I had an awesome thing happen to me right before the service started. It's like a God thing. I'm walking in the back doors, and this guy that I know, great guy, he walks up and he has a box of crispy cream donuts in his hand. And he says to me, Would you like one? And what do you think I said? Of course, right? It's a crispy cream donut. I don't know if you've had a crispy cream donut. It's the best donut that exists. It really is. Like, I mean, seriously, you can have a chocolate donut covered with whatever, but sometimes whatever is the most simple, the most pure, it's just the best. And so I said yes. Interesting story. I was in Guatemala all last week. And it was amazing. I'm going to talk in detail about it next week. Need some time to process and get that together. Had a great time seeing how the ministry that we're partnering with there is changing their community and our impact with them. It was great. I did bring back a traveling companion in my stomach. And so there's like a party happening in here at all times. I've probably lost five pounds in the last two days. It's very interesting what's going on inside of me. And so I will pay the price for that crispy cream donut. I'm gonna guess 45 minutes from now, so I'm motivated to finish very, very soon. But sometimes the pleasure is worth the pain. And so I ate the Krispy Kreme Donut. Now, pray for me. Um adults, I know we got a lot of students in the room, elementary school students and junior, don't chime in right now. I just want to hear from the adults. How many of you in the last year have said no to a free piece of dessert? Someone's offered you a cookie, a slice of cake, a donut, and you've said no, thank you. All right. Elementary school students specifically want to talk to you right now. How many of you think they're nuts for doing that? Like raise your hand. Like, why would you turn down a free piece of dessert? What is wrong with you? Something I've never heard at my house. I have four kids. I've never gone to them and said, Hey, would you like a cookie? And they said, No, I'm kind of watching what I eat right now, you know. My son, my oldest, got very upset with us a few nights ago because we said he could have a cookie and he got five from the pantry. And we said, five cookies? He's like, What? Like it's completely rational. Why wouldn't I have five? They're amazing. We said two, and he went, Are you serious? We're like, yes, what is wrong with you? Five cookies, but that's how kids think. Something that we get a lot better at as we get older is rejecting things. Sometimes we're so good at rejecting things that we even reject good things. Kids, they're great at receiving. They don't reject something that's good, they just receive. And today we're gonna look at a story that it's a story of Jesus that highlights this aspect in children, something that all of us need to learn from. So it's in Mark chapter 10, verses 13 through 16. I want to read this. One day, some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, Let the children come to me, don't stop them. For the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn't receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it. And then he took the children in his arms and he placed his hands on their heads and he blessed them. For some context, we're in a series right now called A King in His Kingdom. We are studying the teachings of Jesus. And if you study the teachings of Jesus, you see a theme that runs through it. It's this idea of the kingdom. When Jesus talks about the kingdom, it's bold. He's declaring himself as a king. And the kingdom is living life under the reign or the rule, the authority of Jesus. When you submit your life to Jesus, it's very important that we remember that as Jesus followers. When you give your life to Jesus, you're not just going, I'm a fan of Jesus. It is not you hitting the like button on Jesus, it is you submitting your life to him. And that makes you part of his kingdom. Now his kingdom works very differently than the kingdom of this world. His kingdom's completely different. It's often called the upside-down kingdom, so he spends a lot of time teaching us what the kingdom is all about. You see that here in this story. The disciples are clearly confused. They see kids coming to Jesus. He's very busy, he's actually really close to the cross at this moment in his ministry. And they're like, He's Jesus, he's a busy man, he is the Messiah, he does not have time for children. And Jesus is angry. He's angry. He says he scolds the disciples. Like he's well, they they scolded the parents and then he scolds them. Because it's upside down. He's like, You don't get it. You guys don't get it. If you don't receive the kingdom like these, you'll never experience it. Kids are really, really good at receiving. And today we're going to talk about what it would look like for us, for all of us, to receive the way kids do. How that can completely transform our relationship with God and our lives. Several years ago, I was reading scripture. This is back when I was a youth pastor, probably 10, 12 years ago, and I read this verse that just jumped off the page to me. I don't know if you've ever had that experience where you're reading scripture and all of a sudden