We Must Become Like Little Children

Better get the book right side up. Be able to be sure I can read a little better. But good morning again to all of you. It's always a delight to come up and see you. And as we've already had mentioned, customarily, two weeks after the feast, we have a blessing of little children's ceremony.

I know right now we don't have any little children that need to be blessed. But very thankfully, we do have a number of little children here. We have a number of at least children here in our congregation. Children in age, but we have all of us who are viewed by God as little children. And whenever you think about God inhabiting eternity, He always has been, He always is and always will be. When He looks at us from the standpoint of the Father and sees our 50, 40, 50, 60, 80 years, He says, that's small, very small, very young. Each one of us, really in the eyes of God, are very, very young. Now He holds out before us eternal life in the future, everlasting life, which we desire, which we seek. And so it's always wonderful to think about the concept of children and to see what Jesus' example was. Because you do have some remarkable examples. You have them in Matthew and Mark and Luke. Each of them has a record of little children being brought to Jesus. And I think it's certainly important for us to take a look at those every year. And not just have that service if we have someone that needs that blessing, but to think more about what Jesus was really saying. You know, little kids are wonderful. Especially little bitty kids, you hardly know what they're going to do. You don't, you know, they're not kind of unpredictable in some cases. I was talking to Faith earlier here before services, and she was messing with her bracelet, and she kind of pulled it off. And I said, can you put it on me? And she said, no! It won't fit you, it fits me! So she started putting it back on real quick. And, you know, she is able to interact with not only young people, but older people. And even me? Older. And that's always wonderful. I recall, I think I may have mentioned to you not too long ago, probably a year ago. You know, we were at one of our meals here, and after the meal we were doing, you know, getting ready or sitting around talking. And Micah came up to me, and he had his cup. And he says, can you get me a cup of water? Now, I don't know whether his folks had said you don't need a cup of water or not. But nonetheless, he felt okay to come up and ask me for a cup of water. And of course I was glad to get it for him, and I hope he didn't spill it after that. But, you know, you never know. I was, of course, after our services we often have our kids picking up the songbooks, seemingly running a contest. Who can get the most books? That's good. I mean, that's something that is, you know, hopefully including them and helping them to feel a part of our service that we come to every week. I was thinking of, at the Feast in Canmore, they were meeting in a theater. Kind of a dinner theater type thing, but it had a flat floor, and it worked out really nice. It was exactly the right size we needed for the 180 who were in attendance. And there were different people, of course, over the course of the week who were greeters.

And some of them were, obviously, to begin with, people assigned to do it, and greeting all of us and wanting us to feel comfortable and figure out where things are in the building and where other information is and giving us things. But after, oh, I don't know, five or six days, I came down and I usually was there a little bit early. And I came down and there were two little boys. Two little boys there, they were the greeters today.

And, of course, I was glad to talk to them a little bit, and they were telling me this and that. And they were just excited to point out what a dog had left over here on the cement.

That was what was really impressive to them.

And I'm sure after a little while that may not have stayed there. But, you know, they were talking and excited about being greeters, I guess. So, you know, children sometimes can be pretty unpredictable. But here in Matthew 19, of course, I'll read a couple of these. I'm not going to read all three of them. They're fairly similar. But in Matthew 19 you have an account that the three gospel writers record. And I know they record this for a reason. They record this because God wants us to see something about little children. He wants us to see something about ourselves. And He wants us to see something about Jesus. Because this is really incredible. Here in verse 13, little children were being brought to Jesus in order that He might lay His hands on them and pray. And so clearly, you know, a prayer, a blessing was being requested. And the disciples spoke sternly to those parents who had brought them. But in verse 14, Jesus said, Let the little children come to Me. Let the little children come to Me, and do not stop them. For it is to such as these, these little children, that the kingdom of heaven belongs. And He laid His hands on them and went on His way. Now again, that's tremendously impressive of what? Three short verses. Because it points out numerous things, not only about the kids and about the adults, but about Jesus. If we jump up over to Mark chapter 10, I want to read this account as well. See, what is it that we learn from that very, very short discourse? And actually simply a statement by Jesus that becoming like a little child is important. Having some of the qualities of a little child is very important. Here in Mark chapter 10, again, you have the same account, and I want to read it in a little more detail. Because it says a little bit differently what happened. But it says in verse 13, people were bringing little children to Him, to Jesus, in order that He might touch them. See, and Matthew had said that He might pray for them, but in this case it says that He might pick them up. So it would assume to be relatively small kids. It talks about little children. In Luke it actually mentions infants. And this is really probably the bulk of the people that were being, or the children that were being brought to Jesus, were tiny. That would be what I would assume. Because Jewish practice was, you know, that it would certainly seem preferred as parents that they would want to come to this... Now, they didn't understand exactly who He was. They didn't comprehend He was the Son of God. They didn't recognize Him as the authority on everything that He was. But it was their practice to want a distinguished rabbi, a distinguished teacher. They would come to others, you know, and rabbis and ask them for blessing as well. But it would seem to make sense that if they had the perception to see what Jesus was able to do, they would certainly want to come to this distinguished teacher and ask that He would touch or bless their child. And especially around one year of age. That would be customarily something that they would be interested in doing. And so you can see why the parents wanted to do this. They wanted to come up to Jesus. They wanted to ask for His blessing. They wanted to relate to Him in that way. And of course, in verse 13, you see the disciples speaking sternly to them, or in a sense, kind of running them off.

