Child Of God

This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now. Uh-huh. Welcome to the Masculine Journey.

We're so glad that you are with us today. And if you're a regular listener, we're super excited. If you're a new listener, we're still super excited. And hopefully, you will be after listening.

So, anyway, We are continuing in our foundation series and um The only thing that has perhaps more Foundation stones in it than our foundational series, maybe the Tower of Babel. And that didn't turn out well for them. But, you know, the other day what was happening was Sam and Robby and Harold and Art and Danny, they were all pushing one of those stones into place really strongly and it rolled back on them, and now they're all gone. Um no, they're not here with us today, but um they were not injured in the making of this program or the foundations. Um oh or if they were injured, it was intentional by God.

And he will also bring the healing.

So, Andy, take us down the road towards the next brick in our foundation.

Okay, so. Last week we did um just the foundation of our identity as sons of God. And we followed that up. This was Sam's idea, but I think it was a good one because I am so focused on the sun and that identity that I don't even really think about this. And you could say, well, that sounds like the thing, but I'm talking about.

the foundation of being a child of God. And the distinction I see in the topic is: yes, father, you're. A father, you have affection for you. He teaches you things passed on wisdom. But there's that There's that place where you were born again to where you become a child of God.

And what is it like for most of us when we receive that? You've heard adults and children receive God the same way. But it's usually as a child, or it is as a child, because it takes great faith to do it. But you have to humble yourself, but you have to have a spirit of wonder. And we're just going to kind of dig into that.

I think it's a great topic to really get into, and there's plenty of scripture to back it up. Oh, yeah. I mean, the thing that first came to me was Matthew 18:3. Truly, I say to you, unless you change and become, I never pick that up, unless you've changed. That's a repentance.

and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. And so it's so important. That's our starting place. But we continue to be his child all the way until we go home with him, and we'll forever be his child. But we want to just delve into that.

I think there's a lot there to unpack. Yeah, last week we kind of focused on God as Father. And our role as sons, as you said. But this, again, this takes me in a different place too. And we talked about it before the show.

And we'll kind of go there maybe throughout the show, but um. Uh as a listener I want to ask this question, and I'll ask it to you guys as well. And then we want to set up the first one, the first clip that we're going to use, which is one of Andy's clips. And one of Andy's clips. And so you'll understand that in a minute.

But the. The question is. What makes you feel childish. Yeah. Emphasis on the ish.

Not childlike, but what makes you feel child-ish? And so if you're listening right now, think about that.

Okay, and I'll just throw a few things out there. When my wife feels the need to say something to me that she would probably rather not say. But feels the need to have to enter in because maybe I've not been. pulling my end of the the bargain. Um I really feel childish very, very quickly there.

Sometimes, when I look at my finances and think, you know, I'm 61 years old, I ought to be here by, you know, my own measure, but I'm not. I'm here, and, you know, and it's. It doesn't take very long. um for my own spirit or the enemy perhaps. To begin to kind of beat up on me a little bit and take me back to that childish place.

So, set up that, our next clip, Andy.

So Sam submitted this, and he did have some stuff come up with work and wasn't able to make it. But it's one of my favorite Annie Griffith show clips there is. I think it's. one of the classics and it's where opi They're they're having a fundraiser um at a school And his dad hears that he's not actually contributing to what he should be giving. And there's just this whole dialogue that goes back, and it's really humorous.

It's a shame you can't see the end of the show because Andy really gets into. you know, where he realizes he kind of missed his child's heart. But you see this Child. This father-child relationship going back and forth. It's quite humorous, and we always like to start with something funny.

So, here you go. Why? If it ain't Charlie Moneybags, the big philanthropist, I did too. What you talking about, Paul I'm talking about the underprivileged children's drive. Oh, they collected for that at school, Paul.

Oh, I know they did. Oh, I know they did. And when they called your name, you gave the large, generous amount of three cents. My, that is big of you, Diamond Jim. Can I give him too much, Paul?

Too much? I could ask him to give back two cents. Yeah. We better talk about this thing.

Now, now, now, look here, OP, you can't give a little bitty-piddling amount like three cents to a worthy cause like the underprivileged children's drive. I was reading here just the other day where there's somewhere like 400 needy boys in this county alone, or one and a half boys per square mile. There is? The show is. I never seen one, Paul.

Never seen one what? A half a boy.

