Receive the Kingdom as a Child

That's a good day. Good to see families grow and develop through the years, and by God's grace all of us will at some point be children of peace. Last couple of Feast of Tabernacles I've had an unusual experience that last year I think you may remember we went to Portugal and then afterwards as a family we stopped off in France.

We took a day and we went out to Normandy and walked on Omaha Beach, which was the site of the Allied Landings in World War II. As you will remember, my father was on that beach on D-Day on June 6, 1944. I felt like I was kind of walking in my father's footsteps being where he had been at a critical point on what really was a defining day of his life. This year, without any planning, I had a similar experience. I mentioned that we had stopped off in Richmond, Virginia after the feast to visit and do some touring. Bikinis joined us there and we went to the Museum of the Confederacy in the Confederate White House.

You probably didn't know there was a Confederate White House where Jefferson Davis lived and operated the Confederacy during the Civil War. It was fascinating, just fascinating. Here we toured both those places. We decided we would walk over to the capital of Virginia, the Capitol Building in downtown Richmond, which was designed by Thomas Jefferson. It looks like a Greek temple, white on a hill. We were walking a few blocks through downtown Richmond over to the Capitol Building.

As we got around toward the front of the building, I remembered something. I realized I got a picture of this building in my family box of pictures going back years. I got a picture of my mom and dad standing on these steps with the big white pillars in the background. We had to take a picture of Debbie and I on these same steps. When I got home the other day, I pulled out the box and started looking at pictures.

There it is. I always wondered about that picture and why it was. There was the statue of George Washington in the background and the steps. My mom and my dad standing at Ramrod Strait in his military uniform with his hat kind of at an angle. I looked closer at the picture and he was actually wearing dress gloves as military dress gloves.

He was stationed there at one point. My mother had gone out to be with him prior to him being shipped over to Europe. They had a picture there, so I had to get a picture of Debbie and I standing on those steps. I had to stop and think about that because in reality, more than just two years or two experiences in two years, I've really been walking in my father's footsteps and both of my parents' footsteps, really all my life, as we all do, one way or the other, whether we realize it or not.

And all the thinking about my father that I do at times and seem to do more as I get older really serves to focus me on the relationship with God as my spiritual father. My physical father is gone. He died several years ago and I look for the day when he will come up in the resurrection of the Great White Throne period and stand before God and have the books of the Bible open to him for understanding for the first time in his life.

And so whatever thoughts, feelings I have about him really serve to bring me, hopefully, closer to God as my spiritual father. And each year during the ceremony of the blessing of the children, I do think a great deal as you do about Christ teaching to receive the kingdom of God as a little child. And I wonder how I'm doing in that. Let's turn over to Luke 18 and read where Jesus said this, Luke 18.

Verse 15, they brought infants to Him that He might touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to Him and said, Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.

That's a very strong statement. And every time I read it, usually in preparation for this day, the ceremony, I have to stop and think, am I receiving the kingdom of God as a child? Because I sure want to be there. And you do too. And He says, we must receive it as a child. Or we won't. So how are we doing? Are we receiving the kingdom as a child?

Let's consider this. Gordon kind of broke ground for it in his sermonette here. But let's consider what Jesus may be telling us. I'd like to consider just one point today about a child. There are many points about a child that they have as we watch them that can teach us many different things about this very principle of having a childlike attitude.

But I'd like to consider just one point today that can, I think, really help us to develop all the other childlike qualities that Jesus talked about and meant and was referring to when He took these children up in His arms and He blessed them.

And as I thought about this over the last several days, I wonder if this is not the most important point for us to learn. That if we learn this one point, all the others will flow together. All the others will come about. If we can just get this one point right, turn back to Psalm 131.

Let's look at Psalm 131. Let's begin in verse 1. It says, Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty, nor do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me. The heading says this was a Psalm of David, and you wonder if this indeed was written by David. It must have been written when he was not a king, because after he became a king, he had a lot of things on his mind. That could promote haughtiness, perhaps. But if it was his, and if it was written at a younger point in life, maybe it came back to remind him of a few things when he maybe got to concern with great matters.

