Faith and Hope What does childlike faith look like

Welcome to episode 124, In the Beginning Was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg. Welcome to episode 124. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to begin to talk about childlike faith. This is one of those discussions that I'm gonna have to begin with a confession to tell you that I don't have all this figured out by even the least amount, but I got to tell a story. When I was raising my two sons and And I don't know if you raise sons or rear sons, I don't know, I'm no English major, it is not my first language. Good churchy word would be discipleship. These two boys that I was trying to raise up, they were both into sports. And one of the most difficult lessons I ever had to teach my boys were when they were in the battle, when they were in a sports, or when they stepped on the other side of that line, they were a warrior. And they fought and they did whatever they could do to win the battle, win the game within the rules. Now, they weren't supposed to be nice if someone had on a different colored uniform. They were to not like them at all. They could be friends with them once the game was over, once you stepped across that line again. But when they chose to put the wrong uniform on, these young men were taught by me to be animals inside the arena. Now when they stepped across that line, they were then taught to be gentlemen. And I want to tell you that the conflict between the two different areas often got confused. And I think that's part of the problem sometimes when you start dealing with men and warriors and you start talking about all this stuff, that, you know, it's, it's difficult to walk this thing we call life out because you're supposed to be kind, you're supposed to be gentle, you're supposed to be all this. But you also have to know that you have an enemy that's here to steal, kill, and destroy you. So when you're dealing with the enemy, you're not kind, you're not nice, you're not gentle. You destroy them. You are merciless. Your battle is not with anything that you can see. It's with the unseen world. And that's where faith is required. And that's where all your hope and imagination and all that stuff, and the eyes of your heart and all this stuff— we're gonna try to start pulling it together. I'm hoping that this lesson, the faith and hope lesson, will be done this week. That is my goal, that is my intention, is to move on to a different topic. But I want to use the example as my boys, as I was rearing them up to be warriors on the field, on the battlefield, in football and basketball and baseball and soccer when they played. But each one had different rules, but when you stepped across the line, you were inside the arena, it was on. And so I was trying to teach these young men do whatever they could to win, whatever that took within the rules. And the reason I'm using this example is because I'm going to move over to a similar lesson that Jesus taught that was kind of hard to comprehend. And it's, it's kind of, you got to be doing this except you got to do this. And, and with my boys, you've got to be a gentleman, not off the field, but on the field you got to be a warrior. And it's hard when it's hard to turn one off and turn one on and all that stuff, and you get them mixed up. And that's how you have discipline problems. Problems. And so I just wanted to let you know that it was difficult. With that example in your mind, I want to go to Mark 10:13. Then they brought the little children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was greatly displeased and said to them, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. I want to spend the rest of this episode to kind of try to explain the struggle that I have with the kingdom of God as a little child. And this is the word of God, so this is the truth. So when you and I come in the— and again, I want to remind you, go all the way back to the kingdom of God episode where I describe or explain the kingdom of God as a seed. The way I read the kingdom of God, and in this instant, is God's way of doing things. And so God's way of doing things is seedtime and harvest, and he sees the end from the beginning. And you know, you must walk in his word and his righteousness. All these things, they come together. But then he tells his disciples, assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. And when he's— I think what he's saying, and he's holding these little children up as you know, is so that our eyes can see these little kids, is it's that childlike faith. If you don't go into the kingdom of God, and if you don't start taking all these things that I'm telling you— and I guess as you're thinking about this, and as you're walking through your life, as you're mowing the grass, or as you're working out, or as you're doing driving down the road and you're listening to this, I want you to think about just not having to have it all figured out. We don't have to know exactly what grace is, the exact thing that grace stands for. We don't have to know exactly what to the minute detail what faith is. Is it a bridge? Is it this? Is it what Greg Ryan says? Is it not anything about that? We need to have a little bit of a picture of it, but instead of having to understand it all, just the childlike faith. If you've ever seen a little child, you can tell them anything. I heard a joke one time. This man had had a bad day at work. He had just taken a beatin', you know, everyone was making him feel like an idiot. And he's standing out there, he's standing at this picket wooden fence, and he's got his little boy sitting next to him. And he said, Tommy, you see that animal over there? That's a cow. And his little boy looks at him, goes, a cow? He said, yep. And you see that animal over there with the long tail? That, Tommy, is a horse. A horse? Then the little boy looked up to his dad and said, Daddy, You are the smartest man in the world. And this man that just had a horrible day at work was just called the smartest man in the world by his little boy. The little boy declared his dad the smartest man in the