Recovering Wonder

In Matthew 11, Jesus calls us to recover something many adults have lost: childlike faith. Through wonder, trust, and humble dependence, we discover the God who reveals Himself to infants, lifts our burdens, and invites us to find true rest in Him.

Transcript

According to Matthew, chapter 11. The gospel according to Matthew, chapter 11. You should be quite familiar now with the fact that we're in Matthew in year A of the church lectionary readings. And so our Zechariah reading, psalm reading, all of these are corresponding oftentimes to the gospel reading that we have before us. So once you find Matthew, chapter 11, verse 16, go ahead and stand with me for the reading of God's word this morning.

Notice this word found in Matthew 11:16, and then we'll go through 19 and then skip down to verse 20. 25. Jesus said to the crowd, to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, we played the flute for you and you did not dance. We wailed and you did not mourn.

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he has a demon. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. Drop down 25. At that time, Jesus said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.

Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. And no one knows the Son except the Father. And no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus, thank you for this word that you spoke. Would you speak again today by the power of your Holy Spirit, to us gathered here awaiting your voice.

And then, Lord, help us to come to you, receive from you, and obey you, so that we can go out and be an obedient church. We pray in your name. Amen. And you can be seated.

Well, these readings, I love them because I wouldn't necessarily have just chosen to preach on some of these almost when you're reading through them, sounding like random statements. You ever. I mean, have you ever just been honest with the text before, as you've read through it? Say, why does that follow that? I don't get the connection always.

Has anybody ever had that issue in interpretation before? It's like, why does that come next, you know? And what is actually even going on here. Well, without going into a full interpretation of the whole text here in chapter 11, we actually have two sections that are meant to be seen as complementary to one another. And even reaching back to what the prophet Zechariah, one of the.

Remember minor prophets, minor only in breadth, not in significance. Remember, the major prophets just wrote a lot more, you know, and the minor ones did not. And so Zechariah has a message for us that is a prophecy that Jesus himself will fulfill. And of course, our psalm reading, too, if you go back and revisit that, talks about the very nature of God himself. Slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

That's that term that we often introduce at this point. Hesed H E S E D because there is no equivalent English for is a big word that that has to do with the very nature of God. All these readings are wrapped up in sort of our expression of trying to follow Christ, which is expressed to us here in Romans 7, is it not? You remember, I will to do good, and what do I find that I can't do it. I want to not do evil, and I end up doing it.

And there is this war, remember Romans 7. And some people have tried to say that that is the definition of a Christian. We just want to do good, but are never able to. We don't want to do bad and again, are unable to. But that is not the way this text ends.

In fact, you said it, or we heard it read just a moment ago, and I'll read it again here. O wretched man that I am, who can save me from this body of death? Now, if that was the end of it, then we just kind of have to wait till heaven till we die, right? And then everything gets fixed at death. But that's actually not what it ends on.

It instead ends on, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. What is being said. What is being said is there's victory to where our will can actually come into conformity with what is right and good and acceptable to God. In other words, he can transform our hearts by giving us a new heart. You remember, not a stony heart, one that deflects what is received, you know, like a rock does, but rather a heart of flesh that receives what is given.

And so that's the broader context, I think, of kind of the thread that makes it through in our four readings that we've actually had now complemented here with the Gospel. And I want to focus in on something by talking about children for just a minute. If I can. And so I know a little bit about children just because I've had five children. And I've watched them from birth all the way up until the oldest being 19 years old and now moving out of the house, which is a very painful kind of death to me.

And so I have had exposure to kids. Now, I didn't just go seeking kids in my own life until we had children, and then they're just there. So you have to deal with them. And I don't just go looking. Now, if anybody knows my wife, they know that she goes looking for children.

You understand what I'm saying? I'm contrasting her and me here. And I don't just go looking for babies to hold or this sort of. But she does. And then they come finding her.

And you know this. And so that's the generosity of my beautiful wife. Perhaps it says something about my nature that needs correcting here. But I want to say this. Jesus brings up kids quite a bit in his teachings.

