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Sermon
The Gospel of Matthew

The Humble Victors

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April 19, 2026
Matthew 28:5-9
Ben Katterson
Pastor for Middle School & Families

Killing Sin & Holiness

Pride & Humility

The Church

Spiritual Warfare

Transcript

0:17Good morning. My name is Ben Catterson. I have the joy of being the pastor for middle school and families here at The North Church, and I want to invite you to pray with me. Father in heaven, thank you so much for that delicate snow this morning. Oh, we sing to you a new song, for your right hand and your holy arm have worked salvation, and it was for you. You have done a great salvation. You are truly great. Lord, we need your help this morning. I need your help this morning. Would you cause this word to succeed this morning? It's your word. It's not mine. You wrote it. Give us your help to understand it, receive it, live on it, and be changed by it.

1:27And Father, I pray in the name of your Son, Jesus, our Captain, our Savior, our Brother, our Lover, our Friend. Amen. In 1980, Mount St. Helens began to exhibit signs of activity. There were minor earthquakes, explosions, significant bulge near the summit, near the top. The state authorities issued clear hazard warnings and evacuations, but some people thought they would risk it. Keep an eye on the activity, be ready to make their escape when the eruption really appeared imminent. On May 18th, early in the morning, Robert Lansburg, an amateur photographer, drove to within four miles of the summit in order to document the bulge.

2:35This is how a recent journalist reports the eruption. "The mountain's north face slid away to reveal partly molten rock, which suddenly exploded. An ash cloud soon rose 15 miles into the sky, and pyroclastic flows traveled at speeds of up to 400 miles per hour. They swept through more than 230 square miles of forest. The eruption released 24 megatons of thermal energy, 1,600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II." Hot gas, ash, rock fragments traveling that fast, you're not going to outrace it. The hazard was very real and worse than expected. Robert Lansburg was found dead days later in the volcano's wreckage, protecting his camera with his body, and the film was still intact.

3:46He kept his film. He lost his life. What brought about Lansburg's death? A volcanic eruption, for sure, but we could also say it was the result of a danger not duly heeded and a hazard miscalculated. Today's text fits in the vein of warning, and God's children will take it to heart. Last week, as Stephen summarized Matthew 18, one through four, he said, "Childlike humility is required to be a true disciple of Jesus." Humility is a mark of all who are in the kingdom. But because chapter 18, the whole chapter, is about the community of believers, Stephen said, "There's no community without a healthy dose of humility."

4:48The community of God flourishes when, like little children, we are humble. In this week's passage, Jesus shows how disciples humbly receive one another and guard against hazards that could decimate the community. The hazards are both external and internal temptations. Then next week, we're going to see how Jesus restores those who stray within the humble community. The main point this morning is to humbly welcome each other and urgently fight temptation. To humbly welcome each other and urgently fight temptation. Here's our outline. Jesus is going to show us three things this morning. One, the welcome of Christ's community.

5:54Point one, this is verse five, the welcome of Christ's community. Then in verse six and seven, the hazard of Christ's communityThat's point two. Point three is the defense of Christ's community, verse eight and nine. So let's look at point one, the welcome of Christ's community. This is in verse five: "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me." This community of humble believers is a welcoming community. Humble saints receive one another. It's a note of heart hospitality. Whether in your home or at church, your heart welcomes believers. It's what it does. A few minutes of intentional conversation in the commons can go a long way. Maybe you can get a pizza with a few new friends that you've made here. Maybe you need to make space in your schedule to commit to a small group so that you can be known and know others in an ongoing way.

7:09The phrase, "One such child," in verse five, takes us back actually to verse four, where Jesus says, "Whoever humbles himself like this child." So one such child refers to believers, all of them, children and adults alike. If you welcome that humble, childlike saint, you welcome me, says Jesus. So humble saints receive one another. Verse five says that they're being welcomed in Jesus' name. When you receive a saint in Jesus' name, you recognize that they have Jesus on their lips and in their hearts. Welcoming God's people in Jesus' name means receiving them as if they were actually the humble Savior Jesus himself.