something leaps off and it's like, wow, this is for me. This is what I needed at the time. I was I was kind of apathetic in my heart. I felt like I wasn't growing the way that I needed to. I was struggling with a lot of things, and I just felt like something needed to change. And I'm reading Ezekiel 36. I get to verse 26 and it blows my mind. God says, I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. When I read that, I said, Wow, that is what I need. That is what I need. I need God to give me a new spirit and a new heart. And so that became my favorite verse. You may have heard the phrase life verse. It's kind of a Christianese term that means your favorite Bible verse, basically. And that became my favorite verse, and I immediately began to quote it. I actually had someone design a tattoo to like, I was gonna get it, I don't have that tattoo. I got to a certain age in life where I said, I just don't need one. And so, but I but I had it designed, it was really cool. And I would tell people this verse all the time. I'd have conversations with students, I'm like, ah, you need to learn the lesson of Ezekiel 36, 26. And I would quote it. The problem was though, I didn't know this for years, uh, but I quoted it wrong every time I quoted it. It's a very humbling and embarrassing thing as a pastor to not know your own favorite Bible verse. And that was me for years. And so when I would quote it to people, I would say at the end, I would say that God wants to give you a tender, receptive heart. That's what I said every time. Oh, God wants to take out your stony, stubborn heart, give you a tender, receptive heart. And I would say this over and over again. And then years later, I was asked to speak here in the big room, and I'd always get really nervous back then because I was like a kid, basically, and now I've got to speak in the big room, and everyone in the room is like basically older than me. What am I gonna say? And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna teach my favorite verse. I'm gonna teach that know that. And so I was thinking about receiving and all these ideas about receiving from God, and and then I open up my Bible and I start to work on the message, and I went, oh no. I don't even know my own favorite Bible verse. It doesn't say receptive, it says responsive. But it's funny how God will use your mistakes to teach you things that you need to know. I'm not blaming God, but I'm not saying God had me read it wrong on purpose. God is not the one who misread the verse. But sometimes, if you let him, he'll use your mistakes, even silly little ones, to teach you a lot. That's why it's important, by the way, to admit that you're wrong very often, very quickly. Because it puts you in a humble state where you can learn, you can grow. And so as I was as I was praying in that moment and trying to rethink, well, how am I gonna do this message? Because it was all about receiving, I had this thought that ran through my mind, and I really believed it was from the Lord. And what I heard was that you cannot respond to what you haven't received. So for me personally, I think it was important that I read the word receive, because what I struggled with the most was receiving from God. You cannot respond to what you don't receive. Today we need to learn how to be receptive to God. The more receptive your heart is, the more receptive your mind is to what God wants to do, the more you're going to experience what He has for you. The more you're going to experience the life that He promises. This rich, abundant life. It's very much tied to our ability to receive from God. And we could talk for hours about the things that children are really good at receiving. We can stretch this out for a really long time, but I just want to focus on three very simple but very powerful things that kids receive easily and quickly. That as adults we tend to struggle with. Number one, help. Kids are very good at receiving help. Now it's important to remember that the word children is kind of a broad term. You know, like children can be 17 years old. I know some people who have uh 24-year-old children. That's a real thing. In fact, there was a lady I was talking to a few weeks back, and and uh she said something about her kids, and her kids are like older, they're grown, and I said, well, they're they're men, and she went, they're kids, you know. And I heard her loud and clear. And so, you know, children's a very broad term. When Jesus had these children come to him in the story in Mark 10, these are very likely toddlers. It was it was typical in their culture to bring very young children to a rabbi to be blessed. And so don't think of like an elementary school student, don't think of you know an eight-year-old, nine-year-old, think of a baby, think of a toddler, one, two years old. That's who Jesus was holding and blessing, most likely. Toddlers are phenomenal at asking for help. The number one sound I hear in my home is blood curling screams. Like blood curling. It's like I hear the loudest, highest pitched screams on a daily basis. I have a child who wakes up every morning screaming at the top of their lungs. Can you imagine what that would be like as an adult to wake up and the first thing you do every morning when you open