But he said his heart was not lofty. In verse 2, he gets to what is the crux of his point. Surely, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. Here is a picture of a child in the arm of his mother, her mother, content. But it's a weaned child.

Now, that means that it's no longer taking from its milk from its mother's breast, which every mother knows and every parent knows that goes through the nursing of a child when they're young. That's, you know, you've got to be there, Mom.

They get hungry, you've got to be there. It's a bonding experience for the mother and the child. You know, nutritionally, physically, it has its great advantages for a child. But as every mother knows, there's a bonding that takes place. But at some point, there's a weaning that takes place. The child no longer wants milk from the mother's breast. And so that process goes through. For some sooner, for others later, it depends on a number of factors.

But at some point, they'll be weaned. But, you know, a mother never stops taking that child up in their arms and just cuddling and holding them close. And a child during that period of time is still content. And they can still fall asleep as they look up at their mother and feel safe, secure, warm, enclosed in the arms of a mother. And David says here, I've quieted and calmed my life, my mind, my thoughts.

I have no worries. I'm like that weaned child. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. How many times has we go through life? Have we ever wished we could crawl back up in her mother's arms and life were that simple again? No worries, no cares, no stress, no problems. You know, that child instinctively desires nourishment from the mother, but is still happy after it is weaned and finds that security even though the longing for food has passed.

Like this child that is pictured here, when you and I get finally focused and centered on God and His Kingdom, when we get our priorities straight, when we put the physical and proper perspective, when we begin to really seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, then we are like this weaned child in our relationship with God, safe, secure, and comfortable. Then, and only then, do you and I get to the point of this image of this child where we're like a child in the arms of a parent and we look up to them in amazed wonder.

I remember watching our two boys in Debbie's arms just being content. And as I've watched it over the years with our babies that have come and gone and grown up in our midst, you see a contentment as they look up into their parents' eyes. There's a wonder, there's an amazement that takes place in those scenes and at that time when a child is with their parents in that way.

They see that child or that parent as being larger than life, content only with their approval. We know when we're a child in our parents' arms that they will hold us, they will shelter and protect us, they will nourish us and provide for us. In short, we are in awe as a child, even before we know it, of that parent. We are in wondrous amazement at this huge person. Long before we really are aware that they are mom and dad.

And as we grow at age 1 and age 2 and age 3 and even age 4, we still, in most cases as a child, look at our parents with amazement and wonder. And life is bright and life is possible and life is good. We hold them in awe as mom and dad. We're amazed by what they can do. We fully trust them. We obey them for the most part. At some point, 2, 3, 4, whatever, you begin to see a child take on aspects of human nature, depending upon the environment and how things are going and what's happening in the home and the people around them.

But for the most part, in the ideal situation, they do what they're told and they trust. A child wants to please. We want to obey. We believe. We see them as parents and we see them only. Sometimes a great deal. I mean, sometimes a child becomes very clingy. Maybe they're a little bit fearful. Maybe that's their genetically. Maybe it's put in by the parent. I don't always have the answers to that, but you see certain children that might be a little bit clingy and they don't want to leave mom's side.

And they won't go to others. Other children will readily go to another adult and just feel very comfortable. I don't know all the chemistry and all that happens in that, but it just is. You know, in my earliest memories of my parents, I used to think of them in those earliest days that I can remember as my gods. They were the ones I looked to for food. My mom was the best cook. She was the only cook. She had to be the best.

You know, she made the best butter and jelly sandwiches that anybody could make.

And my dad could do anything. He didn't do anything wrong. I remember when my dad would come home from work at night for a long time. I would run across the living room and jump in his arms.

My dad never shaved when he left in the morning. He always shaved at night. That was his habit.

And when he'd come in at night from his mechanics work at the gas station, he always smelled like gasoline and oil. But I didn't care. I love that smell. I can smell it to this day. And he'd rub his grizzled face across me and I'd jump in his arms. Glad you're home. I don't know when I stopped doing that. But at some point I stopped running and jumping into my dad's arms. But they could do no wrong. My dad had more money than anybody. He could reach into his pockets. There was always a pocket full of change. And you know, in those days a quarter could buy a new house.

And he'd pull out a quarter and give it to me. And I meant I could go all week on a quarter.