They actually feature quite prominently. So much so that when he's teaching and think about this now, because sometimes we all may have something different in our mind when we're thinking about, like, teaching. But I want to tell you that just imagine. I'm sure you get like I do. Hey, come buy this video and you'll learn more about xyz.

Who knows what it is? This expert in the field. I'm an expert because of a PhD or whatever else. And all these people are vying for our attention, trying to prove, hey, I actually am the expert, though, in this or in that. Well, could I say this to you this morning?

Is Jesus is the expert in everything known to mankind, like, if we're dealing with aliens. Well, he's an expert, okay? Right? I mean, because that's been in the news, you know, hey, there's unidentified ships and all this kind of stuff flying around. We don't know what it is.

Guess who does? Jesus does, okay? He knows all about physics. He knows all about biology. He knows all about mathematics, right?

No, no. I mean, some of us aren't good at mathematics, you know, but he knows about it, okay? The human body. He knows everything about it. So when he's teaching, he's like the preeminent expert.

Everybody's leaned in, and here's what he does. He goes, guys, let me break this down for you. The Christian life. And he moves his disciples out of the way, says, come here, little kid. And he brings a little child before them and says, unless, I mean, just.

Just like we just brought the little children forward, right? You know, we kind of. Oh, yeah. Ha ha ha. You know, but they don't understand, and they don't know my bring the little children.

He brings them right in, and he says, unless you become like a little child, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. I mean, an object lesson for us all. This is the. Can you imagine being at, say, a Princeton or Harvard lecture that you paid to be at? The guy brings in a kid, and you're like, what is going on?

I thought. I mean, that's beneath me. You know, you're trying to, like, get all, no, not for Jesus. Jesus said, let the little children come to me. In fact, the disciples, like, listen, he doesn't have time for kids.

These people were bringing their babies, infants to him for him to touch them and bless them. Kind of like what we do right here. We're blessing the children. His disciples say, no, he doesn't have time for that. Look at over there.

There's so and so. He's like an expert at the law. He wants to talk to Jesus. He needs to get to the front of the line. Jesus says, no, I don't want him at the front.

That's going to be a boring conversation for me. I want the little kid. Bring him forward.

That's a little shocking, I must say. And it's meant to be shocking. And that's why our text kind of begins in a way that maybe we're not real familiar with. It says, to what will I compare this generation? And again, Jesus has in mind kids here.

And that's why he says, it's like children in the marketplace. Now, remember, that's like a kid showing up at your job. You're like, what is that kid? I mean, you'd start asking around the office, what is that kid doing around here? Is it bring your daughter to work day?

You know, like, what's the kid doing here? It's like kids in the. Calling out, playing the flute, but you did not dance. We wail, but you did not mourn. In other words, they're playing like they're at a funeral, but no one's responding.

They're playing like they're at a wedding. You know, my kids, I don't know, they play all kinds. Like, Blakely in particular will play all of kinds. All kinds of things, like Dr. And I don't know. What else does she play?

A hotel manager. I'm going in there, like, what's going on here? Well, we're just managing a hotel. You know, her creativity with her Friends, you know. Okay, yeah, well, ma', am, can I have a room here?

You know, and that kind of thing. But just imagine, like we don't have time for that in the marketplace. And that's what Jesus is trying to say is like, you don't make time for wonder, but children do. Kids do. Now, I think our digital devices and stuff steal away their wonder.

And I think we can all kind of agree. Yeah, imagination and stuff gets taken away by all sorts of things and are being stolen. But a kid by nature wonders. And that's part of what being childlike does. Jesus loves, is that the lawyer has an agenda before he talks to Jesus.

He's trying to prove Jesus wrong. So why would Jesus want to. You want to talk to people that want to try to prove you wrong? Of course not, like, nobody wants that. But a little kid, they're unassuming, they're really not very threatening.

You know, like if I had to debate a three year old, well, feel pretty confident maybe in my knowledge. But then again, some of the simplest questions can actually destroy our little superstructures of abstraction, can't they? You know the question that kids always ask, why? And that will reduce telling you years of education down to nothing, rubble. Why?