Now, we have to think, well, the disciples knew who Jesus was. They recognized His power and authority, and they certainly had observed a number of miracles. So you would think, well, maybe they ought to be a little more helpful. And I don't think this is saying that the disciples weren't helpful. I think it was saying that, well, they didn't want Jesus to be bothered. They were trying to protect Him. They were trying to keep Him from being, in a sense, burdened. And yet, I think we have to realize when you read this, in each of these accounts in the Gospels, Jesus was on His way to being crucified. This was prior to actually eventually getting to Jerusalem, and all that would transpire and ultimately be put to death. So you might have thought He might have had something a little more critical on His mind. He might have been thinking about, and clearly He knew what was going to happen, and He warned the disciples a number of times what's going to happen. So clearly He knew. But see, even with that, you see that Jesus had time. He not only had time, He took time to work with these parents and to work with the children. Obviously, this is a marvelous example of how it was that Jesus related to people, and particularly children. He wanted them around. You would have to assume that Jesus didn't have such a worried, frustrated look on His face, that it would seem like He shouldn't be bothered. That's the way we are sometimes. When we're focused on other stuff, we're not thinking about how might we affect others. How might we affect children? I would assume Jesus welcomed these kids with an easy and very kindly smile. I would think that He was probably able to laugh with them.

He wasn't a joyless, gloomy person. He was a happy person. I think you'll find, and I think almost all of us realize, whenever we're around little kids, that they're often carefree, they're not worried about stuff. We're worried about...

They have other things to be interested in, and certainly being happy and playing around, enjoying. Sometimes we have the police out here on our side as we come into services. We want to be careful of that and watch out for them. But they're thinking about something else. They're thinking about completely different things than adults do.

But if we go back to verse 14, when Jesus saw what the disciples were doing, He was indignant. He was a little upset at them. He realized, perhaps, that they were just trying to protect Him. But He said, no, no way. I want these little kids to come to Me.

And see, He wants every little child to come to understand Him, to come to know Him, to come to rely on Him. Now, God helps us do that. We will all admit that. But God extends that to every one of us. Each one of us, no matter what our age. And so, He said, let the little children come to Me and don't stop them.

For it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. And so here He's making a...what would it be? Mr. Barnett? A metaphor? A simile? I don't know. He's making an example. You know, I have to simplify everything. He makes an example that something in connection to these little kids is really close to the kingdom of God. And He actually goes ahead to add, truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will not be in the kingdom of God. So, you know, it's pretty critical.

This is not just critical. This is vital to understand. It's imperative that we understand what Jesus had to say about little children. And of course, verse 16, He took them up in His arms and He laid His hands on them and He blessed them. And He prayed for them. He asked God to give them the protection and the help and the health and things that we, you know, we try to extend as we, you know, emulate what Jesus did and try to follow His example.

But Jesus clearly had time. He took time for these children and He made the point that we're not going to be a part of the kingdom of God unless we do it as a little child. So what does Jesus want us as older children? Because that's what all of us are to God. What does He want us as older children to learn from little children?

What does He want us to learn about conversion? What do we learn about conversion from a little child? Because sometimes we can think of little children and, you know, not all those little children are, you know, very responsive. Some of them are rather hateful. As they get a little bit older, they can be, you know, pretty belligerent. They can be demanding.

They can be, you know, a lot of bad things you can think about that could be connected to children at times. But see, obviously that wasn't what Jesus was talking about. He was talking about the qualities of a little child. That should be emulated. I'd like us to back up in Matthew 18. Chapter 19 is where we were before, but in Chapter 18 you see Jesus also using. This wasn't the only time Jesus was around kids.

