The Upside Down Kingdom (Matthew 19-20) | Louis Azuma

Speaker 2: I want you to ask you guys a question.

What is the strangest deep fried food that you've ever seen?

The strangest deep fried food you've ever seen.

Caleb?

Probably fried butter.

Deep fried butter.

Is that even a food?

Butter is.

Butter is my favorite food group, but Josh.

Deep fried Oreo.

Deep fried Oreos.

Yeah.

Deep fried cheesecake.

Deep fried cheesecake.

These are all dessert.

Deep fried, any Kool-Aid, deep fried Kool-Aid.

I was researching this online.

I found deep fried watermelon.

I don't know how that works.

I dunno how you fry something that's a fruit, but there's deep fried watermelon.

They serve it like sushi.

It looks really weird.

I couldn't find any clip pictures that weren't blurry 'cause I

didn't have Pastor Rod to help me learn how to use my computer.

But deep fried watermelon Carson.

Saw deep fried, deep fried water.

Wow.

I saw in my brief foray onto the internet, I saw deep fried tarantula.

That was disgusting.

That was, yeah.

I was like, why would you want to eat that?

But some people say that deep fried food is, is like, it's, you can't go wrong.

And if you deep fry it, it works for everything.

That's what some people say.

They say that if you deep fry it, it makes everything better.

Right.

Chicken deep fry it, shrimp, deep fry, it tarantulas, deep fry it.

They'll say, if you deep fry it, it makes everything better.

And I want you guys to, to hear today, what I want you guys to, to walk away with

is realizing that humility is like what some people think about deep fried food.

Humility makes everything better.

Every place you're in, every relationship you have, every person you talk to,

conversation, you have everything.

In your life, humility makes everything better, and that's because humility is the

key to how God wants his people to live.

So our main point tonight is that self-focused and self-interest, right?

It's the opposite of humility.

Self-focused and self-interest have no place in God's people.

If you wanna be part of God's people or if you call yourself a Christian.

Focusing on yourself and caring about what you want most is not gonna fly.

It's not gonna work out very well.

Self focus and self interest have no place in God's community.

So right now we've been looking at the gospel of Matthew.

Last week we talked about the church, right?

We talked about forgiving people.

We talked about being.

Even calling out sin in each other's lives and how to have those conversations.

We talked about what Jesus is saying about how he wants his

people, Christians to interact.

He wants them to, to live together in a group.

God doesn't save you and then tell you to live on your own.

And we're gonna continue seeing what that is.

So tonight, uh, some people call it, we're gonna be looking at the

upside down kingdom of God, and we're gonna look at Matthew 19 and 20.

So why don't you turn there in your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 19.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

Matthew Chapter 19, we're gonna be looking at the first 22 verses of the chapter.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

So this section here, Matthew 19, one to 22.

There are three interactions that Jesus has.

There's three conversations that happen.

The first one, the Pharisees that says they come to test him

and they ask him about divorce.

They say, is it, is it lawful for someone to divorce their wife?

Is it okay?

Is God let people do that?

That's the first question, the first interaction.

The second thing that happens is the little children come to Jesus, and

you might have heard that somewhere in kids' ministry on the wall, let

the little children come to me.

That's what Jesus says.

That's the second one.

The third one is a rich young man asks what he needs to do

to get eternal life, and you've probably heard about that one too.

He says, Jesus, what must I do to get eternal life?

There's three conversations that Jesus has.

And Matthew puts all these conversations together because

he wants us to compare them.

There's something that he wants us to see by putting all of

these conversations in a row.

See, the Pharisees and the rich young man, they are coming and asking

Jesus questions about God's law.

The Pharisees say, oh, can we, if, if we don't like our

spouse, can we divorce them?

Can we break up our marriage?

Just because, uh, is, is that something that God lets us do?

Then the rich young man, he's asking a question, what good deed must I do?

What laws do I have to keep to make sure that I get to heaven?

So they're asking questions about God's law, and on the surface they might seem

genuine, but Jesus' conversations with them reveal something about their hearts.

He's gonna ask them a question back.

Jesus loves doing this.

Someone asks him a question and he's gonna shoot him a question back.

I had a small group leader do that to me all the time.

It was terrible.

I'd ask him a question.

Oh yeah, it was actually, it was Pastor Evan from Hill Country, pastor

Evan, what do you think about this?

Or what do I do?

