Who is the Greatest?

I want to encourage you to turn in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

We will be reading and studying verses 24 through 30, and so I encourage you to turn there as I read, and as we remind you each week, if you don't have a Bible with you, there should be one located there in the pew in front of you, there in the little shelf.

And you can find the scripture passage on page 882, and so encourage you to turn there, page 882.

And if you don't own a Bible, please take that one home as our gift to you.

We'd love for you to have it, to have a copy of God's word to read and study for yourself.

And so please take that home as our gift.

Luke chapter 22, beginning in verse 24.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

A dispute arose among them as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.

And he said to them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors, but not so with you.

Rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as the one who serves.

For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves?

Is it not the one who reclines at table?

But I am among you as the one who serves.

You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

This is God's word.

I love the apostles.

I I love the apostles.

Do you know why?

Because they make me feel good about myself.

Because they're such a mess.

I mean, this is just amazing.

It is absolutely unbelievable.

It says a dispute arose among them.

Really?

Which of us was to be regarded as the greatest?

I mean, it's it's hard to as we unpack this, it's hard to even comprehend this narrative right here.

It's hard for us to re to to realize what in the world is is going on.

And and it just reminds me of how much of a mess I am, of how much of a mess we are.

Um I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes.

It takes me a little while to figure things out, so about 46 years so far.

Um it's just amazing how how dense I can be and how slow I can be to pick things up.

And that's really how we all are.

We're all kind of thick-headed.

Um, it's part of our fallenness, it's part of the sin that's in us.

Jesus said of unbelievers in Matthew 13, he says, for the people's hearts have grown dull, and their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts in turn, and I would heal them.

But as Jesus' followers, we're not much better.

In fact, if you remember on the road to Emmaus, following the resurrection, uh, Jesus is there, and he meets these two men as they're journeying on the road to Emmaus, and they began to recount all of their disappointment at what happened with the crucifixion and their disillusionment, and he says to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken.

And then he began to tell them and remind them of God's plan and his promise and his goodness.

The disciples here remind me of like raising kids.

Um I think of comments that you might have, I never heard these as growing up, but I if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times.

Anybody ever hear that?

Or how many times do I have to tell you?

Or I already said this to you once.

Yeah, we're not much better as adults.

I I remember years ago at an at another church, I was I was dealing with a man who had anger issues.

I mean, he really had rage problems.

And so invariably I had to go and and sit down with him and confront him and talk to him about uh about these issues.

I mean, he uh he ran roughshod over everyone.

I mean, uh people in the church, old ladies, puppies, I mean, children.

I mean, he was uh a bull in a china shop.

He he was a brute, he was a bully.

And and and I sat down with him and I and I began to recount to him not any any hearsay of anything else, just the stories, just the things that I had seen myself, just to begin to to share with him.

And and in those moments, God broke through.

He was a retired, retired guy, and and in those moments, uh God broke through and I saw a softening in his heart, and as I began to talk to him, he said something to me I will never forget.

He said this.

And I thought it was just her.

And I remember thinking to myself, Lord, please let me never say that to my wife.

Uh it's amazing the disciples here, and we're we're going to talk about why it's so astounding.

I mean, the whole week I really had a hard time grasping this.

Um, we learned some lessons on Jesus' last day.

This is Jesus' last day before his crucifixion, his last night with his disciples, the last uh time he's going to be with them before he will be arrested and taken away, tried and crucified.

And so I wondered what lessons do we learn from Jesus' last day with his disciples?

And the first lesson we learn is our own sinfulness and self-centeredness.

We see how petty and short-sighted we are, but then we also see Jesus and he reminds us of what truly matters.

I look at the last parts of these verses, and I won't cover them this morning, and so let me just make a comment.

Verses 28 through 29 or 30.

If I had been Jesus, which obviously I'm not, I would have not responded like Jesus did.

Jesus responds with absolute grace.

