The Rock and the Hard Place – Part 4
What Happened To Our Childlike Faith?
Scriptures: Mark 10:13-16; Matthew 18:3-4
Introduction:
Today is our Youth Sunday and while I normally do not deliver the message on the 4th Sunday, I told Rev. Anthony that I would today as he is still recovering from helping Rev. Cynthia cover for me during my absence.
As you are aware, I have been doing a series on faith and believing that I’ve titled “The Rock and the Hard Place.” My original plans were to continue the series with part three on the mustard seed. That message is written and ready to be delivered, but God has changed things around. This message, which I must title “Part 4” of the series is being delivered out of order because God gave me the message yesterday afternoon specifically for this youth Sunday. The message you will hear this morning was not a part of the original outline. It is about our early faith and belief, how we have changed since childhood. It will not provide all of the answers, but focuses on the question in hope that you will be able to discover your answer individually. This is the question that I want you to consider this morning: “What happened to your childlike faith?” I can ask this question to everyone but only you can provide the answer for you. I will speak briefly to my understanding of my situation and I hope that what you hear this morning will enable you to examine yourselves.
I. What Is Childlike Faith?
Turn with me to Mark 10:13-16. It reads “And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, ‘Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.’ And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.”
When the disciples noticed that people were bringing their children to Jesus so that He could bless them, they rebuked the people. Think about it from their viewpoint – here was their Master, the Son of God, who was carrying the weight of the world on His shoulders being asked to bless some little children! REALLY? Their Master had much more important things to do than be bothered with a bunch of kids. When Jesus saw what they were doing He became indignant and taught them a valuable lesson. He told them to let the children come and not to hinder them because the kingdom of God belonged to such as these. He finished by saying if the people did not accept the kingdom of God like a child, they would not get in at all. He was talking about a child’s like faith, believing without the proof. For those of you who have been around small children you know exactly what I am talking about. For our youth, I especially want you to grab hold of that faith you currently have (the childlike faith) which can begin to slip away from you as you continue to get older. Grab it and hold on to it because it will be hard to return to this point. I will share more on this momentarily.
For those of you who have seen the movie “Peter Pan” that came out in the early nineties with Robin Williams playing the role of Peter Pan, you will understand what I’m about to share as it relates to the attributes of a child. In the remake of this Disney classic, Peter Pan (Robin Williams) had left Never Never Land and had grown up. He was married with two children and was burdened by the cares of the world – in this case his job. When Captain Hook stole his kids and took them to Never Never Land in order to get him to return for a final battle, Peter Pan was totally out of sorts as he had forgotten what it was like to be a child with an imagination. However, the longer he was there, the more he became more childlike. By the end, he remembered what it meant to be “like a child” even though he was a grownup. If you have not seen this movie, I would recommend it. Now consider if you will these attributes of a child:
1. Children are honest and transparent. I am not saying that they will not lie or try to deceive, but in general, small children tend to tell it like it is. As adults we must be careful with the questions we ask a child because not only may we not like the answer, but we can potentially get our feeling hurt. If you ask a child “Do I look fat?” don’t be surprised or angry at the child if they answer in the affirmative. If they think you look fat, they will tell you the truth because that’s what they think. The filters have not been activated in their minds that by telling you the truth your feelings could get hurt. They tell you the answer to your question without considering how that answer will impact you. For them, it’s just an answer. They are not worried about what others will think or about what everyone else is doing. They are not self-conscious. They say what they think and keep on going.
2. Children are trusting. Let me clarify this because this is a lesson (not to be so trusting) that we have to forcefully teach our kids to protect them in this world from those who would prey upon their trusting nature. Because children tend to be honest and transparent, in their minds they believe that others are the same. They tend to believe what others tell them. For example, a friend of mine told me the story of her birthday which fell on a national holiday and she grew up thinking the nation was celebrating her birthday (I love that story.) She told me she believed this for years. Why? Because it was told to her during a time when she trusted the source without question. Think about how children believe in Santa Clause, the Easter bunny, and the tooth fairy. Children responds to what they are being told based on how they see the world in their mind. If it makes sense to them and it is something they can understand and believe, they will believe and accept the information especially if it is coming from someone they trust. In their small minds they believe everyone does what they do, speak the truth.
3. Children are curious. Children see the world with a sense of wonder. If they see a cockroach they might go and pick it up to see what it’s about. For them it is a curiosity versus something that needs smashing. They see amazement in things that we take for granted because we have grown up into mature adults who are no longer gullible. To children, the world is full of surprises, full of things that they don’t understand. Because they do not understand everything, they are frequently and easily lost in wonder of the world around them.
4. Children are generous. Yes I know we all have experienced kids who are extremely selfish, but in general, younger kids are more generous and freely giving than older kids. I remember once when I was a child, I got into an argument with my older brother over a crayon. Barry is four years older than me so of course he could color and use crayons much better than I could at the time. I would use mine until it was flat on top while Barry would turn his from time to time to that his always had a point. Well on this occasion I accused Barry of taking mine even though anyone could see that this was not the case. Barry’s box of crayons all had points while all of mine were flat so he could have easily won the argument if we took it to our parents. Barry, however, being the gentle soul that he was at the time said “Ok, take this one and I will take the one you have.” So I felt good because I had the better crayon. You know what happened? Within ten minutes I wanted my “other” crayon back because the one I just got from him was all flat at the top and amazingly the one he had gotten from me was now nice and pointy. I won’t tell you what happened after that but needless to say I had to keep the one that I had. My point with this is that my brother could have easily argued with me and made me keep the original crayon. But it was not an issue for him because he was old enough to see that he could still use the one that I thought was worn out. He expressed a type of generosity that adults do not express because we are adults. Adult tend to look out for themselves and not be willing to make allowances for the failures of others. When you read further down in this chapter that is a story about a rich man who asked Jesus what must he do to inherit eternal life. When Jesus told him to give everything that he had to the poor and follow Him, the man went away sad because he had a lot of possessions and could not vision himself giving it all away and being poor. He could not express the generosity that Jesus was requesting of him.