He'd be like, what do you think you should do?

Like, thanks Pastor Evan.

That's super helpful.

But it made me think, and it actually taught me more about

myself and my thought process.

That's what Jesus does.

He's revealing something about their hearts, and what we're gonna

see is that he is showing them that they're trying to use God's command.

God's law that they've read about.

They're trying to use it to make themselves feel worthy of going to heaven.

They're trying to look at God's law and say, okay, if I

do this, then I'm good enough.

If I do this, then I must be the kind of person that God wants to have in heaven.

I must be worth it.

I must be someone that God really, really likes and, and really

wants to include in heaven.

So they're trying to use God's commands.

To make themselves feel worthy.

So when they read their Bibles, they hear sermons, they see a

bunch of rules, and they're like, I want to check off all the boxes.

I wanna be the best rule follower.

So that way I can feel good and I can say, God, look at, look at my rule following,

look at my checklist of things I've done.

And that what that says about them is that their obedience

is mainly about them, right?

It's about, oh, I, I want to obey so I can look good, so I can feel good.

Look at my spiritual report card.

God.

I must be worthy of saving.

So they're trying to make themselves feel good enough or feel

better, at least in other people.

Maybe I'm not amazing, but I'm better than those people.

Whether you are a Christian or not.

I think that you today are in danger of the same thing.

I think that all of us in this room are in danger of doing the same

thing that the rich young man in the Pharisees are doing in our passage.

We're in danger of obeying God, not for him, but for us.

We're in danger of obeying God to make ourselves feel good.

Instead of wanting Jesus and wanting a relationship with him,

we want to check off the boxes to feel good about ourselves.

So you can see an example of this right here in Matthew

19, verses seven and eight.

The Pharisees, that's they, they said to Jesus, why then did Moses command?

One to give a certificate of divorce.

So this is what, this is what happens right before this.

So Jesus is the Jesus talking to the Pharisees.

Pharisees are like, Hey, can we divorce our spouse?

And Jesus is like God said in Genesis, he puts a married couple together.

He does it.

It's not a contract, it's not an agreement.

It's not, uh, well if, if we both like each other in 20 years,

we'll keep doing this thing.

He says that marriage is something God does.

And in the Pharisees, they're like, oh, we got you now.

Jesus.

Look, Moses said we could divorce.

Moses said, and they say, Moses commanded that we could do it.

And then Jesus says, he said to them, because of your hardness of heart,

it's not that God wanted you to do this, it's because of you it that Moses

allowed you to divorce your wives.

But from the beginning it was not so.

So they're saying, well, look, we can do it because.

It, we, we can still keep God's law and, and serve ourselves.

If I don't like my spouse, I can still, I can still keep the law.

It's about me, not about God.

Jesus saying, God would want you to stay together, but they're

saying, well, we are finding a loophole that we want to exploit.

We, we are really just looking to keep God's law when it works for us.

We don't want to do it for God.

'cause God would want you to stay together.

But.

We don't wanna stay together, so we're going to keep our hard

hearts, but still keep the law.

That's what we're gonna try to do.

So the Pharisees are keeping it for themselves.

The rich young man is similar.

A man came up to Jesus saying, teacher, what good deed must

I do to have eternal life?

What good things do I need to do to make sure I get to heaven?

And Jesus goes over the commandments with him.

He talks about honoring your father and mother.

He talks about the, basically the last half of the 10 Commandments.

It's, and this guy, I, I've never, I, I don't know him, right?

I I, I'm not gonna, you know, we're gonna, I'm not gonna say he wasn't

amazing at doing the, the six through 10 commandments, but he says, I've done

all of these things, probably not true.

Right?

He probably told a lie.

He probably probably hated someone in his heart, right?

But he says, I've done all these things, and Jesus, he doesn't question that.

He says, well.

Okay.

If you would be perfect, go sell everything you own and give it to

the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven, then come follow me.

So this rich young man is like, look, Jesus, I've, I've gotten a plus on

my spiritual report card, but Jesus says, okay, if you really are the great

Christian, you say you are, then show that and sell everything you own because

it'll be worth it for you in heaven.

And then when the young man heard this, he went away sad

because he had a lot of stuff.

So what Jesus just did here is he showed that this young man who does he

love more God or His stuff, his stuff.

So Jesus, even though, even though this young man kept all the commandments,

or at least said he did, he was really keeping the commandments

to feel good about himself.

