Luke 18:15-17 (Lets stand for the reading of God’s Word)
15 Then they also brought infants to Him that He might touch them; but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. 16 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. 17 Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”
Kids – There’s something so amazing and wonderous about children
There’s also something that tests your patience almost everyday. Lol
If you have children, may the odds be ever in your favor, if you don’t have children, you are more then welcome to take mine for a day
I was once a child – we all were. We all started out super small. Not even seeable
Even Jesus was born into this world just like us
There’s a couple of things that I want to touch on in this passage. One is the actual text and two – what happens when God touches something small
Point One: Receive the Kingdom of God like a child
I know what you’re thinking – how do I do that?
I want to try to explain what this means, and it’s a concept that as an adult, or even a late teen that is hard to grasp and understand
I love how Jesus challenges us to humble ourselves to have the mindset of a child when it comes to receiving the kingdom of God
I can remember when I was a kid and early on, from when I remember until I was about 11 or 12 years of age I had no worries
My meals were provided for me, the roof over my head was provided for me, clothes were provided for me, the bills were taken care of, I played and I was never in need for anything
There’s a parallel in what Jesus is saying – what if we received God’s kingdom with that same faith as a child has?
Never worrying about how God was going to provide and just know that it was handled? Do you think we would look at our lives differently? You think that we would handle ourselves differently?
There’s a trust that children have
If there’s a spider, guess who my son calls out for? Me, because if he called out to his mother, she would scream and ask me to come kill the spider anyways
If my son needs a drink, who does he put his hope in for that drink? His parents
If he needs a change of clothes, who does he count on for that?
If he fell down and scraped his knee, who does he look towards for love, compassion, help and someone to wipe his tears and make it all better – his parents
There’s a trust that children have that can’t be matched – a pure faith
I hope my son can look at me with that trust and faith for the rest of my life
Except there’s one thing that God has over me
He doesn’t fail – We on the other hand as parents fail our kids
We have to ask for forgiveness just hoping they look at us the same way as they did before
1 Corinthians 13:11
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
This is a verse I turn to a lot in my walk – I’m a man! I’m not a child! I walk like a man, I talk like a man and I gave up childish ways.
It’s a verse that’s needed – sometimes we as believers have been walking as children and not moving forward even though we have been a Christ follower for years and years
To our detriment, it has kept us in an infant state because we have either been scared to not move forward, or we’re too comfortable with our lives and walks to be anything but burdens on our pastors or overseers
I’ve been there, I have been a baby Christian and it’s fun for a while, but the Holy Spirit starts to hinder your baby state
Who here believes that when God has something for you and sees you staying in your infancy, He starts to shake your life and things start to get uncomfortable?
You start to buck against the goads
Can I tell you that Jesus is not opposed to knocking you off your infant horse when you aren’t listening?
ACTS 26:14-15
14 And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language,[a] ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ 15 And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
Sometimes it takes a reckoning to wake us up. – Paul was never the same after this
I can remember many times where Jesus pushed me out of my infant bird nest so that I grow
When a mother is starting to give birth to her baby, something starts to change in her body
The body makes the baby uncomfortable, it makes the baby start to move and twist and turn and prepares this baby for birth
The food source changes – its no longer an umbilical chord, it’s milk from the mother, or from the bottle
We as Christ followers aren’t supposed to stay children in the Lord
We can’t, and the Holy Spirit will make that known
Anything stopping us from moving forward to adulthood in the Lord is an excuse that we are tolerating and not dealing with
The only place that the Lord is okay with us staying like children is how we receive the kingdom of God
He wants us full of wonder, full of faith, worry free
Jesus isn’t frustrated with small things, including our faith
Does he want us to have more faith, sure, but that never hinders God’s power
Brings me to my second point
Point two: God Uses Small Things
Can you bring up the title slide please?
When God touches something small
1 Corinthians 1:27
27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
Why does God use small things?
Because He wants to show this world that when He touches something small, amazing things happen and it’s because of His power, not anyone else’s
Let’s look at the track record of God using small things
He used a boy to slay a giant, and with a sling a small stone to boot! That’s a twofer
He used a jawbone of a donkey and one dude slayed a 1000 men
He used Moses’ staff to do signs and wonders
He used a handful or flour in a bowl and little oil to feed a mother, her child and a prophet for weeks
He used 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish to feed thousands
Gideon and 300 men were used to slay thousands of enemies in one battle
Rahab used a piece of red rope and it saved her entire family from destruction
A lego piece that is left in your walkway and you accidently step on it – the sheer gravity of pain is of child birth lol
There’s so many stories that I could spend the next 50 sermons showing God’s power in what He can do with the small things
I think that sometimes we as Christians can hinder what God is doing by disregarding the small details or the ambiguity or uncertainty of what God can do with small things.
We cast doubt, we hinder those small beginnings because we have lost the ability to wonder in a child like faith
The is nothing so small that God doesn’t care about it
Let’s read this story in Mark
Mark 12:41-44
The Widow’s Offering
41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.[f] 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
She offered God a penny. It was small, but it moved the heart of God because it was all she had.
I can tell you this, there’s been times that I haven’t given my small gift, or small amount to God because I’ll been ashamed it wasn’t more.
