Dealing With Childishness Series

Annual Sermons Volume 1 (Part 1)

Bob Marcaurelle

bmarcaurelle@charter.net

2003 Lynn Ave, Anderson, SC 29621

Sermon 5

DEALING WITH CHILDISHNESS (1 Cor. 13:11)

(My most requested radio sermon)

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”

Children are beautiful people. When Jesus saw His disciples clamoring for honor, He set a child in their midst to illustrate the beautiful humility He desired and admired. Jesus said of children, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Childlikeness is a beautiful virtue. But there is an ugly side to childhood.

It is the childishness which sets self at the center of everything, and this is the exact opposite of love as described in First Corinthians thirteen. One of the worst things we can do to ourselves and to others is to refuse to grow up. The runaway bestseller “I’m OK, You’re OK” says the we go through life with three people inside us telling us what to do. We are at one and the same time, Child, Parent and Adult. The Adult in us forces us to react intelligently. The Parent in us forces us to react out of fear or pressure from some authority figure. The Child in us forces us to react in childish ways that worked for us when we were preschoolers. It is when childish behavior dominates that the results are disastrous. It is disastrous for the individual himself.

Dr. John JB Morgan of Northwestern University, says, “Most of the patients in mental hospitals are people whose bodies are mature but whose emotions are infantile...Sanity depends on emotional maturity more than anything else.” A world famous counselor admitted, “Most of my unhappiness is due to childishness. I am trying to do a man’s work with a child’s emotions.”

Childishness is also disastrous for the church. The worst church in the New Testament was the First Baptist Church of Corinth. They argued and fought and split into groups and it was to them that Paul said, “When I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Cor. 13) But worst of all childishness is disastrous for the home.

Here grown up babies do more damage than anywhere else. Dr. Loften Hudson says, “There are probably more homes broken because of childish conduct on the part of adults than for any other reason.” If you left three children in your home unattended for three hours, can you imagine what your home would look like? Well, if you put four grown up babies in a home the results are the same. They will not tear at each other’s souls. They will not spill ink on the carpet, but they will make ugly marks on one another. Childishness by mothers and fathers and young people can make a home a horrible, harmful, hellish place.

And thus we understand why the Bible condemns childish behavior and encourages us to grow up. When Paul wrote First Corinthians to a selfish, childish church, he wrote what many consider his finest chapter, the love chapter and this love is the exact opposite of childishness. Thus we find ourselves today at the very heart of Christian behavior. Childishness is the exact opposite of what it means to be a Christian. How?

A. A CHILD CRIES EASILY FOR THE WRONG REASONS.

No child has to be taught how to cry. They are experts in the turning on of tears. And why do they cry? For one and only one reason,- for themselves. Their toe hurts; their doll broke; their plans were interrupted. No child cries over somebody else’s toe.

At Six Flags yesterday, I saw a little boy, about eight years old, who had neither the use of his arms or legs. His parents propped him in a little boat and I watched as he leaned forward and range the little bell on the boat with his teeth. I had to turn away from the parents and brush back the tears. My two girls did not cry. A child knows nothing of that kind of crying. Tears for others must be taught. My girls, however, both cried a little later when we told them it was time to go home. Children will not cry over a crippled youngster, but they will cry at the drop of a hat for themselves.

Pass this over into adult life and you have the chronic complainers. You have big old cry babies for whom nothing goes right. They complain about the weather, their health, their home, their church and everything else. This little jingle describes them-

Nothing goes right for the folks you meet/ Who make their home on Complaining Street/If all went well there is no doubt/They’d gripe about nothing to complain about.