According to another message from God's Word, we're studying the Gospel of Luke from the Greek Nestle-Allen text. There is a lot of difference in the text. I can go into that later on, but the Nestle-Allen text is probably the closest thing to the autographs of the authors of the New Testament that we can get. Chapter 22 and verse 24 is where we begin. The last thing we saw here was Jesus had instituted the Lord's Supper with His church. He told them that He was going to die. They must be offered up. And then right after He tells them that He's going to die, they said, who's going to be the heir? Who's going to be the number two man? Who's going to be the number three man? Who's going to be the number four man? Who's going to be the heir? and that's what they're arguing about here in verse number twenty-four. A little weak at versity of conjunctive particles there, Moreover it came to pass also rivalry philonikia Philonikia means the love to conquer the love to be first the love to excel there was a lot of Aggression here Who's gonna be? Number one who's gonna be number two who's gonna be the numbers three man and Jesus told them over and over and over again if you want to be great Then you'd be the least If you want to be great, be the servant. They hadn't got the message yet. And also rivalry. Loving to be conqueror. It comes from Philo and Neko. Philo and Nekia. The love to be first among them. The one who of them it seems to be greater. Which one of us is going to be greater? Which one of us is going to be first? Which one of us is going to be second? Their love for him seemed very cold at this moment. Cold love. Cold love. That's a hard kind of love, is cold love. And that's what we have, a cold love. I'm going to die for you, I'm going to be offered for you, and they said, who's going to be the greatest? Who's going to take your place, Jesus? Who's going to be the leader? Now we know the Catholic Church has got Peter as the leader, but you know who would be the leader here? It wouldn't be a man at all. No man, no woman. It's going to be the church. of the Lord Jesus Christ that He had already called out, the church is going to be great, because all these men would die. But that church would go on and on. You are Peter, a little stone, but upon this gigantic foundation rock I'll be building my church. And the gates of hell, no matter how they try, shall not wrestle her down. The church shall be the great one. And yet the church is going to be the bride of the church. The bride is subservient to her husband. And that's what we must do. We must always please our Master and our Lord. Hode Apeng, Atois Hoi Basileis, Toneth Non, Kuriel Ooson, auton kai hoi ex us si azontes, auton yu reggete kalunte. Mover furthermore er, going onward and going forward, that little weak and bursty conjuncted particle, Luke uses a lot, Dei, the One, now we know it's Jesus. He said to them, to the ones kings, Bacillus, the ones kings, of the nations, they lord over the nations. And the ones having authority, Ixous, Ion, Zontes, the ones having unlimited power and authority, over them, Workers of good deeds they are called. Workers of good deeds they are called. Now let's look at verse number twenty-six. Ḥemēs de ūk hutōs allahō mēzōn en hēmen genēstō hōs hō nuō terōs kāi hō ēgū mēnōs hōs hō dikōnōn. But ye, but ye not in such a manner are thusly, little adverb there, hutos, but, strong adversity of conjunction, but the one greater among you, let him become as the younger, the new teros, the new teros, the youngster. They can be like a child. A child takes his place in the back. They did then, anyway. Now the children want to be the heads of the families. And when a child is the head of the family, you've got problems. But that happens all over. I have seen homes destroyed because children are the heads of the home. The father is the head of the home. And that's the way it should be. If the father is not the head of the home, then he should be. He should be the head of the home. That's God's place for him. And he ought to be honorable. to be the head of that home. And he ought to be the head of the wife and the head of the children. That's the way God placed it. If you're a man out there and you're not doing your job, you ought to do it. You ought to ask God to forgive you and to help you be what you are to be. Help you make you strong and yet loving. This cold love that we have back here. Jesus is trying to tell him, How to be zealous. Remember in the book of Revelation it says they had lost their first love. They were ready to lose Jesus, but they wanted to know who was going to be first. Who was going to be the big shot? Who was going to be the leader? But not in this manner, but greater among you, let him become the younger and the one governing as the one serving. I have tried always to be a humble pastor. Now, how do you say that? When you say you're humble, then you're not humble anymore. I've always tried to make my church look at me as a servant. I am their servant. I am their leader, but I am their servant. I remember a long time ago in history, When the Protestants and the Catholics, in the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, and the Catholics, they all, and the Anglicans and all of this, they had their pastors or priests up on balconies. If the Baptists had a church house at all, they placed the man down and let him preach up to the congregation. But he was a servant of the congregation. They're serving the congregation. So many pastors out there in the Bible