Why? It just is. Okay, well that's a real logical answer, right? Or maybe it is. Maybe it is.

And maybe children see something about reality that we as adults, after we layer it with our learning and what we think is sophistication and our smart wittedness, we forget it's the simple things, actually. And Jesus, that's why he's able to give us eight ways to be happy. They're shocking ways. You know he wrote a book about that, right? I mean, not really, but you understand what I'm saying.

He gave a message about being happy. The Beatitudes. That's what that means. The happy life is these things. The ten Commandments, really simple, by the way, you know, can like fit on one page of paper.

Like, can you imagine just giving rules for us to follow for the whole world. It's like, man, that's gonna be really long. I mean, I go to buy a car and get a loan, okay, and there's 20,000 papers to sign, right? Surely to govern the world, we need 20,000 papers. No, just 10.

Fascinating, isn't it? Like 10. You can actually remember. By the way, think about the Lord's Prayer. I mean, if you ask me, pastor, how do I pray?

Well, I'm going to give you probably an hour's worth and still say, but there's more to it, Jesus gives us something we can all remember. Simple and yet very hard to do, isn't is the Ten Commandments super hard to do, Easy to understand, hard to do. And that's where the genius lies, isn't it? That's why Jesus says here. He says, look, the wise, they complicate things to their own demise, really.

I mean, only someone with two PhDs would not be able to tell the difference in a man and a woman. But a kid can. It takes layered complication for us to confuse even ourselves. And the enemy uses that, by the way, to confuse us, to confuse our children, to confuse adults. And Jesus saying, not to become childish, let's get real for a second.

Not become childish, but childlike. And that is to say all of our knowledge ought to begin in wonder. Like a little kid coming to the Grand Canyon for the first time. Wow, right? Like a little kid never getting tired of fun things.

You know, as we get older, as adults, we seem to just kind of have this malaise over things that are really important, like spending time with family, you know, love having health. That's something we should be thankful for. But we just assume that's the way it is. And, oh, you know, I'm grumpy and this and that, and we just start complaining. And these complaints, they turn into bitterness about life in general.

It really becomes a root of bitterness. And I think Jesus invitation for us today is something like this. Recover the wonder of life.

I know we all want to explain things away, but there's still a miracle at the base of reality that we even exist at all, that we can even intelligibly speak to one another. All these things are a gift from God and we should be in awe and wonder at them. So much so that we worship the Lord and we're thankful to God for what we have.

You know, I hear my nephew who constantly, when he sees me, whether it's on FaceTime or like in person, he says, dada, da, da da. Now, I'm not his dada, okay? And you might. Ha, ha ha, that's so funny. But here's the thing.

He's actually, I think, locking into something in reality. And I could go down a philosophical track here to prove that. Actually, Aristotle was right in that little phrase there. Because what he sees is a dada, and it's actually true, because for him, Dada is like this adult male, right? And so that's exactly what he sees when he sees me.

He doesn't just see some random man, you know, but he sees Like a dada. Because he knows I have kids if. And he's. How old is he? 1.

Like, how do you get to that? Because of the simplicity of receiving reality as it comes to us in some sort of simple apprehension. That's how, actually. And we, again, as adult, we complicate and complicate until we also are confused. And God is not the author of confusion, but of clarity.

And kids seem to have crystal clear. Now I get it. Kids are wrong about a lot of things. I've corrected. You have to correct kids, okay?

That's not the part of being a kid that Jesus locking into is. You should be wrong all the time, you know, and do really weird things like stick a fork in an outlet, you know, that's not the kind of thing he's inviting us to. Instead, childlike faith. And some of us have grown old and stale and jaded in our faith to where when we come here, it's just. Oh, just run of the mill.

Here we go again. Gotta be here. No, no, no, listen. It's an opportunity for God's grace today from. From this pulpit, from these musicians, from this table to be transmitted to us.

