Growing Smaller

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Don Filcek; Matthew 18:1-6 Growing Smaller

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Welcome to the
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YouTube video channel of Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. And this
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Sunday is Mother's Day, and I hope you enjoyed the chance to see some of those pictures, those porch photos that were taken this past week.
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Super cool to see faces and families there, and super cool that Ginger had the idea—encountered that idea—to go around and have some professional photographers take some pictures of families the last couple of weeks.
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Thank you for those of you that participated. I hope you enjoyed those pictures. It's good to see everyone. See some people with a little bit more facial hair, some people with some changed color in their hair, and some people with longer hair.
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We all know that this has been a different kind of time for us. Let me encourage you all to take the opportunity to honor your mother on this day if that's possible.
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If you can give her a call, hopefully you were able to send her something, or just do something to acknowledge her.
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I love it that we have a day set aside to be able to do that. I have to confess that—and I don't mean to be a
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Debbie Downer. It's just to share a little bit of my own heart. I confess that as a person who lost both of my parents early in life—my father passed away when
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I was eight, my mother when I was 22—and engaged to marry Linda. I find myself relating to some degree with those who find these holidays—Mother's
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Day, Father's Day—difficult for one reason or another in your life. But I can say this from this side of life where I'm at that as much as possible, you should seek to honor your mother and your father while you can.
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I don't mean to pour that on thick and sappy. I just encourage you as much as possible, if there's some reconciliation that needs to happen between you and Mom, that you take the time and the opportunity—maybe these seasons and these times, these days—set aside to seek some form of honor to your mom.
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So we're going to be picking up where we left off in the book of Matthew. I started preaching through Matthew here about seven or eight years ago, and then
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I've just used it as a placeholder in terms of easy to go in and out of.
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The book of Matthew has all of these great stories and accounts of the life of Jesus, his miracles, his teachings, just the way that he rolled.
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And I think it's very beneficial for us to pick that up from time to time and to allow our lives to be saturated and the history of our church to be saturated by the gospel of Matthew.
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And so that's been cool over these several years. And I don't mean to say at all that the gospel of Matthew is filler.
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It's rich, it's deep, and it has the power to transform us. And I think we're going to see that from the text this morning.
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But this morning, we're going to be in Matthew chapter 18. This is not a particular message to mothers. It's a message to the church at large, to all who would want to listen.
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By the way, the church at large includes mothers, so you are in my mind as well as I'm preaching this.
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But to all who would want to listen to the Word of God and hear what God desires to take in, this is for us. And so I'm not big into topical sermons, you know, three ways to become a better mom or five reasons your mom is the best mom or anything like that, because my experience trying to preach on topics is that I get in my mind an idea that I want to convey, and then
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I search through Scripture trying to find something that supports me. Well, that's a recipe for false teaching in a large degree, because at the end of the day,
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I look at the text. And by the way, I'm not saying that all topical preachers are teaching falsely. I just know my own heart, and I know the way that I get an idea in my mind, and then
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I look to support that where Scripture wants to set the agenda. Scripture wants to not just answer the questions, but it tells what questions to ask.
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And so I want to use Scripture in that way where we let Scripture dictate and drive, and that's why I preach through books of the
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Bible rather than shoehorning my own idea into the text. So this morning,
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God has us in a text that is loosely connected to mothers, at least. Jesus is going to use a child as an illustration.
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Where do children come from? Well, children come from mothers. Today is Mother's Day. Now, that was a pretty easy connection, right?
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Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. But before we get a chance to sing some songs in praise this morning, let's turn our minds to the way that God views greatness.
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Our text is all one conversation about who is greatest, and quite often the illustration
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Jesus uses to illustrate greatness hijacks the conversation until we lose the thread by the end.
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You see, what I'm getting at is that for years I thought that Jesus was teaching us about how we should interact with children, and you'll see why
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I thought that by the time we get to the end of the text. Maybe you would naturally read this that way too. But before we make this passage a slogan for a
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Recast Kids program, let's pay close attention to the question posed to Jesus so that we can then track his answer.
