"Who Is The Greatest?"_Matthew 18a Aug 7 2022

Notes

The question is “what makes a person the greatest?”

Jesus answers that through the example of a child

They never asked about entering the kingdom of heaven, but Jesus made it about that

His ultimate answer is humility

How is this shown in the other three sections?

Temptations to Sin

It actually takes humility to run from temptations

Lost Sheep

The humility of our Lord to run after the one lost sheep

If Your Brother Sins Against You

It takes humility to confront your brother alone - otherwise, you are attempting to humiliate and shame him. Only humility can gain your brother back

Intro

Hello friends

We’re already in Matthew 18

Matthew is one of the most structured of the four gospels

If you remember - most scholars outline Matthew into five books

We’re finishing up the fourth book - and at the end of each book is a discourse by Jesus

You’ll notice that almost all of Chapter 18 is the very words of Jesus, as he teaches the disciples and teaches us

Chapter 18 contains several short teachings, including two parables

There are 35 verses in this chapter - but we will stop at verse 20 - we will save the last parable until next time

Who is the Greatest?

Since we are looking at the first 20 verses of Chapter 18, it’s important to look at the outline of these verses

Your Bible may or may not have sub-headings at each section

Those sub-headings are not part of the original Bible manuscripts

They were added later as the scholars put together your Bible translation

They are meant to make your Bible more readable and to direct your attention to the fact that there are quite a number of different subject headings

They break down each chapter into subjects

And helps the reader see the basic outline of each section

The gospels are full of these short vignettes, or episodes, or illustrations

My ESV Bible divides the first 20 verses into four categories

They are almost all equally divided:

Who Is The Greatest

Temptations to Sin

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

If Your Brother Sins Against You

I want to look at all of these episodes - I can’t go into great detail (otherwise, here all day)

One purpose of my preaching - is to encourage you to study this in detail on your own

But I want to see if we can find a link through a cohesive message throughout this entire chapter

The last section in Chapter 18 has the title in my Bible: The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

It is the longest section - and is a powerful parable given by Jesus

And I want to reserve that for next time

Verse 1 starts off Chapter 18 this way:

Matthew 18:1 ESV

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

We tend to think that the greatest of any given category in life means to be the greatest

Who is the GOAT - the Greatest Of All Time?

Who has won more championships than anyone else

Who has the most home runs?

Who has pitched more strikeouts?

What about football?

Who has the most MVPs in the NFL?

Which player holds the most Super Bowl wins?

What about golf? Who has won the most majors?

These are all fun to talk about

I think the answers to these questions are:

Barry Bonds

Nolan Ryan

Peyton Manning

Tom Brady

and Jack Nicklaus

Did I get that right?

Tell me in the comments if I’m wrong

Now, let’s get a little more controversial

Who is the greatest athlete of all time?

I obviously Googled this

ESPN ranks the Top Three athletes:

1. Michael Jordan 2. Babe Ruth 3. Muhammad Ali

If women were considered to be of little status in the First Century, children back then, would come even below that

Temptations

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

If Your Brother Sins Against You