He, because he is saying, look, I, I'm good enough to go to heaven, Jesus.

And Jesus says, actually, you're not following me.

You're just keeping the commitments to make yourself feel good.

So our first point tonight is follow Jesus.

Not just some rules.

Follow Jesus, not just some rules.

You could put it another way.

You could say, have a relationship with Jesus.

Don't check boxes.

The rich young man, he didn't really wanna follow Jesus.

He just wanted to do the right things, feel good about himself,

and keep his loyalty separate.

He, he wanted to put himself number one, and then follow God

when it was convenient to him, and the Pharisees did the same thing.

You could also say this, follow the rules for God, not for you.

And that's because following Jesus isn't just keeping rules, right?

There are commandments to obey as a Christian, but following

Jesus is primarily a relationship.

It's Jesus is the Lord and and you're the servant.

Jesus is.

The teacher and you are the student.

Jesus is the friend and you are loving him and following him.

It's a relationship.

Imagine.

Imagine with me, some of you might have to imagine really hard, okay?

But imagine you're dating someone, okay?

Imagine, I know some of you, you do this all day, so you're like, I got boom.

I know exactly who, but some of you, this might take a little work, but imagine,

imagine you're dating someone, okay?

Imagine if you were just like, I, I, I'm in a relationship with this person, but

really I'm just trying to do things for them, do nice things for them, right?

I open the door for them, I text them encouraging messages.

I tell 'em they look great today.

I ask them how their day is going.

I do all these things, but really my goal is just to be a great

boyfriend or a great girlfriend.

And imagine I did this with my beautiful wife if I was like doing

all these great things for her, but it was really just so I could be like,

I just wanna be the best husband.

I'm just doing this to be, to get the husband of the year

award if that even exists.

Right.

Does that say anything about my affection for her?

Right ladies, that would stink.

You wouldn't want a man like that.

Or if guys, if you realize that this girl who's being really nice to you

and, and talking to you and asking you good questions and hanging out with

you, if she was just like, actually, I'm really just doing this to prove that

I'm a, I'm a great person to be with.

I'm just, I'm just working on, on my, my girlfriend skills that would stink.

Right.

Yeah, there's loving things that you can do, right?

Good things to do.

But you can do them for yourself.

You can do them to make yourself feel good like, oh man, I'm such a great boyfriend.

I bought her flowers today.

Look at me.

And that sounds silly, but that's what we do with God so much when we make

following Jesus just about following the rules and checking the boxes.

Oh, look, I'm such a great Christian.

I.

Open the Bible app 900 days in a row,

or, oh, look at me.

I'm such a great Christian.

I serve in VBS every year.

Or look at, I'm such a great Christian.

I talk to my leader and ask them questions, ask 'em how they're doing,

or I obey my parents really well, or I make sure I, I say this prayer

specifically when I go to sleep.

And we can do that to make ourselves feel good.

And see, that's what the Pharisees and the rich young men are doing.

They're turning good acts of love into a checklist to make

themselves feel righteous.

And I'm afraid that you are doing the same thing.

Even as a Christian, you can do the same thing.

You can follow, follow the rules that God gives you, just to make yourself feel

good just to say, oh, well, I must be a Christian now because I stopped saying

those words, or I stopped making those jokes, so now I must be a Christian.

That's about you.

It's not about God.

It's not, oh, I love God, so I want to honor him with my words.

It's no, I want to feel good, or I wanna prove that I'm better than

those people, or I want my leader to stop asking me about my testimony.

So it's kind of like those people that, you know, they go to the gym and

all they do at the gym is just stand in front of the mirror, you know?

And, and do all the cool stuff, all that stuff, right?

I had a roommate in college like that.

It was hilarious.

Um, half his time at the gym was him just staring at himself, right?

Don't be that kind of Christian.

Don't be a Jim Mirror Christian.

Don't be like, oh, look at the stuff I do.

Look how great I am.

Don't be that person.

Don't be that guy.

Don't be that girl.

Don't follow God for yourself.

Their rule following in this passage that we're seeing, and maybe yours

is a pursuit of their own interest.

And Matthew wants us to compare their rule following with that of the children.

That's why he puts the children right in the middle.

If you remember last week we talked about children as well.

So in Matthew 1915, Jesus says, let little children come to me and don't hinder them.