Baptist world, pastors are the rulers of the church. They are the head of the church. In real Baptist churches, the congregation is the head of the church. When I pastor a church, I ask them, what do you want to do? It's not what I say, it's what they say. Sometimes churches make mistakes. But it's a lot better for a church to look up to the Lord than some man's, one single man, to be the head of a church. All churches are local, visible, body of believers, working as democracies and congregational rule in each and every one of them. That's the way God set it forth. The church would be the successor to Christ. not Peter, not James, not John, not Matthew, Mark, Luke, not even Paul. The church would be built upon the foundation of Christ. And that church would be here until the Lord comes back for her. Tisgard, Maison, Hoh, Anna, K-Mount, Menos. e ho diakonon uki ho ana ke minos ego de en meso himon emi hos ha ho diakonon diakonon for whoever is greater that one laying up reclining or the one serving. Now who is greater? The one laying up to the table or the one that's waiting on those people that are laying up to the table? Not the one reclining. I, but I in the midst of you, I as one serving. The word serving there, and that last one, he is a dust kicker. That means that he is that he is the servant. Christ is our servant. We look at Christ as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John looked at them. By the way, the earliest gospel was Mark. The earliest gospel was Mark and some scholars believe that actually Peter wrote that book, that first gospel, and Mark wrote it down. They did not Look at Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as separate entities and Matthew's here and Mark's here and Luke's here and John's here. They were the four Gospels. We know that they existed before the first century was over. Mark was the first one written. Matthew duplicates Mark's writings almost 90% of what Mark says is in Matthew. Matthew looks upon Jesus as the King of Israel. Mark looks upon Jesus as the Servant. Luke looks upon Jesus as the Son of Man, our Kinsman, Goel, Redeemer. John looks upon Jesus as the God of Heaven, Jehovah, in person. Or is it greater the one laying down, reclining, laying up to the table, the one at the feast, or the one serving? He said, I, among you, am the one serving. I am your servant. Jesus is our servant then. Jesus was our servant then, but now He is our Lord and Master. We are the servants that are left in His world. We are doing the Master's bidding today. We are the ones that are waiting on the tables. We are the ones that are out picking up the garbage of humanity. We are the ones that Jesus left behind. Matthew 28 chapter says, As you're going out in the world, as you've been driven out in the world, because that was a prophecy, it's not, go ye therefore, it says, as you've been driven out, what do you do? What is the commission? Make disciples. Make habitual learners. Baptizing them, dipping them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and lo, I am teaching them to guard with their lives all things that I've given to you. And lo, I'll be with you until the end of the age. That's the church. We're the servants today. Remember, there's a church. Members of God's New Testament Churches, we are servants in the world that Jesus left behind. 2228 now, Hymes dei este, hoi dia mem minecotes, met emon entois pedrasmoes mu. But ye, ye are the ones having remained throughout with me. In the temptations of me. Jesus had temptations. He was human, yet He was divine. Jesus was human and He was divine. In His human nature, He had temptations. Temptations of what? Right now, He's wanting to run. In that garden of Gethsemane, He's wanting to leave this place. Because He's just about, and He knows this. He's about to be murdered. He's about to be beaten and humiliated and tortured all night long. Torture. All night long torture. That torture which he felt and tasted from eternity past. The book says that Jesus stood as a lamb slain from the very before the creation of the world stood as a lambslaying. He felt the lashes. He felt the beatings. But now, in flesh and blood, He shall endure those beatings for you and for me. You've been through my temptations. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was hot. He was cold. He was sleepy. He was tired. 29, Kago diatithe me, hymen kathos ditheto, moi ho pater mu basileun. And I appoint to you just as He appointed to me the Father of me, the Kingdom. The administrator of the Kingdom is going to be the Church. We live in the Church Age. The Church would carry on Christ's Gospel and His mission in the world today. Hina estete cae finete, epites troc pacis, mu ante basilea, cae catheste, epithronon tas duodeca philos krenon tais tu Israel in order that you may eat and you may drink at the table of me in the kingdom of me and you shall set upon thrones twelve tribes judging the nation of Israel Let's go back and read this. I want to say this to you also as we look at this. Mark was the earliest gospel. Mark looks at Jesus as a servant. Matthew looks at Jesus as the king of Israel. They looked at Jesus in two different ways. But Jesus is our King. He is our servant. He was our servant. He is our Lord and Master. And He is our Kinsman Redeemer, just like those four Gospels said. And that went all the way back to the tabernacle, where the four flags were. One flag had the head of a man on it. One flag had the head of a lion on it, the king. One man had an ox on it, or a