Teaching God Centered Children

Thank you, David. Let's pray. That is our prayer, Lord.

The sparks are there in most, I think, and we want you to fan them into a flame of zeal for your name and for the joy of the next generation. And the sparks are not there in some, and we pray that you would ignite them. Keep me faithful now to your word and guard me from error, guard me from any kind of attitude that would be distracting from the truth.

Perform your great purposes for truth 78 in these next minutes, I pray in Jesus' name, amen. So we have a mission statement at Desiring God that is long and unwieldy, and nobody recommends mission statements that are as long as ours because you can't remember it. But I love it because most mission statements are short, catchy, and vacuous.

And I don't like vacuous mission statements. I like them long and laden with truth. And even if they're not memorable, they are true.

And those of us who are on the inside, we can live by them. The last line says, governed by, grounded in, and saturated with the infallible Christian scriptures. That's the last of four lines.

So we exist to be that, grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian scriptures. One of the reasons I said yes to this invitation is because I not only want to be that kind of ministry, I want to encourage others to be that kind of ministry. And truth 78 is one of those ministries.

And so I want to breathe on it and say, do that. Let's go for it. And I'd like to tell other people, support that.

That's grounded in, governed by, saturated with the infallible Christian scriptures. That's the only kind of ministry I'm interested in. And so I'm here to say amen to that and encourage it and you to be involved in it.

So when David and Sally were with me and I with them for those 33 years, we served in a way that made a huge impact on me as well as on them, evidently. Namely, that the ministry to our children and everything else should be grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the Bible. That was not on my front burner when I came to Bethlehem.

I wasn't thinking mainly about children's ministry. And to see them embody that and make that their legacy to our church and then begin to make it the legacy to other churches through truth 78 was a legacy not like that of John Bunyan. And I mentioned Bunyan just because I love this quote from Spurgeon.

And maybe you've heard it, but if you have, you'll want to hear it again. If you haven't, you'll like it. Because Spurgeon is a pastor in London 150 years ago, loved the Pilgrim's Progress, right, that John Bunyan wrote.

Probably the most widely distributed book outside the Bible in the world. And here's what he said about Bunyan and Pilgrim's Progress. He said, Bunyan had read the Bible till his very soul was saturated with scripture.

See, that's where I get the word saturated. I didn't make that up. And though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim's Progress, that sweetest of all prose poems, without continually making us say and feel why this man is a living Bible.

Prick him anywhere and the blood is biblene. That's the part we all love, right? Prick him. He bleeds Bible.

That's just great. Don't you want to be like that? Prick him and he bleeds Bible. The very essence of the Bible flows from him.

He cannot speak without quoting a text from his very soul. He is full of the Word of God. There wasn't anybody on our staff of which that was more true than Sally and David.

And the impact was enormous. Devotion after devotion, retreat after retreat, service after service, staff meeting after staff meeting, leaving this legacy of Bible saturation, which has now come over into Truth 78. And if I were pastoring children today, I would look to Truth 78 for the curriculum that I would want to use.

So when David wrote Desiring God and sought to get me to come to this, he wrote this. My hope is that John will do what he has always done to validate the significance of faithful, God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, doctrinally grounded, mission-advancing discipleship, beginning with the youngest children. He's pushing all my buttons, right? The key to that list of hyphenated words, which I love, hyphenated phrases are really efficient.

Because if you don't use hyphenated phrases, you have to use relative clauses. And that's unwieldy. Okay.

The key to all those hyphenated phrases is that he used the phrase Bible-saturated. That's under everything, right? All those others are built on Bible-saturated, and I'm going to pick one of them to talk about. So that's where I got this, this, what shall I do here? I know the kinds of things they want me to do, but I'm going to pick one of those hyphenated phrases and work with it for the next 25-30 minutes or so.

Namely, God-centered. God-centered. And reflect with you on the meaning of the phrase, its rootedness in the Bible, and how ministry to children affects the way you think about it.