Well, it's not really a half a boy, it's a ratio. A ratio who? Not whole ratio, a ratio. It's mathematics. Arithmetic.

Okay. Look now, Opie, just forget that part of it. Forget the part about the half a boy. It's pretty hard to forget a thing like that, Boss.

Well try. Yeah. Poor Horatio.

Now, Horatio is not the only needy boy. Yeah. I'm not kidding. Yeah. Sign up.

Didn't you didn't you ever give anybody anything just for the pleasure of it? Ju you know, something you didn't want anything in return for? Sure, just yesterday I gave my friend Jimmy something.

Now, that's fine. What'd you get him? A sock in the head. I I meant charity. I didn't charge him nothing.

I meant something for the joy of giving. I enjoyed it. Yeah, that's classic. Shout out to Danny, too. I know he submitted that a time or two.

being the Andy Griffith fan he is, but You know, that there's no point there other than just the humor and the childlike understanding. The words, as a kid, you You know, when you first started hearing this gospel message, there were a lot of words that sounded like Horatio to you, right? Yes, yes. And just starting out, and that's the process. God starts us out as a child where we know nothing.

And he leads us, you know, step by step into maturing into, or hopefully maturing into a. you know, a mature Christian. Yeah, I I remember one of my professors in seminary said, you know, every time The preacher would quote, which was pretty much every Sunday, rise and walk in newness of life.

Well, he heard rise and walk with Eunice in life, and he wasn't sure who Eunice was and didn't definitely want to go anywhere with her. And so I definitely can understand where Opie was coming from. I love the fact that. Opie has the child-like Ability to, he's innocent. He doesn't know he's done anything wrong.

He's not worried about it. Dad's a little concerned, you know, and he's not. Living up to the Taylor. Reputation, if you will. Yeah, that's it.

That's kind of like being the preacher's kid, isn't it, Jim? It may be, but they are they do d come from different Directions. Uh the worst thing is if you're like me and you've done both. started as a cop, I ended as a pastor and I don't think anybody really wants to have fun with it. If you'd have just been a lawyer as well.

I think one thing that really relates this. The child has to be able to relearn again. That's right. Yeah. There's some things that I think too.

Well, in this case, you know, it's not an exact. Comparison to a child and God, and he's got his deficiencies, and if you I've seen this. What Opie's holding back on is he's saving money for his little girlfriend to buy her a jacket. And at the very end of the show they're eating dinner and the and thing AB asks, what does everybody have and And Andy was like, Well, Aunt being OP or having chicken, but I'm having crow. Yeah, right.

He was a little hard on his boy. And, you know, I totally can understand that. My children still to this day. Um, Say, Dad, that you weren't, that wasn't the way you were with us. You were, you know, really hard here, really hard there.

And the odd thing is, I don't remember about 80% of those, which really scalds them. Yeah, that I don't remember. But I just tell them, you know, I try to forget traumatic things. And evidently, it was traumatic for you, so I forgot it. Just be happy your dad grew out of it.

That's exactly right. And that's questionable at times, I'm sure. My grandchildren might testify to that. I think I have become favorite grandfather status, but. That doesn't mean that I'm still not really, really broken in that regard.

So I asked the question What makes you feel childish? Jam? Yeah. Well, you actually reminded me of yet another one. But I'm going to start with fear.

Okay. A any time there's something afraid of I feel like you know, I can't handle this, so I must yep. Be a kid. Uh but you reminded me of of Having my wife correct me, which takes me back to the transactional analysis of parent and child. And I That takes me to my reaction, but that's your next question, which we'll get to after that.

Yeah, well, what about you, Grant? What makes you feel childish? Same subject same same sub subject. If I can't relearn Okay.

So, if somebody's kind of saying you should know this, you should that I can't. Oh, well, okay. All right.

Well, we're going to pick back up on our hero Grant and Andy and Jim and myself here in a few minutes. Right now, we would like to invite you to come to a Masculine Journey Advance Boot Camp. that's coming up November the 19th through the 22nd. What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there.

I listened to Morgan Snyder's book, Driving to Work last year, and that was a very profound experience.

So, this kind of culminated into it. I'd have been invited to it several times, and just it never worked out. God really had it set up that I came last time.

So, coming into this one, I knew this one went deeper and I really wanted it. It's a break for me to get outside of things I've got going on, and I just needed a break from it and needed to reconnect. It's been absolutely bad, this process. The covenant asylum, silent prayer, those are some of my favorite parts. This is real connection with the Lord.