Four, why this kind of person, childlike person is the person

that gets the kingdom of heaven.

And he said that earlier.

Whoever humbles himself.

Like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

So see, it's kind of upside down, right?

He's saying the most vulnerable, the most helpless, the most dependent people are

the people that get the kingdom of heaven.

Those people understand how this works.

Jesus is saying that his commands aren't, something, aren't like

a podium for you to climb up to the top of so you can feel great.

He wants you to admit your weakness and your need for him.

And to follow him because you want him, not because you want yourself.

Following Jesus to get stuff for yourself is not gonna do you any good.

You're just gonna be a, a, a moral person who ends up forever apart from God.

So if you think just being a Christian is, is living a certain

way and doing the right things, I, I wanna invite you to, to just throw

that idea away and, and meet Jesus.

Jesus is a person.

He's a person for you to love.

He's a person for you to talk to, to hear from, to live

with, to follow, to live for.

So take your spiritual resume building and, and just drop it.

That's exhausting too, to try to put up this front of, oh, I gotta be good enough.

I gotta feel good about my, my spiritual checklist.

Maybe you think a relationship with God is just doing some Christian things and

so you're like, oh, I'm a Christian.

'cause I, I go to church.

My parents are Christian.

We do family devotions.

I must be a Christian just because you're around Christian, just 'cause

you do Christian things doesn't make you a Christian because what makes you a

Christian is a relationship with Jesus.

So follow Jesus.

Not the rules.

You can't be a Christian by osmosis.

You guys know what osmosis is.

You learn about mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cells.

You learn anything about this.

So osmosis is when you're next to, you're next to the, the cells

are next to each other and that's how they, they transfer things.

I haven't taken biology in a long time.

That's the general idea that you can't do that as a Christian, right?

You, you can't become a Christian just because you're around Christian people.

You have to have a relationship with Jesus.

So if your confidence in your salvation is from all the stuff you've done,

then you're trusting the wrong thing or trusting something that

ultimately will leave you empty.

So the reason a lot of people, even Christians, can make obeying God

about themselves is because all of us are wired to want to earn things.

We all want to to earn something.

We all want to feel like, oh, I deserve that.

I got that.

That was from me to me.

I, I did it.

I did a little search about ad campaigns that tell you you deserve something.

And this is page five of this many ads that I just, this is like

a website that just tracks ads.

So this is what, 1, 2, 3, 4 rows of 6 24 times five.

That's almost a hundred.

And that was just like two seconds of Googling.

So that's like a hundred ads that say, you deserve this, you deserve this.

That's 'cause our culture knows that you're wired to want to deserve things.

See, we want to feel like we deserve everything we've got, and so we

get frustrated when life doesn't go the way we think we deserve.

We get frustrated because we want the world to operate the way.

We want it to.

We want the world to, to meet our standards of what's fair.

You ever hear that, right?

You probably grew up saying it.

That's not fair, right?

That's not fair.

Someone else gets something good.

That's not fair.

Something bad happens to you.

That's not fair.

You hear that all the time.

And the problem is that our standard of fairness is broken.

It's messed up.

What we think is fair isn't always right.

And that's what we're gonna go next in this next chunk of Matthew.

Matthew 1923 to chapter 20 verse.

16, we're gonna talk about fairness.

Now, maybe you don't believe me that your standard of fairness is broken.

Well, let me prove it to you that your standard of fairness is broken.

Okay?

I wanna tell you a story.

Alright?

So let's say there is a, there's, there's this boss, this manager, and he was

like, okay, I need to, to get stuff done.

So I'm gonna hire people.

Okay, I'm gonna hire all of these people to, to get my work done.

Okay.

And so he's like, he talks to the, the, the workers and he's like, all right

guys, I'll, I'll pay you a, a good wage, a day's wage if you come work for me.

So then they go out and they do the work and then he, the, a couple hours later,

the, the manager, he sees some other guys just standing around outside and he's

like, Hey, you guys wanna work for me too?

I'll pay you a day's wage.

I'll pay you a full day's wage if you start now at 10:00 AM instead of 8:00

AM and they're like, oh, awesome.

That's a great deal.

I'm getting paid eight hours for six hours of work.

That's pretty great.

So then they keep working and then he sees some other people.

A couple hours later it's like, let's say it's like noon and the manager is like,

Hey, I want you guys to come work for me.

