Striving For Prestige
Luke 9:37-50 ·August 13, 2023· Joel Passmore
Part of: Luke
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Another program note, I hope you've been enjoying Luke as much as I have. We're coming up to a section break in Luke. It's not really all that obvious when you are reading it, but there is a section break here. Something's going to change after this passage. So we're going to use the opportunity to do a little break in the sermon series. The next two Sundays we're going to have guest preachers, and my family and I are going to take a couple days vacation next week and then some of the week after that.
So two weeks of guest preachers, and then I'm going to do a four-week series on Jonah in September. And then Taylor Hausman will be here to preach after the men's retreat, and then after that we'll hop back into Luke. So just a little break in Luke coming up here. As far as today goes, think about this. No one likes to admit being a slow learner about anything. We all would like to think that we can pick up everything like that really, really quick.
It's really humbling when it gets exposed that we're not learning things very quickly. Kids, have you ever been taking a test in class, and like you see your classmates one by one start walking up and turning in their tests, and you're still like halfway through, and you're like, they're already finished, and they're turning it in and turning it in, and you're starting to think, but what's going on? Sometimes you're the last one. Have you ever been the last one turning in a test?
Yeah, it's like, what have I done wrong? I think about taking a group dance lesson, which I've done sometimes. You wouldn't know it from looking at me, but I'm really not a great dancer. No, you actually wouldn't. I've never seen very many tall dancers. I'm awkward and gangly, and so in a group dance lesson, I actually like to dance, but I'm not all that great at it, and so it takes me a long time to learn, and when you're in a group dance lesson, you can see other people that are picking it up, and you're like, I am still working on this back step thing.
It is humbling to have what we don't know exposed, to realize I'm not getting this, and I think other people can see that I'm not getting this. Jesus has been giving his disciples principles of the kingdom, how to live as his people, but they are really slow learners, and we see it big time in this passage. The disciples were, think about it, they were right there with Jesus. You would think they'd be able to pick it up, but then again, you'd think that I'd be able to pick up the dance steps when I'm looking at the instructor right there in front of me.
They're watching him, they're listening to him, but they still think that greatness is achieved in an ordinary human way, through self-reliance. That's what they're doing. They're applying their own self-reliance to this new thing that they're doing, following Jesus, and it's just not working for them. They keep bumping up against that same wall. But here's the thing, Jesus does not give up on them. So hopefully that encourages you, if you feel like a slow learner, the principles of the kingdom, the principles of the gospel, feel like they're slow to sink down in your heart.
Jesus does not give up on you. He didn't give up on them. So let's take that note about Jesus' faithfulness to the disciples and go into Luke 9 today.
This is Luke 9, starting at verse 37. God's word is reliable. We can build our life on it. We should build our life on it. There is no firmer foundation. So let's approach it with that thoughtfulness. On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out.
It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth and shatters him and will hardly leave him. And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not. Jesus answered, Oh, faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here. While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy and gave him back to his father. And all were astonished at the majesty of God.
But while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, Let these words sink into your ears. The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men. But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying. An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child, put him at 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 great. John answered, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us. But Jesus said to him, Do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you. Pray with me.
God, give us open ears to hear this word from you and by your spirit implant it deep in our hearts. Help us to grow and live as your disciples to give up worldly ways and natural patterns of relating to you and to others. Instead, Lord, help us to live spiritually the way that you would have your people live. Transformed by your grace, by your spirit, and in the image of Jesus. We pray this in your name.
Striving for prestige. That's what the disciples are doing. That's what we're all doing. In one way or another, Jesus came to rescue us from the dead end of self-reliance.
So let's talk about the root of self-reliance. Self-reliance is a sneaky way that our pride comes out. Jesus, Peter, James, and John, they were up on the mountain. They saw Jesus in his glory and they come down from the mountain and they find a commotion going on. A great crowd is around. And at the middle of this crowd is a man, a man who is coming to Jesus because his son, his only child, is afflicted by a demon. And like we've seen before, this demon is absolutely wrecking this young man's life.
It's convulsing him. It's seizing him. It controls his body. It makes him do strange things, things that are harmful to him. The father cries out to Jesus, I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.
Evidently, this happened while the four were up on the mountain. The nine apostles that were left and the other disciples tried and tried and tried to heal this boy, to cast the demon out, but they couldn't do it. They failed. What happened? What went wrong? It's helpful to go to the other accounts of this story in the other Gospels. In Matthew, the disciples asked Jesus, why could we not cast it out? And he told them, because of your little faith.
In Mark's account of the story, Jesus says, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. And he doesn't mean that some magic incantation. He just means simply asking God to work. Depending on God. Going to God. So here's what happened. They saw a need, a legitimate need. They wanted to help. They tried to help, but in their own power. In their own strength. They had relied on themselves and not on God.
Jesus tells them, look, your problem is not your skills, it's not your numbers, it's not your technique. It's not even that I wasn't here with you. Your problem is your self-reliance. You think you can do it by yourself. That's why here in Luke, in this passage, he laments this faithless and twisted generation. According to Jesus, the root of self-reliance is faithlessness. It's a form of pride. I don't need to rely on you, God. I've got this. It's the belief that I can make good things happen by myself.
