One of the things you work toward as parents is to show your children that you love them and want what’s best for them. The reason I use the word “work” in that sentence is because it’s, well, work. It’s laboring by the sweat of your brow kind of work. And the reason it can be so much work is because in our fallen world you do not naturally trust that others love you and want what is best for you. When children are told to brush their teeth or refrain from eating a sugary snack, their inclination is not to think, “Well, aren’t my parents trying to love me and fend off tooth decay.” The temptation, rather, is to think that your parents are for some reason holding out on you. So, part of parenting, especially in those early years is building that trust and understanding of your love for them. And perhaps part of the frustration that can be found in raising children, especially, in the early years is that you get an up-close picture of the reality that we’re not inclined to trust that others love us and want our best.
Now, children are an easy target in this example, aren’t they? We ourselves probably joke about our own years as children when we thought our parents were withholding from us life’s sweetest treasures when they didn’t let us have all the Pepsi and cotton candy we wanted at the fair. We probably thought they were punishing us when they worked to help us develop habits of self-discipline like brushing our teeth, wearing deodorant, and bathing periodically. We can laugh at ourselves now, thinking, “O silly little children,” can’t we?
But the reality is that I’m not sure we’ve all freed ourselves from that sense of distrust and suspicion that accompanies us in our sinful state. After all, as a pastor, I’ve realized that one of the things that we struggle with regularly is trusting the Lord, taking him at his word, knowing that he loves us, and believing that he wants our best. I mean, how many of us have looked at our lives before and questioned God’s love, questioned whether he is looking out for our good, and starting to question whether we can trust him. Now, maybe we haven’t said those thoughts out loud (then again, maybe we have), but my guess is that most of us have struggled at points in wondering if the Lord really loves us, is looking out for us, and wants our good. We’ve been like little children, doing the equivalent of brushing our teeth and thinking, “Why doesn’t God just let me have the sweets I so desperately crave, and why does he insist on this teeth-brushing punishment?”
For that reason, it’s good to be reminded regularly that God’s love for us is real, his care for us genuine, and his trustworthiness certain. We need this reminder because the greatest commandment he’s given us is to love him, and we only love him because we know he first loved us, then questioning and doubting his love for us is at best unhelpful for the believer and at worst makes shipwreck of our faith.
And as I’ve studied the text this week that we are looking at this morning—Matthew 18:1-14—I’ve been overwhelmed at how powerfully the Lord communicates his love and care for his people in these verses. In fact, I think that Matthew 18 is about the need for the church to reflect the same love and care for each individual member that our Lord has for each of us, his children. In these first fourteen verses specially, I think the message is that if we humble ourselves and put ourselves under God’s care and direction, we will experience the love, care, and protection of our God both directly and in and through his church.
I think we can see this message in the text as we walk through the development of the argument in these fourteen verses. So, that’s going to be my approach this morning. Let’s start with verses 1-4 where we see that:
Chapter 18 begins in a somewhat comical way if you’ve been following the last couple of chapters. As I mentioned last week, a thread of the disciples’ failures runs through chapters 16-17. They’re continually getting things wrong, and this continues right up to the beginning of chapter 18. So, if you’re constantly being shown your own failures and misunderstandings, what does that do to your psyche? I mean, you would expect the disciples to be beating themselves up and in need of Jesus to encourage and lift them out of their pit of despair. But instead, when we get to chapter and find the disciples were discussing who’s the greatest in the kingdom. In the parallel text in Mark’s gospel, we know that before the topic was brought up to Jesus, they were discussing it among themselves, no doubt arguing about which of them would be the greatest because of course they were!
Jesus, however, doesn’t answer them as they’d expect, but rather turns their thinking completely on its head. He calls a child, puts him in their midst, and says, “Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (vv. 3-4).
Again, I don’t think they anticipated that answer. But the problem for us is understanding precisely what Jesus meant because there are a number of connotations that we associate with children. Could Jesus have been referring to a sense of naivety, a willingness to believe, an appearance of innocence, or any other number of things? Jesus doesn’t specifically spell it out.