I'll pay you for eight hours of work, but you only have to work four hours.

I'll pay you the full day, but you only have to work half of it.

It.

They're like, oh, awesome.

Great deal.

Okay.

So then they work and they keep wearing a couple hours later.

There's only one hour left in the day.

It's like 4:00 PM and there's still some more people just standing out

on the street and the manager's like, Hey, can you guys come work for me?

I'll pay you for eight hours of work if you work one hour.

So then after, when they all come to get their pay right, then when they

come to clock out and get their, their, their paycheck for the day.

What do you think the people that worked all day are gonna say?

If that was you, let's say you worked all day, you worked eight hours, you get paid

for eight hours of work, and then you see, oh, my friend, he only worked one hour.

He's getting paid the same amount of money as me, and he works seven hours less.

Is that fair or not fair?

Raise your hand if you think that's fair.

Region think it's unfair.

Every single person in the room thinks it's unfair Now.

That's because we're all selfish.

Because if you were the person who worked one hour, you would be pretty, pretty

happy with how that turned out, right?

You'd be like, I worked, guess what?

I worked one hour and I got paid for eight hours.

Right?

Or I only sat in class for two weeks and I got credit for the whole year.

That, that would be pretty great.

I only did three assignments.

I got credit for all the work for the whole semester.

Wouldn't that be awesome?

You'd be so excited about that.

But then when, if it was your classmate, oh, he only did three weeks of work and

he got credit for the whole, he got an A in the class, same grade I got, and

he only did three weeks of homework.

There'd be, there'd be trouble there.

Right.

That's actually the story that Jesus tells in Matthew 20.

He tells the exact same story that I just told you and.

The workers in the story react the same way Jesus replied.

So the the Jesus is talking to, he's telling this story and the

master is talking to the workers.

The workers are like, Hey, we worked all day, we worked eight hours.

Or if you wanna do this in school, right?

We, we did all the homework for the whole semester.

And you're saying that these people that walked in with the one month

left of school got the same amount of credit we did for way less work.

Look at what the master in this story says.

He says, friend, I'm not doing you any wrong because you agreed to

work and that word denarius, that's a day's wage you worked for for

you got paid for what you worked.

You, you agreed, I'm gonna work for a day's wage.

And you got paid a day's wage.

That's fair.

You signed up for to work this much and you got this much pay.

That's perfectly fair.

I.

But then he says, I choose to give this last worker the

guy who only worked one hour.

I just wanna give him as much as I give you.

Not because he earned it, but because I'm generous.

That's what the master says.

That's what the manager says.

He says, am I not allowed to do what I want with what's mine?

It's my money if I wanna overpay this guy because I'm generous.

It's my money.

Why are you mad about that?

You got what, what you deserve.

You got what you agreed to work for.

So that phrase right there, or do you begrudge my generosity?

You probably didn't say, oh, do you begrudge my, you probably didn't

use that word this week, right?

Begrudge.

So sometimes it's helpful to look in a different translation.

Or if you know Greek, that's also helpful, but is this so?

But literally in Greek it says, is your eye evil?

Because I am good.

And the way other translations put that is, are you jealous?

Because I'm generous.

That's what the master's saying.

He's saying I was generous to this other worker.

Why are you upset about that?

And what the master is showing is that the worker's upset and we're, we get

upset about that 'cause we're selfish.

Because we're saying, I want what they got.

I want you to be generous to me too.

That's not fair.

You can't be generous to only that person.

And we get upset about things like that and it exposes our selfishness.

See, when you see God being generous to someone else, when you see

God being good to someone else.

When their life's better than yours, when their friends are better than

yours, when their family is more well off than yours, when their school or

their grades, or their talent or their looks, you feel like they're better

than yours instead of rejoicing that God has been generous to that person.

You expose your selfishness when you say, why can't I get that too?

You're saying, God, I deserve that.

I deserve for you to be generous to me too.

And that's because we're selfish and that's so hard to swallow and

that's why Jesus tells this story.

So our second point tonight is reorient your view of God's grace.

And this is gonna take a lot of work, reorient, right?

Change the way you think about God's grace.

Or we could say it this way.

Stop seeing God's grace with your selfish eyes.

That's what the master said, right?

Are you jealous because I'm generous.

God's generous Grace messes with us, right?

