Experience TRUTH - #2

This is the Truth Network. Have you ever met someone too good to go to heaven? Well, we're going to meet that fellow today on Experience Truth. I'm Stu Everson, so excited to have you along with us as we journey through the book of Luke. This is a really piggyback on a Bible study we do called Wednesday in the Word in a restaurant group called the D'ario all throughout North Carolina at all locations every Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. at breakfast and a great time in the Word. with a bunch of messed up guys like me digging our way through Scripture, and today we find ourselves in Luke chapter 18, verses 15 through 25, and I find myself seated next to one of my heroes and mentors, Robbie Dilmore, aka the Christian car guy. Robbie, thanks for being with me today, my friend. Always an honor to see what you're doing up to with this, Stu. You're not too good to go to heaven, are you?

Someone else is. We're going to meet them today. Robbie, read the passage of Scripture. There's a whole lot going on here in these nine or ten verses.

And then we'll jump right into some cool questions. So, Jesus said to him, But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he had become very sorrowful, he said, How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. So here you have a whole lot of really rich things going on, and you have heard that language, I'm sure, before this broadcast of the eye of the needle, the rich going into heaven, the disciples asking who can be saved, this guy that shows up at Jesus' feet. He seems to be the greatest candidate, but he leaves weeping and brokenhearted that he's not admitted, that he's not brought in to fellowship with Jesus and to eternal life. It all starts right here, Robbie.

Ask this question real quick. This is a great piggyback to the context as well. How are the disciples treating the children, just like the Pharisees treated the publican in Luke 18, 9 through 14, we talked about last week?

Yeah, so this is really a great story. Two men went to the temple to pray. What a beautiful picture of contrasting hearts. You have the Pharisee who's pious, and he's praying real loud for everyone to see it. It even says in that scripture, he's praying to himself, and he says, thank God I'm not like that scallywag publican who wouldn't even come all the way into that inner court area, one, two, would even lift his eyes to heaven. He was bowed down, he was beating his chest, which Hebrews did not beat their chest unless it was like 9-1-1, we talked about that.

And so this Pharisee is just completely on his pedestal, and he's putting that guy down in the same spirit. Here you have these people bringing infants to Jesus. They're bringing children.

And look at that fascinating statement, that he might touch them. Rob, you've got grandkids. There's the power of blessing children, which you talk about a lot on your other program, Masculine Journey, which I hope everyone will Google that and download that podcast, which is awesome. You talk about the blessing of a father. You talk about how Joseph, near the end of Jacob, his father's life, he knows his dad's going to pass, they're in Egypt, they're safe. Joseph brings those two little fellows, Ephraim and Manasseh, into Jacob's presence, his little sons, for Jacob to touch. And he physically took Jacob's hand and he put it on top of their head, and he said, bless my boys, right?

Remember that. So this is what people are trying to do. Jesus is the rabbi, he's the teacher, he's God in the flesh, and they want the blessing of him on their children. So they're bringing their infants. These are little ones, likely younger than four, maybe sometimes even still being coddled a little bit, little babies that can't walk themselves, simply that Jesus might touch them. They wanted a blessing. They wanted, may the Lord bless you and keep you, and so on and so forth, all the many blessings that could be dispensed upon them by Jesus. But when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. This is strong language. They're like, get these kids out of here.

What are you thinking? These are the exact kids that Jesus says, such, he says, he called them and said to them, look at what he read. These, let the little children come to me. Do not forbid them, for such is the kingdom of God.

He's saying, these are the very people, these little ones are the ones that, the halflings, they're the ones that need to be coming to me. Such is the king of God. Rabbi, that's a pretty big statement. The disciples thought, hey, we're the kingdom of God. Who's going to sit on your right and left hand, Jesus? The sons of thunder were bickering and arguing and angling Judas with the money, and these other guys, Peter always sticking his foot in his mouth. And here, Jesus says, wait, such is the kingdom of God, these kids.

What a remarkable statement. And it leads us to this question, which is exactly what you could tee off on here. Yeah, well, you know, what is childlike faith?

And why is it the only way to get into heaven? That is, you know, the question that obviously is there before us. But what's really cool to me is that Jesus doesn't say, let the parents bring their children. What he says is, let the children come to me. Meaning that they recognize something, the children themselves recognize something that I don't think the people that, or the rich young ruler in contrast, he doesn't, those children are not seeing the same thing in front of them that the rich young ruler is seeing.

He's seeing honor and prestige because he gets to talk to this big rabbi. These children are looking at, man, this is real grace right here. Yeah, and we've put these two passages together. Of course, we could teach a whole sermon on this. And then, of course, there's a very similar interaction to this in Luke chapter 9, where Jesus talks, who's the greatest, the greatest of the least, the childlike heart, the childlike faith, and so on and so forth. But the contrasting between the little children and this rich young ruler, this guy that's got it all together, is really fascinating. And it really shows us into the heart of God.

