163 - I Am the Greatest! (9 Sept 2023)

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. At this point in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus has been telling the apostles that their faith is too little, but how much faith does it take to say, move a mountain? It must take a lot. It must take a lot, but Jesus says it takes a little.

Well, are we talking quantity or quality? I think that's the issue we'll find out today, on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim.

And this is More Than Ink. And we're sitting at our dining room table, but if you were with us last week, you remember that we were just on the mountain with Jesus when He was revealed, transfigured before them and shown brighter than they could look at. And they heard the voice of the Father coming out of the cloud saying, this is my beloved Son. And He swore to the three guys not to say anything. That's right.

And He told them, don't tell anybody. Until? Until I raise from the dead. Until the resurrection.

Yeah. So this is like the pinnacle of the story of the walking with the human, the Son of Man. But He begins talking very specifically about His death. So they're coming down the mountain and they come to a crowd of people at the bottom. And there's a crowd at the bottom. Now remember, Jesus took Peter, James and John with Him up there. So that leaves the other nine guys at the bottom of the mountain wondering what was going on up there. Well, and you know, they could have heard He was there and decided to come bring some people to heal, but He's not around.

And we don't know how long they were up there, but presumably it was long enough for a crowd to gather at the bottom. So picking up this story in Matthew 17, this is a very interesting, interesting thing. And we're going to read it from Matthew 17, but Mark's Gospel gives us so much more detail. So after we read Matthew's account, then we're probably going to talk about Mark 9.

It's pretty complete. But let's do Matthew first. So we're at chapter 17, verse 14. Why don't you read?

I will pick it up. So, and when they came to the crowd, this is the folks at the bottom of the mountain. Right. A man came up to him and kneeling before him said, Lord have mercy on my son for he has seizures and he suffers terribly for often he falls into the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples.

They couldn't heal him. And Jesus answered, Oh, faithless and twisted generation. How long am I to be with you?

How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me. And Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him and the boy was healed instantly. And then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, so why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of a mustard seed, you'll say to this mountain, move from here to there and it'll move and nothing will be impossible for you. Oh, fascinating.

Okay. So we have heard that moving mountains and faith like a grain of mustard seed in a lot of different places and it gets kind of twisted and out of context. But let's talk about what was going on here at the bottom of the mountain because Matthew's account is very spare. Mark, it's interesting that Mark devotes twice as much space to it in a much shorter gospel.

Cause it's usually the other way around. Right. So we find out in Mark nine and we're not going to take time to read it, but I would encourage you listeners to go and read the whole account in Mark nine, starting in verse 14. We find out that the crowd down there is arguing. The disciples are arguing with the Jewish authorities, with the scribes and the conspiracies. Yeah. There's a lot of action going on. There's a lot going on because they are asking, well, why, why can't you cast it out? Right?

Yeah. So Jesus comes upon them and we find out from the very beginning of Mark nine that the father identifies it as a demon. He doesn't just say this boy falls into the fire in the water. He says the demon throws him into the fire. The father doesn't mention it in Matthew's account. No.

The father just sounds like he's talking about seizures. All right. And it's also in Mark's account that we find out that this father says, Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief. Very famous. Your guys couldn't do it.

And I'm bringing him to you. Help my unbelief. That's such an honest statement. You're right. You're right.

My belief is kind of puny, but that's all I can muster. You're going to have to help me. So read those two accounts right next to each other.

It's very helpful to have the additional detail. Mark nine, 14 to 29. But the gist of it is the same because Jesus' response is, oh, faithless, twisted generation. How long are you going to have me with you? Right.

Bring him here to me. Yep. Yep. So in all this fracas at the bottom of the mountain, this poor boy is still afflicted. Well, and Mark tells us when Jesus asks the father, how long has he been like this? The demon puts on a heck of a show.

Yes. Right there at the feet of Jesus, he throws the child into convulsions and Jesus just stands there. You got to go read that, man. That's really something else.

You know, how long has he been doing this? And he's giving the father opportunity to own his belief, his desire to believe, and yet his hesitancy to believe. Right, right, right, right. And you know, it's natural for the apostles at that point to say, we don't understand why we couldn't guess.

