And please turn in your copies of God's Word to Luke chapter 9. And here we are getting towards the end of chapter 9, but not quite there. We will read chapter 9, verses 46 to 50. This is God's Word. An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side and said to them, whoever receives this child in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great. John answered, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us. But Jesus said to him, do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you. So ends the reading of God's word. Let us pray. Dear Lord, we ask that you would, through your word, grant us great understanding of how you desire us to live as your disciples, and that through the preached word, your spirit would work, putting to death the things that you abhor and bringing to life those things that delight you and you call us to. So we pray you would do this by your word and by your spirit. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, what does it mean to be great? What is greatness? And how do we attain it? Each and every one of us, in our own way, desires to be really good at something, to be great at that thing. Maybe you want to be known as a great cook, or a great gardener, or maybe a great football player, or some other sport. Whether it's in our jobs or it's in our hobbies, we all try to improve ourselves and improve what we do so that we can be great at that thing. And that's not a wrong desire. We should strive for greatness and for excellence in the things that we do. After all, as Paul reminds us, we're to do all things to the glory of God. And so whether it's in our work or in our play, we want to give God our best. So it's not wrong to desire greatness and excellence before the Lord. The problem, however, appears when we are not satisfied with being good at something. We're not satisfied even with being great at something. And what we really want, instead of good, is better than. And instead of great, is greater than. It's not enough for us to attain a high level of personal skill. No, what we want is to be considered better than other people. And we don't simply want to be known as a good cook. We want to be thought of as the better cook. And so we place everyone in a hierarchy with ourselves on the top. That's how the world measures greatness and how it seeks after greatness through comparing self with others and pushing others down and stepping over them in order to place ourselves on the top. And it seems as though this worldly way of thinking and measuring greatness has infected our 12 disciples. For we find them in our passage arguing. And they're not arguing over who gets to be the next disciple to wash everybody's feet after a long journey. They're not even arguing in the sense of a robust discussion over some theological point of doctrine. No, quite the opposite. They're arguing over which of them is the best, the greatest, who is number one, after Jesus, of course. And this comes only a week after Jesus teaching them that his disciples must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him daily. But here, they're doing the very opposite. Instead of denying self, each one is placing themselves on a pedestal as the best, as the greatest, each one comparing and each one coming out on top. Last week we entered into a series of passages that really serve to highlight the immaturity of the disciples at this time. And that's actually a good thing. It's a good thing that when the Bible presents to us figures from the past, figures from redemptive history, that it does so by showing us these figures, warts and all, with all of their flaws and with all of their failings. It doesn't whitewash over everything or sugarcoat anything. And that's helpful for a number of reasons. It's helpful because it reminds us that we don't come to church to hear stories about David or Elijah or Abraham or even the Apostle Peter. No, we come to church to hear about one hero, the Lord Jesus Christ, our sinless Savior. Well, it's also helpful because in the immaturity of our disciples, we see We look into a mirror and we see our own immaturity. We see in their pride mirrored our own pride that we have in each of our hearts. And as we see Jesus patiently instruct their hearts, also we're reminded not only do we share in their weakness and their sin, but we also share in their Savior. They and we have a Savior who bears patiently with His people, who instructs and shapes our hearts. And through Jesus' patience with them and through His own humility and through what He has done for us in becoming a servant and dying on the cross for our sins and being raised again, in that He has both accomplished our salvation and given us the pattern of what true greatness looks like in the kingdom of heaven. Let us then humbly consider this passage under the following headings. First, we see the problem of pride. Second, the pattern of Christ. And third, the promotion of unity. Well, first we see the problem of pride. The passage opens with Luke telling us that an argument broke out among the disciples. Now, if you've ever been on maybe a long camping trip or, I mean, even in the workplace, if you spend a lot of time with people, you tend to rub against one another and there's tensions