SPEAKER_01: So find in your Bibles Matthew 18.
SPEAKER_01: Find Matthew 18 in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: If you're new to the Bible, reading the Bible, this is a great place to start learning how to read your Bible on Sundays.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're new, like so we offer you a Bible when you come in the door if you don't have one, and that's our gift to you.
SPEAKER_01: And it can be your Bible that you bring every week to church.
SPEAKER_01: But nowadays with smartphones, you can also get a Bible app.
SPEAKER_01: It'll just be right on your phone.
SPEAKER_01: And so half of my Bible reading is done on a screen, not in a paper Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Either one works.
SPEAKER_01: And it's so if you're new to the Bible, we're reading from the second half of the Bible, which starts with these four biographies about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And they're called the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
SPEAKER_01: And all four tell us about when Jesus came.
SPEAKER_01: He was born of a virgin, and he did, he grew up, got to be about 30 years of age, and he began his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: He did ministry in Israel for three years.
SPEAKER_01: He uh gathered about 12, uh he had 12 disciples or apostles that were his team, his ministry team.
SPEAKER_01: They followed him around the area of Galilee, and then they went from Galilee, they went up north into the kind of the Gentile region, and there were some of their trips that they made into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: I primarily did ministry around what we call Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's still there to this day.
SPEAKER_01: So you could go literally and like walk the same places that Jesus walked and see um where he did ministry, and uh you'd be able to find literally the towns that are listed here in our Bible are towns that are this, or there's the remnants of those towns there to this day.
SPEAKER_01: So we're reading about Jesus who was on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: It was his first coming 2,000 years ago, and he was not just a prophet, he wasn't just a good teacher, but he was the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: He was the Messiah, he was the Jewish Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: And he proclaimed, we saw in chapter 4, that he went around in his ministry and he did these miracles, and his message was the good news about the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes you hear the word gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about gospel music, or we talk about preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: That word just means good news.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus brought good news about the kingdom, and he was teaching about the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And he was inviting people to come in to that kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And as the ministry of Jesus unfolded, and as the Jewish people are connecting the dots and realize, wait, this is what Jewish prophets spoke of in the Old Testament, the first half of our Bible.
SPEAKER_01: This is the person they were pointing to.
SPEAKER_01: It became more and more apparent that this Jesus wasn't just explaining just God's kingdom, but he's the king of that kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's presenting just an alternative reality, an alternative society where things are ordered by God and He is the authority in that kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And he's literally, that's where the miracles come along.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just like Superman showed up and started healing people.
SPEAKER_01: No, the the miracles that Jesus are doing are this taste of the kingdom, that that there's this restoration of sick people, there's the healing of people that are have diseases or who are paralyzed.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not just that that was a fun, fancy, nice thing to have happen, although I'm sure the people who were healed were very excited.
SPEAKER_01: But you think about also the reality of the demons that possess people, the demonic possession of people, and um the presence of an alternative dark kingdom taking possession and destroying lives, and then Jesus casts those demons out.
SPEAKER_01: All of that is this, hey, look at it's an invasion of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: So you think back to when God created the heavens and the earth and he had the six days of creation, and what does it say at the end of every day?
SPEAKER_01: He saw it and it was it was good.
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until chapter three of Genesis that we have the rebellion of humanity against God's good design.
SPEAKER_01: And what does it say there?
SPEAKER_01: It says, he says, look, if you rebel, if you eat that fruit, in the day you eat it, you will surely die.
SPEAKER_01: And there was no way for Adam and Eve to even know like how comprehensive that death would be, that it would bring about just total destruction to humanity in not in rel, there was relational death, there was blaming, um, a husband and wife blaming each other, there was psychological death that occurred because there was all of a sudden this sense of shame.
SPEAKER_01: There was spiritual death because they're running away from the presence of God rather than being a friend of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so we go from everything being good to the trajectory of humanity.
