Alan Electric Joke. Alan was a good Joke student comes up here. But I will say that Alan actually is the executive director of something. Many of y'all know Alan, he's the director of the Wesley Foundation at University of Antman Row, but Alan's also a good close friend of mine.
I think Alan was the person who probably about six years ago, versus a Dickies BBQ and I said, man, I got a crazy idea. You want to hear it? And he's like, yeah, and it was like the first time outside of Maris and I spoke about this place called Foundry to somebody. And Alan's like, let's do it, man.
Let's go for it. So he's the executive director of Dreams. We'll call him that. How about that Alan?
Yeah, good guy. If y'all were not here during Christmas when he preached, dressed as cousin Eddie, like you missed something. Trust me, it's great. I love the television show Blue Bloods.
Anybody else watch Blue Bloods? Yeah, Tom Selick, I wish I could have a mustache like that. My wife won't let me try. But Blue Blood is a great show, because I talked about this before years ago, it deals with morality in a really interesting way and I like it because it deals with the gray area.
Cody had that mustache two weeks ago. It deals with that gray area. And so the show is about a family that are almost all New York City police officers. Frank Reagan, the character by Tom Selick, is the current police chief.
His father was the previous police chief. His son, Donnie Wahlberg, the new kid on the block, plays a detective. That always freaks me out. I remember that.
His other son, Jamie, is just a beat cop. He had a son that died in the line of duty as a university police officer and his daughter is an ADA in New York City. And so the whole show, they're always just talking about these gray areas and they typically get figured out their Sunday dinner table. So that's kind of a key shot if you watch Blue Bloods.
There's a picture of it right there. 95% of the time, Frank Reagan, the dad is right. Sometimes he's not. But they're talking about the situations they deal with in life.
They're talking about the shared experiences they all have. That's kind of an interesting part of the show. But ultimately, Frank is normally right. This whole year, we've devoted 2019 to just speaking about Matthew Mark Luke and John, just doing gospel passages on Sunday mornings all year.
And there's a character that we've really not dealt with yet that's pretty important. And it's the character of the disciples. We've talked about some of the disciples as individuals. But in the gospels, the disciples as a unit serve their own character at times.
And you see them, they're shared experiences around Jesus. The shared experiences of ministry they have dealing with the gray areas of their life in the first century and talking about right and wrong and how right might be different than what they expect to be right and vice versa. And they're only really, so it kind of has that same feel and they get settled. But the difference really is that Jesus is not 95% right most of the time with them.
And Jesus is right and is talking about right in a very different way. And this morning, we're going to talk about one of the situations where the disciples, as a unit, kind of do something that Jesus wants to ask them to step forward further. From one of my professors in seminary, we'd like to refer to the disciples sometimes as the doe, the disciples. It's a very corny joke.
But it makes sense just to realize the way they think about things sometimes when the answer is right in front of them. So we're going to Matthew chapter 18, we're going to read the story about this interaction they had and how Jesus was calling them to something greater than themselves. Verse 1, 18, 1 through 10, about that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them.
And he said, I tell you the truth unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. But if one of you calls as one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.
That sounds nice. But sorrow awaits the world because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable. But what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting.
So if your hand or foot calls you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It's better for you to enter eternal life with only one hand or one foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with both of your hands and feet. And if your eye calls you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It's better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into that fire of hell.
And you're aware that you don't look down any of these little ones. For I tell you, they didn't have in their angels are always in the presence of my heavenly Father. A lot of times people say that the Bible might be boring and not a simple response. I don't think they're reading it.
And is this kind of a weird story? Is this a normal to you? It's like a normal threat. It hands off.
So we're going to talk about this. But this really kind of jumps us into a couple of things. And the biggest one that we've not talked about yet this year that is a huge conversation throughout the Gospels is this idea of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. This is what the disciples are clearly concerned with.
They're getting into this conversation. The story shows up in other places and we find that Jesus walks in to this middle of this discussion of them trying to find out who's more important. In the end, when everything's said and done, who's going to be sitting next to you? Who's going to be your second command?
Who's going to be in charge with you inside of this? So Jesus begins to speak to the kingdom of God. And so we have to talk about that. We've not really defined that yet.
We can spend probably a month talking about the kingdom of God and not even be done with it yet. When I was in campus ministry, I met a video on a survey across the campus where we asked people what do you think the kingdom of heaven is? And I found the video last night and I almost wanted to show it to you. But then I was embarrassed because what I was wearing in the video.
Let's just say I had a face where I want my pants to be really tight. Yeah, you know that in college I could fit into an old Navy size 16 in girl's jeans. But yeah, but the kingdom of God, I was, everybody answered the video, this idea of the kingdom of God being heaven. And that was their conception of this.
But the kingdom of God, it's much bigger than just talking about eternity. It is talking about eternity, but it's much bigger than that. The kingdom of God is God's dynamic rule on this earth. What does it mean for him to be Lord, not just over our world, but over all time.
