Confidence In God

 March 26 2023

Matthew 18

         Well, today is the beginning of the fifth week of our season of Lent. Each week we draw closer to Jerusalem and next week being Palm Sunday we will celebrate the triumphant entry of Jesus there. As we have said earlier in our Lenten journey, the season of Lent is a season of fasting, a season of giving up something that we enjoy. Lent is also a time of sorrow and humility which seems obvious as we begin this season with Ash Wednesday where we declare that we are but dust and ashes in the great scheme of things. It is really important that this attitude of humility is held fast to when we fast other wise we might be like Jeffrey Pugh, who on social media was quoted as saying, “I’m giving up self-righteousness for Lent because I want to do it better than anyone else.”. You see, our motivation for doing things, even fasting, does matter! We can all agree that it is pretty easy for us, in our suffering for Christ, to want to point out to everyone just how miserable we have made ourselves and everyone around us, all for the sake of Christ. Yet, I think to do so just really misses the whole point of this season of Lent which is to take the focus off of us and place that focus where it rightfully belongs which is squarely upon Jesus.

         Now to be honest, we are not the first followers who have struggled to keep Jesus where he rightfully belonged, I mean did you hear the question of the disciples in today’s scripture from Matthew, “Hey Jesus, who is the greatest in the kingdom?”. I wonder if that was one of those questions that they wanted to forget the moment that they had said it. I mean, isn’t it kind of obvious guys just who the greatest is in the kingdom, and I am pretty sure, it is not one of you. When you hear the disciples ask Jesus this question, doesn’t the ideas of pride and arrogance just seem to jump off of the page? This seems rather obvious, doesn’t it, yet as I studied various commentaries, none of them seemed to be focused on the apparent prideful attitude of the disciples. The reason I am surprised that this attitude was not picked up on is that, traditionally, pride is sin number one. I mean, pride is said to be the one sin from where all of the other sins are said to originate. If you know what haughtiness and arrogance are, what pride looks like, then how can somebody who desires to be the greatest not be considered to be a person that pride has got a hold of?

         I think Jesus also smelled the stench of pride lingering in the air after this question of just who is the greatest in the kingdom because Jesus flips the script and tells them that the person who humbles themselves like a child, this is who is the greatest in the kingdom. In fact, Jesus also tells them that unless they turn from their prideful desires and become like a child they wouldn’t even be able to enter the kingdom of God. When Jesus, here, tells his disciples to turn from this attitude, he is speaking quite clearly that they were to do an immediate U-Turn, and head the opposite way from where they came. Now, Jesus could have just told his disciples that they were out of line asking such arrogant questions and that they needed to stop immediately from doing so, but this is not what Jesus does. No, what Jesus does is to call out to a child, and with a smile on his face, he asks that child to come to him. This little kid, his face smeared with bits of lunch and his hair all a mess, this is the goal, Jesus says, this is where his disciples and we as well, are to be headed. In this the presence of this child, the disciples might have   remembered the story Jesus told up there on the mountainside, the one about a little child who came to their father and asked him for some bread. Jesus, paused and asked his disciples, would this father give this child a stone instead of his bread? Or, Jesus continued, say that this child had come to his father, and asked him for some fish sticks, would he instead give his child a snake? The answer to such silly questions is that of course not, fathers would not give their children a stone if they asked for bread and they absolutely would not have given their kid a snake instead of their fish sticks. The point of these questions, as Jesus told his disciples, is that if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, think of how much more does your good Father in heaven give good things to his children. Our Heavenly Father can be trusted in all circumstances because he gives out of his abundant goodness. This is very important for us to hold on to because, as Jesus knew so well, the source of pride and arrogance is a deep, insecurity that people have about life. What people want, more than anything, is to eliminate, as best as possible, all of what makes them so insecure and to do so requires that they have some power and control over their circumstances. We all want to be the greatest because then we will have the greatest chance of feeling secure in a very insecure world.  We all know that it is when we are on top of things that this is when we can at last feel less vulnerable to all the world is throwing at us. When we think that this is the way to feel secure then it is all the other people in our life that threaten our little scheme at an anxiety free world. The only answer is that we find a way to control them so they are no longer a threat to our worry free life. Do you begin to see why we all are right there with the disciples in our desire to be the greatest? Yet what is also so very true is that there is no position of power that will eliminate the fear like people hope it will. 