SPEAKER_01: The reality that you and I experience is the result of that original rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: So things are broken because humanity rebelled against God's good design.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus comes as the Messiah, the one who's heralding there is a new kingdom, he's the king, and there's a restoration.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're invited to jump out of that world of death and destruction and to become a follower of Jesus, so that your story of death and destruction is over, put into the grave with Jesus, and you're now on this path of restoration.
SPEAKER_01: That's his invitation.
SPEAKER_01: He's going all over Israel, and people are seeing, wow, look at the healing power of this man and his heralding of a new kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Don't I want to be a part of that kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: Do you?
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to be in the life of death and destruction, or do you want to experience the restoration that Jesus came and was bringing?
SPEAKER_01: The invitation is open to you today.
SPEAKER_01: So we're reading through this time of Jesus' teaching.
SPEAKER_01: We're reading through it so that we can understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you say to me, Josh, I'm ready to step out of the path of destruction that I've been on, and I'm ready to step into the new life that Jesus offers, what does that look like?
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: And so slowly by bit by bit, he's breaking it down for his followers.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to look at nine verses out of your Bible and my Bible, where Jesus is teaching some key things about greatness in the kingdom, greatness in that kingdom that we want to be a part of, that we're invited into.
SPEAKER_01: Many of us are in.
SPEAKER_01: What does greatness look like?
SPEAKER_01: And what does sin, what's our relationship with sin once we're in that kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at the big idea to start off with, okay?
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna read the text to support this idea.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus redefines greatness by flipping our values upside down, calling us to humility, childlike dependence, radical reshaping of our relationships, and confronting our hearts with the seriousness of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Can I read the text to you?
SPEAKER_01: So here's those nine verses.
SPEAKER_01: At that time, the disciples came and they asked Jesus, so who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
SPEAKER_01: He called a small child and had him stand among them.
SPEAKER_01: Truly I tell you, he said, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child, this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And whoever welcomes one child like this in my name welcomes me.
SPEAKER_01: But whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to fall away, it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea.
SPEAKER_01: Woe to the world because of offenses, for offenses will inevitably come, but woe to that person by whom the offenses come.
SPEAKER_01: If your hand or your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off and throw it away.
SPEAKER_01: It's better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire.
SPEAKER_01: And if your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out and throw it away.
SPEAKER_01: It's better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell fire.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to ask you to pray with me.
SPEAKER_01: We want to ask that God would open up our eyes to understand this text.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we just we are given this gift as a text.
SPEAKER_01: It's in our language.
SPEAKER_01: We get to read it in English.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to read it in Greek, how it was originally written.
SPEAKER_01: And God, we pray that you would connect what's being written here to our hearts and minds, that you would be our teacher.
SPEAKER_01: Speak to us, we pray.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus here is again teaching about the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And we've been going through this identity material, identity material about Jesus over the last couple months for us in the past few chapters.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus has been establishing who he is in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: That he's the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: And remember the transfiguration where Peter, James, and John saw him up on a mountain.
SPEAKER_01: He's literally, his visage was changed.
SPEAKER_01: His face is like shining like the sun.
SPEAKER_01: So we see this material all about identity, and it brings about this question of greatness.
SPEAKER_01: So the question of greatness in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: The disciples came to Jesus and said, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
SPEAKER_01: Now it's easy to be critical of the disciples and be like, Well, you know, why are you so worried about greatness?
SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, who really cares?
SPEAKER_01: But this is a good step for the disciples.
SPEAKER_01: This is a step forward from where they were.
SPEAKER_01: They're catching on to some stuff about Jesus because notice they're asking a question about the kingdom of heaven and not about the Roman Empire, not about Jewish society.
SPEAKER_01: So they're now, they're curious, they're tapped into a new society, a different reality.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we want as followers of Jesus, where we start to get preoccupied and curious about, well, how does this work in the kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: Because man, I know how Baltimore City works, and I know how the United States works, I know how my family society works or my culture works, but oh, that the Holy Spirit would give us this inspired curiosity about God's kingdom, where we'd be wondering, how does this work in God's kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: Now, now, if the kingdom, this whole conversation is new to you, Jesus is not saying, the Bible does not teach that you die here on earth and then you go into his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is telling his followers, no, I want you to step into my kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, when he sent his disciples out, he said the messenger to bring is say that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER_01: You can reach out and grab it.
