Being the Greatest

I always wondered what it would really feel like to be someone in Oprah’s crowd, you know when she went, “You get a car and you get a car, you get a car and you get a car” to every person in the audience.

Or what would it be be the best. Be one of those basketball players at the NBA All-Star game knowing you’re the greatest in your field.

As a pastor I try to do my best. What makes the greatest pastor. Right now I am once again reading through the Bible which would make I think the 4th time I have read every single word, and I spent a lot of time in prayer this week.

Some of you might hear that and say wow that’s a lot of reading and others might say only 4 times I know brother so and so who has read it 15 times.

I have baptized people, shared Jesus with people. Seen people dramatically change by God, but what if I was the greatest?

What if it wasn’t me but you? What would your life be like?

What if you could be the greatest, truly the one who is incredible as a Christian, a follower of Jesus.

What would you have to do for God to think of you as the greatest follower of Him?

I am part of Maximized Manhood, a group of men focused on being the best God would have us be we are reading books, praying, encouraging each other to care about our families and each other.

Bobby has been calling us to increase our faith. what would like be like if you were God’s greatest? Phil was sharing with us to increase our awareness of how we act on the emotion of anger. What would your interactions with people be like if you were God’s greatest?

Each and every week at New Day, we encourage each other to take on the attitude of Christ. What would you have to do to be the very best at it?

Last week many of us watched men who pursued being the very best football players they could be and leadership of a team that pursued being the very best. Actually we watch two teams and these men and the women in the organizations become what they pursued. Their pursuit was the very best and even when the Bengals didn’t win the Super Bowl they are still an excellent team.

What would you be like if you were the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Are you pursuing that? Are you close like the Bengals? Is greatest in heaven what you are about?

I do believe heaven is real. I do believe it is eternal. Everything else in my life this week is temporary. The job I hold. My health, Even my relationships, even tensions of war, while everything I mention are important they are all going away including the books that will be written about this time. Temporary all of it, but heaven is eternal, so what if, should we, pursue being the best at the eternal?

As Jesus taught, his disciples lived on his every word, he taught them about life and he taught about the eternal. we too should hang on his every word because we just agreed we still desire the eternal today. Whatever age, gender, wherever we are to live as followers of Jesus so we desire to live out what Jesus said, and so they asked Jesus about what it takes to get an A+ in Jesus following, what it takes to be the best, specifically they asked who does one have to be, to be the greatest.

Matthew 18:1 CSB

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “So who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

What will Jesus say?

It’s the answer to what I have talked this whole time. If we know who is the greatest than we will know why and we can pursue that.

Take a second and think about your answer.

Let’s get nerdy for a second. The bible was written in English it was written in ancient Greek. The greek word here for greatest is

may-zone which is the nominative adjective singular form of megas. Was that nerdy enough for you. We have an English word from it - MEGA!

Big, huge, most important!

So who is it Jesus? Who is MEGA in the kingdom of heaven.

Is it the disciple Peter? Is it Mary, his mom? Someone like Patrick, who led an entire culture to turn to Jesus and set up mission outposts that took the Gospel from Celtic Ireland all over Europe> Is it maybe somebody like Billy Graham who lived with integrity and preached about Jesus to the whole world. Who is it?

Matthew 18:2 CSB

2 He called a small child and had him stand among them.

Let’s do that now. (Find child and call them up)

Jesus called the child up and said,

Matthew 18:3–4 CSB

3 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child—this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Not just MEGA in heaven but entry requires the humility of a child.

Wow, I hope you played along and thought about all the ways we in church think about how much we need to do to be important to God as I asked you all those questions.

You see Children don’t know much and they don’t have much. Kids have to learn how to do almost everything, by either copying or directly being taught. In the days of Jesus the father was the head of the household and the ultimate police power in a child’s life. A child in the days of Jesus would be anyone 11 and under. 5th grade and below. The children were to bring honor to the family and depended on the family. Just as they still do today. Kids can be remarkable but this was as we say, “just a kid.” Not a remarkable kid, not an incredible gifted kid, not a injured kid, just a kid. A kid who was farming with dad. A kid who was being a kid.

Why a kid? Because the kid is totally humble, totally dependent on God.

You may have come to church today thinking that if you did more, believed more, fasted more, prayed more, evangelized more, gave more, prettier, smarter, something else, if you do more for God if you had it all together than God will change you. God will answer your prayer. God will make you whole, better, important.

Nope.

Not more. Not more effort, not more work. Not out of you.

Instead a willingness to accept what the work He did for you.

John 3:16 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Know this Jesus loves you so much he can’t love you anymore. There is nothing you can do that can change his love for you. God cares for you so much you could never care for someone as much as he cares for you.

The child who I brought up here can not become of greater worth to their parents than they already are. Tragically those who have lost children know better than anyone that the presence of the child, the fact they exist, is incredible.