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The question is not, how should we treat children? That's not what the disciples asked.
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The disciples asked, who is greatest in the kingdom? And Jesus uses a child as an illustration to turn the world's view of greatness on its head.
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He's intentionally trying to correct and to rebuke our attitude and his disciples' attitude towards greatness.
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So let's open our Bibles or our devices to Matthew 18, verses 1 -6, and try your best to stick with the flow of the original question to see what
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Jesus is saying about greatness in his kingdom. Try to follow that as we dig in. Recast, this is
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God's precious and holy word, a powerful word that has the potential to transform us and change us, and really ought to change us where we see that we have a wayward and misunderstood view of greatness and recognize pride and arrogance in our own hearts.
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And so, God's holy and precious word, Matthew 18, 1 -6. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
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And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.
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But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word that is faithful to correct our misunderstandings.
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We are a people who strive after greatness. We long for fame.
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We long for accolades. We long to be the best at what we do and we strive to that end.
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So, Father, I thank you that you're willing to bring a message down to our level and even illustrating it with a child and showing us what we really are and what greatness looks like in your kingdom, a humility, a dependence.
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Father, I pray that you would speak through me in this message with accuracy, with clarity, with zeal, that you would allow your word to go forward with passion and even now as we get an opportunity to sing some songs,
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I pray that you'll be glorified in this singing. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I'm so glad for gifted musicians in the church who are willing to record songs like that for us.
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I've talked with some other pastor friends and they don't have musicians like Dave Bunt who's willing to record and so they're just kind of showing some
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YouTube clips of other songs and stuff like that and so I'm so glad to be able to hear our own musicians to have
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Dave Bunt and David Schrock and Grace Lloyd and it's really cool that they're willing to give up their time and continue to be recorded and it's great to have
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Dave's voice continuing to lead us. I didn't mean that to be funny like, oh, why would everybody laugh about that?
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I really appreciate Dave Bunt. Every single one of us has a standard of greatness whether it be the great one from hockey, the old
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GOAT, greatest of all time from the Patriots, or for us nerds, boy, I could get some debate over that, couldn't
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I? Or for us nerds, the greatest episode of the Star Wars movies, which was clearly episode five,
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The Empire Strikes Back. Yep, I'm just that nerdy to know that that's the best one and you can fight me if you disagree but we can imagine a long conversation around the table.
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Imagine, I said imagine, a long conversation around a table with friends starting with who was the greatest fill in the blank of all times, whatever that category might be and you can imagine some debate and some banter and some long -term discussion centered around who is the greatest author, who is the greatest president, who is the greatest and whatever.
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Of course, sitting around the table with friends talking about almost anything sounds great right now, doesn't it? I mean, some of us would sit around a table and talk about basket weaving if it meant good food and face -to -face interaction with one another and man, do
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I look forward to that. I miss that so much and isn't there something so cool about just even sitting around with food, good food with one another and talking and God has designed us that way.
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We need community and I'm missing it and I'm sure you are too and in some personal context, whether it was around food or whether it was a walk, you know, they're walking along the way or they're in the marketplace or they're at somebody's home, it's a little unclear exactly what the context was but the disciples came to Jesus and they wanted to talk about a similar question, not who is the greatest hockey player, not who is the greatest president, rather who is the greatest in your kingdom was the question.
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But there's a little bit of a twist in what they're saying because when they ask who is greatest, what
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I really, really deep down in my heart believe the disciples were asking is which of us is greatest.
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You see, they were the inner circle, they were the twelve, they were the followers. Jesus was predicting and coming into his kingdom and he talked about the kingdom a lot and so they're saying, well, when you become king, who's going to be your right -hand man?
