Learning From The Children

Introduction

Normal speaker, but hopefully we can be edified by some of the things that we’re going to talk about this evening. I’ve got my outline here. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be hearing from me tonight, but Jesse did a good job with his lesson this morning. Appreciate his words and thoughts this morning. Before Laura and I had kids, we frequently like to go out to eat and try new restaurants and try to find the little hole in the wall. And she usually could pick out the entree that I would order. I generally like to order the most unique or interesting dish on the menu. I usually never order the same thing twice. Laura generally orders fish, pork, unless we’re at a burger place and we both like burgers.

Now that we have kids, it’s a totally different situation. Our kids make eating time much more challenging, and it’s probably one of the most taxing things day to day. Because you do it all the time every day. More than three times a day, it seems like we’re eating and trying to feed the kids.

But now the dog often throws up because they’re eating too much people food. We have a two and a half year old and a one-year-old. And they’re not exactly at the age where they can tell you what they want to eat, but they sure can tell you what they don’t want to eat. Sometimes I feel like Sherlock Holmes had an easier time figuring out his mysteries than what we need to feed our boys for that occasion. We are often trying multiple different items to figure out what they want to eat, and you finally figure think you figure something out. Okay, they like this. Let’s keep feeding them that. And so you feed that feed that item to them a couple times, and then all of a sudden, no, they don’t even want to touch it again.

And someone put it to me like this, like Ross, let’s say you had a burger last night. Would you then want to have a burger again for breakfast the next day? And then and then again for lunch, and then again for dinner, and then again for breakfast the next day? Okay, I get your point. So I don’t want to have a burger for every meal. And kids are the same. They don’t necessarily want to eat the same thing over and over again. Our boys are also at the phase where they want to feed themselves. And for our youngest one, this is more taxing on us because of he cannot get the food in his mouth. It’s on his face, it’s on him, it’s on the floor, it’s everywhere but his mouth.

I try to take the spoon and feed it to him, he doesn’t, he turns his head. I try to hold his hand with the spoon, and he won’t even let me hold his hand. He just he just wants to do it himself. So this is a frequent event, and many of us have kids here, and even if you don’t have kids, or it’s been a while since you have kids, I started thinking about what in the world does God want me to learn from this occasion? Because it is happening all the time. Every single day I’m having to go through this scenario. So is there something that I can learn from this situation? And I started thinking about that, and basically, when you can’t force someone to do something you want, what do you have to do?

1. You Have to Be Patient

You have to wait. You have to be patient. I cannot force my kids to eat. Now, as they get older, I’m sure you can start to instill some discipline actions to help reinforce them to eat. Hey, if you don’t eat this, I’m you’re not getting any dessert, or you’re going to bed early, or you’re not going to play your toys, or whatever it may be. But at this young of an age, it’s much more challenging to tell your kids you’re going to punish them if they don’t eat. They don’t necessarily understand that concept. So while Laura and I are going through this process, and it’s much more taxing for her because she has to deal with it all day. I’m at work and I only deal with it maybe once a day.

But as we go through this process, what happens to either of us? We become frustrated, which then can lead to anger, and then oftentimes those emotions turn the kids into, they begin to become upset or start crying or don’t want to eat at all. This made me think about in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4, where Paul says, And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Paul also says in Colossians 321, he says, Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. This word father could actually be translated as parent. So this is not just a command to the fathers, mothers, you’re not off the hook here in this. Parents, both parents, this can be a good reminder for us that when we become upset based on how what our children are doing to us, we provoke them.

This word provoke can mean to stir up, to irritate, to exasperate. Another way to phrase Paul’s command is to stop nagging your kids. This command, though, can be basically extrapolated to the rest of our relationships in life, right? We need to be patient with all of our relationships, not just our kids. We need to be patient with our spouse, with our kids, with our parents, with our boss, with our co-workers, with our employees, with the police officers that just pulled me over. We need to be patient with. Sometimes I see people speaking to the television to an elected official in a way that they wouldn’t speak to an actual person. And sometimes I can have a reflection of how you talk to the TV is a reflection of how you talk to the people in your home, whether people at church or the people at work.