Now, that sounds backwards. The way you think about God-centeredness will affect the way you do children's ministry, right? And I'm saying it works the other way as well. Namely, the effort to do children's ministry, to be thoughtful in imparting truth to children, affects how you understand, conceive, and present God-centeredness.

And I think this will become clear in a minute. For example, doing ministry to children clarifies the limits of contextualization. You know that phrase, contextualization? It's usually used in regard to missions, right? When you do mission work and you go to a culture that does not know the gospel, you have to think, how in the world can I get these truths into their minds when there's so little overlap in conceptualization of reality? That's the challenge of contextualization.

Children are a culture. They're a tribe, right? They're very unique. They're very limited in the concepts they bring to the first grade table.

And so contextualization makes total sense. You have to think contextualization to communicate with a first grader. You have to.

If you just talk the way I talk on Sunday morning only, that won't connect. So there's got to be contextualization. But I'm arguing that as you teach children, you realize the limits of contextualization as a method of communication of reality from the Bible.

When children are the target culture, which they are in children's ministries, you want to make plain things about God that are extremely difficult to understand, even for adults. And you want to do more than just contextualize. You have to do more than just contextualize because the way contextualization works is that you know the body of truth from the Bible that you would like to be in the minds, hearts, and lives of this target culture.

And then you study to see some of the concepts of reality that are in their mind. And you look for bridges. You look for overlaps.

Like how in the world can I take this truth and help them to see that without messing up this truth, right? You tend to lose the truth as you push it into another framework. And you realize the limits of contextualization because they do not have the framework for this reality. And how true is that of children? Very true.

They don't have the framework for grasping the things you want them to see. So, and this is how ministering to children affects the way I think about God-centeredness as I bring it to children. I have to supplement their method of contextualization with what I call concept creation.

Not just concept contextualization, but concept creation. I've got to so teach, so pray, so live as to create in their little minds ways of viewing reality that have not yet even come into being. Or they won't have any idea what I'm talking about with regard to certain really important biblical spiritual truths.

And that's of course not just true of children. That's true of fallen human beings. Here's 1 Corinthians 2.14. The natural person.

That means person before new birth through Jesus. The natural person. Just what we are by nature minus the Holy Spirit, minus regeneration, what we are coming into being.

That which is of the flesh is flesh. Here's what the Bible says about that person, namely all the people in the world, without Christ. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.

He's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Which means every pastor, every Sunday school teacher, every parent has to deal not only with levels of mental maturity, but levels of spiritual capacity. Like this person has no framework, no spiritual transformation and framework for grasping these realities.

They're just going to be nonsense or foolishness or boring or mythological or legendary or anything but glorious and compelling. Something's got to change. It won't fit into their present view of reality.

So if you're going to fit them in, something's got to be created here in this little mind. And I'm calling it concept creation. It's a manifestation of what happens by the Holy Spirit through faithful Bible teaching.

And I think teaching children makes crystal clear that's just got to happen. It's got to happen. So we teach and we pray and we make every effort to create categories of thought.

Now let me illustrate what I mean by categories of thought that no natural person has, including children who haven't had the work of the Spirit wrought in their lives yet. I'll give you four examples. They're all very controversial and if we had an hour on each one, we could spend an hour on each one.

But here we go. Number one, God rules the world, including the sins of all beings, like Pilate's expediency, Herod's mockery, mobs crucify him, and the soldier's brutality, Acts 4, 27 to 28. He rules all the world, all acts, all sin, and in so doing he does not sin.

That's a category of thought that is unintelligible for most people. God governs sin and does not sin in governing sin. God was totally in charge of the crucifixion of Jesus.

You wouldn't be a Christian today if you weren't. Number two, a category like God governs all the steps of all people, good and bad, at all times, in all places, yet so that every human being is totally accountable to God and will bear the just consequences of his wrath if they don't believe. Sovereignty of God, accountability of man, that compatibility is unintelligible to most people.

