So I want to take you in your minds to the beginning of the second century. So you think in Roman Empire, early part of the second century, maybe around 108, 110, the year 110. At this time, The early church was facing some persecutions on kind of a small scale. It wasn't an empire wide persecution, but some Roman authorities were unleashing some persecutions on local bodies of Christians in different parts of the empire. One such town that faced this persecution was the town of Antioch. Antioch. And Antioch, as you would remember, is the hub of the early Christian missionary movement. This is where Paul and Barnabas get sent from. Paul and then Silas and Timothy and Luke, they all get sent out of the church at Antioch. And in Antioch, the churches were pastored by a number of pastors, but mainly by one awesome pastor, one awesome shepherd, who was the Bishop of Antioch. His name was Ignatius. Ignatius, I love that name, Ignatius. Ignite, right? Wonderful shepherd, wonderful pastor, and he was an old man. Maybe 70, excuse me. Sorry, I don't mean to do this. I've been told I shouldn't do this, but I'm doing it. All right. He was an older pastor. OK, he was in his 70s, maybe, maybe even a little older than that, maybe close to 80 years old. And he is arrested for his faith and his boldness in proclaiming Christ and not bowing his knees to Caesar as Lord. He's arrested in Antioch and instead of being persecuted or humiliated before the people of Antioch or martyred in front of the people of Antioch, the Romans decide to make an even bigger spectacle of him. So they send him to Rome to be ripped apart by wild beasts for the entertainment of pagan Romans. Think about this, a man in his 70s, having to go across Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, across Ephesus, into Greece and all the way down to Rome, so that he could be fed to lions in front of people for their entertainment. On his way, there's something remarkable that happens. He begins writing letters to churches on his way, to Christians he meets on his way. He writes these incredible letters on his way to Rome. And what's so beautiful about these letters, the letters of Ignatius, is they are so sympathizing. They are so sweet. They are so, you could say, pastoral with these people because he understands that these people too, if it hasn't already happened in their churches, and it has, the church is now on kind of like wave three or four of persecutions, local persecutions in those areas. He understands and sympathizes with them. And so he writes these letters, these charges, to help them hold it together, to help them be encouraged. And he writes them assuring them of his contentment and his happiness in God and his total trust in God. Hey, if I'm to be fed to the lions for the sake of Christ, Let it be. I'm happy. I'm happy to do anything for the sake of Christ. I will be lion food for the sake of Christ, is what he says. But there's two remarkable characteristics that really shine out in these sweet letters to these churches. Number one is in all of this, in all this fury, look out, beware of false teachers. There had already been controversy of false teaching and bad doctrine, and these kind of self-promoting or popular preachers coming through town, holding conferences, proclaiming their hidden knowledge that they had received directly from God. It was kind of mystical, enticing, sort of leading people astray, telling people what they wanted to hear, and then bringing them out from the churches. And Ignatius is like, no, don't listen to the false teachers. Hold fast to the word of truth. Trust in Jesus. Hold fast to the sound doctrine that has been handed down to you from the apostles. Trust Jesus. Stick with him. And the other part. So that's one of the characters. The other part about these letters that's so incredible as he talks about the coming persecution The other shining characteristic is this. He tells the churches, love one another. Hold fast to one another, forgive one another. Be in unity and at peace with one another. I mean, you think about that, you think about all the craziness that's happening in the world. And this pastor's main charge, I mean, and this is the bulk of what he writes, is people Hey, there ain't nothing in this world that should cause you guys to devour each other from within. Receive one another, love one another, be beholden, be beloved to one another. And why do I say all this about this man Ignatius? Well, I'll tell you, the early church took a legend down and it may or may not be true. But the legend that the early church started to spread about this man, Ignatius, was that when Jesus, in Matthew chapter 18, verses 1 through 6, pulled this child, and I mean child, you've got to be thinking a little tot, you know, three or four years old. pulled this little tod out in front of the disciples, called him to himself, and then put him in front of the disciples to be used as an example. The early church said that this was none other than Ignatius. Ignatius was the one that was called out. And he heard these charges in Matthew 18 directly, and this had such a profound mark on his life that this is the way he grew