Become as Little Children

...of our younger members of the congregation becoming more and more involved in ways like presenting special music and doing whatever needs done.

I'm making a mess up here. Luckily, you can't see it. And during the blessing of little children, we always read that story, which I read in a couple of accounts of, of Jesus taking the children up in His arms to bless them. And Him doing that, despite the fact that His disciples tried to shoo the parents away. Don't bring them up here. They would imply that He had busy, more important work to do. But we know that Jesus wanted to do this for the children.

He thought very highly of them. They were important to Him. I want to turn to another fairly similar story, but it shows that Jesus and God the Father, I would say, want us to also think highly of them. And in fact, to copy them in some ways. This is in Matthew 18. The start of the chapter will begin there. This begins in a way that we wouldn't think about revealing to little children. It says, At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And probably with great anticipation, they wanted to know who was going to be tops under Him.

But Jesus, perhaps, I imagine Him gesturing, waving them off, and then seeing a small child, motioning Him in. He says He called a little child to Him, set Him in the midst of them, and said, Assuredly, I say to you, unless you're converted and become as little children, you'll 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. I'll stop there. He goes on, but we could sort of see Jesus bring the disciples up short.

In a sense, He was saying, stop worrying about who's going to be top dog in my kingdom. Rather, worry about being in the kingdom in the first place. And with a little child right there as an example, He set out two things that are necessary to be in that kingdom. First, be converted. And second, become like a little child. We focus a lot on conversion, of course, because that's our life's goal. That's what we're doing. And we talk less about becoming as little children.

Perhaps because one way to interpret this is to say, well, part of conversion is becoming like little children. So there's two different ways to interpret that. Whether it's a separate thing or not, either way, it can bring us back to one important question. How should we be like little children? In what way? In what ways? In every way? Well, I think we can make a case that God does not want us to become like little children in every particular way.

And I could summarize why in two words. Potty training. Many of you have heard Sue and I have been undergoing that experience for over a year now. And it's funny, I shared some interesting stories this morning with a brother in Athens, who once you bring that up, a lot of people have some amusing stories. But it's not hard when you look at little children, especially as they grow, to see, well, God probably doesn't want me to be like that.

Surely, He doesn't want us to go back to being smaller. That's not it. Or immature. Or self-centered. Ignorant. I mean, little children don't understand a lot of things. But still, even though you could make a case, well, certainly we shouldn't be like little children then. Well, Jesus said, and we just read, if you don't become like little children, you're not likely to be in the kingdom. So there are ways that God wants us to be childlike.

For many years, we've made that distinction. Not childish, which we associate. I think it's more of a connotation than the denotation, but we associate that with the negative aspects and childlike with the positive. So with that as an underlying thought, I want to focus today on some of the ways that I think we can see clearly that it would be good for us to become like little children.

That would help us in the process of being converted. Right here in the passage we've been reading, we can have a good starting point. In Matthew 18 and verse 4, Jesus said, "...whoever humbles himself as this little child is greatest in the kingdom." Being humble is the characteristic that children start with. Although, unfortunately, it seems like they start losing it all too quickly.

Too soon they start boasting about being the fastest, or the strongest, or the best at whatever they do. Or winning. I've noticed that lately with Connor. We were kicking a ball around the backyard yesterday, and he'd come up with, whoever kicks it over to here wins, and he'd kick it right there and go, I win! Or he wants to race somewhere and say, I win! Even if I obviously get there first. But I don't have to pick on Connor. Actually, I'm going to do that later. I hope you don't mind. I became a little self-indulgent in this sermon. But rather than criticize my son, I can remember an incident in my life very clearly. Although I'm not sure when exactly it happened, but it was between the ages of about 12 and 15. I came to the conclusion in my own mind that I was the best at bicycling in the whole world. And you might say, well, Frank, where'd you ever get an idea like that? And I have to admit, I don't really remember. Now, I spent a lot of time riding a bike. As a matter of fact, I grew up in one of those neighborhoods, a housing project with paved sidewalks. And I practically grew up on two wheels from the time I learned, riding around. And we did crazy things like put a 2x4 on some blocks and see if you could jump the ramp. Which is great when it works successfully. If your tire goes off the side, well, let's just say I became very adept at applying band-aids. But, as I said, back then, I rode a lot. And I was pretty proficient. But I was never the fastest. And I knew I wasn't the fastest. I'd seen the Olympics. I knew some example of the fastest. And I could never even come close to doing the kind of tricks you see kids doing bikes. They're jumping up and spinning around. And that was probably beginning back then. For me, trick riding means standing up on the pedals. So, I would just have to say, as far as I can understand, it was my pride and vanity. It was enough to convince me that I really was that good without any standard to compare it to. I was not being humble. I wasn't a little child anymore by that time, but still fairly childish. I must have started humble like a little child, but I began to see myself in my own eyes in a way that just wasn't true.

And that makes me all the more appreciative of when little children are lacking vanity, lacking completely in self-consciousness. And you see that in so many ways. And I thought of relating to the potty training story. Boy, it's a good thing you won't remember this when he's older. Well, we've learned, and I know a lot of parents have said, being outdoors is one way to help little boys learn, because you can go use the trees and such, which we've been doing.

But now, you know, Connor has no idea. Well, he wants to go in the grass. Whether or not it's in a public place or people around or not, no self-consciousness. I'll also mention one night this past week, though, and something that, you know, might...