Right, right. We don't, we just don't get it. And then, and Matthew invokes one of his favorite phrases, you know, little faith. In fact, he uses a word for little faith that I think is only used one other place, I think in Luke. I mean, it's actually a word that means puny faith. It's a special word that was made up for this. And so, cause the other gospels almost always specialize on, well, you know, you don't, you have no faith or where's your faith.

Puny and weak, unable to do. But I had to go back and count it. This is the fifth time he uses this word little faith. And so, and then he, and then he goes into this interesting mustard seed discussion about faith. Like, your faith is little. And so of course the question in their minds is, well, how much faith do we need to cast out something like this? So are they talking, you know, when we talk about little faith, are we talking about quantity or quality? Exactly, that's the question of the moment.

Because we very often think we have to have, we have to have this giant boatload of faith. Right, right. When Jesus is, if you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, well, what's that picture about? Yeah, right. So a seed contains everything in reality to produce the mature plant.

Right, right. But it's just the seed. It's just the seed. You've got the seed, you've got the plant. Yeah, and it's not really the size of the seed that matters.

No. Even though he's saying you have little faith. So, so very clearly he's not saying, it's not a quantity issue.

No, it's a quality issue. There's something wrong with your seed basically. Yeah, that it's, it's just not sprouting to what you want it to. And, you know, that makes sort of sense. Because regardless how much faith we have, it's not our power that moves the mountain.

That's right. It's not like if I had like faith is some kind of power juice. If I have more power juice, I can do powerful things. No, because the power is God. Isn't it interesting?

Because Jesus had said to the Father, you know, bring the child to me. Yeah. Which is the same thing he said to them when they came with the bread and the loaves and the fish, right? Bring it to me.

I'll do the work. Yeah. Jesus is the one who does this. So our faith is actually, when it's puny, it's puny because we misunderstand or we underestimate what faith is. What Jesus can do. Right.

Can Jesus do this? Or we think it depends on, it depends on our faith. Right. It doesn't depend on our faith at all.

Right, right. And if you, if you go back to the two cases we've already seen of the exemplary faith, the centurion and also the woman up on the Lebanese coast up there, you know, what they demonstrated in their really quick discussions with Jesus is they understood and embraced who he was and they just had no doubts that he was capable of this. And because of his compassion, he would do this.

Here they're not really that sure of Jesus. And so that's why their faith is the quality of it, is poor. It's not a quantity, it's a quality.

So he says, you know, if the quality is good, all you need is just a little pinch. Right. Because it's all about me. So what is faith? Right.

Because that's really, we live in a culture when that's so mixed up about faith. I think faith is a feeling. Right.

This is not a feeling. This is an ability to look past the surface chaos to where, to what is the unseen reality. Right. That's what, what Hebrews 11 one and two says. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Right.

It's faith sees the promises of God as certain because God has said it and sees the presence of God is here and now. Right. And so you embrace that aspect of God himself. He's able. You don't embrace your power.

Right. Or what I want to accomplish. Or what I want to accomplish. If I have enough might and pray hard enough I can make it happen. And I've seen people say that, say, you know, I'm going to do a great thing because I have enough faith to make it happen. I have enough faith to speak it into existence or something like that as though the faith itself decoupled from the power of God to do it. Right.

No, it's God who does these things. And so faith is only as good as what it's placed in. Exactly.

The object of your faith. And if my faith is in my faith. Right.

Rather than in the power of God. Yeah, that's a good way to say it. People oftentimes have faith in their faith. We have faith in our faith.

Yeah. And that's not right at all. And that, no, Jesus said, believe in me.

Right. So when, so when mighty things happen from a flawed human perspective, we'll look at that mighty thing and say, wow, that person has a lot of faith. When what we should be saying is, well, God is capable and compassionate on our behalf for good.

We should praise his power there, not the faith of the person necessarily. So what's interesting is that Jesus prior to this had given them authority and sent them out to cast out demons. So they had cast out demons before. Yeah, this is an old story. So, but this is something new. So, you know, if you have this teeny weeny little seed of the real understanding of faith, you'll say to this mountain move and it'll move and nothing will be impossible for you. Yeah. Because when you, when you look past the surface or in your ability, your faith in your own faith to see the reality of what God is actually doing in the unseen realm, that's more concrete than what you can see and touch and feel with your senses. Yeah.

