What is greatness?

“Child of the Father”

(Matthew 18:1-14, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, January 13, 2008)

Matthew 18:1-14 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" ² And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them ³ and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, ⁶ but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. ⁷ "Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! ⁸ And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. ⁹ And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. ¹⁰ "See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. ^{11 12} What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. ¹⁴ So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

Introduction – The gift of a child

There are few experiences in life that can cause a person to be overwhelmed with wonder as much as meeting your child for the first time. A child in the womb can learn the voice of parents, and we pray for those who we wait to adopt with eager anticipation, grateful for any information we receive about the one who will soon come as God’s special gift to us. We seem to know our children before we can see each other, but there is still the remarkable wonder of being able to see your child at long last. You look at him or her, and he or she looks at you. What does a little child want but the love and security of a home with the comforting embrace of parents, and it stays that way for some time. The littlest ones are largely unacquainted with the honors that the world has to offer. Eventually they find out, and when they do, prizes and praises, as good as they are, can seem to be all that there is for the little soul that wants to achieve something. Today, greatness is being known. Most people do not want to be unknown. As we grow into adulthood, our pride can quickly begin to seize upon things like fame, fortune, and ease, and cast aside as nothing precious things like faith and relationship. This pride can be very destructive of the humble life of faith that God has for us. Jesus came as a little one and yet He never developed any of this destructive pride.

The greatest in the kingdom of heaven (1-4)

When Jesus was a grown man, settled upon His great messianic work and well-aware of the coming cost of the cross, His disciples asked Him a question: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” What do you think of that question? We know that His followers thought about this more than once, and from the other accounts of these episodes we know that they wanted some position of prominence in the earthly kingdom that they thought Jesus would soon establish in Israel. There was a pride agenda that was behind their question, an agenda that they found it hard to rid themselves of. They wanted to be great, and this wanting to be great was not great at all.

The Lord’s answer to their question was patient and pointed, and very unusual. As when He spoke with the Jewish leader Nicodemus, Jesus tells them that they need a whole new turn of life if they are even to see the kingdom of heaven. Far from being at the place of greatest honor in the kingdom, unless they “turn,” they will not even be in the kingdom at all. This turning is a turning away from the pride of the world and a turning to God with the humility of a child. Jesus calls over a child to make His point. This child is an example to us who are often troubled by feelings of inadequacy. We need to humble ourselves regularly. The lure of prestige or praise can haunt us throughout our days as Christians. Thanks be to God for His power to call us to Himself, to recall us when we wander, and to keep us through times of temptation that would certainly be too difficult for us.

Who do you really want to be the greatest? There is a sense in which we can consider our spiritual progress through this one question. Do we want Jesus to be seen as the greatest more than we want anything else? If we are seeking some notoriety in our families, among our friends, or more generally in the world, we need to see our danger and take action. To get away from this trap, cultivate the habit of thinking of others more highly than yourself in obedience to Paul’s instruction in Romans 12:3, 16 and Philippians 2:1-11. This is a very big part of the Christian life. Jesus used one of the little ones in order to make that point to His disciples that day. I am not sure that they were able to fully receive it, at least at that point. Despite the fact that Jesus had reminded His disciples earlier about His coming sufferings, they seem immediately pre-occupied with thoughts of their own advancement.

A little child and the Son of God (5-6)

We are to be like children in our humility, but there is more for us in this passage. We are to care for children in God’s kingdom as if we were receiving the Lord Himself. Jesus is speaking here of an amazing association between the smallest disciple and the Son of God. This union is most fully expressed in Christ’s great works of redemption for us. It was these works that He had just spoken about towards the end of the 17^th chapter. As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” In the cross, in the Lord’s death, in His burial, and in His resurrection, there was a union between Christ and His people. This union is expressed in the way that we serve others, so that whoever receives a child in Jesus name, receives the Lord Himself.

Naturally then, if care for someone weak is this important, the Lord who loves His children will consider abuse of them to be a very serious offense. If anyone leads a simple believer toward sin, Jesus says that such a one would be better to have a millstone fastened around his neck and be thrown into the depths of the seas. The millstone spoken of was large stone that had to be pulled by a donkey. If you are able to imagine the danger of being chained to several cinder blocks and then dropped out of a boat in the middle of dangerous waters, I think you have an accurate idea of what the Lord is saying here. He takes this matter very seriously.

Temptations and tempters (7-9)

While recognizing that a world full of temptation, danger, and evil is somehow in the sovereign decree of God, yet to be the one who tempts a child in the direction of evil or away from the arms of the Lord is to ask for the most severe trouble from Almighty God. There will always be temptations, but don’t you be the one to do the tempting. Here the Lord calls on us to consider the reality of eternal punishment, and not to suppose that we are simply stuck in our own sin. We must take the most radical steps to turn away from evil rather than to set a bad example for those who would follow us. Of course the Lord knows that your eye does not really cause you to sin, and that the removal of the eye will not solve our sinful desires. It is in our heart, our mind, our will that sin springs forth. But the heart, mind, and will are impacted by the senses (like hearing and seeing), so we need to be serious about restricting what our senses take in. Also the heart, mind, and will, once captured by sin, express sinful desires through the use of our speech, and our hands and feet. The Lord mentions both the sensory organs and the active members of our body to make the point that we need to take the most radical actions to seek a pure heart and life.

The consideration of hell should help us to recognize our need for a Savior who can take away our sin. We have led others astray by our own poor example. We cannot stand on our own merits. As with any serious biblical consideration of sin, we are drawn again to the cross. Our union with the Lord there is our only hope.

We are not “despised” (10-14)

We are to be like children, to care for children, and to set a godly example for children. But there is one further instruction here for the disciples of the Lord. We are told that we must not despise these little ones. What does it mean to despise a child? The word used here can simply mean “to think little of,” that is to consider the young and the weak of little consequence.

Do you consider yourself to be inconsequential? Perhaps you could have been the one that Jesus picked out of the crowd that day and brought near to himself to show his disciples that they needed to think about people in a different way. He tells the disciples that angels are watching over His loved ones who we might ignore. This passage is not teaching that we each have a guardian angel, but at a minimum, it does reinforce what the Bible says more clearly in other places, that angels are heavenly servants to God’s people. The ones we think of as being of no consequence have powerful and wise beings who serve God by serving them. We are told in another place that angels are capable of rejoicing, and that they do rejoice in our rescue from the worst spiritual danger.

I am always amazed at the depictions of British life in the 19^th century with servants taking care of all kinds of needs, yet our situation is more privileged. We truly have angels watching over us! These angels have a direct audience with God. Again we are reminded of the seriousness of harming the weak. Would we stand against angels? Still more amazing is that God himself, who angels serve, is concerned about you like a shepherd knows and cares for his sheep. The little one who goes astray is very important to God, and it is not the will of God that one of these should perish. There is a care here for every member of the Lord’s family.

God loves the coming generation in this covenant community. It does not mean that they will not suffer. Remember that Jesus Himself was a baby loved supremely by His heavenly Father. Yet He suffered. His suffering was for a purpose. It was an expression of the saving love of the Father and the Son for you. Do not throw that love away. Bring all the little lambs to Jesus. If they wander, lead them back home to Him again. Our Savior rejoices over every little wandering one who is found, even you. What a privilege to be a child of our heavenly Father!

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. In what sense are we not to be like children? How are we to be like children?

2. What does it mean to receive a child in the name of Jesus?

3. What does it mean that it is “necessary” that temptations come?

4. What are we to believe about God from this passage?