Message 11-18-07
Series: What I’ve Always Wondered
Scripture: Romans 7:14-8:1 [Isaiah 12]
Title: Renewed Hope
My question is: Is it necessary to have continuous conversions? If so, why?
No adults get into heaven.
Have you heard that? Jesus said that. "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
As you go through your day you may be called on to make very important decisions. You may be a person who is responsible for a whole company. Your decisions make effect the lives of 20-30 or even hundreds of people. You may feel like the last thing you can consider is being “like a child”, but if you are following Jesus, that’s what you’re called to do.
You may be struggling in life to be cool. There are a lot of teenagers who feel an obligation to being cool that is almost tangible. It may not be that you have to look like something or act like something but it may be that being cool is just not choosing the wrong thing to do or say or be on any given day. Some teenagers can feel it like this is a real thing prowling through their days, morning to night. Deciding to live “like a little child” may be the last thing you would even consider. You may be able to think of people around you in school who “act like a child” and that’s the last thing you can be.
Or you may be a person of any age who just feels responsible in your life. You can be eight and you can be eighty and you can feel like the responsibility for the family rests on you. You have to make the choices every day that effect every day and you can’t even really think about tomorrow because you’re trying to get through the day, today, and survive and help the rest of the household survive. Being “like a child” might seem like a dream to you. You might even look at that as a dream you’d ache to have. You’d love it to give up the responsibility that you feel every moment. Maybe you’re here thinking that this place at least gives you an escape for an hour. Maybe you’re a caregiver that has to pay attention to every moment of someone else’s life so that they’re safe. Being “like a child” would be a great option, but totally unrealistic.
But, here we are with the words of Jesus. “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Now that might be confusing to you. You may be thinking of children you know and wondering how they demonstrate the kind of person who gets into the kingdom of heaven. I once read the Property Laws of a Toddler. They run like this:
1. If I like it, it's mine.
2. If it's in my hand, it's mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks just like mine, it's mine.
8. If I saw it first, it's mine.
9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine.
10. If it's broken, it's yours
That’s true isn’t it? Isn’t that the experience you have with children? How are these people supposed to be examples of who gets into the kingdom of heaven. Aren’t we surprised when we find children who share or who give away things that are attractive to them? Sometimes we’re surprised by adults who do that.
And what about adults… do we really change as we grow up. I came upon a list made up by children to describe their experience of adults. See if this sounds true.
1. Grownups make promises, then they forget all about them, or else they say it wasn't really a promise, just a maybe.
2. Grownups don't do the things they're always telling the children to do--like pick up their things, or be neat, or always tell the truth.
3. Grownups never really listen to what children have to say. They always decide ahead of time what they're going to answer.
4. Grownups make mistakes, but they won't admit them. They always pretend that they weren't mistakes at all--or that somebody else made them.
5. Grownups interrupt children all the time and think nothing of it. If a child interrupts a grownup, he gets a scolding or something worse.
6. Grownups never understand how much children want a certain thing--a certain color or shape or size. If it's something they don't admire--even if the children have spent their own money for it--they always say, "I can't imagine what you want with that old thing!"
7. Sometimes grownups punish children unfairly. It isn't right if you've done just some little thing wrong and grownups take away something that means an awful lot to you. Other times you can do something really bad and they say they're going to punish you, but they don't. You never know, and you ought to know.
8. Grownups are always talking about what they did and what they knew when they were 10 years old--but they never try to think what it's like to be 10 years old right now.
There’s truth in there, isn’t there? Did it make you wince even a little? If it didn’t then you’re really not thinking about what it’s like to be 10 years old right now.
It sounds like we can be self-centered when we’re children and still just as self-centered when we’re grown up.
So what characteristics of children is Jesus thinking about that might be the reason they will enter the kingdom of heaven? What can we learn from them that might allow us to see how to change so we can get in too?
People have studied this for centuries and many people have given up on it. They haven’t taken Jesus seriously and have just figured that it was just one of those “stoptionals” that Jesus brings up occasionally. Do you know about “stoptionals”? I’ve shared before here that one of the things I discovered in moving to South Tampa was that there are stop signs that look like stop signs but they are just optional. You can stop if you want but it’s just not necessary. I learned early one morning on the way to work. As police man in his patrol car just pulled out from a side street, right through a stop sign. I almost drove right into him, but slammed on my brakes in time. He was surprised to see me and after a moment of collecting himself and realizing that nothing had happened he just waved at me and smiled and then kept going. That was about the time I started calling those signs “stoptionals.”
Some people think that there are words of Jesus that are like that. You can stop what you’re doing if you want, but it’s not really necessary. But let’s pretend that he’s meant what he said. Suppose he meant it when he said “Unless you change and become like little children you won’t enter the kingdom of heaven.” But, what if he meant we actually had to change or we wouldn’t experience the kingdom of heaven right now, right here, every day? Maybe he was talking about getting into heaven. When I say that no adults get into heaven, I’m kidding around, kind of using this sentence out of context. But Jesus is in the midst of answering a question of his disciples at this point. They’ve asked him who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Now Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven was right here, right now, tangible in this life. So it may be that his disciples are asking about the time right now, when we’re living in the kingdom of heaven, experiencing that safety that comes from escaping the wrath of God that most people live in constantly. We’re told in the Gospel of John.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
So maybe we get into the kingdom of heaven right here and now and unless we change and become like little children we won’t get in.
Now, it’s clear even by spending only a little time with kids that they can do bad things just like every other human being. They can be just as selfish or self-centered as any adult. But there are a couple of things that children demonstrate and you find them in almost every child anywhere. They have a sense of being just themselves. That’s a pretty good definition of humility. Humility is not thinking less of yourself than others and it’s not discounting things you can do or are good at. Humility is just living as you are – not thinking you’re the worst of sinners, not thinking that you’re all that. Most children also share another experience and to express wonder and excitement and appreciation that is all directed characteristic. It is the ability to express praise. Praise is being able to at someone or something else.
Maybe Jesus was telling us that we need to be humble – to learn how to just be ourselves and to be able to express praise and in particular to be able to praise God. I’m not talking about lifting your hands up or singing loudly or dancing around. I’m saying that unless we change to the place where we can be caught up in the wonder of the holy, in the experience of the presence and appreciation of God, we may not be getting into the kingdom of heaven.
But here’s the thing. When Jesus says we need to change, he actually uses the word we sometimes translate as “converted.” Unless we are converted we won’t enter the kingdom of heaven. Remember he was talking to his disciples and remember our Scripture of today and remember our question – are we supposed to be continually converted and why?
From looking at Paul’s words in Romans 7 and from my life experience I’d have to say that yes we need continuous conversions. We need to be drawn back toward the nature and character of God. We need to be drawn into the wonder of God. We can so easily get caught up in the business of life or into our positions or into the opinion of others that we can get lost. We can end up thinking about what we should do but discovering that the way we live our lives keeps us from doing it.
There is a stage in a child's life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began 'Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.' This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.
Do we need to be continually converted? Every day… every day… because you and I and the Apostle Paul [from the words of our Scripture] know too often we put the eggs first.