Well, it struck me as demonstrative, because, you know, sometimes Connor will have a bad dream in the night, you know, and he'll... he's got a mobile that he can push to play music, but a lot of times he'll come into us and say, I had a bad dream. Can I get in bed with you? And usually our practice is, if it's early in the night, we'll take him back to bed and try to calm him down, and, you know, so we can get some sleep.

This time, without realizing how early it was, I think it was only about 2.30, Sue said, okay, get in bed. And of course, he wants to snug up to her, not me, which I can understand. I like to cozy up to her, too. But then, he starts getting restless, and the arms and legs are flailing, and basically Sue becomes a punching bag all night while I'm over there getting a good night's sleep.

So realizing that that happened, we're getting ready for bed the next night, and Connor says, well, if I have a bad dream, I'll come in to you. And I said, no, Connor, Connor, Mommy needs to sleep. So if you have a bad dream, come to me, and I'll come in here and I'll lay down with you. We actually finally graduated him from the crib to a more full-size bed, so instead of going in and laying on the floor next to the crib, you can get in bed.

And I said, I'll come in and I'll comfort you. And that word just came out, I think, because I've read in the child-rearing books, they use the term self-comforting. That's your goal with a newborn. Those of you with a newborn baby, self-comforting is what you want, where you don't have to come in there.

And that's what the mobile is all about. And I told him, you know, I'll come in and comfort you. So sure enough, later that night, I'm not sure what time I feel a hand, and he says, Daddy, will you come comfort me? And that's why I wanted to share that. No self-consciousness. Now, ten years from now, he wouldn't say, I need comfort. You know, that's something we talk about, comfort and such, but never asking for comfort. Why? We're a little self-conscious. It's hard to say, I need comfort. Now, I hope, though, we never get beyond asking God for that, because he's more than willing.

And that's part of what I'm getting to. We need to be willing to be as little children and not proud and thinking I'm too good for that, as I know boys at least go through a phase in teenage where we don't want to admit we need anything or that there's anything we don't know. But let me move on. I want to look at some examples in the Bible that are probably more illustrative than my own.

One of the things I want to note back to Christ's instruction is he said, whoever humbles himself. That's important. Whoever humbles himself, because when you think about it, God can humble anybody and very quickly. But that's not his goal. Let's see an example of how quickly God can humble someone. I think he put the story in the Bible for that instance.

It's in Daniel chapter 4, speaking of King Nebuchadnezzar. Now, I'm not going to read the whole chapter, although it's a very interesting story. To summarize, Nebuchadnezzar actually writes a letter and shares it, which is the mark of someone who was humble at the time, because he was explaining something difficult that happened to him. It started off having a dream of this large tree. It was such a great tree that birds had nests in it, and animals came and laid down under it, and they fed.

It was great, but during the dream it was cut down, and an iron band was put down the stump, and it said, it's going to stay that way for years.

He goes to Daniel, of course, one of the Hebrew captives who'd been educated and had great wisdom and an ability to interpret dreams. He tells him this dream and says, what does this mean? Daniel, at first, is a little shocked, and he says, well, this is a dream to your enemies. This is a dream saying, you're the tree, you're going to be cut down. So I advise you, change your ways. Well, Nebuchadnezzar does it first, but after a time, well, tell you what, let me pick up reading in verse 28.

All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar, and at the end of 12 months, so he does mend his ways for a while, but he was walking about the royal palace, and the king spoke, saying, is not this Babylon that I have built for a royal dwelling? By my mighty power, for the honor of my majesty. He was feeling pretty good about himself.

And while the word was still in his mouth, a voice fell from heaven. King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it's spoken, the kingdom is departed from you. They'll drive you from men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They'll make you eat grass like oxen, and seven times, which turns to be seven years, will pass over you until you know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men. He gives it to whomever he chooses.

And that very hour the word was fulfilled concerning Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from men and ate grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hair had grown like eagle's feathers, and his nails like birds' claws. And Nebuchadnezzar now is speaking in first person. He says, At the end of that time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me. Now he could reason again, and I blessed the most high, and praised and honored him who lives forever. So I realized he's the one that has the power. His glory is something. Nebuchadnezzar was not. Continuing, it says, For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, What have you done?

This is a wonderful example of God with great might humbling what might have been the most powerful individual human on earth. But in a moment, God could bring him down and make him see. God could do that to us, but I think we'd rather it be done a different way. Christ said, Whoever humbles himself. So this was a man who was proud, but God made humble. I want to look at a different example of it going the other way.

In the story of King Saul of Israel, we can see a man who was humble. But unfortunately, he didn't stay that way. I'm going to start in 1 Samuel 9.

Once again, we don't have time to read the entire story. Several sermons could be based on it. But this starts with Saul as a young man, and he's not campaigning to become king or even thinking about it. As a matter of fact, he's working on his dad's farm, and some of their donkeys go missing. His dad, Kish, says, Hey, go find the donkeys. They go out and spend days searching for them. Eventually, they realize they're near where this great prophet, the seer Samuel is, and the servant with Saul says, Maybe he can help us.

So they go consult with Saul... I'm going to get the names backwards... Samuel, to whom God has been speaking. The children of Israel have been saying, We want a king to be like the other nations. And God tells Samuel, Okay, we're going to give him a king. I'll send you someone to become king. And Saul shows up, and God tells Samuel, That's the one. This young man... Samuel takes him aside and reveals that he's going to become king. And what's Saul's reaction? 1 Samuel 9 and verse 21, Saul answered, Am I not a Benjamite of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? Am I the least of the families of the tribe of Benjamin?

