Like Little Children

The song that we just sang, Suffer the Children, is pretty much what we want to talk about today. And yet it is clearly an important topic and one that every one of us can benefit from. Because right now, we don't have any real small children here in our group. And as I mentioned, the Schmitz were up in Fulton this morning, so we don't have any even younger people who are with us here today. But the way that God looks at each of us, whether we are 20s or 40s or 30s or 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s... Should I go higher? 90s? Yes, I guess I should. The way that God looks at us is as little children. And he is interested in the little children, even as we will see Jesus was very interested in children. But he was interested in teaching something about children and things that we want to very much identify with, even as this song, a wonderful song, an excellent introduction to what we need to cover here this afternoon. I think many of you know that in the past, we have had the ceremony or an annual service in the Church of God called the blessing of little children. It's simply following Jesus' example, because you see in Matthew and Mark and Luke an account where the children were brought to Jesus, and where he prayed for them, and where he picked them up, he touched them, and they wanted, or their parents at least wanted, his blessing. And of course, trying to follow that example is what we strive to do. And yet there, in many ways, is much more to that. It's always good to see children in our congregation, but we do need to look at things from God's standpoint. If God, who is eternal, always living in the past, currently alive, and always will be in the future, if he looks at our 80 or 90 years, he says, oh, that's a little kid. That is a small time that that person has been alive. And of course, it's a difference between God's perspective and man, and how we look at ourselves.

But, you know, we, you know, it's always good to have little children around. It's good, many of you have grandchildren, that you may be around at times. You learn a lot of things from little kids. I remember one of the times, I think this was probably a year ago up in Fulton, and it was after we had had our service and then a meal, and we usually are sitting around there till everybody leaves. So it may be several hours, but little Micah Robinson came up to me, and he had his cup, and his cup in his hand, and he said, can you get me a cup of water? And I thought, huh, this sounds like an opportunity to help him. I don't know whether his parents have told him, you don't need a cup of water, or I don't want you to spill a cup of water. But nonetheless, he felt good enough to come up. He's, what, three? He felt good enough to ask me to get him a cup of water. So I went and got him a cup of water. I didn't find out later whether that was a good move or not, but at least, you know, he felt good about coming up and asking for that. And I was talking to little Faith Hauslton this morning. This was before church. Usually before church, I get there a half hour before, so I, because I know I'm going to leave afterwards. And so it's always good if I can see most everybody who's there beforehand. But Faith is usually rolling around in her little chair, and she had on, had a pink dress, but had on a bracelet on one of her hands, a little bracelet that looked like she was kind of pulling on. And I thought she was going to take it off, and I said, oh, can you put that on my hand? And she said, no! This wouldn't fit your hand. It might fit my thumb, but it wouldn't fit my wrist. You know, and it was tiny, and this only fits my hand. So she was very protective of that. But it's interesting to see what little kids will say. And of course, sometimes they say stuff you, you know, wonder about later, or you wish maybe they hadn't said, but nonetheless, they did. And of course, you know, when we're dealing with children, you know, they're doing many things that are good. They're doing some things that are not so good. And you know, you've got a wide variety of possibilities there. Usually, here after services, especially up in Fulton, we've got about five little kids up there. They're all competing for who can get the biggest stack of books. You know, who can find the books, who can put them together, who can get them into the cabinet the quickest. And I was thinking about a couple of little boys, I guess they probably were five or six up at the feast in in Canmore. We normally had, and I guess initially you had for at least the first few days, you had people who were assigned to be greeters at the door, which of course we not only do here, but they do at the feast. And it's good to be able to do that. And of course, I'm sure they initially had people who knew where things were and probably were local and could tell you where the information is and a lot of things that could be very helpful. But after about five or six days, I was over there a little bit early, usually. And so by at that point, there's not a whole lot of people at the hall. But when I walked down there and we were staying very close, so I could just walk over there a couple of blocks and be there. I went down and looked at the door and there's two little boys standing here. They were the greeters for today.