I think we're all kind of uncomfortable when we hear that story and we're like,

wait, Jesus told that story, and Jesus said that what that master did was

okay to pay that one person way more than what they, what they deserved.

And when Jesus, or when God gives people something we don't think

they deserved, it bothers us.

And that's because our selfish hearts, they see something

good happen to someone else.

And our first thought, because we're selfish, is why not me?

We want, we're jealous.

We want more than than we deserve.

We want that for us.

Instead of our first thought being, man, God is so generous.

He gave that person that family or those looks.

We say, why not me?

God, I deserve that.

You see how selfish that is.

Imagine if every time you got something good, someone came up

to me and someone came up to you and said, why didn't I get that?

Or every time it was your birthday, someone came up to you and said.

You didn't do that for my birthday.

That would be terrible.

That would be, that would be so annoying.

And that would be, you would be like, what are you, you're, you're so selfish.

That's what we do when we say, God, why didn't you give me that?

We're saying, God, you're being generous to them, but I demand

that you be just as generous to me.

But guess whose stuff it is?

Guess whose money?

Everything is, guess whose world this is?

Guess whose talents it?

It's all god's.

It all belongs to God.

So who are, who am I to say, God, why did you let them be born to those

parents and me be born to these parents?

If God wants to bless them, that's, that's perfectly right for God to do.

'cause it's his stuff.

God can do whatever he wants with his stuff.

We feel like we have a claim on what God can do.

We think we deserve to have a say in how God does what he does.

But God can be generous however he wants 'cause it's his stuff, right?

That manager, it's his money.

He can pay people however much he wants, as long as they all agreed to it, right?

They all said, yeah, it sounds good.

Good deal.

I'll work for you.

And he said, okay, I'll just be generous to this person.

It's God's money and he can give it whoever he wants.

It's God can do whatever he wants because he's, he's a just God.

He's not gonna do anything that's wrong, right?

He's not gonna pay someone less than they deserve.

Because think about it this way.

What do we all deserve anyway?

We all deserve to be punished for our sin.

And so we're all getting overpaid.

You realize that, right?

We're all getting overpaid because we lived longer than two seconds.

We're all getting way more money than we deserve from God because he's

letting us live beyond our first sin.

So we need to reorient and change the way we think about God's grace.

We.

He can't deserve it.

It's God's grace.

It's his generosity.

He can do whatever he wants with it.

But see, sometimes we also want to make sure that we feel

like we get what we deserve.

We feel like we deserve something.

And so we're like, I want to get that.

And right before Jesus tells this parable in chapter 20, after talking

to the rich young man, he has a conversation with Peter and the disciples.

So what happens at the end of chapter 19, right before this parable?

As Jesus says, after talking with a rich young man, you might have

heard this, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle

than for a rich man to go to heaven.

It's easier for giant animal to go through tiny opening than for

a rich person to go to heaven.

And the disciples are shocked because in this culture, rich

people were blessed by God.

If you were wealthy, a lot of people would assume that, oh, that's

'cause God was generous to you.

God was kind to you.

And they're like, man, if those people, the people that God is generous to,

can't go to heaven, what about us?

And so Peter, he says,

what about us?

See, we've left everything in, followed you.

What then will we have, or what's in it for us?

Jesus, look, look at all the stuff we've done for you.

Jesus.

Are we gonna get something?

We deserve it.

Look what we've done for you.

We've left everything.

We actually did what you asked the rich young man to do.

You said, go sell everything and come follow me.

Peter's like I did that.

He's saying, Jesus, look at what I've done for you.

That's, that's right there, what he says.

And then here's what Jesus says in response.

He says, everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters, or father or mother,

or children, or lands for my namesake.

We'll receive a hundred fold and will inherit eternal life.

So he's saying what's in it for you?

It'll be worth it.

It'll be worth it.

But when you think about it, Jesus is still overpaying Peter.

Right?

This is way more than Peter deserves for following Jesus.

But that's the problem is when we think of God's grace, we think, oh, well, God does.

God should show me grace.

Now, what's wrong with that sentence?

Should anyone ever show someone grace?

Is Grace ever deserved?

If it is deserved, is it still grace?

No.

Right?

Grace by definition is undeserved favor.

You can't earn it.

So when you think about God's grace, when you think about, oh man, I'm,

I maybe we talked about in the first point is you're thinking.

I know I can't earn my salvation, but I, I still think God should save me.

