Seeing Ourselves as Children

by Sam Hendrix

Sermon Transcription

first preached on July 19, 1992;

revised for Sept. 10, 1995

Auburn, Alabama

Reading: Matthew 18:1-5

In our reading, Jesus uses the example of a child to explain to His disciples the frame of mind one must have to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus probably surprised His disciples and the others who had gathered around to hear His spiritual teaching. We don’t know the age of this youngster, but no doubt, few in that audience would have felt that a child had any business being part of this gathering. They were there for some serious instruction from the acclaimed master teacher. They were having difficulty understanding, so certainly no child would comprehend what Jesus was telling them, and no child would be interested.

Yet, Jesus told them that unless they became like that child, they would not be fit for God’s service. Just what did He mean by this? It has much to do with attitude, humbleness, devotion, and even our capacity to become excited about and dedicated to a cause.  We will explore this passage and hopefully come to some conclusions for ourselves a bit later.

The instruction Jesus gave – that we must become like children – probably puzzles us to some extent. Whatever it is Jesus is saying here should be of keen interest to us. At the heart of Jesus’ teaching – both in this passage and in many others – is a lesson about our relationship to God. We typically think of this relationship in terms of our doing what God commands of us, and this is appropriate. But let’s think for a minute about the other direction in this relationship: God’s relationship to us.

I think there may not be a more enlightening place for us to learn of God’s relationship to us than in the 139th Psalm. I want to read the first 14 verses …

Think of the words of verse 14: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” We sometimes comment on the wonders of creation, the aspects of our universe that astronomers continue to discover. We look to the heavens and we see evidence for divine generation. We praise God for His creation of the world, for its plants and animals, for its capability to sustain life despite man’s actions that harm the environment. Far too infrequently do we take a look at ourselves to see the greatest of God’s creations, at least that we know about: that of human life.

I will share with you some facts I discovered in a book from the library. These facts from human discovery attest to the greatness of our Creator.

1. In the second chapter of Genesis, we are told that God created man in His image, but out of the dust of the earth. Science confirms this. The 20 or so common elements that compose the human body are all found in the earth’s dry dust. But God’s design of the body is almost incomprehensible to us. In the body, these 20 elements are combined in so many different ways that a human is actually made up of thousands upon thousands of complex chemical compounds.

2. Further evidence of God’s incredible handiwork: the adult human body contains around 100 trillion cells. Each has an assigned place to occupy and a specific role to play. To demonstrate how different they are, cells in the lining of the intestine die after a day or so. Nerve cells can live 100 years. These nerve cells can carry messages at speeds approaching 325 miles per hour.

3. Because of the ongoing death and regeneration of cells, people completely change their outer skin about every 27 days. This means 1,000 or so new skins in an average lifetime.

4. A single drop of blood contains 250 million blood cells.

5. Every cell is thought to contain up to 6 feet of DNA, which adds up to 17 billion miles in the whole body.

6. DNA molecules – which we might describe either as the genetic stuff of life or as a supporting actor in the OJ trial – bend and twist 1 billion times every second. If all of one’s DNA material in its trillions of cells could be unraveled, it would stretch from earth to the sun and back 1,000 times.

7. One person’s brain can store 100 trillion bits of information, including adding 86 million bits of info each day. The brain’s electrical circuitry alone is 1,400 times more complex than any global telephone network. Each second, your brain forms 100,000 different chemical reactions which in turn create thoughts, emotions and actions. Think of the mental workout you’ve had so far, and I’m only on page 4.

8. Our reasoning capabilities are courtesy of the network of trillions of cross-linked neural connections.

Psalm 73 verse 26 says, “God is the strength of my heart.” And in Proverbs 4:23 we read, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” The context in each of these verses suggests the heart as the emotional center of a person. In a sense, these verses refer to one’s mind. But a literal interpretation here is also valid, particularly since heart disease is the nation’s leading killer.