And they took their job seriously for about 10 seconds. Because they knew they were supposed to be greeters. I'm sure there was some kind of supervision right outside or right inside. They were on the outside. They were on the outside where there was a porch. And of course, I said hi to them. And they said hi and stuck out their hand and acted like they knew what they were doing here as greeters. But it was interesting to me that they were very welcoming. They were very happy. They were really just delighted to point out to me what a dog had left over there on the edge of the pavement. That was a prime interest that I'm sure was taken care of after a little while. But they were a mixed bag there as far as the greeters. But nonetheless, it's fun to be around kids. It's fun to be able to see or hear or wonder what they might say or think. And of course, Jesus had a rapport with kids. I'm just absolutely sure. We don't have a lot of examples or illustrations. But here in Matthew 19, all of us are familiar with some of these verses that I'm going to read. But in Matthew 19, it says in verse 13, and this is just a very brief account. Actually, you see this accounted for in Matthew and in Mark and in Luke. All of them are similar. Some of them give a little bit different information. This one in Matthew specifically points out that he was going to pray for them. He laid his hands on them and picked them up. And so those are all cues as to what you would do if you were having a ceremony of any kind. But it says in verse 13, then little children were being brought to Jesus and to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. And the disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them. And so whether it was parents, whether it was someone else they were with, other relatives, they were brought to Jesus, but the disciples shoot them away. They spoke sternly to them. And in verse 14, Jesus said, don't do that. Don't do that. Let the little children come to me. Do not stop them. For it is to such, such as these little children, that the kingdom of heaven belongs. So he was not only wishing to interact with the kids, but he was going to tell his disciples, you know, well, don't be so overly uptight here. Don't be overly concerned about showing people away that I may need to want to see. Or they certainly do need to see me, because, you know, he had a great deal of love, you know, for those children. And so in verse 15, it says, he laid his hands on them and went on his way. You know, this is, in a sense, it's very revealing about how it is Jesus felt about people. He didn't scare people away. He didn't, you know, discard them. He loved them. And he certainly loved these little children. He was probably glad to see what they had either to say if they were able to communicate or if they were babies, which in some cases in Luke it says they brought infants, which would appear to be, you know, even babies that would be tiny and probably not able to talk. But, you know, he was able to help them as well. In Mark chapter 10, you see a parallel account here. And this is the one that I want to focus on throughout the sermon. Because here in Mark 10, this is another account of the event with Jesus, even though it has a little bit more to it. It says in verse 13 in Mark 10, people were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them.

And the disciples spoke sternly to them. See, now, you know, we might wonder why were they doing that? Because they really didn't receive Jesus as the Son of God. The Jewish community in general, you know, they didn't, and certainly the religious leaders, didn't accept Jesus as the authority that he was. They didn't like him. They didn't want him, you know, taking the attention away from them. They tried to shush the crowd, you know, keep people away. But see, it was a common practice, at least among the Jewish people, to bring their children, their little ones, especially around one year old, to a rabbi to ask the rabbi to ask for God's blessing. And so to come to obviously a very distinguished rabbi, a very distinguished teacher, which would be in the eyes of many, even though they may not admit it, they would want to have this blessing from Jesus. They would bring their children in that way. And, of course, you know, whenever you read that the disciples spoke sternly to them, I think you'd have to say from what we read about the disciples, the disciples were in a high-profile learning mode. They had three and a half years to get as much as they possibly could of how it was that Jesus dealt with other people. They couldn't always figure out what he was doing. They didn't always, they fully didn't understand what he said many times. They didn't comprehend what he had told them numerous times about, I'm going to be killed. I'm going to go away. I'm going to come back. You know, they just didn't get that. That was not comprehendible to them without the help of the Holy Spirit, which they were going to receive. And they were habit, but they didn't have that throughout what we read here in the Gospels. But whenever you read this, you get the idea that man, the disciples, the others, a bunch of meanies, you know, they're just trying to shoot people away. I think you would probably say that they just probably were trying to be protective of Jesus and trying to, you know, not want to bother him with the little kids. And yet that certainly wasn't, that wasn't what Jesus thought. And it wasn't how he reacted. I think you would have to say from what Jesus said in verse 14. When he saw this, he was indignant and said, and of course, then he's going to say what he does about the little children. I think you would have to say that Jesus probably was very welcoming of these little kids. He probably had a very easy smile. He probably liked to laugh. He was not some gloomy, stern, oppressive, joyless person. That just wasn't the case. I'm sure he was excited to see these kids. He might have thought, you know, they get about as much as these other guys. You know, he may have been thinking some of that. And yet he understood fully what he was going to say, what he would mean whenever he said to them. And we go on in verse 14. He said, Let the little children come to me and do not stop them. For it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. And then he goes on to say, even in greater detail, truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter the kingdom. So that tells us that someone is being paged.

And I'm always afraid mine's going to go off. It's going to go off up here in my briefcase. There's nothing I can do about it. Anyway, what Jesus had to say was, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child is not going to be a part of the kingdom. And so does he want us to be childish? Because sometimes you misunderstand what Jesus was really saying because he was saying something very significant. He was saying something very important. And what he wanted them to grasp was not that he wants us to be childish and act like a brat child. He wants us to be children in the sense of how it is that we can take on traits or that we can acquire traits that we may have even had when we were young, but we grew up. We grew up into reality. We grew up into adulthood. We grew up into the corruption that is in this world. Kids have had a very short time. Yes, they get affected pretty quickly and begin to understand a certain level of selfishness and a certain level of trying to get my own way and a certain level of squabbling. And yet that wasn't obviously what Jesus was talking about. What he would later say is that we need to be infants. We need to be little children in evil. That's what I'm eventually read here. But what I want us to think about today, if we're going to receive the kingdom of God, as it described it here, in a childlike way, which is what Jesus was really saying, not childish, but childlike, well, what does that mean? And how does that relate to our conversion? See, again, even the song that we sang to be converted, become like a little child. You know, if we back up to the book of Matthew chapter 18, you see another account of Jesus and a little child. It doesn't appear that he scared the little kaa. It appears that they probably gravitated to him. It appears he was probably comfortable around little children because he was a loving and caring and clearly comfortable person in relating to them. But here in chapter 18 of Matthew, you see another section that we also need to keep in mind. At that time, in verse 1, the disciples came to Jesus and said, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of God?

You know, they're trying to figure out who's going to be on top, who's going to have the highest role, who's going to be important, who's going to be given significance, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

And so in verse 2, he called a child, Jesus did, whom he set up among them, and he said to them, Truly I tell you, unless you be converted. So he was telling this to the disciples and to others, adults, unless you be converted and truly change, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of God. So again, he repeats in essence the same thing he said in this blessing. You know, that it's important to understand what it is about children that Jesus is talking about and how it is that we seek that and how it is that as we seek that, then we can desire to enter the kingdom of God.

He goes on and answers the question about who's the greatest and says in verse 4, whoever becomes humble, whoever is humble like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me. I think he was telling them, it doesn't actually look like they paid a good amount of attention to what he said, because here at 18 is preceding what we read in 19 where they're showing his parents away. You know, it doesn't seem like they fully understood what he was saying, but brethren, we have to. We have to understand what it is that God wants us to know about conversion and about being a little child in his eyes, a little child who is growing and is able to relate to the Father and his Son. See, that's what each one of us want to do. We want to be able to relate to our Father in an easy, in a comfortable, in a fervent manner in our prayers. Praying is essential for us to be really close to God. And, of course, studying his Word is going to be essential for us to come to really learn what Ken read in the sermonette earlier about how it is that each of these verses can be applicable to the situation that we want to grow in. See, that's what we want to be familiar with. That shouldn't be foreign to us, especially since we study things year after year after year. We want to be reminded that way. Of course, we read in Acts where Peter says, Acts 3, verse 19, again, repent and be converted. Your sins can be blotted out until the time of restitution of all things. That's what we're looking forward to. That's what we yearn for. We yearn for a day when the world will be changed. But we're told by Peter, in that case, well, you've got to become converted and you've got to pursue that. And Jesus tells us how to do that. Well, I want to point out to you, you know, you can pretty easily see what Jesus says here in Matthew 18, verse 4. He says, someone who is humble, someone who is, I guess you could say, innocent, someone who is an infant in evil. That's what Jesus was really specifically pointing out and saying. But I'd like for us to look at, William Barkley has written an extensive commentary on the Old Test or New Testament. And his daily study Bible has four areas that we want to pursue.