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Who's going to be right there alongside of you? Who are you going to have as your second -in -command? And that's what they really are asking here with every,
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I think, expectation that one of them would be the answer. The wording might seem more generic and innocent in chapter 18 verse 1 but we know that throughout the gospels, the disciples were vying for that lead position and so you can look back and scholars look back into chapter 17 to sift some clues about why this question might be placed here by Matthew in his account and and it's asked after Peter was singled out based on his confession that Jesus is the
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Messiah. So, I think the disciples may very well have been wondering, was Peter it? Is Peter your right -hand man? Is he top dog?
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And further, Peter, James, and John in chapter 17 were privileged and brought into an amazing occurrence where they were singled out and brought on top of a mountain and Jesus peeled back in the transfiguration.
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His humanity to reflect the glory of the second person of the trinity, the radiance of the glory of God shining through and they were in awe of that.
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So, some may have wondered, well, it's definitely going to be Peter, James, or John. It seems likely that one of them is the inner circle.
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One of them is the greatest in the kingdom. And then others think that maybe it was motivated out of what happened earlier in chapter 17 that Jesus had said,
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I'm going to be killed. I'm going to be delivered up to the hands of sinful men and they're going to murder me. And so, they may well be interested in, well, then how is this thing going to carry on?
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Who's going to lead in your absence? So, whatever motivates the question, I know that was a little bit much, but whatever motivates that question,
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I have no question that at least some of the disciples were hoping that his answer was going to be their name.
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Peter may very well have asked the question thinking, I know what your answer is going to be.
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It's going to be you, Peter. You, Simon, son of Jonah. You are going to be the greatest in my kingdom.
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Well, who is the greatest in the kingdom? That's the question. And that question bounces down off the walls of history to strike our arrogant ears with interest, doesn't it?
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We become interested at the point of that question. How do I attain greatness is a question most of us have asked at some point.
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Not always with the poorest of motives, but I guarantee that the majority of us have asked that question.
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How do I attain greatness? But rather than give an answer, questions hanging in the air,
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Jesus steps away from them, turns his back on his disciples, and exits their grouping.
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They're surrounding him, asking him a question, whatever context, and he steps away to a group of kids.
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Picture a group of kids playing at the edges of their discussion, whether they're in a marketplace and the kids are all dusty in their sandals, running around chasing something or picking on each other, and he grabs a child.
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And I picture him, and I'm adding a little bit to the story because we don't know exactly the context, but just knowing
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Christ, I picture him kneeling and lovingly and gently encouraging a young child into the middle of the disciples.
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Maybe Jesus knew the child, maybe not. But he commandeers a child and says, here, this is my case study, this is my illustration, this is what
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I want you to take in. And here stands a child in their midst. The word for child there indicates that it's a young child.
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I don't know if we can exactly pinpoint the age, but definitely pre -Bar
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Mitzvah, which would have happened between like 12 and 13, and so we're talking about a younger child.
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And the question is hanging in the air as this child enters into the midst of the disciples coaxed by Jesus.
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Jesus was very unique and artistic in his teaching methods, and he had no problem letting a question hang for just a moment.
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A child in this context would have looked tiny and insignificant as he's standing in the midst of these religious men, full -grown religious men, some of them hard and gnarled after years outside in the elements on the
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Sea of Galilee fishing. It's quite possible that this child had never received any attention of these disciples until this very moment.
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But now this child is at center stage, and Jesus answers with an authoritative.
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He now begins his answer. He's stepped out, and they're watching him, and I'm sure they're just like, what's he doing?
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He goes over and grabs a kid, brings him over, and now he speaks. Truly I say to you are the first words that he says.
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Now, he expects this teaching to have gravity and weight. He expects what he's about to say to need those extra words.
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Truly I say to you. Well, Jesus, don't you always say what's true? Why do you have to add that in front of it?
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But he needs that added affirmation because what he's about to teach them changes everything they have ever thought regarding greatness and changes what humanity thinks.
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This is a sweeping change, a broad change, a massive, like paradigm shifting, like massive shift in our understanding about what greatness truly is.
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So let me put this in perspective for those of us who maybe don't understand why in the world would Jesus really need to say truly in front of it.
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Imagine Jesus is asked, who is the greatest hockey player ever? And we've got our answers, and we're ready for him to say our answer.
