The Teachings of Jesus

Sermon Sixty-Nine

Matthew 18:1-14

(part 1)

by

Jim Bordwine, ThD

Introduction

Recently, we studied a passage in which the disciples seemed to show some discernment regarding what Jesus is going to experience when they arrive in Jerusalem. He’s warned them that He will be arrested, mistreated, and crucified. He’s encouraged them by promising that He will rise from the dead on the third day. Most of the time, these words seem not to register with the disciples. But, as I just noted, an exception to this pattern was mentioned by Matthew in the last passage we considered.

After hearing, once again, Jesus described what would happen in Jerusalem, Matthew says the disciples “were deeply grieved.” (17:23) Jesus gave no new information, but this time, the disciples reacted with a natural feeling of distress. At that time, however, I said to you that the discernment being demonstrated by the disciples would be short-lived; I also stated that a story was coming up that would show how the disciples continued to manifest a lack of perception. As chapter 18 begins, we come to that story.

The Text

Matthew 18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

The Teaching

Rather than dwell on the ordeal Jesus faces and the meaning of those upcoming events, rather than be in prayer for their Master in light of what awaits Him, and rather than edify themselves by taking this last opportunity to probe the mind and heart of Jesus, the disciples yield to an ancient temptation to glorify themselves.

Please listen again to the first verse of chapter 18: “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’” Lest we think the disciples had in mind heavenly beings or beings other than themselves when they asked this question, we have Mark’s parallel account and Luke’s parallel account, both of which specify that the disciples were thinking of themselves when they asked about who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Can you image that?

“At that time”—think about that phrase for just a moment. I think the use of this phrase is deliberate. Certainly Matthew realized what a shocking contrast the question from the disciples made in this context of the Lord’s recent activities and predictions. Let’s remind ourselves, therefore, what was going on “at that time.”

If we go back to chapter 16, we find the story about Peter’s confession regarding the identity and mission of the Savior. That disciple confidently stated that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; and he was precisely correct. That statement from Peter contained the truth that Jesus was the One promised by God to His people, the One first spoken of at the time of the fall, the One destined to deliver us from the horrible consequences of our sin.

Peter identified Jesus as that longed-for Figure in the history of redemption, the One who would provide such a glorious sacrifice that it would be received by the Father as payment for our offenses. Peter was right and his declaration was as much as anyone could say about the Savior—it was, once again, absolutely correct. For that moment, the disciples knew who Jesus was and must have pondered some of the implications of His identity.

After that, Jesus told the disciples about the pivotal roles they would fill in the establishment of His Church. They were promised delegated authority and were given enormous responsibility to rule in His Church according to the principles of heaven. The phrase in 18:1, “at that time,” therefore, includes these amazing experiences.

Then we have the story of the transfiguration. Jesus takes three of His disciples up on a mountain and there they are granted the privilege of seeing His stunning glory revealed; and there they see Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus; and there they hear the voice of God as He praises His Son. What an astonishing experience that must have been! At that time, Matthew writes—that time when the disciples had witnessed the things I just rehearsed, that time when they heard the voice of the Father praising His Son, that time when they continued to witness miracles at the hands of Jesus—at that time, “the disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’”

My friends, that is a question of unbelievable arrogance and ignorance beyond comprehension! What was going through the minds of these men that prompted them to ask such an insulting, irrelevant, and inappropriate question at that time? How dense can men be? How blind to the obvious can they be? How fixated must men be to ask such a question after seeing what they saw and hearing what they heard? They may have made some minor strides forward in their comprehension of the Savior’s mission, but with this question, they lose all ground gained and manage to shame themselves in the process.

What kind of mind produces a question like this at a time like this? Between the thrilling declaration, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and the somber events of the last week, this question is asked. Between the startling display of Jesus in His glory on that mountain and the pain He will suffer at the hands of His enemies, comes this question. Between the voice of the Father praising His Son and the voices of the Jews calling for Christ’s execution, comes this question. In the midst of the most solemn period in the lives of these disciples, in the midst of events that are reshaping the world in which they live, these men manage to think about themselves! I ask again: What kind of mind produces a question like this at a time like this?

