Be Grrrrreat!
Matthew 18:1-4
Pastor Jim Luthy
An interesting scene developed as Jesus and his disciples headed south along the road from Caesarea Phillipi to Capernaum. There seemed to be a bit of tension among his disciples. A heated discussion was taking place among them. Occasionally, the discussion would burst into an uproar.
Bartholomew yelled at James, "How can you say that?"
"Think about it!" snapped Andrew in the direction of Matthew and Judas as he walked alongside his brother Peter.
As they took a water break, you could hear Thomas reply, "Oh, I doubt that!"
You knew the discussion was in full swing when they called John as he walked along with Jesus: "John, come over here. We want to ask you something." Surely if anyone had an answer, it would be Jesus’ closest friend.
Finally, after arriving in Capernaum, Jesus asked them what they were arguing about on the road. They were silent. But Jesus knew their thoughts and persisted with them until they broke down and asked Jesus to settle their debate. "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" they asked.
I don’t know this, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Peter was at the center of this debate and that it has something to do with the fact that he was one of three disciples who witnessed the transfiguration and were told not to tell anyone. You know Peter had trouble keeping his mouth shut, so he at least had to blurt out something along the lines of "You wouldn’t believe what I got to see!" So a debate breaks out among them about who is the greatest. It would be quite comical if it wasn’t so much like us.
We love to debate greatness. Who is the greatest right-handed hitter of all time? Who is the greatest President? Who is the greatest preacher you ever heard? (Well, that’s obvious…so who’s the second greatest?)
We have a fascination with greatness partially because greatness is a fantasy to us. It is a fleeting thought of what many of us once hoped to be but gave up hope of becoming long ago. You want to be a great teacher. You want to be a great mom. You want to be a great athlete or businessman or youth leader. But very few of us get to be the best. Even when we try our best, we find that we still make a ton of mistakes. And even if we seem to do whatever we aspire to do well, along comes Martha Stewart or Bill Hybels that does it better. So greatness is quite elusive, and we begin to strive for something less, something more manageable, something less risky to our pride.
The problem in this is that it keeps us from becoming all that God intended us to be. It keeps us from utilizing all the potential that he planted in us when he made us in his image. He intends for us to be significant and to look forward to hearing his own voice say, "well done."
The confusion for us comes from a misappropriation of the word "great." Clear back at the fall of man in the garden of Eden, we exchanged the truth for a lie when it comes to greatness. Man bought into the notion that greatness comes from the things we do rather than from the things we are. In sin, we’ve tied greatness to achievement, leaving many of us wary of ever becoming great.
These men who were following Jesus had given up on greatness. They were fishermen, farmers, merchants, and a tax-collector. For years they lived in survival mode, just hoping to get by, having given up on dreams of significance.
Maybe that’s where you are today. It’s safest, you think, to stay in survival mode--just get your work done. Greatness left your agenda long ago. Would you love to know that you’re great at what you do? Absolutely. Would you love to know that what you are doing is significant? Of course you do. But you either gave up that hope long ago or you find yourself beating your head against the wall with every effort. Every time you think you’ve got it right, you find yourself doing something wrong. The search for significance can be a curse.
Perhaps it would be helpful if I told you that people who are great at what they do are not always great people--just ask the people who worked for Walt Disney or the guys who played with Babe Ruth.
The disciples were with the most amazing man ever known. They were seeing things no one else had seen. They were this close to a king who was about to establish the greatest kingdom ever. With a new arena for greatness and with thoughts of grandeur they began to debate which of them was the greatest.
You see, that happens in church. The church is filled with people who gave up on greatness out there and came in thinking they found a new arena for greatness. So they set out to accomplish greatness—they’re gonna be the greatest Bible student, the greatest evangelist, the greatest, most devout disciple the people in their church has ever seen. In the church, just as it is in the world, image is everything. (Not that it should be). So we set out to give everyone the image of greatness. We try to fool everyone into believing that we are great in the kingdom of God. We’ll even debate it—"Jesus, who is the greatest?"