A childlike faith is a type of faith that is rooted in honesty and the ability to be transparent before God. This level of honesty/transparency enables a person to accept what God is offering us (salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ) openly and without suspicion. A childlike faith trust God; is curious about Him and His will for their life and are generous. These four attributes of a child is what helps us to believe in and accept Christ as a child but it is also what causes us to question God as we get older. So what happened? What happened to us as we got older and began to modify these attributes that were so important to our childhood?
II. What Happened To Our Childlike Faith?
As I have been working on “The Rock and the Hard Place” series, I have begun to ask questions of myself as it relates to my faith. You see, when I was a child, one of the first songs that I learned in Church was “Yes, Jesus Loves Me.” All of us know this song and sung it many times as a child. But why is it that we do not sing the song as an adult? That song is labeled as a “children’s song” but it applies to everyone. Is it because the verses are so simple? “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little one to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong. Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me, for the Bible tells me so.” I think the reason we do not sing this song as adults is because it confesses that the children are weak but Jesus is strong. It is okay for us to see children as being weak and needing Jesus, but we do not want to see that in reference to us as adults. Are we not weak also? I grew up in Church believing that it meant something to be called a Christian. I grew up believing that God loved me and no matter what, I was in His hands.
Remember the other children’s song “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” that we used to sing? The one thing that these two songs have in common is the theme of dependency upon Jesus. Kids are okay being dependent as children, but it is within us to become independent as adults. As I started getting older and dealing with life’s issues, those simple songs did not carry the same truth (remember I was growing up and was putting aside the child like things to accept the responsibilities of being an adult.) I was force to see the world with a different set of lenses and I began to filter what I believed about God through those lenses. You see, I had become “independent.” I was like Hermey the elf in the story of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. He was not like all the other little elves and set out on his own to be “independent.” We teach our kids to be independent because we do not want them to be dependent on us for the rest of their lives. However, and this is a big however, God never designed us to be independent of Him! We were not designed to walk our own path with His guidance. We were not designed to have God operate behind us versus walking and leading in front of us.
What happened to my childlike faith? I became independent. I began to think I needed more to believe than just accept what God has said.
Conclusion
What happened to your childlike faith? When Jesus rebuked the disciples, He said that the kingdom of God belonged to such as these. He was not talking about just those kids, He was talking about the way in which kids think and receive. He was talking about how we should respond to his invitation just like a child would respond when given a gift. We must recognize that salvation is a gift. We cannot earn it, work for it, apply for it and get approved like we would a credit card. It is a gift. To receive this gift like a child means that we recognize that we did nothing to earn salvation but it is truly by the grace of God.
We must also be humble. We cannot come into God’s kingdom with a bunch of pride. Most children are humble until adults fill them with pride. We begin to tell them how wonderful they are and because they are children and they are willing to believe, they accept that feedback and begin to see themselves as wonderful. The eighteenth chapter of Matthew records the incident when Jesus was asked by His disciples who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus, after calling a little child to Himself said “….Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3-4) The Bible tells us that pride goes before a fall and this is because our pride puts us in opposition to God. This is a hard lesson to learn in our society.
Finally we must be dependent and submissive to His will. Matthew 6:33 tells us that when we seek God and His righteousness first, everything else that we need will be added to us. Our first course of action is to seek God, not financial wealth, relationships, etc. When we put Him first, everything else is taken care of. When we seek Him first we are displaying our dependence on Him. After we become dependent, we must become submissive. Two cannot be in control at the same time. In one of the later messages in this series I will talk about the signs people used to have on their cars that said “God is my Co-pilot.” My brother and I worked through some thoughts on this one, but suffice it to say that if God is your Co-pilot, He is not calling the shots, you are. More on that later.
As I close this morning, I want to ask you again, “What happened to your childlike faith?” It helped you to accept Christ in the beginning, but is it helping you sustain your relationship now? If you’re between a rock and a hard place right now, your “learned, adjusted, adult” faith might not be enough to get you through. You might need to go back to your roots and believe because the Bible told you so. Don’t question, just believe.
Young people, you have time now to believe things about God without question. As you continue to grow, the world is going to attack your ability to maintain what you believe by asking you to prove it. They will ask you to rationalize it so that it can be explained. You cannot explain faith in God to the satisfaction of someone who refuses to accept it. Please take the time now to make sure you know what you know. Don’t just listen to what the adults are telling you, go to God yourself. He will speak to you. He will provide you answers. Learn to hear His voice now so that when you are our age you will know His voice and you will know when He is speaking. You might not get it right every single time but you will be growing. And praise God when you experience your rock and a hard place times, you will stand on the rock. More on that later too.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