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And he says, truly I tell you, there's this little guy about 11 years old in Marquette, Michigan. He gets his goals.
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He's pretty solid on D, but man does he know his place in humility. Man does he know what it means to depend on his team to get it done.
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An incredible answer, right? Or imagine that he is asked, which episode of Star Wars is the greatest?
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And he says, truly I tell you, episode one. I love that Jar Jar Binks, man. I just love
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Jar Jar Binks. Yeah, you can laugh about that. But you can understand from both of those scenarios why he needs that truly in front of them.
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What I am about to say is going to stretch your sensibilities. It's going to shift everything to the point where I need you to focus here, guys.
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I need you to focus. I need you to think this through, and I need you to pay close attention to this.
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But in verse three, he commandeers their question a little bit. He's shifting, and I think even to say truly, he's trying to pull them in, and he shifts it in another direction.
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He says, you asked who is greatest in the kingdom, but the question shows you need a refresher on the very nature of the kingdom.
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You need to remember what the kingdom is, guys, and you need to remember how you get in the kingdom. You're forgetting this.
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Before we can even talk about who is greatest in the kingdom, we need to remember how to get in the kingdom.
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How does one obtain access to this glorious kingdom of God that will be for eternity?
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And he says, only those who are converted, only those who turn, the word turn there in the
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ESV is the word converted, only those who are converted to a childlike humility, becoming like children in their standing, will even enter the kingdom of God.
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You cannot come in grasping for greatness. You cannot come in grasping for fame.
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You cannot come in grasping for power or clout or standing. The way in is by growing smaller.
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The way in is by growing younger. Those of us who are in the kingdom now know that we had to become like a child to come in in the first place.
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We recognize how low our standing truly is. You see, it's only really grown -ups who inflate fame and power and prestige and standing.
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We are the ones who play pretend about who we are and pretend that we're all that, pretend that we have solutions, pretend that we can fix stuff.
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All the children are dependent and know what it means to lean on the help of others.
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We champion our independence. We do the cutthroat ladder climbing. We learn to compare ourselves, asking who is greatest, and always hoping and assuming the answer ought to be us.
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But before I get too far into this comparison between children and adults, you know, the real question is, are children really that much better than adults?
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Like, is that why Jesus is calling them out and bringing this kid in? Because he's spotless, he's perfect.
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No, not at all. We need to be careful to avoid stretching this illustration further than Jesus does. He isn't telling us that there's a quality of pure innocence about children.
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Don't misunderstand that. That's not what he's driving for. He's not saying that there's a quality of simplicity in children. He's not even driving for qualities.
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It's not that children are more kind than adults or anything like that. As soon as you begin that line of thinking, you've got to correct yourself, and you've got to go back on that a little bit because don't children have their bullies?
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And aren't some children those bullies? Aren't some kids demanding?
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Aren't some kids shouting for their independence? Aren't some kids crying, unfair, unfair?
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That word unfair will echo in the minds of anyone who has parented a child. Are kids better off in general than adults?
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Well, hear me carefully. I think the answer is yes, but a very narrow yes. Only in the way that Jesus intended to convey that they're better off than us, and this is it.
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First touch point. Young kids are necessarily humbled. It's their status.
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It's their standing. Whether they feel humble or not, whether they're throwing a fit and having a tantrum, they are indeed humbled.
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They are humbled in their dependent nature. They cannot work. They cannot produce a commercial product.
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They cannot buy property. They cannot reasonably survive without leaning on the help of others.
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They know. Whether they know that or not, it's real. It's reality for them, and I suggest to you that this gives them a leg up on us because they can't do it.
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They can't do it, and this is the point of connection Jesus is driving for.
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Why does he grab a child and say in verse 4, whoever humbles himself like this child is greatest in the kingdom of God?
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He says this to point out the standing of this child, not the traits and qualities of any given child, not the traits and qualities of that specific child.