Four areas that Jesus was talking about as far as whenever he said, become like a little child. Be a child in evil. Become like a little child in these four ways. He writes in his daily Bible, or daily study Bible, he lists these four things. The first one, he says, there is the child's humility. Now, clearly, Jesus already mentioned that. That's exactly what he said. He said, in contrast to the question that had been asked about who will be the greatest, he says, well, you know, the greatest will be those who seek humility, who seek to be servants, who seek, well, how is it that the little child does that? Well, Barkley writes, he says, there is a child who is an exhibitionist, but such a child is rare. And almost always that child is a product of misguided adult treatment. Unfortunately, we can pass traits off to our kids that we might not even be trying to pass off. But he goes on to say, ordinarily, though, a child can easily be, especially a small child, easily be embarrassed by being pushed into the limelight, by being pushed into publicity or prominence. They often are going to be reserved. They're often going to be shy. Now, after several years, you know, you might think, they're not very shy now. But see, that's kind of acquired in this world, as he mentions about misguided adult treatment. They may not know what to do to try to help a child to learn, to have humility, to learn, to maintain that innocence. I know I was, I've watched the last couple of days when I've seen little kids in the store. I was thinking of ones I saw in Walmart and in Aldi's over the last couple of days. And it was sad because I was almost, I was getting closer to the front of the Aldi's store. And there was this little boy, probably about two years old, and he was kind of wandering around. And he said, Mommy. And he kind of looked around. And of course, all of us look at him and wonder who's is he? And then he says, Mommy. And so after about two or three times, Mommy!

He's not liking this attention. He's not liking this prominence. You know, he's pretty reserved. And of course, after a little bit and never, he wasn't in danger. We were just several people looking at him and hoping that Mommy show up. And it turned out that she was trying to pay at the checkout. And, you know, he was with her, but he had walked back. And so now he couldn't see her at all.

See, he had a certain level of innocence that he, you know, he realized I'm in big trouble. Maybe not in trouble because I wandered away, but trouble because I am scared. I don't know where Mommy is. I don't know where my protector is. I, you know, I can't fend for myself.

And so he had a certain level of humility that a child starts out with. And again, you know, maybe doesn't take all that long for any of us to start losing that. Actually, Barkley goes on to say, this child who has this humility or innocence, he's not yet learned to think in terms of place and pride and prestige. See, unfortunately, those are adult topics.

Who's in charge? You know, who's first? Who's before someone else? Who has, you know, this or that? You know, the child is not learned. And this is what he was pointing out. Why humility is to be sought? Because as adults, we grow up and we have to function in the world. And in many ways, you feel like you have to learn all this to try to function. And yet, the child doesn't need that. You know, that humility is what Jesus was talking about. The child with this innocence is not yet learned to think in terms of place and pride and prestige. He has not yet learned to discover the importance of himself. See, he is just simply innocent. And see, there is a certain level of that innocence and that humility that Jesus was pointing out, you know, that we all need to seek. The second thing that Barkley mentions, not only is there the child's humility, but there's the child's obedience. Now again, you know, we've seen children who didn't, they weren't obedient. They didn't follow. Maybe they weren't taught something, but maybe in other ways, they just didn't pay attention. Or they chose to ignore whatever the instruction was. But as he goes on to point out, a child that's going to be pleasing to God is going to be obedient. He says, True, a child is often disobedient, but he has an inclination to obey, at least initially.