up to pastor And so when he was nearly 80 years old and about to die, it was these lessons that came forth in Matthew 18 that he was once again promoting unto the churches. Well, we don't know exactly if there's any merit to that, that this little boy here, we don't even know if it was a little boy in Matthew 18, but this little one here was Ignatius. We don't know that for sure. But we do know that Ignatius was a disciple of John, the beloved disciple, who was right here with Jesus as he told these words. And these words of Matthew 18 had a profound impact on all of the apostles of Jesus. Indeed, they still are to have a profound impact on everyone in the church. This is something that we all have to get a grip on as we try to understand Jesus in Matthew 18. Matthew 18 is this incredible chapter, and as we go through it, I think you're going to be I think you'll really be changed. Your heart will really soar. And it's actually Matthew 18 is really going to hurt, too, because it's one of these chapters that just punches us. It just steps on our toes when we think about who we are and who God wants us to be. Matthew 18, Jesus is gathering his disciples to have a discussion on the kingdom of heaven. And things are shaping up interestingly in the teachings of Jesus, because as Jesus gives instruction on the kingdom of heaven, he begins to insert this idea, this true thing that's going to happen, that the kingdom of heaven that's coming into this world, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, the kingdom of heaven that is coming into this world is going to be most visibly manifested in a certain place. you will be able, and even today this is the case, it was the day after Jesus was resurrected and ascended into heaven, you will be able to see the kingdom of God on display in a very specific place. Do you know what that place is? It's the local church. Jesus is saying, Jesus is teaching the disciples, right? He's already told Peter upon this rock, the rock of Peter's confession, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overcome it. Matthew 16 verse 18. And now he's saying that this kingdom of heaven is going to be most visible. You're going to be able to see it most clearly in the local church. And so what must the kingdom of heaven be like? What must this church be like? What must it be characterized by? What should the personality of the local church be? What should you be in the local church as a Christian? And in Matthew 18, he gives these four characteristics. So if you want to understand Matthew 18, I put a little thing together for you in the outline here. There's these four characteristics that have to be manifested in the local church. When Jesus says the kingdom of God is coming, it's going to be seen most clearly in the local church. He is going to say the local church, you must be concerned about becoming so mega. I'm just kidding. Don't put that down. You must be personality, celebrity driven, publishing houses with merchandise and all sorts of programming to the gills. That's what you got to become. No, that's not what Jesus says. He says there's four things. Four things, Matthew 18, four things my church, my people are going to have characterize them. Number one is childlikeness, you know. You could also say it this way, humility, humility. Number one is childlikeness. That's what we find in these first six verses. In the next set of verses, Jesus wants his church to be characterized by holiness. holiness. First it's humility, then it's holiness. You know, make no agreements with those pet sins and those ongoing habits. Cut them out. Whatever it takes, cut them out. The third thing Jesus wants his church to be characterized by is this. I'll say it this way. Be on guard or be shepherding. Be watching out for one another. Be on the lookout. When your brother or your sister in the Lord isn't around for a while, go get them. Go find them. Go ask them what's up. Go ask them how they're doing. Don't say, did the pastor see them yet? Go get them. The pastor will get around to it at some point. But go get them. Go find them. Be on guard for one another. Be on guard so that when your brother falls into sin, it's not the end of the world. It's not a time to gossip. It's time to go and be restored to that brother or sister. And if they keep on in their sin and they will not come back into the fold after much pleading, then it's time to say no. You're not part of the family of God. Fourthly, the last one is this. The last part of Matthew 18 is be forgiving. Be forgiving. Like I said, Matthew 18 is going to be a great challenge, but I think it's going to produce much fruit. Jesus wants his people to be forgiving people. He doesn't want people to be exacting, calculating, accountants of what other people's sins are. He doesn't want you to be holding on to your bitterness. He wants you to be forgiving. He'll even go so far to say, if you organize your life around your unforgiveness, God will organize his heaven so that you aren't in it. That's how serious he is. That's how serious he is. So these four characteristics are huge, huge. Be humble or childlike, be holy, be on guard, be forgiving. Doesn't