He responds to them and he says, He corrects them, and then he says, he begins to commend them for all that they've done and their faithfulness to him and his trials, and then he tells them of the promises that he has for them in the future kingdom.

I mean, I would have been sitting there going, What?

Are you kidding?

And this is why.

In those last hours, Jesus reminds them, and he reminds us, of what truly matters.

In those hours, those last hours in the upper room, we learn what life's all about.

It's a lesson in contrasts.

The disciples were grasping their own greatness, and Jesus was calling them to serve for his glory.

And so that question reverberates down to us.

Are we grasping for our own greatness or are we serving for his glory?

And let's look at these contrasts separately.

Grasping for greatness.

It says a dispute arose among them.

Now, this wasn't the first time this had come up.

This was an ongoing debate.

It's like being a Packer fan and hearing people tell you how much better the Vikings are going to be next year.

It's this ongoing dispute.

It's like those disputes in your family that every time you get together, they're brought up at the dinner table or around Thanksgiving or at Christmas.

It just kept coming up.

It just kept over and over and over again.

It wasn't the first time here.

In fact, earlier in Luke chapter 9, verses 46 through 48, we saw almost an identical narrative.

Luke 9:46–48

It says in verse, in Luke 9, 46 through 48, an argument arose among them as to which of them was to be the greatest, which of them was the greatest.

But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side and said to them, Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me, for he who is least among you all is the one who is greatest.

This happens again, and it's recorded in Matthew chapter 18, verses 1 through 4, an almost identical narrative, an identical situation.

Matthew 18:1–4

Jesus does the same thing again, trying to get it through their heads.

We find in Matthew chapter 20, verses 20 through 28, this even gets better because two of the guys bring their mom.

Matthew 20:20–28

It says this.

Could you imagine that coming up with?

I've heard stories now.

I know we live in kind of the helicopter parent age, and I've I read a book on the millennial generation, and it was talking about how professors in college, and I don't know if some of you college professors can answer this, of how parents now will call up and debate the professors about the grades of their child.

The sons of Zebedee, here's James and John, they're coming up here, and their mom's coming up and begging Jesus, and this is what she begs them.

It says, kneeling before him, she asks him something.

He says to her, What do you want?

And she says, Say to these two sons of mine, say to them that they are to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in the kingdom of God.

And Jesus answers them.

He says, You don't know what you're asking.

You don't know that what you're asking.

And are you able to drink the cup that I'm drinking?

And he says, We're able.

He was talking about his crucifixion.

And they will suffer, he says, and you will drink my cup, but to sit at my right and my left is not mine to grant, but to those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.

And then Matthew adds this, it says, and when the ten heard this, they were indignant with the two brothers.

They weren't indignant for what we might think of, going, How could you dare ask Jesus that?

They're indignant because they're like, no, we wanted that spot.

They weren't indignant because they're like, I can't believe you would ask Jesus that.

They were indignant because they thought, How dare you, that spot's for me.

And again, then Jesus calls them to himself and says, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their great ones exercise authority over them.

It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be the great, be great among you must be your servant, whoever would be first among you must be your slave.

Even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The more I thought about this passage of this week, I tried to put myself in the apostles' shoes.

Now look at the verse right before this.

If you remember what happened, Jesus had just told them, somebody's going to betray me.

And I'm trying to figure out how the conversation moved from that to this.

It says, and they began to question one another which of them it could be who was going to do this.

And they started going around, Lord, is it me?

Is it me, Lord?

Am I the and and Judas, by the way, I mean, he he had to have looked good because nobody said, Oh, we know who it is, it's Judas.

They're all turning, like, Lord, is it me?

Am I the one that's going to betray you?

Am I the greatest?

How do you get there from there?

You're just talking about, you know, asking Jesus, am I going to betray you?

And then suddenly you start debating about who's the greatest.

But think even beyond that.

Look at what Jesus had just told them.

We studied it last week.

This is my body, which is given for you.

This is my blood that I'm going to shed for you, the blood of the new covenant.