SPEAKER_01: And he's inviting people into the kingdom to experience it now.
SPEAKER_01: So when you walk in that door and you're around a bunch of Jesus followers, you're getting a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Because the Holy Spirit is making these ethics, the social fabric of the kingdom a reality that we get to benefit from.
SPEAKER_01: When we get dumped on by Amazon with a whole load, that sounded wrong.
SPEAKER_01: When Amazon dumps a bunch of food on us, that's like that's a miracle, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's this crazy thing that happens.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a glimpse of like God, your kingdom's breaking out in Fell's Point.
SPEAKER_01: When we experience somebody being healed of a sickness, or we see miraculous provision in their life, it's like, wow, that's the kingdom of God breaking out.
SPEAKER_01: And so, oh, that we would have a just a fascination and a curiosity and a hunger for God's kingdom in our own life.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what these disciples, they're wondering who's the greatest in the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jesus is like, I'm glad you asked.
SPEAKER_01: So we get this object lesson.
SPEAKER_01: He takes a small child, like Emmanuel's age right here.
SPEAKER_01: Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: He takes a small child, puts them in their midst, and um that's the working example.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now, culturally, children were um hardly recognized, hardly recognized in society.
SPEAKER_01: Um there was a high mortality rate, um, they could they were not very productive, they were a drain on the system.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't easy to care for a child.
SPEAKER_01: It was this, it was this investment of like, I'm gonna invest in this child, they're gonna take a lot from me, and hopefully someday they'll take over my farm.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that's similar somewhat to parenting, but um in that setting, you know, you don't have any help.
SPEAKER_01: It's like you're really hoping this kid um is a financial benefit to your family.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is shock material.
SPEAKER_01: There's there's some shock value in this in a different culture.
SPEAKER_01: Um and he sticks this child, has the child stand among them, and he says, Truly, I tell you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: So here is the second time that we hear this word kingdom, and he explains really clearly that you need to turn and become like a little child.
SPEAKER_01: That is the key.
SPEAKER_01: Turn and become like this little child.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if this is where the the teaching ended, if the teaching ended here, we would be like, well, what um what what should it be like to be a little child?
SPEAKER_01: Uh this uh on Friday night uh my my youngest son had a um elementary school dance, and it was basically like the cafeteria was open for snacks, and they brought in a DJ, and she had all these elementary kids running around in the dark with fun lighting in this gym.
SPEAKER_01: It was like the happiest room I was in for the whole week.
SPEAKER_01: All these like squealing and happy kids just freaking out over the music and having so much fun.
SPEAKER_01: It was like, it was it was really sweet.
SPEAKER_01: But I was looking at it and I was like, you know, it's easy when you're reading this, it's like, well, what's the quality here that when Jesus places this kid in their midst, what's what does he want his disciples to learn from this little child?
SPEAKER_01: Because he stakes the entrance into the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Now remember the question was about greatness in the kingdom, and he's saying, no, if you want to enter the kingdom, you've got to turn.
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting, and you've got to become like little children.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost uh what was that movie that like the the guy like reversed in his age?
SPEAKER_01: Benjamin Button.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's that kind of idea, right?
SPEAKER_01: You need to turn around, stop aging, and you need to turn and become like a little child.
SPEAKER_01: This is a funny thing about that room on Friday night.
SPEAKER_01: You got kids just going crazy with their friends, running all over.
SPEAKER_01: I I I wanted to take a picture, but I didn't want to be the creepy guy taking pictures of like little kids that I didn't know.
SPEAKER_01: But it was so much fun, like there was so much joy in that room.
SPEAKER_01: And around the perimeter are all these grown-ups kind of with their leaning against the wall, afraid to dance.
SPEAKER_01: There was a couple bold ones, like they took like a couple of steps off the side of the wall and they were kind of like moving their hips a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: We needed some more black people to be honest.
