17. Who is Jesus?
December 12th, 2010
Greatness in the Kingdom of God
Being in the presence of greatness naturally leads to a desire for greatness. When we see someone who is great at something often we are inspired to want to be great ourselves. Honestly that desire can lead us to doing great things. The problem is often how we define greatness. After coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus and His disciples are met by a crowd. Jesus heals some people and does a little teaching before they make their way back to Capernaum. As they are heading back the disciples start arguing over which of them will be the greatest in the Kingdom of God. This is the first of three times they will have this debate.
This argument seems pretty stupid. Jesus is returning from the mountain where Moses and Elijah showed up to meet with Him. Peter, James, and John saw Him in a radical and glorious transformation and God has said in cloud: this is my Son listen to Him. Now the disciples start arguing over which of them is the greatest. This is like a group of bald guys standing around Brad Pitt arguing over who has the best hair as if the answer wasn’t obvious enough.
This almost seems too stupid of an argument to have. If they are standing next to Jesus they have to know Jesus is greater then all of them. You would think if this conversation was as stupid as it seems that Jesus would respond by rebuking them. Instead He instructs them. They start having a discussion and Jesus leads them to the proper answer. Remember Jesus identity has just been revealed to them. They are finally starting to understand who He is and that in some form or fashion Jesus is coming to usher in the kingdom of God. Their argument then is not who is the greatest in the world but which of the disciples is the greatest in the eyes of Jesus. They are not competing on a global level they are competing with each other to see who of the disciples will be the greatest in the kingdom that Jesus is coming to establish. They know Jesus is greater then they are. They are fighting for over who gets to sit at His right and at His left.
Just because this conversation isn’t stupid doesn’t mean it is appropriate. We are in Luke 9:46. These guys have been following Jesus for three years. Still they have not been fully transformed by Him. Jesus has laid down His glory to come live as a man. We see Him constantly sacrificing Himself for others. Jesus goes out of His way to help people. Jesus focus is on laying down His life. Meanwhile the disciples are focused on glorifying their own. Jesus displays a selfless attitude while the disciples bicker about their own greatness. This sort of behavior does not make you look like Jesus.
Lk 9:46 An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.
Here is how this scene would likely play out. As they are traveling a discussion which turns into an argument breaks out amongst the disciples as to which of them is the greatest. They have to be very careful not to get too loud because it is not a conversation they want Jesus to hear. It’s like trying to have an unrelated conversation with a co-worker while in a meeting. You are going to want to try to hide what you are talking about so your boss doesn’t overhear you. So traveling at a slight distance from Jesus they whisper and argue about the different reasons each of them should be considered the greatest. Jesus is not an oblivious boss. He knows their thoughts and questions them.
You can imagine all twelve disciples going silent. They are suddenly aware of how inappropriate their discussion is and totally embarrassed that they have been caught having it. So they just stand their silently until the awkwardness becomes so overwhelming that one of them blurts out the question: who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? This discussion was a common among rabbis but is by no means unique to Judaism. As people we have a tendency to be pathologically egocentric. We live as if the world and everything in it revolves around us. Sometimes we don’t just want to be great but we want everyone else to know it. We are like peacocks.
The male peacock displays his feathers in efforts to impress a prospective mate. The size, color, and quality of these trains of feathers are used to attract the females. Some their trains of feathers can be as much as sixty inches long. What happens is the male opens His feather train and struts his stuff to win the affection of the females. They behave in such a way as to draw attention to themselves. We like to strut our stuff to get attention too. We buy fancy cars, nice houses, cool gadgets. This is often the reason we wear nice clothes, fancy jewelry, and lots of make up. We dress ourselves to get attention. We don’t just do it with stuff. We will use charity, awards, trophies, activities, and investments as ways of making ourselves stand out. Like peacocks these are the ways in which we display our feathers so we can get attention. That doesn’t mean if you wear nice clothes your egotistical it comes down to your motivation for wearing them.
When we seek attention for ourselves we are taking away attention from God. Most if not all of us struggle with the selfish desire to be first. Our egotism is a destructive force. It leads to arrogance, rape, murder, greed, jealousy, even war. Sometimes we call it competition or a desire to excel but often times we are motivated by little more than our own desire for recognition. We want attention. Most of us live as if we are the center of our worlds. The most important person in our lives is us. We want glory for ourselves not for Jesus. We become egocentric when we worship ourselves as God by valuing ourselves more than God. As a result we will turn to God or to others only when it benefits us to do so. If you come to God only for what you can get you do not love God you love yourself and you are using God.