calf, our servant, and one flag had the eagle on it, that soars in the heavens above, our Lord and Master and King of glory. Luke 22 and verse 24 from the Amplified Bible, Now an eager contention arose among them, which of them was considered and reputed to be the greatest. Peter had the go-getter mouth with him. He was always ready to be out front and always ready to talk. But all the rest of them had, they had little what we call ambitions also. All of them had ambitions and now the ambitions come out. Jesus said, I'm going to die. I'm going to be offered. He says up here, for the Son of Man goes that has been determined and appointed, but woe to that man to whom he is betrayed and delivered of. And they began to inquire among themselves which of them was about to betray Him. And the next thing they say is who's going to be the greatest. Jesus said in verse 15, and he said to them, I have earnestly and intensely desired to eat this passage with you, for I suffer before I am offered. For I say to you, I shall eat it no more until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took a cup, and he had given thanks. He said, take this and divide and distribute it among yourselves. For I say to you, from now on, I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine at all until the kingdom of God comes. And he took the loaf of bread, And when he had given things, he broke it and he gave it to them saying, this is my body which is given for you. Do this and remember to me. He said, in like manner he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the New Testament or covenant ratified in my blood which is shed and poured out for you. The hand of Him who is now engaged in betraying me is with me. Judas. And the next thing they say, now an eager contention arose among them, which of them would be considered and reputed to be the greater. Who's going to be the number two man now? And who's going to be the number one man? Who's going to be number three? Cold love. Cold love. But Jesus said, the kings of the Gentiles are deified by them. The kings are deified and exercise lordship, ruling as emperor gods over them. And those of authority over them are called benefactors and well-doers. Read in front of your King James Bible. It keeps referring to the king of England as the Lord of Heaven, as the Lord's man on the throne. Jesus didn't leave a man on the throne. He left the church to be a servant in the world today. Cold love is a horrible thing. Cold love. Do you have to ask your husband if he loves you? Do you have to ask your wife if she loves you? If you do, there's something wrong in that marriage. And then they look at you like an egg-sucking dog and don't want to tell you that they don't love you. They're just there for the ride. Love does things. Love covers a multitude of sins. Let your mate know you love him. Let your children know you love them without even telling them that, but tell them that too. You can't tell them that enough. The world that we have today is selfishness. Self-centered. Stingy. Narcissistic world that we live in. We need to be learned to be givers like our Lord and Savior was. We need to give to our family. We need to love them. Men, you need to lead your families with love. You need to lead them with love. Lead them with love. But it is not to be so with you. On the contrary, let him who is the greatest among you become as of youngest. And him who is the chief and leader as one who serves. For which is greater, he who reclines at the table, the master, or he who serves the master? It is not he who reclines at the table, but I am in your midst as one who is your servant. And you are those who remained throughout and preserved with me through all of my trials. And as my Father has appointed a kingdom and conferred it to me and on me and upon me, so do I confer on you the privilege and the decree of that kingdom. You're Peter, but upon this rock I shall be building my church and the gates of hell shall not wrestle her down." It didn't go out of existence. It didn't become so polluted in the Catholic Church, though it did. Look at the evolution of the Catholic Church in the chart. which I've shown to you many times. There were true churches all the way down to the age. I thank God for the Protestant Reformation. But there were churches that were already preaching the truth. Luther wouldn't join them. Calvin wouldn't join them. They fought them. God's churches. But yet they would always be there. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ have always been a salt to this earth. He said, you are the salt of the earth. You are the salt of the earth. Without the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ, there would be no Bible in the world today. Catholicism and Islam tried to destroy the very Word of God. Catholicism tried to destroy it because they had gone away from the Word of God. The dogma is an edict. Let's look in church history, what happened? We have infant baptism instituted. We have the church and the state united. We have a pope established in the 500's, the 6th century. We have Mariolatry. We have Enfabaptism established by law. We have indulgences. That's where you can pay to get out of jail, you know, like Monopoly. indulgences. They built that great batting over there with indulgence money. And then we have purgatory invented in the 700s. We have Satanism worship in 787 AD. We have infant communion. We have transubstantiation in 1100 AD. We have celibacy invented in 1123 AD. We have the Auricular Confession