world because he told him what a cow and a horse was. And the boy, the childlike faith, was like, wow. And I wanted to give you that example of childlike faith. Where you don't have to know everything, that if God tells you something in his word— think of that little boy, a cow or a horse. Oh, that's faith. Instead of trying to figure this thing out and trying to get all of the, all of the dots to line up— you know, how many toes does the beast have, and who is the Antichrist? Is the Antichrist even alive right now? I mean, I don't know that those things are anything that we need to be worrying ourselves with. And if you're into that sort of thing, stay into it. I mean, if you're in the Word of God and you're digging out all this stuff, I mean, I'm for whatever it is that you're into and whatever encourages you and inspires you to just keep digging into the Word of God. But having to know everything and have to be perfect or have to have the complete understanding of everything before you ever make a move, that's not childlike. And that's the problem that I see that we kind of— where I'm talking about where I started with my boys. And having to be gentlemen and then warriors. We've got to be adults. We got to walk through this world, you know, as we get older, we're supposed to become more mature, more responsible, you know. We're not supposed to be doing stupid stuff. And I apologize that to my wife. She's— she don't listen to this, thank God, but I imagine it's got to be a pain in the butt to live with me. Sorry, baby. The picture that I want you to get is that in the faith, compared to God the Father and the Holy Spirit and Jesus, all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent, everywhere. God knows everything. God is everywhere, and he's all-powerful all the time. Never going to catch him off guard, never going to catch him sleeping, all of these things. God is always there. Here's my struggle as I walk this faith journey or this Christian walk out. Is that I know I'm supposed to ask God for everything, and I know I'm supposed to ask him about even— and I've just sometimes, to be honest, I feel like I'm bugging him and saying, God, what about this? God, what about that? What— God, what about this? And I don't think that as I read this childlike faith— if you've ever had a little child that doesn't know all the answers, doesn't know that that's a cow, doesn't know that that's a horse— and let's look at Matthew 18:2. Then Jesus called a little child to him and set him in the midst of them and said, 'Assuredly I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.' And we talked about before on previous episodes, I think it was when we were talking about the armor of God, about humble, humility, and how that conducts the power. And it kind of— again, all of this stuff starts coming together, and it's kind of like a hand in a glove. And you can't just say, oh, by the way, you got to have faith and hope and grace, and you can get this thing all done. No, you also have to be humble, you have to be childlike. I mean, there's just a lot of moving parts in Christianity, and that's why it's just so difficult, is why I've been on this faith and hope for over a month, and I'm trying to get it all kind of put together. And I want to finish this lesson in Luke, and it's Luke 11:9. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And again, I'm told that this ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened. But in the Amplified Bible, it's ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking, knock and keep knocking, and it'll be open to you. It'll be answered, and you will find if you just keep seeking, keep asking, keep knocking. And we go back to this little child analogy, that if you come to God as a little child and you ask and you keep asking— if you've ever had a little child, they continue to ask you questions. And if you ignore them for a minute, I mean, they don't get upset, they just keep asking you. And they'll sometimes wear you out. But I don't want that to be the picture because God is not worn out by it. We can't tire God. And if we come to God as little children and just keep asking, because we don't know, we don't know like God knows, and we can't even pretend to know like God knows. So we come to him as a little child and say, Father God, I need help with this. Father God, I still need help with this. Father God, oh, by the way, did I tell you I need help with this? Father God is not upset, and that's the thing I've got to get out of my mind. Sometimes my pride comes in and I ask one time and I don't get the answer, and so I just leave it alone. Well, I guess God didn't want to answer that prayer. I don't believe that was it at all. I think it builds our faith to ask and keep asking and, and to be relentless. Again, there's that word, the word I came up with in 2021, to be relentless. Why not be relentless when we seek after God, an unwavering faith like Abraham had. He did not waver at the promise. And so when you see something in the word of God and it hadn't come to pass in your life, why not keep asking? Why not keep digging it around until it comes to pass? Because your heavenly Father knows what you need or what you want, and I, I think he wants to give it to you. But he— I think he wants to make sure that it's something you truly want. And if you ask one time and, yeah, that's not but he's going to give you the desires of your heart. And if you ask and keep asking, I believe God's going to give it to you. Just be careful what you're asking for. God, I thank you so much for everything that you're doing in our lives. Lord, I pray for the person on this podcast, on listening to this episode. I pray that you would just put in them the childlike faith and the child— and to help them to know that you are so pleased with them and they are your favorite. God, this person listening to this episode is your favorite son or daughter. And Lord, we don't understand it. We know you have a lot of favorites, but God, we thank you that we are one of your favorites. God, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.