Skip to content Child_Like_Faith_en Mar 20 · 44 min ...more
March 20, 2026 · 44 min · Faith
...more Show the full description Show less Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Support this leader
Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Give
Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
492K followers
Adam Mesa is Lead Pastor of Patria Church and speaks to a congregation of 12,000 about how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings purpose to every life. Patria
492K followers
Childlike Faith and God's Promises 0:00 Hi. Welcome to ALFC podcast. At ALFC, we seek the lost, teach the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you are encouraged by this week's message.0:13 I'm excited to launch this series that we're gonna be talking about. If you have your bible and notes today, you could, simply prepare those or or get ready to follow along with us. But, over this next of the course of0:24 the 4 weeks, myself, pastor Diego is gonna share a few messages. Also, Pastor Aaron is going to share 1 of the messages. We're going to be launching a series that we're titling Child Like Faith,0:36 Child Like Faith. We're so excited for this series because we believe it's going to really launch us, catapult us, into the whole year to have childlike. I don't know if you've ever been around the0:48 belief system or the faith of a child before. There's something about children that they seem to have a deeper trust and faith than we often do as adults. If1:00 you've ever heard a child really pray before, you think to yourself, my goodness, they can pray. If you've ever heard a child trust God before or be able to if you've told them something and they1:12 they believe it and they hold on to it, a child will trust things. Also, children seem to have a greater faith in things. If you've ever been at a pool before or around something, it seems to be children1:26 things. If you've ever been a if you're a dad and you think you're gonna jump off of something or off of a ledge or something, it's all the kids that go jump, jump, jump, while the wife is sitting there with her hands1:36 over her eyes saying, oh man, this is about to be ugly. Or you go into a room, my nephews and my son do it all the time. They they dare each other to jump off of stuff, whether it be a crib or1:48 a toy car. And in their head, there's this faith and this trust that they take leaps that we as adults, we get even skittish of. My son will jump off of a higher My jump My2:00 son will Who's 2? He'll jump 2 stairs down. Me at my age, I I would never think to jump over 1 Even 1 stair. What would happen to my back and my legs at that point.2:12 You know, children have this this trust. They have this faith that we often and Jesus, you know, Pastor Diego, Pastor Aaron will bring it up in the coming weeks where Jesus talks about the2:24 faith of children. And how Jesus loves when children come to him. Because when children go to Jesus, they don't doubt. They don't have enough life's mishaps or failures or disappointments2:36 that don't allow them to hinder them. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today, what it means to have childlike faith. And we're gonna talk about also how does that bring us into the new year of 202:47 21. How can we improve on ourselves from last year to this year? And how can we expect greater things from God, from last year to this year? And how can we expect greater things from God, from from last year to this2:56 year? And what does God's word tell us about what it means to have faith in him? And so today, if you have your Bible, would you turn to Genesis chapter 17? We're gonna jump around a little bit because it3:08 just deals with a 1 promise is what we're looking at today. The 1 promise that God gave Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child. You know, it's in this promise that Abraham would leave3:20 all everything that he knew and loved. Abraham came from a place called Ur of the Chaldeans and it was a pagan land and it was a land where everyone worshiped the sun and the moon and every other god you3:32 can think of. And Abraham was 1 of those people. And what would happen is is Abraham would be now approached by God, the 1 true God, Yahweh. And he would tell Abraham, who at the time his name was Abram, I'm gonna3:44 have a plan for your life, that I wish you to leave everything that you know. I wish that you would follow me. And from that, I will make you a father of a great nation, and you will be a3:55 father of kings, and you'll be a leader amongst many. And so Abraham went off of this promise. But it would be many years before Abraham would see the fruition of this promise.4:08 25 years, in fact, of waiting for this promise. And so now we step into Genesis chapter 17 and then we're gonna go 18 and 21 because we're gonna see the fruition of the promise that God gives Abraham4:19 that we could learn from today. And this was the promise of his son Isaac. If you look at Genesis 17 verse 15 as we launch today, it says this, and God said to Abraham, as4:31 for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but call her Sarah. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become4:43 nations. King of peoples shall become from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, shall a child be born to a man who is a4:55 hundred years old? Shall Sarah who is 90 90 years old bear a child? So now at this moment, as Abraham first heard a promise5:07 from God 25 years earlier, he thought within moments, within days, within months, he would see the fruition of his promise. But in fact, it took 25 years to mature5:19 for him to come to this fruition. And many people have speculated theologians on Did he have to wait 25 years because he had to learn things about God? He had to experience5:31 things about God? Well, what many theologians say is, no it took so long because there are things that he had to unlearn first before he could learn how good God was. There5:43 were things from his past that he had to push from over this course of this 25 years in terms of trusting God that would then allow him to go to the next. Well, as if that 1 promise from God and what we just read5:54 wasn't enough, God sent 3 angels now just 1 chapter later to reassure Abraham of now the given promise. Abraham makes it clear, I'm a hundred years old. My wife6:06 is 90 years old. It's pretty old age. Normally when people start to plan for the end of their life, for a long retirement and things like that, All of a sudden God tells Abraham and says,6:18 your life is about to start now. Abraham's thinking, I'm a hundred years old. What do you mean my life's about to start right now? So then, 1 chapter later, 3 angels come to reassure Abraham of6:30 this promise because Abraham fell to his knees in laughter. And then a second moment of laughter happens here in verse 8 in chapter 18 verse 9, it says this, they, speaking of the 36:41 angels, said to him, where is your wife? So now as they approached them, him, Abraham wanted to make a meal for them. He wanted to, treat them as his guest. And so they were eating with 1 another and then they asked,6:53 where is your wife Sarah? And he said, she's in the tent. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a7:04 son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with7:16 Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself saying, After I am worn out, I don't know if anyone feels worn out here, and my Lord is old, my7:28 husband is old. He needs medication to have things work in the bedroom. My lord is old. Shall now I have pleasure? Now I have a7:40 child. After I'm worn out, after my husband's old, shall I have pleasure? The Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh and say, shall7:51 I indeed bear a child now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you about this time next year and Sarah shall8:03 have a son. But Sarah denied it saying, I did not laugh for she was afraid. And he said, no, but you did laugh. That's a8:15 conversation between clearly a woman and God. Sarah responds to the promise of her son Isaac coming and she laughs in this8:27 time, in this moment, it's a laugh of disbelief. It's a laugh of there's That's not gonna happen. I don't know if spouses you've ever told your spouse something before and then and they laughed at you at8:39 disbelief. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You were Oh. We're gonna go to vacation next year? Okay. Yeah. Where? Where? To your parents? Okay. That's not vacate They're laughing. Disbelief. Yeah. Okay. We'll be8:51 going on vacation. Okay. I believe you. It's a laugh. So God responds and says, why are you laughing at me? And then her response was, I did not laugh.9:03 And then his response was, yeah, but you did. That's how you know biblically God comes in the mail form because only a man would say, yeah, but you did.9:16 A learned husband would have just said, I'm just going to stay quiet. You're right. No, you didn't. You didn't laugh. So in this moment now, we see 2 instances already of laughter. The first 19:28 was really a laughter of astonishment, which came from Abraham. The reason why we know it's astonishment is because in chapter 17, it says that when God told him that he was gonna have a son at a hundred,9:40 he says he fell to his face and laughed. And so falling to your face, the gesture of that, was a sign of worship. But but in his sign of worshiping and gesturing by getting9:52 down on his face, he had the audacity to laugh to say, This is unbelievable. I'm I'm I'm astonished, but yet I do believe it. Well then now, just 1 chapter10:04 later, the 3 angels go to Sarah, and then they tell Abraham once again that a child's coming, and she overhears it. And she laughs because she can't believe it. She can't believe it10:16 because number 1, she thinks her time has passed. She's worn out. And there are