Institute in 1215. We have the Inquisition in 1231. And 1229, the Bible is forbidden. And they burned every copy of it they could find. And just remember the other side. The Catholic Church was going after those Baptists, those Anabaptists, those Arnalists, those Novatians, the Montanists, the Paterines, the Cathari, whatever they called them, the Albigenses. And that's not all. One of the first places they ever had all the writings of the New Testament was in Armenia. What's called Turkey today. The seven churches of Asia. They had the Bible there. They had all the Bible there. These people were called the Paulicians because they had all the writings of Paul. The Catholic Church chased them down. Tried to kill them. And then we have Mohammed and his bunch. trying to destroy the Word of God too. They went into the Alexandrian library in Egypt and burned everything there. It's a good thing some of the priests took off with some of the holy manuscripts and they were hit all over. If you had one page of the Bible on you, it was a death sentence. Islam and Catholicism tried to destroy the Word of God. They forbid it to be had in the original language, that is Greek and Hebrew. Erasmus shows up in the 1500s and he wants to bring the people back to the Bible, back to the Word of God which was the Greek and the Hebrew Scripture. And there's where we have the first literally Greek printed Bible. There were many handwritten texts. I'm preaching from a handwritten text that I hand wrote so many years ago. I've written all the books of the New Testament by hand. Translated them. Wrote all down, all the grammar. Commentaries, cross references. I know what those monks and scribes went through back then. Copying the Word of God. We have three manuscripts in the world today that were written or had ordered by Constantine. Codex Alexandris, Vaticanus, and Sinaiticus. Fifty manuscripts, complete Bibles. Wonderful. They discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. Before that, the oldest Bible in the Old Testament they had was the Septuagint. And there we have the Hebrews. We have a lot of witnesses of the Word of God, and yet the Word of God was so, the devil tried to destroy it through Catholicism and Islam. But it still stands today. Like I said, the Nestle Island, Texas, as close to the autographs as you're going to get, and they're what we call Christian critical scientists. They go back and try to figure out everything they can figure out. We know what family of manuscripts had little readings. I talked about the Gospel of Mark being the oldest Gospel. The Gospel of Mark was written before A.D. 70. After A.D. 70, you'll see something different in the Gospel of Mark, a little reading, a little phrase, epites gais, upon the land. When I talk about Tiberias and that land over there, because it had so changed because of the wars, They hadn't thought that they had to put that epitaphs, gays, and everybody was talking about on the land and not on the sea. The word of God has your love growing cold for our Lord and Savior. God doesn't like cold love. I'm about to spew you out of my mouth. I'm about to, you make me sick. You make me about to vomit. I'd rather you be hot and boiling or cold. I can at least deal with you on either of those places. He said, you are those that remain me throughout and preserve with me in my trials. And as my father has appointed a kingdom and conferred it upon me, so do I confer it upon you, the privilege and the decree that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones and judging the 12 tribes of Israel. Now this is talking about the apostles now. They're gonna have a special place up there in the kingdom of God. We have a special place today as members of God's New Testament church. We are servants. We are servants today, but over there we shall be waited on. Your life should be the life of a servant today, not a king and master. The life of servant, serving people in the world where you live. What part of life are you in in your life? Are you in the beginning? Are you in the end of your life? Are you young? Are you old? I want to tell you something. God can use you in any stage of life and you can still be a servant. Nancy, thank you for all the comments you make on the sermons. Thank you, Donald, over there, and Nancy's in Pennsylvania. Donald's over there in Europe, in Wales. Thank you, Marna, all the way down there, in Australia, and John in Australia, and the Philippine brethren, and over there in Texas. Thank you for your comments. and your encouragement always. That's being a servant, people. I am your servant. I pray for you. Please pray for me. I need it always. We are here to be servants in this world. In our next message, we're going to find out somebody's going to be tempted real hard and he thinks he's a big shot. Yes, we are all tempted in many ways. Our Father, we send this message out to honor and glorify you as we are your servants today. Father, thank you for all the blessings you give us. Thank you for the opportunity of being a servant for you today in one of your churches. If all we can do is say amen and encourage people as we go, give what we can give and serve how we can serve, Thank all of those out there. Father, I thank you for each one of your servants that you've caused me to love. Boys in Birmingham, Alabama. Each one of those out there that give and to encourage me, thank you for those. Thank you that I am their servant. And Father, thank you for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.