That's what's at stake here. That's the big idea with being a kid. You know, GK Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy, he talks about watching a kid being bounced on a knee, you know, And I used to do this whole thing, like riding a, you know, bucking bronco, right? And I used to get to going with him. And, you know, after about 15 times of doing it, I was tired of seeing it, you know?

But what does the kid do? Do it again, Daddy. Do it again. Do it again. Okay, buddy, let's go.

You know, all this and then do it again. Okay? All right, buddy. I can't just continue to do this for eternity, you know? But they're pretty satisfied with doing it for eternity.

You ever noticed that? They're not getting old and tired of it, but it's becoming newer and more fun and enjoyable, and it leads to abounding happiness. That sounds a lot like eternity in heaven, by the way. People worry like, oh, man, I don't know what we're going to be. Listen, if we have a childlike faith, it's even the small things that give us great joy.

Imagine when we actually see the big things in person, in heaven, in a glorified body. You talk about pure joy and bliss and felicity and happiness. Yes. All of that wrapped up. That's the good news we have.

That's where we're moving Dear brothers and sisters. But we've got to continue to grow younger as we grow older. It's true. That's what Jesus calling us to.

In fact, Chesterton then says, I think the reason lilies always show up like they do in our world is because God says, do it again. He said, I think the reason the sun rises every single morning is not because of some philosophical or scientific answer, but instead it's because the Lord says, do it again. I like that. The sunset. Do it again.

I love it. New babies coming into the world. Do it again. We're the ones who grow tired and don't even pay attention to the nature that God himself created, which is painted in our skies right now and in this room right now, in the people. You see, you see, we've got to recover childlike faith again.

Because you know when you tell a kid something, they believe it. And it's painful to see children lied to. In fact, Jesus says this way, anyone who would obstruct one of these little ones from coming to me should have a millstone. This where they crushed meal. You wouldn't even be able to pick up that stone, have it tied around their neck and thrown into the sea.

Jesus said that, by the way, not me. That's pretty graphic. What's his point? Children matter. Don't lie to them.

Don't deceive them because of their childlike faith. That's the kind of faith we cannot lose. Even when. Think about this, brothers and sisters. When we've been lied to, the truth has been abused on us.

We've been. But don't let that harden your hearts today. Our Father is only good and can be trusted. Even in the face of death, in the face of anxiety, uncertainty, anybody facing any of that, Anybody weary and carrying heavy burdens, Jesus says, come to me. Come to me.

Because when you see me, you see my Father.

And when you see the Father, you've seen me.

Yes. For such belongs the kingdom of God. And that's actually why we here at Harvest Point, we practice adult baptism and we practice what's called pedo or children baptism, right? Infant baptism even. And the reason why is because God's grace always precedes our decision.

Every single time it does. And the sign of being part of the covenant community in the Old Testament was eight days old. The males were circumcised. They took the sign at 8 days old. In other words, they had full rights to the covenant community.

And in the same way, we baptized children because it's a long standing tradition in the Church and other scriptural reasons that I won't spend time now going into. But we have before, and we can. But the bigger point is this. God's grace always precedes us. So any response that I am going to decide to follow Jesus is always preceded by his grace.

The only reason we can even say that I am following Jesus is because of his grace. And that's why here, Jesus, God, talking to God, says, father, for such was your gracious will, it's God's will to extend his grace to all of us.

And so Jesus, when he's talking here to his Father and we kind of get to overhear him, this is a. He's talking about a personal encounter just as much as my nephew. When he sees my face, then he responds to me, okay, is a personal encounter. So too is our knowledge of God. So too is our response to him.

And we must respond. We say, lord, do it again. Give your grace over and over again. We never get tired of your grace. Every single.

You know, and it's crazy. And I'm just here just as a witness of this. The longer I've been married, the better it gets. And that is just the truth of the matter. Now, I know that's not everybody's experience, but I'm just telling you the truth.

It's better. And every Sunday that we come in here to worship better and better. To me, like used to, I thought Sundays were great and all of this, you know, but now I know they are. Because over time, when we gather in this place and listen, we've had people that have left us for heaven. And I think about them and I see pictures.

