The Paradoxical Sayings of Jesus
To Be Great, Be the Least
Selected Passages
To be truly great in life, seek to be the least!
This has to be one of the most incredible, unbelievable, counter-intuitive, counter-cultural statements of all time. Essentially it is a statement that the way up in life is the way down, if we want to ascend, we must choose to descend.
And yet this kind of statement was made, not once, but repeatedly, by the person that most of us here regard to be the greatest person in all of history, the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, it has some considerable weight to it. It was the philosophy of life of the very person that has risen head and shoulders above every other personality in the history of mankind.
And so this morning, we continue our series on the Paradoxical Sayings of Jesus. We have so far covered these counter-intuitive, counter-cultural and against common-sense statements of Jesus: Give to receive; to be first, be last; to save your life, you must lose it. And now this: To be great, you must be least.
What Jesus essentially repeatedly told His disciples, and they were very slow to learn, is this: If you want to be great in life, & especially in God’s Kingdom, be the servant of all—especially the least and the youngest.
Now as I mentioned, Jesus made this kind of statement repeatedly. It is found most succinctly in Luke 9:48 where he said, “For the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great.” But it is actually found in one form or another in seven different places in the Gospels. On six of the occasions He said it on one of the three occasions His disciples disputed among themselves as to who among them was the greatest. And on one occasion, in Matthew 23, it’s found among the woes pronounced against the prideful Scribes and Pharisees who in their selfish ambition led Israel to crucify its Messiah.
This morning we’re going to focus primarily on the first occasion in which Jesus corrected his disciples on this issue, and we’ll spend a little time on the last occasion. The first occasion is actually recorded in all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, and each of the three provides some different details that are important to an over-all understanding of what actually happened on that occasion. Turn with me, if you haven’t already, to Matthew’s version of the events in Matthew 18.
Let’s read Matthew 18:1-3: “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Now as we’ve already read in Mark’s account, and as is clear in Luke 9 also, the occasion of the question was a dispute among the disciples as to who among them was the greatest. The dispute occurred while Jesus and the disciples were on their way back to Jesus’ headquarters during His Galilean ministry, the home of Peter and Andrew in Capernaum next to the Sea of Galilee. Apparently, the disagreement had taken place out of the earshot of Jesus. But Luke tells us Jesus knew what they were thinking, no doubt supernaturally, and Mark adds that as a result, once they had all come back together in Peter’s house in Capernaum, Jesus asked them what they had been discussing on the way. But as we have seen from Mark 9, what followed was a pregnant silence. Somehow the disciples knew that their topic of dispute was entirely inappropriate in the presence of Jesus Christ. So, they kept silent like children whose hands had been in the cookie jar. I imagine that the tension was palpable, and finally, one of the disciples, speaking for all of them, decided to frame their discussion in a way that they thought would be acceptable to Jesus. So this was the story behind the question as we find it posed in Matthew 18:1: “Who, then (in light of our dispute about who among us is the greatest) is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
And Jesus, the master teacher, decides to provide them with a live, object lesson of the kind of person who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Verse 2 tells us he called a child to Himself; Mark tells us that at some point he took the child tenderly in his arms and all the accounts indicate that somehow he set the child before them. Then He made this telling statement: verse 3: “Truly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Now this is really an incredible statement for a number of reasons. Jesus emphasizes just how important this whole issue is to anyone and everyone’s spiritual life by introducing it with the word, “Truly.” In other words, don’t miss this. This is incredibly important. And then notice His precise words here: “Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Do you see the seriousness of what He is saying here? He is saying that ultimately this becomes a salvation issue—it can be the difference between heaven and hell. He is essentially saying that unless these disciples abandoned their selfish ambitions, their pride, their competitive spirit about this matter of who among them is the greatest, and humbled themselves like a child, they would not even enter the Kingdom of Heaven!
Adding more weight to this observation is the fact that he uses the verb “converted.” It sounds as though Jesus is hinting that the disciples have not been entirely converted to the Christian faith at this point! And when you look at the actual meaning of the Greek word behind the English verb converted what Jesus is saying is that unless the disciples turned completely around and went in completely the opposite direction in their attitude, they would not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This underscores for us the idea that the kind of faith that saves is a repentant faith, a complete turning of ourselves from sin and self to God with an active faith that not only believes, but also works in accord with our faith.
What’s more is when this statement is made in the course of the training of the twelve. In Matthew it clearly comes after Peter’s great confession in which He recognizes Jesus as the Christ which had occurred in Matthew 16.
And so it’s as though Jesus is here pointing out a hidden reef in the attitude of the disciples that potentially could result in the shipwreck of their faith. That hidden reef is pride, or selfish ambition, the desire to be greater than someone else, to be the greatest, and to compete with others to that end. Jesus is saying that part of following Him is a repentance from that selfish ambition, a complete repentance, or turning from it—essentially a turning from serving yourself and your own honor and glory to serving Christ for His honor and glory and the good of others. And indeed, that’s what we find in Romans 6 and so many other places in the Testament, that when you come to Christ, you die to self and sin and you live for Christ. Roman 6:11 puts it succinctly: “Consider yourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
So this matter of selfish ambition, or pride in the Christian life is absolutely huge. Even as it resulted in the devil’s fall, so it can result in ours. And what Jesus is saying here is this—if you want to be great in God’s Kingdom, if you want to be truly great in God’s eyes and in this life—abandon selfish ambition for childlike humility. Abandon selfish ambition for selfish humility.