He had just told them that he was making the ultimate sacrifice to pay the penalty for their sins.

And they start debating who's the greatest.

It's hard for us to understand, but it gets even harder to understand when we realize that all four Gospels talk about the upper room, and when we look at the parallel in the Gospel of John, turn to John chapter 13.

John 13 · chapter mention

You have to see this to believe it.

Because I'm trying to put myself in the mindset of the disciples, and it's and and I can't, I can't comprehend it.

John 13.

It says this, beginning in it says this, it says in verse 1, now before the feast of Passover, when Jesus knew that his hours come to depart out of this world to his Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

And then it talks about Judas in verse 2, verse 3.

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, okay, think about this.

Jesus, knowing that he had been given all things by the Father, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose again from the supper, laid aside his outer garments, taking a towel, tied it around his waist, he pours water into a basin, and he bends down on his knees and he begins to wash the disciples' feet.

Now, some of you, I don't know if you've ever been to a church that has a foot washing.

I went to one once and it was really funny.

They said, make sure that your feet are really clean and that you have good socks and your feet don't smell.

Kind of missed the point.

Um they wore open-told sandals, and and um the pollution that came from horses is a little different from the pollution that comes from cars.

And so washing feet when you came in was a practical necessity.

And it was actually left to the lowest of the low.

The reason why nobody did it was because none of the disciples, none of the apostles wanted to be the low man on the totem pole.

In fact, in later Jewish culture, we find that in later Jewish culture, a Jewish slave was not allowed to do this.

It had to be done by a Gentile slave because they thought it was beneath the dignity of a Jewish slave to wash another person's feet.

And Jesus kneels down.

In the supreme act of love and service, it's an illustration really of what he's about to do on the cross in serving you and I, in dying for us and taking the ultimate sacrifice.

But it he does it also as an illustration to show his heart for us and as a response our heart to others.

In fact, look at what he says in verse 12 through 15.

When he had washed their feet, John twelve John 13, when he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, Do you understand what I have done to you?

You call me teacher and lord, and you are right, for so I am.

And if I, then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

For I have given you an example that you should do just as I have done to you.

Truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master.

Folks, that had just happened.

That had just that was the beginning of this meal.

And and now they're they're arguing who's the greatest.

I sat, I literally sat here for hours just going, I don't understand it.

How do you go from there to here so quickly?

How do you forget Jesus kneeling and and washing your feet?

How do you forget that he he just told you that he was going to die for you and sacrifice your life?

How do you forget that he's told you this before?

And how do you get here?

Well, Jesus tells us in verse 25.

They were thinking just like the world.

Look at what he says.

And he said to them, the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors.

See, they thought Jesus was going to usher in the golden age, and they wanted to secure their place in his kingdom.

And they were all jockeying for position to try to make sure that they were the lead.

The world's definition of greatness is about power and position and prestige and possessions.

They weren't thinking like John the Baptist was in the song that we sung, you know, he must increase and I must decrease.

They were thinking, no, I need to make sure that I'm in the first place.

And what Jesus tells them here is they're acting no different from unbelievers.

Their values are no different.

They wanted to be in charge and have everyone answer to them.

And the Gentile leaders, the kings, and those in authority, they would amass their wealth on the backs of others, but then they would then give out what they had had received from others and then view themselves as benefactors.

That was an official title of somebody who was known for their generosity, but how did they get their money in the first place?

We're so in danger of thinking and acting just like the world.

There should be, because of our own sinfulness, our own sinful natures, because of our blindness and our inability to really make proper self-assessments, that we should have a healthy suspicion of ourselves and our motives.

Because sin runs deeper than we ever want to admit.

Our sinful nature causes us to be blind to our sinfulness and justify and rationalize and minimize and excuse our behavior like the apostles were full of self-promotion and self-protection and self-centeredness and self-motivation.

And they were like that because they didn't understand what Jesus was about to do.