and there's kind of petty squabbles that can happen here and there. Luke tells us here of the nature of their arguments. It's not simply that Peter borrowed John's toothbrush or something like that. No, their quarreling is quite troubling. They were arguing and disputing among themselves over which one is the greatest. Here are these 12 grown men, men who have walked with God incarnate and been taught by him for months and years. And here they are bickering like children on a playground over who's the best. Now we don't know. how the argument started, but it's hard not to think of potential reasons. Within the 12, Jesus seems to have an inner circle of three, Peter, James, and John. And this squabbling happens right after the transfiguration where Jesus took with him only those three disciples, Peter, James, and John, up the mountain. Only they got to see Jesus transfigured and hear Moses and Elijah and hear the voice of God and experience all of that. So that surely is a factor. It probably didn't help things either when after they came back down the mountain, the three plus Jesus, that they found the other nine at the bottom of the mountain, unable to cast out a demon from the young child. So it's not hard to imagine that there was a bit of jealousy among those who didn't get to go up the mountain and who couldn't cast out the demon. And not only that, but a bit of pride in those who were able to experience those things. We three, we got to go up the mountain. We have kind of private prayer times with Jesus. Do you guys have that? Well, certainly, at least among the three of us, it's one of us has to be the greatest of the 12. So with all of that in the background, they're all bickering and arguing. They know that Jesus has come, and he's the glorious figure from Daniel 7, and he's about to bring in his glorious kingdom, and surely he's got cabinet positions to fill within his kingdom. Someone's got to be the VP. Someone's got to be the, in Ireland, minister for finance or defense. Here, secretary for finance. He's got to fill those positions. Who will it be? It wasn't enough for the disciples to have the glorious privilege of being chosen by Christ and called to follow him and to serve him and to serve other believers. No, what they wanted was to be better than others. And so they competed with one another. Isn't that so often the case? It's worse than simply keeping up with the Joneses. We don't want to keep up with them. We want to better them. We want to go a step up with the vehicle they own, the curb appeal they own, whatever the case may be. We see that here with these disciples, with each one elevating self above the rest. They were tearing each other apart. That's what pride does. Augustine called pride the mother of all sins. Now it's not nice to compare pride to mothers, but his point being that pride is something that gives birth to many other sins. And we see that here with the disciples in the consequences of their pride. Can you consider some of the consequences? One very clear consequence of their pride is that it has led to quarreling and disunity. They're fighting each other because of their pride. These men who have experienced such incredible things, they've gone through storms, they thought they were going to die on many occasions, they've casted out demons together, they've gone out on mission trips, and here they are at each other's throats. It's no coincidence that the same word that Luke uses here for dispute, the dispute that the disciples had, is the same word Paul uses when he speaks of the church in Philippi who struggled with pride and a lack of humility. Pride causes disputes in families, in churches, in the workplace. Well, another consequence of their pride is spiritual forgetfulness. Again, recall, This quarrel takes place only a week after that Jesus told them that you could gain the whole world and lose your own soul in the process and it would get you nothing. Don't be so wowed and amazed and awed by the success and the status and the praise of the world. Forget about all of that and just pick up your cross and follow me. And here they are, instead of picking up their cross, they're picking up their pedestal and they're placing themselves on top of it. as they're taking for themselves the glory that belongs only to the Lord. So they're spiritually forgetful of what they have been taught. Another consequence of their pride is spiritual blindness. Spiritual blindness. Pride causes us to be spiritually blind. In the last passage, you might remember, Jesus was teaching them how he was going to have to suffer and die and that the road to glory is one that's marked by suffering, not by prestigious titles and status and offices and positions. But the disciples didn't understand what Jesus was talking about. And on top of that, they were too afraid to ask for clarification. Well, this passage and the one that follows would indicate that their reason for not asking for clarification was because of their pride. And this certainly fits, doesn't it, with what we've been thinking about in our Proverbs sermons. Humility is not being in the position where you know it all and you don't need any help. No, humility is saying, yes, I lack the very thing which God freely gives, and