God’s love for that child is 100 times greater than their parent’s love for them

Would you accept that Jesus truly loves you?

Right now. God loves you.

Like a child will you rest in the fact that Jesus, your father, can be taken at His word. He made it right. It’s essential that all of us, with all of our sins recognize what the greatest love of our life did for us,

Romans 10:9 CSB

9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

When I say to my child don’t worry about it, I will take care of it. They believe me. I am not God. I do my best to never fail them. But I know that my God, when he says I took care of it. I know I can believe that. I can act on it.

When everyone else wants you to be something, when your boss wants you to produce, when your bank wants a score, when others are screaming at your to be there for them, God says to you today, I love you.

Today, hear God loves you. God loves you so much that he died for you and for those of us who truly recognize that God still reigns, that the Holy Spirit still is here, answering prayers, giving us guidance, correcting us, and showing us the new way so that it can be a new day in our lives.

God did it! You don’t have to

I am so amazed that some of you are delivered from a life of addiction, some of you were delivered from abuse, some of you are delivered from lives of greed and selfishness and in all of this God’s love for you, you can know that God did it. God fixed it. God gave you the strength to face tomorrow. God arranged the encounters.

So this week or maybe even today when you walked in here feeling like crap because once again you didn’t measure up, you failed in what you told God, you still owe so much, you don’t have the job or the place. People this week have said you suck.

God says to you,

“you don’t have to become something for me to love you, all you have to do is

Matthew 18:4 CSB

4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child—this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

humble yourself like the child. Know that today, tomorrow and all of next week God’s got this.

What does that mean? What does it mean to be humble like the child.

Where my wife comes from in Southeast Texas they don’t say the H, it’s umble, not humble. Which totally doesn’t matter but when my wife first came to California, she was incredibly cute and hot, and spoke in her sexy accent she introduced herself to people at church and said she lived near eweston, Texas and they looked at me for translation. I said, “Houston.”

Humble comes from another H word, humiliate. Humiliate is to cause someone to feel low. Humble is very different than humiliate. Humble doesn’t mean the shame of knowing someone caused you be lower, embarrassed, or ashamed. Humble is the understanding that you are already low. It it the understanding of how much you need.

Think about children. If a child wants to go to the park, what do they have to do? Ask their parent. They already know they are in a low position to their parents.

I get the honor of working with children with special needs and many kids I have worked with don’t know how to button or un-botten yet, they must be taught. So when they need to go to the bathroom many of them will walk up to me and thrust there hips out, because they can’t talk, and it’s there quick way of saying “ I need you. Otherwise I am going to be peeing in my pants being that I can’t unbotten pants. You have the choice to unbotten these now while they are dry or later when they have pee all over them.” My students can say a lot in a simple movement.

I’m kidding but Children have no problem being humble. They have no problem realizing they need.

We need to remember we can’t fix our spiritual state and we don’t get to be the greatest in heaven by somehow impressing God. Like a child, we don’t have to come up with the plans for the family, we have to follow.

IN the days of Jesus, the children would be expected to follow in the families job, work the family farm, do whatever the father said and then their mother said. They were adults in training and children became family workers immediately as soon as they could work. Children were the servants of their parents.

If a person wants to be great in the kingdom of God they need to become a servant to God like the children were to their parents.

Jesus said it again this way,

Matthew 20:26–28 CSB

26 It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

My friends Jesus is not talking about a job but a lifestyle. A lifestyle of loving others. A lifestyle of serving the Lord by seeking out service through the church family and in ways to love others.

How does a child know what to do?

Listens and is taught.

I got to tell you about my big mistake this year as a teacher I have my students line up to leave for recess, lunch whatever we do when we leave the classroom. I even have little dots on the ground for them to stand on. You know what, they don’t stand on them. They wander, anytime an adult is not right next to them, they start heading somewhere and turn their back they start to wander. So I changed it up, because my students are humble children and I had to show them what to do. Now I require them to sit down on the dots. Some of them, as I said my students are special needs so they need a little more guidance so we might hold their hand to the dot and then push a little on the top of the shoulder and they sit. Ready to do. Only when they stop trying to figure out what they want to do and instead stay seated listening to what we tell them can we get everything ready for them.

My staff and I arrange whatever we need to go, like get all their lunches together, where we are going and then we get into position and say, “stand up.” Some of my little guys still need a helping hand up and then we go.

My friends, the Lord is a better guide than me. Some of you are wandering too and fro, bumping into stuff and wondering what you are supposed to do.

Let’s pop a squat, let’s take a seat and stop trying to impress anyone or fix everything. Let’s repent from the idea that we can be good enough or even never be good enough for God. Instead like kids let’s us surrender ourselves to God.

like a child and follow the directions God is laying on our lives. and recognize that our duty is to lay down our lives for one another.

If you know that Jesus loves you, than you have a duty, to serve in love.

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