They'll hear me talk like that and say, that's just double talk. That's pure schizophrenia to say that God governs the sins of all people and those people are responsible for their sins. That makes no sense whatsoever.

It's in the Bible. It does make sense. It may not make sense to you.

You need to have your attitude changed. You need a concept creation. I mean, that's why I come to the Bible.

I don't know how you come to the Bible. I come to the Bible every day asking God, shape my brain. I don't bring my brain and say, Bible, fit that brain.

I mean, wouldn't that be stupid? Like, my teeny-weeny little fallen brain? Oh my goodness. I need work every day. God's got to work on this fallen, self-justifying brain of mine.

Number three, Jesus Christ is one person in two natures, divine and human, such that he upheld the world by the word of his power in his mother's womb. A first grader would have a great time with that. What's a womb? That's your job, right? You got to get parents' permission at certain points.

Number four, the death, this is just glorious, the death of the one God-man, Jesus Christ, so displayed and glorified the righteousness of God that God is not unrighteous to declare righteous ungodly people just because they believe in Jesus. I mean, that's just the best news in the world. If there's a holy God, and I'm a wicked person, and there's no hope I could ever stand before a holy God and him both be righteous and merciful at the same time.

And Christ so magnifies the righteousness of God when he dies for sinners, that this righteousness is not compromised by saying not guilty to that wicked kid, John Piper, and himself not lose his righteousness, and I get to be home free, declared righteous. Those are four examples of concept creation. The fallen human being will hear those things and say, that is gibberish.

It's just gibberish. You Christians don't make any sense at all. And we don't.

I mean, that's what Paul said plainly. The Jews seek signs and the Gentiles seek wisdom. We preach Christ crucified, foolishness to the Gentiles, a stumbling block to the Jews, but to those who are called the wisdom of God and the power of God.

How could it be plainer? Paul expects the gospel to be unintelligible without the work of the Holy Spirit. And that's true in children. So it's mind-boggling these categories of the Bible.

And these are things we want our children to know. And I think one of the things that's unique about truth 78 is that they really do try to think of the big, deep, weighty, glorious things about God and say, you really don't have to wait until you're 26. You really don't.

You would be amazed what children can grasp. In fact, this is not in my manuscript here, but in fact, I would just say, just from experience and from the Bible, that you take a young child, 3, 4, 5, 6 years old, and teach them God is very strong. My God, he's so strong.

And he governs, he rules. Maybe you don't use the word governs. He's in control.

He's strong. Find your word. Everything, even bad things that happen to your grandmama, and he's good.

He's really wise. Sometimes we can't understand, but he's good. Kids can get this.

They really can. And it can be like a rock under their feet forever. Close that parenthesis.

God-centeredness, that's what we're talking about. So here we are. And I want to focus on God-centeredness for a few minutes and see how concept creation works with God-centeredness.

Now, my experience for the past 50 years, as I have tried to say to groups, to embrace God-centeredness, zeal for God-centeredness, passion for God-centeredness. It's interesting you said you use the word zeal instead of passion. We got the word passion on the wall in the church.

I'm going to talk to our graduates here in about two weeks about zeal. I've got my message all framed in my mind. I'm going to use the word zeal because Paul said, never flag in zeal.

That whole text there in Romans 12. Anyway, there's a little sidebar on passion and zeal. Passion, I think, is just a modern word for zeal and use the one you like.

I want people to be zealous for, passionate about, God's God-centeredness in everything. Church, God-centeredness in everything. Curriculum, God-centeredness in everything.

Marriage, God-centeredness all the way down. And here's what I have found. I have found that as I commend that to people, they don't stumble at that term.

They take it and they fit it into their present conceptualities, understanding of reality, and they go back to work, worship, teaching, marriage, and it doesn't have any effect. It doesn't produce what I'm... You must not be meaning what I'm meaning. What's going on here? I did this with seminary leaders 30 years ago at seminaries.

