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So how did you get on with the challenge of an hour of prayer each day?

What about your coat? Did you find ways of laying it down for the king of kings to ride over?

What did you offer God in the week?

 We are backtracking a little today which is good because we have just moved on from the teaching in chapters 18-20 and we come back to the beginning to remind ourselves of where it starts.

READ 1-4

At that time or in that hour. What is special about that hour? Go back to 16:21 Jesus began to explain that he was going to die and rise again. In 17:1-13 he is transfigured before Peter, James and John. In 17:22 he returns to the subject of his  death and resurrection. In 17:24-27 he has sorted the temple tax, pointing out that he , as son of God was not required to pay tax. It that hour, he is seeking to teach us that the kingdom is gained , not by the power of military or political power but by the power of love, in suffering and death and resurrection.

 The question “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” is answered, as we have seen, throughout ch18-20.  And as we have been thinking through what Jesus said there we are not surprised that he began by having a small child stand among them. Mark has Jesus taking him in his arms. Maybe faced with 12 serious looking disciples, the child sought refuge in the one he could trust, who was conveniently sitting, and was welcoming. That is the whole point. Jesus is saying the kingdom is about trusting him and discovering he welcomes you even though that would cost him his life.

Thus the first main theme discussed is the especially important one of humility, a theme that is central to the ministry of Jesus himself.

Jesus uses a child as the model of the simple humility that makes for greatness in the kingdom, and the analogy of children or “little ones” dominates the first part of the discourse . We are called ‘little children’ because if we are to disciples that is what we must be like.  Did you pick up that children figured in the temple after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem? Do you remember that Jesus called us ‘little faiths’? These nick-names Jesus gave his disciples reflect his agenda for them, to build faith and instil humility.

 So these verses kick off the whole discourse in chapters 18-20. We are looking at 4 paragraphs today

          Who is the greatest? 18:1-4

          Warning against Causing Others to Stumble (18:5-6)

          Warning against Allowing Oneself to Stumble (18:7–9)

          The Parable of the Lost Sheep (18:10-14)

So I want us to think what Jesus meant by being like a child. Helpfully Jesus explains it in verse 4.

Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

 What marks the kingdom of God is humility. The examples we have of humility are a child, a servant, a slave.  They are marked by generally being of one kind in the 1^st Century, they were without rights, without status. They were to exist for the pleasure of the head of the family. Our society is obsessed with rights, status and self-interest.  It is interesting to note that we have been celebrating the outbreak of WW1 where there was a much greater sense of sacrifice, greater good, and acceptance of one’s low estate. Men signed up to fight for family and nation. You join the military to serve. To go where others fear or refuse to go, if necessary to be injured or killed. Your rights and status and pleasure are secondary to the needs of the battalion or ship or squadron.

The kingdom of God is like that.  We follow Jesus, who for the joy that was your salvation, endured the cross, despising its shame and is seated at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. Jesus calls us to be humble. To set the proclamation of the kingdom above your career, the care of  others to the same level as yourself, love, joy peace, friendship with whoever God sends your way, above wealth, status, celebrity, even your life.

 READ 5-6

He then moves deliberately to talk of causing other or ourselves to stumble or be lost.

He is not speaking of the child, who by now has wandered off Jesus’ lap, he is speaking about his disciples. This is a sober warning that we are here to encourage one another in following Jesus, completely.

His language is as strong as you will get anywhere. How do we cause others to stumble?

I am going to suggest three ways.

a)    Sinful behaviour and attitude. We watch each other. What you value encourages me to value the same things. What you go on about in conversation affects your listener. If you steal you make out stealing is Ok. If you lust, others are led to believe its somehow acceptable to be adulterous. If you are hateful, then it makes me think I can be hateful as well. If I am selfish or greedy, then others will take note and think its Ok.  If I am not reading my Bible, others will not be encouraged to do so. If I never talk about prayer then others soon get the idea that it is not important. I think we are too reticent to pray together. I mean when talking in normal conversation about something. We often formally pray over what we discuss in a meeting,  why don’t we pray with one another? We share fellowship in Christ, but does that extend to our conversation? One of the thrills of prayer-walking is that you pray and talk as you walk.  But there are more subtle stumbling blocks. Paul talks about problems in the early church over eating food offered to idols.  We can be a stumbling block over our ‘freedom’ in Christ. That can be over drinking, TV watching, Internet browsing, life-style, Football worshipping, celebrity following, film watching and a host of other things that our society makes Gods of.  We are free to do what we want but we want to please God and we prefer to not put stumbling blocks in the way of others.

