SPEAKER_00: It is good for us to be children.
SPEAKER_00: Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, to him who loves us and has washed us clean from our sins with his own blood, and made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve God and his Father.
SPEAKER_00: To him be all glory, honor, and dominion forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has a way of making the wise foolish and the foolish wise.
SPEAKER_00: In recent years, the breakthroughs in science and technology and discoveries are absolutely stunning.
SPEAKER_00: In 2021, squirrels were used to teach robots lessons about agility and recovery.
SPEAKER_00: A cancer-defined gecko and its 900 babies were used to inspire new melanoma treatments.
SPEAKER_00: In 2022, James Webb's Space Telescope captured new images of the cosmos.
SPEAKER_00: And there were breakthroughs in fungus communication.
SPEAKER_00: Who knew fungus communicated?
SPEAKER_00: But regardless, it seems we're wiser to the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: That we have new understandings and new knowledge, new insights into creation in grand and minute ways.
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't get us closer to God.
SPEAKER_00: Nor does earthly wisdom and understanding make it easier for us to have faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What makes us wise and understanding?
SPEAKER_00: What makes us childlike?
SPEAKER_00: What is necessary for us to receive what our Lord is giving out?
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is talking about when he's praying to his Father in this gospel text this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It should be noted that just before this text that we read this morning in St.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew's Gospel, our Lord admonishes the peoples of the towns throughout all of Galilee due to their lack of faith and response to all the works that Christ had done in their midst.
SPEAKER_00: That despite all these miracles and all these mighty works of Christ that they witnessed with their own two eyes, mind you, they have no response.
SPEAKER_00: They still refuse him.
SPEAKER_00: So he rightly pronounces judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Woe to you, Khorazin.
SPEAKER_00: Woe to you, Beth Seda, for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
SPEAKER_00: And he even says, if the same works had been done in Sodom, well, they would have repented and remain today.
SPEAKER_00: We all know how bad Sodom was.
SPEAKER_00: And it is following this text where Jesus then speaks in praise to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to little children.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
SPEAKER_00: How much like the wise and understanding are we instead of little children?
SPEAKER_00: How often have we heard it said by someone, you know, if Jesus would just show himself to me, I believe in him.
SPEAKER_00: Or better yet, if he would only do a miracle in my life, I would have faith and believe.
SPEAKER_00: But we're a faithless generation.
SPEAKER_00: Even when miracles are done right before our eyes, it does not cause us to have faith and believe.
SPEAKER_00: Faith truly comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure St.
SPEAKER_00: Paul gets it right.
SPEAKER_00: We can only know Christ when he is revealed to us by the Father by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We can only know the Father when He is revealed to us by the Son.
SPEAKER_00: That which is gracious belongs to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That which is revealed to children belongs to the Father's gracious will.
SPEAKER_00: But still yet, Jesus holds up children as the paradigm for faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For faith is a work of God, a unique gift of the Holy Spirit, so no one can claim it as a result of something they've did or decided.
SPEAKER_00: Our Lord is not pointing out that children have some special quality, some unique character that makes it possible for them to come to faith in Christ, but rather that becoming a Christian is exactly parallel to being born into this world.
SPEAKER_00: It's a gift.
SPEAKER_00: It's God's creation.
SPEAKER_00: We're called children of God not because we chose to be born.
SPEAKER_00: Never has such a thing ever happened.
SPEAKER_00: We are children of God because our Lord makes us his children.
SPEAKER_00: We are only born again when it happens outside of our own wills.
SPEAKER_00: No one here asks to be born of their mothers.
SPEAKER_00: Likewise, no one can ask to be born again by God's Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Birth is a thing that is always done to us, that's worked out by the will of someone other than us.
SPEAKER_00: So in today's gospel text, Jesus brings us to the same point.
SPEAKER_00: It is the Father who has revealed this to children.
SPEAKER_00: Even the children can't take credit for what the Father reveals.
SPEAKER_00: It belongs to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, in this text even, gives all credit to who?
SPEAKER_00: To the Father.
SPEAKER_00: For it is the Father's will that makes believers out of all of us.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus has a way of taking it one step further.
