So we are continuing our series of messages from the gospel according to Matthew. And this morning we find ourselves still in chapter 18 of that gospel. We'll be looking particularly just at verses 10 through 14. You should find that on page 978 of your Pew Bibles if you're using those to follow along. And as always, I encourage you to have the word of God open before you as we not only read it, but as we work through it. And so if you're able, would you stand with me for the reading of God's authoritative, inerrant, inspired word? Jesus says, 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. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, Does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. This is God's word. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Please be seated. So as we looked at the passage last week, we saw Jesus dealing with this desire on the disciples' part to be great in the kingdom of heaven. Who is gonna be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Let it be me. In dealing with that, Jesus took a little child, brought that child among them, and told them that they too must turn. They must become like little children Remember, he said, or you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, they need to not become childlike, not act like little kids, but they need to make themselves of no status, no rank, no authority at all. They need to not desire greatness. They need to desire humility instead. He told them that whoever receives or welcomes one who has become like this child has actually received him. But on the other hand, if anyone were to cause one of these little ones to stumble, to stop trusting in Jesus, he says it would have been better for you if instead of that, you had had a heavy millstone hung around your neck and you had been thrown in the deepest part of the ocean and drowned. And then once again, he warned his disciples of the essential need. to cut off, to cast off anything at all in their hearts and lives that would lead them or us or others into sin so that we might end up being cast into eternal fire. He said, it is necessary that stumbling blocks come, but woe to the one by whom they come because you will be responsible for the stumbling blocks you place in the paths of others. Now last week I said that certainly the fallen world around us clearly attempts to cause Christ's little ones to stumble all the time. There is no doubt about that, and we see that just so clear in our culture and day today. But it's also true, and I pointed this out, that even professing Christians may also cause little ones of Christ to stumble as well by not welcoming them, not receiving them as he's commanded us to do, by being discouraging toward them, by disregarding them, by disrespecting them. by being unfairly critical toward them, by not forgiving them when it is appropriate and required to do that, and perhaps even by not providing pastoral care for these people when they so desperately need it, but instead overlooking them. I finished the message last week by saying that we, all of us, all Christians, we need to be ready to see how and when we might be the ones who are guilty of this toward other little ones in the kingdom. And that we need to be ready at all times to go and pursue those people that we've caused to stumble and to seek them out and to seek to restore them both to us and to Christ. Again, where Jesus says we may never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now I may have left the impression last week with some that I was beginning to sound a bit more like sort of works righteousness that also getting into the kingdom is based on how well we do and whether we put stumbling blocks in front of people. And of course I don't intend to do that at all. That's not the teaching of scripture. We always have to keep the entire context of Scripture in mind. We know from Scripture that anyone who is truly redeemed, born again by the Spirit of God can never lose their salvation, can never finally and fully fall away. That's what Jesus promised, right? I will give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one can snatch them out of my hand. We also know that for those who wonder that no person who is truly trusted in Christ can ever fully and finally wander away from Him and be lost. That person will be drawn by the Spirit in one way or another back to faith and restoration. It may be months, it may be years, but God will bring His people with Him. And so I don't intend to leave that impression. But we also have to keep in mind that the Bible strongly warns us not to presume upon our salvation. That we're not to just assume that we're saved and that we don't worry about whether we act or look like we're saved or not. We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We're to actually look. Works do not save us, but works are the means by which God demonstrates that our faith is genuine and true. And if the works aren't present, James says, then our faith is dead. We aren't in faith at all. And so it's always that tension of constantly looking to make sure that we are in the faith and looking to see if those fruits of the Spirit are evident. We'll talk a bit more about that later. The point is that There may have been some who thought, well, wow, maybe he's pushing that a little strong. But