2. Be Eager to Learn Like Children

So these are things that we need to consider, being patient. So that’s one thing that I have learned from being a kid. Or not me being a kid, but maybe I’m acting like a kid sometimes. But from having kids. Alright, what’s what else can we learn? Learn from kids. In Matthew 19, verses 13 and 14, the people were coming to see Jesus and they were bringing children to him. And the disciples rebuked the people that were bringing the children. They may have thought that children were not important enough for Jesus’ time. And look in verse 14, what does Jesus say? He says, Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them. For of such is the kingdom of heaven. What was Jesus trying to teach adults about by using children as his example?

Children have a simplicity to them, their innocence. They have an eagerness to learn.

That brings a smile to my face, and I’m sure most parents’ face to see the eagerness of children when they learn. Often you see this same type of excitement, this eagerness to learn about God with new converts or those that are interested in Christianity and in God’s Word, that they have they have so many questions and they want to learn, and they have they have an excitement about them. And as Jesse spoke about this morning, about longing for the pure milk of the word. Sometimes as Christians that have we’ve been doing this for a while, we sometimes lose that eagerness and that zeal, enthusiasm to learn God’s word. We’ve read through this book maybe several times, and we know the story, so there’s a we’ve lost that newness.

So, how do we maintain that excitement that we can that we see in kids and that maybe we see in younger Christians? in First Peter chapter 2, verse 1 says, Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted the Lord is gracious. Some versions say that the Lord is good. What he’s saying here is that if you have tasted, when a baby, Jesse explained it well, that when a baby has tasted their mother’s milk, they will long for that continually. They want that. When we as Christians have tasted what God has done for us, we ought to long to continue that tasting, to continue the with the knowledge that of what God has done for us.

He’s been good to us, he’s been gracious.

Several weeks ago, Laura and I had a had some people over to our home, and one of the gentlemen that was in our home was a younger gentleman, and he had only been a Christian for a fairly short period of time. less than two years, maybe one to two years. And I asked him what I asked him, how did he become a Christian? And he was very eager and very excited to go through basically twenty five minutes of his spiritual journey throughout his whole life, and basically went to tell me about how he had all these valleys and these tragedies and all these bad things that had happened to him and where it had brought him to eventually he meeting somebody and talking to somebody about the gospel and eventually becoming baptized.

And I could just see the excitement and joy of finally him getting to that point of knowing the truth and knowing God. And for me, just sitting there listening to his story was encouraging to me. It was encouraging to me to hear the things that he had said and the things that he had gone through. So one of the things that we can do that oftentimes that we may not come in contact with that many converts, but we do have some here that have been recently baptized. Kelsey and Tyler’s been a Christian for not that many number of years, and there may be others here as well. Is that if we communicate with these types of people and develop relationships that when we hear their stories, we can they can too can give us give us excitement.

One other way is that teaching Bible class, teaching Bible class and teaching the little kids can help see the excitement. Kids are excited to learn and they’re asking questions. We can do that. We can teach, you don’t have to teach the adult class and feel like it’s a it’s a pressure thing that you have to be very prepared, not that you shouldn’t be prepared, but teaching the little kids is can be less challenging, but it can be a moment that in a time that we can see the excitement and that energy that they have can that can feed off onto us. So eager to learn. Let’s be eager to learn like children are.

3. Keep Singing

All you kids that are coloring and not paying attention. I want you to start paying attention, and I want you to sing the next song when Ed gets up here. I want us all to be singing. This group does an excellent job. My boys, I’ll be working in my in my office, and I’ve got a bookcase there, and they’ll pull down one of the books and sit down on the floor and put the book in their lap, and they don’t even know what book it is, and they’ll just start singing. And they’ll start going through the hand motions. And that warms my heart, seeing that they only observe this what twice a week, and they’re wanting to imitate that. They want to sing. God gave us singing to excite us, to make us excited about worshiping Him, and to stir emotion.