You see, there's a phrase that I learned a couple years ago, and it's in it's a biblical phrase, but I never really applied it personally.

And the question is this is are you living like an orphan or are you living like a child of the king?

You see, the disciples here, they thought, well, God's not going to take care of me, God's not going to look at me or consider me or remember me or think about me, so I need to take matters into my own hands.

And when we do that, we're living like orphans because we don't think we have a heavenly father who sees and knows.

We don't think we have a heavenly father who loves us and cares for us, and we live like orphans rather than living like children of the king.

And the disciples here at this moment in time were forgetting the very love of Jesus that he had for them and he was expressing to them.

This isn't how it ought to be.

The upper room, Jesus was giving the marching orders to the apostles, to his church, to us.

And so, in conclusion, I want to give us four lessons from Jesus in the upper room.

We see this isn't the way it's supposed to be, but how should it be?

How do we learn to turn away from ourselves and serve for his glory?

And so I want us to talk about that in these closing moments, serving for his glory.

There's a saying that was made popular in a book.

I don't think he originated it.

I recall hearing it at other places, but made popular by Rick Warren in his book, The Purpose-Driven Life.

In fact, it's the first uh words, if you if you open the book, in the first words in the first chapter, and it says this.

It's not about you.

It's not about us, it's not about me, it's not about you.

But if it isn't about us, if it isn't about you, what is it about?

Well, we find in Jesus' message to his disciples, if we were to trace through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and look at what he says in the upper room and try to uh consolidate it.

Uh let me give you four lessons we learn from that of what it is about.

It's about magnifying God's glory.

In the upper room, Jesus praised this in John chapter.

17, same events, same time frame as what we're finding here in Luke's gospel.

And in John 17, he prays this.

He says, I glorify you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of this world.

And so Jesus said that he had glory from heaven.

His glory was veiled when he came to earth, but that his mission was to glorify the Father with the glory that he had from the beginning.

That he manifested God's name, he made God's name known.

And that, my friends, is our mission to make much of the name of God.

And while on earth, Jesus magnified and manifested God's name and glorified him.

Everything we do, we do before a watching world.

We will either bring glory to God with what we say and what we do, or else we will dishonor his name.

Jesus prays for us in this high priestly prayer there in John 17 in the upper room, and he says this, as you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them in the world, as God had sent, the Father had sent Jesus to glorify him.

Jesus sends us into the world to glorify the Son.

And he prays this as the mark of the truth of the reality of the gospel and of the person of Jesus Christ.

He says this in verses 20 and 21.

I do not ask these for these only.

He's not only praying for the 12 disciples, he says, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

In other words, us.

He says that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

So Jesus says we are to glorify the Father as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sent us, we glorify Jesus.

And how do we glorify Jesus before a watching world?

By showing how we love one another and how unified we are as the body of Christ.

The world sees God's glory as we live out the gospel in real time.

It's about God's glory, it's about sharing God's grace.

Jesus had said to his disciples that he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

When Jesus gave that bread and the wine, he was pointing to what he was about to do on the cross.

Paul reminds us that every time we do that, every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Jesus said earlier in John, right before as they were going to the upper room, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

And that is something that Jesus now is doing through us, the people from every tribe and tongue and nation, that he is telling us to proclaim the good news of the cross of Christ.

It's about the gospel.

It's about serving like God's Son, thirdly.

It's about God's glory, it's about the gospel, it's about serving like God's son.

It's about practical service to others.

There's a debate that goes on in churches oftentimes, trying to debate should we be a church that does practical ministry needs and helping to care for people's physical needs and caring for the poor and reaching out, or should we be about the gospel?

And honestly, that's a false dichotomy.

That's a false distinction.

It's not an either-or proposition, it's a both and.

In evangelism, when we share, when we proclaim verbally the message of Jesus Christ, we declare the gospel.

And when we go out in the community and do acts of service, of volunteering at the homeless shelter or helping somebody in need or caring for the widows and the orphans, we are demonstrating the gospel.