Why then do you speak like this to me? He was saying, Who am I to be king? I don't have any special qualifications. Now, we move ahead. Of course, Samuel did anoint him then, but he wanted all the nation to see that this was God's choice.

So the leaders gathered, and they drew lots publicly. And of course, well, let me start reading. In verse 21, Saul answered... Oh, now I already read that. Oh, it's 1 Samuel 10 in verse 21 I want to go to. When he had caused the tribe of Benjamin to come near, they were chosen by lot.

By their families, the family of Matry was taken, and Saul the son of Kish was chosen. When they sought him, he couldn't be found. Therefore, they inquired of the eternal further, and he said, Has the man come here yet? And the eternal answered, Well, there he is. He's hiding among the equipment. He was so intimidated, he went and hid. He wasn't saying, Yeah, that's right. I'm the king. Come give it to me.

He went and hid. And not everybody else was convinced. Down in verse 27, some rebels said, How can this man save us? So they despised him. They brought him no presents. How did Saul react? He held his peace. He didn't confront them. He didn't say, Do you know who I am? I'll teach you to despise me. No, he held his peace. Now, why he did that, I want to turn ahead a few pages. Because, as I said, we don't have time to recount the whole story, but Samuel will sum it up for us when later Saul was sent on a mission by God, and he didn't quite do the mission correctly because his attitude had changed, and God points it out to him.

In 1 Samuel 15 and verse 17. Samuel, speaking to Saul, says, When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel, and did not the eternal anoint you king over Israel? Back when Saul, in his humility, hid from the people who would put him on the throne, that's when he was little in his own eyes. It's unfortunate that that changed over time. But I think that that's the type of humility that reflects the childlike attitude that God wants to see in us.

We should strive to be, each of us, little in our own eyes. The way Saul was at first, rather than, we don't want to be like Nebuchadnezzar and wait for God to humble us. As I said, he can do that, and I think many of you could probably share stories of him occasionally taking a hand to do that when needed.

But I want to turn to Jeremiah 9. There's a rather poetic expression of that type of humility that God expects. Jeremiah 9 in verses 23 and 24. I find myself quoting from the major prophets more often as I'm going through these with the ABC class. And this is one we discussed just this past week. And I told him to pause and say, I don't have any great explanation to give this. It's just so powerful and eloquent. I want to pause and let it soak in. Jeremiah 9 in verse 23.

So there, even if we were like Saul and we're so tall, we can look over top of everyone else, that's not something to glory in. If we are the best bicyclist in the world, which I now know that I'm not, but if I were, that's not anything to glory about. What I should glory in is that God has opened my mind to understand this. And even that, of course, I didn't do it. He gives us that. But if we're becoming God's children, that's something to really rejoice in and glory in. This scripture I've often heard tied to 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. And I'm not going to turn there, but Paul, who was very smart and capable, said, you know, though I know all prophecies, if I can understand all mysteries, if I don't have love, it's nothing. Because if we think, Paul says love is the greatest thing. It's more important. And then 1 John 4, 8 says God is love. You could read that first part of 1 Corinthians 13 and interpret it as, although I know all mysteries, if I give my body to burn, if I'm not becoming like God, it's worthless. I'm nothing. So we want to be, as I said, as Jeremiah says here, don't glory in our wisdom, our might, our wealth. Glory in knowing God. Or, in short, one way to become like little children is to be humble, to be small in our own eyes. And as I said, children start losing this pretty quickly as they grow. When they're still small enough to be easily held in our arms, they know they're small, or at least they know they're not as big as the person holding them.

They're completely dependent, and it doesn't bother them. It's not until they get older that they start striving to be independent. An infant feels no shame or compunction about calling on its parents for its needs. It's humble, and so should we be spiritually.

Well, that first one was pretty easy to discern because Christ gave it to us.

In saying become like little children, He said, in humbling yourself, what other ways can we find that we should be like little children? And here I'm going to say I have a slight advantage over several of you, and that I've spent the past four years living with a little child. Now, I know many of you have had little children longer than that, but a longer time ago. So, I'm going to share some of my experiences. But one thing I've learned about living with a little child that I remember most clearly when he was very little is that babies need to eat. Often. They don't go scavenging around for what looks good in the kitchen cupboards or open the refrigerator, which, unfortunately, Connor's learned to do. You know, they eat whatever mom gives them, and they're glad to have it. I think back much of Connor's first week of life was a complete blur, you know, if I look back in my memory. And it wasn't just the excitement of having a new baby, although that was part of it, but part of it was from lack of sleep. Babies need to eat every two to three hours, and Sue took care of most of that. But unlike the people living in the Bible, we have something they didn't, and that's called a breast pump. So, Dad can take some of those late-night feedings. I thought people would chuckle about that. Those of you Dads. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, but I thought I'd share the first one. I still remember that day he was born was a long day. I think Sue's labor started about three o'clock or so. She didn't wake me up till about five, and we went to the hospital. And then, of course, they said, well, you haven't progressed quite far enough. Maybe if you walk some. And here's Sue with a sore sciatica or whatever hobbling down the halls, waiting for, you know, things to happen. Finally we got in, and of course there's ease advancing. Then it's not this and that, you know, and eventually a cesarean delivery. And what I'm getting to is, you know, it's great excitement, thrilled. People coming to visit, and by nighttime we're ready to sleep. Boy, we're tired. We get to sleep. It's so good. And then not more than two hours later, the lights come on and a nurse comes in and says, it's time to nurse the baby! And we were both thinking, are you kidding me? And that was only the first night. Now, we didn't have nurses thereafter, but, you know, little babies can cry, as I'm sure just about all of us know, and they're very, you know, they demand that attention. And Connor has always had a good set of lungs. He was hungry. He needed that milk. Now, I don't think God particularly cares whether or not we Christians have a taste for milk, but He does want us to desire something for which milk is a symbol. And we'll see that in 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter 2 verses 1 through 3.