Sometimes we talk, we hear people say how there’s no emotion in our worship. It’s so stale and boring. It shouldn’t be. We sing. We sing and we should be singing to have excitement and be emotional about what we’re what we’re doing. So I want to read a few passages. A bunch of these are from Psalms. Just about singing and why we should be excited about singing. In Psalms 13, verses 5 and 6. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Chapter 27 and verse 6. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies, all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy.

I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Chapter 30, verse 11 and 12. Shout for the joy shout for the joy in the Lord. O you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre. Make melody to him with the harp of ten strings. Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts. For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of steadfast love of the Lord. Chapter 96, verse 1. Oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name, tell of his salvation from day to day, declares his glory among the nations.

His marvelous works among the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

Chapter 138 and verse 1. I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart. Before the gods, I sing your praise. Several years ago, I well, first let me say that all probably most people here have been to the Kleinwood singing, and how of amazing time that is. And if you haven’t, then I strongly encourage you to singing with a thousand plus different Christians. And it’s not very many opportunities that we can be with that many Christians to sing, and it is a great experience. I was at a ball game of some sort, and this wasn’t a spiritual singing, but I’m it makes me think about what it will be like to be among thousands and thousands of Christians being able to sing. We were at a ball game, and it was shortly after 9 11.

And we’re we’re talking probably 65,000 plus people at this game. And they started singing the national anthem, and the entire stadium was singing the national anthem. And to be among that many people singing was amazing. And made me think about when we’re among thousands of people, when we reach heaven and we’ll all be singing, that is going to be a glorious time.

So keep singing, children. Don’t forget, when we stand, we’re going to be singing.

4. Freely Meet and Communicate With People

Laura and I went to I think it was a Boston market. And we it was kind of a small place, and there weren’t very many people there, and Laura and I go to the counter and start ordering our meals, and Bo kind of scurried off to the side. And so we ordered our meals and got our drinks, and then we’re kind of like, where’s Bo? And so we kind of walk around the counter and we come up to a table, and there was a little old lady in a wheelchair, and she was pulled up to this table, and right across from her was Bo. He had crawled up into the chair and was just talking away to her. And the biggest smile was on this little old lady.

And this actually, I draw two lessons from this setting. Number one is that well, first I suspect that Bo was because Bo’s grandfather, Pops, is in a wheelchair, that he was sensitive to this to this lady because she also was in a wheelchair. And he wasn’t embarrassed to go sit with her, and it didn’t matter that he didn’t even know her. And I understand there are there are good reasons for us to be protective of our kids around strangers, but sometimes I think we parents we take a good thing away from them by speaking to strangers in some occasions. Well, I think there’s two things that I draw from this about this watching Bo talk to a little old lady in a wheelchair.

Number one is the ability to freely meet, communicate, and have conversation with people. Sometimes I think we forget to do that. One of the reasons that Laura and I chose this group to worship with is because of the friendliness and the warm welcoming that we had when we started worshiping here, and I think we do an excellent job at that. A couple weeks ago, though, I mentioned about how Laura and I had been worshiping here for several months, and that we hadn’t met everybody. And I said that was partly my fault, and it was partly some of your guys’ fault, too. Well, right after I said that, there were two people who came up and met me. So that means it worked.

And that means you were willing to go out of your bubble and to and to say hi. And I think we need to keep doing that. We’ve got some visitors sitting right here. I don’t know them, but they must know the bakers. But let’s let’s meet them. And let’s make sure that we are meeting people that we don’t know and welcoming people into our group.

