Who is the Greatest?

Anabelle and the boys not listening to her.

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We have all had the feeling before. We want to be respected, we want to be looked up to, we want others to know that we are important.

There are two things that we see creeping up into the lives of the disciples, pride, and selfishness that is generated from that pride.

Pride

What is interesting, is that the disciples squabble about pride comes right on the heels of Jesus making a statement to them about how He is about to embark on the most selfless act in history.

Knowing Their Hearts

v.47

Pride is kind of the silent killer. It is the sin that is internal, not external. Causing us to judge others, to not recognize our sin. Yet it is a sin that we can easily hide from others, it isn’t an outward sin.

God isn’t fooled, and nothing can be hidden from Him. He sees all things and knows all things including your very thoughts. The intent of your heart, God knows it all. Don’t think that your pride is hidden. It isn’t, He sees it.

Psalm 139:4 ESV

4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

Even though He knows our thoughts, God still loves us, even though He sees not just the sins we’ve committed, but the things that we thought.

Who Was the Greatest

v.46

All of the disciples believed that they were better than the others. That they were more deserving of time with Jesus, a seat close to Jesus, to be in the position of honor with Jesus. They wanted the others to respect them.

He’s Not Part of Our Group

v.49

There’s this guy, and he has the audacity to do what you commanded us to go do. But he’s not with us.

We are the only one’s who are supposed to be casting out demons, what makes him think he has the right?

I can’t help but think part of the problem was this random person was doing what the disciples had just failed to do.

Do we struggle with pride?

It sure is a good thing that none of us have this problem, why I’m the most humble person I know.

I’m sure nobody in this room looks at their co-workers thinking, “I am so much better than them.”

Looks at people on their sports team wondering why they get to start and not you, your clearly as good as they are.

It’s even in our churches

We believe that our doctrine is better than another churches

We don’t see how God could use their church, some of their doctrine is clearly wrong. We are the only one’s who’s doctrine is correct.

All teenagers know they know it all. Then we continue into adulthood and move past the teenager stage and we learn that we didn’t know it all as a teenager. Now we look back 5-10 yrs ago, and it’s amazing how much more you have learned.

So why is it in the present, you think you know so much that you don’t need to listen to the advice of others?

Why do we now think that now we have it all figured out?

I’m not saying everyone’s doctrine is good or even that all who claim to be Christians are good, we were told that there would be wolves among the sheep.

But when we make one group out to be the hero’s, we will demonize those who we see as opposed to us.

Even though we might not agree on all points of doctrine with another believer, doesn’t mean that they aren’t doing the work of the ministry and reaching people for Jesus.

Selfishness

From pride, we get the by product of being selfish. Because of selfishness we react to others in a way because they have dare defied us.

Arguments

It wasn’t just that the disciples all thought that they were the greatest. Now they were arguing about it.

They had taken their sights off of what was important, following Jesus and learning from Him, now their focus is on themselves instead of on Jesus.

Forgetting the Objective

The job of the disciples was to learn from Jesus so they would have the words of life to tell others after the time of the sacrifice of Jesus had happened. They were to announce that the kingdom of God was upon them, that Jesus was the Christ.

This was jealousy being shows with the man who was casting out demons in the name of Jesus.

Instead of rejoicing that the power of God is being demonstrated and that the news of the kingdom was going out; the disciples problem was, “it isn’t us.”

Do We Focus On What’s Important?

Our pride makes us believe that all things have to be done our way. That we are the one’s who are right and everyone else needs to admit and accept that fact.

We are forgetting the objective. We are focusing on the temporal and forgetting the eternal. We need to make sure we keep in mind that our goal is to bring glory to God, not to ourselves.

How to Fight Pride and Selfishness

How is it that Jesus told them to fight their pride, to get past it.

Care for the Lowly

v.48

Children were not thought of highly. A child cannot repay.

Jesus is saying care for those, who will not be able to repay you.

James 1:27 ESV

27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Widows and orphans are one’s who cannot repay you. You want to know what it looks like to serve God? Humble yourself without thought of them repaying you.

James 4:10 ESV

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Recognize Fellow Believers

Just because they aren’t from your close theological group, doesn’t mean that they are unclean and should thrown to the side.

There are wolves out there, but so many times we look at other sheep that don’t look quite like we do and treat them like wolves.

Calvinism, Armenian

Pre Trib, Post Trib

What is the unfolding of revelation going to look like.

Infant baptism or dunking

The nature and state of Israel

Should we worship on Saturday or Sunday

These are all discussions that occur within the framework of biblical Christianity.

Do we look at those who believe a little different than us and spend all of our effort to fight them and prove that they are wrong rather than joining together to further the gospel.

We must examine our lives to get rid of the cancer of pride in our lives, before it destroys us.

Challenge: Find a way to humble yourself and serve someone.