The Upside-Down Kingdom: Redefining Greatness: Luke 22:24-34

We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

We have extra copies.

If you didn't bring one with you and you'd like one to follow along, raise your hand up real high.

Somebody'll drop one off at your row, your aisle.

I want to thank the folks who joined us from out of town and out of country over the last week.

Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

How about that?

Lebanon, Tennessee.

That's not quite out of the country, but it's uh it's another expression of Middle Tennessee, isn't it?

Uh Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Melbourne, Australia.

So what a wonderful thing to know the Lord is using modern technology to help us reach to other parts of the world and the country as well as we seek to study his word.

Um the QR code is up on the screen.

If you are interested in the notes and quotes, you can grab those ahead of time.

Our study today will be Luke chapter 22, verses 24 through 34.

Luke 22:24–34

And I'm going to title this sermon, if I can, The Upside Down Kingdom, Redefining Greatness.

So if you have your Bibles, if you'll turn there, swipe there on your divine your devices, however you're going to get to the text, it'll be helpful for you to look at it as we go walk through this passage.

I will say, you know, as by way of introduction, a world consumed by wealth, uh, status, and the pursuit of becoming the greatest.

Jesus turns everything upside down.

Luke 22 is going to show us how Jesus unveils a radical redefinition, or perhaps it's the original definition of greatness, and we might want to say it that way.

But he's going to say that true greatness isn't about outshining others.

It's not being regarded as the great est.

Jesus models greatness.

There's a big difference, isn't there?

The disciples are going to be bickering over which of them was the greatest, and Jesus will uh reset or redefine greatness for them.

And this all while he is on the road to the cross.

Matter of fact, he's just hours away from being arrested and being scourged or tortured, is probably a better way to say it, to being hung on a Roman cross and literally crucified.

He will be buried in a borrowed tomb as he hung on a cross with borrowed sins.

And it was even a borrowed cross.

Barabbas was supposed to be there.

So everything about it is Jesus substituting himself in our place, taking our sins upon himself and going to the cross.

And so we're going to look at how Jesus redefined greatness.

It's going to help us, I think, a lot.

We pick up the storyline when Jesus, look at verse 23.

Luke, the narrator, gives us just a little bit there.

He says, they begin to discuss among themselves which one of them it might be, who was going to do this thing.

And the referent, the referent there are the references to this thing, the betrayal of Jesus.

He had just predicted it.

And they were all kind of arguing, no, it's not me, it couldn't be me, it couldn't be that kind of thing.

And they're arguing among themselves that, and then they shift into this other argument, and yet, and we'll get into it in a second, but yet it's just a few hours.

One of them will betray him, one of them will deny him, and all of them will abandon him.

And that's a sobering storyline, isn't it?

And it sort of pushes me into a place of asking myself, where am I in all of that?

How do I uh relate to Jesus?

Is all my boast in Jesus, or is all my boast in myself, or my ability to follow Jesus, or my ability to get doctrine right, or my all so many different ways we might be boasting about in ourselves.

Let's see what we can learn here in this text and find out about something about God, something about ourselves, something about the gospel, and how we should then respond to this passage.

Before I read, let me pray for illumination.

Heavenly Father, your word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

You are God, and we humble ourselves before you.

Lord Jesus Christ, in you are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Open our eyes that we may see the wisdom of your word this morning.

Holy Spirit, open our hearts that we would be moved by you and transformed by you.

Give us grace that we may understand, and in understanding that we may believe.

And finally, give us the courage to rise and to obey and walk in your ways to the glory and honor of your name.

Amen and amen.

Luke 22, verse 24 through 34.

Luke 22:24–34

And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest.

Now remember, this is just right after verse 23.

Luke just keeps going, doesn't he?

And so he says, and there arose also, also means there's another argument going on.

There are debating it.

You're the he I know who the traitor is.

The traitor has got to be Bartholomew.

He gets the least amount of press.

And he's just asserting himself now.

He wants a little press.

And he must be the guy who, you know, and then somebody else says, no, it's got to be Levi.

He Levi, Matthew, he was used to be Levi the tax collector.

Maybe he's run out of gas and hope on Jesus, and he's just ready to turn it all, trade it all in.

And he we know he loved money.

But then somebody else might say, I think it was Judas.

He held the money purse.