it, I mean, that's the simplicity of it, right? I mean, that's the church, right? If we can accomplish those things, It takes the Spirit of God, though. The Spirit of God can accomplish those things in us. Goodness, we'll be a bunch of Ignatiuses running around the world. That's what the church is to be about. That's our focus. That's where we've got to go. But why is this? You know, you could say, why these four? And it's because, really, these four are just the great characteristics of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, aren't they? I mean, Jesus says in, like I said, Matthew chapter 16, he says, you are Peter, Peter makes his great confession, and upon this rock, the rock of Peter's confession, I will build, I will build Charles' church. No, he doesn't say Charles's church. He says, I will build my church. Whose church? Christ's church. The church is supposed to have his personality on it. This is something very basic. We just got to be reminded of it. We've got to learn it. You've got to know it. This is not your church. It's not your pastor's church. If you were first name Nelson, middle name Nelson, last name Nelson III, This wouldn't be your church, right? It's Christ's church. It's supposed to have his personality and characteristic on it. And those personalities are, those personality traits are just what I've shared to you, humility, holiness, shepherding care, and forgiveness, aren't they? Isn't that right? That is what Jesus wants his church to be, like him. And I think one of the most shocking ways Jesus could introduce this awesome teaching here, Matthew 18, is to do what he does, pull a child into the midst. By the way, Matthew 18 is the fourth long sermon that Jesus gives. All of the sermons in Matthew, there's five great ones, all of them have to do with instruction on the kingdom of God. The first sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, what is the kingdom of God? What is a kingdom citizen? That is the Sermon on the Mount, right? The second sermon is Matthew chapter 10. Jesus sends his disciples out. What is this kingdom to show? It's a kingdom of power unleashed on the world. The dead are raised, the sick are healed, the demons are cast out, and the gospel is preached, right? It's a kingdom of power, but it's also a kingdom that faces much opposition. That's what most much satanic opposition, that's what Jesus says in Matthew 10. Matthew 13, Jesus lays down these parables, the seed, the mustard seed, the sower, the dragnet and the fish, right? All of these parables to show that the kingdom is growing on the earth and advancing and will take over everything. And now we have the fourth sermon. The kingdom of God has shown on this world in the church and in the people who are humble, holy, on guard and forgiving. So Matthew 18, Jesus does this incredible thing. He opens his mouth to teach some lengthy content on the nature of life in the kingdom of heaven. And the reason this is all prompted is because his disciples are in a bit of a contest here, a contest that needs to be settled. We don't get the sense right off the bat by reading Matthew's gospel, but if you put Mark's gospel right up against it, you find that the disciples have been, in fact, arguing about who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. They have been arguing about who is the greatest, you know? It's like my children, when they come up to me, they say, Daddy, who do you love more? And I say the girl. I can't do that anymore because now I have two girls, okay? Well, yes, that's right. So right, the the the kingdom of they say, who's the greatest? Who is the greatest? Who's the one? Who's the man, Jesus? Which one of us? You know, Jesus, we thought it was going to be Peter, but you just called him Satan a few days ago. And so it can't be him anymore. Which one of us, James, John, Andrew, who's going to be the greatest? They know it's very settled in the disciples minds. There's this great distress happening, people. There's this great distress that they know something incredibly dark, but victorious is coming that will bring the reality of the kingdom of God to the forefront of people's minds. And the disciples are kind of like, we want to be at the front of that forefront. We want to be at the front. So what does Jesus do? He calls a child to him. I love this. He calls a child. He uses his voice, calls a child, and says he puts the child in the midst and says, whoever humbles himself like this child will be the greatest. In other words, this is a great statement. In other words, Jesus is saying, not you, disciples. At least not right now. Not you. Not a single one of you. Now, I want to take a break just for a second because I want to bring a cultural thought to your mind. It might fascinate you. This text is not primarily about children, like physical children or physical age. I think you'll get the sense of this because Jesus says you've got to become like children. But I want to tell you about this passage because historically it became so cherished in the minds of the church and in the mind of the churchgoers and the pastors there. In the day of Jesus. children were despised. They