SPEAKER_00: He says, All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know God the Father, well, you must know God the Son.
SPEAKER_00: If you want a relationship with the Father, you must be united to the Son.
SPEAKER_00: It is good for us to be children.
SPEAKER_00: For in order to be sons and daughters of the Most High, we must be made to be made God's children first.
SPEAKER_00: For what is it that Christ actually says?
SPEAKER_00: No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
SPEAKER_00: So then only Christ knows the Father, and only those who the Son reveals the Father to.
SPEAKER_00: So you can't have the Father without the Son.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have a relationship with God without Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For doesn't our Lord also say elsewhere, no one can come to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_00: Again, in St.
SPEAKER_00: John's Gospel, unless you are born again from above of water in spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: So we should not expect to know God apart from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Nor should we encourage such a faith among the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: Only the wise in understanding of this world assert their logic over the word of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Only the wise in understanding will see it as their own interpretation versus another's.
SPEAKER_00: Only the wise in understanding of this world will be blinded because the Father has hidden it from you.
SPEAKER_00: But the word of Christ will stand.
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to defend the truth of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: God's own word bears witness for us if we've submitted to it, and it will witness against us if we have not submitted to Christ on the last day.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gets the last say.
SPEAKER_00: We become wise and understanding and fail to be like children when we fail to repent and submit to his word.
SPEAKER_00: And wherever his word is rightly preached and his sacraments are rightly given.
SPEAKER_00: What our Lord is giving out, well, we have to receive it like children, as those who have everything provided for them, and then faithfully respond with repentance and thanksgiving and praise and proper gifts, even of tithe and offering.
SPEAKER_00: But furthermore, we should also concern ourselves with all the Lord promises in his word, as well as those who have received the objective promises of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: For where does Christ promise to be connected to us?
SPEAKER_00: Where have we been put under the yoke of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: As St.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, in baptism we have put on Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And in baptism we are made heirs of God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, apart from Christ, we're harassed and helpless.
SPEAKER_00: Apart from Christ, we grope around and we labor and we're heavy laden.
SPEAKER_00: But when we have received the yoke of Christ upon us, his burden is light.
SPEAKER_00: And when Christ has been placed on us in our baptism, we're no longer of the yoke, under the yoke of slavery of sin, but we've received the yoke of Christ, which is our freedom.
SPEAKER_00: In baptisms, we are made to be children.
SPEAKER_00: Made to be children of God.
SPEAKER_00: It is a miracle that you get to witness with your own two eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not like the wise and the understanding of this world who turn their backs and have no response to God's word and works done in their midst, but like little children who need to receive what their heavenly Father is giving out, letting themselves be cleaned with the absolving words of Jesus and fed and nurtured with his holy food.
SPEAKER_00: It's right for us to become those who need their faces cleaned and their bottoms wiped by their Father.
SPEAKER_00: Children who turn to their heavenly Father in every need and want, trusting that He alone will provide all that is good from above.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
SPEAKER_00: And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father who is in heaven?
SPEAKER_00: But you, you, dear beloved baptized saints, are more worth way more than any sparrow.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have been united to Christ and have put on Christ and have been made part of him.
SPEAKER_00: When we are made to be children under Christ, our Lord puts us on the receiving end.
SPEAKER_00: When we are made to be children like infants who cannot feed or clothe themselves, we are given all that we need to clean us and feed us with Christ's own fulfilling word and his blessed sacraments.
SPEAKER_00: As children of God, we are made to receive all that Christ has for us.
SPEAKER_00: And like children, we submit to our Father who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Like young children who receive all they need from their parents, we're made to submit our wills to the Heavenly Father's will.
SPEAKER_00: We either have Jesus and all the promises that come with the Son paying the price for our sins on the cross and putting us into a right relationship with God the Father, or we don't.
SPEAKER_00: It's good for us to be children, because only children have the inheritance that is promised from their heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: The slave does not remain forever, the Son remains forever.
SPEAKER_00: So if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.
SPEAKER_00: We should desire to be identified as little children.
SPEAKER_00: For the baptized, believing child of God is forgiven of all their sins and has the promise of eternal life and rest from all their labors.
SPEAKER_00: You, dear saints, are God's children.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.