And they were already talking about, in John's gospel, we're told, Judas actually skimmed off the top of the offerings.

Um, and so they're quit, they're they're squabbling and arguing about who might be the betrayer, and somehow in the middle of all of that, one of them turns the tide on the entire flow of argument.

It goes from, I can't be, it's not him, it must be you to, no, I'm the greatest.

And then they start arguing back and forth about who's the greatest.

So there arose also a dispute about which one of them was, and this is, I like this too, regarded.

Oh, that's interesting, to be greatest.

We are such suckers for the siren song of celebrity and to be regarded as the greatest.

Happens to all of us.

Happens to all of us in a lot of different settings.

We just don't really pause to think about it much, do we?

It happens to you when you go to work, when you go to school.

You wonder what others think of you.

You wonder when you're here walking into church.

Will they like me?

Will somebody want to sit with me?

Will there's all kinds of little games going on inside our heads all the time.

I just spent a week at a convention with 7,000 people.

I'm walking the halls wondering if I matter.

We are.

Every single one of us.

We desire to be regarded in some way, to be, have a relevant life, a significant life in some way.

And Jesus is going to show us here that while none of us and none of these disciples could ever really be the great est, they can aspire to greatness, as God defines greatness.

And that's really important.

So Jesus says to them, watch how he does this.

The kings of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those who have authority over them are called benefactors.

There was literally a title back then for benefactors, okay?

And but not so with you.

Let him who is the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as the servant.

That's really important, isn't it?

He's saying in God's economy there's one way of looking at everything, and in the world's economy, there's another way of looking at our Gentiles is usually used as a euphemism for those who aren't believers in Yahweh, those who haven't come to trust God, the God of Israel.

And in this particular case, Jesus is as he's speaking to a lot of Jews, he uses that same kind of nomenclature.

And he says, though, that the real important thing is that you consider how God defines greatness.

And let those who want to be great among you become as the youngest.

In other words, almost in their day and time, by the way, the whole all of their life did not revolve around their children.

I know that in our day and time that's a little bit different.

Um, and not saying right or wrong about anything, I'm simply saying that's the way it was.

Children were actually not the center of everything.

Um, and in our day and time, a little bit more so, but in their day and time not.

And so he says, become as the least or the youngest, if you will.

And if you uh and the leader must become as the server.

For who is greater?

The one who reclines at table or the one who serves?

Is it not the one who reclines at table?

But I am among you as the one who serves.

In other words, again, there's two economies.

In the economy of the world, it's all about hierarchy and who gets to sit where?

Who gets the first.

But I notice in the church, nobody ever wants to sit in the front row.

What is it with you people?

You're so godly in this.

You just want to be in the back row, all of you as uh, and I kind of grew up as a back row Baptist myself, so I totally understand.

Um but I and you know, in youth group, there were always the preachers were always very effusive, especially if you were at retreat.

I remember there was a guy named Chuck Bissell.

I'm really going off on a side road here for a second, but but there was this guy named Chuck Bissell, he used to preach, and when he preached, he spit all the time.

And so I wanted to sit in the back.

I didn't want to sit in the front.

It wasn't what I call anointing.

It was sort of a decadent version of baptism or something.

I don't know what it was, but it was it was not what I wanted.

I did not want any of that, so I sat in the back.

But anyway, he's talking here about if you really want to be great in God's kingdom, you want to be one who serves.

You are those who have stood by me in my trials.

This is a tender moment, that verse 28, isn't it?

The Lord Jesus saying to his disciples, Thank you for your faithfulness.

They've not been perfect.

Their theology is still being developed.

They're about to run like whipped puppies into the night when he's arrested.

And yet he's he's at this point in time, he's in this moment, he's saying, I love you, and I thank you for for staying with me, and you've been faithful.

You've stood by me in my trials.

And just as my father has granted me a kingdom, I grant you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.

And you will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Then he gets real specific here with the one fella who's been the spokesman for the disciples, hasn't he?

Simon Peter.

He says, Simon, Simon.

And by the way, when your mother used your name twice, that usually meant heads up.

And sometimes it might have been good, sometimes it might be.

My mom used to have to, Jimmy, Jimmy, she called me Jimmy, that's true, not just Jim.

But it was Jimmy, Jimmy, dinner's ready.

And I'm one of those guys that has ten things going at once.