were despised. And I mean despised in every way. So in some ways despised means hated, and in other ways, maybe lesser ways, it means that children were ignored. The Jewish people ignored the children. The Romans really despised the children and despised especially those children that were still either nursing or closely dependent upon their mothers. Now, this was all starting to change with Jesus, if you remember. If you read the Gospels, one of the things that's surprising, it actually surprised the ancient world. One of the things that's surprising about Jesus is that there seems to be children around him all the time. You're like, wait a second, if this is the teacher, why is there all these children around? There's always children around Jesus. And because of that, we know that there's also moms around Jesus, women around Jesus, mothers. This is because, as I've already shared, John the Baptist, who came before Jesus, had this very important ministry where he was restoring the hearts of fathers to the hearts of their children. And so you see more and more that around Jesus, kids and mothers are coming around him as well. Children being there meant that mothers were there too. In fact, there's these notes you see where, like when Jesus feeds the multitude in the wilderness, it says he fed 5,000 what? Men. not counting the women and the children, right? So the gospel writers want to make you see the women and children are coming around Jesus. I say all this because Jesus was raising the dignity of the family, and it's passages like this one, or later on when Jesus says, let the children come to me, that really made the Christians shine as a light to the dark paganism of the Romans. And, you know, we just heard this testimony from the Haitian churches who are bringing in children and teaching them the gospel. This will, we don't know exactly when, but it will change the world of Haiti as children are brought up and discipled in Christ. It will. It may take a generation, just like it did with the early church, but ancient Rome devalued women and despised children. Abortion and infanticide were rampant in the Roman cities. Romans would carry out their children, their young children, either infants or even up to, like I said, toddlers, and outside the city, leave them in garbage heaps, outside of the city gates. And then as those Roman parents would walk away, the Christians would jump out from the shadows and scoop up those children and bring them into their homes and raise them to love Jesus Christ. And over time, as this happens, you can see what goes on and the Romans are handing their children over to the kingdom of God. And some historians have gone so far to say that this was the the physical factor, the sociological factor that made Christianity such a champion in that world. It raised the dignity of mothers and children after following these words that Jesus said. A certain historian named Owen Bakke said in a book called When Children Became People that it was Christianity that spread our modern concept of children as precious beings worthy of special love and tenderness. That's a crazy thing to think about. Think about that. We look around and you see children bopping around the church, and you're like, oh, this is great. There's children here. This is wonderful. They're learning alongside of us all that stuff. We should teach them. We should nurture them. We should grow them. We love to see children. Like, for most of the world up until then, children were despised. They weren't counted. They were an inconvenience. Sadly, you could see our culture going this way today. Children are a burden to parents who are trying to get the most out of whatever, culture, life, the world, money, all that. Children are a hindrance to that. So, you know, Nancy Piercy, another historian, Bible teacher, said that the fact that the early church prohibited abortion and infanticide was one of the reasons women flocked to Christianity. And all of this is because of the attitude that Jesus has here towards the children that really shaped the minds of the disciples and those first apostles. They could look to the example who put the child in their midst. So that's a bit of an offshoot, I know, but I want you to see that passages like these, right? This is why Christianity is so good for the world. Passages like these transform the world. So I return to the thought of childlikeness in the teaching that Jesus is trying to drive home to his disciples. And this passage is very similar to the teaching that Jesus gave to Nicodemus. Remember when Nicodemus came to Jesus, Jesus said to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Can't happen. You cannot come into the kingdom of God unless you are of a new birth. You have to be born from above. Supernatural birth, supernatural life, that is the only way into the kingdom of heaven. And now he tells the disciples right here, you can't come into the kingdom of God unless you become like a child. You can't do it. And the word here, he says, unless you turn. And that word is very similar. It's the word convert. Unless you are converted to be like a child. Unless you are changed, the