again, remember, Jesus said that. And so what I want to focus on today as we look at this text before us is that what Jesus is doing here is expanding now on this teaching that he's been giving in those earlier verses in chapter 18. And as he expands on this, we need to remember that this chapter, this teaching discourse, is focused on how we, as people who are part of the kingdom of heaven, are to treat and relate to others, all others who are part of that kingdom of heaven, to one another in the community of faith, in the body of Christ. So we're going to look at this text, and even though it's brief, we're going to look at it in three parts. And the first one is going to be another, a second warning not to offend any of these little ones, which we find in verse 10. The second point we will look at is a shepherd's care for wandering sheep, which you see in verses 12 and 13. And then finally, we will look at the father's will for these little ones, which we find in verse 14. By the way, if you're paying attention, you may have noticed that I talked about verse 10 and verse 12 and 13 and verse 14, but not verse 11. If you have the ESV in front of you, you'll notice there is no verse 11 there. It goes from 10 to 12, 13 and 14. And that's because verse 11 is the one that says something along the lines of, for the son of man came to seek those who were lost. And the truth is that none of the earliest manuscripts have that line in Matthew. in this place. It seems that a copyist, having seen that line in Luke, thought it fit really well here and just copied it over and added it in to sort of, in his view, complete the text. It doesn't change anything at all about the meaning or application of the text, but just understand that's why you see that sort of discrepancy in the numbering of the verses. So we start with another warning not to offend one of these little ones. And as we look at the text for today, we see it's really clear that this text is really closely tied to those first nine verses. And the first way we see that is this continuing focus on these little ones that Jesus had in those first nine verses. And again, just by way of reminder, these little ones are not little physical children. These little ones are those who have appropriately come in a very humble spirit as part of the kingdom of heaven and are not seeking status and power and glory or anything else like that, who are humble like the child is, no status, no desire for glory, just glad to be part of the kingdom. And so these little ones is a continuing focus in both of these passages, those people who are appropriately humble members of the community of faith, of the kingdom of heaven. But there's also another way that we can see this tight connection with those first nine verses, and that is in the warning Jesus issues in verse 10. Notice in verse 10, see that you do not despise one of these little ones. Now, again, we've talked about the one of these little ones, but how does the rest of that warning connect back? Well, notice that If you think about it, to despise a little one is exactly the opposite, as I pointed out last week, to welcoming or receiving them, to caring for them, and to respecting and regarding them as necessary and vital and important. And so this warning that Jesus issues here is part of that connection. we are to welcome and receive little ones in the kingdom, not despise them. The word that's translated here in the ESV as despise is actually a word that we might say sort of means to look down on someone. But actually the way it is more directly translated, it's more like thinking down on someone. You understand the difference? The reason we look down on someone is because in our thinking, we don't see them as worthy of looking up to, right? Our thoughts are already looking down. That's what leads to us looking down on them. And that's really the idea in this word. It means to disregard somebody. It means to disparage them, to pay no attention to them at all, to care nothing for or about them. Jesus says, see to it, make sure that you do not think or act in that way toward the little ones in the kingdom of heaven. Now the difficulty with that is that if we're honest, and most of us don't really like to be honest about these kinds of things, but if we're honest, I would say that we're probably all guilty of that at one point or another in the church, aren't we? Have we not all run across somebody in the church that when we ran into them, they just rubbed us the wrong way and we just didn't particularly like that person and we just as soon they kind of get away and stay away, right? Have we not actually sometimes told other people, what's that person? You know, they really are not helpful. They're not going to be good for you. We all, to one degree or another, have these kinds of responses toward each other in the kingdom. Why is that? Well, we're fallen people. We're sinful people. We're not perfected yet. But Jesus is telling us here that this is not a minor thing. This isn't something you can just kind of say, oh, well, it's just the way things are, just can't help it. You are not to despise one of the little ones. That's what Jesus says here. By his command, this should not be the way things are in his kingdom. But why is it so important? Remember, something that's emphasized the second time