And he has not yet learned the pride and false independence that separate a man from his fellow men and from God. See, that's again something we acquire somewhat early on in our life. But certainly at adulthood, we have a certain independence, a certain, you know, set of values that we pride ourselves in. And in many ways, that separates us from others. It separates us from God. It's often going to involve sin, involve doing things my way, doing things the way that seemed right to me instead of simply having God tell us and show us how to be obedient. I was in the library the other day, and a mother was, had again, a two or three-year-old boy, and they were checking out books. They had an old stack of them, of books that maybe he was going to look at. And yet, in order to check out a book at the Johnson County Library, you have to, you know, if you're doing it in the self-check thing, you have to turn it a certain way, and you have to put it down. I can never get this right either. You have to do it a certain way, put it, you know, right in the right spot, wait for the ding or, you know, some kind of a light, and then move it off to the side. Then you've got it checked out. You know, it says right there, got your number, got the name of the book. And so she showed him how to do this a couple of times, and then he wanted to do it. I wanted to do it. And so she again had to show him, you know, how each one of these steps had to be done, and then he did it. He was doing it right, and he would do it kind of over and over again until he get all the books checked out. You know, he was wanting to be obedient. There was reason to, and you know, he wanted to get to the car and start looking at the books. But that's the type of obedience, I think, that when Jesus talks about, become like this little child. Become humble like this little child. Become obedient like a little child that is uncorrupted by the world. The third thing that Barkley mentions is that there is a child's trust. A child's trust. And you can see this in two different areas. The first is that a child, it's seen in the child's acceptance of authority. You know, obviously the parent is the adult, and the child is the little baby, and growing up and having to be cared for, having to be fed, having to be nurtured, having to be bathed and washed, everything. Mommy or daddy are going to end up doing it. There is a time when a child thinks that his father knows everything, and that his father is always right. See, now, a little later on, you don't always find that. You don't find that even in a little bit older preteen kids, and certainly often in teenage, somewhere that you lose that. You lose that belief that your father knows everything and has and is always right. To our shame, he soon grows out of that, but instinctively a child realizes his own ignorance, his own helplessness, and he trusts the one who, as he thinks, knows.

See, that's a matter of accepting the authority of a parent, in this case, with a little child, but in our case, as adults. See, all of us are adults. We don't baptize children. The reason is, you know, the Bible doesn't give us prerogative to do that, but the reason is to properly be baptized. You need to be an understanding repentance. You need to have faith in God.

And, of course, then you need to be baptized and be a recipient of the Holy Spirit. See, that is adult material. That is what we all understand, that we're making a commitment with God. We understand that we're a child of God, but we still have a bunch of adult attributes that need to be replaced with a childlike humility and obedience and trust. And, clearly, you know, whenever you see a child accepting the authority of a parent, you know, we can see in Romans 8, verse 6 and 7, where it talks about a carnal mind being enmity against God. Enmity against God? It's hostile toward God. It's hostile toward the law, hostile toward God's authority, you know, to tell us how to live. That's what, you know, that's what we are repenting of. That's why we're to get rid of and become, as this child is, having trust, in our case, in God. Another aspect of trust he mentions here is seen in the child's confidence in other people.

See, all of us know that most everybody has flaws. All of us realize everybody has flaws.

Not everybody can be trusted. You know, many people don't trust worthy at all. And yet a child often has confidence in other people. He does not expect any person to be bad. He will make friends with a perfect stranger. That's often the case. A little kid, you know, doesn't care who it is, he'll talk to people and walk up and, you know, now they need to be protected from that, obviously, and not be allowed to do that without somewhat supervision. But the child, or a child, has not yet learned to suspect the world.

He still believes the best about others. Sometimes that trust could lead him into danger, for there are those who are totally unworthy of it and who abuse it. But that trust is a lovely thing. See, he points out how that humility and obedience and trust in several different ways are what God wants us to see in our own lives.