Don't we wish we could do that today? But I thought he had endless supply of money.

I laugh at times when things change. When our kids came along, we learned that we at certain point when they were younger we learned we better change some of our habits so they learned to value money. Because we would always just go through the drive-through at the bank and write a check and get some cash whenever we would need cash. And there were a few times when perhaps there wasn't much in the checking account we'd get close to payday and we'd say, well we can't do this or we can't do that. We don't have enough money. And one of them I can't remember is Ryan or Chris. They would say, well why can't you just write a check and go drive through the bank? Because in their minds all we were doing was just driving through handing us piece of paper and we get this green stuff in return. And they thought there was an endless supply of that, see. So we thought, well we better teach them a little different way that that's just, you know, you got to have something to back that piece of paper up. You just don't write hot checks. But they learn. And I just thought my dad had all the money in the world. But at some point in those youthful years things did change. But, you know, in those years my skies were bright. The sun in my sky shone every day.

There were no worries. Life was full of possibilities. I saw my parents as larger than life. What I was developing and what I had then was a sense of wonder about mom and dad.

I had a sense that perhaps the most critical thing they could do was just love me.

And that was one of the most important things that I had. And it's the most important thing that you and I perhaps can have when we think about God today. It's a sense of wonder and a sense of awe.

I think that's the most important thing for us to recapture in building a relationship with God. A sense of wonder, amazement, awe. That God is good. God is great.

Our God can do anything He sets His hand to do. He is our Father. He is our spiritual Father.

For many of us we do realize He is the only Father we do have now.

And the one we must look to every morning. I think that to be able to do that and to recapture that sense of awe and wonder is probably the most important thing that we can do to get back and to receive the Kingdom as a little child when it comes to our relationship with God.

To have that wonder with Him. You know, a few years ago, some of you will remember, there was a television series. It was on in the late 80s and into the early 90s. It was called The Wonder Years. It ran, I think, for about five years.

And the story was told in retrospect. It was an interesting way of storytelling.

The story was about a boy growing up 20 years earlier. And every season was kind of set 20 years earlier and told a story 20 years back called The Wonder Years of a boy looking back on his youth. In the final episode at the end of the fifth season, they summed up the whole story there of The Wonder Years with a phrase that I think sums up a certain human contentment with life. In the last scene of that last show in the fifth year of The Wonder Years, the narrator, who was supposed to be the little boy growing up old, he said this, Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone.

But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul.

I remember a place, a town, a house, like a lot of houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street with a lot of other streets.

And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back with wonder.

I still look back with wonder. I look back on my youth with wonder. How do you look back on yours?

And as I think about my dad, wherever I might be, or my mom, whatever circumstance, and as I look at what they were, what they taught me, what they developed, I always want to bring it back to God. Because I want to see God the way that I looked at my parents when I was young, with awe, with wonder. As a God who can do anything. Because I believe that when we learn to look at life with that eye, all of our life's experiences, and I mean every one of them, folks. The good and the bad. Because we have good experiences and we have bad experiences. There's no perfect life. Things happen. Good things, sometimes bad things. We've had healthy babies born this year, thankfully. Sometimes babies aren't born healthily. And sometimes things happen. And as we get older, we certainly expect certain things, although it's still very sad when people die. But things happen in all of our life's experiences. The good and the bad, the horrible and the tragic. We must begin to look at those through God's eyes and to look at them with a sense of wonder and amazement. Like this weaned child that David describes in this psalm, keeping a lock on God. Because as somebody said, we don't get out of this world alive.

We don't get out of this world alive. And so how we navigate it and deal with all the ups and downs, the smooth roads and the bumpy roads, the highs and the lows, the valleys and the peaks, will all come down to our relationship with God and how we see God and what's going on in our life.

And so I do simply believe that if we're going to receive the kingdom as a little child, which is what Jesus said, and enter into that kingdom, we better start looking at certain aspects of childlike attitudes and finally get the point of what He tells us year after year as we read those stories and develop that quality, that most important quality. Develop all the qualities. But let's find that one most important. What I'm just telling you here today, what I think, as I've thought this through for this sermon on this day, at this time in my life, where we are, that maybe this is the most important one. Maybe you'll come up with something different. Maybe in five years I'll have something else that's different too. But I don't think so.