is really stressing importance. So when we get a second warning about this, We're supposed to take this really serious. Why is it so important? Well, Jesus explains why. And if you think about it, he does so in a very serious way. Notice what he says, for I tell you. The word for, by the way, remember, means this is why I just told you that. Here's the explanation. For I tell you in that strong testimony kind of language, I'm telling you an absolute truth you need to listen to. For I tell you that their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. Now, the mention of their angels here in this verse has led to a lot of ink being spilled and a lot of thought being carried out on what that really means. And it has led many in the church over the centuries to conclude that God has actually sort of assigned a specific personal individual guardian angel to each and every one of his people. You might imagine with what we've gone through this week that that question had a little more pertinence to me than it ordinarily might have. And yet, as we look at scripture, there is no clear teaching in scripture that God has done anything like that. Now, that doesn't mean it isn't true. It simply means that if it is true, God hasn't told us specifically that that's what he's done. We do see places where God assigns specific angels to go and instruct or inform certain people like Daniel or the Apostle John or the Apostle Paul about certain things. And in fact, when you look at Daniel's book, it's been a long time since we preached through that, but when you look at Daniel's book, you find that there actually seem to be specific angels assigned to specific nations, the prince of Persia and your prince and so on. And yet, search as deeply as you will, you won't find anything closer than these two words, they're angels, to suggest that God has actually assigned specific personal guardian angels to each of his people. Now, I want you to understand that that in no way minimizes the divine care that is being stressed here in this verse. Hebrews 1, verse 14. In verse 13 of Hebrews 1, the author of Hebrews begins to mention the angels in connection with his discussions about Christ and his purposes. And when he mentions the angels, he goes on in verse 14 and he says, are they, angels in general, are they not all, every one of them, ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? You hear what the author is saying, right? He's saying that every angel that exists, exists for a purpose. And that purpose is to be sent out and serve and minister to the people to whom God is giving salvation. In other words, even though these angels belong to God and to Christ, there's a sense in which they're our angels. They're our angels ministering and serving for our sake. And the fact that they're angels, as Jesus says, always see the face of my father. What that means is that those angels in heaven have open, constant, unlimited access to God's presence. Notice the double stress in this verse on in heaven. He wants you to understand this is where all things are controlled from. This is where God resides. This is where everything is done right and righteously. But also notice that the father there is my father in heaven, Jesus says. And the point here is that each and every one of those little ones in the kingdom of heaven matters greatly, enormously to God. That's why he has those angels constantly in his presence, so that he can dispatch them to take care of whatever need those little ones may have. See, there's a sense in which when we look to a passage like this and try to find a basis for something like a concept of personal guardian angels, we kind of miss the real focus of the passage. The real focus here isn't on the significance of the angel's attention to these believers or to us. The focus of this passage is on God's interest in and care for his people that he has the angels constantly before him ready to do his bidding at a minute's notice. for his people. So we have this warning then that we are not to despise the little ones in the kingdom of heaven. We go on then in verses 12 and 13 to this shepherd's care for wandering sheep. So Jesus is not here moving on to a new topic. What he's actually doing here is he's taking the point he's just made and he is making it even stronger. This idea that God cares deeply, intently for these little ones who belong to him, he's emphasizing that now even stronger by giving his disciples a brief parable to help illustrate that. There's almost a sense in which Jesus might be saying to them, you guys seem to be interested in getting answers to important questions, right? You just asked me an important question. Who's going to be the greatest one in the kingdom of heaven? Let me ask you one. And then he goes to verses 12 and 13. And his question is, what do you think? What do you think about this truth that I'm gonna mention to you? That if a man has a hundred sheep and one of them, just one of those hundred, wanders off and goes astray, doesn't that man leave all the other 99 there on the mountain? And doesn't he go and look for that one single sheep that's missing? Now Jesus is content in this parable, at least initially, to make this parable just about a generic earthly shepherd. His point really to the disciples is you all seen shepherds, you all know how this