5. Have Compassion and Esteem Others

And then the second lesson that I draw from this scenario was that Bo had compassion on this little old lady. That he wanted to speak to her. He did not care how much money she had, what kind of car she drove, where she worked, who her husband was. He didn’t care about any of that. What kind of clothes she was wearing. He just wanted to talk to her. He saw her. He saw that she was in a situation that was maybe less fortunate than others, and he wanted to talk to her. In Luke chapter 4, verse 18, Luke tells us one of the reasons that Jesus came to this earth. He says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of the sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. Then in Philippians chapter 2, Paul tells us, Philippians 2 and verse 3, he says, Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowly lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interest, but also for the interests of others. And Bo didn’t consciously think about that. But he just did it. And there’s something about children that they don’t have to necessarily consciously think about things, but he was able to do that. Right after this is in Matthew, we’ll be reading just a few verses in Matthew 14.

Right after John the Baptist was beheaded, there’s a verse that kind of indicates that it was it affected Jesus. John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin. This was family to him. Not only was it just family, but it was a man that was preaching God’s word. He was doing God’s work. And it says in verse 13, in Matthew 14. It says, When Jesus heard it, when he heard the news about John the Baptist being beheaded, he departed from there by boat to a deserted place by himself. So maybe he wanted to be by himself to mourn, to think about what had happened. And maybe mostly important because he knew that the same thing was going to happen to him, that John the Baptist was unjustly killed, and he knew the same thing was going to happen to him.

But he wanted to be by himself. But then look and continue on. It says, but when the multitudes heard it, they followed him on foot from the cities. Verse 14. And when Jesus went out, he saw a great multitude, and he was moved with compassion for them and healed their sick.

But he saw people that were in need. That’s why he came to this earth and he had compassion on them. Do we do the same? Can we do the same? In Luke, or I think in Mark, it renders that Jesus saw the people like sheep without a shepherd. He saw them and he had compassion on them.

6. Go to Someone Who Loves You

Alright, so we can learn how to esteem others before ourselves from children. Alright, one last thing that we can learn from children. Kids fall down all the time. Right? And they scrape their knee, they bump their head, they hit their head perfectly on the corner of the coffee table. All kids do this. And they only want one thing when they do this. They want to go to their mommy or their daddy, and they want you to kiss them and tell them that everything’s going to be alright. They don’t want a new toy. They don’t want to go on a shopping spree. They don’t want a new set of clothes. They don’t want to drive real fast in their car. They might want to drive past in their little cars.

All they want is to go to somebody who loves them and to tell them that it’s going to be okay. When we are hurting, when we are in pain, when we might be dealing with sin, don’t go on a shopping spree. Don’t go play on your phone. Don’t go watch ESPN. Go to someone who is going to give you compassion, going to give you love.

God does that. He does that for us. We’ll read a couple passages from Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 16, it says, Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Then in chapter 10, verse 22.

It says, Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Last night I watched this exact scenario of a little boy getting hurt. We were over at somebody’s house, and Johnny Everett had gotten hurt, and he was tears were streaming down his face, and all he wanted to do was to go to his dad and to be comforted. And his dad picked him up and held him for a little bit and comforted him, and then, alright, you’re good? And he went about his way and started playing again. Johnny had full assurance that when he went to his father, his father would comfort him.

We too can have full assurance that when we go to our Father, he will comfort us. He will comfort us. In chapter 2, this is our last passage. In chapter 2, verse 18. It says, For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted. So even if you don’t have kids at this moment, maybe you haven’t had an opportunity. You guys are still kids, and so you don’t have kids, right? You’re the one teaching us lessons. At the same time, we’re teaching you lessons, right? But we can learn things, we can learn from those people around us. And ultimately, what I see, the relationship from parent to child, is really just the relationship of our father to us.

Conclusion

And that’s what I see is that the things that I have to deal with my kids being patient, learn wanting to learn, God is doing the same with me. He’s having to be patient with me because I’m stepping out of line. He wants me to be eager to serve him, to learn about him. He wants me to go to him and be comforted, not go to the things of the world. Hopefully, these things this evening have been an encouragement to you and kids. We’re about to sing a song. If there’s anyone who has any need, then let’s stand and let’s sing, adults and kids.