I wanted the seminary to be God-centered. I wanted to be radically devoted to the glory of God. And I'd say that to the leaders, and they'd say, of course, yeah.

Oh, amen. I mean, who would disagree with that, right? And then they go back in the curriculum, exactly the same. The emphases look exactly the same.

Nothing changes. I'd say, they're not thinking what I'm thinking. Communication is not happening here.

Concept creation is evidently not happening here. So here's what I have discovered over the years. I have discovered that I need to have a strategy for blowing up some brains.

In order that what I mean by God-centered now doesn't just fit into present man-centered strategies, but blows them away. If you believe in God-centeredness because God is man-centered, you are man-centered, self-centered. That was the thing I did not catch right away.

Like, oh, I see. You can say you're God-centered because you believe God is man-centered, and therefore your God-centeredness is really man-centeredness, and nothing changes. I said, oh.

So how am I going to create a concept? Concept creation. Not just contextualizing my concept into their framework, which produces nothing, and take my concept, which I think is in the Bible. I'll try to show it's in the Bible, and put it in there so it just blows everything up.

And the curriculum changes, and the attitude change, and chapel changes, and preaching changes, exposition changes, and counseling changes, because God is so massively central. How does that happen? Here's what I have done for decades. I have found that if I substitute for God-centeredness in everything, God's God-centeredness, it blows things up.

So that's what I'm going to work with for a minute. So I'm going to show you, this is my attempt at doing for all, and then I'll illustrate at the end how you do it for kids, okay? How you create a concept rather than just fitting into people's present concepts, because you see, if you don't shake people up out of their present man-centeredness, they'll just stick everything in. That fits in, and that fits in, and by fitting it in, it changes what you're thinking, and you walk away thinking you delivered your burden, and you didn't do anything.

So I draw their attention to the fact of God's God-centeredness. So I want you to come with me on a tour. So I'm going to do a four-stop tour on how I try to create the concept of God-centeredness by using God's God-centeredness as a means of getting there.

So it's got four stops on this tour. Stop number one, awakening through provocation. Awakening through provocation.

I provoke people. I get their back up. So I start by saying, let's ask a few key questions about God.

Now don't raise your hand, just answer the questions, I say, and I can say it to you. Question number one, what is the chief end of God? Answer, the chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy making much of himself forever. Question number two, who is the most God-centered person in the universe? Answer, God.

Number three, who is uppermost in God's affections? Answer, God. Four, is God an idolater? No, he has no other gods before him. Number five, what is God's chief jealousy? Answer, God's chief jealousy is to be known, admired, trusted, obeyed, enjoyed above all others.

Six, is your enjoyment of the love of God mainly owing to the fact that he makes much of you, or is it mainly owing to the fact that he frees you to enjoy making much of him forever? Those are very provocative questions. They are questions that most people have never asked, and they are jarring to an audience and raise endless questions, which is exactly what I want to happen. So I press on these unusual questions because if we are God-centered because he's man-centered, then we are man-centered and have gained nothing by making them that kind of God-centered.

But pressing the reality of God's God-centeredness forces the issue whether we treasure God because of his excellencies or because he endorses ours. Oh, this is so important. I mean, America, I mean, human nature.

I live in America, so I talk about Americans. We are a thoroughly man-centered nation. It's profoundly idolatrous to the core.

Apart from the marvelous work of God. So now people, that's tour number one. I mean, stop number one on the tour is agitation.

God-centeredness is not fitting in neatly to people's minds. Here's stop number two on the tour. Validation through scripture.

Those questions sort of sounded biblical, but people would come away from those questions saying, you made those up. That's just tricky. That's just tricky.

That's political. You're not persuading anybody with those questions. I'd say, fine.

I didn't mean to persuade you. I just meant to wake you up. Now let's go to the Bible.