some people here who you think your time has passed, and you're a little bit worn out.10:29 And then she thinks to herself that her husband's too old, which means he missed his prime. And there are people here that you think you missed your prime. Think I'm too old. You didn't be you10:40 could even here be 25 years old and you think you missed out. And so she thinks to herself, I'm worn out. My husband's past his prime. And and we're just old.10:52 We're past that time in life. But here's the beauty is because then she laughs in disbelief, Which means that if God does do this within that year, there is no11:04 1 that will get credit except for God. Had it been 25 years earlier, had it been 50 years earlier, had it been another season earlier, had something happened,11:16 those 2 individuals could have given the credit and the glory to something or someone that it had nothing to do with. And so what they did was they reached a point of no return11:28 where if God really did do something, surely he would be the 1 getting the credit for it. Because it was unfathomable. It was unbelievable. To think that God can do something in 2011:39 21, You have to be crazy coming out of the year of 20 20. But what would happen if we would believe that? That that this year God can do something. That that this year if we come11:51 together and make some commitments and some drives towards the Lord, that this could not be a best year that we've ever had. Why couldn't it be? Because if there's any year that12:03 could have be a year that God gets the credit for, it could be this year. Coming out of what we've come through in 20 20, still seeing what we're probably still gonna have to go through in this12:15 year, surely if we can get through this then God will get the glory. So now Sarah laughs because she's in disbelief. And God's a bit disappointed, even though12:26 He knew it was going to happen, He's a bit disappointed in her reaction of disbelief. Even so much that He said, why did she laugh? God expresses His questionable, her12:38 questionable attitude towards the situation. And so what happens is now as we go to share some points today that we're gonna see that I believe that what should be our prayer for 20 21 should be some12:50 of these things. And so if you're taking notes, if you just write the numbers 20 21, 2 0 2 1, because those are the points we're going to share today. And you'll see how we kind of play13:02 off of them. Here's the first point we're going to share that we see that's obvious, but it continues. Because there's 3 instances of laughter. We've shared 2 so far. Here's the third 1 coming. So I believe that13:14 my prayer for not only you, but also for myself at this church, and also all believers, that going into this next year, I pray that we have too much laughter. I pray we have tooEmbracing Laughter and Overcoming Fear 13:26 much laughter. We need laughter. You need laughter. Last year was a difficult year for a lot of people. We lost loved ones. Many people lost jobs.13:38 Many people lost careers. Many people lost property, place to live, food, clothing, shelter. It just The list can go on. So many people lost passion, lost drive, lost13:50 hope. The list could go on and on of what a lot of things of what people lost. But here's what we see. I find it incredible.15:30 You see, she went from a place just a few chapters earlier, really a year earlier, when the promise first happened, that she had a lot of negativity. And a lot of us bring a lot of negative. She immediately goes to15:42 her age, her season, her ability, and that's often what we do. And and it's 1 thing for our friends to hear. It's 1 thing for us to be negative around our friends. It's 1 thing for us to be15:54 negative around our coworkers. It's even another thing to be negative around our spouses and not believe around our spouses. It's another thing to be negative with God. To the point where16:06 God then tells her, why are you laughing at me Sarah? She says, I didn't laugh. He says, yes you did. And so in response to that he says, you're going to name16:18 you want to laugh at me at not believing me? Here's what you're going to do. You're going to name your child laughter. So that you recognize on a regular basis that when I approach you with a promise that I want to bring16:29 to fruition, I want your response to be laughter. But I don't want to be laughter in a negative way. I want it to be laughter in a way that you know that when I bring a promise to fruition, it's gonna bring16:41 joy in your life. You see, God reveals here that God's plans are humorous. They're radical. They're pervasive and almost always unbelievable.16:53 Abraham and Sarah both laugh the first time they hear of God's promise. By time it's fulfilled, they're both still laughing but now they're laughing at the joy of the promises17:05 of God. You see, you and I no matter what we face in 20 21, we need to bring about laughter in our situations. You