Now, all little kids go through stages, right, where you try to help them with something and they're like, no, no, no, I do it myself. I do it myself.
This is normal, right? God designed us to learn and to grow this way. But he never designed us to be independent of him. It's fine for kids to do that. It's normal. It's one thing to learn to tie your shoes by yourself. It's another thing to try to accomplish true, lasting good by yourself. Those are two different things, two different categories. But we apply the one to the other. Well, I eventually got independent of my parents. I learned to ride a bike and tie my shoes and study and plan my day.
I even have a job now. Independence, independence, independence. That's all normal and good, but we apply that to our relationship with God. We apply that to the spiritual things around us, the needs we see around us. God, I got this. No, no, I do it myself. I do it myself.
It seems weak to ask someone for help, doesn't it? And it looks weak to accept it. There's a saying that many people think is in the Bible and it is not. God helps those who help themselves.
It isn't in the Bible, but do you know where it is? It's in here. It's in our hearts. God helps those who help themselves. This belief stands opposed, completely opposed to what God tells us, which is God helps the helpless.
Or maybe, better yet, God helps those who stop helping themselves and instead come to him in humble faith and trust. At the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples, whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.
Church, what if we lived like we believed him? The only way good happens in us or through us is when his power is at work in us and through us. We cannot do it by ourselves.
Listen, we all face situations like these disciples did, right? Where there's a real need that we're confronted with, something that the spirit in us prompts us of like, we want this to change, we want this to be healed, we want there to be reconciliation and peace and healing and growth. We see these situations in our homes. We see them in our friends, in our siblings. We see them in ourselves. We see situations like this in our relationships, our marriages, our children, places where we very, may well have a role to play in something good being accomplished.
It is good to face those situations and think, I can't do this by myself. I can't. The good that I want that the spirit is telling me could happen here through the power of God, I cannot do it by myself. That's a good thing to think that. That's your opportunity to pray. What's worse, what's far worse is when the thought never crosses our mind, which I admit happens to me all the time. I see a situation, I see a need, it's a good need, it's the right need, and I just move in without prayer, without relying on God and on his spirit.
On the front of your bulletin, J.R. Packer writes this, if we think of ourselves or others as achievers, creators, reformers, innovators, movers and shakers, healers, educators, benefactors of society in any way at all, we are, at the deepest level, kidding ourselves. we have nothing and have never had anything that we have not received nor have we done anything good apart from God who did it through us.
Everything in you, natural and unredeemed, totally rebels against everything that I just read there. At your core, you tell God, no, but really, I know that's true for other people, but I can handle this.
What are you trying to do in your own power? You may have your eyes on the right thing, the right issue. You may really be having spiritual thoughts about, I think God, I want this to happen here.
But then the mistake happens when you just rush in and do it without praying, without asking God, without depending on God. That's pride, friends. That's faithlessness. Don't do that. Jesus is calling the disciples out of that. This was a teaching moment for them and it can be that for us too. Because of your little faith, this kind can only be driven out by prayer. What could change if you ask God for help more often?
Now let's continue. Skip down to verse 46 and you're going to see that the root of self-reliance leads to the fruit of self-reliance. What happens to people when they go too far thinking that they can handle things by themselves? Well, it turns out they get pretty ambitious, arrogant, and competitive. Something striking about the Bible, I think, is how the mistakes and the character issues of God's people are presented so plainly, so obviously, so transparently.
And that's what we see here. The failure of the disciples to cast out this demon and the rebuke of Jesus clearly hasn't taken the wind out of their sails. It just happened. And then they argue among themselves about who is the greatest. Man, that's silly, isn't it? I wish I didn't see myself so clearly. I wish I knew what kind of things that they were bringing up in this argument, right? How they were, you know, arguing with each other, jockeying, presenting themselves each as better than the other.
It would have made for a good laugh, right, to be listening to them. And it probably would have helped me see myself better. And then in verse 49, John says, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us. Jesus had just talked to them about what greatness means in the kingdom of God and John basically says, okay, okay, Jesus, I got it. But surely those other people aren't great, right?
They aren't part of our group. We can't be competitive among us. I get it. But we can be competitive with other Jesus groups, right? Jesus says, no, John, no. Rivalry, envy, competitiveness, these are not the ways of the kingdom.
If they are truly doing ministry in my name, Jesus says, with all that that entails, then we're on the same team. Both this section and the first section, they're about greatness earned through human effort.
They thought that they could make good things happen by themselves and the fruit of this was predictable. Arrogance. Competitiveness. A belief that I'm better than other people. If you believe you can handle things by yourself, it's not going to be too long before you start believing that you're better than them.
I know a young man who applied for his first internal promotion at a company that he had worked at for less than three years. Although he was the least experienced, the least qualified candidate for anyone who applied for this role, as he went through the interview process, he began to feel that his chances were actually quite good. In fact, the more he listened to himself talk in the interviews about his strengths, what he brought to the table, the more he started to believe that he really was the top candidate for this job.