Okay, so validation through scripture. And here, depending on how much time I have, I just pour Bible on people. Just pour Bible on people about the God-centeredness of God, right? God's aim to be exalted, glorified, admired, magnified, praised, reverenced, trusted, enjoyed.

That aim is the ultimate goal of the universe. That's what God is aiming at in all his creation, all his providence, all his saving acts. He's aiming to be known and loved and praised and honored.

I mean, what is the first petition of the Lord's prayer? Hallowed be thy name. That's a request. I don't think I knew it was a request until I took Greek in college.

I always thought it's an acclamation. Hallowed be thy name, like praise you. That's not it.

It's a request. It's, would you please cause your name to be hallowed? That's what it is. So the first prayer in the Lord's prayer is, make much of yourself, God, in my heart.

That's what I mean by hallowed be thy name. Cause me to hallow, reverence, honor, sanctify, delight in your name. Okay, so we are going to give them a bath.

And I went through this afternoon just slash text after text because thinking I'd go too long if I didn't. So I'll give about nine or so. He predestined us for adoption of sons through Jesus Christ, to the praise of the glory of his grace.

You were predestined to be a Christian for God to get praise. God's design from eternity was that you live for his praise. That's God's God-centeredness, God's self-exaltation.

He designed the universe to get praise. Number two, he created the natural world to display his glory. The heavens declare the glory of God.

Who designed it to be like that? You didn't. God did. He designed stars and everything that James Webb telescope sends back.

He designed for that to make us say, God is great. God is great. Number three, you are my servant Israel in whom I will be glorified.

That's why I chose you as my people. Number four, he saved them at the Red Sea for his namesake, that he might make known his mighty power. I'm going to lose the numbers here because I crashed out five and six.

So Ezekiel 36, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act in bringing you back from exile, but for the sake of my holy name. I will vindicate the holiness of my great name and the nations will know that I am the Lord. Isaiah 43, it just didn't get any sweeter than this.

I am he who blots out your transgressions for my namesake. Like who's the beneficiary in that? Both. And that's the deal.

That's the deal, right? You let me have the glory, I'll forgive your sins. If you think it's about you, ultimately, you don't get it. When he comes, we'll just jump to the end of history.

Here we are, second coming. Why is Jesus coming back? He's coming. I wrote a whole book about it a couple years ago.

I love the second coming because if you don't love the second coming, you won't want him to come. I mean, you'll be really sad when he comes. That's what the verse says in second Timothy.

When he comes on that day, this is second Thessalonians chapter one, verse nine. When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at in all who have believed. He's coming to be marveled at.

It's like, why are you coming? I'm coming to be marveled at. That's enough. That's the Bible bath.

So I have nine texts or so. I could give you 25, 30, whatever. I mean, just cover to cover, God is exalting himself.

God's God-centeredness permeates the whole Bible. And it is incredible how we ignore it and how to say it like I'm saying it now, boggles people's minds. Like, yeah, I don't know if I like that.

And there we are now. So just before we make tour stop number three, where are we? The first one rustled the leaves. The second one says that rustling is totally biblical.

You're in trouble if you don't like it. And most people don't like it. Why? It's real simple.

He sounds like a megalomaniac. This is not rocket science. It's easy to see why people don't like God's God-centeredness.

I mean, picture this with a first grader. I mean, I will in a minute, but just a little detour here. I would ask a first grader, Johnny, do you think it's ever right for God to do things that he told us not to do? And I'm almost sure a first grader would say, no, no, no, no, no, no.

God shouldn't do things he told us not to do. And there's your next 30 minutes, right? Of course he can and does. He's God.

So that's, here we are now going to try to explain that. And I will try to explain how you say it to a first grader in a minute. So stop number three on the tour is why is God's God-centeredness not megalomania? Why is it not? Because it sounds like it is.

