What The Kingdom Is Not Series

“THEY DIDN'T UNDERSTAD”: The disciples still had some questionable ideas about what the Kingdom of God was like.

- Luke 9:45.

- Luke 9:46-56.

- This is an eventful chapter. We have the Transfiguration - an amazing event. We have an exorcism so difficult that the disciples couldn’t do it - an interesting situation. That section ends with another notation that the disciples didn’t understand all this talk from Jesus about the Son of Man being betrayed (v. 44-45).

- We’ve talked in previous sermons about the desire Jesus had to get the disciples ready to take the lead after He ascended. And we’ve talked about the fact that they weren’t ready.

- Our passage for tonight is going to give us some specific examples of that “not ready” reality. There are basically three sections in this passage. Each provides us a different way that the disciples weren’t getting everything yet.

- This is useful for us today as well, in two senses.

- First, the specific things that this passage brings out are things that we may well need instruction or reminders on. So hopefully this sermon will be worthwhile.

- Second, there is the more general point that sometimes people who claim to be part of the Kingdom of God don’t really get the details of that Kingdom.

- It’s worth remembering that Jesus’ Kingdom is unlike anything else. You won’t guess and get it right. You won’t follow your natural instincts and figure it out. You won’t do what seems right to you and figure it out. It’s unlike anything else.

WHAT THE KINGDOM IS NOT:

1. The Kingdom is not about pandering to the powerful.

- Luke 9:46-48.

- The first of the three sections here is vv. 46-48.

- We start with “greatest.”

- I think it’s worth mentioning before we get deeper into this issue that Jesus is not against people wanting to be great.

- Here and elsewhere, Jesus says to us, essentially, here is what it looks like to be great in the Kingdom. He is not against someone wanting to live a great life. What He is against is someone trying to be great in the Kingdom by means that look like a secular pursuit.

- It begins with the disciples arguing over who was going to be greatest. Why are they doing this?

- I think it reflected their Kingdom expectations, which were that what Jesus was bringing about was going to be about what they expected. Rome was going to be vanquished, the Temple was going to be elevated, and they were going to be (along with Jesus, of course) in charge. This was not a surprising set of presumptions given the baggage that most Jews of that day hung on the title “Messiah.” The Messiah was going to set things right politically, he was going to win militarily, and he was going to raise the nation of Israel back to its honored status. Or, at least, that's what most Jews thought.

- So when the disciples thought of their hope that Jesus was the Messiah, they thought that power came right in behind that.

- So when the disciples are arguing over “greatest,” they’re arguing over who is going to have the most powerful positions in the new Israeli government that will be led by Jesus.

- This all leads us to our first point.

- Pandering to the powerful is generally the way to get power. Our current political system is a prime example. Politicians pander to those with huge amounts of money, so they will get donations during the next election cycle, so they can keep their office. It’s a vicious cycle.

- Presumably Jesus’ Kingdom would be the same way - the disciples themselves being among the powerful to whom others would come for insight and favors. Or the disciples would buddy up to the financial powerhouses of Jerusalem and see their connections bear fruit.

- What is Jesus’ response to this?

- We have the disciples squabbling over who is going to be the greatest, in the sense of traditional earthly power within what they think taking over from Rome is going to look like.

- Jesus responds by putting a little child in their midst.

- Now we need to pay attention to what He says next because when we think of Jesus and little children we tend to think of “childlike faith.” So we would presume that the child is there for an example and Jesus is going to say, “Don’t grasp after worldly power. Have childlike faith.” But that's not what He says. And what He says is very specific to the “greatest” conversation they had been having.

- First Jesus gives us a statement in two parts. First part: if you welcome a child, you welcome Me. Second part: if you welcome Me, you welcome God the Father. So by the transitive properties there, when we welcome a child into our lives we welcome God the Father in our lives.