The Essence of a Child is relationship, and this childlikeness is Divine. Jesus used an ordinary child with all the faults any child would have. MacDonald illustrates this by placing childlikeness in high contrast to what he calls “…adult, so-called worldly wisdom.” This adult perspective robs us of our childhood. Perceiving life from a child’s perspective awakens the Spirit of love, the love uniquely expressed to children.
Kingdom Thinking is humble thinking. Jesus told them they could not even enter His Kingdom thinking like adults. They would have to become childlike by humbling themselves, moving from independence to interdependency. The idea of control and power was contrary to the essential quality of His Kingdom. There would be no more ruling but serving. No more looking down on anyone, but lifting, serving, and persuading people of who they are in Christ!
Secondly, the Simplicity of Childlikeness is our common ground. Our childlikeness originates in recognizing that whatever we are and whatever we have finds its origin in God! He asks nothing of us; He has not placed the resource within us to accomplish; this makes room for maturity. For this reason, Jesus set the child before them. Therefore, a disciple represents his master and lives as a reflection of Him.
Relationship simply flows from the Childlikeness of the Father and Son. To receive Jesus is to receive the Father. Therefore, to receive the child is to receive the Father Himself! I do not say this as some doctrinal truth, for I aim at no such logical certainty. Rather than prove, I aim to show, using my thoughts progressions to reveal the ideas I am relating.
Next, the Kingdom is a Community of Children serving one another in Truth and Love. The kings of the earth exercise sovereign power, but it will not be that way with you. Jesus, your King, came serving all! “Whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me.” To receive a child in the name of Jesus is to receive the Father Himself. To receive the Father, you must know Him. To know Him is to know that He is in us! Jesus is one with the Father. The child is one with Jesus. Therefore, the child is one with the Father, for they are all childlike! The secret of seeing this revelation lies in simply receiving the Divine in everyone!
The Father’s Devotion found in the Life of the Child is in Their Self-Giving Love. Let us take this truth to yet an even greater revelation, that the devotion of God to His creatures is perfect! The truth is that They loved and were devoted to us first. And our devotion is but a mirroring of Theirs in return! They do not think of Themselves, but us! They want nothing for Themselves, for the Trinity lacks nothing and only lives to be a blessing! Their devotion and self-giving love is at the center of the Divine Childlikeness, the Universe’s Heart and Life! They are the source and ultimate expression of human relationships at their best as a friend, brother, sister, father, and mother, expressed fully in our love-perfect God! They are grand and strong beyond anything our imagination could conceive of heroic thinking and actions! Yet, delicate and tender surpassing human intimacy as husband and wife! They are comfortable and welcoming, exceeding all we could envision as the height of love and acceptance coming from fathers and mothers!
The question for us is will we receive as a gift their other-centered and self-giving love, not trusting in ourselves but in Their sacrifice for us? Will we respond in kind with thankfulness, giving our lives to others for whom They sacrificed and loving others as They love us? God is pure and single-minded about His children, that we would be just like Them. Our thinking, feeling, meaning, and the possessing of Their Life is the plan to flow through us, to others.
How terribly have the theologians misrepresented God! “Nearly all of them represent Him as a great king on a grand throne; God thinking how great He is; making it the business of His being and the end of His universe the keeping up of His glory, wielding the lightning bolts of Jupiter against those that take His name in vain.”
He alone as the Father of Little Children is abandoned and devoted to them. Dear brothers and sisters, have you found our King? There He is, kissing little children and saying they are like God. A simple peasant who loves his children and sheep is a more genuine representation of God than these sovereign ones. For this peasant is a more accurate type of God than that monstrosity of a monarch they present.
We are Home, for our Childhood is Born of His Fatherhood! For it is His childlikeness that makes him our God and Father. The perfection of His relationship with us removes all our imperfections, defects, and evils. Perfect faith in us is when we come to our Father with a complete lack of true feelings and desires, without inspiration or aspiration. The one with the full weight of unworthy thoughts, failures, neglects, and unthankfulness and says to God, “You are my refuge and Life because you are my Home.”
For God to give us that which is in disharmony with His Life in us would be to damn us, to cast us into outer darkness.
Life is not a series of chances with a bit of grace sprinkled in to keep up a truly failing faith. But one of grace and the purposes of God.
See the links below for other articles connected to this summary:
Sermon Quotes – from Original Version
Divine Childlikeness – Introductory Blog
The Child in the Mist – Sermon Paraphrase