Why is it not? And I'll tell you, another detour here, because I'm coming off of speaking down in Dallas here for three days ago, and I'm talking about this. I think Christian hedonism, which you're going to hear in just a minute, is the only answer to the question of God's megalomania. I mean, I look in vain.

I said to the guys at Desiring God the other day, we had a three-hour meeting. I said to Tony and Marshall and David and John, I said, guys, give me one example of a contemporary theologian or historical theologian who says flat out the problem of megalomania and then gives a solution for it. And they couldn't think of any.

I mean, this is a massive problem for ordinary people. Brad Pitt's not a Christian today because of God's megalomania. Oprah Winfrey is not a Christian today because of God's megalomania.

C.S. Lewis stayed a non-believer for 30 years of his life because of God's megalomania. They could not get over God's God-centeredness. It all sounded like egomania, and they're out of here.

It's just rampant, and nobody talks about it. There is a biblical answer to the question of God's megalomania. That's where we're going now.

So station number three, why is it not unloving for God to exalt God? It's not megalomania because unlike our self-exaltation, God's self-exaltation draws attention to what gives us the greatest and longest happiness, namely Himself. While our self-exaltation draws people away from what will give them deepest and longest happiness. So if I stand here at the front and say, okay everybody, look at John Piper.

I am the source of your joy. I am the greatest being in the universe. Come and join me.

Drink from the fountain of John Piper. You would all say he's gone mad, and you should. But if God stands here and says, come to me.

I am the greatest being in the universe. Drink from my fountain. Live with me forever.

Enjoy who I am. That would not be insanity. It would be called love.

Why? Very simple reason. If you have a treasure. Look, I got a treasure.

Here's my treasure. It's worth 10 million dollars. I've got it in this thing here.

And I want so much for all of you to share it. And so just come and take pieces. You have it.

Everybody would know the effort to share that treasure would be a good thing in me. They would like me because of that. What if I am the treasure? Then what am I going to do? To love you.

I think I said to the guys in Dallas, I said, forgive the, what's the word, lack of respect for God. To say God is just stuck with being beautiful. He's stuck with being glorious.

He's stuck with being God. He has to love you by giving himself. He can't direct you to somebody else like I can.

I'm here to direct you to somebody else. If he came, he would not be here to direct you to somebody else. He is stuck with being satisfying.

Satisfying. I'm not satisfying. Ask my wife.

I'm not satisfied. He is. He is infinitely beautiful, sufficient, satisfying.

Every excellency that could exist in the universe exists in him and from him and for him. Jesus prays in John 17 like this. He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour has come.

Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you. Which means father, glorify yourself through your son. Glorify yourself through your son.

So he's praying that God will glorify God. That's what he's praying. And then he adds this at the end.

Father, I desire that they also whom you have given to me may be with me where I am to see my glory. So all these folks that you have chosen and are giving to me, we're going to include in this Trinitarian enjoyment of each other. There isn't anything greater we could give them than ourselves.

If we could fold them into the pleasure that we have in each other, that would be the best thing we could give them. It's not megalomania, it's love. And then if any of you were to think, I'd love to do a whole sermon on this.

If any of you were to think, well, I get that in principle, kind of. But given the way I'm wired emotionally, there's no way that I could ever find the kind of satisfaction in Jesus that you're talking about, because I don't have those kinds of emotional capacities. Now, what would what would Jesus say to that? Well, he says something to it in the next verse.

I'll read it to you. This is verse 26 of John 17. I pray, Father, that the love with which you have loved me, the love with which you have loved me, now let that sink in.

This is the infinite creator God looking upon his son in whom he has fullest possible delight. The love with which you have loved me might be in them and I in them. So in my in my lowest moments in which I'm sitting in my chair, reading my Bible, feeling there is no way, God, I could ever feel any emotion appropriate to your greatness.

Your greatness is worth a hundred and I'm at two in my affections. I think they're real. I think they're saving.