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There are plenty of children who are little stinkers. They all go through the tyrant phase of life where they tend to lead and rule the whole household, usually sometime between two and three or maybe really sometime between two and really birth and 18.
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Maybe it's the whole time. I don't know, but they can tend to be the rulers of the roost, right?
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Now Jesus isn't teaching us about the infinite worth of children despite the fact that it's Mother's Day, you know, and we're supposed to make all touchy -feely talk about children and moms and stuff like that, but he is still focused on answering the question of who is greatest in the kingdom.
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That's the point. The point isn't describe children for us. Who's greatest in the kingdom? So he's using a child as an illustration, and in verse three he uses the dependence of a child as an illustration of conversion, and in verse four he highlights the humble status of a child as a model for greatness in the kingdom.
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And I want to just point out a side note. Jesus could have grabbed anyone. He could have grabbed
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Peter and said, you're the greatest, Peter. Of course you are, but Jesus brought a child into their midst to speak what is true about the economy of his kingdom and to correct our understanding.
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Brought a child in their midst to answer a question about greatness. And a couple brief observations before we move on to Jesus' application in verses five and six, and that's this first one is vital.
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Some people who call themselves disciples of Jesus, some people who call themselves followers of Jesus still need to be converted.
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They still need to be converted, and maybe some people listening to this who really have been rolling with the church for years have not come in the way that Jesus says we must come.
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Jesus says that we must come to him through becoming humble and dependent like a child, like a little child.
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We come into his kingdom through a humility and a poverty of spirit. Jesus said earlier in Matthew 5, blessed are the poor in spirit.
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Blessed are those who know that they have nothing in their soul to commend themselves. They have nothing to bring.
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They are poor, and they know it. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit. Some see in the
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Christian faith a cause for strength or for power or for social standing.
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Yes, yes, even the Christian faith at times has been abused and used as a place of a pulpit, a place for people to listen to me, a place where I can gain an authority and where in our era to some degree it can be okay and good to be a
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Christian. Do you still need a conversion?
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Are you humble? Are you lowly? A follower of Jesus should be defined by awe and wonder that we've been rescued.
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We don't play pretend, acting like we're good enough to deserve to be brought into his eternal kingdom.
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We don't play awesome us like the Pharisees and the Sadducees did, who walked around in their pomp and circumstance and acted like they had it all together, dressing up the outside to make it look better than it was on the inside.
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But we're honest about what's on the inside, and we let that come out. We let that be seen.
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We let our abject poverty and our cry out to God, save me, be merciful to me. Without your mercy,
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I will be undone. That's us. If you're in the kingdom, you know what
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I'm talking about. You see that and you know that. We're like kids carried to Disneyland or Disney World in the family van.
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We don't fully grasp all that went into getting there. We don't know all the sacrifices that our parents made.
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We don't understand all that went into it. All we know is we're going. We didn't earn it, but we know it's amazing to be there.
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That kind of humility that doesn't even understand all of the processes that went into place to bring us to the place of great joy and forgiveness.
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Do you need a conversion? Or are you in with that kind of humble dependence on Jesus?
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The second observation is that the way we came in, that method, that means of humbling independence is the way that we relate to one another once we're in.
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We don't merely come into the kingdom, come in through a childlike humility, but we live out a childlike humility in our relationships with others.
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Let me remind you to avoid stretching the illustration too far on this point. We are not called to be childish among one another.
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We're not called to be ignorant. I mean, some people will use the phrase childlike faith to mean,
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I just don't need any education. I just don't need to read books. I just don't even need to read because I just got a childlike faith.
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No, no, we're not being called to be childish or ignorant. We are being called to consider the standing of a child.
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What is their position in society? What is their role? And relate that to our own position in our own role. Dependence and humility are the two points of contact in the illustration that Jesus is using.
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The reason he pulled a child in is to demonstrate dependence and humility.
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So we are a people in community who relate to one another with humility toward God and a dependence upon him that bleeds out into a humility towards one another and a recognition that we actually need one another.
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We are not a self -sufficient people. We are a dependent people who need community.