Like, even this morning, I thought to myself, you know, there was a Sunday morning where I got a phone call that one of our members had gone to be with Jesus. And we still worshiped that day in this room. And why? Why would we do that? Well, that's what Job does, isn't it?

He loses it all and he falls down and worships. What else could we do? Fret, Lose our mind, Go nuts with anxiety. What good is that going to do? No, no, no, no.

We worship the one who is good. And all good things come from him. All good things. All power, he says, is his. All things have been handed over to me.

So that's the one we want to get in contact with today. If you're having a tough time, and many of us are, then it's time to personally encounter the risen Lord. He alone is good. He alone can give us what we need. And the.

And so Jesus says, look, come to me. Come to me, my burden, my yoke. Yoke is seen kind of like as a burden, you know, Yoke is. We don't really maybe do that now. Some of you know what that means.

But, like, they would yoke two oxen together so they could pull together. You know what I'm saying? So it's like this piece of wood that is put on both of the animals so they go in the same direction. So Jesus is saying, come to me and get under my yoke. In other words, I've got a place for you right here beside me.

And I don't know if you've ever moved stuff before, but, you know, I've moved stuff where most of the weight was, like, on me. And my son's like, this really isn't heavy, dad. And then I start letting it down a little bit, you know, and it's like, yeah, because I'm picking up on it is why it's not that heavy. Jesus is saying, listen, I know this life can get heavy, but get under here with me. And it's interesting he uses yoke because it's.

You're kind of stuck, you know, when you put a yoke on, you're stuck in there. Yeah, that's the point. Remember Paul, when he's describing himself, he could have said, I went to school here. Gamaliel taught me. I've spoken at the Areopagus, you know, in Greece, in Athens.

He could have listed all. You know what he says? I am a slave of Jesus Christ. That's what I am. That's the way he describes himself.

I'm a bond servant. I'm under the yoke. We need to come under this yoke like a little kid. We need to say, you know, it's so funny, kids, when they help with something, you know, I mean, I'm sure you had this experience before, right? Like, you know, whether you're holding the flashlight or, you know, changing out brakes on a car, you're picking up something, you know, it's like they come in there.

My kids would come in to just, mom. Mom. We just. The oil in the car. It's like, I really did most of all the work, you know?

Like, I actually did all that, but I just kind of let you help along, and it wasn't always helpful. What you were doing actually slowed us down a little bit. But I don't say that. I say, that's right, buddy. We change the oil, we change the brakes.

You know what I. Anything that we do here at Heart Like I do in my ministry. Listen, it's not me. It's the Lord who's really. I've just been trying to hold the flashlight, distracted by all the things in life.

And he lets us say, oh, we did it, Lord. Yes, son, we did, we did, we did. Come under his yoke today. I know life gets heavy. I find it so fascinating that when we do attend both weddings and funerals, there's laughter.

There's always laughter. Why? But because in some sense, we're laughing at the fact that death is not the end. And it's not. And it's hard when we lose those we love.

I've been there. You've been there.

But the good news is they're with our Lord. And one day we will be, too. And, you know, one of the profoundest things for me is when Sasha's mom went to be with the Lord, her grandmother at the funeral was up front, hands in the air, worshiping Jesus in the face of death. The minister stands and encourages the people to stand strong, that death is not the end. And, you know, the Lord sits in the heavens and laughs.

Why? Because he knows how it all ends. He already knows the end from the beginning. And I can tell you this, it's good. Good wins in the end.

No matter how dark things get or heavy they get in this life. Come under his yoke because where he's going is good. His thoughts for us are only good. His plans for us are to prosper us into complete happiness. Not just a little bit of happiness, pure joy in the Holy Spirit.

Like a little kid today, would you be able to believe that? Like a little kid, would you believe that a meal like this, simple as it is, water, juice, bread, could be the medicine of immortality? As Saint Ignatius said, the medicine of immortality to come under his yoke, being his disciple, holding things lightly in this world so that we can hold him in the next and hold those we love in the next.

Today, I encourage you to have a childlike faith. Not be childish, but a childlike faith. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.