works, you know what I'm telling you is the truth. If a shepherd has these hundred sheep and this one wanders off, this is what he's gonna do. Now granted, this shepherd that Jesus is referring to here on the basis of what he tells us in John chapter 10 about shepherds, This shepherd is the one who actually owns these sheep. Because remember, in John 10, Jesus says, the one who's just a hireling doesn't care at all about the sheep. If a wolf or something threatens them, he runs the other way. He couldn't care less about the sheep. But the owner, the one who owns these sheep, will defend them. And so we see and understand that this shepherd Jesus is talking about in this parable is the one who truly owns these 100 sheep. and he cares about them. He has genuine concern for his sheep so that if even one of them wanders off and wanders away from his earthly protection, from the fold where he would keep them, from the safety and care that he would provide for it, what would that shepherd do? The point is that every single sheep is vitally important to the shepherd. It isn't enough to say, well, I still have 99. That's pretty good odds. I guess we lose one. We'll just have to make that up next spring whenever they have more lambs. Every sheep is important to him and he will leave the 99. Now again, we understand the care of the shepherd. He's not just leaving them all to wander off in the wilderness. He's leaving them in a fold or in the safe care of another shepherd while he goes off, but he will leave them and he will go out and search for that straying, wandering sheep until he finds it. That in itself shows us the tremendous compassion that this shepherd has for each of his sheep. But notice that's not all that Jesus tells us about this shepherd. Notice the response of the shepherd when he finds the lost sheep. He doesn't simply get the sheep and take his staff and sort of boot it along on the tail and shuffle it back into the fold and say, now, don't run off anymore. I don't want to have to chase you all over the dark mountains anymore, and slam the door shut behind him. He doesn't even, when he finds that sheep, just put him in and decided, well, at least I got that job done. It was miserable, and now I can finally get back to doing what's more important. He doesn't even simply just take basic satisfaction in having found the sheep. What does Jesus tell us he does? He rejoices over it. He's excited. He is thrilled that he has found this sheep and brought it back to the fold and restored it to the safety and protection and care of the fold. In fact, Jesus tells us that he rejoices more over that one sheep that had strayed and was found than he does over all the other 99 who never strayed. Now we have to be a little careful again how we understand what Jesus is saying here. He is not saying that the shepherd cared so much more for that one sheep and doesn't really care nearly as much for the rest of them. It's not that that one sheep is the more value to him. The point is that those 99 were never in any danger. They were safe and secure all the time. It was this one who had wandered off and was desperately in danger and under threat. And the shepherd could not be satisfied until he went out and found that sheep and brought it back. And when he did, his heart rejoiced over the fact that this sheep was not lost or in danger or dead, but was in fact safe and secure. What do you think? Jesus asked them. What do you think about that? In other words, you know this is true of even merely earthly shepherds and the sheep that they own. Now is Jesus only talking about shepherds and sheep? Well, no, he's just been talking about little ones and how we treat them in the kingdom of heaven. So we're led to wonder then who is this caring shepherd and who are these sheep? And so Jesus answers that question for his disciples and for us in verse 14, when he talks to us about the Father's will for these little ones. See, at this point, when he reaches verse 14, Jesus says now, essentially what he says is, in the same way as it is for these merely earthly shepherds, for whom every single one of their sheep is so vitally important to them that they can't rest until the one who strays away is found and safely restored to the flock, In the very same way, that's what that word so means, exactly like that. But notice he puts it in the negative. So in the same way, it is not the will of my father in heaven that even one of these little ones should perish. The father sees none of his little ones in the kingdom as dispensable. He wants not a single one of them to perish. And notice how Jesus has been talking about sheep, but as he brings this up in verse 14, he transitions from talking about sheep to the little ones again. He's making sure we understand, I'm not talking about sheep. I'm talking about those little ones. I've warned you twice now, not to despise and that you're to welcome and receive. His father in heaven, It is his will that not a single one of them should perish, should finally, fully turn away and stray away from trust and faith in Christ, and as a result of that, be one who would perish eternally. You see, in Jesus' parable, God, the Father, is the caring and dedicated shepherd. Now, the disciples would have recognized this right away. Because this presentation of himself as a shepherd is a favorite way in which God chooses to represent himself in the Old Testament scriptures. Think about Psalm 23. Who is it that is my shepherd? It is the Lord who is my shepherd. Psalm 80 verse 1 talks about God as the shepherd of Israel or Jacob. Psalm 78 verses 52 and 53 talk about God's shepherding of his people as he brought them out of Egypt and through the Red Sea and to safety. Isaiah chapter 40 verse 11, listen to how God describes himself through the prophet. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. There's the heart of a good shepherd. That's God. That's how he presents himself in the Old Testament scriptures. But another passage is really, really clear. God goes into deep detail in Ezekiel chapter 34. And I put portions of that in the inside of your bulletins here so that you can kind of just scan over that and see the ways in which God describes himself as a shepherd and the people, his people, as the sheep that he cares for so deeply, so passionately. Notice that in those passages, if you were to read that chapter, God actually castigates the wicked shepherds, the leaders who have not been caring for the sheep, who have been mistreating them, not welcoming and receiving, but despising them. When you think about the comparison to what Jesus is saying here. He castigates them for And in verse four, he makes this specific accusation against them. Listen to how close this is to what Jesus is talking about. The strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought. You see, that's the point Jesus is making. You don't despise people and drive them away and just leave them out there to wander and be lost and perish. A shepherd cares for everyone of his sheep. And then in verse 11 in chapter 34 of Ezekiel, God says this about himself, for thus says the Lord God, behold, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. God declares that he will be the shepherd to replace those wicked shepherds that are not doing the job he has given to them. So in other words then in this parable that Jesus gives, God is this caring shepherd And the 100 sheep, again, think about numbers in scripture, 10 is the number of perfection and fulfillment and 10 times 10 is 100, so 100 is like Completion, it's all of God's little ones in the kingdom. That's what the hundred sheep refer to here, is all of the little ones who belong to God, those who are truly trusting in Him, who are trusting in Christ, those who are appropriately humble and are not seeking after personal glory and status and authority over others. In other words, those who are really part of the community of believers. Now the one that strays or wanders off If we're following Jesus' teaching in this passage, then it has to be the one that has been caused to stumble by someone. One who has been caused to turn away from trust in the shepherd and decided to wander off on its own and seek its own safety and protection and provision. In other words, this single sheep who has wandered off is one of those who, instead of being welcomed, has perhaps been discouraged, disregarded, despised, not cared for, not forgiven, any one of these things. But again, the key point here in all of this is that every single one of these little ones in the kingdom of heaven is vitally important to the Father, and the Father's will must be done on earth as it is in heaven, and in fact, the Father's will is that none of them, not even a single one, should perish. So God is the shepherd. And yet, I would argue that the identity of this shepherd isn't really yet fully revealed when we say that. Remember what Jesus has told his disciples about the mission that God has sent him on when he came into this world? I am to come to seek and save who? The lost sheep of the house of Israel. Doesn't that sound like what God's job was as shepherd in Ezekiel 34? I will go out and seek my sheep and find them and bring them back. And yet Jesus comes saying, I've been sent to go find the sheep and bring them back. And in fact, if you look a little further in Ezekiel 34 in verse 16, God, in fact, promises that he is going to be the one who will seek and bring back the strayed. But then in verse 23, he makes another promise. I will set up over them one shepherd. That shepherd will be my servant, David, and he will feed and care for them as one flock. See, the only problem with that though is that David reigned over Israel, I don't know, I'm not good at history, but something like four or 500 years before Ezekiel was ministering as a prophet. David wasn't coming back to be established as a shepherd over God's people. And so what is God talking about? Well, remember the promise God made to David. from your own body, I will raise up one of your descendants, one of your sons who will sit on your throne forever. And he will not only be your son, he will be my son. And he will establish righteousness and care for my people. Who is this shepherd that God is supposed to be in Ezekiel 34? It's David's son who is also God's beloved son. It's none other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And that's why you find in John chapter 10, Jesus making that great announcement, I am who? The good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me and they follow me. And I will be the shepherd who will willingly lay down my life for my sheep. Now, a little later