He liked being around children. You know, they seemed to, I'm pretty sure, knowing the way he must have been that they were attractive to him. Attracted to him. You know, he was willing, you know, to overlook difficulties. He was willing to get him a glass of water if they needed to.

He was willing to help them. But here in Matthew 18 you see in verse 1, at that time the disciples came to him and they wanted to know who's going to be greatest in the kingdom of God. You know, they have important issues on their mind. You know, who's going to be ahead of somebody else? This is kind of an adult misperception that they need to be buying for position.

See, this is what they were asking. Who's going to be greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And of course, Jesus' answer is obviously impressive. He says, well, he called a little child in verse 2, whom he put among them, and he said, truly, I'm going to tell you, unless you are converted, unless you change and become like children, you're never going to enter the kingdom of heaven. And so again, he's making the same point about the child that he made a little later when he was blessing the children.

He said, you know, becoming like a little child is important. Becoming like a child of God is extremely important. It actually has everything to do with conversion. Because all of us, if we have become a part of the church of God, we've become a part of God's church, well, then we've had to grow to a point of where we realized that God wants me to have faith in him. He wants me to repent of my sins, which, you know, takes a while.

We fully figure that out. And he wants me to, you know, to be baptized and to be a recipient of the Holy Spirit. I mean, that doesn't, that children are not baptized. We don't baptize children because that's not the place. That's not what God says should be done. And, you know, you see examples of people being baptized, and, you know, they're adults. They're adults who have come to realize their need for God and their need to be converted. Their need to change from being an adult. In essence, that's what we're really repenting of, or repenting of our sinful nature.

That is often very, we would say, mature. We might also describe it as salty, or a lot of other negative things that Satan injects into our world, and we identify with it, we pick up on it, we act on it, we follow it. And that's why God says we need to repent. That's why he says we need to be converted and become like little children.

So he says, unless you are converted and become like little children, or these children, this child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. In verse 4, he begins to elaborate on what he really means. He says, whoever becomes humble, like this child, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And so in direct answer to their question, who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God? He says, well, you need to become like this little child.

You need to seek humility, and that will cause you to be highly received in the kingdom of God. And he says in verse 5, whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. That was another statement, another lesson, another project for the adults, in this case even the disciples, to learn.

It almost seems like they hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to what's said here in chapter 18 when they get to chapter 19, because they're showing the kids away still. But Jesus had a great deal to teach, and clearly, we're told to be converted in several places. In Acts 3, 19, it says, Peter says to be converted and await the times of restitution of all things. So await the times when the whole world is going to be reformed. So we're encouraged to be converted, but here he directly says how it is that that conversion process takes place. It's become like a little child. Well, what qualities of a little child is Jesus talking about? Well, it's very clear he's talking about humility, and so that is certainly one of the things. I want to point out what William Barkley says in his study Bible. He has a section about this. I think it's very insightful. I think it helps us to see. It's not focused on any of the bad things that you might associate with disobedient children, because clearly, in this age, parents are not teaching children to respect and honor and respond, and for the most part, there's a lot of disobedience and a lot of disrespect and a lot of corruption. And of course, it doesn't take very long for that example and that behavior to become the norm. And of course, we don't want to do that. But Barkley points out four things about children that are extraordinary and that all of us should seek. The first one is, there is the child's humility. Now, Jesus clearly points this out. This is part of what we read in Matthew 18. Become humble like this little child, and you will be great in the kingdom of God. Barkley writes about this. He says there are some children who are kind of exhibitionists, you know, they're showing off or they're trying to gain attention to themselves.

But such a child is rare in almost always the product of misguided adult treatment. That's an amazing statement. You know, you see what children pick up on in this world and if their parents encourage it, you know, a certain amount of disdain for others. But he goes on to say ordinarily, though, a small child is embarrassed by prominence and publicity. Often you find a child being shy, being reluctant to go forward in many different situations. And that's what he's describing here as a child's humility. You know, normally, you know, they kind of draw back and especially if they're small, you know, they realize I'm very vulnerable. I was in two different stores yesterday and I'll tell you about the little kids I was watching. And one of them, a little boy, probably a year and a half, or he could walk around, and he was wandering around the front of the store. This was a grocery store and he was lost. He was, Mommy? Mommy? Mommy! He was starting to get concerned that he didn't know where Mommy was. And of course, the rest of us standing around here, where is Mommy? How come she's not? She was paying at the checkout stand and so she was trying to do that and then he had wandered off, not far. And he wasn't in any danger. And, you know, she, come on over here. So she was kind of embarrassed, I think. But it was obvious that he didn't like to be alone. He didn't like to be. He didn't like the attention. He was shy. He was glad to find Mommy and get over here and be with her because he was in need of that contact.

