Who Wants to Be the Greatest?

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast. Our show, Stories of Hopelessness, Turned into Hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. When it comes to the greatest, and so Jesus Christ steps in, Luke chapter 22, 24 through 34.

I'm Stu Everson. So glad to have you with us on Experience Truth, Our Journey Through God's Word, the last segment of the program. We look at God's Word.

We're in Luke. We're in Luke 22, 24 through 34. I'm going to read the passage and then we're going to go through some questions together.

This is so rich. If you have a copy of God's Word, open to Luke 22 and I'll read with you. And read with me, will you?

This is such good stuff. Now there was also a dispute among them as to which of them should be considered the greatest. And he said to them, the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are also called benefactors, but not so among you. On the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater, he who sits at the table or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table?

Yet I am among you as the one who serves. Verse 28, but as you are those who have continued to be with me in my trials, and I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my Father bestowed one upon me, that you may eat and drink at my table, in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail, and when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren. But he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and a death. Then he said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny me three times that you know me. This is the word of God from Luke 22 verses 24 through 34.

So the first question hails back to the context. What's so anticlimactic about the timing of this argument? Well, what's anticlimactic is here Jesus Christ, he is coming to the Lord's Supper, the table, the new Passover feast. This is also called the Eucharist. This is the celebration, the feast that he says every time you're coming together, do this in remembrance of me, to honor me, to celebrate Jesus and his spilled blood in that wine and that grape juice and his broken body in that bread. And so while he is pouring his heart out and he's demonstrating visibly, there's a visible symbolic picture of Christ and what he would do, and as we celebrate it today, what he did do in this feast. God chose to give us this beautiful ordinance in the church not to divide us and not to argue about it, and there you just read Luther, you read Calvin, you read Zwingli, you read Wesley, they all have different views of the Lord's Supper.

But the bottom line view is this, it points to Jesus and it doesn't exalt or extol what I've done for him, it exalts what he has done for me. And he said, John 19-30, it is finished. So this is a momentous celebration. This is a real feast. Now, it's a sad feast in that these guys are just the night before his betrayal and his death.

That's right. So they're struggling with all this, as you and I would be. We look back hindsight, right? But if we were there, we'd be struggling because we hadn't read the end of the Gospels and the beginning of Acts and the end of Revelation. But now, looking back, a couple millennia removed, we see, wow, look what he's done for us. And we have this revelation of God in our hands. So in the middle of all this exciting and momentous celebration of the greatest event that would ever happen in history, the ransom of souls from sin, the salvation, the act of the cross, the passion of the Christ, and this feast, here these guys are arguing and they're disputing and they're barking.

So this is very anti-climactic. And in the middle of their arguing, we have John 13's account. Jesus Christ lays down his robe and he picks up a rag to wash these disciples' dirty feet. What a great way to interrupt the disciples' untimely argument of who is the greatest. And so basically you have in this passage today, Luke 22 verses 24 through 34, if you've been tracking with us through Luke, is you have the dispute among the disciples here at the beginning. Then you have Jesus confirming them and their role in heaven.

He actually comes back and affirms them and pours his blessing on them. Finally, you have Christ interceding for an overconfident Peter. So if you look at verse 24, there was a dispute among them as to which would be considered the greatest. We also talked about this in chapter 9 of Luke, where this isn't the first time, by the way, at the Lord's Supper the disciples are wrangling over rank and file. We have another account where the mom of James and John said, I want one son on your side and one son on this side. And Jesus had to step in and say, wait, who can drink my cup?

Hold on, this is not for me to grant. You got the whole thing wrong. And he goes on to say, the Son of Man didn't come to be served, but he came to serve and lay his life down for many. The greatest are those who are the least. So then you have verse 25. He said to them, the kings of the Gentiles, stop right there, to call any group of Jews Gentiles or to compare them to a Gentile would be a great affront, a great insult. So Jesus instantly borrows from the Gentiles.

He said, wait a second, you guys are acting like Gentiles. They are jockeying, exercising lordship. Everyone's trying to be the big boss. Everyone's into titles and lording and hoarding that lordship and being the one in charge, the top of the food chain, the top person in the hierarchical corporate ladder. And they who exercise authority over them are called benefactors.

So there's a name for this. This is secular world thinking. Jesus Christ uses secular world thinking to expose how they're thinking. They're thinking pagan. He's like, wait, what have I taught you all this time?

And now your default is to try to leapfrog over everyone else, to try to step on everyone to get to the top. But this secular world thinking had tragically infiltrated the ranks of Christ's closest followers. A benefactor is simply a boss, a ruler, a patron. This is a title used for heathen rulers or despots. Jesus here is contrasting human earthly rule with his kingdom culture.