Your heart is amazing. At 70 beats per minute, the human heart beats 100,000 times per day, pumping 1,800 gallons of blood every day through the body’s 60,000 miles of blood vessels. If you live to be 100, your heart will beat 4 billion times and pump more than 600,000 tons of blood.

Again recalling the words of Genesis 2 and verse 7, God breathed into man the breath of life. Each day we breathe in and out more than 5,000 gallons of air. Taking a breath is something we almost never think about, at least until it becomes difficult to do. It is, however, part of a complex system that keeps us alive. This system of breathing is yet another gift from God and evidence that His creation was, in our own way of thinking, a tremendous accomplishment of design that certainly could not have happened by chance.

Our bodies were designed to resist and fight disease … to counter the millions of bacteria that remain on our skin and inside us at all times … to regulate temperature whether we are in the tropics or at the arctic … and to tell us when we are tired, hungry, scared, amused, enlightened, exhilarated or, dare I say it, bored.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. More than that, as we know from Genesis 1:26, man was created in the image of God, according to His likeness.

What does all this tell us, then, about God’s relationship to us? Obviously, He went to great effort, at least to our standards, to create man. If anyone ever feels he or she is without a friend or is otherwise alone in the world, they should review the words of Psalm 139:

“How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them.” In verse 17, “If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand.”

The Psalmist here relates that God knows and loves the individual before birth and during all the times of life. How much does God love us?John 3:16 tells us He loved the people of the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son, who in turn gave up His perfect life on the cross for every one of us.

God cares enough to know where we are, what we’re thinking, what we’re going to say and do. He is a full partner in our existence, and in essence, He regards us all as His children.

I have a 4-year-old daughter, and I remember when my wife was just a few months along and we were beginning to feel the baby kick and move around. That was a weird feeling. All parents can describe that feeling as “fearful and wonderful.”

Even before her first appearance on ultrasound, I knew who it was because that was my baby girl. I used to talk to her. I’d say, “Pedro, this is daddy. We’re going to go to some ballgames.”

After she was born, I think I came to understand Psalm 139 a little better. I knew her in ways she didn’t yet know. And, God knows us in ways we don’t even know. All those fun science facts that some very bright people have discovered over hundreds of years of study … God’s the One Who designed us to be like that, and undoubtedly there’s much more to learn about that design.

Paul in Romans the 8th chapter writes, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may be glorified with Him.”

Paul was writing specifically about Christians.

As we remember from our earlier reading in Matthew, Jesus said we must become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. What did He mean? Children, at least theoretically, are innocent and pure. Until they learn differently, they fear and respect authority. They offer their love unconditionally. They are trusting. They get excited about things. They continually make their requests known. They are dependent, calling on their parents for what they need. They want to do good. They put all their energy into things.

As we grow out of childhood, we become less giving, less loving, less respectful of authority. We lose some of our hope and innocence. We still want to do good, but only for ourselves usually. Our present society is the result of mass selfishness and a lack of interest in spiritual matters. Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” If we consider that verse, then we must conclude that our world as a whole doesn’t have a lot of knowledge of what’s truly important and eternally significant. And that includes – sadly – many of the very scientists who discovered the tremendous facts earlier noted. It certainly describes the varied aspects of the media, and such a lack of knowledge pervades the local as well as every other university campus.

The pervading attitude is one of man as the sole determining agent in his present and future state. This attitude is not new. It had even crept into the lives of the followers of Jesus in the First Century, even as recorded in Matthew 18, where our reading took place.

In Matthew 18 verse 1, Jesus is asked of His disciples, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

At this time, the disciples turn their thoughts to the kingdom Jesus was to set up. Like most of us who are not medical doctors and who do not fully understand our own bodies, the disciples did not understand the nature of the kingdom. They believed it was to be an earthly kingdom that, upon Jesus’ death, would still be carried on by someone else. They expected royal splendor and that their race, the Jews, would reign supreme over all other nations. They likened it to the kingdoms of their day, with various high offices available to chosen ones, such as themselves. Who would be treasurer? Who would be governor? Who would be prime minister? Who, Jesus, is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

To demonstrate how they needed to adjust their understanding of the nature of the kingdom Jesus called over this little child for all to see. For obvious reasons, even many years later, the gospel writer does not mention who this child was. That is part of the teaching. Had this been the son or daughter of a prominent person, then the disciples would still have thought in terms of an earthly political kingdom. But this was an anonymous, randomly selected child, about whom nothing was ever again recorded.