Because I think this really gets at the heart of our relationship with God and will help us to get through everything that we experience in life, the good, the bad, to experience it with a sense of wonder and amazement like a weaned child, keeping our eyes firmly fastened on God. And I believe that when we do this, we are riding on the high places of the earth. Too often I've been asked to explain to people why, and to try to explain to people going through a crisis why. And too often you have had to understand that, and you have had to seek to understand that question. I will admit that I've not always done it perfectly, but I think that in time we're coming to a point where we can explain that in quite a better way.

Just go back and settle. It might be good to go back and settle on the couch. I'll be fine.

I think, brethren, that this is the secure relationship that will take us into the kingdom of God. We can develop that. This is a positive worldview that we need as the elect of God in His Church. This is what's important. You and I begin need to live in high-ceiling rooms.

A few years ago I read an article about living in a high-ceiling room.

I recognize that at times the ceilings in my room were a little bit too low.

I've noticed over the years and the times that sometimes we are in the Church because of our approach to God in the Bible and what the world calls fundamentalism.

Taking the Bible literally, believing in God. If we are not careful in the Church of God, we can create homes that have very low ceilings where we have to walk around stooped over.

We don't aspire to greatness. We don't aspire to a worldview that's open and bright with big windows.

Last Sunday we were in Charlottesville, Virginia with Dan and Renee a party.

One of the reasons beyond seeing them that we went there was to go back up on the mountain top and see Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello. I don't know how many of you have ever been to Monticello.

I was there back in 1976 and wanted to see it again because unlike any other person, you see Thomas Jefferson in Monticello. We were going through part one of the rooms and they pointed out the windows that he made on the south side of his home and how he made them big and tall.

And he made them double-paned, but he made them at an angle as they came into the house so that more light would come in. Light. He wanted to see. I like light. I like homes with bright, cheery high ceilings. Thomas Jefferson's home had high ceilings and he wanted light in. I like to live like that. I think that what we need to develop are high ceiling rooms, not low ceiling rooms. We need to get rid of the narrow thinking, the constricted view of life, that gives us dark, brooding skies and open up the windows to a bright, sunlit landscape of ever-widening vistas and possibilities in our lives. We need to instill that in our children, to be honest. To avoid the entrapments that come with an approach to God, the Bible, this way of life that is too constrictive. Our calling, brethren, is not to a ball and chain of drudgery. It is not to a life of don'ts. It is to a life of do's. That's our calling. Not to don'ts, but to do's. And we need to get that mind and that heart ourselves, because I think in there is the essence of receiving the kingdom as a child. With the amazement, the wonder, and the possibilities of life that's in front of us. If we can get that, trust, obedience, faith, forgiveness, all other things will come along. But if we can see God with those eyes, that faith is a positive affirmation of purpose. Live a life that is led by God as a Father who wants only the best and the brightest for us. And our view of God is of such a God, and our view of life is such a life. I found a story that I think illustrates that. I'd like to read to you. It's a short one. It's in one of these books that I've collected over the years. This one was by William Bennett called The Moral Compass, a companion to his book of virtues. But it's stories about life, moral compass. And in this one, there was one short story called A Fortune. Let me read it to you.

It says, one day a man was walking along the street and he was sad at heart.

The business was dull. He had set his desire upon a horse that cost $1,000, and he had only $800 to buy it with. There were other things to be sure that might be bought with $800, but he did not want those. So he was sorrowful and thought the world a bad place.

As he walked, he saw a child running toward him. It was a strange child. But when he looked at it, his face lightened like sunshine and broke into smiles. The child held out its closed hand.

Guess what I've got? It cried gleefully. Something fine, I'm sure, said the man.

The child nodded and drew nearer, then opened his hand.

Look, it said, and the street rang with its happy laughter.

The man looked, and the child in the child's hand lay a penny.

Hurrah, said the child. Hurrah, said the man.

Then they parted, and the child went and bought a stick of candy, and saw all the world red and white in stripes. The man went and put his $800 in the savings bank, all but 50 cents.