therefore I need help. Pride says, I have it all figured out. Or at least I want others to think I have it all figured out. So I'm not going to ask for help. I'm not going to ask for guidance or clarification. And thus, such a person remains spiritually blind, spiritually ignorant, as the disciples are here. And at the root of all of this is pride. It was pride that led Satan to fall from glory in heaven. It was pride that caused Adam and Eve, our first parents, to lose the glory that God had held out to them in the covenant of works. And it is pride that continues to affect the human heart. It is pride that continues to affect and infect every single one of our hearts, even as believers. We continue to struggle with pride. And we see pride, don't we? Manifests itself in all different ways. That feeling you get where you're jealous at the accomplishments of others instead of congratulations and celebratory for them. Pride manifests itself when we sorrow, when others do better than us, but we rejoice when someone falls or when they are shown up in their weakness. And pride can be sneaky, can't it? Pride can be, oh yeah, that's a proud person, you know, coming out boasting and boasting and it's all explicit. But pride can also come in the garb and camouflage of humility. Listen to what Ryle says. Of all sins, there is none against which we have such need to watch and pray as pride. No sin is so deeply rooted in our nature. Pride cleaves to us like our skin. Its roots never entirely die. They are ready at any moment to spring up and exhibit a most pernicious vitality. No sin is so senseless and deceitful. It can wear the garb of humility itself. Pride can lurk in the hearts of the ignorant, the vile, and the poor, as well as in the minds of the great, the learned, and the rich. Pride is the problem, as we see not only for the disciples then, but it is a problem for Christ's disciples even today. It continues to lurk. in the dark recesses of the heart. And for that reason, beloved, you must watch and pray. You must put pride to death, and you must look to the pattern of Christ. That's the second thing we see. First, there's the problem of pride. Secondly, we see the pattern of Christ. Well, Jesus, who is so wise, knows exactly what's going on here. He sees the disciples arguing. He knows that the real problem is taking place at the level of their hearts. As Luke tells us, Jesus knew the reasoning of their hearts. That's an important point. All sin, no matter what it is, flows from our hearts. The reason that the disciples are fighting like children is because in their hearts they are elevating themselves. It's not that Jesus sees them bickering and he's like, oh, I knew I shouldn't have taken the three, I should have taken them all, I've made a mess of this. No, that wasn't the problem. Circumstances are not the cause of this bickering. The cause of this bickering, as Jesus knows, is because in their hearts they are proud. Well, rather than ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away, or rather than simply dealing with the externals of, you know, be quiet guys, knock it off. No, Jesus instead takes time to patiently address and train the issues of his disciples' hearts. And he does so by giving them an object lesson. Jesus here does something that doesn't look strange to us, but would have appeared very strange for its time. He takes a child and places that child next to him. Perhaps it was even the child that he had just restored to health. And then he says, whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great. We need to understand the cultural context behind how children were viewed in the ancient world. Children in the ancient world held a very low place of social status, both in society, even in the home. Today in the West, and especially I think in America, the home tends to revolve around the child. In most homes, the entire family schedule revolves around the child's activities. All the three different sports they're involved in, the three different instruments they play, their play dates, their sleep schedules. We need to realize that that isn't a moral comment on whether that's right or wrong. But we need to realize that that is a very modern conception and phenomenon. Not only that, but we see it on a national level, where children are taken out of school and they're asked their opinions, and they're asked to address the experts on everything from gun control to the climate, to automobile manufacturing, to fossil fuel use. All of that to say, In order to understand Jesus' teaching, we need to get our minds out of this age, as it were, and put our minds in the place of the ancient world. And in ancient Israel, as well as the rest of the Hellenistic world, children, you might be surprised, were not consulted on matters of national importance. The world didn't revolve around children. In fact, children held a very low place in society. They were really viewed in the same level as a slave. statements by rabbis that we still have today that basically said that drinking early in the morning, sleeping in bed past your alarm, and talking to a child, they're three things that will waste your time and waste your life. So that was their view on children, which wasn't great. And Jesus tells