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Man, I know we're feeling it and I cannot wait. And I do. I see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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Hang in there, guys. Be faithful during this season and we will get back together again. But this is how
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Jesus is defining greatness. The one who knows that their standing is low.
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The one who knows that they are dependent upon God. That is the child of God who is showing greatness.
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Jesus is giving a stark rebuke to the thoughts of his disciples. Which one is greatest in your kingdom?
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And they're all jumping up and down, pick me, pick me, pick me. And Jesus pulls a child bystander who intentionally remains nameless.
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We don't even know who this kid is. And he says, this little guy who has no standing in our culture, no standing and no rights in our culture, this little guy here who is dependent upon his parents for food, this little guy who is overlooked and small in society and contributes practically nothing, he is the template of greatness in the kingdom of God.
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Can you imagine how shocking this answer would be to the disciples who truly believed the answer would be one of their names and they were sternly corrected.
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And are you? Are you sternly corrected? How do you define greatness?
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Let me suggest to you that however we define greatness, if it is different than what Jesus is saying and Matthew is recording for us here, then bend what you believe to this word because Jesus says, truly this is it.
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Truly you must be like this child in humility and dependence to be greatest.
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You want to be great in God's kingdom? Humble yourself. Not even humble yourself because even that phrase sounds like we've got some high standing.
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Be real with yourself. Be real with yourself. Stop pretending and stop putting on an affront, putting up a front that you are better than you actually know yourself to be.
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We come. We come into the kingdom of God through an honest assessment of our neediness and an honest assessment of what we have to contribute.
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And what do we have to contribute to God? What did we bring with us? We brought nothing.
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We come into his kingdom with empty hands only because he has emptied them for us because what was in our hands when we came to the foot of the cross?
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The sludge and crap and mess of our own sin. We brought that to the equation. So how do we have empty hands?
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He's washed it away. He's washed away the filth that we brought and granted us the very righteousness of his son as we studied in the book of Romans over the last year.
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We come into a lifelong relationship of dependence upon him. And Jesus then tacks on two bonus applications in verses five and six.
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In verse five he adds that whoever receives one such humble and lowly childlike disciple.
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We're talking about disciples, we're not talking about children here. Children is the illustration and he continues to talk about the metaphor but he is indeed talking about disciples.
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How does someone enter the kingdom and then how does one live in the kingdom? With a childlike humility and dependence.
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So one who enters in that way and is now a disciple, a true disciple of Jesus, we are to receive one like that.
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This is a simple and profound way of elevating those who come together with humility and dependence upon God.
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We are to welcome and receive each other even as we would receive Jesus Christ himself.
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And I think there's a significant and reasonable fear of honest humility and dependence in a fallen world.
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We stick ourselves out there and we approach one another with humility. We approach one another with dependence and we get knocked down and some of you have been knocked down and spiritually abused and that's where verse six is going to come in here in a moment.
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You are not your own defender but trust me you have a powerful and mighty defender if you are one of these little ones under the care of your father.
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So keep coming, keep coming with that childlike humility and dependence upon him.
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If I really live like this in community with a lowly and humble attitude you might just ask won't
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I be walked over Don? Won't I just be smashed with my face in the mud?
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And so the encouragement to receive and welcome other lowly and humble pilgrims as we would receive Jesus serves as an instruction to us in the church regarding personal interactions with one another.
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Receive each other, welcome one another, welcome those lowly and humble and dependent people who know that they are broken.
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If we're going to come back together and be the church after this whole COVID thingy then it is going to require that we be gracious, welcoming, and receiving even as if we are receiving one another as Jesus Christ himself.
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There are some who are leaning on God in humility who have been glad for this quarantine that has protected their family and their loved ones from COVID -19.
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And then there are others who are leaning on God in humility that see this all as a fictitious danger cooked up by the
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Illuminati and the elites to subdue us. So we have very differing opinions about what's going on right now within the church even among those who are lowly and dependent and humbled before God.