And with the 50 cents, he bought a hobby horse for his own little boy, and the little boy saw all the world brown with white spots.

Is this the horse you wanted so to buy, father? asked the little boy.

It is the horse I have bought, said the father.

Hurrah, said the little boy. Hurrah, said the man.

And he saw that the world was a good place, after all.

To see the world through a child's eyes. Eyes that are to see things as red and white like a candy cane, or brown with white spots like a little pony. That's to see the world with wonder, awe, and amazement. See a world with possibilities, no matter how little you have.

Can we see the world like that? In red and white stripes and like a pony, brown with white spots? A good place for God to do His work of bringing many sons to glory, or do we have to continue looking at the world as bad evil only? We can't do anything, and we live in a low ceiling room.

How do we see it? Because that's going to determine really how we see God. God's blessing us. He loves us, and He wants only the best. Only when you and I get locked in on that wonder and never forget His guiding hand in our lives, can we really begin to grow in the grace of God.

When we do that, we can then begin to put away the negative, evil, malice that this world cloaks us in at some point in our youth. I don't know when it began to cloak me and change my view toward my parents, but I know what it did. And I began to realize my dad didn't have all the money, and my mom wasn't the best cook.

And a lot of other things as I went through my growing up years and phases and teenage years and did all the things, some of which I'll never tell you about.

And you don't need to tell me about yours either.

But at some point, those things happened to me, and the world cloaked me in a different view.

And ever since I really got serious about God and faith and His way of life, I've been trying to grow in grace and knowledge and to look at God's grace and to see it and to develop that worldview that's like His.

In Numbers 14, there's a story that we all know that I won't go through all of it, but I think it helps to bring us to point on this. Numbers 14.

It's the story of Joshua and Caleb. And lo and behold, we blessed Joshua and Caleb today.

And that was good. But you know the story of the spies that went in to spy out the land of Canaan?

And they saw giants. They saw land flowing with milk and honey.

And they saw big walled cities. And they saw problems.

And they came back. And most of them gave a negative report, except for two men, Joshua and Caleb. Only two looked at the land of Canaan, the Promised Land, in awe and wonder.

All the others saw were problems. They saw giants. They saw, we can't do it.

This won't happen. We're too small a group. They're smarter than we are. They have better weapons. They live in walled cities. They're giants.

Joshua and Caleb didn't see that. They looked at it with wonder and amazement. They saw God's grace. They saw God's hand. Look at chapter 14 in verse 8.

But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jafune, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes. And they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, The land we pass through to spy out is an exceedingly good land.

They lived in a high-ceiling room.

They saw the possibilities. They saw the grace of God.

They saw that God would be with them. It is a good land. It's a good world. It's a good life.

That's what they said. Ignore all the others. They tore their clothes.

Verse 8, If the Lord delights in us, brethren, I put before you right here, that is grace.

You're reading it right here in the Old Testament. That is grace.

The Lord is delights in us. When you look at the words for grace that is the equivalent of grace in the Old Testament, it's translated in phrases and situations like this, God's goodness.

God's good will. The Lord delights in us. Then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey. Joshua and Caleb saw the Promised Land through the eyes of wonder and amazement. They saw God's hand to help them overcome the obstacles, the giants, the people who stand there to frighten them. Who frightens you? What frightens us?

What are the obstacles we can't overcome and get through? Sometimes it's people.

Sometimes it's a situation that comes up. Sometimes it's maybe a physical challenge.

Sometimes it can be the church. Sometimes it can be a parent. Sometimes it can be a friend. Sometimes it can be a problem on the job. What is it that challenges us to lower the ceilings, shut the blinds, and to see only gloom and doom?

It shut God out of the picture.

Joshua and Caleb saw the Promised Land through the eyes of wonder and amazement.

The others didn't see God. Just like all the other Israelites.

They didn't really know that God was with him in every step of the way, just as a father is with a child every step of the way. When you really look at the whole dealing that God had with Israel during this period of time, these years of the wilderness, it's really a positive affirmation of God's grace. Turn over to Deuteronomy chapter 1. When they were just about to enter the land, God gave them a summing up. We read the stories of Numbers and we read about idols, the golden calf, and how they danced and incurred the wrath of Moses, and he smashed the Ten Commandments to the ground, had to go back up the hill and get another set.