in that same 10th chapter of John, the Jewish leaders are upset with Jesus. They don't like the words he's speaking. They don't like what he's saying. And they demand that he plainly tell them, are you the Christ? Tell us plainly. And Jesus essentially says to them, I've already told you. The problem is you don't hear me because you're not one of my sheep. Because my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me, and they know me, and I know them. And you don't, so guess what that means? You're not one of my sheep. But then he goes on to say something else. Listen to how he puts this. I give them eternal life. Remember the warnings about eternal hellfire? I give them eternal life and they will never perish. What's the will of the Father about any of the little ones? That they not perish. Jesus is gonna give them instead eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. Christ's hand, the Father's hand, double clutch. You're as safe and secure as you can possibly be. Nobody can take you out of either one of those, let alone both. But listen to the line Jesus closes that passage with. I and the Father are one. Now at that point, the Jewish leaders started picking up stones. You know why? Because they realized Jesus was saying, I'm God. Just like the Father is, and they were going to kill him for it. Blasphemy in their minds. But you see, when we look at that in this context of shepherds caring for the sheep, what we understand is what Jesus is saying is, yes, God the Father is the shepherd of Israel, of his people, but guess who else is? Jesus the Messiah, who is also God. God incarnate. God come in the flesh. Both together are the shepherd of the sheep, of all those little ones who belong to the kingdom of heaven. So how does that all tie together then? Well, don't let yourself forget that this chapter, this teaching discourse by Jesus is focused on teaching his people how we're to relate to one another within the community of believers, within the kingdom of heaven, within the body of Christ. In answering the disciples' question about who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he's made it clear that we are not to be self-centered, that we're not to be seeking authority and status and power over each other. Instead, we're to become like those who have no status, no authority, like little ones, like little children, like sheep. And we are to be people who welcome all of those who truly seek to follow Christ in that humble way. We're never to offend them, we're never to cause them to sin or stumble, to even have a chance at losing their trust in Christ. I want to point out one more small, not discrepancy, but difference between the passage last week and the one this week. In verses eight and nine that we closed last week with, that's where those harsh warnings came from Christ, right? Make sure you cut off your hand or your foot or your eye and get rid of them rather than spend eternity in hellfire. It's interesting that in those passages, the yous that you find in there are singular. Jesus is talking to individual believers in those two verses, warning us as individual believers to deal with the sin that's in our lives and not allow it to fester, to not allow anything to get in the way of faithfulness and obedience and so on to him. But when he transitions into verse 10, and he says, but I tell you, truly I tell you, That you is not singular anymore. That you is now plural. Jesus is now not just talking to individuals within the body of Christ. He's talking to the body of Christ. He's talking to us as the corporate body of Christ. I truly tell you, all of you, you are not to despise one of these little ones. Why? Why is that so important? Because every single one of those little ones is vitally important to the Father and Son, to the Father and to Jesus Christ. And we, Jesus is saying, we are not willing that any of them should perish, ever. How is it that Jesus would be able to keep all of those sheep from perishing? How precious are they really to him? Well, for that, I want to point you back to our response of reading. Remember Philippians chapter two and verses one through 11? I want to just take a minute to just sort of scan through this passage with you, but I want to do it showing you how it is connected to the text that we're looking at today. This teaching of Jesus in chapter 18. You see, in this passage, Paul shows us that as always, Christ is the prime and the perfect example of what he's calling us to do in this teaching that he's providing. Look at that passage again. He starts out, if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, what he's really saying there is if you really are truly Christians, if you really truly have been born again by the Holy Spirit, and you really are these little ones in the kingdom of heaven, fulfill my joy, how? He talks about being of the same mind, being the same love, having one mind, full accord. But notice what he says next. Think about the disciples' question to Jesus. Who's greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Notice what Paul says. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. Jesus says, instead of doing that, turn and become like a little child, no status, no authority. And what does Paul say? But in humility, count others more significant than yourself. Do you hear that? You're not supposed to be worried about whether you're going to be the greatest or not. You're supposed to be thinking they are. Let each of you look not only to his own interests. We have to look out for our interests. I mean, we're called to provide for ourselves and to provide for our families and so on. But look out not only for your own interests, but also for the interests of others. You care for the little ones in the kingdom of heaven. How do you do this? He says, have this mind, remember that one mind he talked about? Have this mind among yourself, and this mind is yours where? In Christ Jesus. We have it because we're united to Christ. By his spirit, we are being transformed into his image. We're being given his mind, his mindset, his attitude, his character. What is the character of Christ, though? He was in the form of God. He truly was God himself, the second person of the Trinity, with all the glory and majesty that is associated with that. And yet, what was his response to that? He didn't think he had to hang on to that and flash that glory around in front of everybody all the time. Instead, he realized something else needed to be done. Why? Because he cared for all the little ones in the kingdom of heaven. And so, Paul tells us, he emptied himself. Again, we don't have time to go into this, but emptied himself doesn't mean that he stopped being God. It doesn't mean he put away any of his divine attributes. God cannot stop being God. It's impossible. He didn't, notice he didn't empty himself by taking anything away, he emptied himself by adding something, as odd as that sounds. He added to himself our human nature, our human body. In other words, he emptied himself by becoming us. God in all of his glory, humbles himself to become the creature that he's made. What does Jesus say to them? Don't seek greatness, but become like this little child. Who's setting the example? Christ is. Clearly Christ is setting the example. He doesn't see that as something hanging. And in fact, remember Mark or Luke talked about how whoever wants to be greatest in the kingdom needs to be last of all and the servant of all. And so what does Jesus take to himself? The form of a servant, a servant. being born in the likeness of men, and that wasn't enough humiliation for him. That wasn't enough being humbled, being found in human form. He went on then to humble himself even more by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death under God's curse for his people, death on a cross. He died as a common criminal. One full and saturated with sin, even though there was no sin in Him, so that He could care for the little ones that the Father had given to Him. And it is on the basis of that willingness to put aside the glory and humble himself that the Father then highly exalts him and gives him the name above every name so that the name of Jesus, every knee on heaven, on earth, and under the earth, every knee is gonna bow before him and acknowledge that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Do you see how that passage connects directly to what Jesus is teaching here? He is the example. And in that passage, what Paul is saying is you're to have that same mind. You're to imitate Christ. You're to be like him. Jesus is telling his disciples the same thing here. You need to be willing to humble yourselves and serve the others in the kingdom of heaven. How precious are they to him? He humbled himself even to the point of death, even death on a cross. That's how much they matter to him. How much do they matter to you? Because every one of those little ones in the kingdom is one for whom Christ died. Do you want to despise one for whom Christ died? This hymn that Paul presents to us in Philippians is called the Carmen Christi, the hymn of Christ. It is such a beautiful picture of what he's done for us and what he calls us to do in him for each other. May he be blessed forever as we consider that. But we're gonna see, Lord willing, next week how Jesus now takes all of this teaching he's brought so far and now takes it and applies to the lives of individual and corporate believers in their relationships with one another in the next set of verses we'll look as we move to the end of chapter 18. Let's take time to pray. Father, we come to you and how thankful we are for the goodness and grace that you have shown to us in Christ. Hallelujah, what a savior who can take a poor lost sinner, lift him from the miry clay and set him free and what he's done for us. What a wonderful shepherd who would pursue us out into the wastelands of this fallen world in which we live and would not be satisfied until he secured our safety and security by sacrificing himself for us. Pray that you would take that example of Christ in this beautiful hymn in Philippians and that you would Lead us to meditate on that example and connect it with this teaching of Christ in chapter 18 of Matthew and help us to be able to see what you're calling us to, what Christ is calling us to do and to be. Not on our own power because it's impossible, but in the power of your word and your spirit as we seek to be obedient to you and humble ourselves. We pray that we could see that coming about in our lives individually and corporately here as the body of Christ. We ask it in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.