(Matthew 18:2-4) He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus said "You’d better change and become like this little kid, because if you don’t, you won’t even get in!" They were all worried about being great and Jesus says they’d better worry about being there. They needed to change!
And so do we. We need to change and become like little children. Do you realize that God created man and took a step back and said, "It is good." Wise Solomon once said, "This is all that I have learned: God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated." One of the ways we’ve done this is tying greatness to accomplishment. It’s the same thing that makes grace such a difficult concept—we think we have to do something to receive it.
When Jesus says the disciples must change, he was talking about their thinking. He was saying, "You have to stop thinking that greatness is something you earn. Stop thinking it’s based on what you do." The kid hasn’t accomplished a blasted thing! He had no argument for greatness. He hadn’t seen the transfiguration. He hadn’t walked on water. He hadn’t even taken notes during Jesus’ sermons! Yet Jesus said to the complicated and confused disciples, "you need to change and become like this little kid."
Jesus said, "whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." The change that will make you great, is not out here—in appearance—but in here. If we humble ourselves, then we will be the greatest.
If you think you’ve got the world by your hand you are deceived. If you think you can conquer your nature, overcome the world, and fly below the radar of the enemy of your soul you will never walk through the gates of heaven. That kind of self-sufficiency has no room for God and will find itself apart from God in the new kingdom. This adult pride is the very thing that keeps people from receiving Jesus as Lord. It’s foolish!
But having decided to follow Jesus, the disciples also needed to change. They needed to change because they were becoming like the Pharisees. They lacked the humility to loosen their presumed grasp on God. People in the church are not beyond the capacity of complicating the greatness God puts in us. We fight and scramble for favor, wearing our Bible studies and our understanding of prophecy on our sleeves as though they were some form of honor. If you’re the believer that likes to demonstrate to others your knowledge of Scripture…If you’re the one who likes to boast in your accomplishments…If you’re the one who is too busy studying and listening to God’s word to actually do what it says, you need to change and become like a little child.
You will be a great dad when you become a great person. You will become a great wife, when you become a great person. We will be a great church when we become a collection of great people. And you and I will become great people when we simplify. We are simply needy people who are dependent upon God to cleanse us of sin and give order to an otherwise chaotic world. And we will become great people if we don’t swing to the other side and assume that we are greater in our dependence and our devotion to Jesus. When we do this, we realize there is a lot of room for greatness in the kingdom of God. It’s not a competition, it’s a condition!
I heard the story this week of a Jewish woman in a small town suffering from Lupus. Sitting on her front porch one morning, out to get some much needed fresh air, she heard the music coming from a small Alliance church. Soon she found herself intentionally visiting her porch while the church held its services.
Before long, she decided it was time to visit this church, even though that would violate all of her religious tradition.
Once inside, she found herself moved to tears by the music and the message. Throughout the week, she found herself singing these worship songs she had heard on Sunday morning.
One Sunday, after the service had ended, she tried to leave but couldn’t. It was as if every time she started out the door, she found herself turned around and facing inside the sanctuary. She then heard a still, small voice say to her spirit, "You have to ask before I’ll let you leave."
She wandered to the front of the church where the pastor and a few others were gathered together. She interrupted them, saying almost apologetically, "I believe that I need to ask Jesus to forgive me and to be my Messiah." She yielded her heart to Jesus right then and there and he let her go home.
She was given the privelege to help serve the Passover meal this past week at her church. While the Passover Seder was familiar to her, the imagery of Christ in the Seder was quite revelatory. He was there all the time, and until recently she had missed him. But this past week was quite different. During the service she was a bit distracting as she acted quite giddy during what we would normally consider a somber or reflective or contemplative religious rite. She was giggling like a little child. After the service she approached the pastor and declared she was keeping her cup. This was her first communion, and she never wanted to forget the euphoria of having met her promised Messiah.
I tell you the truth, she is among the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Unless you change and become like this little child…