We can be sure it is a mind enveloped in a sense of self-importance, a sense so powerful that it blocks out everything else that doesn’t have to do with self. The words that apply here include: selfish, unthinking, callous, dense, insulting, immature, faithless—and the list could be expanded. Asking such a question in reference to themselves at any time would have been inappropriate; but asking such a question now, now as Jesus heads to Jerusalem for the last time—that is almost beyond analysis. Almost—we have to say “almost beyond explanation” because, in truth, we do know why men would think in such a manner and ask such a question in such a circumstance.

We wish we could honestly say we don’t know why; we really would like to be able to remain righteously outraged that anyone would think so little of our Savior and so much of themselves. But we know how such a thing could happen. And it is our knowledge of how such a thing could be done that makes our hearts so heavy when we read this passage. We read Matthew’s record of the last days of Jesus and we are troubled even though we are reading an account of actions long passed. We are troubled because we know who Jesus was and we know His innocence, and we know the love that took Him to Jerusalem where He endured all the things He predicted. And when, in the context of our reading, we come to v. 1 of chapter 18, we are surprised by what the disciples were thinking.

We cannot, however, condemn those disciples without condemning ourselves. We cannot criticize them as if their treatment of Jesus were a true rarity on the earth. We cannot condemn the disciples and cause them to stand alone in their transgression because we share with them the very cause of such behavior. How does such a thing happen? The answer is sin; the answer is man’s amazing shallowness as a result of sin’s corruption; the answer is our blindness to truth and beauty and our desire to embrace what is false and ugly. Sin is the explanation for this episode and for every transgression we commit.

This is a good place for us to pause and reflect on the issue of sin. We are fallen creatures and we will even ignore the honor that should go to our Savior in order to glorify ourselves or do what we want to do. We are fallen creatures suffering from the effects of Adam’s rebellion and we will insult Jesus Christ and count His works as nothing in order to indulge our disgusting and wicked fantasies about how good we are, how wonderful we are and how much we give to the world and how much we deserve.

We have a bloated sense of self-importance and in order to maintain that image in our minds, we must turn against Christ and we must be willing to forsake Him and we must be content to see His good name besmirched so that our rotten name might be disguised and hidden from exposure. Does that sound like too much? It is not. What I’ve given you is a Biblical perspective on the sins we commit, a Biblical perspective on our decisions to live according to our desire rather than according to God’s Word. What I’ve just put before you characterized the thinking of the disciples which led them to put that question before Jesus at such a solemn time in His earthly experience. Self-centeredness is the leading manifestation of our fallen natures.

When I talk of how a self-centered perspective manifests itself in your thinking and conduct, I’m speaking of how God views your sins; your sins are not missteps only, they are not “little mix-ups,” they are disturbing and repulsive in the eyes of God. Your sins are evidence of death, they are the fruit of rebellion, they are the consequences of being guided by our corrupted hearts. God did not create us to disobey Him, to read His Word then forget about it as we live our lives; He did not make us to live in His world, enjoying all His provisions while we hold up our hand to His face and say “Leave me alone!” But that is exactly what we are doing when we fail to keep His commands.

The truth is, we cannot go even a day without offending God, yet we often act as if everything is just fine—“Yes, I slipped up the other day” or “It’s true, I have some problems with sin once in a while, but I’m doing ok. I’m sure God understands.” No, God does not understand if by that you mean He looks the other way when you lie, cheat, or steal, or when you contribute to the destruction of another person’s reputation by wagging your tongue, or when you tightly hold onto what God gave you and pretend you don’t know of anyone who could use some help, or when you show disrespect for the parents God gave you for your protection. Don’t insult God by thinking He “understands” and will choose to let that sin pass by.

