R1640 The Heart of a Child

There really is a difference between being childlike and childish. We'll discover some of that in God's encouraging Word, the Bible itself. This is The Encouraging Word, featuring the Bible-based teaching of Dr. Don Wilton. As we study the Word together, be sure and drop by our website as well. It's www.tewonline.org.

That's www.tewonline.org. And now, The Heart of a Child, today's message from Dr. Don Wilton. I've got a fantastic passage I'm going to be sharing with you today.

Just fasten your seat belts. I want you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18. You've got to see this for yourself. And before I read to you what happened, I'd like to just set the table for you, much like you've just seen a video.

I want you to see what happened. So you'll very quickly understand Jesus was there. So Jesus had this whole crowd of people around him and he was teaching them. He was teaching them about what it means to belong to God, to Jesus. And he was teaching them deep truths. And one of the disciples, which means one of the Christian people there, and you've got to get that. This was not a person who didn't know Jesus. One of the followers of Jesus came up to Jesus and asked Jesus a question.

I think actually that question is incredible. And he basically said, Jesus, help us to understand who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. What does God have to say about greatness?

And I'm telling you, he was asking my question and your question. And we can understand that because we all see ourselves in terms of accomplishment, don't we? We all want our children, ourselves to succeed.

You have to teach your kids to succeed, strive harder, to push for more goals, to do better. We believe that. But when it comes to spiritual matters, these people, these Christians wanted to know, how does greatness or accomplishment enter into our having a relationship with Jesus?

And we battle with that because what we do, now let's just be honest with each other, what we do, and we can understand this. There's at least one of you, at least I hope you are looking and saying right now, well, you know, doc, you're up there preaching, you're a pastor, you left, you traveled across the world, you did this, you did that, you're preaching, therefore you are great. Therefore, God obviously must like you a whole lot and must have accepted you and boy, when it comes to the kingdom of God, you're in. You know, most of you know that Dr. Billy Graham was a member of our church for many years.

That was one of the greatest privilege. And many of you know that I've just written a book called Saturdays with Billy and I sat at this man's feet for 25 years. So I don't mind telling you, you know this, I remember that first time in 1993 when he called me and I drove up to Montreat and I was taken up in this convoy of black cars with antennas on their roofs and through all the security and I got up to this house up on the mountains in Montreat and I'm telling you, when that door opened and out that door stepped Dr. Billy Graham and Miss Ruth Graham, would you think less of me if I told you, I'm telling you, my heart, I was looking at like great. I mean, I was half scared to death.

I mean, what was I doing? I mean, this was Dr. Billy Graham, guys. And if you asked me to try and define Dr. Graham, I tell you, I'm going to say to you, God, man. And then for the next 25 years, I saw that because I was there. The presidents, prime ministers, famous athletes. There was times when I wanted to crawl across the ground then go up to this unbelievably famous person because I knew if I could come back how much I'd impress Corey if I had the signature or the autograph of some of these athletes.

I never even talked about them. They all hung around, wanted to be with the great Billy Graham. Everybody wants to know about this man. He was so great and he was.

You know what I tell everybody? Number one thing about Dr. Billy Graham, he had the heart of a child. Now, I don't say it in those words. I talk about his unbelievable humility. I can't wrap my mind.

I'm so far from it myself. This man who was so great beginning with me, if you'd been any time with me and Dr. Billy Graham, I promise you, no question you would have thought I was the important person. Now, how stupid is that? You can all laugh.

It is just like, isn't that the most ridiculous? If you didn't know any difference and you walked into that room and you saw Don Wilton and Dr. Billy Graham, you would have said, boy, the real stuff sitting there, the important dude, the man who's got it all, Mr. Great is Don Wilton. Everything was backwards. He was so humble and I held his hand all the way to heaven. Stood with him in the rotunda of the Capitol of the United States of America in front of presidents and congressmen and Supreme Court justices. I'm telling this man, everybody wanted to be around this man.

What was it? So here's Jesus. And a Christian person comes up to Jesus and says, so Jesus, who's the greatest?

Surely you're going to say Billy Graham. You know what Jesus did? He grabbed hold of a child. He brought that child right into the middle of them.

And when he did, he said, I want all of you to understand something and I want you to see yourselves through the heart of a child. Here's what happens to us. We're born and we grow up in our homes. We go places, we do things and our hearts change.

We become big people. We get hurt. Some of you have been really hurt, haven't you? Somebody today listening to me, you got a serious hurt. It's no laughing matter. It's serious. All of us go back to your childhood.