Don’t ever let the enemy tell you that you aren’t important enough, or that your gift isn’t big enough, or that your small offering isn’t needed
When God touches small things, they are turned into big things, because of His power
When you give, God is looking at your heart – not how much you gave, not how holy you looked when you gave, not that you had it all together
There’s an obedience factor that plays in our giving
1 Samuel 15:20-23
20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 And Samuel said,“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”
When we are giving things to the Lord, we need to make sure we are obeying Him. He’s looking for obedience rather than what we are trying to sacrifice
Presumption or the words “I thought” are some of the worst excuses we can bring before the Lord
I thought that my gift was too small, so I didn’t give it
I thought since all I could do was wash the windows it wasn’t enough, so I didn’t
I thought there’s enough people giving their time, so I didn’t give mine
I thought that God doesn’t need little ole me
I thought, it’s only a penny – God doesn’t need a penny
Obedience isn’t about what you bring, it’s about who shows up
The one’s that answers the call of God on their lives are the one’s that change the world
Why? Cause when God uses your little, big things happen
Luke 18:15-17
15 Then they also brought infants to Him that He might touch them; but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. 16 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. 17 Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”
I’m not trying to drum up some crazy formula with this passage, but it has opened my eyes to a lot of things that I stifle in my own walk
Point Three: It’s a pride thing
Last week we talked in-depth about Pride
We talked about how the Pharisee was full of pride and even offered pride to the Lord when he came to the temple
We talked about satan and how he was the big pride monster and how he was kicked out of heaven as fast a lightning because of his pride
We can look at this scripture and see that even the disciples had good intentions, but it was just another form of assumption that is full of iniquity and idolatry
Assuming something small to be a nuisance or inconvenience isn’t always the case
Look at flys – They are a nuisance
Look at your children – they are small too, and sometime God uses them to bring about a whole other level of learning because they can be annoying lol
That’s also another area of pride
I still am learning lessons from my son about love, patience and the simplicity of fun
We have to remember that there’s a time a season for things in our lives and not to look down on small beginnings
We can’t afford to let our feelings get in the way of obedience to the Lord
We can be led astray so much by what we feel, that it will get us out of the will of God in an instant
When God wrote His word, He didn’t have your feelings taken into effect, He had your best in mind
This is going to rub people the wrong way, but I’m going to be obedient and say it
God doesn’t care about your feelings
There’s nothing in the bible that points to God caring about your feelings
On the contrary – The word of God tells us that God cares so much about us that He sent his one and only son Jesus to die for us so that we might live with Him for all eternity
He loves us more than anyone could ever love us
He knows the number of hairs on our heads
He knows what makes our hearts soar, and He even cares about the desires of our hearts as long as they aren’t wicked
But our feelings aren’t on His list, why? Because they betray us
They aren’t always great
In fact, they can be anti-God’s will
That’s why we must guard our hearts and minds
So many Christians come to church and they leave that church due to one thing
Their “feelings” got hurt because the pastor preached truth from the word of God
Or because the Pastor didn’t hug them one Sunday
Or they thought of themselves more highly than they thought and didn’t get the attention they thought they deserved
Sorry, I know this is hitting some uncomfortable places
But it’s places that we need to venture into to overthrow and have victory
When a Pastor crosses the line just like King Saul did and is more worried about what his congregation is asking for or thinks is right – that’s when you leave and find a different church
IF the pastor ever starts to celebrate your sin instead of rebuking you for what you’re walking in – that’s when you find another church
If the pastor only preaches on the easy low hanging fruit about hope and love and chocolate and candies and fluffy bunnies, that’s when you find a new church
Sorry, I know I’m nagging on this, but it’s real, it happens all the time and it destroys churches
Why does it destroy churches, because that church is no longer a bible believing church, they are a “we made our own Jesus church” and they are no longer following the Jesus of the bible, so it’s no longer Christian, it’s morphed into an abomination.
This is something that’s hard to talk about, this is stuff that even Pastor Christian can’t always say or articulate due to how sensitive it is
I don’t say these things to shame anyone or put guilt on anyone, because I think our church is pretty solid in these things, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t happen and they do
And it all comes down to feelings
If you are ever wondering how your feelings check out, try reading God’s word and asking the Holy Spirit to align your feeling with God’s.
It’s a very humbling thing to do.
I know what some of you are thinking, how are we supposed to know what God is thinking or even feeling?
It all comes down to the “Helper” the Holy Spirit
We simply ask God to invade our space, our thoughts, our minds and our hearts through the Holy Spirit
Your mind starts to shift, and you start feeling things you have never had before
I can give you an example – I used to have the tough guy persona, didn’t cry at dumb things and I would push my feelings way down cause I was okay with not feeling, which I later learned, that’s actually a feeling
I remember praying when I was around 19 or 20 for the mind of Christ – for things that broker His heart to break mine, and wisdom to discern His thoughts with my heart so I could think and feel what He feels
It was a dangerous prayer – You know something in you starts to change when a commercial comes on and at the end of it you are tearing up like a big pansy lol
But it’s real!
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we will ever have the capacity to understand God, we may in heaven in our perfect bodies
I still have a long way to go, but once you ask for it and you start to open up your heart to receive it, the Holy Spirit makes it happen
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