See, when you think of the child's humility, you...

Markla goes on to say, a child who might be shy or kind of reticent to go out and do things on their own, he has not yet learned to think in terms of place and pride and prestige. See, that's something we grow in, thinking in terms of who's ahead of whom, place and pride and prestige. See, that's just ultimately the way of the world. He's not yet learned to discover the importance of himself.

See, whenever adults are independent, and of course, we want every one of us to become independent.

We want each one of us to be able to be functional alone and not be dependent forever on our parents.

But in this case, he's just simply describing that, and clearly Jesus makes this statement that, you know, the child's humility is what would empower and what would enable and what would encourage greatness in the kingdom of God.

And so that's the first section that we might think about and be, I would say, perhaps asking God to give us that humility, because obviously that's something we should seek. The second one that Barkley mentions is that there is a child's obedience.

Now again, you can think of times when that didn't happen, you know, when disobedience occurred, and maybe direction or correction needed to be involved.

But he says, true, a child is often disobedient, but I think, especially in a very, very young child, they would desire to obey.

Again, he has not yet learned the pride and false independence that separate a man from his fellow men and from God.

See again, that is what separates us from God, is a pride, a certain level of arrogance that tends to be disobedient, tends to be self-reliant as opposed to dependent and reliant on God and obedient.

I again think of another little kid I saw yesterday in the library, and he was, you know, again, a couple of years old, and he was with his mother, and they were trying to check out books at the library.

And in the library I was in, the one that you can do this yourself, you know, you can just run it through the scanner, you can figure out how to do it, but his mother was taking the book and said, okay, you have to turn it like this, and then you have to put it right here, and then you hear, ding! And then you can set it off, and then that's checked out.

And so, you know, he was obedient, no, turn it the wrong way. No, I've got to turn it the right way, I've got to put it right here on the scale, I've got to wait for the light or the ding, and then I take it off and we're ready.

You know, he was very obediently following the process. He was trying to do exactly what he was supposed to, to please his parent.

And to get the job done, get out to the car, I guess, and start looking at the book.

See, that's, again, when we think of obedience, a child and the obedience that they should have toward their parents, toward a responsiveness toward someone who is showing them love and appreciation.

A responsiveness, of course, that is what God tells us to do.

The third thing that's mentioned is there is the child's trust.

The child does have, especially, again, a very small child, they have trust of their parents.

And this is seen in two ways. One, it's seen in the child's acceptance of authority.

There is a time when he thinks his father knows everything, and that his father is always right.

That's something that a very young child has.

Of course, to our shame, he soon grows out of that.

But instinctively, a child realizes his own ignorance, his own helplessness, and trusts the one who he thinks knows.

See, now that again, that can apply to us as the trust.

Do we trust ourselves, our own knowledge or our own abilities, or do we trust our Heavenly Father to guide us and direct us in clearly accepting their authority?

That's what the whole process and conversion is about, of coming to understand that the carnal mind is enmity. It's in hostility to God and his laws.

And whenever we make a transition from that, we understand that, we repent of that, we hate that.

Well, then we seek, well, how much can I get in line with God?

How much can I relate to God out of respect and out of love? But that involves trust. Another way a child has trust is that a child often has confidence in other people, not just in their parents, but in other people. He does not expect any person to be bad.

He'll make friends with a perfect stranger. See, that's what often occurs. You know, it may not be a great thing to do in this age, but yet that is the way a child can be.

Sometimes his trust may lead him into danger for those who are not totally unworthy of it and who abuse it, but that trust is a lovely thing. That's what, again, Barkley is writing about.

He's mentioned the humility, he's mentioned the obedience, he's mentioned the trust.

He's accepting the authority of the parent and trusting others, not feeling distrustful or not feeling that they have anything to be worried about.

The last thing he mentions here, I guess I really had to identify with this, a child has a short memory.

I'm identifying with this more and more every year. I have a shorter and shorter memory. And yet, whenever he mentions this, he's pointing out that the child has not yet learned to bear grudges and nourish bitterness.

Isn't that too bad that that's pretty much an adult thing? To bear grudges and to nourish bitterness.

See, having a short memory, and our kids stop by the house a few weeks before the feast, the ones that live in Texas, they came by and Naomi and Leo were there.

Leo's about three to four. He seems to be a sensitive little guy.