When the decision was made, he was bitterly disappointed that the job didn't go to him, that he didn't get the promotion, because he had become convinced that he deserved that job.
When he met with the hiring manager for what was supposed to be a standard debriefing meeting about the interview process, he proceeded to completely embarrass himself, adamantly saying that they had made a huge mistake.
I know about this young man because he was me. Not my proudest moment, arrogance, entitlement, delusion. I believed I was better. I ignored all of my deficits. I exaggerated my strengths. I believed I was better.
That I deserved greatness, and this was my moment to get some. I look back on that, and I cringe to think about my attitude and how I acted because of it. I feel like probably the disciples did when they heard this story recounted. Surely they were in house churches, right, where people met and they read a gospel tract that had been written not long before. They heard it read and they looked over at them.
They probably cringed a little bit. We don't like to see these things in ourselves. We turn the other way. They are really ugly. So how are they dealt with? How are they dealt with? Like we heard earlier from Philippians, do nothing, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. That sounds like a great way to live. We would love if everybody else lived that way.
But what about us, right? What about me? To live that way requires the death of our pride which is lurking down in all of us. How can this happen? Well, let's talk about the rescue of Jesus. Let's go back a little bit in the passage right to the middle where Jesus has just cast out the demon from the boy. Everyone was astonished at the majesty of God. They were blown away but while they were all marveling in everything he was doing Jesus said to his disciples let these words sink into your ears.
The son of man is about to be delivered into the hands of men. Now he had just told them this before he went up the mountain. We heard about this just last week. He had just told them this but they're self-reliant and all of this excitement is ringing in their ears all around them. Jesus knows that it would be enticing that they might start thinking you know maybe Jesus was wrong. Maybe he is going to save us from Roman rule right now. People are awfully excited.
How short-sighted that would be if Jesus had let them stay there. Overthrowing the Roman Empire wouldn't overcome the pride the self-reliance that they were struggling with right then. A new ruler on a political throne would not have solved that problem in their hearts. In fact it might just make it worse right? We finally got our guy in political power. What does that do to pride and to self-reliance?
The only way for Jesus to overcome the sin in their hearts was to be delivered into the hands of men and that's why he reminds them because those men would deliver him to death on a cross.
There he would receive the punishment in place of proud self-reliant sinners like us. That is his saving mission. That's the gospel. This is the antidote for self-reliance in us and around us. When we see what Jesus had to save people it humbles us.
Friends he had to die on a cross. He had to take your punishment because you couldn't. That should humble us. That reminds us we are not strong smart capable people. We are weak helpless dead on our sins completely incapable of doing anything good in us or around us or even approaching God. That's what the death of Christ shows us is our great need and it shows us this the love and the power of God to save people like us. To do what was necessary so that he could save us.
It shows us both those things our great need and God's great love. Like the hymn Rock of Ages says nothing in my hand I bring simply to thy cross I cling.
Pastor and author J.C. Ryle wrote this in the 1800s of all creatures none has so little right to be proud as man of all men none ought to be so humble as the Christian of all creatures none has so little right to be proud as man that's what the cross shows us but also it shows us this of all men none ought to be so humble as that will turn you into a more God reliant person to teach them this upside down principle Christ brings forth a child before them puts it before them children in the ancient near east they had very little social value apart from their own family they had no status they had no power they didn't have massive advertising campaigns built around appealing to them like today nobody was trying to appeal to little children they were powerless they were weak they were helpless they had no claim on greatness and that's why what Jesus said is shocking it doesn't shock us that much to read what Jesus says about receiving a child but it would have been shocking to them whoever receives this child in my name receives me receives means showing hospitality in this culture showing hospitality it was something you did to social equals or betters to show hospitality to a child it would be demeaning it would be humiliating here's what Jesus is saying to show kindness to if you don't understand grace you don't know Jesus or the father but if you know Jesus and the father and you understand grace you will be hospitable no matter the impact on you you won't be thinking about greatness
any longer because you will know that you are great in the kingdom of God then Jesus says he who is least among you all is the one who is great those who have humbled themselves those who have come to him asking for help rather than relying on themselves those are the great ones the disciples were slow learners unfortunately we're going to see it again just like us they need these things taught over and over just like us Jesus was patient with them the call is to turn away from ourselves and to turn to him psalm 84 5 says this blessed are those whose strength is in you our own strength and power is not nearly enough to bring about the good that we are hoping for in us and around us the death of our pride it liberates us from constant comparisons that we toil under that bring us down like the kids learned in BBS this summer it's by grace we've been saved through faith and this is not our own doing it is the gift of Lord all of those things are not what you have for us those are not the ways of the kingdom that's not the way of the gospel Jesus thank you for reminding the disciples and reminding us that the son of man had to be delivered into the hands of men because it reminds us Lord that if we want greatness we have to humble ourselves and receive grace and mercy from you thank you for your patience with the disciples thank you thank