If God were capable of simply letting sin pass, He would not have sent His Son to give His life in our place. Don’t you realize that with the coming of Christ, we now know for certain that God in heaven cannot and will not overlook sin, but will always require payment? If He could overlook our sin, we wouldn’t need a Savior; again, the fact of that Savior’s coming proves that God’s justice must be satisfied. And when our sin was too great for us to satisfy, God came in the flesh to satisfy His own demands! That is grace and that is mercy. But don’t ever let yourself get to the point where you think sin is “no big deal.” It is such a “big deal” that God Himself was the only means of atonement.

Our story says that after the Son revealed much to the disciples, and after He demonstrated His power and compassion and authority, and after He told them what was about to happen to Him in Jerusalem, they still occupied their thoughts with the question of which man among them was the greatest. If that is not solid evidence that something is horribly wrong with man’s heart, I don’t know what is.

The disciples sinned grievously against Jesus on that day when they asked that question. That wasn’t just a mistake, it was sin. Your sin is not simply a mistake or a momentary misjudgment. All sin in is lawlessness you understand; all sin, no matter how “minor” in your judgment, is completely incompatible with God who is holy in all His being and  works. Your sin, no matter how small or insignificant in your opinion, is the same as contradicting God and saying to Him, “You are wrong!”

When sin increases in the community of God’s people, it is sure evidence that we are forgetting how hideous and nasty sin is and that it always offends God who is holy—absolutely perfect—in all His being; it always offends Him. When sin increases, we are fooling ourselves by thinking we have achieved greatness in some areas and we don’t realize that even such a thought is sinful. Do you understand that I cannot be elevated without Christ being brought low? I cannot take pride in who I am or what I have achieved without taking from my blessed Savior the glory that belongs to Him exclusively.

Thinking that we have little left to learn and little left to conquer, in terms of self-control and holy living, is a sure sign we are far from what we think we are. It is a truth: Every sin you commit—every time you sin with your words, every time you sin in your thoughts, every time you sin in conduct, God is offended and you have proven, once again, that your nature is corrupt and had He not sent His Son to save, you would be lost forever. There is no room for boasting in the life of a Christian. We should be people in permanent mourning mixed with humble thanksgiving for the grace of God by which we have been delivered.

What do you think now about the question the disciples asked? Is there any way to judge that as understandable or acceptable? I say “no,” not in the least. That was an expression of pride at a time when their offenses and estrangement from God should have been blatantly obvious to them—after all, they are accompanying their Savior to that city where He is going to give His life in exchange for theirs! And yet, they show a deep-seated pride in themselves thinking they had really done such an outstanding job as Christ’s disciples that they deserved the rank of “Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Please make sure you understand that every time you sin, you challenge God; every time you sin, you say to Him: “You are wrong and I am right.” And yet He sends to us the kind of Savior who is so loving, so merciful, and so humble that He chooses not to annihilate those sinful disciples. When they asked that awful question, it was as if He did not matter, it was as if His trial were insignificant, it was as if the only important thing was their exaltation.

A moment ago, I said we could not condemn the disciples as if they demonstrated a trait that is not found in us. We know only too well that all people share the sinful disposition that caused the disciples to do what they did. We haven’t escaped sin’s influence; it is still a constant element of our lives. You cannot truthfully deny that this past week you thought and acted just like those disciples, in one form or another. You know the past few days witnessed more than one example of you satisfying yourself rather than keeping God’s Word.

You did it when you chose to be angry even though God tells us to be at peace; you sinned when you chose to harm a brother’s reputation even though God tells us to be cautious about receiving and spreading a bad report; you sinned when you chose to withhold what you have—be it your time, money, home, affection, pity, or advice—from someone in need even though God routinely reminds us that whatever we have is His; you sinned when you chose to look upon what God says should never catch your eye; you sinned when you chose to go to that place from which God warns you to flee; and you sinned when you chose to please your flesh and let your duties go unmet.

Those sins are no different in motivation from what the disciples did. Their question and the sins I just mentioned flow from the same source—the human heart, which is desperately wicked, the Scripture says, so much so that it cannot be trusted. That heart lead us to care first and foremost about ourselves. That self-centeredness can be revealed in a question, as it was in the case of the disciples, or in actions, as it is daily for us.