his disciples that the one who is great is one who does what Jesus just did, who receives this child in my name. And the language of receiving has to do with hospitality. Again, in the ancient world, hospitality was all tied up with honour and shame. You know, you invited people over to your house and how you treated them and who you invited was all bound up in your own personal honour and the honour of your family and that sort of thing. So typically what you wanted to do is you wanted to look for the person with the highest social status and invite them over to your house for dinner. You wanted to invite either peers or those above you, certainly not someone who's lower in the totem pole. No, that would have brought you shame and dishonor. because it's all about raising your own social status. And so if you're at work and you invite the boss over and maybe some of your colleagues, your fellow workers or managers or whatever the case may be, well, yeah, that would be helpful. But you certainly don't want to invite someone of a lower, slightly lower social rank. That would not help your image. And so what Jesus is doing is he's taking this whole social system that's obsessed with status and honor and shame and he turns it on its head and he says, don't invite those, don't receive those who are above you in social status. Don't invite those who are your peers or even those who are a smidge lower. Be willing to accept and receive those who have absolutely no status. Those who cannot give you, cannot elevate you by their presence. Those who are seen as low and nothing in the eyes of the world. Those with absolutely no social rank. Now the main point of this teaching, of course, is to strike at the pride that is in the heart of his disciples. Because what are they doing? Well, they're fighting over who is the greatest. They're fighting over who has the most honor. Who is going to be at the head of the table, or at least next to Jesus on his right side. They're competing for status, for honor, and they're failing to understand that true greatness does not come through glorying in self. They fail to understand Jesus' teaching, that to be his disciple means living for the glory of God and giving him glory, and then honoring others and treating others as more important than yourself. And this is what Jesus identifies as true greatness. Notice though that Jesus doesn't say anything about anyone being greater or greatest. No, he simply says that whoever is least is great without making any comparisons or without using any superlatives. True greatness in the eyes of God comes when we are willing to take the lowest place, when we are willing to serve others. Not for benefit because, well, if I serve in this way, I'll be seen, everyone will see me. No, that isn't it. That's missing the point completely. True greatness comes as we lower ourselves and we're willing to suffer shame. Shame for the gospel as we share it in the workplace. Perhaps the social shame of receiving someone into our homes who others might look down on. being willing to give our time and resources to help others, to bring them to greater knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. This, Jesus says, is greatness, and this is what I've called you to, the Lord says. And in doing so, We remember that we are that child in the ancient world. We are those without status, without honor, who only have shame. Outside of Christ, we are, by nature, children of wrath. We are sons of disobedience. Outside of Christ, we were statusless. We held the position of rebels. sinners and debtors to God's law and yet even while we were enemies of God not while we had kind of scraped and clawed our way back towards God or we kind of repented halfway and he came the other half no while we were running away while our hand was was high with sin God loved us and sent Christ to save us he sent his son to be of no status to save us who had the status of sinners and rebels and debtors and And then he took us, and he received us, and he placed us by his side, and he gave us a new status, calling us his sons. And as the author of Hebrews says, Christ is not ashamed of you. Christ is not ashamed now to call you his brother, his sister. The father is not ashamed to call you his son, his daughter. And so since we have been received by Christ like this child, Beloved, should we not receive those who are of no status? Should we not treat others the same way? There's the problem of pride. There's the pattern of Christ. Third thing we see is the promotion of unity. Well, in verse 49, we learn that the pride of the disciples and their competition for greatness has not only brought disruption into the inner circle of the 12, but it's also spilled out into the broader Christian community. Apparently, Jesus' words struck a chord with John, and so he responds to Jesus. And really, his words are more of a challenge to Jesus' teaching. He says, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us. So John and the other disciples had come across this guy who was preaching and casting out demons in Jesus' name. And instead of encouraging him or giving him, maybe here's this helpful resource, or give me some prayer requests, instead they tried to stop him. Let that sink in. They