I'm just an easily distracted human being.

I would be doing homework when I was a student, I'd be doing homework.

So I'd have pen and paper back then, and I'd have the TV on to Andy Griffith or something like that, or Batman, probably Batman, yeah.

Or Superman.

And then George Reeves.

Anybody remember George Reeves?

Oh, four of you.

That's great.

Um, and then and then at the same time on my turntable, you know, look, and by the way, a turntable, for those of you who don't know, a turntable.

A turntable is this little device where the little plastic disc sort of sits on there and goes around like this.

You put a needle down, and then somehow or another, through that needle, the sound goes out to the speakers.

I'd be listening to Three Dog Night.

That's a band, by the way.

That you've never heard of that band either.

But I listened to Three Dog Night sing, one is the loneliest number that I've ever, you know.

Some of you know this, yeah.

And then mom, trying to get me to come to dinner, would go, Jimmy, Jimmy, like that from downstairs, right?

And if she couldn't get my attention, she'd pound on the wall three times.

And I would feel that a little bit better.

Anyway, again, I'm really side roading to the aren't.

Um so he he's now saying, Simon, Simon, use his name twice.

Behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.

Interestingly enough, this you, this uh this little pronoun is in the plural.

He uses Simon's name twice, and then he says, Simon, Simon.

Satan is really after you.

He's demanded or requested permission to sift you like wheat.

But I, Jesus says, have prayed for you, and now he's in this, this is in the singular, this pronoun.

This is really important that he you know the difference here.

The devil, Satan, Jesus says, wants to sift all of you.

Jesus to Simon, because he knows what Simon's gonna do.

I have prayed for you specifically.

Yeah.

That your faith, that's also in the singular, may not fail, and you, singular, when once you have turned again or returned, if you will, strengthen your singular brothers.

Oh man.

Lord Jesus knows what's about to happen, and he even knows what Peter's about to do, and he even goes into it a little bit here.

Peter says to Jesus, verse 33, Lord, with you I am ready to go both to prison and to the death.

And Jesus then said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster of the cock will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know me.

And he said to them, When I sent you, well, we'll stop right there, actually.

I want to stop right there for this week.

You will deny me three times before the rooster even crows.

Probably late in the day, headed toward the evening here.

And in the morning, the rooster will not even crow before you have denied me three times.

This is really, really important.

On the heels of an argument about who the betrayer would be, that rolls into an argument about who's the greatest.

You know, comes Jesus with the sober reality about what's about to happen within the next 24 hours.

And how Peter himself, the one who was so bold, so brash, so overconfident in so many ways, um, would indeed himself deny Christ.

And so that's quite a, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on in chapter 22.

How would you define greatness?

This is a great question for us to, if I can use the pun.

That's a great question for us to ask ourselves this day in the world in which we live.

Here are a few images of some people that people would think of as great.

Here's a great politician.

Uh here's a man that said he was the greatest.

And I love that old story about him.

You know, when he got on board the airplane, he sat down, didn't put the seatbelt on.

Flight attendant comes down and goes, Mr.

Ali, uh, would you mind putting on your seatbelt?

And he says, Honey, Superman don't need no seatbelt.

And without skipping a beat, she was so quick.

She replied, All due respect, Mr.

Ali.

Superman don't need no airplane.

And you just gotta, sometimes you just gotta stop believing your own press, you know what I mean?

Or stop writing your own press.

How about these guys?

Are they great?

For those of you under 40, these are the Beatles.

These are the Beatles.

They literally are the iPhone of music.

They changed the world uh in a big, big way back in the day.

And uh some of us uh remember, and and I know perhaps a little more relevant to some of you guys there.

Perhaps you think she's the greatest.

Um maybe take a poll here.

How about the guy on the left?

Raise your hand.

Oh, just one of you.

Wow! Oh, I love a church that knows what it believes.

This is awesome.

All right.

One more test of between them.

Okay, fewer of you know this one, don't you?

That's Scotty Scheffler and Rory McElroy.

Uh we've told you before, Kim and I love when we're doing when we're done with church, we on the way out of the car, we go, hungry or tired?

And usually tired wins.

And um and we go home and watch this golf on TV because neither of us play golf.

We don't really know all the rules, and it doesn't take long to fall asleep, actually.

It's it's a pretty good idea.