Naomi was playing in a chair. Actually, we have a rocker. No, it's not a rocker, it's a recliner in one part of the living room.

Naomi was sitting in this chair, and she had it leaned back as far as it would go. Of course, that's what you do in a recliner.

And then Leo got up behind it, and he got on it, and of course it flipped it all the way over.

And, of course, Naomi was probably a little bigger, so she wasn't too concerned, but Leo was just crushed.

I can't believe this! He runs out back in the bedroom, and I thought, oh no, nobody was hurt, didn't look like, and everything was okay.

When you flip it back up. But when I went up to talk to him, or I went up to just see where he went, he was in the corner, kind of hiding, because he felt bad, or maybe he was embarrassed, or he knew that he had done something that he probably shouldn't have done, but he did.

And so I just held him for a little bit, and I said, it's okay. You didn't get hurt, and Naomi didn't get hurt, and everything's fine.

And then Naomi came up, and I think she had done this many times before, because she would talk to him and tell him, no, it's alright.

You know, I actually thought that was fun. It didn't hurt me at all. I thought it was fun. She's kind of talking to him and trying to get him to realize, well, that was okay.

And so even though he was crushed at the moment, then I can't remember whether Leo brought it up or Naomi brought it up. Let's play hide and seek. And from then on, you know, everything is forgotten. Never think of this again. All of a sudden we are engaged in running through the house and playing hide and seek and trying to see where you can actually hide.

See, a child's short memory keeps them from bearing grudges and nourishing bitterness. See, that's good for us. We don't want to bear grudges. We don't want to sink into bitterness, as we mentioned last time.

So I thought those four things that Barkley mentions are really very applicable. Very applicable to seeing what was Jesus talking about. Was he referring to being immature, being childish? Well, no. He was talking about being childlike in these areas of humility and obedience and trust and not bearing a grudge toward others.

So we can ask ourselves, how do we stack up? How do we stack up in these tremendously important areas of Christian growth? Because those are all areas of growing.

In 1 Corinthians 14, verse 20, Paul's talking about the spiritual gifts that the congregation may have.

And of course, he explains how they should be properly used. But he says in verse 20, 1 Corinthians 14, 20, 11, don't be children in your thinking. Rather be children. Be infants in evil. But in thinking, be adults. I know the King James words that a little bit differently, but he's pointing out, be infants as far as evil goes.

And think in a way that would be uplifting and positive and encouraging. And of course, I think it is important for us to think about how do we as a child or in a childlike manner relate to our Heavenly Father?

Do we seek a humility that God says He willingly accepts? See, He says God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. That's what you find written numerous times, several times at least in the Bible. It's clear that that's what God seeks in us as adults.

Are we willingly obedient from the heart? Because that's, again, the way a little child can often be. Do we have the trust, accepting God's authority and His rule in our lives? Actually, in understanding that, we realize our helplessness. On our own, we're helpless.

We don't like to feel helpless, but we are in many ways. And we want to be resourceful, we want to be adult, but a child's trust is a part of what we want. As far as even having confidence in others or not being fearful of others, do we look for the best in others? Or do we find flaws? The difference between a fault finder and a good finder. Finding good, finding positive things, thinking on the interests of others is the way you see described the love of God. And finally, having a short memory, not bearing grudges, not getting bitter. I think those involve an understanding of forgiveness. Willingness to be forgiving because we so much see our need to be forgiven. If we don't understand our need to be forgiven, then we're not very forgiving. It's almost a proportional thing. The better we understand our need for forgiveness, recognizing our limitations and flaws, the more that we will desire to be forgiving toward others. Jesus gave here in these few examples that we go over year to year, but we want to be reminded of them because he makes it pretty important. If we're going to be a part of the kingdom of God, then we're going to be converted and take on these childlike qualities that are revealed in the word of God. And of course, we're going to enter the kingdom of God like a little child. If we seek those characteristics in Romans 8, God looks upon us. He looks upon us, I think, very lovingly, very kindly. He knows that we have flaws. He knows that we mess up, but He always wants us to come back. He wants us to have a rapport with Him like a little child would their parent. And of course, here in Romans 8, verse 18, Paul says, I consider the suffering of this age not worthy to be compared with the glory that's about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. The whole creation awaits the time when we can be a part of the kingdom of God, where we can be the children of God who become the kings and priests and judges and teachers and servants that God wants us to be as He continues to expand His family, bringing more and more and more sons and daughters to glory. That's His purpose. That's what He wants. And that, of course, I think is why Jesus says that if we are going to enter the kingdom of God, we want to do that by becoming like a little child.