As I said, if we're asking the question, how should we be like little children? Here is a direct statement of being like one. Chapter 2 of 1 Peter, Therefore, laying aside malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes. So if you want to be like a newborn baby, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you've tasted that the Lord is gracious. So here milk symbolizes the word of God. Of course, God's word is symbolized by food in a number of cases. But here we're saying in the same way a newborn baby desires that milk, we should desire the word of God. We should desire to consume it so that we can grow.

And of course, desire it often. You don't feed a newborn baby once a week. It's quite often. And our Heavenly Father will be glad to feed us. This was brought out in Isaiah 1. I'm just going to cite this. Isaiah 1 and verse 2, because he's indicting the children of Israel. But he makes an interesting comparison. There in Isaiah 1 and verse 2, he says, Here, O heavens, the Eternal has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, yet they rebelled against me.

God says he nourished those children. Now, we don't want to emulate that rebellious part. That's not what God wants. But he does want us to be like children, knowing that he is willing, even eager, to give us the nourishment.

He wants to feed us with life-giving word. If you want to turn to John 6, we're in the New Testament. John 6 and verse 63 will remind us that God's word gives life the same way a mother's milk helps sustain life for a baby. Now, John 6 has a lot of meat in it, if I can draw on that analogy in a different way.

But Christ says this in the middle of His teaching. John 6, 63 says, The flesh prophets nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. That's a good memory scripture. John 6, 63, the words that I speak are spirit and they are life. God's word is spiritual, but it's life-giving. As I said, the milk of the word is life-giving.

Thinking back again to those bottle-feedings in the middle of the night. Sue and I developed a schedule. I didn't want her to have to get up all the time during the night. Of course, I was reliant on the bottle. But she would usually take the feeding of about, sometime around midnight.

And then somewhere between 2 and 4 o'clock, it could be 2, 3, 4. When he'd start crying, I'd get up and take that feeding. And I remember being in the other room, feeding him and just looking at him. Those of you who are parents know that feeling and I would talk to him. Now, he didn't understand a word I was saying, but I talked about how I wanted to take care of him and make sure he always had what he needed. I thought ahead as he would grow, I wanted to teach him.

I hoped he'd become a great servant of God and be in the church and just do wonderful things. All of you parents know what I'm talking about, I'm sure. And thus, it probably isn't hard to picture God looking at us that way. Having similar thoughts and feelings as he's feeding us the milk of the word. And that brought to mind the scripture in Jeremiah 29 verse 11. I'll read it to you here. I had it printed out. God says, I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the eternal. Thoughts of peace, not evil, to give you an expected end.

When he says that, I imagine a loving father feeding an infant, saying, I know the thoughts I have towards you. Thoughts of peace, not evil. I want to give you these good things. Now, of course, children do grow. And they grow and they grow. Soon, they need more than just milk. Now, they don't go from milk to steak and potatoes right away. We graduate them nowadays. The common practice is simple grain cereals, usually starting with rice. But even as they work up from there, little children are still dependent on their parents to feed them. And there, again, I remember Connor when we started. I think Sue remembers this more clearly than I do, the first mouthful.

Because he made this face like, what in the world are you giving me? But what I remember distinctly, and I think she wasn't out in the room, but he'd learned when the spoon comes to open wide his mouth, you know, because he's getting food. So there was one morning, he hadn't learned to speak yet.

And for those of you that know him, probably find it hard to believe there was ever a time he wasn't talking. But he told me he was hungry without speaking. He sort of crawled up to me, looked at me and went, Huh? Open his mouth as wide as he could. And no sound came out, but I think he was saying, I'm hungry, Dad. I want you to feed me.

And whenever I think of that story, I can't help but think of Psalm 81. Psalm 81 and verse 10. As I said, I thought of the Scripture, and I had to use my concordance to find exactly where it was, but I knew it was in there because it's also part of one of the hymns that we sing sometimes. Psalm 81 verse 10 says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Open your mouth wide, and I'll fill it. I'm God! Open up your mouth wide, and I'll fill it. Now, I'm not saying I'm God, but he did that with the ancient Israelites. He fed them manna and brought quail. But he wants us to desire the milk of the word, the food that he gives. And he's telling us, if we open our mouths wide, symbolically speaking, he'll fill it. If we desire to learn and understand God's word, he will provide that for us. But he wants us to look to him for it.

And like children, as we grow and develop, we'll need more substantial food. And there's where I want to turn to Hebrews chapter 5. Some of you who are following this analogy probably are already thinking in this direction. Hebrews 5 verse 12, we see that analogy turned a little bit, because remember, we're not supposed to be as children in every particular instance, not the potty training.

In Hebrews 5 and verse 12, it says, For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. Oracles is another way of saying the word of God. That's what we're discussing relating to food. You have come to need milk and not solid food.

Everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, because he's a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age. That is, to those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. I want to make the point, this is not a contradiction of what we read in 1 Peter chapter 2, where he said, Sincerely desire the milk as newborn babes, but it's saying progress from there.

And here it says, don't desire only milk. We still want the fundamentals and understand them solidly, and then progress in addition to the meat of the word. God does want us to mature and grow, but to become childlike also in other ways. Remember, the same Peter who said that we should desire the milk of the word as newborn babes, that's the same Peter who wrote the words, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord God.

So I want to turn to 1 Corinthians. Paul gave a good, I think one good measure of how to see some things we should be childlike in and others not. 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 20. 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 20 says, Brethren, do not be children in understanding. However, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature. So that's a good standard. Let's strive to become more mature in our understanding, to desire the meat of the word, but in malice, in the things of evil, let's be like little children.

Go ahead and be a little naive about those things, and never give up the milk of the word. So let's move on to another one, another field that I think we can be like children, because when you think of little children, don't you often tend to think of them laughing, smiling, and playing? It's easy to imagine little kids giggling, even squealing with delight. At least, it's easy for me, because I see it pretty often. And I want to share another example.

This one, it came to mind right away because it just happened. We went down to Jekyll Island for the feast, and we thought about going to Florida, or even to, I believe it was Maryland last year. You know, oceans, yeah, ocean city, I'm going to get in beach sites. We said, well, Connor's still small, and the ocean can be kind of frightening when you're real little. We thought four years old will be about right. Maybe he'll be ready for it. We took him to see the ocean for the first time. Well, fear was not his reaction. He was thrilled. He ran out there, and he splashed and laughed, and the waves had come.

I was a little worried several times that he'd plump under, and then he'd pop up laughing and smiling. And he loved the sand, too. I remember we had late services on the Sabbath. No, it was the first Holy Day, I think.

So we took him down. The tide was in, so there was a place further up where the sand stayed dry, and he had his little beach toys, a pail and a shovel, and he was throwing it. Then he started just rolling around, just, ooh, ah! He makes that sort of sound when he's really happy.

That's the kind of thing that adults don't do because we're self-conscious. But it was great to see him enjoying himself. Now, some people came by that we knew, and I was almost a little embarrassed. Yeah, he's not having some kind of fit. He's just happy. But I want to describe this particular experience not only because it was so recent, but also because it happened during the Feast of Tabernacles.

And the Feast is one of those times when God commands us to rejoice. In Deuteronomy 14, I'm going to turn there. Now, if you don't want to turn because you know I've read it so many times recently, that's okay. But I want to bring out just the highlights here. Starting in Deuteronomy 14 in verse 22, where he tells us, "'Tie the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year.'" And we understand this to be what we call second tithe.

Then down in verse 26, "'And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice.'" You and your household. There's a time God gives us instruction how to prepare so that we can do it without guilt or worry and then rejoice.

As I said, I tend to read this several times in advance of the feast, but I thought it was worth considering now when we've recently kept the feast and when we're thinking about how little children rejoice. Because little children tend to be happy without pretense, without worry. As I said, when Conor was rolling around in the sand, he didn't care what people thought about him.

There was no reservation. And he also wasn't worrying, Oh, how am I going to get ready and clean in time for services? That's what Mom has to worry about. But I've seen this in myself, and it happens more sometimes than others, but a personal trait that I have to remind myself to work to overcome is sometimes having difficulty relaxing and just having fun.

You know, when I enjoy working on a task, and I'm sure some of you can relate to that, but God tells us there are some times to have fun and rejoice. And he doesn't say, well, not to ever be serious or sad. No, there are times for that. As we know in Ecclesiastes 3, there's a time for every season. But we need, that's one of the ways I could say that we should be mature, is be able to discern the proper time to rejoice and the proper time to take things seriously.

But it can be possible for us to let ourselves get too concerned about matters. Maybe I should say it's possible for me to get too concerned about matters that are beyond my control. It's possible to worry about what's going to happen tomorrow enough that it prevents me from enjoying the blessings that God is giving me right now. As I said, all of us could probably put the me there. That's one of the reasons I wanted to write it that way. Hopefully we're not always there. Christ gives a classic instruction on this in Matthew 6.

He doesn't say this is a way that we could become his little children, but I hope you see from the example that there is something for us to consider. Matthew 6, beginning in verse 25. You'll recognize this passage, if I can find it in my Bible. Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you'll eat or what you'll drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.

Is not life more than food or the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more valuable than they? Aren't you more valuable than them than Frank? What are you so worried about? What you're going to wear tomorrow or what you'll eat? Now, I'm not saying that I'm this worried word, always thinking about that, but sometimes you have to consciously refocus.

Let's look down to verse 31. Therefore do not worry, saying, what shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? After all these things the Gentiles seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Notice it doesn't say seek only. We do... there's a time to work to make sure that you can provide for what you need to eat and wear, but first priorities first. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

All these things will be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. We've all read this before and heard it expounded. Sometimes it's hard to actually do it. Our little kids are able to do it, though. They don't sit around worrying that there might not be something to eat for breakfast tomorrow. Because they have faith and trust in their parents to provide it.