I'm telling you, there's somebody sitting here. Remember when you fell in love? How fantastic it was? Something happened and nearly destroyed your heart. You live with it. As a teenager right here, you may be looking at me right now.

Remember when you were eight, nine years of age and now you've 16, 17, something's gone down, right? You know, God knows that, sees that. He loves us in that. So here's what he did.

This is fantastic. I want to read this to you. You got to see it for yourself. Matthew chapter 18 verse one through five. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. He called a little child and had him stand among them.

By the way, I just want to settle something here because I know there are some brilliant people. When Jesus in the, in many of his illustrations, one of them he had, he said, suffer the little children to come to me. He was holding a baby, an infant. By the way, babies don't stand.

I just want you to notice that. He got a, I don't know how old this child was, but there's no age. Three years old, four years old, six years old. This is what the Bible says. He called a little child and had that child stand among them. And then Jesus said this, listen folks, I'll tell you the truth. Unless you change and become like little children, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name, welcomes me. What did Jesus do?

Just want to put this on the table here so we can understand. First of all, he responded to a question. That's my question. It's your question. Who is it? Who qualifies?

You know how we qualify? Whether we go to church. Well, look at that person, they give the most money. Or look at that person, they do this. Or that person, they preach the most. Or that person sings the most.

Or that person is this and that person is that. So how do you suppose Jesus looks at this? Didn't say those things are not important. We do that because we love him. Not in order to be loved by him. Children can't really do anything for us. They can't like buy you a new motor car. They can't cook you a fantastic meal.

They can't give you some money to improve your bank account. Children can't give you out of their greatness but actually what they give you is far greater than any greatness. They give to us priceless stuff.

You can't put a like a hang a dollar sign on it. They give you a heart. So Jesus responded to this question, who's the greatest? How do you? Lord, we need to know because we're all trying so jolly hard here. I mean, I've even got some buddies who know how to recite the Lord's Prayer.

Surely. I got a friend here who sings in the choir. Lord, I, listen, I got someone here who does this, goes to church every Sunday.

Who's the greatest? So he responded to a question and he illustrated his question with a child. Come on now, Jesus. You bring a little child, a little boy, a little girl in here.

And the third thing he did was he applied this. And just as a matter of interest, and I encourage you to do this in your own private time, there's a lot more than what I'm saying just in a few minutes here. This is powerful, guys. I, I selected, I just selected, asked God to show me cause I had like 35 things out of this whole passage. He said, Lord, can't do this, man. I'll miss lunch. You know, just give me something here.

So I've only got four. So I apologize to you, but what, what, what did Jesus want us to see and to know when he brought this child in? Number one, he wanted us to see his ultimate creation. What's his ultimate creation? That he made us, brought us into this world in his image. You want to see God's ultimate creation?

Just look at a child. Beautiful, man. Forgive the interruption. We'll be back with the rest of today's message from Dr. Wilton in just a moment, but hope is such a critical part of our life today and hope in him. If you haven't been to our website lately, drop by and take a look at this month's remarkable resource called hope in him. It's available for you right now, again on our website at T E W online.org. That's T E W online dot O R G, where you can hear today's message again, or share it with a friend or sign up for the daily devotional with Dr. Don Wilton.

That's online at T E W online.org. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don. Born conceived in sin because of the sin of Adam, but God's creation. It's first thing he wanted us to see when he tried to tell us what is great as far as he's concerned. I want you to see the way I made you. I want you to go back before you started getting bent out of shape by everything in this world. I had a 17 year old, I'm just telling you now, 17 year old girl two weeks ago.

Come and see me. 17. She sat there by the way with her mother. If I told you, she literally talked about what her life was when she was 10, 11, 12. I mean this beautiful little girl, man, running around, just having the best time you can imagine.

Between the age of 15 and 17, if I told you what she got involved in, some of you wouldn't believe me. In two years, her life went from this beautiful, carefree, wonderful, to just weighted down, man. Just sad. Nothing, you know, quote, got nothing left to live for.

Ruined. Got this. Done that.

Got this. Of course, I introduced her to Jesus. Jesus would have said to her, which he did say to her, unless you change like a what?

Like a little child. You got to offer your heart to Jesus. You've got to trust him. He wanted us to see his ultimate creation, but he also wanted us to feel his warm embrace.

His warm embrace. I can tell you what Jesus didn't do. I'm just telling you this, guys. Jesus didn't say, hey, boy, stand over there. I'll guarantee you Jesus didn't do that. I know what Jesus did, but he showed us the tremendous love that he had for children right throughout Scripture, and he uses that even in Ephesians chapter five and verse one when he says, be imitators like little children.

