Matthew 18:1-4 "Kingdom Greatness"

Introduction: In the Kingdoms of the world greatness is most often measured by the exerted power or accomplishments of men or their accumulation of wealth and possessions. Nothing is really new about that perception in the history of mankind. Simply because such things are given a lot of prominence in a fallen world where human beings tend to exploit the relationship between strength and weakness.

The strong exploit the week if that were not the case we would not need laws in this world. We wouldn’t need to keep making laws to protect people from other people if there was no fallen nature in man to drive him in the direction of exploitation.

But as it is in our current situation we have laws being made upon laws upon laws because there is no end to it. Because laws don’t change hearts. Power asserts control and financial means may buy temporal compliance but none of that can change the heart of a fallen individual in the world and bring about lasting change.

Such influence may have the perception of greatness in the world but in the Kingdom of Heaven there is a whole different set of standards that are established by God. Look at your text to verses 1-3:

I. The Standard for Entrance (1-3).

Now it is without doubt that on the day when the disciples of Jesus came to inquire concerning who is great in the Kingdom of heaven that they were fishing for an answer with the expectation that Jesus would identify greatness in association with the powerful and influential in the world system. But what does Jesus do?

Jesus calls a young child to Him and put the child in their midst as an object lesson. He uses the child to teach them two truths about the Kingdom of heaven.

Truth # 1 is found in verse 3: Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (3).

Now it is important to know that Jesus is not addressing the state of His disciples in relationship to the Kingdom of heaven. They were all in it with the exception of Judas. Jesus is proposing the hypothetical reality of the fallen perception of the world. We know this because of the grammatical parsing in relation to the verb “turn”. It is set in the subjunctive mood which denotes the hypothetical nature of Jesus words but turn is a bad translation due to it being aorist tense with passive voice.

So a literal translation would be: unless you have turned and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

I say all of this to explain why it is that Jesus here is not addressing their place in the Kingdom but he is confronting their perception of greatness and instructing them regarding what it takes to enter the Kingdom. All the verbs with the exception of the verb “say” in verse 3 are in the subjunctive mood.

The reason is that unless you perceive the Kingdom with Kingdom standards your perception will be distorted. It does no good to address the specific question that they are asking if they don’t have an adjusted perception of what it means to actually be in the Kingdom of heaven in the first place.

This standard of entrance established the basis for Truth # 2 which is the Standard of Greatness in verse 4. Look back at your text:

II. The Standard for Greatness (4).

Truth # 2 is found in verse 4: Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven (4).

Now once verse 3 has been established to address their misconceptions about Kingdom standards now Jesus turns towards the standard measure of Kingdom greatness.

And the standard of Kingdom greatness is humility like a young child. This is not a hypothetical proposition the mood of they verb is no longer subjunctive.

Now this should sound familiar to us as we saw something similar last Sunday from Luke 18:15-17 where Jesus declared, Let the children come to me and unless you receive the Kingdom like a child you shall not enter it. We looked at humility being emphasized in Luke 18 from a contextual perspective and saw the worldly pride of sinful man being challenged by Kingdom humility.

The Kingdom greatness of heaven turns greatness according to world standards on its head. Kingdom of heaven greatness emphasizes humility before God in humble reliance on Him for His provision of grace to us in Christ. While worldly greatness emphasizes the strengths and abilities of fallen men bound up in expressions of their own pride.

Kingdom great is alway confrontational in the face of prideful assertions of the self. The Sovereignty of King Jesus is always in opposition the the sovereignty of the self. His control and authority verses our sense of independent autonomy and self rule. You can’t be in competition with Christ for first place and be content in the Kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom of heaven is the place where sin goes to die and men go to live eternally.

Christian the Kingdom of heaven has set you into a whole different context than those historical empires of the world and the world system that they embody. The humility of the Kingdom is challenging our hearts and the pride that we all struggle with in our journey of sanctification. We are in the world but not of the world. We are living out the dynamic of the high Priestly prayer of Christ in John 17:14-17. Our Lord prayed it for us, that it would come to pass: “14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

So then, should the Christian life have any other priority than that which is desired by King Jesus? Should sanctification in the Christian life be a given expectation as we live as citizens of the Kingdom first? Christian God has not redeemed you for the world, He has redeemed you for Himself in the Kingdom of heaven. He did not betroth us to Christ for us to sleep around with the world.

True Greatness that will last and count for eternity will be all that is done out of Christ glorifying obedience in humility to King Jesus. Christian your context and your allegiance has changed. You have a new purpose and a new Master and there is a new standards set of standards by which greatness is measured.

Your context Christian in the Kingdom of heaven has transitioned you to the position of greatness that exceeds every other person born of the natural and biological means of human conception and birth. Jesus made this clear earlier in Matthew 11:11- “11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Why is this the case? Because the Kingdom of heaven is a Kingdom of Holy Spirit regeneration where the imputed righteousness of Christ has clothed the believer to satisfy all the demands of the law. John was the final prophet before the Kingdom reality of the word made flesh. The incarnation revealed in the person and work of Christ fulfilled the office of the prophet. Even John testified there is one greater than I, He must increase and I must decrease.

And John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance but the baptism into Christ is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Everything the Old Testament foretold has come to spiritual fulfillment in Christ. Now we live in the Kingdom reality of the Holy Spirit as we await the physical reality to come in the final day when Christ returns in all His glory.

John knew this too as he said I baptize you with water but one comes after me who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

And John was martyred prior to the death, burial and resurrection of Christ which ushered in the spiritual reality of the Kingdom. The Kingdom context is greater than the Old Testament manifestation of the Kingdom under David or Solomon. And one day even the body of John the Baptist will be raised incorruptible due to the life giving power of this Kingdom of heaven which he proclaimed and died for.

And Herod Antipas who ordered John’s execution will be raised too but Herod Antipas will be wishing for all eternity that he had never been born.

Conclusion:

My sister loves to tell the story of one time when my grandparents traveled to visit her that over the days that they were there they both complained about how hard a time they were having seeing. The both had told her they needed to get new glasses. It eventually dawned on my sister that they had inadvertently switched glasses and didn’t know it.

One of the reasons we don’t see the Kingdom implications clearly is because we use the glasses of the world to view our Christianity. And we scrutinize and analyze Christianity by the standards of the world; instead of scrutinizing and analyzing the world by the eternal standards of God in biblical Christianity.

Unbeliever you may even use those worldly standards as a basis to reject Christianity. You may even claim to believe in God but if your God is not the God of the Bible then you have a false god. He is one of your own making, fashioned by your own imagination.

Perhaps today is the day of your descent into the greatness of humility. Maybe today is the day that you enter the Kingdom like a little child. Believe the gospel of Jesus Christ for your salvation.

Believers you know why we like wearing the glasses of the world? Because it keeps us from seeing clearly the things in the Bible that we don’t want to see. We are far too comfortable with our domesticated view of God that is user friendly and always affirming than we are the real God of the Bible.

And I am here to tell you today the if you are truly His, in His kindness and in His mercy and grace He will sanctify you in His truth revealed in Scripture. He loves you too much! The price He paid was too high! The eternal plan He has for you is too glorious to just let you go your way.

Why distort the awesome nature of all that He has done and all that He has for you? Come to Him, confess your sin and find your rest in Him in Christ. For He is faithful that when we confess our he will cleanse us of all our unrighteousness! Let’s pray!