You hear him speak, you can get direction, guidance, anything you're missing is there. You always learn something new. It's fun experiencing it with other men. It's fun standing for them and what they're going through. We're all different and unique, but we're all those.

Through the same struggles, and when you hear somebody else went through it, too, it kind of gives you an encouragement that, hey, you can make it through this, and God's got you, and He's going to hold you up through it, and He's going to carry you to the next level. Register today at masculinejourney.org. Born again. You are found. Your blood flow.

Through my veins, I'm no longer. That is one of our favorite songs at boot camp and other things. Andy, why did you pick that? Uh just i it had the message. It's from Romans 8:15.

Um I won't read that again because it was right there in the lyrics, but it's Jonathan David Heltzer. Friend of the family of Danny's, but they have put out some great music. It's called No Longer Slaves. But, you know, that's the shift. You think about this, the progression, you don't think a child would be.

The Their entryway into the kingdom of God wouldn't be as a slave, but we were all born as slaves, slaves of sin, right?

So we're no longer those slaves to sin once we are born into the kingdom. And, you know, I love that part of it where he's talking about where you have God's blood flowing through our veins. And, you know, just the newness of life.

Sometimes we get so. Um Comfortable in our salvation over the years, or whatever. We don't have that newness and feeling. But, you know, a child with wonder would constantly. Um, sees that again over and over in their life.

God did something new. It's like being born again each time, you know, that God does something in your life.

So. Yeah, and we're not talking about the the childlike spirit. That refuses to believe reality. Right. And I don't even want to compare it to like Santa Claus or something like that.

But not that that's bad. I love the fact that children, you know, love Santa Claus and believe in Santa Claus and all of that.

However, Um We're just talking about the innocence of their heart. It's not been. Polluted, it's not been thwarted, it's not been wounded to the point where it's calloused and broken and does not want to accept some of these truths because of the implications of that.

Well, if I accept that, that means I'm broken. If I accept that I'm a sinner, And that I need to be saved, that means I've done something wrong. And we don't live in a society that. really believes in having done anything wrong anymore.

So Jim, you've got the next clip that's coming from the TV show The Chosen. It is, and it's a very early episode. And this actually and as a To them, this isn't biblical. But it sure is Jesus. And what we're doing is listening to Jesus before he has started his ministry.

And he was camping out by himself in the woods, and some children found him. And this is after a couple of encounters. and they are getting taught by Jesus. And as children are Eating it up. Things about scripture that you cannot understand yet, then that is okay, that is fine.

You have many years ahead of you. And God does not reveal all things at once. But children. What if many of the things that our people think about how we are to behave and how we are to treat one another. I wrote.

You want things to be fair. When someone wrongs you, you want to right it. And you know who else loves justice? But what does the Lord say in the law of Moses? About justice and vengeance.

Vengeance is mine. Yes, very good. Very good. Boys, pay attention. She doesn't even go to Torah class, huh?

The Lord loves justice. But maybe. It is not ours to handle. Do you remember when David had the chance? to kill King Saul, who was evil to him.

But he didn't. Saul was God's anointed. And it was not the right time for justice. And God says he will have compassion on his people when White. Uh let's see if someone who studies this at school is learning, huh?

Huh? Whether strength is gone? Yes, very good. So Maybe we let God provide the justice. Hmm?

Maybe we handle these things in a different way. Not trying to be the strongest all the time. Even Messiah? He would have to see. But do not expect Messiah to arrive in Jerusalem on a tall horse carrying weapons.

And he will be most pleased. With those of you Who are the peacemakers? That particularly struck home for me on two levels. I wanted to know everything as a kid, and at times I still do. And this opens with the.

You're not going to know everything, and that's okay. You'll get it when you need it from God. And uh the other was My name for this year happens to be Peacemaker, which is how that ended up. And that's a hard thing to jump into. And I did have an opportunity Do a little bit of that today with a call out of the blue from somebody that remembers me as Pastor Jim.

But uh one of the things about knowing everything. Uh I think the And I've heard others say this as well, but for me, the biggest thing I learned. And going to divinity school was how little I knew. I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the Bible before going, but Uh I'm still just scratching the surface. And that's what children do.

Mm-hmm. I I love the fact that So in When children are being me mean to children, they're trying to make each other feel childish.