He's the only king, this is powerful, the only king who ever came to serve and to die for his citizens. Wow, you see that beautiful picture at Christmas time? The little straw bed, or we know it was more likely in a cave and more like a wooden carving of a cave that the cattle trough, but you see straw in it, and I love this.

I post it every Christmas. People put a king-sized bed, right? Fit for a king, but born in paltry poverty was our Christ. He's the only king that did that, and so he's using this example. Look what he says in verse 26, but not so among you. So here's the contrast. But you're not like the Gentiles. You're not like the Gentiles. You're not like those that are jockeying, that are competing, that are all alpha male fighting to the top, survival of the fittest. On the contrary, he who's greatest among you, let him be as the younger. He who governs among you, let him be as he who serves.

Of course, he's referencing here likely just having washed their feet. And ancient culture, by the way, determined rank and value by age. So Christ says, you be like the younger. In God's economy, Jesus is calling the little children over and over again. Matthew 18, the great example, he says, bring the little children unto me, earlier in Luke, because such is the kingdom of God.

The least are the greatest. And he says, I am among you is the one who serves. Jesus came, look at Philippians 2, 1 through 9, he came not to be served, but he came to serve and to change the world through that. So rather than rebuke them for this jockeying, what does Jesus do?

This is just so cool. He blesses them. He encourages them with a hope of heaven. These guys are distraught.

They're struggling. Maybe they're jockeying for who's going to be the greatest because their Lord's going to be gone. They wonder, okay, who's in charge? Jesus, you're not going to be around here to run things if you really are going to be betrayed.

If this really is coming to a climactic end and they're calling for your blood already, and they don't even know this hatch to betray him is well underway, Jesus is moving off the scene in their mind. They're thinking, well, who's going to run things? Who's going to be shouting out orders? Who's going to be bossing people around? Who's going to be leading this pack of misfit toys known as the disciples? See?

So there's some angst involved in their jockeying, and there's some other things involved. So Jesus doesn't discourage them. He doesn't rebuke them, but rather he encourages them. How does he do so? Well, look at this next verse.

I love this. Verse 28 through 30 says, "'But you are those who have continued with me in my trials.'" So you've stayed with me in my trials.

You have continued with me. This is not easy stuff, by the way, having Jesus ostracized, nearly pushed off a cliff, for opening God's Word and fulfilling that prophecy in the temple, healing people and being condemned for it. You know, being attacked by every religious group, sect, faction, being hated by all those on either side of the coin, being hated by the Romans, by the Jews, by the zealots. He can't please anybody because he's not there to please anybody. He's there to please his father, John 17.4, and accomplish the work his father sent him to do. Luke 2.49, "'I must be about my father's business.'" But he says to the disciples, he commends them, guys.

Look what he says. This is so encouraging. He says, "'You have continued with me in my trials.'" And look at verse 29. This is so rich. He says, "'And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my father bestowed one upon me.'"

What a beautiful picture. He is blessing them and bestowing them on a kingdom. A greater table. There's a greater table.

There's a greater feast. There's a greater kingdom. 1 Peter 5.6, it says, "'Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you in due time.'"

Beautiful picture. God has a greater kingdom. James 4.10 says the same thing. "'Humble yourselves in the sight of God, and he will lift you up.'" So Jesus is saying, I will lift you up. I will take care of you. I will exalt you.

Stick with me. There's a greater kingdom, and I'm going to bestow this kingdom where there's no death and there's no tears, and you'll be in a resurrected body. By the way, how excited are you about the kingdom he's bestowing? How excited are we about the return of the King to bring back his kingdom and to take us home with him forever? How often do we celebrate heaven?

Guys, things get dark in the culture, don't they? How often do we look to the light of heaven? How anxious are we to get home to our real home? Where you live right now, if you're a believer, that's not your home.

Quit getting attached to it. Philippians 3.20. Our citizenship is in heaven. We're a citizen of heaven.

1 Peter 2. We are strangers. We are aliens. We are not of this world. 2 Corinthians 4.18. We looked out at things which are seen, but things which are unseen. Things which are seen are temporal.

Things which are unseen are eternal. Christ says, I bestow on you a kingdom. Wow.

That's why he says in Matthew 6.33, seek ye first the kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. What a great statement. I love that.

Memorize that. Share that with someone, will you? Luke 22.29. And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my Father has bestowed one upon me. He would later say, has the Father sent me?

So I'm sending you. He would later say, you're going to receive power when the Holy Ghost has come upon you. You're going to be my witnesses to spread the message of this kingdom and proliferate the earth with a message of the good news of Christ.

How are you doing that today? Have you realized the kingdom that you're promised? Have you realized that he's translated you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his precious, dear Son? Have you realized that he's given you as a believer the forgiveness of sins in a whole new life? 2 Corinthians 5.17.

Being in Christ, you're a new creature. So take this awesome word and serve. Go low. The answer is going low and serving. To be the greatest, you must first be the least. This is the Truth Network.