But I think there are two things that help us in determining what Jesus meant. The first is that Jesus specifically mentions one humbling himself like a child. So, we should think of the connotation of humility. A second helpful note is simply recognizing the subject at hand. The disciples were asking a question pertaining to one’s social status.
And in society at that time, a child was seen to be on the lowest rung of the ladder. Men, women, and slaves would have ranked above children. They were not at the top of the hierarchy but the lowest, and, consequently, they were “subject to and dependent on adults.” 1 If the disciples are driven by the desire to exercise authority over others, Jesus is telling them that they’re getting it exactly wrong. Even to be part of the kingdom requires that they humble themselves, get rid of their concern for elevated status, submit themselves to God, and depend on him for direction. That’s required for entry into the Lord’s kingdom, and the one who humbles himself in this way is the greatest in the kingdom.
You might picture conversion as individuals coming to the understanding that they don’t have all the answers, readily admitting that, seeing their need for Christ, and saying, “Okay, I’m coming to you. I’m going to submit to you. I’m going to depend on you. I’m going to follow and obey you. And if that’s not enough, then I’m done because I’m putting myself wholly in your hands.” That’s what converting faith looks like. That’s what a healthy child will do when he knows his parents love him and can be trusted.
Now, if it sounds scary to trust the Lord like that, putting your eternal hope in his hands and trusting him throughout life with all its trials, tribulations, twists, and turns, then the next few verses are meant to comfort. Next Jesus shows us that:
Now there’s a subtle shift that takes place starting in verse 5. Jesus has literally placed a child in their midst to represent the requirement of giving up on social status, humbling ourselves before the Lord, submitting to him, and depending on him for guidance and direction for everything, even as a child must depend on adults in that way. However, beginning in verse 5 he makes a shift in language. Having stated that those who enter the kingdom must became as a child in the ways I’ve already noted, he now utilizes the imagery of “child” or “little ones” in the remaining verses to represent one who has trusted in Christ and become a child of God. He indicates this in verse 5 by saying “one such child.” That is our indicator that he’s shifted the imagery to a believer as a “little one,” and keeping that in mind will help you make sense of the text.
With that in mind, I’ve noted that the Lord here is making clear that one who humbles himself, trusts in Christ, submits to him, and depends on him for direction is seen by Christ as belonging to him and representing him. The reason I say this is because of his language in verses 5-6 where Jesus says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me [that’s clearly a representative idea], but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea [that’s the idea of belonging to and being protected by the Lord].”
This language makes you feel like some little kid is standing on the playground when some older kids approach him in a threatening way, and all of the sudden, his big, strong dad walks up behind him and says, “If you are nice to him, I’ll consider it as being nice to me, but if you mess with him, you’re messing with me. And it’s going to be really, really bad for you if you do anything to cause him not to enjoy his time at the playground today.”
That’s how the text reads, isn’t it? And Jesus is letting us see how he is toward us. He sees those of us who humble ourselves like children, submit to him, trust in him, and follow him as representing and belonging to him, and that is a good place for us to be.
Now, each of us who is trusting in Christ needs to hear this as a word of comfort, but there’s also a warning for us here because as part of a local church, you’re interacting consistently with many other “little ones” who belong to the Lord. Therefore, we hear verses 5-6 as a word of comfort for ourselves, rightly. And we hear verses 5-6 as a warning, warning us to love, care for, and minister to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Therefore, a third thing we need to understand is that:
Let me take that second part first. This warning against causes others to be tempted toward sin is clearly implied in verses 5-6, but it is explicit in verse 7. Jesus says in verse 7, “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!” Now, yes, this is addressed to the world, and it is an announcement that judgment is coming to those who oppose the Lord’s people. But it’s also a sobering word to us in the church, isn’t it? We must work to make sure that we do nothing that leads a brother or sister to be tempted toward sin, to abandon the Lord, and walk away from the faith. Temptations are going to come, but we should not be found contributing to them. We should not be the ones who lure and tempt a brother or sister to sin or walk away from Christ. The Lord takes that as if it is an assault on himself.
Now, this doesn’t mean that the Lord is looking at those who belong to him (his “little ones”) as if we are just passive victims in regards to sin. Of course not. And he makes that clear in verses 8-9, repeating an exhortation similar to what we saw in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, “And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.”