tried to stop this man who was heralding the good news of the kingdom and casting out demons in Jesus' name. Why in the world would they do this? Well, you could understand it if they were trying to stop him because he was teaching false doctrine. But he wasn't doing that. He was operating, as John says, under Jesus' name. And in fact, the great irony of what this man is doing is he's doing what the disciples, only a passage ago, were unable to do because of their lack of faith. He is casting out demons when they have not been able to. Well, John tells us the reason why they tried to stop the man. It was because he does not follow with us. John tried to stop the man, not because he wasn't following Jesus. No, he was following Jesus. He was working in Jesus' name. John stopped him, tried to stop him, because he wasn't following us. According to John and the others, the privilege of working under Jesus' banner, the privilege of doing what we do, is confined to the 12. This man is outside of our circle, we have not received him, and therefore he is not within our circle of honor. And so in other words, what the disciples had been doing among the 12, in terms of ranking themselves, they're now doing that with other Christians. And they're saying that the 12, well, this is where it is. Jesus, elite band, and anyone else has some kind of lower status. He doesn't follow with us, well, he doesn't belong with us. John is still deaf to Jesus teaching his words. This goes against the very thing Jesus has just taught them about receiving the child. John is still thinking with such worldly terms where we compete with others for a place and a status in the kingdom. But Jesus again responds with such patience. He speaks words of instruction which are designed to promote unity, which John's pride is trying to destroy. He says, do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you. Jesus is warning his disciples, don't be guilty of friendly fire here. Don't mistake your enemy. This man is not your enemy. Now, we don't know exactly who this man was. It'd be nice to know a little bit more about him. Probably he was a man who was maybe privately commissioned by Jesus, or maybe he was a disciple of John the Baptist. We don't quite know. But what we do know is that he wasn't a false teacher. He was a brother, because Jesus says that clearly. He is for you. And Jesus teaches that we are not to compete with those who are on our team. We are not to compete with our brothers and our sisters for status. That man was casting out demons under the banner of Christ, and therefore they had no business trying to stop him. Jesus' correction of John here is so helpful for us. It's helpful for a number of reasons. First, Jesus teaches us what is the basis of our unity. Even though this man was in a different group than the disciples, They were not to stop him because they shared the same basis of unity, which is Christ. And it's important for us to remember our basis of unity. What unites us, isn't that we've all come from Carlisle or we all look the same or we have the same kinds of jobs or occupations or we're in the same kind of age bracket or something like that. No, what unites us together is our common confession of faith. It is our confession of Christ and his apostolic doctrine. It's not even that we call ourselves Christians. And by that I mean that there are many groups and cults and pseudo-Christians who call themselves Christians. It's what we mean when we say we're Christians. It's who we say Christ is, and it's how we express his apostolic doctrine. And thus, it is doctrine that unites us. Doctrine unites, doctrine unites. And if this man, Of course, had denied Christ, if he had denied Christ's teachings, well, then there's no question Jesus would have said, yeah, John, you should have stopped him. But Jesus doesn't say stop him, no, because they were united on doctrine, on the doctrine of Christ. Likewise, it is our doctrine, our shared faith that we confess that brings us together. As hard as that would be, if a member of our church suddenly denied the Trinity, we wouldn't just say, oh, well, he's a good guy or she's a good sister. We'll just kind of smooth it over. We'll just pretend it didn't happen. No, we cannot do that. They would be excluded from the faith. It is false doctrine that brings disunity. Doctrine is what unites, and where Christ has united us together in himself and on the doctrine of his apostles and prophets, we have objective unity, and thus we are to live out subjective unity that we already possess in him. Well, the second thing Jesus teaches us is then that those who are united in him and share that basis in our doctrine, we are not in competition against one another. Because of the pride of the disciples, they were competing against one another to see who was the greatest. And then when Jesus kind of put that argument to bed, well, then they kind of looked outside of their group and they tried to argue about status with this other guy. But here Jesus teaches. We're all on the same team and therefore we're not in competition with one another. We don't need to fight for status. We all share the same status in Christ and before the Lord through justification by faith alone. It's a sad reality though, and