We read about the murmuring. You brought us out here to die. There's no food and there's no water.

And you read about 250 of the leading princes of the tribes of Israel getting behind a guy named Korah and coming up against Moses and Aaron. And we read through those stories and the litany of the problems of Numbers. And if you and I aren't careful, we forget to see, just like the Israelites never saw, that God was with them every step of the way and every challenge, every day. And this is what he reminds them about here in some of these verses. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 1 in verse 30. Moses tells them, "'The Lord your God who goes before you, He will fight for you according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, and all the way that you went until you came to this place.'" This is Moses telling them this at the end of 40 years.

"'God carried you like a father carries a son.'" Did they see him? Were they like a weaned a child in their father's arms? Well, the story of Numbers tells us that they really weren't, for the most sake. I mean, Joshua and Caleb, they saw the land through God's eyes, but most of the others didn't. That's why they had to keep running around in circles until that generation died off.

But Moses is saying, "'God was with you.'" In chapter 4 of Deuteronomy, verses 5.

Deuteronomy 4, verse 5, "'Surely,' he says, "'I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the Lord my God commanded me that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore, be careful to observe them.

For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him.'" Moses is telling them, "'Obey these laws, live this way of life, and you will have wisdom. This will be your wisdom, and everyone will envy you. God's grace will be upon you. Look at all of these teachings with awe, wonder, and amazement, and see the mind of God in them, and that they are good.

And do them, and you will succeed.'" Down in verse 32, he says, "'For ask now concerning the days that are past which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fires you've heard Him and live? Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs, by wonders, and war to do this?' Verse 37, "'And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them. And He brought you out of Egypt with His presence, with His mighty power, by His grace I'd add.'" And the subtext is, do you see this with wonder and amazement?

Do you see what God is doing? Verse 39, he says, "'Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above, and on the earth beneath there is no other.'" These and similar passages are words of grace. God favored Israel.

God favors His people today. He favors you. He favors myself. And He's waiting to work with us. And to show us deeper truths about our life, our place, in this calling, in this journey that we're on, this phase of His ongoing plan of eternal salvation. God is waiting like a father to open us, our minds, up to greater understanding. The only hindrances is us, you, me, and the degree to which we retreat back and we become like the unbelieving Israelites that couldn't see that God delights in us and wants to give us His good land. And we don't see God, but only with a narrow, restricted view, which is kind of like us as we began at some point in our past to see our parents or see them in a different light. How do we see God? Until we see Him like this, we're not quite up to the point of receiving the Kingdom of God as a little child and looking up to Him as our Father in a sense of wonder and awe and respect and love. God wants to do great things with us.

Think back about your family, your parents. Were they there for you?

Did they take you up in their arms and did they guide you through your wonder years?

How did you respond? As we think about our parents, as we look around at our parents here in this room and other parents and parenthood today in the state of families, and as we look at children, as we look at faith, as we look at life, it's all a very complicated story at times. Sometimes I find people don't want to look at their parents, and I recognize that there are some real problems, and sometimes we have to work through that.

I see how I changed over the years with my view of my parents.

I see how children change and grow today. I see how my children changed.

I've said over the years that I really get more enjoyment out of working with the pre-team in our pre-team camps. Something hasn't happened at that point.

All the years I've directed the camp at Camp Heritage, you see all kinds of things. They have a lot more challenges than what you have when you're working with a pre-team camp.

The biggest challenge is the next snack at times with the pre-team kids. Or they need a nap after lunch, and they get a little cranky, and so we would go into one of these rooms and put them down, and I'd try to read to them. They'd fall asleep, or they'd squirm, or whatever. Those are usually some of the biggest problems that you have to deal with. But you know, over the years, things happen to us all. Things like high school happened to us. Cars happened to us. Boys, girls, life. To watch children change, to watch attitudes be modeled, it's always fascinating, isn't it?

As I said, I've watched kids over the years from the smallest grow through those years. I watched mine go through the years, and now I'm starting to watch my grandchildren go through the years as well. That's a blessing. That's a joy. I see how things develop.