“Who is most important, Jesus? Tell us, which one of us deserves that title? Which man among us, Teacher, has so distinguished himself that he should be regarded by all the others as the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” The disciples posed the question and then they waited; they waited for Jesus to speak, expecting Him to identify the most valuable, the most successful, the most gifted man among them. The disciples unwittingly provided Jesus with an opportunity to explain the nature of true greatness—not greatness as the concept operates in this world, not greatness as we tend to imagine about ourselves as we pit our wisdom against the wisdom of God, but true greatness, the kind that results from being born-again, the kind exemplified by Jesus and the kind that operates in His kingdom.

Application

What distinguishes a man, a woman, a young person, a child in the kingdom of heaven? What kind of behavior pleases God? It certainly is not the kind I’ve been describing, the kind that all too frequently can be found adorning our lives. The answer Jesus gives in this passage is not the answer the disciples expected. His reply to their question is devastating. We’ll look in detail next week, Lord willing, at the answer provided by the Savior. I want to conclude now with one last word of exhortation.

Do you have sin in your life from which you have not repented? Do you have sin in your life that you have pushed to the back of your mind? Is there an act in your past that offended God and violated His holy Word, for which confession has never been made? In my opinion, as your pastor, one of the greatest needs of this congregation at this present time is full and honest contemplation of our sin. I fear that our hearts have grown hard toward sin and it does not worry us as it once did. And if that is happening to us, it also means that our love for God is growing cold.

There is a danger that accompanies a tradition in which we have a well-ordered system of theology and a good understanding of our faith. The danger is that we become complacent toward sin and slowly develop the notion that we are superior and, while we don’t deny sin’s existence, we do tend to think less and less about it. Do you know what that is? It is a perfect environment for sin to gain a hold on our lives even before we realize what has happened to us.

Why all this talk about sin? I speak of sin because we must have the concept of sin and the danger of sin and the sneakiness of sin in our minds before we can benefit from the answer Jesus gives to the question of His disciples. To understand what He says, we have to be thinking properly about sin; otherwise, we’ll never fully grasp His point.

Before we pray, can you honestly say that sin troubles you as much today as it did five years ago? Are you as bothered by your own sins today as you were back when you first began to realize what Jesus Christ did for you? Is it possible that sin has found in your heart a comfortable place, a place where it is allowed to remain without being disturbed? Do you need to repent of any transgression—known or not known, present or past? Have you spent so much time congratulating yourself on your accomplishments that you have ignored a sinful act, a sinful perspective, or a sinful desire in your life?

As I said, the answer Jesus gives to the question posed by the disciples requires that we be thinking rightly about our sin. I hope you will be able to come to worship next Sunday with a renewed perspective on sin; if you do, the words of Jesus will be a great blessing to you because they will give us instructions that lead to blessedness and peace in our Christian walks.

Let’s pray…

Communion hymn…

Conclusion

I mentioned that the fact of Christ’s coming to earth proves how great our need was. We could not have escaped God’s condemnation without a Savior. Though our sin was great, indeed, our Savior was even greater. His sacrifice was sufficient to take away my sin, to pay my debt, to free me to live a life of thankful service to God rather than a life in service to all that God despises.

I’m so grateful for this Savior, so grateful that God did not leave me in my sin. I’m grateful for this pointed reminded every week in this sacrament. The essence of Christ’s ministry is portrayed for us as we are directed to His giving of His life in our place as we eat the bread, and His shedding of His blood to cover our sins, as we drink the cup. We live today because of what Jesus did for us; we enjoy His friendship, His protection, His guidance now because of what He did. Surely He rejoices, too, to see His redeemed ones receiving these elements that speak so plainly of His sacrifice of Himself.

Give thanks to Jesus Christ as you partake. Give thanks to Him and call upon Him to bring out in you the holiness He Himself so completed displayed while He walked the earth.

We read of the establishment of this sacrament in Matt. 26:

28 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” 27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.”