Matthew 24

Within and Without

Moving into chapter 18 Jesus takes an opportunity to instruct as well as remind His disciples on some things He had taught previously.

Matthew 18:1 “At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?””

The disciples are trying to figure out who is the greatest and what do they have to do to become the greatest. It is not that they want to make the biggest impact for the kingdom, but that they are arrogant and want to have a greater status and be known as the greatest. Jesus takes this opening to remind them of a lesson He had taught in the sermon on the mount but also go a little more in depth with it. First Jesus calls over a young child that was listening in and then Jesus begins to teach.

Matthew 18:3–4 “and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Two steps are listed here to be the greatest in the kingdom. Number one is to be converted. Jesus had previously taught that no one can come to the Father but by Him meaning to even be a part of the kingdom you must first be a converted believer in Him. Then to become the greatest you must become humble like a child. Little children are not concerned with their status in life. They are fully trusting in their parents that their needs will be provided. We also should not focus so much on greatness and how can we climb the social latter. Rather we should be humble and trust in our Father to provide for us wherever He wishes us to be. In doing this, humbling yourself and abandoning unrighteous ambition, it is only then that you are actually made into the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus also gives us a very famous verse here that I would like to touch on.

Matthew 18:6 ““Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Now honestly I feel a little weird saying this, but this verse has been misinterpreted to an extent by a lot of people. This verse is often considered to be against pedophilia saying that you should not abuse children as it is punishable by death. Look, God is clear that that is sinful and wrong and evil, but that is learned through the many other texts regarding sexual immorality. We have talked a lot about how when Jesus is teaching He often starts with the physical and then moves into the spiritual. Whenever Jesus moves into the spiritual He does not then swap back to refering to the physical elements of His analogy. Here Jesus says that believers who humble themselves are little children and then taking that logic over to verse six then the little ones He refers to are not actual children but believers.

Here is what Jesus is warning against then, it is a terrible and grave offense to cause a believer in Christ to stumble and to sin. Many people will try to cause you to sin and tempt you. Rest in the fact that not only will God provide a way out of the temptation should you choose it, but justice will be served to those who try to lead you away. At the same time it does not say that we cannot fall into this same trap. We as believers still sin and it is possible for us to cause others to sin if we are not dilligent in cutting the sin from our lives.

This is what Jesus again reminds us of as believers in verse 8

Matthew 18:8 ““If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire.”

We must be willing to sacrifice anything in our life in order to cut sin from our life. We have a tendency to hold onto things that are hurting us because we are blinded by love for it. We, because of our human nature, cling to that which is evil and reject that which is good. Thankfully though Christ has given us the option to reject the evil. It is not easy just as cutting off your own foot would be painful and difficult so to is rejecting evil, but the benefit is much greater than the pain.

Jesus then gives us His mission statement

Matthew 18:11 “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.”

Jesus has a mission and that mission is not complete. His mission is to seek out what is lost and bring it back. He goes into what is known as the parable of the lost sheep next and in this parable He relates us to sheep that have strayed away from the flock and He is the shepherd that goes out from the flock to bring the sheep back. We are sheep because we are stupid and through Adam have chosen to leave the garden we have all through Adam chosen evil over good and thus lost our access to God. The Father being a good Father though has sent Christ as a Shepherd to go out and return His sheep to the flock which represents the kingdom.

So far then everything has been about an internal struggle with sin and with becoming a humble believer, but what about the people beside us? What about those who we do life with every day what about those guys? It is inevitable that as believers we are going to have conflict between each other. We are still human and we will fail and do something to someone else. So what do we do whenever someone wrongs us?

Matthew 18:15–17 ““Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”

We have three steps to follow here. Step one whenever we have an issue with one of our fellow Christians then the first thing that we should do is go talk to them. Not go tell someone else that we have a problem, but to go to them directly and let the problem be known. If it is possible for you to work out the issue without anyone else ever knowing there was a problem then that is ideal. However we are human and Jesus realizes that people are not always so open to discuss problems. If you cannot resolve the problem one on one and it still persists then bring with you one or two mutual friends not any more than that so it is not a mob but just concerned friends. Go to the person again and try to have the same conversation but with support. Hopefully that will resolve the issue, but if not then there is one final step if the person is still unrepentant and that is to talk to the church. So for your case come talk to me about it or one of our leaders in the group and we could all sit down to try to resolve the problem. Sometimes though you can try all of these things and still the problem persists so what happens next? They become one of the hard things to cut out of your life. It is not always beneficial for you to hang out with everyone. Sometimes you need to put some distance between you and a person and if they are living in sin and hurting you through it and will not hear correction then it is time to seperate yourself from them so that you will suffer no more damage.

Why should we care so much about unity amongst believers? Why do we have to go to such great lengths instead of just ignore the problem?

Matthew 18:19–20 ““Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.””

To accomplish His will on earth and to do anything great for the kingdom of God we have to have friends. We need to work together as the body of Christ not just the had or the feet or the eyes or the ears, but the full body of Christ is needed and whenever we are together it ensures that we are not working towards our own selfish ambitions, but that Christ is really in the work that we are doing because it is not just one person who believes it.

Peter then asks a good question in verse 21

Matthew 18:21 “Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?””

So if they keep on sinning and hurting me and I cut them out of my life does that mean that i no longer have to forgive them? Heres Jesus’ answer

Matthew 18:22 “Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

Even the people we cut out of our lives we continue to forgive. Forgiveness is not associated with friendship necessarily. We can forgive a person and still not be friends with the person. We must not harbour grudges against anyone no matter how much wrong they have done to us but continue to forgive all offenses.

Jesus illustrates this with another parable. He says there is a certain servant who owes the master a debt. When He goes to the master and begs for the master to show him patience the master showed him mercy and forgave him of his debts. This same servant then went to one of his fellow servants that owed him money and was cruel to him and showed no mercy and had him thrown in prison. The master was displeased to hear this and called the servant back and imprisoned him because though he was shown mercy of a greater scale he refused to show it to his fellow servants.

We are this servant as believers. We have been forgiven of a great debt that the only payment for it was our entire lives and our eternal soul. The Father offered His own Son to pay that debt for us and forgive us of our sins. Now what will we do with the mercy He has shown us? Will we be like this servant and continue to hold grudges and disrespect the gift of the Father, or will we be a good servant and honor the forgiveness we have been given by acting as the Father in showing forgiveness for all offenses made to us past present and future.