Yes, Jesus is using hyperbole here for the sake of effect. Sadly cutting off your hand or plucking out you eye isn’t sufficient to change your heart. A man can pluck out his eyes and still entertain lustful fantasies in his mind. But Jesus is using this imagery so that we catch his point, which is: take extreme measures to fight sin. Fight sin like it’s trying to pull you into hell.
In fact, if you want to know if you’re exercising worldly sorrow or godly sorrow after you sin, then there is a good litmus test. Both worldly sorrow and godly sorrow will rejoice in hearing, “You’re forgiven” when confessing sin, but only godly sorrow will then sit and say, “Now what needs to happen to help ensure that I don’t do that again.” If you’re unwilling to ask and answer that question, or you don’t want your brother or sister in Christ to ask and force you to answer that question, then you’re only knowing worldly sorrow. Godly sorrow says, “What measures (even extreme measures) do I need to take to make sure I don’t go down this sinful path again?”
But I’m not sure that these two issues are really divorced from one another because if you’re a believer who is joined to a local church, your actions definitely affect others. And it may well be that your unwillingness to fight sin like it’s trying to pull you into hell could lead to your life serving as a temptation for another brother or sister to walk the same sinful path you’re on. So, let’s ensure as a body of believers that we are willing to fight our own sin seriously and make sure that nothing we do serves to tempt another to disobey the Lord. And let us do this because of our love for Christ and his church. And finally, on this note of loving our brothers and sisters:
Jesus gives one final exhortation in this section of Matthew 18. He says, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones” (v. 10a). That is, don’t you despise one of God’s children—a believer. You value them, you receive them, and you love them. We must love our brothers and sisters in Christ. As members of a local church together, we need to be known by our love for one another. But why? Why is the Lord so passionate to make sure that we love our brothers and sisters—his little ones? The answer is glorious. It’s because he loves them so, so deeply. Or let me say it to each of you personally and directly. The Scripture charges your brothers and sisters to value and love you because he loves you so, so deeply.
We see his deep love for his people in the rest of these verses. First, he says in the rest of verse 10, “For I tell you that in heaven their angels always the face of my Father who is in heaven.” Now, this is a really difficult text. One of my favorite commentators, D.A. Carson, argues that “angels” in this verse is likely a reference to believers when they die and their spirits go to be with the Lord prior to the resurrection. In that case Jesus is saying that we should love his people because one day they’ll see the Father face-to-face. And that may be the case, but I think there’s another option that is better. I think that we should take angels as angels. That is, we should think of this as angels whom the Lord has given the charge of ministering to his people. Now, I don’t think we should develop some great theology of guardian angels from this, but it seems that angels in heaven are somehow representative of God’s people.
And here’s what I think the Lord is saying. He’s saying that these angels who represent his people get face time with the Lord at any point precisely because they represent his beloved children. It’s like saying, “You mean so much to me, no matter what I’m doing, feel free to come up to me any time, and I’ll drop everything I’m doing and give you my full attention.” That’s what the Lord is saying about these angels who represent his people. They always have his attention, if you will, because he cares so deeply for his people.
Then, he illustrates it by picturing believers as a hundred sheep where one wonders away. And instead of saying, “Well, ninety-nine out of 100 is okay” or “I’ll wait and see if that one comes back,” the shepherd stops what he’s doing, leaves the ninety-nine, goes in search of the one, and rejoices when he finds that one who has gone astray. That is to say, the Lord who loves you so deeply will not let you go. He’ll run after you, get you, and bring you back. That’s how deeply he loves you. He’s not willing that any of his children should perish (v. 14).
It would be kind of him to say, “I’ll be ready to accept you when you come back,” but instead he says, “I’m coming to get you because you’re my treasured, cherished, beloved one.” And if we understand what each of us means to the Lord, then we have no choice but to cherish, treasure, and love one another as fellow believers in Christ. The one who left no doubt that he loved us when he lived, died, and was raised for us going on to make it explicit again in this text. Therefore, let us rejoice in the Lord’s love for us this morning and commit to love deeply his people because he loves them so. Amen.