entrance into the kingdom of heaven only comes if you are changed from one thing to another. And this change is so contrary to the way we think. Right. It's a change from old to new or older to younger, which is directly contrary to the way things work. Right. Older does not give way to younger. How does it actually work in regular life, regular physical living? Younger gives way to what? Older, right? Decrepit things don't just become spry. It goes the other way. The new things become decrepit. It doesn't happen. So what is Jesus saying here? This is an impossibility. You can't make yourself like a child. You can't turn back the gray. You can't undo the wrinkles or the pains in the body. You can't do all those things. You can't undo those at all. So Jesus is saying you have to be converted. It has to be supernatural. And we say, well, that's impossible. And Jesus is like, yeah, that's right. That's why it depends on the spirit. You must realize something right here about the kingdom of heaven is that you must depend entirely upon the spirit of God. It can't be on your own strength. You have to realize the poverty of your spirit and you have to call out to God and say, God, make me like a child. Make me new. Make me behold your wonder. Make me depend on you, God. Make me count on you. Make me smaller so that you become greater. That's what Jesus is trying to get at here. Just what Jesus wants you to know. It depends on the spirit. You must humble yourself. And that's what Jesus says. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Humility really is the you could say the first fruit of childlike faith. So as I finish out this sermon, and I know this has all been kind of like an introduction, but that's okay, because we need to get the lay of the land for Matthew 18. I want to offer you three aspects of childlikeness under this main thing. The main thing is this. Childlikeness is highly prized in the eyes of Jesus. Childlikeness is highly prized in the eyes of Jesus. It's really childlikeness that's going to set the tone for all these four virtues that you see in the rest of Matthew 18. Right? Childlikeness is, what's that first fruit? Humility. But childlikeness is the great thing God uses to keep us holy. Because what's the truth about a child? A child, though they may do wrong, children want to be innocent. They don't have agreements or habits with their sins yet. They don't have that. They understand when they've done wrong and they can be corrected for it. Children have that kind of innocence that they want to protect. What about being on guard, right? Children care about others just naturally. Children don't, when they see their brother or sister, again I'm talking about younger children, as we get older this stuff sort of, this stuff sort of changes. But as you look at children, and when they see their brother or their sister achieve something, what is it? There's no ounce of envy. There's no covetousness in that. They're just happy. They're so happy that someone else is winning. They're great. They're happy about it. They get sad when they see other people hurting. It's just a natural thing with a child. And not only that, but children are pretty fine at forgiveness, aren't they? When you come to the end? I mean, your children, they get mad at each other, they strike each other, they hit each other, maybe on the playground, maybe in the home, and what do you do? You get them together, okay, say your part, say your part, sorry, done, boom. They go back and play with each other, they forgive each other, and it's like nothing ever happened. When adults and we offend each other, it's like, now you gotta go through therapy for 10 years and all that. Go to your conferences on how to set up all your boundaries and all that. Childlikeness gives way to all these great things. Be childlike. So I want you to see how highly Jesus prizes childlikeness. And from this passage, I want to draw out three things about what it means to be childlike. Because you could hear me say I'm trying to really avoid blending another thing which is not good. It's called childishness, right? Childishness is bad. Paul would say it. When I was a child, I thought like a child. I spoke like a child. I did child. But when I became a man, what? Thought like a man, spoke like a man, right? Childish things is exactly what the disciples are doing here. Me, me, me. I, I, I. Mine, mine, mine. My way, my way, my way. That's childish things, okay? Childlike things. is to be dependent on God, to be receiving His care. So first thing I want you to see, and it may be the most obvious thing, but it's so obvious that we would overlook it. Childlikeness, the first aspect of childlikeness is this, smallness, smallness. You look at a child, the word here is paideia in the Greek, and that's just a little child. What's the thing you notice about a child? Is they're just a pipsqueak. They're just small. They're little. And that's okay. That's what Jesus wants you to be. Not walking around thinking, you know, you're the fattest cat on the couch or the biggest tuna in the sea or whatever it is. You are to be small. Why do I say this? Because when the disciples ask