Maybe you never said it that way, but maybe that's how you think.

Maybe you're like, you know, it makes sense that God would save me.

Maybe you've never thought that, but then I know that you

might've thought that because

when God saves someone, you don't think he should save.

Oh God, you're gonna save that person.

Wait, that person's coming to our church now.

You want me to forgive that person?

God, I'm supposed to overlook that person.

Sin.

You are saying, I deserve God's forgiveness more than that person.

I deserve God's grace more than that person that I don't want to forgive that.

I don't want you to save God.

So you're trying to lay claim on God's grace and saying, well, I'm at least more

deserving of God's grace than that person.

See how selfish we are?

We try to, to do everything we can to deserve God's grace, but we can't.

You can't deserve God's grace.

So maybe deep down you think, oh, it makes sense that God would save me, or maybe.

You aren't a Christian.

Maybe we flip this.

Maybe you aren't a Christian and you think the gospel sounds too good to be true.

You mean God will just forgive me of everything.

I don't have to do anything, and you haven't become a Christian

because to you that seems too easy.

You think, oh, well, if you gave me something to do, God, I would do that,

and then I, I could become a Christian,

and that might come from you wanting to deserve it.

It's too easy.

It, it seems too easy.

That's it because your, your brain is trained to want to deserve things.

You want to feel like, oh, I did this and I got this and I earned this.

And so maybe that's holding you back from becoming a Christian 'cause

you feel like I want to deserve it.

Or maybe you just feel like I don't deserve it and I can't become a Christian.

And what I have to say to you is amazing news and that God's grace is his to give.

God can decide to save whoever he wants to save.

And so you think, oh, God couldn't save me.

You don't know what I've done, Lewis.

You don't know what I've thought about.

You don't know what I've watched.

You don't know what I've said.

God does and he can still save you because it's his decision to save you.

It's not your decision to determine whether you're

worthy of being saved or not.

And maybe you are a Christian and you don't wanna share the gospel

with someone because you don't think they deserve to be saved.

That's not your call to make

because you're making a judgment call.

That person doesn't deserve God's grace, so I'm gonna hold it back from them.

So we gonna reorient our view of God's grace because it's his grace

to give Last night or last week in small groups, there was a really

funny moment where I felt like this.

I felt like this kid in small groups last week.

And the reason is because my wife made me an amazing dinner.

It smelled awesome.

And I started to eat it during small groups and all of the junior high boys

came up to me and were like, can I have some, can I have some, can I have some?

That smells so good.

Can I have, I was literally this kid, I was like, this is why you

don't bring bread to the lake, right?

Because all the geese come up to you and they're like trying

to eat you and your lunch.

So definitely not me.

Yeah, it's definitely not, definitely not Carsten and, and

Caleb and Josh, definitely not them.

Um.

That's how I felt.

That was information.

Actually, this is probably more like how I felt, but um,

I decided not to give my dinner to any of them.

But if I had only given my dinner to one of them, let's say only gave it to

Caleb, let's say, only gave it to Caleb.

A lot of people in in that room would've said, that's unfair,

Louis, but whose dinner was it?

Mine?

So who gets to decide what to do with it?

Me, right.

So I can do whatever I want with my food, right?

That's how God's grace works.

He can do whatever he wants with it.

It's not our job to decide who gets it and who doesn't.

So reorient your picture, your view of God's grace.

Now, to wrap it up here, our third point, we're gonna be

looking at Matthew 20 17 34.

The rest of this chapter, and the key to all of this, what we're talking

about is our focus, because our two main temptations are to trick ourselves

into thinking we deserve God's grace or to get upset when other people gr

grace that we don't think they deserve.

We need to figure out what we're, what we're really focused on.

And so looking for what I deserve and what benefits me.

If that's our focus, what can I get out of this?

Right?

Peter's question, what about us?

That's the opposite of how Jesus' kingdom works.

Look what Jesus says here.

So right before this, Jesus says, I'm gonna suffer and die.

I'm gonna be crucified, I'm gonna be beaten, and I'm gonna die.

And then he says the rulers of the, the people who don't worship God, the

Gentiles, their rulers have authority and they love their authority.

They hold it over people.

They're like, oh, we're, we're gonna make you do what we want.

You know, it's kind of like when you play Follow the Leader with

like a 4-year-old, they're like, yes, I can tell people what to do.

This is awesome.