And the same goes for their clothing, their toys, for whatever they need. And as I said, God does expect us to learn to work. He wants us to learn to save appropriately, to plan for the future. But He also clearly is telling us, have faith and trust in Him to provide what we really need. And that way, be like little children. And here, as I said, I wanted to turn it about to me because I realized that it can be very difficult. Especially when you're saying, hey, the cupboards are looking bare. I've got bills coming in. He doesn't want us to be stupid about it, but He does want us to have faith and trust in Him.

Be like little children. Humble yourself. And when we do that, it won't be so hard to rejoice when it's time to rejoice. And as I said, looking back at Deuteronomy, if you save that second tithe and you're faithful about it, you'll have it to spend on whatever your heart desires when the time comes. Now, of course, I know not all of us have titheable income.

We're looking at a substantial portion of people here who are retired or don't have that much income. That's amazing how people are able to go to the feast. God provides. And in some ways, if you wonder, when is it time to rejoice? I thought of Philippians 4 and verse 4. I'm not going to turn there. It's a very simple verse. It says, rejoice in the Lord always. And it says, again, I say, rejoice. Paul didn't write that in connection to little children or to us being childlike. But it made me think, how often do you have to tell a child to be happy? They can do it.

It seems to come pretty naturally. Now, I did want to add this, though, because there are certainly sometimes, it seems, when you have to tell a child, or when kids are upset, that you have to tell them to stop crying. I was leaning up there because I don't know how many times I've said that recently. In fact, I found myself using a phrase that I learned from my mother, and I promised myself I would never say it. And I know a lot of you have probably heard it.

If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about. I hated it when my mother would say that, because I'd be thinking inside, I have something to cry about. That's what I'm crying. Small children sometimes cry about things that seem silly to us, but it's partly because they are sensitive. And that is a trait that, at least in some ways, I think we should try to emulate. Along with taking joy in little things, we should be sensitive to evil, the way little children are, to bad things happening. It should bother me the same way it does Connor when there's something scary on TV. He's got this habit in our old house, he would get up and start moving over towards the kitchen so he could duck out of sight of the TV if necessary.

And if he sees someone get hurt, or if he sees someone sad, I've shared this, and it's a shame. I don't know if I should say it's a shame, because I said we have to grow up in some ways, but most of you have seen the TV show America's Funniest Home Videos. It's been on, like, what, for 40 years? And of course, what does it consist of? Mostly of people either getting hit in the crotch or falling down. And when I think the first time that came on and Connor saw it, he started, oh, oh, and he got really upset because people were getting hurt.

That's, you know, little children don't like to see other people get hurt. They're sensitive to that. I think God would like to see more of that in me, probably in all of us. It reminded me of what we read in Ezekiel 9 and verse 4. I'm not going to read, again, the whole passage here, but it reminds us, I think it illustrates that.

Ezekiel 9 and verse 4, this is part of a vision, Ezekiel saw bad things at the temple, he saw these angelic ministers come, and then God gave them instruction. And to one in particular, the Eternal said to him, go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it. Now, if you read on it, it shows that the mark for those who sigh and cry was so they could be spared of the punishment that would fall on the others.

If we are upset and bothered by what's happening, then that's something God wants. He doesn't want us to become so callous to it, and that's commonplace these days. Jeremiah illustrates that in chapter 9. Jeremiah has a couple of nicknames. He's sometimes called the suffering prophet, because he was thrown in jail. He got taken advantage of in many ways, but he's also called the weeping prophet.

And Jeremiah 9 verse 1 illustrates that. He says, Oh, that my head were waters. I wish my head were made out of water, or my eyes fountains of tears, that I might cry day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. Jeremiah was upset over what was happening to his countrymen. I describe it as Jeremiah being a patriot. He loved his country, the kingdom of Judah, and he was upset.

Now, God explained that they deserved the punishment they would get, and Jeremiah understood it, but that didn't make him happy about it. He cried. And I think I've explained here before, I think we can share that. Most of us love the United States of America. We know its history, the blessings it's had. You know, sometimes I think perhaps we should sigh and cry over what's happening, our decline from moral stability and power and the punishment that's coming.

And I have sometimes wondered if God might have inspired Jeremiah to write this, because it also reflects how God Himself feels about evil, how God feels about the suffering that it brings on His people. You know, God doesn't hurt physically, but I can easily believe that He might have hurt feelings. He may be sensitive and even weep when someone suffers, especially when they suffer wrongfully, the way a small child does. And that way, as I said, God wants us to become like little children, but even more He wants us to become like Him.

Of course, as we consider God's feelings, it's worth turning back to the point of rejoicing like small children, reminding ourselves that God also feels great joy. God has emotions. That's why He put them in us. And God is happy about good things. Do we let ourselves get happy about good things?

Some of my favorite scriptures, towards the back of Isaiah, reflect God's joy over His people. If you'll turn to Isaiah 65 in verse 19, I'd like to read just a couple of them.

Isaiah 65, 19. Here, this is God speaking, and He says, I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in my people. The voice of weeping will no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. God doesn't like suffering or crying, but He rejoices in His people. And I get asked the question, how much does He rejoice in His people? There is an answer a couple of pages earlier in Isaiah 62 in verse 5.