Now this is a bigger struggle then we might think because we often confuse humility with having a low self esteem. High self esteem leads to pride and arrogance and is obviously wrong. What we fail to realize is that low self esteem is just as sinful as high self esteem. High self esteem is when we think too highly of ourselves. Low self esteem comes from thinking too lowly of ourselves. What these both have in common is they are result of us thinking too much about ourselves. They are both forms of egotism. One is just more honest about it.
Self pity is no different from pride it comes from focusing on you. This is the original sin. Eve in the Garden was not tempted by the fruit because it was beautiful or nutritious. She was lured by the idea that the fruit would make her like God. She chose to put herself before God and to act as if she was God. It was the selfish desire for personal glory. Jesus lived His live completely opposed to this attitude. He is the greatest thing that exists. He is the King of King, the Almighty creator God. Yet Jesus does not seek glory for Himself. He lives to love others. Jesus does not focus on Himself. He focuses on serving God and loving people.
Being like Jesus means you learn to value others more then for yourself. It means you stop competing for attention, stop looking for recognition, and you become a servant. When you serve others, value them, and reach out to them you don’t have time to focus on yourself. See selfishness is not about just having pride it is about being self centered instead of Jesus centered. Jesus came to lay down His life for others and His disciples are arguing over which one of them is the greatest. So Jesus shows them the answer:
Lk 9:47 Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. Lk 9:48 Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest.”
Egotism doesn’t hold much weight with God. He after all is greater than everyone. While man fights to climb the social ladder of esteem Jesus says, the least among you will be the greatest. Jesus is more concerned with our humility than our attempts at personal glory. Humility doesn’t mean belittling yourself. Biblical humility is not thinking of yourself at all. It is a willingness to do anything to help others. Biblical humility means you do not consider yourself too great, too important, or too busy to do anything. If you can help benefit the kingdom of God by cleaning a toilet then you clean it with a smile on your face. Humility comes from knowing who we are in the Kingdom of God. We are not the king. We are the servants.
Humility is the process in which we learn to value other the way that Jesus does. We treat people as if they matter just as much as we do. The value that we offer to them is not based on what they can give us. It is based on the fact that Jesus loves them. This means we value everyone the same: whether they are addicted to drugs, homeless, cripple, less intelligent, poor, weak, or socially awkward.
The difficult thing to understand is how the disciples forgot their place. These guys are nobodies. They did not deserve to be called by Jesus, they didn’t earn their positions as His disciples. They were chosen because they were not qualified. Jesus calling them was an act of grace. Now just a few years later they have completely forgotten their humble beginnings.
Jesus doesn’t rebuke the disciples because their desire for greatness is good. The problem is their definition of greatness. So Jesus tells us how we can become great in they eyes of God. He says to be like children. That does not mean we are childish and immature. It means learning to be totally dependent on our father. Children rely on their parents for everything the same way we should rely on God for everything. Kids don’t care about status. They don’t care about image or brands. Kids don’t care about class, dirt, intellect, or the color of person’s skin. Children are not judgmental and they often seek only the approval of their parents. When we become selfish we love only the people it benefits us to love. Jesus loves everyone regardless of what they can do for Him.
Lk 9:49 “Master,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.” Lk 9:50 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”
John rebukes a man who is casting out demons because the man was not a disciple. They wanted to shut the guy up because he wasn’t a part of their group. Not unlike what we do with other churches. You are not a part of our denomination so therefore you cannot do the work of God or at least: you cannot do it as well as we do.
Jesus says let them work. When are following Jesus, other churches of others denominations are attempting to do the same thing we are. The common denominator between us is Jesus. Instead of fighting over whose ‘theology’ best represents God’s true character we should work together to proclaim God’s love to the world. If we could learn to band together despite our subtle differences to share the love of Jesus with the world the church could have a massive effect on the condition and quality of the world.
The disciples problem was the misunderstood what greatness was. Our problem is often not what we do but our motivation behind doing it. If you are gifted in something then don’t throw it away, learn to use it for Jesus. Don’t try to change the gifts that God gave you learn to change your motives. If you are good at building relationship with people then go talk with people and lead them to Jesus. If you are good at fixing things then go help fix things for people to show them Jesus love. If you good a baking, then bake stuff for people and tell them about the love of Jesus. If you good at making money then make money and invest it in the work of the kingdom of God so that He can be glorified through your gifts. Our lives are not about us. When you come to Jesus you die. The life you live belongs to Him. So everything you do, everything you are, and everything you have is all about Him. Use it for Him because it is His anyway. What we need is to stop being selfish egotistical people and to start being humble servants of the kingdom of God. Stop thinking about yourself, stop worrying about yourself, stop living as if you are God, and start living for God.