need to17:17 have the response of laughter. I need to have the response of laughter. Here I have a very special toy that many kids know, and you would know this. This is an Elmo,17:29 but this is a specific type of Elmo. Does anyone know what kind of Elmo this is? It's a tickle me Elmo. You see, anytime you press Elmo, he's17:41 got a little laugh. Elmo always got I'm going 1 ticklish monster. He's a ticklish monster, and he's always got a laugh. Here's what I love about17:52 Elmo. You see, with Elmo, I can press Elmo, and he's gonna laugh. I can poke Elmo, and he's gonna laugh. I can punch18:04 Elmo, and he's gonna laugh. You know what? I can step on Elmo. Wanna know what Elmo's gonna do? Elmo's gonna laugh. I can even be so18:16 crazy, as I could throw Elmo. And you want to know what Elmo's gonna do? He's gonna laugh. Yeah. You see, Elmo was created for 1 thing and 1 thing only. That's to18:28 bring laughter. That's what he's for. And so, I would hope not, but I think if I did any of those things, Elmo isn't going to punch back. I'd hope he not do that.18:41 He's not going to poke back. Elmo doesn't kick back. Elmo doesn't even talk back. No matter what I do to Elmo, Elmo's gotta laugh.18:53 And this year, no matter what happens in your life, no matter whether you're poked, whether you're pushed, whether you're kicked, whether you're stomped, whether you're thrown, you need to have a19:05 laugh about you. You need to have a joy about you. You need to have a smile about you. Because don't let any of those things steal your joy. You and I are created by God. We have the love19:17 of God in the hand of God. And if that happens, no matter what, we need to keep our joy. Ticklish monster. You gotta be 1 ticklish monster. No matter what you face.19:29 Everyone here needs to be their own Tickle Me Elmo. No matter what your face. You leave that meeting with your boss, say, I'm Tickle Me Elmo. I gotta bring laughter.19:41 You come home to your spouse and it's not that day, you need to just go to the room and say, I need a laugh. Don't laugh at them though, because it's gonna get worse. Go to a private space, and go and laugh. Your kids19:53 aren't listening or driving you crazy, go in another room, and have a laugh. You need to have much laughter this year. If God would have a promise and a plan, that the first20:04 promised son that would come out of Abraham and Sarah, it was important for his name to be laughter, That shows me that he finds it important for us in our faith, in our relationship with him, to have laughter,20:16 to have joy. I remember when my dad first got diagnosed in 2008 with cancer. He had his sons and also himself, he had all of us go and find as many comedy DVDs as possible.20:29 And so we would go and buy him Charlie Chaplin and Albert and Costello, and I'd come downstairs and he'd have Who's on First, What's on Second playing, and all the classic comedy movies and stuff like that. And20:40 and he would just be laughing in his sofa, in his chair. He couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs. But he saw that during that season, during that trial, during that pain, it was important20:52 to laugh. That the enemy, the first thing enemy wants to do oftentimes in your marriage, in your calling, in your person, is take your laugh away. Is to take your joy away. And that's what happened for a lot of people21:04 last year. A lot of people from last year have not laughed in a very long time. So you need to laugh in your faith. You need to have a poke about you that everything21:16 tickles you. No matter what. No matter what's a punch, kick, or a prod. The second point is this, we had 2, which is too much laughter, and then we have 0 from 20 21. The 0 is, going21:28 into this year, we need to have 0 or no fear. You need to eliminate the deception of fear in your life. Eliminate fear21:40 from your life. Psalms 27 says this, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life.21:52 Whom shall I be afraid of? You see a stronghold was a barricaded wall that protected a city. And so in Psalms he says, if the Lord is my protection, is my22:04 wall, is my barricade, if the Lord is my light and my shield, then whom shall I fear? We have to recognize that if God is on our side, what then do we22:16 truly have to be scared of? What truly do I have to be fearful of? If God is my shield, if God is my light,22:28 what do I have to be scared of? We need to eliminate the fear of this year. The fear of what if this thing continues to spread? The fear of what if we can't go to work? The fear of what if this? What22:40 if that? We need to eliminate the fear and trust in the Lord. Bible says trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding. Our ownDeepening Our Relationship with God 22:51 understanding is by what's in front of us, what we can perceive. There's so much more further than what we can perceive. You know, I have a picture of a child as I often counsel people and sit