I haven't told my kids this. I'll tell everybody, I guess. I've come to the point where I hope that they home-school the kids and don't let them step foot in a modern-day high school.

But that's their decision to make. But I truly do mean that.

But anyway, if you want to see your children grow in the faith and remain, put God first in your life. I don't have a book to write about it. I don't have a book to recommend. I just have one verse to refer you to. Put God first in your life. Matthew 6, 33.

Seek you first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. And all these things will then be added to you.

That is a promise from Jesus Christ. Seek you first the kingdom of God. You know, since we got into the kingdom of God in these seminars, as I was telling people to feast, God gave us a gift with the kingdom of God seminars. God gave us a gift. It's amazing how much Jesus talks about the kingdom of God. He was on his lips. Every parable he talked about, every sermon that he gave was about the kingdom of God. And he says, seek you first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. And all these things will be added to it. That means when we get up, when we sit down, seek it first. Seek it only. Receive it as a little child.

Look at God with wonder, awe, and amazement. Do that, and that promise is there. Do that and God will be with us. God will be with you. I don't know if, you know, you can, how will our child stay in the faith? Deb and I were talking about this this morning.

And, you know, you can look at the church, you can look at the minister, you can look at the child, and you can look at the parents. Those are usually the four elements that you've got working. The church, the ministry, and in the ministry, I would also include the entire congregation to one degree or the other. It's not just the minister. That was one of the thoughts that kind of led me to have all the extended family come up today as part of this blessing, because if there is a blessing, it comes from a lot of people. Most importantly, the parents, and the grandparents, and the great-grandparents, and the aunts, and the uncles, and the cousins, and the ones that had that direct contact. Scripturally, the way I read it, it seems like it comes down to the biggest burden and responsibility that God puts upon the outcome of that question as to whether or not our children will remain with the faith or make that choice and that calling when it comes. The biggest burden of responsibility, it seems, from the scriptures lies upon the parents, the parents, and the child. The parents do the best they can, and then every child comes to a point of maturity and accountability and has the freedom of choice. And after all, when God puts the calling in front of us, regardless of how it is, all of us have the freedom of will to choose or not to choose.

We didn't even choose and didn't change our mind later on. But they all work together, but I think that the biggest responsibility lies with the parents and the individual.

And so, we have to work ourselves through that and do the best that we can. But put God first, and not just in a rote way, but with love, wonder, awe, amazement. Receive God in that way, and we will be stepping into the kingdom and the essence of the kingdom in a way that we've never understood before. And we will see it and we will be able to navigate our families, our lives, and our relationship with God.

And God will be there because God wants to work with us.

In my cleaning out in our preparation to move, I went through a really thorough, exhaustive cleaning out of my library. And I found a book that I hadn't looked at in a number of years.

I bought it, read it once, put it back on the shelf, and it's so thin you'll see that it can be easily lost in a bookshelf. And I found this one and looked at it and I remembered it.

I don't know if any of you have ever heard of it. It's called, Daddy, Daddy, Be There.

I want to read you a story. This book today. It's an interesting book. The cover is a little boy holding his father's hand. You don't see the father. You can read into it whatever you want.

There's a lot of things we can read into it. But it's called, Daddy, Daddy, Be There.

I think it speaks to a lot of different levels. The spiritual relationship with God, our physical relationship with our father. I think it also speaks to this aspect of awe and wonder. Let me read it to you. I will show you all the pictures, but it's a dad, a boy, a boy and a dad, and a mom as it goes through here. It's politically correct and everything else.

Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Put your hand out to me in scary crowds on first school days and roller coaster rides. Daddy, Daddy, Be There.

Daddy, Daddy, Be There. When my questions need your ears listening, your eyes searching, and your heart loving me. Tell me I am smart. Tell me I am special. Tell me I am able.

With your ears, eyes and heart, Daddy, Daddy, Be There.

Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Point out the pictures in my storybooks. Read the nursery rhymes to me.

Show me your daddy, your mama, your growing up. Share a cookie.

Half a sandwich. A joke. Share your music, your dreams.

I'll listen with my heart as best I can. Daddy, Daddy, Be There.

Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Hug Mama and smile at her on Tuesdays and in the grocery store.

