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?
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