b)    Criticism. If I am always complaining about others and blaming them, then I am declaring righteousness is about my rights and my rules and my religion. We move away from grace at our peril. There is no salvation in our rules, our rights or our doctrinal integrity. If we are ready to criticise we are not looking for the love , joy and peace that should perfume our fellowship but the bitter stench of pride. If I note when things are not done as I please, then others don’t volunteer because who wants to be criticized?  Look, this morning, there are a large number of people voluntarily serving each other and you. They set the heating, opened the doors, moved the chairs, cleaned the building, repaired, set up equipment, prepared worship, thought about it and prayed about it. Others prepared the refreshments and will wash up. Children’s workers prepared, set up and are running the children’s programme.    The question is did you encourage them for what they did or complain about the bit that they missed? Don’t cause your brother or sister to stumble because you are too self-centred to see that they have made time and effort to serve Jesus.

c)      Heresy.  We are called to speak the truth in love. That means that we are to know the truth and not adapt what God says to what we would like it to say. It means encouraging others in correct thinking and lovingly challenging wrong thinking.  Terrible things happen in churches when orthodoxy becomes a weapon to oppress others. On the other hand, being lax about morality and ethics and the substance of the Good News we proclaim devalues the Good News to some ‘moral rational’ rather than following Jesus which we know to be the vital way of life.

 READ 7-9

But Jesus goes on to say that we must be vigilant about ourselves. 1 Corinthians 10: 12 reads: So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! Humility requires the discipline of spiritual check-ups on ourselves. Am I letting the quiet time slip and forgetting the reading of God’s word and talking to him in prayer? Am I thinking that sin is not as offensive to him as it is? Have I silenced my conscience rather than sought forgiveness for my sins? Am I blaming others rather than seeking to build up their faith?

The language of verses 7-9 is dramatic and intended to be. It is not intended to encourage self-harm but it is intended to remind you that your salvation is more valuable than anything else. Better to be one-eyed and one-armed than to lose your faith.

 Read 10-14

I was a little surprised to see this passage here. Why do we move from humility, not causing others to stumble and not stumbling ourselves to this well-known story  and then on to rest of the teaching about the kingdom of heaven?

 Although it is the same story in Luke, I believe it was told at a different time for very different reasons. Here Jesus says quite clearly that it is about not looking down on any one of his disciples, that God is not willing that any of his disciples should be lost.

In Luke the context is that of Jesus meeting the collaborators and the prostitutes and pimps and drug dealers, and so on. He declares that his mission, our mission is to go out and rescue the lost.

Are you feeling lost? Confused by what is happening in your life or around your life? Overwhelmed by medical appointments and diagnoses, stuck in a routine without end, your job a black hole swallowing you, drifting because you have lost your way,…?

 Then loved by God, remember this, the Father leaves 99 so he can seek you out and find you. God is happier to send the Holy Spirit of Jesus to be with you in your depression than to be with those who are full of the Lord. That is not to say he dislikes passionate Christians, it is to say that you are his concern.

God is never too busy to see you. He has never got his mind on someone else. He is totally committed to the lost and struggling Christian. He is there where you are, reaching out to you in your distress and saying, I want you back. That is our Good News. It is good news for the unconverted, it is good news for the lost Christian. Grace is not about how good you are or how strong you are it is about God’s love in action. Leaving 99 to find you. Jesus said you are worth many sparrows, now he says you are worth a whole flock of sheep. He went to the cross because he loved you, He sent his Holy Spirit to draw you to himself, now he says to you. I’m not giving up on you.