So um there's another guy.

There's another guy, some of the since we're on a sw on a sort of uh roll with uh folks over 40, uh, this is another person, this is another person I think was pretty great in a lot of different ways.

And I think a lot of you will uh amen me on that.

Ah, yeah.

I knew we get some ah.

I knew we get some ahs there.

Yeah.

All right, let's bring it all home with a little bit more of a light-hearted touch, but some people would say this is the funniest man alive.

I think I think I I tend to I tend to think Nate is pretty funny.

I I love it that he has clean comedy.

Uh I believe he's a professing brother in Christ, and yeah, he may indeed be one of the funnier guys in the world.

Well, what is true greatness, again, is my question to you.

And I know that each one of you might have some things that pop into your mind as we think about that question.

Certainly our answer has to depend on the things that we value above other things.

Uh, in philosophy, this is called axiology.

It's the discussion of value and valuation.

I believe, I don't really have any way to prove this, but it's just my observation about the culture in which we live, that axiology is perhaps one of the most important categories of philosophical inquiry in this contemporary milieu.

Uh, it asks the fundamental question: what is truly valuable?

What is truly good and worthwhile?

Without a societal consensus on that, you see, technology can dehumanize that which is a difficult thing.

Progress can lose its direction, its course.

Freedom can turn to chaos.

And I think that we'd all agree that some of that's evident in the world in which we live right now, especially Western culture.

With a proper view of what is valuable, societies and individuals can gain direction, coherence, and I'd say even hope.

Axiology is essential essential to a Christian view as well in the modern world, because only in God do we find an unshakable foundation for value, meaning, beauty, and what's good.

Without God, values become relative and unstable.

With God, values are anchored in his eternal character, revealed in the person and work of Christ, made alive in us by the Holy Spirit.

Thank you for listening through my little philosophical rant for a second.

Let's get back to Luke chapter 22 and see what we can learn here about greatness.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

Um as they pivoted in their argument about who was regarded as the greatest, I have to confess I did identify with them.

Um we all struggle with ego at some point in time, as I said earlier, gave you little illustrations of that as well.

Uh sometimes I've made the point, and I, you know, it's just me sort of playing with letters and words, but that EGO stands for edging God out.

When my ego gets in the way, things begin to crumble underneath of me because I've edged my refuge, my shelter, my sovereign God out of the way, and begun to trust in the validation of others.

Begun to trust in my own self-validation, because I've started down the spiral, the very scary uh spiral staircase of comparison thinking.

Oh, I could have done that.

Oh, how come they have that opportunity and I don't?

And on and on it goes till we just descend into all kinds of despair.

At the end of the day, arguments about who among us is the greatest, like these disciples had, rarely lead to Christian maturity or unity among brothers and sisters.

Peter asserts himself in verses 31 to 34 as one who would never abandon Jesus, and within 24 hours he indeed will do that.

So while greatness may be the big idea in a sense here, boasting becomes the big problem.

It's not, surely it's not me.

No, I'm the one who's the greatest.

I'm the one who's the greatest.

I would never leave you or forsake you, Jesus.

I'd die for you.

Right?

So the upside-down kingdom is what we want to talk about here this morning.

And I want to make a couple points.

God can do tremendous things through people who don't care who gets the credit.

It's really true.

True greatness would mean not even thinking about the question, who is the greatest?

I think the greatest among us don't care about whether they're the greatest among us.

I think that's a point Jesus is actually making, too.

It's similar to humility in that if you think you have it, you probably don't.

Pride is like that as well.

If you don't think you have pride, you probably do.

And it's good to sort of take a heads up on these kinds of things.

True greatness, according to Jesus, belongs to those who simply are not consumed with being great.

Most of the trouble in this world is caused by people wanting to be important, said T.

S.

Elliott.

What a great observation.

Think about it.

Somebody wants a piece of the pie of glory.

And they demand it.

And they want it so bad, they'll walk over top of other people to get it.

Francis Chan, our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.

Now there's a lot of things that are good, but aren't the goodest or great.

And some of you have read the business uh or or uh yeah, sort of business literature that posits the notion that good is uh sometimes the enemy of great.

It can be.

Because you put second things first.

And you don't get second things by putting them first.

You only get first things by putting them first, and second things remain second, as C.S.

Lewis would say.