many of us know it to be true, that the Christian life often is presented that way, isn't it? It's presented as some kind of competition that we're all in. You know, sanctification and our growth and maturity is treated like a race, and we're all competing against one another to see who's the best, who's the most sanctified, who's the most mature, who parents their children the best, who abstains from the most worldly things the best, who watches the least movies, who can be most aesthetic in her lifestyle. And in that competition we come up with our own rules and of course we have our scorecards and we rank everyone and somehow we always end up on top. But it's serious and it destroys unity. And it's manifest, it's not that there isn't, not that there is, don't hear me wrong, it's not that there isn't a place to address a brother or sister who's in sin, that is the loving thing. But far too often our hearts delight in judging others. And we love to say, oh, my children were a lot better than theirs today, or did you see what she wore? And in that we manifest a pride that competes against one another instead of loving one another and praying for them. Beloved, sanctification and the Christian life is a marathon that we're all running together. It isn't a race in which we're competing against one another, where we're hoping that the person running next to us will trip and fall, so we'll get ahead and we'll get the prize. No, that is not the Christian life. And if you think that way, you need to repent. You need to repent, and you need to stop. And Jesus says to you this morning, just stop doing that. You're not against each other. You're in this together. So you don't have to feel so insecure so as to measure yourself against the brother or sister in the pew next to you or two pews in front of you. You don't have to compare yourself to them because it's not a competition. No, instead, we can be comfortable and assured that we share a status together as brothers and sisters, united by and in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Regardless of where you are on that path, whether you're a new believer, you're an old believer, whether you've struggled with certain things throughout your life, know that we all share that same status as brothers and sisters in Christ, as sons of the King by grace. So let us stop acting as if we're in competition by stripping each other of honor and status, and instead, let us love one another with brotherly affection, outdoing one another in showing honor How is any of this possible? How can we have unity with each other when we're all so different? How can we respect those who make different schooling choices from us? How can we respect those who make different parenting choices from us? How can we honor others when it seems like it will cost us something? Well, we can't. at least not by ourselves. Like the disciples whose pride originated from their own hearts, what we need is what Christ was giving to the disciples. We need a change of heart. We need a change of mind. We need to pursue what the Holy Spirit graciously offers us through the gospel. We need the mind of Christ. If anyone had the right to come and to demand His own way, it was Christ. If anyone had the right to demand the respect from others, it was Him. And He had the power to make it happen if He wanted. but he did not come with a proud heart or an arrogant mind. Instead, though being equal with the father, he gave up that status. He relinquished his heavenly and kingly honor. He humbled himself, becoming a slave. He became lowly and despised. He came in humility and shame and weakness. He gave up what most people spend their entire lives striving after, the praise and the status and the opinion of others. He came and he associated not with the great of this world, but with the lowly. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, an inconsequential Jewish peasant girl. His news and coming was revealed to poor shepherds rather than to kings. And he died a painful and shameful death on a Roman cross, bearing, dear Christian, your sin and your shame, including your sin of pride. But through the cross, he won forgiveness and righteousness and your status as one who is justified, so that now your boasting isn't in self. No, your only pride is pride in your Savior, and your only boasting is in the work that he has done. Well, as Paul says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Beloved, this mind is yours in Christ Jesus. This new mind is a gift of free grace of the gospel, received by faith and then worked out by faith. And so, let us by faith look to Christ and let our boast be not in self, but only in the cross of Christ our Savior. Let's pray. Lord, we confess in our own strengths we cannot put sin to death. We desire, as Calvin says, to put on the mind of kings rather than the mind of servants. But Lord, we know that by your Spirit we can. We know that in Christ you have given us new hearts. And so, Lord, work in those hearts, killing pride, killing our love of self and our love of sin, exchanging it. for a love of you that we might glorify you and love our brothers and sisters outdoing one another and showing honor. I pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.