8:15And if that's true of you, then Jesus says, "If you do that for them, you do that for me." You remember the parable of the sheep and the goats? Jesus says, "As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me," Matthew 25:40. Simple welcoming of one another acts upon a glorious truth. Jesus Christ, my humble Savior and Lord, indwells this people. That person behind you or in front of you whose hair or lack of hair you're looking at. We may even say with David in Psalm 16:3, "As for the saints in the land, the saints, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight." This is an amazing surprise. Receiving humble saints has an implication of eternal magnitude.

9:23Receive them, receive Jesus. If you are a believer in Jesus, one mark, one aspect of your character is that you will receive the saints in genuine love, no matter how strange they are. What a life of harmony and joy there is when we gather in Jesus' name. What a mark of humility. But now let's turn to Jesus' warning. He lets us know that the life of this community has a mortal danger, a perilous hazard. Let's look at point two, the hazard to Christ's community.

10:12These two verses, verse six and seven, warn of a much greater threat than an imminent volcanic explosion. Jesus sounds an alarm that I think arrested the disciples from their self-preoccupation. Verse six, "But whoever causes one of the least 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. Woe to the world for temptation to sin. For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes." Hear this urgent warning siren. Alert! Caution! Jesus is threatening death and judgment towards those who might become a stumbling block or a temptation to sin to one of the humble believers.

11:28Now, we may wonder why this seems to address a hazard coming from outside the church. But notice as we progress into the next two verses that, in fact, our own failure to handle temptations poses a danger within the community of Christ. So we hear and receive this warning as a perimeter alert so that we would not grow lethargic or passive in our own response. Let's look at these verses in greater depth. The hazard is temptation to sin"Skandalon" is this Greek word which literally means stumbling stone or rock of offense. This word is used six times in these four verses. In verse six, causes one to sin.

12:25In verse seven, it's translated temptations to sin, then temptations, and then temptation. Then in both verse eight and nine, it's translated causes you to sin. This specific word for temptation has a range of meaning. Previously, we saw it in chapter 17, verse 27. Jesus used the same word to say, "Not to give offense to them," skandalon, not to give offense. In our text, this word points to severe, even fatal damage to one's faith. How do we discern this meaning? The punishment for temptation in verse six is worse than drowning. The judgment for temptation in verse seven is dire. The outcome of temptation in verse eight and nine is possible eternal fire in hell.

13:37The danger of temptation to sin is serious beyond reckoning. And notice the ones who are being tempted, Jesus says, "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin." These little ones who believe in me describes the humble saint. This tempter, for whatever reason, intentional targeting or unintentional, is tempting humble, childlike believers. That's who gets tempted here. What kind of temptation, what kind of situation might Jesus and Matthew have in mind? Persecution, perhaps. When you receive opposition because of Jesus, it can be a powerful temptation to just throw in the towel, give up, fall away.

14:37Or false teaching. In Matthew 16, Jesus says, "Watch out. Beware of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees." In the Sermon on the Mount, Pastor Stephen recently put it this way: "Beware of charlatans who would masquerade in the body." These could be leaders or any saint within the body whose life bears no fruit. They don't match up to what they're saying, but they speak and act in ways that lead the people away from the truth. Temptation can also enter the humble community through believers who haven't repented yet of a sin and so bring it with them into the body. Two clarifications quickly. Can a genuine believer apostatize or lose their faith?

15:45Plenty of other texts show that God will keep His own faithful to the end. Like 1 Peter 1:5 says that those born again are, by God's power, being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. But the focus of this text is to sound a 10-siren alarm against potential tempters of the humble sheep in Christ's flock. Another clarification quickly. Recently, Pastor Stephen shared an article with some of the pastors that helped to outline two kinds of sin in this text. You may notice a catalytic sin and a derivative sin. In this text, the one causing sin is the catalyst.