Secondly, I think Jesus defines greatness according to humility and service here.

I think we can see that very clearly.

So the question again is how do you define it?

What makes a person great?

Is it about familial lineage?

Is it about material wealth, athletic talent, political prowess, academic accolades, social status, number of followers, etc., etc.

Is that how you are validated?

Um it's so easy to fall into this.

That's one of the reasons why people are so addicted to screens.

They just want to see if they're right or if they matter to anyone or if they're the biggest or the greatest.

It's just that dopamine hit that they keep, they keep wanting that, and so they keep going after it.

Jesus defines greatness in terms of humility and service.

That's an other-centered way of thinking about life.

It's a God-centered way, humility, it begins there.

He's God and I'm not.

Let me remain, let me just remain silent before him.

He is holy, righteous, almighty, sovereign over everything.

And I want to hear well done from the only lips that matter.

My Father who is in heaven.

Um, so important.

C.S.

Lewis said this truly humility is our greatest friend.

It increases our hunger for God's word and opens our hearts to his spirit.

It leads to intimacy with God, who knows the proud from afar, but dwells with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.

It imparts the aroma of Christ to all whom we encounter.

It's a sign of greatness in the kingdom of God.

This is Thomas Terrence.

Um, he's the uh foreign president of the C.S.

Lewis Institute, and I think he's so wise right there as well.

Go back to the first part of that quote.

Increases our hunger for God's word, humility.

Yeah.

So humble before the Lord, recognizing the beauty and the majesty of his word and who he is, and that he would condescend to speak to us, to come to us, to offer us salvation as a free gift, not as one we have to balance out the moral scales for, but to offer it to us as a free gift.

And the only proper response is humility before him.

Awe, wonder, holiness.

We give our life back to the one who has given it to us.

And so we want to obey him, to serve him, to serve his needs and magnify his name, not ours, to worship and adore him in every way.

I think Terrence is right on there.

It imparts the aroma of Christ to all whom we encounter, and it's a sign of greatness in the kingdom of God.

The Apostle Paul understood that too.

And I and I wonder for all of us what we would do, like in Jesus' case here.

He's got one day left before dying, physically dying.

We know he'll be resurrected because we've read the rest of the story.

But in the moment, these guys, and in the moment, Jesus has to go through the cross as well.

But I wonder what we would do, what you would do if you knew you had one day left before you died.

Would you even be thinking about these clowns?

These ones who you know are gonna betray, deny, and abandon you in the crunch time?

Would you worry about that at all?

How beautiful our Savior is to do this.

This, if you're looking for a Savior, He's the one.

You need look no further.

He cares about you when he's dying.

Wow, what love is that?

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus.

We just sang it a minute ago.

And this is where that lyric line came from, that beautiful song we just sang.

Some of you are out there thinking, well, I don't know.

I don't really have any gifts.

I can't really serve.

I mean, I heard what they said earlier about serve the city, and I heard how they've called time and time again for us, you know, each, every one of us, to not just be observers here at the village chapel, but participants, active participants, to get off the bench and on the field, if you want to use a sports analogy, to actually become participants of this church.

It's really important, I think.

And some folk, though, hesitate because they aren't certain whether or not they have anything to offer.

And I got news for you.

This passage reminds me of this.

We're not looking for the great est.

We're looking for greatness.

And greatness is available to you and to me if we will humble ourselves and begin to serve.

Why?

Because Jesus defines greatness.

We don't.

And according to Jesus, greatness is laying down my time when it's inconvenient to take the phone call from the person who's hurting on the other end of the phone, or to make a phone call and go out of my way and maybe set aside something I would rather have done that moment, and reach out to those people and love them in some way, to be the body of Christ at work.

And every single one of us has the possibility of greatness.

And I hope you'll reach for that.

But you got to know this, as Wearsby said, when it comes to servanthood, you can never be too small for God to use, just too big.

Let that sink in.

Are you too big for God to use?

Please don't be.

You don't need to be.

And this passage reminds us, this is the apostle Peter.

You know?

He's and the disciples.

And Jesus just wants them to understand that true greatness begins with serving, with laying down your life for others, just like he did himself.

I've got to move on.

Three.

Um true greatness is not a competition.

And these guys were arguing about who's greatest.

It's a turning of this world's values upside down so that Jesus gets all the glory.