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So we come to receive each other as humble and dependent children of God with a lot of diverse opinions but when we receive each other we should receive each other as Jesus Christ.
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But the text escalates quickly and it escalates quickly because as we are humble and as we're dependent and as we're childlike we're at risk.
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Because how many of you know that children are at much greater risk if you come with a humility, you come with that dependence, you come with that leaning on others, you're much more open to abuse.
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That's just real. So still speaking of a humble and dependent children of God, He warns against causing one who adopts this mindset of Jesus, the mindset of a disciple, the mindset of his kingdom.
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He warns sternly against anyone who caused someone like that to stumble. And it isn't merely sin, like you cause a kid to sin.
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That's what I always thought this was. And if you lead a kid astray or you cause them to sin, you're a toast.
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Now this is how you treat the church and also hope for the church.
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You see verse 6 serves to remind us how God is zealous for His children. He is our protector.
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We are protected by the justice and vengeance of the Almighty God Himself. Mess with His children and you're messing with Him.
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I think this could bring it back to Mother's Day pretty quick because how many of you know the protection of a mother? I mean, proverbially, we know you don't mess with a bear in the spring when she's got her two cubs walking along with her.
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You get a story I could share with you about that when the Lloyds and us were down in the Smokies and we encountered a bear and, man, did we decide to go the other direction.
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We backed off of that pretty quick. You know, you mess with me,
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I'm not going to be happy. But you mess with my kids and that's when the gloves come off. God says you mess with us,
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His kids, who have come into His kingdom through humility and dependence upon Him and live out that humble, childlike dependence upon Him.
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It would be better for you to be drowned quickly with a huge stone tied around your neck than to mess with the people of God and to mess with His disciples.
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I wonder if Jesus dismissed the kids before He gave such a graphic description of judgment. You're talking about drowning in millstones and the depths of the sea and all that stuff.
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Maybe the kid was, you know, okay, you go along and play or something. It's kind of intense, right?
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Let's get back to the question that was asked. Who's greatest in the kingdom? Well, first, remember the humble faith and dependence required to enter the kingdom.
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And the greatest is the one who keeps relating to others in that same humble and dependent way.
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Are you in the kingdom by a humble faith and dependence upon God? Let me encourage you today to shed your own hype and to really think this through.
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All of us, to a person, we know that we are not spotless. And some of you are really wrestling with this and you're not sure whether you're in or out.
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And let me just encourage you. You know you're not spotless and without sin. You live in your own heart enough to know that you need a savior.
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I don't have to tell you that. You know that you can't rescue yourself from yourself. So let me encourage you to humble yourself today and to express a dependence on God by admitting that you're a sinner and then ask him to cover your sins based on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for you.
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And you will be saved. But for those who are already in the faith and you kind of take some assessment right now and you go, yes,
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I do. I see that humble dependence upon him. I don't believe my own hype. I recognize that I'm not in this for gain or for power or for fame.
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Let me just encourage you to continue on in a childlike faith, a faith that is humble and dependent upon your heavenly father.
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Don't give in to the pressure to be one of the big and strong ones. But recognize that the safest place for you to be is to be a little one because God is the defender of his little ones.
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And I would rather be a little one under his severe and zealous protection than a strong one leaning on myself and demanding my own way.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your grace. I thank you for your mercy. I thank you for your correction and your word that is so able to fix what is broken in our thinking.
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So father, I pray that for those of us who have been trying to go it alone, who have not entered into that narrow gate, who need a conversion, father, that today might be the day of salvation that would be converted from our own thinking and converted into a right thinking about power and greatness.
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And to recognize that it is only those who come to you in humility that have salvation. And then father,
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I pray that you would allow the salvation to be the way that we work, the way that we are brought in in humility and dependence would then be the way that we work out this in community together, that we would be a humble people.
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We'd be a dependent people. We'd be a people who really invest in one another. Father, I thank you for your grace.
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And I pray that you would hold us all in your arms during this COVID thing as we're increasingly longing for the day that we can gather together and get back to normal.