wore these Claude Hopper Wellington boots, we called them. Put them down inside their boot to smoke it later. I had mine in my hands like this, behind my back, which looked awfully guilty. We come walking up to the house, and I'm like that. My dad says, David, what do you have in your hand? I said, a cigar. We all got in trouble because of me.

I tried to tell him I was the guileless one. I didn't know. A little child is open, but then, after a few experiences like that, you learn if you're going to smoke, you better sneak around and do it, so dad and mom don't find out.

Let's go to 1 Samuel 3. 1 Samuel 3. We have here this story of Samuel as a lad. Verse 1, the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli, and the word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no widespread revelation. We find out that verse 3, the lamp of God in the tabernacle was out, or before the lamp of God went out.

The light of God's way was waning in Israel at that time. So verse 4, the Lord called Samuel, and he answered, Here I am. Well, he, of course, little child, he thought it was Eli calling him, so he ran to Eli, and that happened more than once. Eli finally told him, you know, go there and say, Yes, Lord. Verse 18, Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him, and he said, It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.

So Samuel, verse 19, So Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and he let none of his words fall to the ground. I like the way that's worded there. Marginal note says, He let none of his words fail. But none of his words fall to the ground. The God from the earliest stage of this young man used him, inspired his words. I used to tell men in the spokesman club, you know, we need to pray that, that God will not let any of our words fall to the ground.

That God will inspire something above and beyond what we on our own are able to add. So as a little child, you know, he kept going back to Eli, and he'd tell him everything that happened.

No pretense, no hiding, no show. He was an open book, genuine and for real. Alright, number five is a little child is simple. A little child is simple because life is simple. Life is uncomplicated. Life, hopefully, is free from worry for a little child. We realize there are a lot of, a lot of households around us in this country where this isn't the norm like it seems, whereas it seems like it used to be the norm for the vast majority. But we have a lot of troubled children growing up in all kinds of households out there. But life should be basically free from worry for a little child. They should have faith in family to be able to provide everything, and if they have that faith, then why worry? Life's simple. But as adults, we grow up, we start worrying about things we don't have control over anyhow. Let's go to Matthew 6, because this goes back to where Christ was teaching the disciples and hence teaching us what we need, what we need to become in order to enter the kingdom of God. And as human beings, we like to worry about things. And worry says if we worry to that degree, we don't have faith. We don't have faith in God to take care of things.

Matthew 6, verse 25, Verse 33, We worry about things that God says He'll take care of. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 1. A little child's life is simple. Its life is easy. Again, I'm speaking in general, for the most part. There are no tangled webs of relationships and people problems and job problems and all kinds of worries.

And Christ wants us to go back and live life that way, put your life in His hands and trust in Him, and keep life simple. More than once, the Apostle Paul referred to the simplicity that is in Christ. And this is one of those places. Chapter 1, verse 12, Not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God and the more abundantly toward you. Let's look at chapter 11. Though chapter 11, and in verse 3, a little child doesn't have all of our complex problems and frustrations.

They aren't worried about politics. They aren't worried about the nation's economy. They aren't worried about the possibility of war here or there. They get up and they go potty. They have some juice and they have breakfast. They get dressed and they play. And they rest and they eat again. And they play and they rest and they eat some more. And when dad comes home from work, as it happened to me many times, they pile on to dad in the middle of the living room and jump on him.

That evening they play some more. They get ready for bed. They pray, sing a song, go to sleep. The next day they go through it, the same old routine again. And in the meantime, as we say, they sleep like babies. And hopefully your babies did sleep at night. Ours always sleep all night long. Well, now she would have a different story. She's giving me the evil eye right now. Our daughter was a bit more, well, is a bit more expressive than either of her brothers. No great surprise there. But when she was little, she would pray, don't let Satan get us. Pretty good prayer. And she would thank God for blessings.

She'd thank God for her tricycle and her brother's bicycle and for their swing and for her doll. We adults don't think of things like that. There's an ink pen. I've never thanked God for that ink pen. If it doesn't work, I, you know, get a new refill or I lay it down and get a different ink pen. I never thanked God for a piece of paper. But a little child thinks in detail because life is simple.

And when's the last time you thanked God for some of the simple things of life? Like popcorn and your wristwatch and clothes and your hand. I mean, the way that hand works, opposable thumb, it's an amazing thing. And he did that. Do we ever thank him for it? Maybe life needs to be simplified for us. So we have time to think about those things. Number six, a little child is forgiving. A little child is forgiving. They can have squabbles that are easily and quickly resolved. Whatever the problem was is quickly forgiven and forgotten. Get down and go on playing as they had with the other children before.