Jesus, when he brought a little child, he wanted to see his warm embrace. It's like we can't help ourselves. I'm like that. You like that.

Check moms and dads. I'll confess to you, man, when I'm around children, I just melt. I'm gone.

It's over. I'm so bad, man. I'll be sitting walking into a restaurant, and there's a family there, and there's this little girl sitting in her seat. I've got to do everything I can not to just stop and go over and have a little talk with her.

Hey, sweetheart, how are you? There's a warm embrace. Jesus wants you.

Who's the greatest? It's those who have received with the heart of a child the warmth of Jesus' embrace. He loves you, man.

Don't run. Your hearts become hardened, and Jesus got it. He saw us.

He understood that. The scars we have are so real. It's not a figment of your imagination. Don't ever tell somebody just to get over it. You don't get over some things like that. I tell you, abuse is a very real thing, folks. Bullying is a very real thing. Unkindness, a very real thing. I mean, you could go listing them down the road. I'm telling you because it's me, it's you, it's us.

There's some of you sitting here today. Your heart has been so damaged, man, and Jesus gets it. You hurt him.

He says you've got to become like a little child. There's a third thing he wanted us to see, and I love this point. He wanted us to see, he wanted us to understand his complete protection. When Jesus brought a child in to answer this question, look at my creation.

Look at my warm embrace. I want you to really understand how complete my protection is. Why did Jesus bring a little child into this? Because he wanted to see, he wanted us to understand his complete protection. He protects us. He embraces us, then he protects us. He says, I got you, man.

I got you. I tell you, at Camp Voyager last week, all the great parents and leaders, I'll guarantee you there wasn't a second that those adults were not saying to all the boys and girls, kids, we got you. There was not a one time that Corey turned around and said, man, why don't you guys this afternoon, you group of third graders, there's a pond over there, why don't you just go and have a little swim by yourself?

Fourth graders. Why don't you fifth graders just go and hang on that rope there and jump off at any point you want to? I tell you what, go and get on that blob thing that launches you up to Mars and back, and don't worry to put on a life jacket.

If you swim, not swim, you'll get over it. You know, guys, we treat God like that. So here you are today, and you're saying, you know what, I've been subject to abuse, insult, racism, antagonism, I've been bullied, maligned, my marriage is broken up, I've gone through all this stuff, I've got so many scars, and Jesus says, you know what, you are my creation. I give you my warm embrace because I love you so much.

I want you to know I've got you in the palm of my hand. He takes one more step, here it is, and I'll close with this. What did he want us to see?

He wanted us to really realize his designated responsibility. You see, all of us keep thinking it was about the child. I think what Jesus was telling everybody else standing around there, see that child, your responsibility. Can I tell you something that sounds funny?

I've never met a child in my church who brought themselves to church. So what do children do? What was he trying to tell those of us who have that responsibility? Children feel when we love them.

Did you know that? Children feel your love. Children listen when we pray. We, moms and dads, grandparents, adults, children grow when we teach.

That's responsibility. Children respond when we listen to them. Just telling you now, guys, develop the art of actually listening to children. Listen to them.

Let them share, talk. Guys, watch me. Put your phone down. Did you hear me, parents?

Put it down. Look at your child and let them tell you all about it. Listen.

They will respond when you listen. Children follow when we lead. When we lead, that's what Jesus wanted to say when he was talking about the greatest. But I think he was also saying children go when we place.

When we place our children in worship, they go. What a powerful message from Dr. Don Wilton. You've heard him as he's been preaching from the pulpit and teaching.

Now, as he stepped into the studio, open your heart to what he wants to share next. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today, I repent of my sin, and by faith, I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name. My friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.

This is exciting news. If you just prayed along with Dr. Wilton moments ago to give your life to Christ or rededicate your life to Jesus, Dr. Wilton wants to rejoice with you, celebrate with you, as we all do here at The Encouraging Word, and we want to help you in the next steps to grow in your faith. Dr. Wilton's prepared a unique set of resources for you. If you'll call and ask for them, they're absolutely free at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. Or meet us on the website at tewonline.org.

That's tewonline.org. We'd love to encourage you as you have been encouraging us through your prayer and financial support. We are excited to announce that a friend of the ministry has donated $200,000 as a challenge gift and has extended a challenge to our donors to give an additional $300,000 by December 31st. This challenge is to fund our television broadcasting. Would you prayerfully consider a donation to this challenge? Please call 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673 to give a donation and be sure to tell them that this is for The Match Challenge. Thank you for your support of The Encouraging Word. Let's stay connected until next time on The Encouraging Word at our website, tewonline.org. We'd love to connect with you.