Yeah. When you get a bead on that, nothing will stand in the way because you'll see what God is already doing. I wonder if it connects to what he'd said to Peter, right?

About the binding and the loosing that we talked about a couple weeks ago. That you, when you are functioning in the spirit according to faith, you will have a genuine grasp on what God has said and done and is doing and intends to do. And so you will be affirming that and participating in that. Even in his power in this situation. Yes.

Yeah. And I often point out, since faith is our trust in God himself, the object's important, that if you don't really understand God's character, you really won't have a, you won't have a basis for your faith. So at that point, we're just talking about wishful thinking, you know, and that's not what we're talking about when we're talking about faith.

It's not wishful thinking. We're talking about the rock solid attributes and character of God. Is he good for his word? Is he faithful in his love toward us?

All those kinds of things you know about. So, listeners, the real deal is if you want to improve your faith, you need to improve your understanding of who God is and then embrace him all the more because of that. That's really the key. Not just your understanding, but your heart toward God, your heart relationship with God.

Yeah, yeah. So I want to read you, this is, I wrestled for this definition of faith over the last couple of years. Faith, so this is my own, my own definition personally. Faith is a life altering condition of mind and heart, a settled confidence in the invisible reality of God's promises that's rooted in his character and faithfulness.

Yes, yep, yep, yep, yep. That's key. That's really key. So if you don't know God, you won't have faith.

That's just the way it is. It's just wishful thinking. Well, you won't have a biblical faith.

No, you'll just have wishful thinking. It's what we call in the secular word, a blind faith. It's a faith that is not informed. Okay, that's important because we live in the midst of a religion that talks about blind faith. Oh, just if you believe it hard enough. But the scripture never is asking blind faith. It's always faith based on evidence of the character of God.

It's always an informed faith in terms of who God is. Okay, well let's move on. Actually, we're going to move to verse 22. We're going to skip verse 21.

So I might just explain this really quickly. If you have a modern translation, we're using a modern translation with the ESV, often they leave out verse 21, which you'll find in King James and the New King James and some other translations. And the reason for that, don't get too freaked out by it, the reason for that is that out of the host of different old copies we have of the Greek New Testaments, the oldest ones don't have verse 21. But ones that are later after that, it looks like someone has inserted verse 21.

Which says, this kind only goes out by prayer and fasting. Exactly. So it's not a really big deal. But if you're wondering why we're skipping from 20 and going to 22, that's why. Because 21, in fact, some translations, modern translations will include it and maybe put a bracket around it and then put a footnote at the bottom and say, yeah, you know, this doesn't show up in the oldest. That's the case with the New American Standard. So don't let that undermine your confidence in the Bible. It's just, it's there and it's not a big deal. Okay, we gotta press on.

22! Am I reading or are you reading? I will read.

Okay, read. As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day. And they were greatly distressed. Well, we've heard this before. Okay, we gotta pause here for a minute. Because, oh, here we go again.

Here we go again. He's emphasizing to them, the Son of Man, the sent one in his humanity, is going to be killed but raised on the third day. Why were they greatly distressed? Because he was still talking about dying?

Could be. Or was it because they were distressed because he wouldn't be derailed from that? They just didn't see it.

They didn't comprehend the necessity of his death. Yeah, yeah. Well, and Matthew's already said that around this section of the Scriptures, Jesus set his face to go down to Jerusalem. Right. Which looks like a deliberate kind of suicide mission.

Right. Because it says in 22, as they were gathering in Galilee, they're still up there. They're getting ready to go down. They're getting ready to go. I think just the imminent trip down there is really starting to get to them. I mean, this is really distressing. Jesus is deliberately going to walk into this business. Into the hornet's nest.

Yeah, this is just crazy stuff. I might mention too, in passing, this phrase, Son of Man, we've talked about this before. It's the most popular phrase that Matthew and Luke both used to refer to Jesus. And even Jesus himself as the Son of Man.