The kingdom of God is present in Christ with the disciples, they are the ministry of Jesus. In the miracles he was able to do and the signs he was able to do and the balance in multiplying food, all these things that he was able to do were happen because he was the physical presence of God. They're on the earth when the physical presence of God is in place. This thing is operated a little bit differently.
The kingdom of God also though, we realize that it exists in the future. It's Jesus present in the future. We have an eternal hope. We talk about what things might look like one day.
We talk about eternity. We desire those things that exist in the future. But the kingdom of God is also present in our present. This present in our presence because the power of the Holy Spirit that sent us to dwell in us, the decisions that we make both in our own personal life and the way that we act out publicly have the ability to bring the kingdom of God into the existence of realms and places where it is not right now.
When we say we're the hands and feet of Christ, we talk about tangible things going to a kingdom of Mexico and building a house. This is an example of that. The part of the privilege that we have as Christians and the call that we have as Christians is bringing these things into place as a long side of Jesus and who he is. This concern over the kingdom of heaven, if all they were thinking about was eternity, who's going to be in charge, they simply had too small of the kingdom of heaven.
One of our core values at Foundry is we believe God's vision for this world is bigger than our vision for this world. God's vision for this world is that kingdom, like kingdom of God. It goes across time, past, present and future and we're engaged in all of it. So in the middle of this conversation disciples are arguing over which one of them is going to get to reign, second and command in the kingdom of heaven that Jesus has.
The example he decides to teach is that there's a child around them and he brings this child into the middle of it and says, unless you have the faith like this child, you will not find life in the kingdom of heaven. Unless you have humility and Jesus very specifically names that. So anyone who becomes this humble as this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. He changes things around.
So we think about this. Is this about the child or is this about the disciples question? First thing I'll tell you this is that you were most likely a lot better of a parent than somebody was in the first century. The children had a very different place of time.
And Jesus is speaking about in many ways here as he's talking about the fact that this child is radically dependent on everyone else for who they are and that children at this point time sadly 2000 years ago and probably not too long ago just in our own existence until that child had the ability to prove himself to contribute to the overall health and safety of the family. They didn't really have that much social standing. There wasn't that much worth that was attached to a child. Not too long ago honestly.
But Jesus taking this child and bringing him in and talking about humility. He's saying unless you know what it's like to be radically dependent on other people for every single thing you need, you will not find this kingdom of heaven. Unless you know what total dependence on others is like you will not find this kingdom that we're talking about. He contrasts this idea of the pride that the disciples were trying to work out among themselves with the humility of this child.
It's the paradox that Jesus is speaking about that the least will become greatest. That humility is what leads to greatness, not greatness. See we can't have a conversation about greatness in a place where entrance requires at least this. The only teaching of Jesus is that we find in all four gospels as we said in the first will become last and the last will become first.
This passage is one of those one of those times where the show is up in the gospels. Unless you have the humble face of this little child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So the conversation about the kingdom is a conversation about realizing the kingdom is more than the wholeness and eternity than our greatness and our reward and what we're seeking to find. So how do we find this humility?
Let's talk about it. When we think of humility, humility is something you earn by something not good happening to you. If I think about how humility shows up in my life, typically humility was learned through you're on the wrong end of an outside fist-flight in middle school. We think of humility as something we push on someone.
We think of humility as being something that person needs to learn humility. They need to learn how to be humble. Even our understanding of humility is wrapped up in our own conception of greatness and our own conception of power and control and being in charge. We struggle to find a narrative of what humility looks like from this perspective.
Jesus says, unless you have, unless you turn from your sins and become like this little children, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven. So Jesus is talking about the directionality of this. There's a directionality of the way that we engage with God and the way that he is calling us to be as Christians. To turn means to realize that there is a distinct thing in our life that we are trying to change.
We realize that there's one thing that we were banking on for our entire life is not worthy of banking on any longer. Like I made a joke about my fashion choices in 2005. I'm thankful that Jesus helped me realize that my greatest vision for this world was to not work for guns and roads. Let's try to look like it.
My primary view of human flourishing for years was I was like, is he straggling? I'm like, six, four? I'm not near that skinny. I turn from that bad decision in life.
The thing with the things we've turned from, what are the ways in life that your opinion of things has changed? It is basic, most root level to repent means to turn. There's an inherent physicality that's put to it in our life. It's intentional.
It means for us to disassociate from something. It means that we're making a deliberate decision to be different or a deliberate decision to make a different choice or to put something in our life. It speaks about to become, unless you return from your sins and become like this little child. That's the same word that's used for childbirth.
So you become something in a way that you can't go back to what was previous. There's a physical barrier. The conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus in John chapter 3 about the new birth is this idea. You can't go back to the way it was.
There's a new position in your life. You've made a transformation. So the disciples vision for this world was one that included them being on top, alongside of Jesus. They're still associating this whole enterprise, this whole ministry of Jesus, whole faith.
They're still thinking this is their thing. Not God's thing. This is their thing. We're getting to do this and there's just God helping us out.
This is going to be our thing. This is going to be our claim to fame. This is going to be the thing we can write down on our resume. We're putting our business cards.