your eyes is just scream for like 35, 40 seconds? How odd of an experience that would be for your spouse. Like, you just let them finish and go, good morning. But one of our toddlers, that's that's how we know he's awake. He screams. That's the sound I hear the most often. The word that I hear the most often is the word up. My two youngest, Judah and Eli. Judah's three, Eli's one, they say up. In fact, at our house we call it uppies. Uppies is when they come to us and they reach their hands up and we say uppies, and they they jump up into our arms and we hold them and we carry them around. We have a bit of a problem right now because our three-year-old wants to be carried everywhere, treated like a prince or something, and he's old enough that we need to start teaching him how to be somewhat independent. And so it's not abnormal for him to be sitting on the couch watching a show and just go, I'm hungry. And he puts his hand here like he's in distress. I'm hungry. Judah is he's awesome. He and I are actually really close. We have a very special relationship. Um, but there's certain things that he does that I'm like, dude, you gotta stop. You gotta stop. He he does this fake cry where he like blubbers, he goes like that all the time. And I'll be like, Judah, go get something. He'll go, I'm hungry. And I'll say, Dude, go to the pantry, go to the fridge. You can reach it, go get whatever you want. And he's like, No, I don't want to. And I'll say, why? He'll say, Because I want you to do it for me. And you have to commend his communication abilities because he's being very direct and clear with his expectations. I don't want to do that. Why? I want you to do it for me. He really likes to ask for help. Now, my youngest, Eli, that's that's a different story. He's one. And so he doesn't really talk much, but I know there's a lot going on in his mind, and I wonder sometimes what it must seem like to him when he asks for help. Because for Eli, our help is not an option, it's it's the only option. There's very few things he can actually do on his own. And so, wherever he thinks, whatever words he thinks in, there's no moment where he's like, hmm, do I want to do it myself or do I want mom and dad to do it? It's like total dependency. For him asking for our help, depending on our help, it's a way of life. It's the only way he knows how to live. And I think it's important for us to understand that God wants us to live in dependence on him. God wants us to live in a dependent manner with him. God loves it when he is our plan A. But we have we have a tendency to have God be our plan B, C, D, and further. We're Americans, we are circumstantially blessed, more so than almost anyone in the world, almost anyone in history. And so very often for us, depending on God is it's an option. But it may not be our primary option. So we may not even ask him for help. For some people in the world, it's it's the only option they have. Spending this time in Guatemala this week was very humbling. One of the most humbling and challenging moments was the second to last day, we got to pray with all of the volunteers who run the center that we work with, and these are almost all single moms, and they have circumstantial issues like most of us could not even fathom. I mean, on a daily basis, I'm encountering situations where it's like I don't even have a category for that. And so we have some time because they asked us if we would pray with them, and they went around and they shared their prayer request, and what blew me away is that the number one thing that they asked for prayer for was not anything circumstantial. It wasn't asking for more stuff, for more money, it wasn't asking for an easier life. Every single one of them, first and foremost, asked that their relationship with the Lord would grow. They said, Pray that I keep my eyes on Jesus, because see to them, he is the only option. And I will tell you this: that when Jesus is your plan A, miracles happen. When Jesus is your plan A, when you go to Him for help and you have a heart that depends on Him, you will see things happen that you would never see otherwise. We are told over and over again in Scripture that we can ask God for help. Psalm 121, 1 and 2. King David wrote, I look up to the mountains, does my help come from there? In that culture, there was a lot of idol worship. There was a false god called Baal and a false goddess called Asherah, and they would put the temples to Baal and the Asherah poles in the high places. If you read the Old Testament, you'll see that mentioned in the high places. And he's saying, Where does my help come from? Does it come from up there? No. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. Hebrews 4 16 says, Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy. We will find grace to help us when we need it most. I love the way the message translation of this exact same verse puts it. It's so bold, so blunt, really. Let's walk right up to him and get what he's so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help. Some of us have to understand that God is a helper. He is a helper. In fact, there are words used for the Holy Spirit in scripture that mean helper. And so to reject or even resist help from God is to reject or resist God Himself. Because He is a helper. And we're called as children to live in dependence on God. Kids are really good at receiving help. So ask God for help every single day. Make God your plan A. Go to Him before you go anywhere else and watch what He does. Number two, kids are really, really good at receiving attention. They bask in it. Look at me, watch me. Hey dad, watch what I can do. I hear that all the time. It was funny being in Guatemala this last week, when you don't speak the language of the people, it is very difficult to communicate with adults. Very hard. We had translators, awesome translators, and so anytime an adult would speak to me, I'd kind of look at our translator and he would say something, and I'd go this and I'd say it was just a very, it's very awkward cadence to a conversation, but you get used to it. It's not hard, though, to communicate with children when you don't speak their language, because children are children, no matter what culture they're in. And they love to play, they love to have fun, and they love attention. And so the last day we were actually getting ready to leave and go to our flight. There was this boy in middle school named Axel, and I'm walking away, and they were actually playing in this kind of concrete courtyard they have in their area. Um it's basically like a slum to us, but that's where they play. And uh and Axel says, he says something that I don't understand, but it wasn't hard for me to figure out what he was asking for. That was attention. He wanted me to watch him play soccer. Every child in Guatemala is amazing at soccer. Every child. Three-year-olds are amazing at soccer in Guatemala. If you have a child that plays soccer and maybe they're really good and they're on a team, they're not as good as the average five-year-old in Guatemala. Just be glad you live here, because if you didn't, they wouldn't make the team. They're amazing, all of them. They play it all the time, and he wanted me to watch him play soccer. And so I sit there, I'm watching, and he's doing things, and he looks over at me, and I'm like, that's awesome. Fantastico. I said that a lot. Kids love attention, they're good at receiving it. I wonder if we would pray differently if we understood that we have the attention of our Father. I wonder how different we would live our lives if we understood that we have God's attention. He sees us, he notices us, he pays attention. There's a story about Jesus in John chapter 1. This is really early in his ministry. He's calling his first disciples. It says, the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee, and he found Philip and said to him, Come follow me. Philip was from Beth Seda, Andrew and Peter's hometown. Philip went to look for Nathaniel and told him, We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about. His name is Jesus. He's the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Nazareth, exclaimed Nathaniel. Can anything good come from Nazareth? Anyone here from a town that has like never produced anything substantial or interesting at all? That's Nazareth. Nazareth? There's no way in Nathaniel's mind that the Messiah would come from Nazareth. He says, Come and see for yourself. And as they approached, Jesus said, and he's talking to Nathaniel here, now here is a genuine son of Israel, a man of complete integrity. How do you know about me? Nathaniel asked. Jesus replied, I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you. And then Nathaniel exclaimed, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, the King of Israel. Jesus asked him, Do you believe this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this. And then he said, I tell you the truth, you will see all of heaven open, and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth. We don't know exactly what happened here, but but what we know is that Jesus saw Nathaniel. Many have have hypothesized that Nathaniel was having a private moment with God. In their culture, if you wanted to go pray, you would often find shade. And so Nathaniel's gone, found shade under a fig tree, and he's praying. And he's talking to God, and he's obviously sharing his heart with God. And then a little while later, he's introduced to Jesus, and Jesus says, I saw you. And most believe that this sight was miraculous, that it wasn't like Jesus was hanging out of the tree. He says, I paid attention to you. I know what you prayed. I know what was on your heart. I know who you are. See, God pays attention to us. You have his attention. Do you receive it? Do you pray like you have his attention? Are your prayers bold and powerful? Like someone who believes that the God of the universe, the God who can do anything, the God who is limited by no amount of power or resource, do you believe that he is listening to you intently as you pray? Because he is. So receive his attention and believe you have it. Number three, this is a big one. It's love. Kids are so good. They're so good at receiving love. There was this child in Guatemala who uh super cute, maybe four years old, wore a yellow sweatshirt. It's very hot down there, but all the kids wear sweatshirts in their culture, they're afraid of getting sick because they don't have access to medicine really. And so they they dress very