Sometimes when as a parent we Guilt trip our kids by saying you're being childish or something like that. Jesus. is doing the exact opposite. He is giving these kids room To grow. He's given them the opportunity to say things that may be right, may be wrong, but he's not.

You know, berating them for it at all, and not even really making fun or teasing or anything like that. He's he's very kind and compassionate. And so Honestly, I asked the question, what makes you feel childish? Andy. What what takes you there?

You know, my first reaction, what I said was, um, emotional fits. And if you think about it, you're like, oh, hopefully we're not that. But I mean, I've spent a big part of my life. Going to the places I did as a gift, probably even worse sometimes, actually, of because you didn't know. whenever things didn't turn out that way, people didn't see things The way you saw them, you reacted in anger.

You you And, you know, whenever I found God truly as my Father, I think that's one of the things that He came in the most of is. a feeling of strength that came from him, That even though I still get frustrated, and all my fuse is much shorter or much longer. And I lean into him. I think we talked about this earlier. When I do have those emotional fits, because we all do, I think, is to do the check engine light, see what's going on.

in the inside. But I think that's the thing is I feel the most Mature Uh or what? You ask the question, how do I most feel childish? That would be it. But so, how do you react to that?

Right, it's just check the do the. Check the engine and really see what is going on there in my life. And a lot of times I just tap back into, oh, God gave me the name. My new name essentially is strength, and I never felt strength before.

Well, when God gives you something like a name like that, He gives you the ability to live into it. It's talking about what you were talking about, stretching those kids up. Right. You know, so. You know, it's sad to say that that is, but we all learn a way to live in the reaction, how we deal with things as we come up.

And when we're older, we tend to default back to what we were doing as that young child who has lost their innocence. And we have an enemy, and that enemy wants us to respond out of that childishness, out of that lostness, orphan spirit, all of those different things. And get mad and then make an idiot out of ourselves and then be ashamed of it and then have a moment. You feel like you should be crawling around on your belly on the ground. And so the biggest thing we can do, the most mature thing we can do, is have the child-like spirit to say, but wait.

I have God's Blood flowing through my veins. I am a child of God. I might be a broken child at this point, but I'm still a child of God. And God is changing. All of that stuff, Grant.

As a child. You realize you don't know it all. Bye. Can you can you learn? Yep.

Yeah. And you know, I think now that I'm an adult, I realize how much I don't know, as Jim was saying. I got out of seminary and thought, oh no, now I have to actually teach people and stuff. I know nothing. Um we're gonna play another clip that comes from the show Young Sheldon, which uh again Danny submitted this clip thinking he was gonna be here.

uh tonight and um Danny's not feeling well. If you're a regular listener, you know the struggles that he's been going through, and we would invite you to. Um in that but The clip comes from Young Sheldon. And it's ultimately where Sheldon gets invited out to California to a college and to meet his hero, Stephen Hawking, and to experience that sort of thing as a young man. And he's very, very mature knowledge-wise, but he's very immature as a human being.

And he's never flown on a plane before, which doesn't seem to affect him at all until he gets on the plane. And so here you're going to see how he and his father relate. Yeah. Should the cabin experience sudden pressure loss, oxygen masks will drop down from above your seat. Why would the cabin lose pressure?

Place a mask over your mouth and nose like this. Pull the strap to tighten it. If you are traveling with children, make sure that your own mask is on first before helping your child. I don't like this at all. It's just a precaution.

Perfectly safe. In the unlikely event of a water landing and evacuation, leave water landing, water landing, water landing. I can't do this. Let them come out of there. At least open the door.

Tell them I need to get off. Sir, you both need to return to your seats. Just one sec. Sir, if you want to see Stephen Hawking, we have to sit down right now. It's too dangerous.

I can't. It's okay to be scared. That's when you gotta dig deep and be brave. What do you say? No!

I'm your terrified little boy.

Okay. Sir, please, they're gonna call security. Just one more second.

So you hear, you know. Sheldon's dad coming after his heart, and they start working on how do we deal with this situation. And we'll play more of that clip in the next. segment in the after hours and so we want to invite you To join us in the after hours, but if you've been to a boot camp of ours or one of the others in this message, we would love to invite you to come to. The Masculine Journey Advanced Boot Camp, November the 9th through the 22nd.

Go to Masculine Journey. I mean,. November the 19th through the 22nd, go to masculinejourney.org.