And they don't give another thought to whatever happened. They go to play with other kids. They don't care what gender that other child is. They don't care the color of that kid's skin. They don't care what language. We went to France in 1998. Our youngest one would have been about to hit 12. He would have been 11. And there was a family from Switzerland who were there. And their boy and our youngest boy were the same age.

One spoke English. One spoke French. They were French-speaking part of Switzerland. And those two had a ball together. And they could hardly understand a word the other one said. But they played and had a wonderful time. Children don't care about the differences. Matthew 18. We have here the parable of the unforgiving servant. And God here seeks to teach us to recapture the childlike ability to forgive from the heart. Big people tend to maintain grudges. We've got a sore there that festers. And we pick out the scab. And we keep it irritated. We have feuds. We're familiar with the old story of the Hatfields and the McCoys. A true story. And it went on for years and years and years.

Who knows how many lives were lost and how much blood was shed? We've got peoples, nations, who've been fighting forever. They've been fighting so long, they don't know why they're fighting. They just hate the other one. Well, one of these days, God's got something better for them. But in Matthew 18, the story begins in verse 21, when Peter asks, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me?

And I forgive him up to seven times. And Jesus said, I say to you, up to seven times, but seventy times seven. And then he tells of the king, who won to settle accounts with his servants. Verse 24, when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But he was not able to pay, as Master commanded, that he should be sold, his wife, children, all they had, and the payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all. The master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave the debt.

But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him a hundred denarii. Now ten thousand talents versus one hundred denarii. Quantum leap of difference here in the amount owed. He laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me what you owe. Fellow servant fell down his feet and begged him, saying, Have patience with me, I'll pay you all. But he would not throw him into prison, till he should pay his debt. So when his fellow servants saw what he had done, they were grieved, very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done.

Then his master, verse 32, after he had called him, said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me, should you not also have had compassion on that fellow servant, just as I had pity on you. And his master was angry and delivered him through the torturers, until he should pay all that was due him. Here's the point, verse 35, So my heavenly Father also will do to you, if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother, his trespasses. From his heart, that means you set that person free, and it never, ever comes back again.

It is written off, just as God has done for us. And God wants us to learn that childlike attitude of being able to heal, to forgive, and to get on and to go on and play like nothing ever happened. Never bring it back again.

Number seven, a little child has dreams. So dreams. Little children dream dreams. They say, when I grow up, I'm going to be a fireman. I'm going to be an astronaut. I'm going to be a NASCAR driver. Little children dream of what can be, because no one is told them they can't do it.

When Denise and I married her cousin, Hal, who lives over in Sheffield, he was about nine or ten years old, I think. And from the time I met Hal, he was talking about, I'm going to have a Corvette. You know, we'd all listen to him. Yeah, yeah, right, kid. Yeah, well, that's great. And you know what that scoundrel did, is he grew up. He saved his money. I don't know how many Corvettes he's owned, but I think he's kind of got over it now.

But he knew everything about those things. And the day came, he not only dreamed of, I'm going to own a Corvette. He was driving a Corvette around. When I was little, I wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to be a farmer. I wanted overalls, because my dad would wear those. You know, and overalls, you got that little side pocket down the pant leg. And dad always had a pair of pliers. Pull them out, and you had to cut wire around the bales of hay, or you had to repair fencing.

You needed pliers. I wanted a pair. Well, he gave me a pair of pliers. I've let them get away from me. I don't know where they are. They may be in the garage, which means I may never find them again. But he gave me pliers. I remember one time, he gave me a, you know, a hand saw. And I still got it. He gave me a, yeah, it's a 13-ounce hammer. We've still got it. Up about yay high from the bottom. There are places all the way around where he cut little notches when we were fencing.

And I wasn't, I was hardly big enough to use it, but, you know, we'd get the posts up and get the top wire. And then he'd say, all right, from the, where that notch is, from that wire down that far, that's where you staple the next wire.

You know, you get four or five strands of barbed wire fence. I wanted to be like dad. And I still intend to be a farmer. I just kind of got sidetracked for a few decades. But dad would hunt and fish, and I wanted to hunt and fish. So I did an awful lot of that as I grew up, and kind of got away from that, too.

But the proverb tells us that without vision, the people perish. And little children dream, the most wonderful dreams, of what they're going to be and what they're going to do when they get to be big. And too many times as they grow up, adults can tend to squelch those dreams.

But little children go on dreaming. I don't know if any of you have heard of this man, John Goddard. I know Denise knows of him. I know of him. We were introduced to him in Ambassador College, where Pascadine and Big Sandy would have him come. He'd give a presentation of some of his exploits.

You can look up the name John Goddard and find a lot on the Internet. I printed out one page that says, John Goddard, the man who did it all. Well, almost. He never made it to the moon. He wanted to. But he did an awful lot. His motto, to dare is to do. To fear is to fail. And it tells how John Goddard, when he was 15 years old, made a list of 127 challenging lifetime goals.