this question, they say, who is the greatest? It's like they're asking the question, who is the most noticeable? Who is the most important? Who is the heaviest? Who should be the boss? That's what they're asking. Who's most important, Jesus? And you know, when those questions are asked, The disciples are already hoping for the answer, right? What are they thinking? They're like, Jesus, who's the most important, you know? Look here, look at me, look at me. Self-importance is everywhere. And I think one of the reasons Jesus says this here It's because Jesus knew that one of the places where places where the self-importance cry would be the loudest over time would be in the church. This is something that we have to face. Is that in the church, we tend to get to this point where people We come together and everybody has to have an opinion, a preference, a critique, a criticism. And all of this is simply being like these disciples were. Who is the greatest? Who should have the loudest voice? Who should get what they want? Who should get what they prefer? Whose preferences have to be met? And obviously, it should be the people who have served in the church the longest. It should be the people who have given the most money. It should be the newcomer, because they're new and fresh. And churches have sadly even gone after the world and say, what do the unbelievers want the church to be? They're the most important. All these things. What is Jesus saying here? He's saying, be little yourselves. Be small. Be small. Stop being so concerned about getting your way. How many men and women are on that unsatisfiable quest to have all their felt needs met? You know, the people who are always saying, I'm not afraid to speak my mind. That's that mentality. But why? Why? Ask that question. You know, all those things, when we say those things, all that is, is just being like these disciples here. Jesus, who's the greatest? It's me, isn't it? I know you're thinking. I know you're thinking how much you need me. Look at a child. Does a child think this way? At some point, because of sin, yes. But in those little years, children are absolutely complacent and content with how small they are. Children even use how small they are to get what they want. It's kind of a funny thing. Like all you parents know, when you bring your child to the zoo and you go in those like fish tanks or the aquariums or whatever, And the child's like pulling up like this, you know, can't see in the window. And they're like, I can't see, I can't see. And so what do they say? They say, what? Can you what? Pick me up, right? That's it. They're not mad about being small, but they're saying, hey, help me out. I want to see. I want to see what's going on in there. And I need your help, Dad. I need your help, Mom. That's what it is. Right. They they they use their smallness, they they they're content. The point is, stop being so concerned about your importance. Jesus isn't concerned about your importance. He's more concerned about how important he is before your eyes and in your heart. He's more concerned about that. Remember what John the Baptist says? I must decrease, he must increase. I'll be small so that I can call on him to pick me up. So that's the first one, smallness. Second aspect of childlikeness is this, it's simplicity. Simplicity. This passage is so wonderful. It just says that Jesus calls this child and the child comes and he puts him right in the middle. Just be like this child. The child doesn't have to say anything. He's just sitting there receiving the notice of Jesus. And let me tell you something. If I were to survey this room, I think we would all hit the nail on the head. If I were to say, what makes a child the happiest? What makes a child sore in their heart? Not sore in terms of pain, but sore like fly in their heart. What makes a child just so content? You know what it is? You know what it is? Isn't it just that love of the father and the mother? It's that saturation love. Moms and dads, you give your parents a lot of things. Grandparents, you could give your kids a lot of things, excuse me. You give them a ton of stuff, all the toys, all the activities, all those things. But you know what? What is it that children thrive on? What is it? It's that love. It's that love. It's that notice. being loved, being valued. And you could argue, but isn't this egotistical? Doesn't this go off the rails? And sure, it could. But this is really what it means for us to be a disciple, to be a follower of Christ. We are happiest simply to know the surpassing worth of the love of God in Christ Jesus for us. If we could all boil it down to that, People, we wouldn't have insecurities. You wouldn't have any reason to be bothered by anyone. You wouldn't have any reason to fear the condemnation of the world, to shrink back. Why? Because if you have the love of God, what else do you need? For this reason, Paul says, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with His power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. When are you most content? When are you most satisfied? When are you most at ease? When you know the love that God has for you in Christ Jesus. In all things, you are more than conquerors through Christ, through the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. It's simple. It's simple. This child here just is under the notice in the care of Jesus. That's the simplicity of it. Because the Savior of the world called him to himself and put his hand upon him, and that's the way it must be with you. If you wish to be great, simplify and think of the love of God. What love the father has given to us that we should be called The children of God. First, John three one. That's how it is, and that's how it is with others, right? We simplify, we simplify others when we look at others and we look at people who need ministry. What do they need more than anything else? The love of God in Christ Jesus. That's it. That's it. Lastly, the last aspect of this childlikeness is trust, is trust. I probably won't be able to go into this one as far as I'd like to this morning, but this comes out of the second paragraph here, verse six, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin. And we'll get into what this means, causing a little one to sin next time. But just trust is an aspect of childlikeness. Just trust, that simple trust. Taking God at His word. Obeying God at His word. That's what childlikeness is. Obeying His commands happily no matter how hard they are. Not trying to self-justify or weasel your way out of doing what He said. It's standing on His promises. Here's an interesting thing. You know what, when you fill out your taxes and all those things, there's a technical term you call those little short people who live in your home. You know what they're called? Dependents, right? Dependents. That is not too far from being theologically right. You are supposed to see yourself as a dependent, as a receiver of the goodness of God, as a dependent one on the power of God, as a dependent one on the provision of God, as a dependent one on the life of God, as a dependent one on all the goodness and fullness of God. What's the thing that children do most? You know what they do most, more than anything else? It's a three-letter word. A-S-K. Ask. That's it. That's the simplicity. That's the trustworthiness. They ask because they trust. That's what God wants of us. That's what Jesus wants his disciples to be characterized by. That trust, that ask, that dependency, that simple obedience, not trying to mix yourself or your wishes, your preferences. People, if we have this kind of thing, this smallness. The simplicity resting in God's love, this trust that God provides for everything we need, we can ask him for whatever we need, he'll give it. This is the childlikeness that is so highly esteemed in Christ's eyes. Because here is the truth, while we try and adult so hard with our spirituality and think so thoroughly through all the things that can bring our life fixes and satisfaction, the end of it comes to this, is that it's all dead, and it's all dead works, and it all perishes. And the thing about God is he did something incredibly merciful, incredibly gracious. It's unfathomable. And that while we were still sinners, while we were still trying to outsmart everything so that we could win some sort of spiritual satisfaction, while we were sinners, Christ died for us. And he went to the cross. and shed his blood. And that's how he died so that your sins could be forgiven. And so you could be wiped clean of the stains of iniquity. And you could go free in this world to serve God and to be a child in his house because Jesus was resurrected to give you an unconquerable life of liberty and freedom in his own name. If you receive the sacrifice, that's how it all starts. You humble yourself and say, I repent of my works, I repent of myself, and I look to Jesus for everything, that's where the kingdom of heaven starts. Right there, boom, the kingdom of heaven born in you because you have trusted in the king whom God has sent into the world, his own son Jesus. And now you are brought forth into everlasting liberty in the light of Christ Jesus so that Now you can walk depending on Him, fearing nothing, trusting in Him for everything, obeying His commands with a happy heart, knowing that everything you do, everything you do, God will work through it, and it won't be done in vain. All the labors for the Lord will bring forth fruit that you can't even count, because God's the one who provides. We bring the baskets, God fills them up. We bring our hearts, God fills it up. We bring our work, God fills it with His Spirit. We bring our preaching, God puts what He needs into it so that all our hearts are satisfied and can be challenged and changed and convicted and healed and restored so that you guys can go and serve the Lord. We depend on Him for everything. And that's what faith is. We depend on Jesus for being the author of all our life and all our divine life because he is the gift of God. He is the one that our gospel proclaims. Do you have childlike faith? Do you have childlike faith? Are you making yourself small? Are you simply resting in the love of God? Are you trusting in him for everything? Only trust Him. Only trust Him. That's all you need to do. Trust in Jesus. Amen.