Jesus tells them, “Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

This put the responsibility on them. They would not be sitting in some adobe high rise with a view of the Mount of Olives and a company camel. Instead, they had the opportunity to change their lives to become fit subjects for His eternal kingdom. As did those attending Peter’s sermon on Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, when they were told to “repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, every one of you, in the name of Jesus.” As we today have that opportunity, for God loves us and has mercifully spared us yet another occasion to turn to Him.

Jesus tells them to turn. But how? “And become as little children.”

Children are free from ambition because they have not yet encountered it. Jesus tells His disciples – who moments before had asked about who is greatest in the kingdom – to lose those ambitions. He asks them to trust Him, even though they clearly did not yet understand the nature of His mission.

“Whoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says in verse 4. He asks them to obey Him in humility. First Peter 5:5 says, “For God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”

So we are left with a new standard of greatness. The greatest in the sight of God are those who are the most humble and obedient. They are the most like Christ in service to God and to man.

If we are to be God’s children, we are to obey Him. What then shall we do? Peter asks essentially the same question in 2nd Peter 3:10-11: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat. And the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?”

So despite how amazed we may be with the wonders of life and with the incredibly complex creations of God that we see and read about, we know that some day He will destroy the earth and everything in it. The reason is, He has something greater planned.

I’ll offer a few suggestions on the question Peter asks: what manner of persons ought ye to be?

Paul in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians urges followers to be steadfast. Here’s what he says: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”

To be steadfast means simply to be steady, unchanging. Paul encourages the Corinthian Christians – and us today – to be steady and consistent in our work for the Lord.

We should be forgiving. Jesus in Matthew 6 and verse 12, in His model prayer, tells us we should ask God’s forgiveness even as we are willing to forgive others when they do us wrong.

We should be concerned for others’ souls. Jesus said in Matthew 28:19-20 that we are to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that He had commanded. And we should remember that God calls all people to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), not just the wealthy, the pretty, the popular, and the ones we know, though they are included too.

We should be willing to make sacrifices in our own lives for God. Jesus gave up His life so we could all have an opportunity to take part in God’s plan of salvation. Many Christians in the First Century gave up their lives rather than compromise their commitment to the Lord.

Paul in Romans 12:1 urges those Christians at Rome in the First Century to “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship.” Many of them were compelled to do just that under Roman rulers, and we should be encouraged, strengthened and motivated today, several hundred years later, by our Christian ancestors to live righteously and to offer ourselves as sacrifices to God every day. We should strive to be like Enoch of the Old Testament, about whom it was written, “Enoch walked with God.”

There are many other ways of describing how a Christian should act and livek, but we might simply summarize by going back to that child Jesus used in an illustration in the 18th chapter of Matthew.

Jesus said we must become like this child in order to be fit for the kingdom of God. Despite our complexities of body and mind, despite our sophistication and our worldliness, we must learn to be God’s children: humble, obedient and dedicated to a cause that is ageless, timeless and very different from everything else we encounter in this world.

To be like this child, we must obey the commands of the Father. God tells us in His word to believe. In Hebrews 11:6, we read that “he who comes to God must believe that He is …” In Mark 16:16 we learn that “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”

To come to God and be one of His children, one must repent, turn from man’s natural sinful ways to a life of obedience to God. " Jesus said to a crowd of people in Luke 13: 3, “unless you repent, you will all … perish.” That warning stands for us today.

Once a Christian, we are to remain faithful. Of course, we are still human, frail, weak, tempted every day to stray from the path God has set for us. Thankfully, in 1 John 2:1, we learn that “if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father,” and that advocate is Jesus.