Think about that. 15 years old, and you start this long list of what you want to do with your life. Let me read you his list. And he made an awful lot of them. In one category, he wanted to explore. He explored the whole length of the Nile River, the Amazon River, the Congo River, the Colorado River, and the Rio Coco down in Nicaragua. He didn't make it to the Ancien, China, or the Niger River over in Africa. He also, his field was in anthropology, and he wanted to study primitive peoples.

And he made everyone on that list. He studied the peoples in the Congo, in New Guinea, Brazil, Borneo, the Sudan. When I say he studied, he was there. He lived with them and studied them hands-on. Australia, Kenya, the Philippines, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and in Alaska. He was quite the accomplished mountain climber. He on his list, he never made it to Everest. He never made Mount McKinley up in Alaska.

But he climbed out of some of these, I can't even say them, a tall mountain in Peru, Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, Mount Ararat in Turkey, Mount Kenya, Mount, I can't pronounce this correctly, but Mount Popocatapetl. Mount Popo, we called it down in Mexico, out from Mexico City. He also climbed the Matterhorn. The story is told where he went to Matterhorn there in the French Alps, or French-Italian. I'm not sure which country it's actually in. He wanted to climb it. He got up there. Blizzard came in.

Three of the guides would go no further, and he went on to the top himself, alone. Climbed Mount Rainier, Mount Fuji, Mount Vesuvius, the Grand Tetons, Mount Baldy, California. He wanted to photograph Victoria Falls, Rhodesia, and he did. Sutherland Falls, New Zealand, Yosemite Falls, Niagara Falls. He wanted to retrace the travels of Marco Polo and Alexander Great, and he did that. He wanted to explore underwater the coral reefs of Florida, Great Barrier Reef, Australia, the Red Sea, Fiji Islands, Bahamas, Okefenokee Swamp, the Everglades, and he checked all those off.

He wanted to visit. He didn't make it to the North and South Poles, but he wanted to visit the Great Wall of China, Panama and Suez Canals, the Easter Island, Galapagos Islands, Vatican City, Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Tower of London, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Climb Ayers Rock or Uluru, as they've renamed it, in Australia.

He wanted to swim in Lake Victoria, Africa, Lake Superior, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Titicaca, South America, and Lake Nicaragua. He wanted to become an Eagle Scout, and he did dive in a submarine. He wanted to fly in a blimp, a balloon, and a glider, and he did. He wanted to ride an elephant, a camel, an ostrich, and a bunking bronco. Not a Ford, by the way. He wanted to learn to play the flute and the violin, make a parachute jump, follow the John Muir Trail, run the mile in five minutes, learn French, Spanish, and Arabic, and he did. Read the works of Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, Dickens, Thoreau, Rousseau, Hemingway, Conrad, Twain, Burroughs.

I mean, the list goes on and on. Circum navigated the globe. He did it four times. He wanted to milk a poisonous snake, and he did. However, the diamond back bit him during the session. Fifteen years old. One hundred and twenty-seven things he wanted to do. And he began checking off that list, and no one told him it couldn't be done. There probably were those who said, you'll never make it to the moon. And he didn't make that, but at any rate, a little child wants to be like dad or mom.

I wonder, do we have the same types of dreams where we want to be like our Heavenly Father? All right, just a little bit more. I've got a number of things. I've got another sermon here. A little child has boundless energy. Boy, I have the energy. I like to bottle the energy of that ten-year-old grandson of ours. I kind of faintly remember the day when I had some of that.

A little child is moldable. A little child is fearful. There's a right and a wrong type of fear. You and I as little children, we were taught, don't touch the stove, it's hot. There's a proper fear, a respect that we need to have for that. God tells us, flee idolatry. Don't place anything in front of God. Flee fornication. Watch the way you let your mind go. A lot of things God tells us to be fearful of. We get into situations where we're tempted and begin to succumb to it. We learn that God didn't just zap me at the bolt of lightning immediately. We start losing some of that right respect. We stop trembling at His word the way we once did. A little child is trusting. A little child, you get into trouble and you want to run to your, you want to run to Dad, you want to run to Mom. And yet, as we get to be big people, we forget. How many times in the Psalm does it say, flee to the Lord for refuge? And we need to remember that. A little child is trusting. A little child is innocent. A little child is guileless. Let's go to Matthew 18. In fact, maybe we're here. Matthew 18, verses 1 through 5.

The almost traits you had when you were a little child, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in my name receives me. Children's letter to God that I read at the beginning. Let me reread the one written by Tommy that I read last. Dear God, I want to be just like you when I am your age. Okay. And that's a pretty good goal in life.