         You see, when Jesus told his disciples that they had to become like this little child that he held upon his lap, he was telling them that they needed to find their security in the goodness of their Heavenly Father. It is in our heavenly Father’s arms this is when we are at last secure just as a child knows that they are secure in their father’s arms, in their mother’s care. You see, the answer to pride and arrogance is not simply condemnation, not just to point out that most assuredly will prideful and arrogant people miss entering into the kingdom, but Jesus also goes on to tell them why. The reason why these disciples were in danger of missing out on living in the kingdom is that the kingdom is only for those who can declare that their security is only found in the arms of their Heavenly Father. If you have your security in the goodness of your Heavenly Father, then you won’t think for a second about how you can be the greatest because you will know that the greatest one has ahold of you. What Jesus knew so well is that when you have a life secured in the highest of heavens then you will be set free to live and serve in the lowest places here on earth.

         Now why it is so important that we find our security in the most secure place of all is so that we might become a secure place for those who are the least secure of all. We hear this in the wonderful statement that Jesus makes when he states that those who warmly welcome the little children are in fact warmly welcoming Jesus himself. What Jesus is implying is that the least significant person is still one who is worthy enough to be received just as if they were a king. Yet as remarkable as these words are, Jesus goes on to also say that anyone who causes these little ones to be tripped up in their trust of Jesus it would be better for that person to have a hundred pound weight hung around their neck and thrown overboard in the deepest part of the ocean. There are perhaps no more sobering words in all of the Bible. Who Jesus is speaking about here, are those who would speak against the very faithfulness and love of God especially in the presence of those who most desperately are in need of God’s faithful presence and love to anchor their life. To speak against the true character of God and in doing so destroy one’s security is to be so opposed to what God has created us to be that the one who does such a thing might as well return to the chaos out of which they were originally created. This is why Jesus sternly warns us with a cry of, “Woe!”. People will get tripped up in regards to their faith but for those who cause others to be tripped up, for those who cause others to lose their faith in the God, to these Jesus warns, “Woe”. Just as Jesus taught about how people can enter God’s promised kingdom, here Jesus also warns that life in the kingdom can and will be most assuredly taken away from those who cause others to lose their faith. So, we should take life in this kingdom very seriously. This means that we cannot become dissatisfied with what our Heavenly Father has provided for us no longer finding what our good Father gives to us is all that good. Instead of receiving what our Father gives us with thanksgiving we instead are tempted to long for that which our eyes see and that which our hand can grasp ahold of. This is why Jesus tells us is that we should stop looking and stop grasping and instead focus once again on the goodness of our Heavenly Father for only he is our security now and for all time.

         Those of us who have found our security in God are called by Jesus to be the place of security for those Jesus calls the little ones. The worst possible attitude we could have according to Jesus is to hold these little ones in contempt, considering them not worth our time or effort. Such an attitude would be expected with a person puffed up in his pride but if we have now found our security in the secure hands of our Heavenly Father then we are set free from our navel-gazing, where the world is all about us, to a life where we can focus on those who we need to care for. It is here in this teaching of Jesus, that we are suddenly given a marvelous glimpse into the joys of heaven where he describes how the angels of these little ones bask in the glow of the favor of our heavenly Father’s face. This seems like a strange little picture stuck awkwardly here in the middle of his discourse but it begins to make sense when we also hear Jesus speak of the will of the Father who is in heaven. The disciples, upon hearing this, might have immediately whispered the prayer that Jesus had prayed, the one which spoke of the will of our Heavenly Father that is to be done here on earth just as it is in heaven. Jesus wants us to  understand that just as the angels of these little ones are gathered around our Heavenly Father in heaven so too here on earth these little ones are to be gathered into the Father’s presence, to live before the face that shines upon them, the face which is joyfully smiling at their very being with him. This is why we are to go out and search for those who are on that wide road, those who are in danger of not becoming what they could have been or should have been. We are to leave the ninety-nine and go and tell that one lost soul that they too have been invited to experience life before the face of their Father here on earth just as the angels do so in heaven. So of course, there is great joy when one who is lost is at last found because they too get to be in the presence of our Heavenly Father, the very place where true joy is to be found. 