In other words, we're taking on God's axiology, Jesus' view of what is of value.

And it's really a turning of the world upside down, isn't it?

Boasting, on the other hand, will divide.

Humility unites.

See, if I think I'm the greatest, then it's my way or the highway for everybody else.

And it divides me from everybody else.

Yeah.

We've all seen that in at work and relationships sometimes where somebody is just domineering all the time.

When Kim and I were engaged or seeking to be engaged, remember I got, I think I've told you before, I asked for her hand, I asked her parents for her hand three times.

And three times they told me no.

And, you know, three strikes, and you're usually out of there.

But went back and asked one more time.

Finally got the yes, you know, and um, and it was because the parents were moving away to Louisville, and they either had to give her to me or just, you know, risk eternal, you know, separation with their daughter, you know, or whatever, you know.

Uh probably didn't care much about me at the moment, but anyway, it was more about that.

But um Kim's dad uh wanted to have a talk with her.

So he worked at the Pentagon.

He worked for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and so she goes down to the Pentagon.

She weighs about 98 pounds as a skinny little teenager that she was at the time.

And uh she goes down there to the officers' club and is having lunch with dad, you know, and she's afraid what he might want to talk about, you know.

Just is it ever appropriate?

But one of the things that uh dad that she she tells me that dad uh asked her was, honey, can you fight with him?

Can you fight fair?

Or is he just gonna be domineering?

Wow.

And when I heard that too, I want you to know that that sunk in deep for me.

I think that's a really good question.

Can you actually work together to figure it out?

And that's what he meant.

Not are we gonna, you know, just blow up all the time, screaming and hollering at each other.

No.

But is there an equity, a fairness about the way you power through things together?

And married couples, please understand.

No, neither of you are to be dominating.

Uh, Tommy and I just did a seminar at the Singh conference on how the uh senior pastor and the and the worship leaders, the primary worship leader in the church, how they get along and if they get along, because in a lot of churches, frankly, they don't.

And we and we we we both kind of use the the sort of metaphor of the marriage, and how in a marriage, you know, you don't want to have to get to uh one side dominating all the time.

That's just that's not that's not what you're trying to build there.

What you want is you want harmony, working together, agreeing together so that there never has to be veto vote.

These guys are arguing and bickering about who's the great est, and it just gets us in trouble when we try to dominate all the time in the body of Christ.

So important for us there.

True greatness, it's not a competition, it's a turning of the world's values upside down so that Jesus gets all the glory.

Lewis, again, pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.

We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good looking, but they're not.

They're proud of being richer, cleverer, or better looking than others.

Oh, that's so true.

True greatness is not a competition, it's a turning of the world's value system upside down.

Fourthly and finally, sometimes the Lord allows us to be sifted.

What's that little metaphor?

Jesus said that to Peter, didn't he?

Satan has requested that he could sift you like wheat.

And isn't that interesting?

Look at verse 31.

He's demanded permission to sift you like wheat, you know?

All right?

And the U is plural there.

Satan wants to sift all disciples like wheat.

But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

Not, I have prayed for you that Satan would not sift you like wheat.

Do you notice that?

I have prayed, he didn't say, I have prayed for you that you may avoid being sifted by Jesus.

Didn't pray that for him.

But that your faith may not fail.

And he's talking, you know, to Peter, who he knows is going to deny him any moment, you know, just in a matter of hours, actually.

So there has to be something in there that's so beautiful that is we can look at the world that we live in, broken as it is.

And we all get sifted, don't we, in one way or another.

Sometimes it's in relationships, sometimes it's in our understanding of ourselves, sometimes it's the pressures from the world around us or the fears in the world around us.

And we don't want to cave to those things because we can trust that our Savior is praying for us, even though he's gonna allow some sifting to actually happen.

Now, there's not a lot of health, wealth, and prosperity gospel in that kind of a statement I just made.

So the folk that are selling that kind of Jesus always wants you happy, I'm sorry, that's not what the Bible teaches.

Here's what the Bible teaches: you're gonna be sifted, it's gonna happen.

But the Lord Jesus Himself is praying for you that your faith would not fail.

The Holy Spirit resides within you to give you strength and even to enable you to be victorious over the sin that so easily besets you.

That just seems like it's got its arms wrapped around your legs and trips you up all the time.