Where we become little children in these areas. The last one is simply the fourth one that Barkley records about this section in Matthew 18. A child has a short memory. Now, I think I'm getting better and better at this all the time. Having a shorter and shorter memory. But what he means by this is that the child has a short memory and that this is actually to be emulated because he has not yet learned to bear grudges and nourish bitterness.

Those again are adult problems that we need to fight and work on and overcome. The antidote to that is to have a short memory. Don't harbor grudges. Don't allow ourselves to become bitter over anything because that will take us out of the kingdom of God. Even when a child is unjustly treated and who among us is not sometimes unjust even to his own children, that child forgets and forgets so completely that he doesn't even need to forgive. A child, a little child, often won't even remember.

I was thinking of our son Brad and his family saw us about a week before the feast. A young child, a little boy, was about four, Leo. He was there at the house and his sister, Naomi, who is about ten, was sitting in a recliner that we have in the living room. It's kind of separate from everything. He's got a lot of room so he can lean back all the way. Naomi was leaning back all the way in the recliner. Leo comes up behind her and kind of pushes on the head part of the chair. He starts to lean on it, I think. Of course, it went all the way over.

Come on! Naomi kind of looked at him and he thought, oh, and of course we were sitting there and it didn't look like anybody was hurt. But Leo was upset. He was all of a sudden up the stairs and running back into the bedroom. He thought he'd done something bad. He thought he'd broken something or maybe hurt his sister or whatever.

Anyway, he went up and he was kind of cowering in the bedroom. So I went in there after a little while after we found that everything was fine. He was back there. He was kind of hunkered down and he felt real bad for what he'd done. But he was just kind of afraid. What are going to be the consequences? Of course, all I could do was just hold him and tell him it's okay.

The chair's fine. Mimi's fine. You're fine. Nobody's hurt. Everything is just fine. I didn't seem to make much progress with him because I'm not around him that much. Even though I could tell him those things, he still was. So Mimi, Naomi, came up and she's talking to him. It looked to me like she'd done this many times because she knew that he was sensitive to doing something that he didn't know whether it was hurting one or not.

So she was telling him that, you know, Leo, that was fun. I was in the chair and I didn't know what was happening, but it was kind of fun. I wasn't hurt. I really liked it. It was like she was wanting to try to encourage him that this was okay. This really didn't hurt me. It appeared that she had done that probably before to try to help him to work through what he's struggling with.

He then starts acting a little more normal. Within about a couple of minutes, I don't know whether he said or whether Naomi said, well, let's play hide and seek. Okay, well then we're running all over the house, trying to hide in the closet and trying to get under the bed and trying to do hide and seek. He's forgotten it altogether. What had happened with the chair, turning it over.

Hadn't heard any meme, hadn't heard him. Wasn't any real problem, but he thought it was. He had a short memory about that. He certainly didn't want to bear a grudge or nourish bitterness. He was forgetting. That's, I think, a part of what a child-like attitude would be.

Not only the things we've already mentioned, but just to have a short memory. Not to build on things to where we are no longer able to relate to one another in love. So, as you think about those things, I guess we should ask ourselves, how do we stack up?

How do we stack up in these tremendously important areas of Christian development?

The first one we mentioned, or actually weeks ago, to 1 Corinthians.

I think I read this several weeks ago, but we'll read it again here in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Paul's talking about different spiritual gifts, and he was trying to tell the Corinth church, well, you're misusing a lot of your gifts. You don't really either understand them. You don't know what the benefits are. So he was trying to teach them a good deal in chapter 12, 13, and 14. But in chapter 14, he said, brethren, verse 20, don't be children in your thinking, but rather be children, be infants in evil.

But in your thinking, be adult, be grown up. See, what he was telling them was what we're saying about being a childlike person. We want to be infants in evil, but we want to be adults in mature thinking and in growing, in the love of God, in service to God, in appreciation to God. So in a childlike manner, do we relate to our Heavenly Father? Do we come before God with humility, with appreciation? See, what we find in James and in other places is that it says God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. And if we go over to Isaiah 57, verse 15, one of my favorite verses in the Old Testament, Isaiah 57, verse 15, God says that even though He's the high and lofty one, or He dwells in the high and lofty places, and He inhabits eternity, and His name is holy, it says He is willing to dwell with the humble and the contrite in order to revive and to restore and to heal. See, He's willing to be with us. He's willing to reside with us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And it's incredible how wonderful that is. And yet, the basis for that is, of course, humility.

