"The Kingdom As the Kiddie City"
I'm delighted to be with you again. I have a good topic. Jesus said, "Unless you become as little children you will in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Children. We all have to become like children.

Children are fun. I have a friend who's a school teacher and she showed me an essay. It was about Benjamin Franklin. The essay read like this: "Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston but he didn't like it there so he went to Philadelphia. He got off the boat, he bought a loaf of bread, put it under his arm, walked up the street, met a lady and married her. Then he discovered electricity." It's lines like that that you have to laugh at because they come from children who, in their innocence, are very humorous.

I also find that children can be very touching. I have a letter from a friend of mine who teaches school in the upper peninsula of Michigan - one of those schools from first grade all the way through eighth and she even teaches Special Ed. One little boy who is in her class is a Down's Syndrome child - the child is not as bright as the other children - but he's a special child. I think that Down's Syndrome children are better than other children - there's a sweetness and a loveliness and a purity about them. I love this little boy and what he said.

It was Christmas and they were doing the Christmas Pageant and he wanted a part - not just an ordinary part, a speaking part. Well, they gave him a speaking part. They made him into the inn keeper. Mary and Joseph come to the inn and he only has two lines and they are the same line. The line is, "No room." Well, Mary and Joseph knock, he opens, he says, "No room."

Joseph pleads and says, "But it's cold and we're tired and my wife is about to have a baby and the baby will be born in the cold, cold night."

The little mentally retarded boy said, "I know what I'm supposed to say but, she can have my room." It's that kind of sweetness, it's that kind of loveliness that Jesus saw in children that made Him say, "Unless you become as little children you will in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

What is it about children that is so special? First of all, they know that they are loved by God. It takes a while, when children are rejected, to even realize it. Early on in life, they believe themselves to be loved. They think of themselves as precious and valuable.

I have a friend who has a five year old girl and on the night of a thunderstorm - it was one of those horrible storms where the thunder and lightning roar and flash - he ran upstairs to see if his little girl was upset and frightened and crying. When he got up to the room she was standing on the window sill, stretched out, spread-eagled to the glass. He said, "What are you doing?"

She said, "I think God is trying to take my picture," absolutely convinced she was special, she was unusual, she was precious. You know, that's exactly what God wants you to understand. He wants you to feel special about yourself and wonderful about yourself. I don't know whether God carries a wallet, but if He does your picture's in it. You are special to God, you are unusual, you are wonderful to Him. He loved you so much that when He saw you in trouble He sent His Son into the world to rescue you. That's what the cross is all about - it's not just for humanity, it's for you. When Jesus died on the cross it was to rescue you from sin. It was to take your sin upon himself and make it His own. Jesus died on the cross in punishment for all that you've done wrong and thus makes you once again precious and wonderful.

We run an inner-city program in Philadelphia. One of my inner-city workers had a group of young people on a retreat. As they went to the retreat, there was one little girl who was very withdrawn, very morose, very sullen. She didn't say anything the whole retreat. They played the games -she didn't participate. They sang the songs - she didn't sing. On Sunday morning, when they were wrapping the whole thing up, the leader said, "Does anybody here have anything to share?"
It was then that this little girl spoke. She said, "Yes, something wonderful happened to me last night. I had a dream and in the dream I was in this room with beautiful mirrors. There was a lovely orchestra and they were playing lovely music. People were wearing beautiful gowns and the men were wearing tuxedos. This handsome man came over and asked me to dance with him. As I danced with him, suddenly, I realized it was Jesus and He bent over and whispered in my ear. Do you know what He said? He said, 'Kathryn, I'm crazy about you.'"

Now I know that the neo-Freudians will have a hey-day with that. But be that as it may, if you knew the children who grow up in the ghettos of Philadelphia, if you knew the horrible lives that many of them have to live, you would know that there is nothing more important than this: that Jesus Himself should come and say, "I'm crazy about you."

But let me assure you that Jesus says that not only to a child in the ghetto. Jesus says that to you and to me. He wants us to regain that precious, childlike sense of worth and value, that childlike awareness that we are important people. Have you ever noticed children? They know they're important, they know they're special. God wants you to know that you are important, that you are special and He sent His Son into the world as a messenger to deliver that good news. YOU ARE LOVED BY GOD.

The second thing is this: Little children have a sense of joy. Jesus came into the world to impart His joy to you. He says in one place, "I have come that my joy might be in you and that your joy might be full." You know, Jesus not only died on the cross, but He was resurrected - He's here and He's now, He's right there with you. And if you will invite Him, He will become a personal friend who will walk with you and talk with you and be with you every moment of every day. You will feel His presence, you will be touched by His nearness. And when you get close to Jesus, you will know joy, joy, joy, unspeakable joy. "The Fruits of the Spirit," says the book of Galatians, "are these: love and joy and peace..." And there will be joy in your heart - the joy of it all.