SPEAKER_01: I live like in a very that's just that's just it.
SPEAKER_01: That's just how it was.
SPEAKER_01: I was I literally thought that I was just like, man, this is too many white people in here.
SPEAKER_01: But there was like, there's this funny thing about the just getting older.
SPEAKER_01: It's just like, how did how did how did it go from like just this elation and the innocence and the joy of these kids to like kind of like arms crossed and just kind of like watching get me out of here, you know?
SPEAKER_00: It was interesting.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is saying like he is he's prizing, he's putting on He's essentially saying, like, do you want to understand my kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: Then you need to understand the value system.
SPEAKER_01: Like for example, like in the United States, we have like a monetary value system.
SPEAKER_01: Like if you wanted to like buy my car and you're like, I have three bags of pinto beans, it would be like that's not the value that we trade in.
SPEAKER_01: Like we use dollars, um, is our monetary system, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um magic pinto beans, like you'd have to show me, you'd have to prove it to me, right?
SPEAKER_01: A society has has values, like uh what is what's important, right?
SPEAKER_01: A culture has what's important.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is saying, listen, you've got to understand that you've been living in this culture here, both Jewish society and the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm introducing you to my kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, and the value system here is personified.
SPEAKER_01: This child is the object lesson for you.
SPEAKER_01: And so what I need is this action here.
SPEAKER_01: I need you to be able to turn away from what you've learned, and I'm asking you to adopt this childlike behavior.
SPEAKER_01: But he goes on, he goes on, and he says, Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child.
SPEAKER_01: So he not only says to us, be childlike, but he identifies a quality in the child that he's really going after.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, this isn't the only thing that he's going after in this idea of childlike, um, uh childlike nature, but he's really highlighting this um humility.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I want you to humble yourself like this child.
SPEAKER_01: This one is the greatest in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: So there's the answer to the question.
SPEAKER_01: Who's the greatest?
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: There's it, there is this innocence, yeah, there's this this ready readiness to like um there's like a purity, right?
SPEAKER_01: A simplicity.
SPEAKER_01: What were you gonna what were you gonna say?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this beautiful humility, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's a vulnerableness, you don't have all of life figured out, but you're but you're not so self conscious to.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Because all those adults on the edge of the room are not dancing because they're super self-conscious.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: They don't want to get out there.
SPEAKER_01: So there is in this child this humility here that he is emphasizing and saying, that's what I want you to revert back to.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to go back to that place.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pull open my teaching notes to make sure I'm not missing anything here.
SPEAKER_01: So the child, this is going to be important.
SPEAKER_01: So we have this child, the object lesson coming from this child, number one, is that you want to follow Jesus into his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: You need to turn away from pride and embrace a humble disposition.
SPEAKER_01: But what you need to know is that for the next couple of weeks, I think it's at least next week, maybe the week after, this idea of the child, he's going to continue to talk about little ones.
SPEAKER_01: Little ones.
SPEAKER_01: He's already said it in chapter 10 when he told sent out his disciples, and he said, Whenever you give a drink to these little ones in my name, you do it to me.
SPEAKER_01: And so what you're going to need to do as the reader of the text is understand that Jesus is using the child as an object lesson, and then he's assuming that you're going to obey what he says here and you're going to be the little one.
SPEAKER_01: Because he's going to talk later on in verse 6, 5 and 6, if you offend one of these little ones.
SPEAKER_01: He's not talking about the child.
SPEAKER_01: This goes back to Zechariah when it talks about the shepherd, they're in need for a shepherd because the sheep are scattered, and the shepherd comes in and he cares for the little ones.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is in Matthew 10, he's called his disciples or those that the disciples care for, little ones.
SPEAKER_01: When you go and you read the book or the letter that John the Apostle wrote, it's called 1 John.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout, five times he calls followers of Jesus little ones.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So even though we have this child as the object lesson, you need to understand that he's mapping that child onto your life.