What about our obedience? Willing obedience from the heart. You know, that's what you read throughout the Bible. That's, in a sense, a very basic thing. But just like with the little child, essentially wanting to follow instructions, wanting to obey whenever they're shown what to do, that's what God expects of us. He wants us to have that obedient attitude. He wants us to have trust. Trust in Him. And, of course, that's not only going to involve an acceptance of His authority and His rule in our lives, but we understand, like a little child who is dependent on their parent, that that child understands their helplessness. And we have to understand our helplessness against the obstacles that Satan would love to throw our way. He would love to confound us and, in essence, destroy us, prevent us from entering the kingdom of God. But with trust in God and a confidence in God, even having a certain level of confidence in others, as we mention children often do, see what he tells us is look for the best in others. Are we a fault finder or a good finder? A fault finder or a good finder? So you find the example of Job continually finding fault with others, even finding fault with God. How could God be so terrible? God said, I'm not impressed. He said, I want you to repent. I want you to see your need for a Redeemer. And, of course, Job was directed to understand something he didn't understand before. He said, I've never understood this. I have never comprehended the depth of the mercy and love of God. I have never been able to comprehend how much God cares about me and what he'll even let me go through because he let him go through an awful lot.

Awful lot. Loss of virtually everything, including his health, but loss of everything else, his family, his wealth, his prominence. God did that in order to help him see you need to be repentant. You need a Redeemer. And so, we find that we need to have trust in God, and of course, it involves our faith in God. And obviously, I think it is good to see what kind of a short memory can a child, a little child, have that we ought to learn from, not bearing grudges, not maintaining bitterness. But actually, I think those areas involve our willingness, and maybe even our understanding, and then our willingness to forgive. If we understand how much we need to be forgiven, then we are far more likely to be forgiving.

And then that helps us have a short memory and not bear grudges, resolve issues so that they don't continue, and it doesn't allow us to get bitter. So, I think those thoughts that we've gone over today can be helpful to us. See, Jesus had a perfect example toward children. He loved those children. He wants us as His children to relate to the Father in a way that is going to lead us, having the innocent qualities of a child of God, then we can enter the kingdom.

You know, in Romans 8, Romans chapter 8, you see a statement that has many facets to it.

Talks about hope. Talks about how wonderful it is to relate to the Father. Maybe we can back up to verse 14. He who is led by the Spirit of God, all who are led by the Spirit of God, are God's children.

If we're led by the Spirit of God, and we are seeking the qualities of a little child that God shows are prominent and uplifting, well, then we're the children of God. If we're led by His Spirit, and he says in verse 15, for you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption whereby you cry, Abba, Father.

It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, if in fact we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him. See, the way God looks at us, you know, we haven't lived a hundred years. We've lived whatever number of years we've lived, but God has been around for eternity. And He is willing to dwell with us, and He is willing, you know, to cause us to grow in areas that develop us and that cause us to be converted. And then He goes on to say, I can hear that the things we go through, the suffering of this present age, is not worthy to be compared with the glory that's going to be revealed to us. He says, what we go through now, it can't be even remotely compared to what God holds out before us.

And so He says in verse 19, the whole creation awaits with eager longing for the revealing, the manifestation of the children of God.

See, that's what He is in the process of doing. He is working with us as His children. He is teaching. He is guiding. He is leading us in the qualities and characteristics of God.

And He says, Jesus says, you know, that many of us are learned from understanding, you know, what a little child is like. So in order to be the sons and daughters of God, in order to be, as God says He's going to do, to be God's children and to be glorified, well, then we want to be like a little child and then be able to enter the kingdom of God.