I have a son, his name is Bart. One time I took him to Disneyland and after a day of fun and recreation we were leaving the place and he said, "I want one more ride on Space Mountain."

I said, "I'm out of time and I'm out of money."

He said, "Jesus wants me to go." (I liked that one!)

I said, "How do you figure?"

He said, "When you were speaking in church on Sunday, you said that whenever we cry, Jesus cries and whenever we are sad, Jesus is sad; that He feels what we feel." I admitted that I said that. He went on to ask, "If Jesus feels what we feel, then when we're laughing and having a good time isn't he laughing and having a good time, too?"

I said, "That seems to make sense."

He said, "I think He would enjoy me having one more ride on Space Mountain." That's not bad theology. God wants you to have joy, He has vested interest in your joy. Do you know why? Because God is a loving Father. I'm a father. I have no joy if my children are filled with sadness. When my children are going through spiritual and psychological hell, I go through it, too. God is no different. He feels what you feel and He doesn't want you to be in emotional pain. He wants you to experience joy because He has no joy if you have no joy. He is that deeply involved in your life. He's a great God and He wants you to have fun.

Lord Chesterton once said that he thought God might be the only child left in the Universe because all the rest of us have grown old and cynical because of sin. That's easy to understand. There is a joy about children and there is a joy about God and God wants to put that childlike joy in you. All you have to do is say, "Jesus, take possession of me. Give me your joy, take away my sin, return me to innocence and purity, establish my sense of worth and give to me your joy." It's a gift and you can have it.

Children are visionaries, children are dreamers. This Jesus, this God, that I am telling you about, brings to you dreams and hopes and aspirations. I can't say that to you strongly enough. The Bible says that when the Holy Spirit comes upon people the young men and the young women have visions and the old men and the old women dream dreams. When I work with the inner-city children of Philadelphia, when I go into the ghetto and I talk to the children, I say, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" They always talk in glorious terms "I'm going to be an astronaut, I'm going to be a medical doctor, I'm going to be a lawyer." It hurts me, because I know that the social conditions in which they must live deny them the opportunity of living out their dreams - of fulfilling their visions. God has given them dreams, God has given them visions, but those dreams and visions get frustrated. That's why we, as a Godly people, must work for justice in our world. We must remove all barriers to fulfillment of dreams. When children want to become the great things that Jesus has told them to be and there are social and economic barriers, we, as servants of God, must go to work to remove all those things that keep them from becoming what God planned for them to be when they were created. Children have dreams.

I was on the boardwalk at Atlantic City one day and there was a little girl carrying cotton candy. Have you ever seen cotton candy? It's a huge fluffy thing on a stick. It was so big and she was so small I said to her, "You're so little and that candy is so big, it's bigger than you are."

I remember her saying, "You don't understand, mister, I'm really much bigger on the inside than I am on the outside." Isn't that the good news of the Gospel? God wants to make us bigger on the inside than on the outside. On the inside He wants us to have dreams and visions. No matter how much the world puts us down on the outside, He wants those dreams and visions to blaze with aliveness on the inside. He wants us to see that there are wonderful things in store for us, wonderful ventures of faith waiting for us.

I don't know what God wants you to do, I don't know what God wants you to be, but I can be sure of this: that he puts dreams and visions in your heart. He lets you know what you might be. Sometimes you say, "No, I could never do that, no I could never be that." I think that sometimes you are your own worst enemy. Henry Ford once said, "If you say you can or you say you can't, either way you are right." In reality, Jesus puts in you hopes and dreams and aspirations and, in lighter moments, makes you envision what could be in your life. He says, "Go for it. I will be with you." Is there something that you ought to be doing with your life that you're not doing? The truth of the matter is that you are called to do it.

Let me put it to you simply and directly. There's a great poem by Shel Silverstein, it goes like this:

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me -
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.
     [from Where the Sidewalk Ends]

When I talk to children, they believe that they can be anything and do anything, but little by little, the world beats them down. Perhaps the world has beaten you down and you don't feel your life can accomplish anything of worth. Well, you're wrong. Jesus is here with you. Jesus is speaking to you and He calls you to dream great dreams and to have great visions and to believe that you can do the wonderful things that He has put into your mind and heart.

The spontaneity does get crushed. A friend of mine tells the story of a little boy on the first day of school. The teacher said, "Everybody draw a house." Little Billy got his crayon and scribbled all over the place. He used black and purple and green - it was a multi-colored mess. The teacher screamed, "Billy, you didn't wait for directions!" The next day, the instructions were to draw a tree and once again Billy went to work all over the paper - crayons going in all directions, all kinds of colors. Once again the teacher said, "Billy, you didn't wait for directions." The next day when Billy went to school the teacher said, "Today we're going to draw lions, everybody draw a lion." Billy picked up his crayon and waited for directions. Something died within Billy, a spontaneity, a freedom, a joyfulness that would enable him to go forth in life and attempt things gloriously. Jesus wants to put that spontaneity and joy back into you.