I want to read just the last part of this verse, because I'm not necessarily changing the context, but I don't want to go through all this and explain the first part. But in the last part of this verse, it says, As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. And I think, wow, that's being pretty happy. Think back, those of you who are married, the day you were getting married, especially of your men, bridegrooms rejoice quite a bit. It's clear in my mind, it wasn't that long ago. Whenever I read this, I imagine myself standing up there, and they start playing the wedding march, and Sue came around the corner in that beautiful white dress, and brought tears to my eyes. I was pretty happy. But you know what? Parents probably remember feeling just as great a joy and delight when their children are born. I described holding Connor. Many of you have held little newborn children, or some of you grandchildren. I haven't been there yet. Maybe the feeling is like that. You know what? I feel a little bit of that when I see Connor giggling and laughing over some special experience, or a gift getting something that he really wants. And maybe that's part of why God wants us to be like little children. Maybe so he can enjoy that feeling watching us. His joy for us is as great as a bridegroom over the bride. Perhaps it's as much as a parent holding a small child, or a parent enjoying watching how much his child rejoices. And I'll add just a small thing, because to me that's pretty profound. And it's not me. It's coming from Scripture, but I'm tugging on your emotional strings, because I know these are things many of us have felt. And some of us who haven't been there yet will, and then you'll appreciate it. I say that because all the things people told me about having children, I never really got it until I had one. But God wants us to delight in him and the blessings he gives us. Over in Psalm 37, I want to read Psalm 37 and verse 4.

Psalm 37 and verse 4 says, simply delight yourself also in the eternal, and he'll give you the desires of your heart. Him giving us the desires of our heart doesn't mean that we should expect God to just hand over anything and everything we want. I think we've learned by experience he doesn't do that. One of the things I think it does mean, though, that we should delight in what it is that God does give us. Because if we desire good and right things, we'll never lack them in his family.

If we desire good and right things, we won't go without those. God will provide. And I would imagine if our reaction is anything like a small child when he gets a special gift, then God will be as happy as a parent is watching that. He'll want to give us those good things. And watch our unfeigned happiness.

Now, I want to consider one other way that we should be his little children. I'll start with a phrase that probably most of us have heard. You've heard the phrase, like father, like son. And then you think, if you've ever watched a boy walking along behind his daddy and trying to walk the way he walks. And even if you don't see him purposely copying it, you see boys tend to develop that from their parents. And the same goes for little girls. And they adopt mannerisms and habits of their mommies. And of course, it might start when they're little, but it continues on. I think of those first weeks or months after Sue and I were married, and sometimes I'd wonder, why is she doing this when she washes the dishes? It's not the way I do it. Why does she do this or that? And then we went and visited her parents. And if I wanted to know why Sue did something, I just had to watch Mom Award for a few minutes. You know, it's very obvious. Did you ever wonder why it is French children learn to speak French? Why Chinese children speak Chinese? And why children in Alabama learn to speak in a way we can't understand? Well, you probably never have. We all know. Children learn to speak whatever language their parents speak. And the same goes for accents. It comes automatically. What surprised me in reading some of the many baby books when Connor was on the way and after he was born, I learned something that I didn't realize before. Psychologists have determined that one of the ways that babies learn to speak is not only by listening to their parents, but it says they watch their mouths to see how they move in shape so they can copy that. I found that interesting. Now, I could go on all day discussing how children copy and adopt many of their parents' mannerisms, but there really is no need. I would guess that most of you already see the obvious spiritual analogy. And I'll cite again that story of Jesus at Passover when he washed the disciples' feet, and then afterwards he explained to them. And he said plainly, I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. God said it and Jesus Christ said an example. And he said, do this. Now, we're not like the disciples going along with him to physically see what he does and watch, but we have his word describing the way he did things. And we have examples from other people who've studied his word. And we can try to do what Jesus would do in a particular situation.

As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 1, imitate me as I imitate Christ. Now, Paul had learned from people who were with Jesus, and he tried to imitate Jesus' mannerisms. I'd like to think that maybe there's a constant chain of people who have been taught by people who were taught by people who were taught going from today all the way back to Jesus Christ.

And I never thought of it that way. I thought of it in laying on of hands. And I want to believe that the minister who laid hands on me when I was baptized had hands laid on him by someone, and the chain goes all the way back to Jesus Christ, who breathed on the disciples after his resurrection and said, receive you the Spirit.

But maybe the example can likewise be traced, at least to some degree. Now, I'm speculating a little bit there, but it's good for us to look at the older members in the congregation. I remember doing this when I was younger, I should acknowledge that I didn't appreciate some of it when I was a teenage boy, because teenage boys aren't very bright.

And I don't mean to offend any of you teenage boys. I'm just looking at my own example. Actually, I don't remember we were watching, maybe something on TV or discussing how it's interesting. You can have several pretty bright teenage boys, and you put them together, and the collective IQ goes down. They start saying, watch this! Look what I can do! I don't think it happens the same for girls. But anyways, what I was getting at is I saw some good examples, and particularly in the Columbus-Ohio congregation, of older men and women who set a good example.

And whether or not I appreciated it then, and the years after I've sometimes thought, and said, ah, he did this! Boy, that was good! I want to be like that! And that's something I'll tell younger people, you've got examples here of elders among you, not me, I'm still young. At least I try to tell myself. It's good to watch those examples. You know, we should try to do as God does.

As I said, follow their example as they follow Christ. That's what Paul said. We want to do as God does, talk the way he talks, think the way he thinks. But I want to turn this slightly, though, and think of a different way that kids become like their parents. And one way to illustrate this is, if you think back to ever hearing stories about twins who were separated at birth, they make interesting stories. So I'm guessing most of you have heard those, where they're separated and they're raised by separate parents, sometimes in different cultures.