We're with Jesus. Think just about a year in the future. You're Peter to nine Christ. Three times.
Trying to disassociate himself away from this ministry. They've been thinking about this. I really think the way this story turns out, they've been debating this off and on for the entire time they've been together. Jesus knows this.
This is not some random conversation, but this is one of these things that disciples really needed to get over. Because it was not healthy and it wasn't true and it wasn't right. Because pride is not a value inside of God's kingdom. Total trust and dependence on Jesus is that value.
It's an example he's showing us. He consistently refers to these people of trust. They've made decisions as these children. These little children.
Little children. I fell in love. John 531 earlier this fall on the show says, your children, don't let anything get in the way of your love for God. God speaks to us as his children because we have decided to put ourselves in a relationship, a radical trust and radical obedience inside of him.
We know that he has what we need and we're willing to trust him at that level. That trust is not something we can instantly give and trust. We develop day by day by day by day. It's a consistent growing relationship of trust that we have with him.
Jesus talks about our sins and this. He gets kind of gnarly. Anytime you're talking about losing limbs, it's not a fun conversation. To be honest, every time I read this, I think about opening scene in Robert Prince of Thieves.
I'm talking about it. Our sins are the things that we need to be concerned with because they're typically our outward signs that we are leaving breadcrumbs towards our vision for the world. That's where our sins reveal what we actually want in life. Our sins reveal where we've not trusted.
Our sins reveal where we have holes in our faithfulness. Our sins reveal the way that we are trying to work towards our vision of the world. We need to quit thinking about the secret and hidden and private. And say, hey, this is where I don't trust enough.
Instead, what Jesus speaks to here is our holiness and our trust instead tells a story of our journey of our openness to the spirit of God. There's visible examples of trust that we have. Ourselves will also show those around us. This is where I'm open to God doing something that I might not understand, but I'm all right with it.
Because I believe him because I trust him. A few months ago, I found a friend of mine, I was talking with a group of pastors on a conference call, and we were sharing ways that we worked on sermons and prepared sermons. My friend shared a question that she said, I kind of start off with this all the time. It was this.
What does this passage unsettle in me? That's a great question to ask. I kind of wrote it down because I write everything down. A few weeks ago, I was starting to work on this message.
I remember that question. And for the first time, I was like, I'm going to pray about this. What does this passage unsettle in me? The more I read, the more I pray through this, the more I prepare for this Sunday thing that we do together every week.
What does this passage unsettle in me? The question that I found myself being terrified of was this. How do I act when my greatness is threatened? How do you act when your greatness is threatened?
When your vision for how the world should be with you on top? How do you act? How do you act outwardly toward people? How do you act in your heart?
That's going to reveal these places where we're not willing to trust God. That's going to reveal the place where we choose to exercise power over people. What's even more dangerous if you're the kind of person that does not say things that way out? If you're not confrontational, if you're the steward inside your mind, what are the things that you say that you think could have corrected the situation?
I know in my own life, I would get significantly less holy when I live in my mind and I started going down that rabbit trail. What do I do when I feel threatened? What do we do when our greatness is threatened? What does Jesus be speaking to our hearts when we realize we do that?
When we realize that we're acting out, not in a way that shows our relationship with him? The second question is just what has positive humility done to make your world better? When has there been a time in life where someone that you know that you care about has acted out in this holy humility, a holy trust and radical faithfulness? When they have directed that towards you, how has that changed your life?
How has that made things better for you? What does it mean for us to recognize that faithfulness of other people has a positive outcome on our own lives? Because friends, this is not just something that we do to make our life better. This is part of us being called community of God's people, a covenant people, who position ourselves in relationship with them, not just for the betterment of ourselves, but for the betterment of our world.
That we are taking place in this kingdom. This kingdom that goes in our past, that exists in our present, that we are hoping for in our future. That our own commitment, the radical humility and trust and independence is one of the things that brings this kingdom into the life of other people. One of the hardest decisions that we can come to and realize and begin living with is learning that we don't matter.
And in our own realization of not mattering, we find out how much Jesus matters to us and how much we matter to Jesus. And every single thing that we've acted out against, we've been quiet about, we've not wanted to share with other people, the things that scare us, the things that concern us that worry us, they keep us up at night. Or worked out in trust and faithless directed towards Him. And our need for greatness becomes redefined.
Instead, our need to understand and to sit in the dwell in the loving presence of who Jesus is. That's what humility looks like. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for trust.
God, the trust that we've exercised out, but God also how other people have worked out for us. And God, as we contemplate so many of those things, I pray that you bring to mind how others trust and faithfulness has changed our lives and our stories. And we're for us to realize that this whole thing is not about splitting hairs and being in or being out, but this whole thing is about us trusting you. And that's trusting that you are the only one who can do the things that can actually change this world and change us.
Or we confess that we have masqueraded in humility at times. And God, we won't be done with that. We instead want to know what it's like for your love to fully and completely invade our hearts. What it's like for us to do the great things that you have been doing.