warm because they believe if they're warm they won't get sick. And so all the kids, like you're sweating profusely, and all the kids are like wearing sweatshirts. You're going, what is going on? And so this kid, he's there, and the the second to last day I'm playing with him, and he just runs up and gives me the biggest hug. And I'm I'm picking him up and I'm throwing him in the air, you know, because I don't speak the language, but all kids speak the language of fun. And so we're just playing games and I'm throwing them, I'm swinging him around, he's laughing, and then he hugs me and he embraces me, and we hug and I throw him, and this just goes on for a little while. And Pietro, who was our interpreter, came up to me and he said, Hey, that's a really big deal, what just happened. And I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, I was talking with one of the teachers, and the teacher was explaining to me that that's the first time he's come out of his shell in weeks. Because he he witnessed a trauma just a few weeks before, and I don't want to share it right now, I might share it next week, but it's it's a trauma that I can't even, I mean, literally, like I said earlier, I don't have a category for. And yet, even though he has experienced something so horrific, his heart is receptive to love. Kids are amazing at being loved. We have a tendency to reject love. We become cynical, skeptical, apathetic. And that's because we feel like love has burned us. And I'm sure I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands. We're all not gonna cry together right now. Um, but you have you've no doubt been burned by romantic love. No question. You've no doubt been burned by by friendship love, but you've never been burned by agape love. Agape is the word for love used in scripture when it's talking about the love of God. It's a completely and totally otherworldly, miraculous love. It's a love that you cannot earn, it's a love that you cannot lose. And I promise you, you have never been burned and never will be burned by God's agape love. But you have to receive it because you can't respond to what you haven't received. If you want to love like God, you've got to receive his love. As a church, we talk about love a lot. We really do. We talk about it all the time. And I remember in the early years of our church, Steve, who was one of our founding pastors, would teach on Sunday mornings and he would talk about love so much that people would complain. People would sometimes say, When are we gonna move past love? And I'll be honest, I felt like that sometimes too. And Steve said something once that challenged me, and it still stands. Is with me, it always will. He said, Oh, you think love is the easy thing? It's not. It's the hard thing. You think love is the elementary thing. It's the most advanced concept in the kingdom. To love like Jesus does requires a dependence on God, a faith, and a selflessness that does not come to us naturally. You cannot do it without Jesus. Love is not the easy, it's a lot easier to follow a list of rules than it is to really love. It's a lot easier to do that. And Jesus talks to us so much about love. Scripture speaks time and time again about the God, the love that God has for us. Do you know how loved you are by God? Have you received it? Have you received it once? Have you received it lately? Listen to what Scripture says. This is so powerful. First John 3:1. See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are. But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know him. It's a powerful statement. It's true. I was reading an article the other day, uh, and it was an article on climate change, and I'm not taking a political stance at all. So just I want to say that because I don't know how weather has become political. That's a funny thing. Um sometimes I think God just looks at us and laughs. They are so silly, you know? Because we get mad about all kinds of stuff. But but the the UN had a summit on climate change, and there was a very famous celebrity that was speaking, and in this person's speech, there was a phrase they use, and it's actually a phrase that you kind of hear in the world right now, and it was basically saying that humanity, that human beings, are like a blight on the world, that we're sucking the world dry, that we're the we're like a bacteria on the planet. And when I read that, it broke my heart. Because I think back to what God says about us in scripture. I think about how highly he lifts us up. He says that we are made in his image, that we are the sons and daughters of God. And that that statement is so far removed from the identity that God gives us, but the world doesn't know God. So the world has no idea who they really are. But those of us who do, we are God's beloved. We're his beloved. 1 John 4.16. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love. And all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And again, this is not talking about romantic love. This is talking about God's love. A love that is completely free. A love that gives and gives and gives and never asks for anything in return. Galatians 2.20, my old self has been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Romans 8, 38 and 39, I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today, nor our worries about tomorrow's, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you know that God loves you? You've got to receive it. God's love, it never wavers. It never wavers, but our reception to it does. Hold on to the love of God. Hold on to it. Jesus said that if we don't receive his kingdom, his way of life, like a child receives, will never experience it. It's interesting, the word receive that Jesus used. It's a Greek word that means to take hold of. Like to grab a hold of something. I don't know if if you have small children, they have fantastic grip. My son Eli loves to be held, and when when you hold him, he holds you. And sometimes it's painful. It's like, you don't have to dig your fingers into my flesh. I'm not gonna drop you. Eli loves to be held so much that he refuses to let me put him down. And it's very interesting what he's figured out to do this. It's brilliant, actually. He's like a genius. Sometimes I'll get tired after holding him for a long time and I want to put him down. And he's one and a half. He can walk, he's he's he's fine. And I just want to put him down for a second. And so if I'm holding him and I bend over to put him down, what he does is he just lifts both of his legs up at the same time to where they wrap around like my body. And I'll be like trying to put him down. It'll get to where his like head is about to hit the floor and his back's there because his legs, he's like, Nope, you are not putting me down. I am holding on to you, and I refuse to let go. God values those who receive what he has, who grab a hold of him and refuse to let go. It's powerful. I don't know if you've ever read the story of a man named Jacob in the Old Testament. Jacob gets his name changed to Israel. He becomes the namesake of the people of Israel. The word Israel means to wrestle with God, and that happened because Jacob once wrestled with God. The Spirit of God showed up physically, tangibly. And Jacob grabbed a hold of the Spirit of God and refused to let go. And it says that the angel of the Lord said, Let go. And he's like, Nope. And he holds on, and this goes on all night, such that he was injured and he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Now, if you read the story of Jacob, he's not a good man. When he's young, he's super deceptive. He tricks everybody, he steals. When he's older, he's he's a father, he's a terrible father. He just is. He favors certain children, completely disregards other children. He's incredibly selfish. And you can look at Jacob and go, what redeeming quality is there in him? It's hard to find one, to be honest with you. Why is it that he gets named Israel? Why is it that he becomes the namesake of Israel? I heard a pastor say it this way once, blew me away. So the reason that God had such an eye toward Jacob is because Jacob was the kind of person who would rather die holding on to God than live the rest of his life knowing he had let go. Receive from God. Hold on to God. Take hold of what he has for you. Take the help, take the attention, take the love, take the mercy, take the grace, take the power, take the authority, take everything that he gives to you. Grab a hold of it and never let go. Because you don't have to. Never let go. If you're here and you've never given your life to Jesus, that's where all this begins. You need Him. You put your faith in Him, you pray, and you say in your heart, I believe in you. I believe you are who you say you are, I believe you're alive, I believe I can know you and I want you in my life. And maybe you're here today and you're just with someone, someone invited you to church. That doesn't mean they think you're a bad person. It means they love you enough that they want to share the most important thing in their lives with you. That's a good thing. If you feel anything stirring inside of you, if you feel a desire to live differently than you've ever lived before, that's the Holy Spirit calling you to Him. Receive. Let Him in. Watch what He does. It's beautiful. You've actually got three people that are about to get baptized right now. Go all in with Jesus. It's awesome. And so I want to ask something really quickly. I said this a few weeks ago. Um, it's very important that we stick around for uh for baptisms. If you're up here and you're going all in with Jesus, you're making this huge decision in front of your church, and the first thing you see are backs walking away from you. That's not good. We're family, we support each other. So I'm gonna pray, and we're gonna we're gonna meet three awesome people and celebrate what they're doing. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for this day. Thank you so much for all the young people in the room. God, thank you for the fact that we are all your children. We have we have 80-year-old children here today, Lord. Because in your eyes, we're all young, we're all your kids, we're all your sons and daughters. And I pray, Lord, that you give us the boldness to grab a hold of what you have for us, to take everything you offer to us and hold on to it, receive it, never let go. We love you, Jesus. Thank you for bringing us together. Thank you, Lord, for these three people. We ask all this in your name. Amen.