And we know it comes from Daniel 7. There's a very messianic, powerful thing that happens in Daniel 7, 13, and he's called the Son of Man. But in a more common sense, it just means a man who is divine. Someone who is human, who is divine. Because even in Daniel, it says someone like the Son of Man. Like the Son of Man. So it really emphasizes, in that one phrase, it doubly emphasizes not only the divinity of Christ himself, but also his humanity. So both God, both man. So when you see Son of Man, think of both God and man, not just a man. So that's what we're looking at. I was curious, it shows up 28 times in Matthew.

So it's a pretty popular phrase. Okay. Okay, we gotta press on.

Let's press on. This is a strange thing here in verse 24. When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two drachma tax went up to Peter and said, Does your teacher not pay the tax?

And he said, Yes. And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first saying, What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others? And when he said from others, Jesus said to him, Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast in a hook and take the first fish that comes up.

And when you open his mouth, you'll find a shackle. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yeah. Okay, we can't spend a lot of time here. No, a whole lot.

But a couple a couple of points. This is not this is not a Roman tax. This is the temple, right? So this is to support what goes on in the temple.

And and so that will, that's what we're talking about right here. So it's not an issue about Rome at all. But then the question is, doesn't you doesn't your teacher pay tax? I mean, if you're if you're an Israelite, if you're a Jew, you pay the tax. And he says, Yes. Well, what were they doing up in Capernaum asking for the tax?

Well, yeah. Well, you know, I looked into that and I found out this is a tax that's usually collected during Passover once a year. When they all have to go.

When they all have to go. So you would pay it when you go to Jerusalem. But in some of the farther outlying regions, many times they would start collecting it a month ahead of time.

So it helps us our timeline here. We know that we're a month away from the crucifixion when we look at this. But what's interesting is when Jesus says to Simon, this nice testing thing, you know, when the kings of the earth take a toll or tax, you know, from the son to from others. And of course, when the king taxes, he doesn't tax his own son. And what we're talking about is a temple tax, right? Ah, so what he's remember when Jesus was left behind, while he stayed behind me was 12.

He says I have to be about my father's business in my father's house. So what Jesus is saying quite literally is, this is a tax to support my father's house and I'm a son of the father. And that exempt me. It's an interesting theological question, you know.

And then the sons are free, he says in 26. So you know, it doesn't apply to me because I'm a son of the guy who owns the house. But he says so we won't offend them. But let's not ruffle feathers. It was Peter who said earlier in the gospel, don't you know, Lord, that you offended him?

You offended them. So I wonder if it's kind of a wink wink. It really is.

It's a nice wink wink thing. And then he solves it instead of turning to Judas, who has the bag of money. He says, you know, once you go out and get a fish, not with a net like you normally do, take one of those lowly little hooks. Yeah. And go get a single fish. This is probably just between Jesus and Peter.

Exactly. This is not all disciples conversation. No, no. Go out and snag yourself a single fish, pull it up and look in its mouth and you'll find a shekel in there. Okay, Peter was a fisherman. Do you think he had ever found a shekel in the mouth of a fish before? I don't think so.

I doubt it. And I doubt he ever used a hook very much. He was a net fisherman. So it's actually a little humiliating to do this. But it also narrows it down saying you're only going to catch one fish on this hook.

And when you catch that one fish, open it up, boom, and there you'll find it. So it's a nice way for Jesus to answer the religious leaders who are looking for the temple text. I'll do a little pizzazz. I don't think he ever did anything just for pizzazz. Well, he didn't waste something. He didn't waste the moment at all either. He didn't waste it. That's what I'm saying. He could have just pulled it out of Judas' bag, but he doesn't. He doesn't.

He does it this way. Yeah. Well, I don't want to linger here.

No, I don't either. Let's go on because there's an important thing that happens before we finish it. Let me read chapter 18. We're going into verse one. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, oh, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. This is one of the most violent things Jesus ever mentions. And it's about children. It's about respecting and honoring and not letting them into sin. Well, and the question was, who's the greatest?

Who is the greatest? And that's the point here. And in the other gospels, we get it again and again. They're jockeying for position. Yeah, right. Right. Unless you turn, change your course and become like children.

It's not about pursuing position. Right. Right. It's about recognizing your children. Yep.