SPEAKER_01: He's asking for you to, Benjamin Button, like reverse your aging.
SPEAKER_01: Go back to this childlike state in the kingdom with a humility, with this innocence, this openness, this dependence upon God.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Let's keep going here so that we have this idea of the radical responsibility towards others.
SPEAKER_01: So greatness in the kingdom is the ones who are humble.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing that we see is this some stuff about society.
SPEAKER_01: How do we treat one another?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Whoever welcomes one child like this in my name welcomes me.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It's at this point that Mark, when he's recalling the same thing in Mark's book about Jesus, he stops here and there's a couple of verses that are slotted in right here.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew just keeps going into the next material because it there's a break that should be right at this point, or kind of around this point.
SPEAKER_01: It's all the same teaching, but there's more material in the middle of the text in Mark and in Luke.
SPEAKER_01: But he says, Whoever welcomes one child like this in my name welcomes me.
SPEAKER_01: So he's mapping it on.
SPEAKER_01: If you do this, if you're welcoming, then you're welcoming me.
SPEAKER_01: So the kingdom of heaven is a welcoming space.
SPEAKER_01: There is this generosity that we extend with an open-heartedness towards others.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, you've experienced here as you've come to church, in that there is this kindness.
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you a chance.
SPEAKER_01: I'm open-hearted to you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, look, when you're an adult and you've done some life, especially life in the city, you've gotten hurt many times, those calluses start to build up, and the idea of welcoming somebody else becomes more and more of a foreign concept because you got to protect your heart.
SPEAKER_01: But you see, Jesus' followers are filled with the love of God and recognize that they've been welcomed in, even though they're an enemy in rebellion against God to begin with.
SPEAKER_01: They see that Jesus died on the cross for their sins.
SPEAKER_01: They're welcomed in, and we become a community that's just welcoming.
SPEAKER_01: Welcoming.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, when you're welcoming, you're doing it, and you're welcome in my name, you're welcoming me.
SPEAKER_01: But let's contrast that.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away, it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so here we're we have these little ones.
SPEAKER_01: They're the ones that are finding out about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They're coming to faith in Jesus, they're starting out their relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, look, if you cause one of these believers to fall away, it would be better for you if you were just drowned with this heavy rock around your neck.
SPEAKER_01: So on one hand, he's like, hey, we're welcoming, but you come into that kingdom, and the way you behave around one another, you're causing somebody else to get upset.
SPEAKER_01: You're causing somebody else to stumble.
SPEAKER_01: This is how serious it is.
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, the relationships that we have with one another are very important.
SPEAKER_01: And the way we treat one another is not just this flippant, like, oh, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: We love one another.
SPEAKER_01: We're very careful with how we treat one another.
SPEAKER_01: We're making sure that the way that we treat one another is not gonna throw that person off this week.
SPEAKER_01: This idea of falling away is is it's to fall away and feel separated from God.
SPEAKER_01: So we got to think: is there anything that I'm doing that's making my friend Christian, the person at church that I go to church with, feel separated from God?
SPEAKER_01: Am I hurting their relationship with God?
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus says it would be better for me to be just thrown in the water and drowned.
SPEAKER_01: I had a time in my life where I worked for a pastor who I thought was amazing when I was 25.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I came to find out that he was highly abusive to people in his church.
SPEAKER_01: He was incredibly destructive.
SPEAKER_01: And I watched for three years as he messed with people.
SPEAKER_01: And uh he asked, I was on the board of the church and I was really young, and there was stuff that was happening where I was just like, this doesn't seem right.
SPEAKER_01: But I was I was just filtering, I was trying to, I I was still trying to get my bearings as a as a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, this doesn't feel right, this doesn't seem like how we should treat people.
SPEAKER_01: And um I at that time had a young family.
SPEAKER_01: I was praying, like, let me out of here.
SPEAKER_01: Get me out of here, God.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just escape from this.
SPEAKER_01: I was afraid he was gonna hurt my family and uh hurt my career.
SPEAKER_01: And so my whole thing was like this self-preservation.