And so we declare and demonstrate the gospel in all that we do.

But it's important for us when we demonstrate the gospel that invariably, inevitably, we need to put words to it, otherwise, they think we're just nice people.

And there's a lot of nice people, and so we need to explain and express the motivation behind it because of what God and Christ has done for me in saving me, and He's called me to care for others and to point them to the only hope there is in Jesus Christ.

And this is why I'm here giving you a cup of cold water in Jesus' name.

Jesus says in Matthew 5, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who's in heaven.

It's about the gospel.

Finally, in relation to that, it's about reaching the lost.

Jesus said, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

Been reading a book this last week by Philip Yancy called Vanishing Grace.

And in the middle of the book, he's talking about how we view non-Christians, those who don't know Christ, as enemies.

In our hearts, sometimes we have this antipathy towards people who aren't believers because we see them as enemies of the gospel.

And he said, really, a better way to look at them is to look at them as lost, of somebody who is lost and needs to find their way.

And God has called us to show them where safe harbor is.

They're lost and confused.

They don't know the truth.

They don't know what's right.

They don't know the gospel.

And rather than seeing them as our opposition, we we sometimes look at this culture that is spiraling out of control, and we in despair begin to look at it.

We see others as our enemies, but we need to have compassion on them, like sheep without a shepherd, that they're lost.

As I was putting the final touches on this message yesterday, I started listening to uh to Keith Green.

Um shows my age.

Um started listening.

Some of you may not know who Keith Green is.

Shame on you.

No.

I love Keith Green.

He's a singer in the 70s, early 80s.

Um it was one of the first, when I became a Christian in high school, uh, a friend had given me some of his music on cassette.

College and high school, I'll explain what that is later.

Um, gave me and and the words are were so pointed and so direct and so challenging to me as this young Christian.

And as I was listening to this music yesterday, and and and and thinking back to when I was a young Christian, when I was a new Christian, and I just had realized all that God had rescued me from.

That, like a brand plucked from the fire, God had pulled me out of the muck and the mire and the direction my life could have gone.

And he he placed me on solid ground and he cleaned me up, and out of sheer love for him and concern for others, I mean, I would go out and share the gospel, and on Friday nights would go out and and and and stand out with friends on this, literally on the street corner and try to talk to people about Jesus and go to the mall.

And when I was in college, trained in evangelism, would go door to door.

And I thought to myself, what happened to that passion?

Where did it go?

How did I lose it?

It's not about us.

It's about God's glory.

It's about the good news.

It's about Jesus.

It's about the lost.

Indulge me to share an old parable.

I'm sure you've heard it.

I'm sure it's been used in this pulpit multiple times.

It's the old parable of a life-saving station.

Says, on a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little life-saving station.

The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea.

And with no thought for themselves, they went out day or night tirelessly searching for the lost.

Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding areas wanted to become associated with the station and to give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work.

New boats were bought and new crews were trained.

The little life saving station grew.

Some of the new members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped.

They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those safe from the sea.

They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in an enlarged building.

Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they redecorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club.

Less of the members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work.

The mission of life-saving was still given lip service, but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the life-saving activities personally.

About this time, a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crew brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people.

They were dirty and sick, and some of them looked very different and spoke different languages.

And the beautiful new club was considerably messed up.

So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership.

Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities as being unpleasant, a hindrance to the normal pattern of the club.

But some members insisted that lifesaving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station.

But they were outnumbered and told that if they wanted to save the life of various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast.

They did.

As the years went by, the new life-saving station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old.

They evolved into a club and yet another life-saving station was founded.

If you visit the seacoast today, you'll find a number of exclusive clubs along the shore.

Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters.

But now most of the people drown.

It's not about us.

It never has been.

It never will be.

Father God.

Remind us, Lord, it is about your glory.

It is about your gospel.

It is about your son.

It is about your people that you are rescuing.