         As Jesus speaks here of the one lost sheep, how it is imperative that we leave the ninety-nine to go out and find that one and bring them home, I hope we can understand how vastly different Jesus is from the wolves who terrorized the lost sheep which was the house of Israel. These wolves were the very leaders of Israel at that time who, through their imposing fear, were sending all of Israel out on the wide road of destruction, not even caring that these lost and perishing sheep were going to miss out on what might have been, the very security they had all longed for, the security that was theirs which was found in the very arms of their Heavenly Father. What Jesus was training his followers to be were those who were willing to go out to the lost and wandering sheep and be for them good shepherds who would bring the wayward home to live in the presence of their Heavenly Father who loved them.

         This chasing after the lost, Jesus continues, does not just apply to these little ones but it is the very way that he expects that we are to be with all who are members of God’s family. When one we love does something that tears apart the unity that our Heavenly Father wills that there should be between us, then it is on us, those who have been hurt by another, to go to them and tell them of how their actions have torn apart our relationship. Here we must pause and really consider what Jesus is saying to us. Instead of brooding over the hurt that someone has done to us, or just writing such a hurtful person off all together, or to draw a line in the sand and stubbornly wait until that so-and-so comes and apologizes for their behavior, Jesus tells us to do something else instead. If we are the ones who are hurt, then it is we who must go and speak to the person who has hurt us. We have to admit that what Jesus calls us to do is quite counter-intuitive. Even so, Jesus is not finished because he goes on to say that after we go and tell this other person of how they have done us wrong and they refuse to listen to us, then we have to take those who witnessed the wrong doing and go back, once again, to this person who has messed up and see if these witnesses can convince them of their need to repent. And no, this is not the end of it, because if all of these efforts do not get results then Jesus says to tell it to the rest of the family so they too might try and persuade this one who is lost to come back into the fold. Only if the offender will not then be persuaded that they, through their wrongdoing, have torn themselves apart from those who follow Jesus, only then is this stubborn offender to be considered to be nothing more than a Gentile or a tax collector. Now, when we hear that this offender is to be considered to be nothing more than a Gentile or tax collector, I believe we are once again, called to go back to the teachings of Jesus heard up there on the mountainside. Do you recall when Jesus spoke of the perfect love of our Heavenly Father, how we are to love and pray for our enemies because this is the very way that our Heavenly Father loves his people, loving them not because they have reached the moral perfection that he expected of them but rather that he loved them even when they opposed what was expected of them. And then Jesus goes on to say, if you love those who love you what reward do you have, do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing then the others? Do not the Gentiles do the same? So, when a person refuses to acknowledge their wrong doing even though the followers of Jesus have patiently and lovingly attempted to win them back, then they are to be considered to be outside of the perfect love of the Father, and once again living in a world where love must be earned by one’s behavior. They must come to realize that through their own efforts that they cannot possibly fulfill the moral demands of God and so at last come back to the realization that they can only find life through the forgiveness of God. You see, if a person spurns the forgiveness of God extended to them through those who offer this forgiveness in his name, then they must be set back into a world where everything must be earned at great effort which ultimately will not succeed and then, and only then, will they understand themselves as dead before God, ready to receive his pardon once again.

         All of this emphasis on forgiveness at the end of this teaching has to make us wonder just why, why is it so important that we forgive not just seven times but seventy-times seven? Why is it so important that we remember the high cost of the forgiveness that our Heavenly Father offers to us when we consider whether to forgive another, or not? The answer is that we need to be constantly reminded that the security that we find in the arms of our Heavenly Father only happens because of his forgiveness of us. This means that our eternal security is not dependent upon how hard we attempt to hold on to our Father but rather it depends solely upon his firm grasp of us. So we remember this security which is ours through our Father’s willingness to forgive us every time we are willing to go and forgive those who have harmed us. Even so, as Jesus teaches us, this forgiveness is an act which has cost our Heavenly Father greatly because as we learn in the seventeenth chapter of Leviticus, there is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood. In other words, the cost is a cross. This is the necessity of Calvary. The blood must be shed, the price must be paid, all so forgiveness might be obtained, this is the way that we at last can know the security found in the arms of our Heavenly Father. Amen!