Are we acting like Children or Christians?

Luke 7:31-35

There is so much we can learn from children. As we watch and observe children we all can say and justify their actions because they are children. When a child acts out in the shop and pitches a tantrum, we all say “That’s the way children act when they don’t get their way”. Most of the time the parents will punish them for their actions and rightfully so! But when adults have their times of tantrums when they don’t get their way?  I find many Christians today acting like children.

I)       Childishness is marked by a desire to play with life. 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Many of us have heard children say, and we can remember in our own background how very often we said, “Let us play-like?”

A)    Play House

B)    Play Mommy and Daddy

C)    Play School

D)    Play Cars and Trucks

E)     Play Dolls

F)     Play Dress up

Children simply play what they see as grown up, but it isn't reality. Sometimes we play like we are having church and it isn't reality. Sometimes we play like we are building a home and it isn't reality. We who have reached maturity should move out of the land of fiction into the realm of eternal reality. The business in which we are engaged as Christians is of supreme importance!

II)    Childishness is marked by selfishness. Proverbs 15:27 He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that hateth gifts shall live. The child is often, as we are, egocentric. Everything he sees he wants for himself; and unless he gets it, he is very unhappy.

A)    We are selfish with our time.

B)    We are selfish with our abilities

C)    We are selfish with our love

D)    We are selfish with our money

We who are adult people very often live as children in our selfishness. We have developed the greatest crop of cry babies the world has ever known!

III) Childishness is likewise characterized by self-pity. Galatians 6:3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. Now that is understandable in a child, but isn’t commendable on the part of those who are supposedly mature Christians. Many people go to church for attention they receive. Did you ever heat anyone say;

A)    I’m not going back to that church anymore because nobody spoke to me.

B)    I’m not going back to that church anymore because the preacher didn’t shake my hand.

C)    I’m not going back to that church anymore because all they talk about is money.

D)    I’m not going back to that church anymore because I don’t sing enough specials.

E)     I’m not going back to that church anymore because I’m never asked to do anything.

Are you going to church primarily to have people speak to you, to have you hand shook, to sing, to be in the spot light of all church activities?