SPEAKER_01: After I left, I felt convicted, like, man, I was in a position of authority.
SPEAKER_01: I should have really kind of stood up for the people in the church, and I had an opportunity to.
SPEAKER_01: And there was uh 11 other former board members that wrote letters and made it really clear like you're doing the wrong thing, you're hurting other people.
SPEAKER_01: And he was willing to have a meeting.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I flew all the way across the country to back for a full day's meeting.
SPEAKER_01: I was unrepentant.
SPEAKER_01: He pretended that he was repentant and he he played the games that we had seen him play over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: We left, and ultimately the decision of some an outside church group was that, hey, listen, we don't want you to, we don't want to be affiliated with you.
SPEAKER_01: We think you should resign.
SPEAKER_01: Your whole ministry team should resign, and we'll put somebody else over the church.
SPEAKER_01: And they said, if you don't want to do that, just change the name of your church.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be affiliated anymore.
SPEAKER_01: So he continued on for a couple of years.
SPEAKER_01: He reached out to me early on when I moved to Baltimore in 2016, and I wrote him a letter and I said to him, You have been corrected publicly.
SPEAKER_01: Why would I come back to your church and pretend that we're reconciled, that things are okay when you have left like a trail of bodies of people you've hurt.
SPEAKER_01: You have an opportunity now to repent and to turn.
SPEAKER_01: And he didn't receive that letter.
SPEAKER_01: And literally the next day, it was one of those times where I wrote a letter and I like read it, and I still have it, and I've read it, and I was like, man, God helped me write that letter.
SPEAKER_01: Speak specifically to this man.
SPEAKER_01: The next day, after I wrote that letter, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
SPEAKER_01: And he died.
SPEAKER_01: He probably died, I think, 20 years earlier than he should have.
SPEAKER_01: He was in incredible health.
SPEAKER_01: Incredible health.
SPEAKER_01: He died in his like late 50s.
SPEAKER_01: And I looked at that and I I felt like as I watched this, this is God taking somebody who is causing little ones to stumble, and he's just saying, Hey, it's better in your situation that you just aren't you're not alive anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I think he's in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And I wrote to him on my letter, and I said, I think, I said, I can't wait to be with you in heaven, where these things are gonna be gone, where God's justice is gonna be, you know, it'll have dealt with this stuff, it'll even out all this stuff, but please repent.
SPEAKER_01: And he didn't.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, on his deathbed, the last week of his life, he continued to hurt Christians around him.
SPEAKER_01: So God is serious about this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: He's serious about his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: You don't get to just come into church and play games and hurt the people around you.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, each God deals with people differently.
SPEAKER_01: But like, if you're in your in your life, if there's like ongoing suffering, one of the first things when I'm suffering that I ask is like, Am I hurting somebody?
SPEAKER_01: Am I hurting the body of Christ in some way?
SPEAKER_01: Is there something that I need to deal with in my own life?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we need to keep going to finish this up.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Whoever welcomes one child like this in my name, welcomes me.
SPEAKER_01: And then we we read verse six, and then here's this final warning.
SPEAKER_01: Woe to the world because of offenses, for offenses will inevitably come, but woe to the person by whom the offense comes.
SPEAKER_01: We don't use this word very often.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't ever use that word, but it's like the um it's the sign when you go to the gas station, they have a propane tank, and it's a big like yellow sign that says don't smoke right here next to the propane tank.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the woe means.
SPEAKER_01: Like, warning, this could blow up, right?
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying, warning to the world because of offenses, for offenses will inevitably come, but warning to the person by whom the offense comes.
SPEAKER_01: Like, take it really seriously, take account of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Is there stuff in your life that is doesn't belong in the kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: You're in Jesus' kingdom, but you continue to practice stuff that's offensive to either him or the people around you.
SPEAKER_01: Get it out of your life, just like you wouldn't smoke by the propane canister at mobil or Exxon.
SPEAKER_01: Get that offense out of your life because it's gonna make a mess.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna blow stuff up.