Whoever humbles himself like this child. Hmm. Yeah. I heard an interesting definition for humility just a few weeks ago.

And it was and I've been contemplating it ever since this woman said, humility is disappearing into the holiness of God. Yeah, yeah. Not about me.

It's about him. Yeah. The kingdom is not about my position.

The kingdom is about the king. Yep. John the Baptist says, I must decrease, you must increase it to that kind of thing. Yeah.

Yeah, I must decrease. You know, earlier, Jesus had said, you know, if you want to follow me, come after me, deny yourself, right? Turn from self interest. Yep.

To the king's interest. Yeah. So this is kind of a further, further understanding of what that means.

Yeah. And a child is such a good picture to more than a picture. It's the reality reality is the reality because, again, you know, in John's gospel, the opening it says we can become children of God.

And that's a, that's a theme all the way through. And even when he writes his first letter in first John three, he says, you know, look at what kind of love that we experienced. We are called children of God. And so we are. So the idea of being children in the kingdom is central to our identity.

So what he's saying is you want to be great. You need to go back to the central part of our identity. Our identity is as children dependent with a, with a, an eternal father. If you have a father in heaven, then your children. So don't diss the children. That's what you need to be.

Okay. And you belong in the family. If you're children, you have the identity of your father, right? And you are dependent. As you just said, that's probably the chief characteristic of children. Exactly.

When you go to pay your taxes, you have to number your dependence. Right. Right. And here the apostles are getting close to Jesus, declaring himself publicly as the Messiah.

And if they're still harboring any ideas that this is going to be a big, big deal and that they're going to be part of the big deal, right? Like a president gets elected and he puts his cabinet members together. I want to be a cabinet member with Jesus. It's not going to happen. You got to be a child.

You got to be a child. You still don't understand the kingdom because you don't understand the king. Yep. Right.

The life in the kingdom is determined by the character of the king. Yep. And I've always said that our, when we talk about our identities, our confused identities, especially in these modern times, biblically are our first and best identity is as a child and it's enduring because we never, we never lose our relationship with our father. You never outgrow being the child of your parent. Exactly. And that's really true with a heavenly father as well. So our primary identity is children.

So, so don't think about being great. You know, it's just adults who are so concerned about social status. Kids are not, they'll say, you know, as long as I'm your child, that's enough for me. And that's what he's, that's why he's saying it's, this is just a really big deal. And that's why at the end of this section, you know, you violate or cause one of these to sin.

This is a really big deal because what I'm, what I'm hoping that your hearts and your identity fixes onto the rest of your life is as a child. And if you offend a child, well into you. Well, okay. I want to just zero in on that for a minute because the ESV translates that word as sin, but it's the same word that Jesus had used when he turned to Peter and said, you are an impediment to me. You are a stumbling block. That's right. That's right. You have, you have placed a snare in front of me to cause me to act in my own interest instead of God's interest.

You're getting in the way. Or to cause a child or a little one to desert or to distrust their heavenly father. So that puts a whole different, a very sensitive and tender flavor on this word. Yeah. Yeah. And I think as adults, we, we think we've arrived and we look down on children as actually not quite all there. Well, they certainly did at that time. Children had not proven themselves yet. Exactly.

They had to be old enough to earn or to produce. And in another circumstance, you know, the apostles tried to shoo them away. That's right. And Jesus said, Hey, hey, hey, hey. Actually, we're going to get to that in the next chapter. So, so, so don't diss the children because that's what I want you to be. I need you to turn from what you are and become a child because you will always be a child of the father. You know, look at the kind of love that we're experiencing. John says that we are called the children of God. You need to embrace that and don't diss it. That's who you are.

Well, gosh, this really happens, does it? Well, Jesus is continuing to turn his face to going down to Jerusalem and we, and we established that we're about a month out from Passover. And so the events are going to speed up as the heat rises. But he's driving home and we're going to revisit children again in chapter 18. He's driving home the humility of being a child of God. Right.

Not social standing, not anything like that. It's just the fact that you are a child of the father and you need to celebrate and embrace that. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. Come back next time on More Than Ink and we'll continue the conversation as Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you.

Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. There we go. There we go. There we go. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Rhythm City.