Kiss us and take our pictures at picnics and on birthdays. Tell us big and little stories.

Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Daddy, Daddy, Be There.

Not only on weekends or across telephone lines, not only during commercials or between innings, share surprises. The only one-time times. Shout when I slide into home base or sing solo in the school choir. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Plant new trees and flower bulbs and a red rose bush for Mama. Play inside and outside games with me. Flick water drops and light campfires. Dive into cold waves. Slide down snowy hillsides with me. Daddy, Daddy, Be There.

Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Trains speed by. Planes lift off. Cars race around. Trucks inch forward.

Ships sail away. Teachers change classes. Grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles die.

Sometimes even sisters, brothers and best friends. Big people separate and divorce.

See what I see. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. I heard you holler about money and bills. I saw you push Mama and take another drink and turn the television up. Then leave. Slam the door shut. I feel the holler, the push, the door slammed. Please stop. Stop. Please.

Please stop. Stop. Please. Please stop. Make homes safe. Daddy, Daddy, Be There.

Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Don't let the world knock you out and drag you off. No matter what, struggle back home. Take my hand. Let me be your friend. Do the tough work. Get well and strong. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. If we live where you and Mama stay gone, leaving sitters or private schools, raise me. If we live where everyone works, but there is always barely just enough and no one sees me, and feelings end up stuffed in a box, find a way to save us.

Make a family. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. During the hard times when the money goes, during the bread and brown sugar breakfast mornings, during the saxophone blowing blues nights, during the in-between weary working months, during the string of long years, Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Daddy, Daddy, Be There when others gather. When they tell family stories, when someone says to me, what's your daddy like, who you are and what you are, who you are and where you are, we'll answer. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Daddy, Daddy, Be There when I dye my hair green or cut it off or pierce my ears and nose when my music rocks the house but grab me when I wander too far from home. Too close to a danger I cannot see. Daddy, Daddy, Be There.

Daddy, Daddy, Be There with a firm hand and confident grin. When I take off without you, when I graduate head high, when I enter a new world, one you help me reach. One you could never enter. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Daddy, Daddy, Be There as I swim mountain lakes, stride across deserts, stretch to the sun and moon and stars, build doors and rooms and skyscrapers and worlds.

No matter what, Daddy, I'll know you that you are there close by. My Daddy, Daddy, There.

Daddy, Daddy, Be There. Let me sit with you. Let me hold your spotted hand. Let my eyes be yours and my ears as well. I will remember when you were there for me and ask for nothing in return. Now I am here for you. Daddy, Daddy, I love you. Daddy, Daddy, Be There. It's a good book.

It's a good story. Turn over to Jeremiah chapter 29. This is how our Daddy looks at us.

Jeremiah 29.

Dad had sent his children off into captivity to Babylon. He had taken them away from their homes and put them in a strange land. Then he sent them a letter, as a father does, and he sent it through his servant. He told them, book up, make a life where you are, build homes, raise your children, marry, plant gardens, put a few trees up, make the best of where you are.

What he was saying was live life in a high ceiling room. Deal with your situation with wonder, awe, and amazement. He was telling them, I haven't left you. I'm still here. I'm still your father. And then down in verse 11, this is what he says, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

That's how God thinks about us. Thoughts of peace and not evil. That's how our father looks at us.

That's how he says he looked at Israel, but brethren, this is how God looks at us. He loves us. He looks at us with thoughts of peace and not thoughts of evil, to give us a future and a hope.

And I think sometimes you and I, and I'm leading all the pack in this, we spend a lot of our times finding the way to finally look to God in this way. How about you? To see God with amazement.

To see our calling and to be in a high ceiling room. To see that the windows are open and the sun is coming in. There's a soft paint on the walls and the sky is blue and there's possibilities and there's hope and there is a future. This is what God said to his children then and this is what God says to us today. This, brethren, is the essence of the kingdom of God. For us, you and I, to see God as a child and a parent through his eyes with wonder and amazement, with a secure and contented feeling. This is how God looks at us. And if we can see our Father looking at us like that and to see that indeed it is his good pleasure to give us the kingdom, then we will be at the first step to be able to receive the kingdom of God as a little child.