Right?

That's what the world does with authority.

But Jesus says, that's not how you guys, Christians live.

Whoever would be great important among you must be your servant and

whoever would be first, the the, the best among you must be your slave.

Even as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve Jesus, the

son of man, the reigning king, God of the universe came not to get,

but to give and give his life as a ransom for many, many sinners.

Many people who hated him, who turned from him, who abandoned him, who made fun

of him, who mocked him, who killed him.

He gave his life for those people.

Jesus says, real greatness is giving yourself for the good of others.

And that's our third point.

Embrace humility as true greatness.

Embrace humility as true greatness.

So I wanna ask you is what type of people do you admire?

Who do you think is great?

It's not like, oh, you're so great, but great, like important.

Awesome, cool.

What type of people do you celebrate?

What type of people are the people?

You're like, I want to be like that person.

I admire that person.

Put it another way.

We could say, what type of person do you want to lead you?

If you're like, oh, I would follow that person.

I want that person to be my coach.

I want that person to be my trainer.

I want that person to tell me what to do.

Jesus is the type of person that you should you should want to follow is

the humble person, person who serves others, the person who loves others.

Now, humility you might think.

Humility is thinking, I'm nothing, thinking I'm worthless.

Oh, I'm so bad at this.

I'm not really that good at that.

I'm really not that talented.

Maybe that's what you think humility is.

That's not true.

Humility.

As one famous author, put it, humility is not thinking less of yourself.

It's not thinking worse about who you are.

It's thinking of yourself less.

It's being less occupied with yourself, less concerned with what I

want, what I need, what I should get.

That's what humility is.

It's not thinking why I'm a terrible person, I'm a loser.

Humility is just not thinking about yourself.

It's like, oh, I didn't really think about what I wanted in this situation.

I was worried about what you wanted.

I was worried about how to care for you.

I was worried about how to love you, how to encourage you.

I didn't think about what I wanted.

That's humility.

So I wanna ask you is what are your priorities when you show up places?

When you came to True North tonight, what did you think about?

Did you think about, oh, this is what I want to do.

I want to do this, I want have this.

I wanna talk to this person, I'm gonna do this.

Or what are you thinking?

How can I encourage these people?

How can I help these people?

How can I love these people?

When you go to school, what do you think about?

Do you think about, oh, what do I get outta this?

This is so lame.

I hate this.

Or do you think about who can I bless?

Who can I encourage?

What can I do to, to encourage my teacher or my friends?

What about when you come home or you know, what do I get?

I come home, I wanna do my things.

I wanna play my games.

I wanna watch my videos.

I wanna watch my shows.

I want to do things the way I want to do them.

Or you thinking about other people, oh, what, what does my sibling want to do?

How can my parents, how can I help my parents?

Have a great weekend?

Does that ever cross your mind?

Jesus says, that's the type of person that is great.

That's an awesome person.

So remember our main point, self-focused and self-interest

have no place in God's people.

So humility is essential to everything about being a Christian.

You can't love people without being humble.

'cause if you're all, if all you're thinking about is yourself,

you're never gonna love someone.

Think about that in a, in a relationship.

Would you, would you wanna be in a relationship with someone who only

thought about themself that would stink?

Right.

What, oh, what do you wanna do tonight?

Well, I really like this.

You don't wanna do that day in, day out worship, right?

You only worship if you're humble.

If you, if you think all about yourself, you're never gonna worship or faith.

Faith doesn't work unless you're not thinking about, you have

to think about other people to, to, to have faith, to trust God.

You can't be focused on yourself.

So humility is essential to everything about being a Christian, and

humility makes everything better.

And that's what I want you to take away from tonight's message.

So let's pray and let's head to small groups.

God thank you that you sent Jesus, who, if anyone had the right to be prideful,

it would be Jesus the greatest man to ever live because he's God in the flesh.

But Jesus humbled himself to the point of death, death on the cross, to be

shamefully executed for sinners like us, and gave his life as a ransom.

To save people.

So God, I pray that you would help us to, to follow Jesus' example, to

think about others, to love others, to even approach our small groups

thinking about others, and help us to put our, our selfish motives to death.

I pray that you purify us.

I pray that you help us to learn how to, to fight for humility.

And I pray that you help us to take our focus off of ourselves

and put it ultimately onto you.

'cause we wanna follow you and we wanna love you.

We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.