I know that in my own life I find great joy and spontaneity in following Jesus and it's not just the pious things. Just the other day I was in New York and I got on an elevator. I always play games on elevators - those of you who know me know that. I love to get on elevators and not turn and face the door like you're supposed to. It always blows people away. You know, there they are and there I am and I put on my Alfred Newman smile and say, "What me worry?" And as I looked at the people I realized that they were all serious businessmen. They had lost their childlike excitement about life. We were going on the express elevator all the way to the 40th floor. So I said to the group, "Gentlemen, we are going to be traveling together for quite a while. Why don't we sing?" They were so intimidated by me they did! I couldn't believe it! I had all these guys on the elevator in New York City, going to the 40th floor, singing, "You Are My Sunshine." I couldn't believe it!

You say, "What is this about? I thought this was a religious show, I thought this was about Christianity." Jesus said, "I want to make you like little children. I want you to laugh and skip and dance with me. I want you to enjoy life." Jesus didn't come into the world only to get you into Heaven when you die, He came to take away your sin. He came to be a friend who would walk with you and talk with you, a person who would impart to you His joy, His aliveness, His sense of ecstasy. Jesus comes to you and says, "Dream with me. Together we can do great things, wonderful things, unusual things. Jesus wants you to dream like a child, to have joy like a child, to have self-confidence and self-value like a child. He said, "Unless you become as little children you will in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

There's a difference between being childlike and being childish. He doesn't want you to be childish. Childish people are people who bear grudges. Childish people are people who are picky and critical. Childlike people are like God who, as I said earlier, may be the only child left in the universe.

I call upon you to listen to the scriptures. You know, I cry for people a lot. That's the last thing about children: they cry for people a lot. If you tell a child a crying story and the child cries. I just got back from Haiti where we do economic development work. I saw children with their swelled bellies and their skinny arms and legs. I cried a lot. Jesus cries a lot. Children cry when they see suffering.

There's enough to cry about right here in the United States. Recently, I had an Evangelistic Crusade out in Sacramento, it was one of those Billy Graham-like things. You know, they hired an arena and they had a big committee who rounded up people from more than 97 churches and packed the people in - there were 12,000 present each night. After the first meeting, the committee got together and said it was a wonderful meeting, hundreds of people made decisions for Christ, but there wasn't any newspaper or television coverage. I tried to explain that there was no big deal with filling an auditorium with Christian cheer leaders. In reality, Bruce Springsteen fills the place and Mick Jagger fills the place and the Sacramento Kings fill the place - it's no big deal filling the arena. I said, "If you want to get news coverage, I'll tell you what to do. Tomorrow night let's take the whole offering and give it to people in this city who are suffering from AIDS, who are dying from AIDS, who are in pain because of AIDS." I said, "The news media will be here." I said, "I don't keep the money, I always give it to missionary work anyway, so we can afford to do it." So they did it.

The next night I was there to preach. I was in high gear - I was doing my thing. The television cameras did not photograph me, the newspaper reporters did not write about me. I preached my best, the choir sang, the television cameras did not cover the choir. When the offering plates were passed every camera went on, every light went on. You know what they were photographing? They were watching people give. They watched people give to people with AIDS. They watched people whose hearts were broken by the things that break the heart of God. They photographed people who could cry like little children about the sufferings of the world. When it was over, the television stations did not even want to interview me. I was disappointed. I wanted to be on television. They didn't interview the choir. What they did was interview the people coming out of the meeting.

They asked one question, "What did you think of the offering today?" Strange question to ask Christians. The first man out was perfect. He had one of these pot bellies and a tattoo - I mean he looked like the macho, truck driver, beer drinking type. "What did you think about the offering?" they asked.

He said, "Well, what about it?"

"It was for people with AIDS."

"So?"

The interviewer said, "Well, people with AIDS usually are homosexuals and religious people usually are hard on homosexuals."

His answer was beautiful, it was perfect. I would have said, "We love the sinner even as we hate the sin," or something pious like that. This guy said, "Look, I don't know anything about this homo stuff, all I know is that when people are sick, Christians ought to help them." I like that; that's a great testimony. When Jesus makes you like a child you'll have the empathy and sympathy of children.

One day, when we were walking down the streets of Port Au Prince, Haiti my little boy was confronted by a child begging for money. I said, "Bart, don't give him any money. If you do, every kid in Port Au Prince will be on top of you and you won't be left alone until they've got every penny you've got."

I remember my son looking at me and saying, "So?"

Little children don't have enough sense to realize that you could end up giving people everything you have and are in the name of Christ. Jesus says, "Unless you become as little children you will in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

To be children is to see yourself as valuable in the eyes of God. To be children is to be filled with a spontaneous joy. To be children is to have dreams of wonderful things you can do for other people in the name of Christ. To be children is to have your heart broken by the things that break the heart of Jesus. And Jesus said to His disciples, "You want to know who's going to be great in my Kingdom? Those who become as little children." Be childlike - be Christian.