with23:03 people, and oftentimes fear is a pervasive thing in people's faith. It's a driving force. The fear of what if my wife is going to leave me, what if this happens. Fear allow people allow fear to drive them all the time.23:15 So the picture I often paint with people is, I'll share with them an image of this, of a child in a pool. And I think if we all were to look at that, none of us would be scared at all. Unless you're genuinely just afraid23:26 of water. But if I were to throw you in a, you know, looks like a 5 foot pool right there, and if you know how to swim, if I were to place you into that 5 foot pool, I don't think majority of23:38 anyone here would be scared. You probably wouldn't be screaming. You wouldn't be shouting. Oh, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna drown. Again, unless you don't know how to swim. But if you do know how to do all23:49 those things and you've been in pools many many times, this would not call any fear or trepidation in your life. But now if I threw you into a different type of body of water and you were to24:01 be thrown into this right here, how many people now would be scared to be thrown into this? Well, what what changed? Did you forget how to swim?24:14 Did you forget how to kick your feet? Did you forget I mean, I may even maybe half a mile down, there may even be some land that you can see, and you'll still probably be petrified and24:25 scared. But your knowledge of swimming didn't change. Your ability to paddle didn't change. What changed? Your fear of the unknown. That's what24:37 became. Immediately you start thinking to yourself, how deep is this water? Well it doesn't matter, you're not diving to the bottom of it, are you? You think to yourself, how deep is this water? What kind of24:48 creatures are in this water? Could be sharks here. Could be octopus here. It could be And what would happen is you'd start to think to yourself, what if I can't make it to the land? Or what if no 125:00 can hear me? What happens is nothing changed in that circumstance other than your fear of the unknown and what you began to tell yourself about what you don't know.25:13 And that's what often happens in our lives and in our faith. What I begin to tell people is is your fear that's pervasive about you reality of who25:25 God is. That because God doesn't change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Well, the problem is your knowledge because it's the fear of the unknown. The more you know about God and the25:37 more your relationship with God deepens and intensifies, fear begins to diminish because now it's not an unknown. Now it's25:48 not, it doesn't become an unknown. The same way as a child, if they're scared at night and they say, daddy I think there's a monster in the closet. What's the first thing we do if we're a good parent? What we do is26:00 we turn the lights on and we open the closet door. We eliminate the unknown. And what you have to do and I have to do is as we're eliminating fear in26:12 2021, the only way we can do that is by eliminating what's unknown. And so I have a fear about me and my marriage, whether me and my wife are gonna make it. Well what's gonna26:24 happen is I'm gonna have to know my wife more. Because the only fear in that is what's unknown. The only way I can eliminate the fear between me and my wife is to know her deeply. Is to know26:36 her more. I want to get better at my job and I'm scared whether I'm going to move up in my job. Well the only way to do that is to eliminate the unknown. So I have to begin to go know more about my job. Know26:47 more about my calling, more about my business. I'm I'm scared between my relationship with me and God. I feel like I feel like he's distant. I feel like we're not close. But what's going to happen is you're going to have26:58 to eliminate the unknown. Eliminate the distance between you and God. That's how the fear begins to be driven out. So we have to eliminate the unknown. And then27:10 the third point is this, as we've had 2 0, and then now we have another 2. So the next point is this, in 20 21, we need to have too much conversation with God.27:22 We need to have too much conversation with God. I don't know if you've ever been around young people, whether they're in high school or college, and when27:34 they're dating somebody. They they have they they have no idea or no knowledge of what time is. When a young person who's 18,27:46 19, 16, whatever it is, when they start dating someone, they just wanna smell each other's breath all day. They wanna be around each other. They just wanna be touching each other's arms 24 hours a27:58 day. They wanna and then parents, you'll begin to count how much time they've spent. You'll ask them, Do you know how much time you've been spending with your boyfriend lately? And they'll say, No. I have28:10 no idea how much time I've been spending lately. Why? Because they're so infatuated that with that person they have no knowledge