Such is the King of God. Such is the King of God, it's the weak, it's the little ones, it's the children. Like you said, Robbie, they have this childlike faith. Statistically, we've talked to our friends from childhood, you know, Child Evangelism Fellowship. All the ministries that do camps for kids, that do outreaches for kids, vacation Bible school, and they all say, hands down, statistically, you're more likely to come to Christ at a younger age, because of how tender your heart is.

Sin hasn't come in and corrupted. It's very rare, it's awesome, but it's rare for someone to come to Christ's middle age, or a little bit later, you know, when you're younger. So there's a real appeal here to reach these young people for Christ, and to bring them in to the Lord while they're young, which is really a message to me, that you've been giving me for years. Teach your kids about the Bible. Read the Bible to them. Talk to them about God. Get them in a church. Get them in Sunday school. Sing the songs of the faith.

Start to build into them the Gospel at a very young age. So, my mom's great at this. She quotes Scripture to all her grandkids. She tucks them all into bed. All my kids, like she did me when I was little. She tucks them into bed, she quotes books of the Bible to them.

She quotes and floats. But you're going to get the word into these little impressionable ones, these little ones. And there's always going to be Pharisees, which really, the disciples were very much like the Pharisees in rebuking them. The very ones that are supposed to be in Jesus, they're rebuking them.

How much are we like that today, by the way? Get these loud kids out of our church. We're trying to have worship here. Wait a second.

Time out. They're going to be running the show when we're gone, Robbie. We're going to be dead and gone. It's these young people.

We've got to pour into them. The next generation, right? Sometimes we get, you know, the adults.

I actually know this story that's remarkable, probably worth sharing. There was a church in a little town south in Davie County where they just built a new building. And they had a bus ministry and they were bringing all these kids in. Those kids started messing up their new building, right?

And on the walls and all this stuff. So there was a big split in the church. Like, we can't keep busting these kids in because they're tearing up our new building. And so half the church says, no, we've got to keep bringing the kids. And so they start their own church where they let the other people have their new church.

They started meeting in another building over somewhere else. Well, fast forward 20 years. That big beautiful building is now 20 years old and half empty because when you go into that church you won't find hardly anybody there. But it's beautiful buildings, too. But if you go to another place where they accepted the kids, kept bringing the kids, you know, that place is hundreds of people, flourish like crazy.

But it's a perfect example of this very thing. Well, and here's a real question. What young people am I bringing to Jesus? How am I investing? How are you right now investing in young people? If Jesus says, such is the kingdom of God, I want to get around those young people. And it starts in my own home, my own kids, your own grandkids, Robbie, in your case.

And you're out there fishing with your grandbaby, but you're also fishing for grandkids. We do it on radio, too. That's why we do the Christian Car Guy Theater to attract a younger audience. Exactly right.

That's one of our passions with Christian radio, with podcasting, with all the things we're doing, is to reach the next generation for Jesus. So that's a good word. Children are—I made a little list here—they are trusting. They're impressionable. They're vulnerable.

They're defensive, defenseless. They're believing. They accept gifts. You can give a kid a gift and they're not going to think, oh, I've got to pay you back. They're going to say, wow. Most of the time they'll say, thank you, if they're well-behaved. But they love a gift. Their lives light up.

When they reach that little Happy Meal and pull that out. In my office, I've got a big basket of gifts. Any kid, anytime, anywhere that comes to our radio network, Christian Radio Truth Network, they're going to get a gift. They're going to get a toy. I've got this big basket of toys, and it's got some really good things in there.

One time I let a kid pick out two toys, believe it or not. I'm shocked. To them, there's no maneuvering.

There's no quid pro quo. There's no got to get back, got to do this, got to manipulate this. It's refreshing. God is telling us, such as the King of God, yes, there's a demographic there of a young person who might be a little more tender to the things of God. Every demographic, whether you're 90 years old, 100 years old, or 50 or 40 or 30 or 20, the only way into the kingdom is the low way, the humble way, to have a childlike faith.

Right, Robbie? We have to become a child every day. I love how at your boot camps you say, you call him daddy. You crawl into your daddy's lap. That sounds sacrilegious and all that, but God is Father.

Yes, yes. He's calling us to be His children. I love that verse in John 1-12. As many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become sons of God, children of God.

Over and over again, John, the beloved disciple, calls the people of 1 John, even the book of John, 2 John, 3 John, my little children, my little children, walk in faith, my little children, walk in love toward one another. And, boy, things change when you humble yourself. The power of God and His grace pours in to the weak vessel, to the empty vessel, to the childlike vessel. Such is the kingdom of God. But then we meet the other extreme. We meet this young ruler, this rich young ruler, and we're going to have to spend more time with him next week, Robbie, because we're out of time for this week on Experience Truth. But, boy, the challenge to the only way to get to heaven, if you want to go to heaven, you've got to become a child. Why won't my pride let me do that, Robbie?

Tell everybody. That's it. That's the deal. It goes against the grain of what we're made, right? Because we've got it figured out, huh? We don't want to turn loose of control.

We don't want to turn loose of lack of trust. Lack of faith is where it goes, but the faith of a child is a beautiful thing. Share the Word of God with someone. Grab a child and tell that child about Jesus. Tell them the story of Jesus. We'll see you next time right here on Experience Truth.