Now, when you hear the story, often one of the most interesting parts is how they discovered each other. Sometimes they didn't even know they had a twin. But then quickly afterwards, there's the discovery of how much they're like. You know, they might actually work in the same line of business. They probably married spouses that are very same. Sometimes their furniture looks the exact same in their houses.

And that's because we discover that a good many traits that we think are learned or influenced by our environment are actually determined or maybe at least influenced more than we realize by inheritance. Now, I've seen that in my own life. Now, this isn't the story of a separated twin. I don't have a twin sister. I have an older sister. But I've told you before, my parents divorced when I was fairly young and not long after that, my dad moved away several states.

So when I was young, I just wasn't around him a whole lot. And then later, we did establish contact and we see each other. And I was, you know, kind of surprised at what I learned. We not only look a lot alike, we laugh a lot alike. We like a lot of the same foods. We have a similar sense of humor. It's funny, we both dislike talking on the phone. Now, we don't mind listening while someone else talks, but if you get two people on the phone that are both like that, it makes for a conversation that's either short or kind of dull.

But the good thing is, we both don't mind so much that we don't talk a lot. And when I learned that my dad was getting arthritis, I paid close attention because that tends to run in families. Actually, so does having twins. And my dad had a twin sister. But fortunately, that trait passed to my sister. She had twins and I didn't. Okay, this might be interesting to me, but how do we draw a spiritual lesson from it?

Because we can work to see what God does and try to imitate behavior. We can't just get his DNA, can we? Well, maybe not his physical DNA, but I want to propose that we can have the spiritual equivalent, or that we already do. And that's because of making the case we are to be God's literal children.

What Peter said in 1 Peter 1 and verse 3. 1 Peter 1 and verse 3. He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. God has begotten us. In our society, we don't use that term very much. Now, in the church, we tend to be used to it because we do.

It pretty much means the same as conceived. What happens when a sperm cell joins the egg and a new life is formed? A new life that has a combination of genetic traits from both parents? You could say the newly begotten child has inherited many of the traits of his or her parents.

And I want to say we do so spiritually from God the Father. That case is made in Romans chapter 8. Romans 8 and verse 14. And I'll acknowledge, I've been turning to this passage of Scripture fairly often, but I think partly because it's so important for us to understand who we are and what we're to be.

Romans 8 and verse 14 says, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. You didn't receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry out, Abba, Father. That's a con. It's not Abba, Father. It's Abba. Or like saying, Daddy, Father. But it's worth noting that word in Greek that was translated as adoption means a bit more than adoption. Adoption means having all the legal rights, all the responsibilities, everything that a begotten child does, but an adopted child doesn't have the DNA. This word means of a son, or we sometimes say sonship, which isn't the same as adoption, because we do receive an inheritance of God's traits at our conception, our begettle, because we receive part of God within us. We go on reading in verse 16, The Spirit itself bears witness with your spirit that we are, or with our spirit, sorry, no glasses, we are children of God. The Spirit joins our spirit. It's like an egg being fertilized, and we are children of God. If children, then heirs. Heirs of God joined heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may be glorified together. As I said, we talk about this fairly often in the Church, but I think it's appropriate to consider it now in the context of considering what ways we can and should be like little children. Little children will imitate their parents in many ways, but they'll also just naturally be like them in many ways, because they're formed of their stuff, to put it in blunt terms. And that should be a great comfort for us, because the same can apply to us becoming like God the Father and Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit coming in us means that we're being made of the same stuff. When we become heirs of God, we're not just inheriting things, not just inheriting opportunities. We're inheriting traits, because we're begotten of God. And I say, metaphorically speaking, we inherited God's DNA. And I thought about this after I even wrote this. I realized, well, people, you're trying to make that fit the analogy. Well, let's just think. What came first? I'm pretty certain that God planned to have children and learn the way we do it, and then made the physical creation. So I think He made the way the egg and sperm come together and pass on the DNA to reflect how He's having children. I'm not fishing this out to make it an analogy of something. God created it to demonstrate what He's doing.

And that tells us we can naturally grow to be more and more like our spiritual Father. We can work to allow the Spirit to live and work in us. Now, I want to point out, then, it's not a passive experience. That's one part, you know, an embryo and a fetus, they're growing and they develop those traits without being aware of it. But we don't become Spirit-born children of God without effort. We work, as I said, the Spirit is available, but we have to let it work through us, and we have to follow its lead and build and develop character. But the more we do that, the more we become like our Father. And I thought that was an important thing to discuss. On a day when we take note of the little children among us, when we specifically ask God to confer a special blessing on them, it's fitting for us to think of Christ's instruction to consider ways that we can strive to become like little children. Now, ways we don't want to be. We don't want to be childish in a lot of ways. But Paul said, in understanding, being like men and malice be like little children. And we've seen in the Scripture that humbling ourselves, rather than waiting for God to humble us, that's an important way to be childlike. We should also hunger and thirst for the Word of God and let Him feed us with it frequently, just like a newborn baby cries for its mother's milk often. And of course, as we grow more mature, we'll be able to appreciate and enjoy the meat of the Word. Little children are sensitive. They hurt when others hurt, but they rejoice when others rejoice. And so should we. God wants us to learn to relax, trust Him to provide for our needs, so that we'll be able to properly rejoice at the proper times. And as we've seen, the way children grow up to be a lot like their parents, through learning from them, but also inheriting their traits. I believe in that particular way, even more than all the others, that's a way that we should continually strive to be as little children.

Thank you.