June 23rd 2013 Childlike Faith-Serious JOY

Children laugh over 400 times per day. Adults laugh about 15 times per day.  This is not a happy trend.  As we jump back into our series on walking in a dependent relationship with God like a little child, we explore the awesome news that, like little children, God’s will for our life is JOY.

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Childlike Faith: Serious JOY

June 23rd, 2013  by Kasey Crawford

Today’s Passages: John 15:5-11, Matt 25:1-21, 2 Samuel 6:12-22

 

“Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”                  –Jesus     Mark 10:14-15

 

Children are famous for ________.

 

Children laugh over _____ times a day and adults about ____ times a day.

 

Does God care about your joy, in this life?  Is God’s will for your life joy?

 

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.    John 15:11

 

Jesus’ foundational teaching on “abiding” is so that his joy may be in ________.

 

Is C.S. Lewis right that: “Joy is the serious business of heaven”?

 

Jesus is talking about __________things here (in John 15): he says (paraphrased) “apart from me you can do nothing of value in life and if you don’t abide in me you will become dry and weak and just tossed out into the fire for kindling wood. But if you abide as your soul is made to, you will experience the fruit of joy.” Joy is a serious thing to Jesus.

 

And it is the ____________ of heaven as well.

“the kingdom of heaven will be like…Enter into the joy of your master.’ Matthew 25:1,21

Heaven is described as a place in which you get to share _________  ________.

 

Heaven is God’s __________ and he is in a ________ mood and he has plenty of joy and he wants to pass it around.

 

We can learn from C.S. Lewis who fought for joy with childlike faith:

“I have tried to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration.”…. Gratitude exclaims, very properly, “How good of God to give me this.” Adoration says, “What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!” One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun….If I could always be what I aim at being, no pleasure would be too ordinary or too usual for such reception; from the first taste of the air when I look out of the window— one’s whole cheek becomes a sort of palate— down to one’s soft slippers at bed-time.”   

 

This is the childlike wonder. He looks to find every good thing in life that brings pleasure as a means to ______ God. Every good thing in this life is like a sparkle, flash, a sunbeam that points back to God, the Sun.

 

“Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for ‘down here’ is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were placed here to live. But in this world everything is upside down. That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends. Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”                         C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, Letter 17.

 

Because he knows that joy is the serious business of heaven, he has permission and _____________ to cultivate a childlike heart that __________ now.

 

King David also had the freedom to “dance with all his might” like a child because he knows God is in the business of joy. 2 Sam 6:12-22.

 

This isn’t a dismissing of responsibilities to just go literally dance and play games all the time. It’s a heart posture that is cultivating a childlike wonder so that in the midst of whatever responsibilities are at hand, there is an inner adoration of God that sets the soul to dance with joy.

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