Child Like Faith

Mark 10:15

"Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."

On Friday during Bible Study we were going through chapter 2 of Crazy Love. The title of the chapter is "You Might Not Finish This Chapter," and it's all about how are lives are fragile and short and we should be doing all we can to glorify God. One of the questions Francis Chan asked at the end of the video was "What would you regret if you died today?" And the majority of us, myself included, answered with a lack of boldness in our faith. The other big one was not loving like Christ did.

So today when I was driving to Tallahassee to meet my Mom for lunch and to pick something up I was listening to a sermon by Francis Chan. It was called "God Is Strong, Am I?" That junk was powerful. It was all about being bold in our faith. He talked about being young and going to Sunday school and then when he first really believed in God, and he felt like God could do anything. I remember being a little kid and hearing the story of David and Goliath, and just being amazed that a little kid could kill a giant with a stone because he had faith and courage in God. I understood that God could do anything, but over time this fades. In his sermon he talked about how people calm us down, because we have so much now we don't need to live by faith as much anymore. That's what they did. But is that right?

The story he referenced was the story of Caleb and Joshua in Numbers. I know this a lot to read, but it's such a good message that we need to hear.

Numbers 13:25-33

²⁵At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. ²⁶And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷And they told him, "We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. ²⁸ However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. ²⁹The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan."

³⁰But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it." ³¹ Then the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are." ³²So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, "The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. ³³And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them."

Caleb and Joshua had faith that there God could do anything. They had courage and boldness that the same God who took them from Egypt and parted the Red Sea could overcome the inhabitants of the promised land, but some didn't believe. Some were afraid and didn't have faith that God could provide. The other 10 spies convinced everyone else that the land wasn't good and that they shouldn't go. Sound familiar. That happens to us it's real. I like what Rob Bell says about the Bible. "The greatest truth of the story isn't that it happened, but that it happens." People in our lives try to convince us that are God isn't that big or strong and we believe them. We lose that child like view of God that we once had. When we truly believed our God could do anything. But check out what happens to the other 10 and everyone else.

Numbers 14:26-38

²⁶And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ²⁷"How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. ²⁸Say to them, 'As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: ²⁹ your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, ³⁰not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. ³¹ But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. ³²But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. ³³And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. ³⁴According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.' ³⁵ I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die."

³⁶ And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— ³⁷the men who brought up a bad report of the land— died by plague before the LORD. ³⁸Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.

The 10 who convinced the rest not go died by plague on the spot, and the rest were told that they would never see the promised land. Only Joshua, Caleb, and the children. Do you want to be one of the 2 or the 10? I know I definitely want to be part of the 2, but so many times I see my life heading in the other direction. Why? Our God reigns. He is alive. He is all powerful. The Bible from cover to cover sings praises practically screaming about how powerful our God is. He created the heavens and the earth. But we lose sight of this over time. Our faith gets calmed down and more presentable. I want to be like like Joshua and Caleb. Their story still isn't over.

Joshua 14: 6-12

⁶Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, "You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. ⁷I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. ⁸But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the LORD my God. ⁹And Moses swore on that day, saying, 'Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD my God.' ¹⁰And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the LORD spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. ¹¹ I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. ¹²So now give me this hill country of which the LORD spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the LORD said."

The Lord was faithful and he brought Caleb and Joshua to the promised land. And even 45 years later Joshua is able to say I am as strong as I was then, because his strength and his courage come from the Lord. The Lord doesn't grow weary. Our body might fail, but our God never does. I want this sort of faith that grows exponentially over the years. Joshua is an 85 year old man and he is on fire for the Lord. Why do we let ourselves lose that courage that we had as a child? The faith we had when we first believed in God and we were confident He could do anything? Where did that go? Why do we let our stories end so early like the other 10? We have to receive the kingdom like a child, because a child understands the power of God.

The Holy Spirit dwells within us. The power of God dwells within us. We have no excuse to lack boldness. We have to live by faith and courage that nothing is impossible for our God.

Philippians 4:13

I can do all things style through him who strengthens me.

Do we believe that? If so, do our lives demonstrate it?