of time. Even so much now that in 2021, and this year, and28:22 even last year, and the years before, now the young people, as they're dating, they they FaceTime each other while they're sleeping. Before they go to bed they turn their FaceTime on on28:34 their iPad or their computer, and then they want to hear each other snore while they sleep. I would love to sleep in a separate bedroom for my wife, for my snore and my snore.28:45 Young people they're enjoying FaceTiming each other's snores. They wanna wake up at 6 AM and see the crusties in each other's eyes, and just look at each other through FaceTime.28:58 And say, how did you sleep? Say, I slept good. Okay. I'll FaceTime you in 30 minutes when I get my breakfast. And we as parents, we're thinking, they are crazy. For me29:10 often as a youth pastor for years, I'd think to myself, these kids are crazy. But why they're so infatuated, they have no knowledge of time that's spent. That's how you and I have to be towards our love29:22 and admiration towards God, that we're not concerned with how much time I spend with God. I'm not counting the time on my prayer life. I'm not counting the time on reading my bible. I'm not29:34 counting the time on going to church. I've already been to church twice this week. I've already been to church twice this month. You you wouldn't do that with anyone else that you love. You wouldn't be counting time. The29:44 only things you count time for is things that you don't like. You count how long you're at the DMV. You count how long you're at the doctor's office. You count how long you're at the dentist. You count how long your29:55 oil's being changed. When you're in class, you count how long class is going. You know when class is gone 1 minute over when you're in college. You see, you only count30:06 time for things that you don't enjoy as much. And so if we're going to say we enjoy spending time with God, then we have to get to a place where we lose track of time with God. We're not30:18 counting our time. And here's the thing, if you don't do it, Jesus tells us who will. You see in Luke chapter 19, the Pharisees were mad at Jesus because the disciples were praising Jesus.30:31 And they say this, saying this is the disciples, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, to Jesus,30:42 teacher, rebuke your disciples for praising you, for lifting your name up. And Jesus said, he answered, I tell you if these are silent the very stones would30:54 cry out. He says, listen. If my disciples can't praise me or won't praise me, then the very stones, the very earth itself will do the31:06 job that they won't do. Because someone's gonna praise God. Someone's gonna give God glory. And if it's not me and you, what Jesus did is he's probably in an area somewhere in in31:18 Israel where there's a lot of rocks, and there are a lot of rocks in Israel. I've been there. Jesus probably pointed at just a bunch of rocks, and he said, listen. If my disciples are silent from praising me, then those31:29 rocks will praise you. Amen. And will praise me. So So here's what I want to encourage you with. Don't let 2021, the whole year go31:41 through with this rock doing more praising than you are. Yeah. Don't don't make this rock pray more than you've prayed.31:53 Don't let this rock worship more than you've worshiped. Don't let this rock read its word more than you've read your word. Don't get to the end of the year and you and this rock have read as32:05 much scripture as each other. Here's what I know, this is a promise I I can make myself without a doubt. I don't know what 2021 is gonna hold. I don't know what32:17 great things could hold, and I also don't know what tough things can hold. But what I do know is when this year ends, I'll be able to look at this rock, and I'll be able to say, Adam praised his God more than that32:29 rock did. I know that without a shout of doubt. And I think if there's 1 promise that you should make yourself is say, during this year I will give God more glory than this rock. Amen. God made32:41 the glory. This rock was created to do this. Sit right there. Don't let that be your creation. You weren't created to do the same thing as32:53 this rock. You're not created to just sit here. You're created to move. You're created to evangelize. You're created to share the word. You're created to live your calling and your purpose out. You're created to33:05 use your voice to worship God. Don't be equivalent to the rock Because the moment we are then God will just call the rock to praise him. He'll call the rock to giveShow more In this video 0:00 Childlike Faith and God's Promises13:23 Embracing Laughter and Overcoming Fear22:45 Deepening Our Relationship with God33:08 Living in Unity and Purpose1:02:32
How Faith Eury Cho Discovered Why God Anoints Certain People More | S4E48 BEYOND THE LETTER Adam Mesa
Comments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
Comments
Keep it kind. Comments are public.