Now sadly, I’ve seen the shipwreck of otherwise devoted Christians who never quite crossed this hurdle. This absolutely brings to mind the fate of the person who led me to Christ—who was fine following Christ as long as he was successful and the top dog, but once he experienced failure after failure ultimately abandoned the faith, and was later described by a Christian psychiatrist as a narcissist, among other things. In other words, he ultimately was never converted from being all about his glory and honor to making his life all about Christ’s glory and honor.
Now just how important this matter is to God is stated in places like James 4:6 where it says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, and Isaiah 57:15 which artfully paints a picture for us of God response to the humble: “For thus says the high and exalted One
Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,
“I dwell on a high and holy place,
And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit
In order to revive the spirit of the lowly
And to revive the heart of the contrite.”
And then we have the incredible example of Moses, who in Numbers 12:3 is called the humblest man on the face of the earth, and then has this epitaph written about him in Deuteronomy 34:10-12: “Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, for all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants and all his land, and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.”
So you want to be great! Be least. Be the humble servant of all! Abandon selfish ambition and humble yourself as a child before the Lord.
That’s Jesus’ express lesson for the disciples and for us in Matthew 18:4: Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Wow!
In other words, we would do well to consider this morning exactly how a child is humble. Well, children are naturally entirely dependent, and, most of the time, very trusting and teachable. They’re very impressionable. They are likely to believe whatever an adult tells them. And Jesus is saying when it comes to our relationship to Him, His Father and the Word of God, this is exactly what we need to be like—we need to be dependent, believing, and teachable. When we hear His Word; we need to believe it, and we need to act on it without thinking we know better, but that God knows better. We need to believe and act in accord with the principle of Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and he shall direct your paths.” We need to be trusting and submissive, trusting and obedient, completely without concern for our own status, position, pride or selfish ambitions. Exclusivism, elitism and pride have absolutely no place in the Christian life.
The inspired Apostle Paul completely understood this as he wrote Philippians 2:3-4: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interest of others.” For this was the attitude Jesus took toward us when He became a man, and suffered on the cross for our sins, though He was in very nature God!
Jesus is saying if you want to be great in this life, in God’s Kingdom, the way up is the way down. If you want to ascend, you must descend. You must humble yourself as a child before God, God’s word and before others.
One of the surest ways to measure your humility is how you respond to correction. Do you say you know better? Are you defensive? Do you look for fault in the person who corrects you? Do you attempt to get back at him or her in some way? Are you teachable or unteachable? Proverbs
10:8 says, “The wise of heart will receive commands, But a babbling fool will be ruined.”
Then Jesus brings the issue of true humility down to where the rubber really meets the road. How do you treat the lowly? What’s your attitude toward the least among us, including children? Verse 5: “And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me.” In Luke 9:48 we get a fuller quotation of what Jesus said on this occasion. There He says, “Whoever receives this child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; for the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great.”
In other words, Jesus is saying how we respond to children, and to those who are least among us, at least in the world’s estimation, is the ultimate litmus test of our humility!
The word here translated as receive actually has more the sense of “to welcome.” And so Jesus is saying how we welcome a child, if we welcome a child in Jesus’ name, it will be counted as though we have welcomed Jesus Christ Himself, and how we welcome Jesus demonstrates and will be counted as whether we have welcomed God the Father Himself.
Jesus’ choice of phrases here is reminiscent of His phraseology in Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46 where He tells that how we treat the least among us will be counted as how we treated Jesus Himself in the Kingdom.
Jesus is saying true humility is demonstrated when we become the servant of all—especially those we might count as the least or the youngest among us.
And isn’t that so true in life? How do those who are full of pride and self treat the lowly? Aren’t they snooty; don’t they refuse to have much or anything to do with the lowly?
When we’re truly humble, we serve the youngest and the least. When we are truly humble, we become the servant of all—especially the least and the youngest!
And then notice Jesus’ emphasis on numbers here in verse 5. He says whoever receives or welcomes one such child in My name, receives Me! Wow. Now we don’t have time to consider much about the rest of this passage, but Jesus goes on to explain how important one such child is to him in the rest of Matthew 18, and he says essentially that it would be better for anyone who puts a stumbling block before such a child to have never been born.
But what strikes me here is that Jesus may well be saying that the very most important thing going on this morning is not what’s happening here as I teach 40 or 50 adults, but what Jeanie, or Brandon or Amanda are doing back there as they are teaching one child about Jesus.
And what does this say about the rest of us—whether we choose to receive, welcome or minister to children? It’s more than a bit convicting isn’t it?
And finally, we look at Luke 22:24-27. We see just how difficult a time the disciples had learning this lesson. For on the eve of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion they are still arguing among themselves about who among them is the greatest. They come into the Upper Room and refuse to serve one another by washing one another’s feet. So who takes on the role of the servant—who washes their feet, but Jesus, and demonstrates what He is about to do on the morrow, when He washes away their sins on the cross. And note what He Himself says about what really made Him the greatest person of all time--great and self-sacrificing service to all: As they were disputing over the last supper as to who among them was the greatest, this was Jesus’ comment: “The Kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.” But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest, must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table? But I am among as one who serves.”
Ultimately, greatness is measured by the greatness and humility of our service to others—whether we have become a servant like Jesus.
Have you? Do you in some way, or some fashion, render yourself a servant to all—especially the least and the youngest?
For Jesus said in this same context, in Mark 10:45: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Let’s pray!