And yet no temptation has come upon you or me, but such as is common to all of us.

And the Lord Himself has provided a way of escape if we will trust in him, if we will essentially boast in him.

And this goes all the way back into the Old Testament.

Look at Jeremiah.

Let not the wise boast of their wisdom, or the strong boast of their strength, or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this, that they have the understanding to know me.

This is the Lord speaking, that I am the Lord.

Oh Peter, in that moment Jesus was essentially saying the same thing to you, you know?

And oh Jim, and oh us all, moment by moment, day by day, sometime this week he may be speaking the same kind of word to us.

Who do we boast in?

1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 30 and 31.

1 Corinthians 1:30

It is by his doing that you are in Christ Jesus, the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church.

It's not by your doing.

You didn't discover him and then approve of him and then accept him.

He is the one that drew you to himself.

It is by his doing, God the Father, it's by his doing, the Holy Spirit wooing you.

You are in Christ Jesus.

You know, the word Christian is used just three times in the New Testament.

But almost 200 times we have a reference to being in Christ.

In Him.

And really that's how we ought to think of ourselves.

I'm in Christ and He's in me.

And this is a wonderful thing.

Um, I'm not just a member of a club, I'm united with Christ.

And so when my ego is offended in some way, when my fears are being overwhelmed by my minuscule life in this situation, whatever it might be, I remind myself I don't belong to myself.

I belong to him.

And he's got so many things that he would like for you to do and for me to do.

It's by his doing that you're in Christ Jesus.

And he's become to you what?

Wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

That's you're being equipped for every little bit of life that on into eternity, actually, by the Lord, including now.

So that just as it is written, let him who boasts boast in the Lord.

There's really only one direction for your boasting to go.

It's not in the mirror.

Hey, looking good there, buddy.

No.

There's only one direction for your boast to go.

It's to go, you're to boast in the Lord Himself.

Um, 2 Corinthians 12, 9, Paul, I won't put it on the screen, but a lot of you know this.

Uh Paul goes on further to say, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest in me.

So sometimes, maybe this week, sometime, you will look back and go, Oh, that was a sifting moment that just happened to me.

I was being sifted.

And remind yourself, the Lord Jesus is praying for you as well.

The only boasting we're designed for is boasting about our weaknesses, as the Apostle Paul said, and boasting about the Lord Jesus, having all of our confidence in Christ Jesus.

So it's the most proper confidence, confidence in Jesus.

Not self-confidence.

And I know this world would just tell you, oh yes, you've got to be self-confident.

And there's an aspect to understanding who you are and understanding both the limitations and the strengths that you have.

I understand that.

But ultimately, here's what we're talking about.

Your ultimate hope and confidence is not in self.

It has to be in the Lord.

You're gonna look just like me, I fail myself all the time.

Nobody lies to me more than me.

Nobody tells me I'm great more than me.

And nobody tells me I'm horrible wretch more than me.

And the same thing's happening in your mind, whether or not you've thought about it or not.

So the most proper confidence we can have is not self-confidence, it's Christ's confidence.

He's the one that gave everything for a wretch like me.

He knew me fully, and he still came to save me.

And the same is true for you as well.

This quote from Dave Mathis from Desiring God Ministries, perhaps you find yourself in need of fresh language for attributing greatness and power and glory to the God whom you worship in Christ.

He is not only great, but good.

Good in his greatness, great in his goodness.

I love this.

He is not only big, strong, imposing, indomitable, omnipotent.

He is beautiful, attractive, stunning, compelling, glorious.

He's the majestic one who delivered Israel at the sea and his church at the cross.

Ah, yeah.

Lord, set us free from ourselves.

Um, from the part of us that would self-destruct in our own minds, our own hearts, from the part of us that would puff ourselves up like Peter did in this passage.

Um, Lord, set us free from that, that we might love you, trust you, and find all our hope, all our peace, all our joy in the Lord.

Let's pray.

We come to the table this morning, Lord, because we want to move away from the axiology of this world, valuing what this world values, and we want to move toward your axiology.

We want to value what you value.

We don't see things the way you see things, including ourselves.

Lord, help us stop trying to eat at the tables Jesus flipped over in the temple.

Help us become consumed with serving you and your kingdom purposes and entering into a new life of feasting with you at your table in the house of the Lord.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen and amen.