SPEAKER_01: If your hand or your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off and throw it away.
SPEAKER_01: It's better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet to be thrown into eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: He's using, he's making an example.
SPEAKER_01: He's speaking figuratively to show you and I this is how serious patterns of sin in our life are.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the thing, church: God puts in our life family, wives, husbands to help us see the junk in our life that's gonna keep us from the flourishing and the fruitfulness that God's called us to.
SPEAKER_01: God's put friends in our life that are bold enough to say, you know what, you keep doing this thing.
SPEAKER_01: And it's really not helpful.
SPEAKER_01: It hurts.
SPEAKER_01: And I would just encourage you to listen to those people and to take a severity, a stance towards your own sin or your own thing that causes the fall away.
SPEAKER_01: Think about okay, what things do I do that makes me feel further away from God?
SPEAKER_01: That's what falling away means, right?
SPEAKER_01: What is it?
SPEAKER_01: Is it anything?
SPEAKER_01: And let me deal with it severely.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you can relate to this, but you didn't have your leg cut off because of it was causing you to sin.
SPEAKER_01: But I find it ironic that you had your leg amputated on the only week.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you're we love you.
SPEAKER_01: We love you.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to tie the amputation of your foot in with this text, but I did find it high highly ironic.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we love you.
SPEAKER_01: And we're sorry.
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: And he says he continues in the same vein.
SPEAKER_01: If your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out, throw it away.
SPEAKER_01: It's better for you to enter life with one eye than two eyes to throw it into hellfire.
SPEAKER_01: Again, the severity of sin in our life.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in Jesus' kingdom and you identify as a citizen in his kingdom, then you are taking account of your life and you're going, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: This doesn't belong.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to war with these things.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing: here's the beautiful thing about being a follower of Jesus is that Jesus wasn't just amputated for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: He died on a cross for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: So we contribute a sense of severity and a desire to mortify our flesh.
SPEAKER_01: That's John Owen's famous Puritan.
SPEAKER_01: That's his name of a book, that's the title of his book, Mortification of the Flesh.
SPEAKER_01: I love that title because that's the idea here.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is like, put it to death.
SPEAKER_01: But know this that the Spirit of God is at work in your life to put to death the deeds of the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: You're just cooperating with him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, do you know the Catholic Church did not want to translate the Bible into English and didn't want to give you a copy of the Bible because they were afraid that you go start cutting off pieces of your Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that funny?
SPEAKER_01: So the debate was the Bible was in Latin or in Greek or Hebrew, and there was this resistance of like, well, if we put the Bible in everybody's language and everybody can read the Bible, people are going to go start cutting off their arms and jabbing out their eyes.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't believe that you could read the Bible and understand that there's figurative language in it.
SPEAKER_01: So thank God that Tyndale and Wycliffe decided to translate the Bible so that we could have it in our own language.
SPEAKER_01: The idea is that severity of sin.
SPEAKER_01: A kingdom people look at sin in their life and go, nope, I'm cutting it off.
SPEAKER_01: We're getting rid of it.
SPEAKER_01: It has no place.
SPEAKER_01: No place here.
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to celebrate what Jesus did, that he was cut off on our behalf.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to take communion together.
SPEAKER_01: Before we do, before you come forward and receive the elements, what I'm going to do is I want to just uh pray.
SPEAKER_01: When I pray, I think of like cement that like solidifies.
SPEAKER_01: We've had a moment with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We've been able to read his word.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit's been knocking our hearts with different things.
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to pray, and as I'm praying, I want you to just agree, just like, Lord, yeah, do those things in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we we've sat before you, we've submitted ourselves to your word.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that, Lord, you would work it into us.
SPEAKER_01: Work it beyond just our heads, work it into our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Give us a desire for these things.
SPEAKER_01: Give us an anticipation that this is how you want to work.
SPEAKER_01: Bring forth fruit in our life because we walk in obedience to what we've heard your spirit saying.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being such a good teacher.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for teaching us this morning, for speaking into our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, have your way with us, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.