I think they're spirit given. And I think they're utterly inadequate. What am I going to do? And he says, all right, I'm going to I'm going to put my love for my son in you and you will be able to love him with the love that I have for him.

I'll tell you, that is a glorious thought that come eternity, I won't be stuck with John Piper and his limited emotions. I will not. There is going to be an explosion, a Vesuvius of potential in me and in you, the most Swedish among you or whatever.

That's what I would say if I were in Minneapolis, in Minneapolis, like the Swedes, they don't get all excited. They're just stoic. Bless them.

Workers for Jesus. They're going to just blow up with emotion someday. OK, where are we here? I lost my place.

Station four. We'll wrap it up with this. So we've we've we've come to station three to try to make plain that God's God centeredness, biblical as it is, is not megalomania.

It's love because giving us himself, exalting himself is a way of showing us the very thing that makes us most satisfied. And now number four, station for the awakening to happiness that makes God look great. If God is merciful in shaping this new mental framework that we've seen and he awakens you or he awakens your children or he awakens a church to the fact that the pursuit of the happiness in God is the fulfillment of God's purpose to be magnified, you will have shared something infinitely important.

And just say say it again. This is what I meant when I said I was going to show Christian hedonism. Christian hedonism says God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.

So if God's goal in history is to exalt himself as the all satisfying treasure, that's his goal, a very God centered God exalting himself so that his value and his all satisfying fountain of joy from 1611 in your presence is fullness of joy. Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. If that's his goal, how do we magnify that? And the answer is by being supremely satisfied in him.

You don't you don't glorify a fountain by hauling buckets up from the valley and pouring the dirty water in in the spring. You glorify a fountain by getting down on your face and sucking the water in and saying, that's satisfying. That's wonderful.

I don't want to go anywhere else. This is it. I'm home.

That's the discovery of Christian hedonism. So let me end with an illustration. Here's you've got a first and first and second graders, right? And you're going to tell them a story.

I'm going to tell them a story. So you invited me, Pastor John, come to my Sunday school class and preach that sermon to my second graders. So I get 30 minutes or 10 or whatever.

And but this story, I just made this up. I made the story up. I didn't get it anywhere.

I wrote this down a few days ago. There were two brothers. So I'm talking to first graders.

Now, there were two brothers, an older one, he's 16 and a younger one about your age. He's seven. And these two brothers get along really well.

And the the younger brother, that's you, he really likes his 16 year old brother. He thinks he is just cool. And there's nothing he'd rather do than spend time with this brother, do things with me, anything he'll tolerate.

I just want to hang out with my 16 year old brother. I love it. Now, this 16 year old brother knows this.

He knows that his seven year old kid brother likes to be with him. And he knows that he holds evidently great value for that little brother. So the birthday is coming of the seven year old.

And the big brother thinks, can I give him that he would really like? You can see where this is going. And he gets a shoebox, a shoebox, and he writes a little four line poem for the seven year old brother. And he puts it in the shoebox.

And he gives it to him on his birthday. And he wonders what this special thing is that and he opens it up and it's a piece of paper. And he looks at the piece of paper.

And here's what the poem says. Here's a gift to make you glad. Nothing wrong and nothing sad.

The best I have, I'm sure you'll see a fishing trip, just you and me. And then you ask the kids in your class, you think the older brother was bragging when he said that the best gift he could give to his little brother was to give him himself for a day. So I commend to you for your financial support.

I really do. I commend to you for your financial support and your prayers. The God centeredness of truth 78.

The need is very great for the next generation to be rescued as early as possible from the natural man centeredness with which we were all born. So father, I pray that you would take these four stations by which we try to arrive at some measure of concept creation of your God centeredness, which is our salvation. And that it would become plain to everyone that we would delight in you above all things, that we would not regard your self exaltation for our joy as megalomania, but rather as love.

And that we would be effective, creative curriculum developers and teachers as Sunday school, as club leaders, as parents to build these things into the little minds of our God like children as much as possible. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.