16:42They instigate sin. Maybe they are overbearing in some way or abusive or tempting. The little ones who believe in me, if they are caused to sin or fall away, they would have a derivative sin. They may not have sinned or fallen away if the other had not put a stumbling block in their path, but they still sin. It's still sin in God's eyes. Jesus, though, is addressing, in serious tones, the catalytic tempter. Let's skip ahead briefly to verse seven for a moment. Here, Jesus draws attention to the source of this hazard. Number two, the source. The world of individuals. Woe to the world. In this context of verse seven, the world refers to the sinful collection of people who unwittingly cooperate with Satan and his designs.

17:54That's the source. When Jesus says it is necessary that temptations come, one interpretation could be that God is sovereign over sin. While that is a true concept, I think the focus of this text is that the world is inescapably fullOf temptations, there is no escaping them in this life. Next, Jesus makes this threat more personal. Jesus says, "Woe to the one by whom the temptation comes." The source of temptation is the world, but it is enacted through individuals. This invites every single individual who hears to do a personal heart check. Do I fit this profile? Am I in a position where I could drift in this direction?

19:04It's not just the abstract world out there. It's made up of people just like me. Next, Jesus asserts the staggering consequences to the ones who are a source of stumbling. Let's look at the impact, which is death and judgment. What happens to anyone who causes one of these little ones to sin? We're going to take a step back to verse six for a moment and see. He says, "It will be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." Let's understand this scene. Millstone is not the smaller Old Testament stone. I don't know if you remember in Judges 9, Abimelech is attacking a fortress, and a woman up on the rampart tosses a millstone, and it crushes his head.

20:13That would've been bowling ball-sized, very heavy, and able to crush wheat. But this is an upper grindstone that a donkey would push around in a circle. One man could not lift it. And it's fastened around the neck, either tied by a rope or perhaps inserted over the head into the central hole, fastened there, and then it's pushed over the side into the water.

20:47Ancient Israel had a concept of the sea that was particularly chaotic, powerful, and fearful. The backdrop of the flood, Pharaoh and his armies perishing, Jonah being cast into the frothing waves would make this a uniquely shocking, horrifying way to die, and this is the better scenario. The punishment that awaits those who place a stumbling stone before Jesus' humble saints is worse than the horrifying sureness of death by drowning.

21:35What could be worse? He'll tell us shortly. Again, we see an illusion of judgment in verse seven. Fast-forward to verse seven. "Woe to the world. Woe to the one." Woe is a word of impending and terrible doom. Woe means judgment is coming, and it's terrifying, and you don't want to know it or risk it. Those who tempt others, who cause others to stumble, stumble-izers, they have a just and right doom. And those who find themself doomed, woe to you.

22:26These statements are so stark it does not leave room for excuses or ambivalence. How should I respond to the seriousness of this hazard? What is the appropriate response to Jesus' warning? For guidance in handling the hazard, substance of temptation, let's look to verse eight and nine. The defense of Christ's community. Here's verse eight and nine. "And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For 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."

23:33What does it look like for us to defend the community from these threats? Jesus calls us to action. Resolutely, fiercely fight against our own temptations. Jesus says, "Take the log out of your own eye, humble saint." Be careful, believer, that you are not a hypocrite. Be careful that you do not denounce temptations, and tempters, and persecutors, and deceivers in the worldNow holding on to your own temptations close. Address your own sin. Don't let your exterior pose as a spiritual giant while your interior life molders in secret sin to the detriment of the body. Let's walk through verse eight and nine.

24:52"If your hand or foot or eye causes you to sin," hazard, temptation. Here it is again. Hear the siren. This time Jesus shows it within my own life. Watch out for your own temptations. Beware those subtle sins of self. Self-deceit, pride, false doctrine, idols, lusts, your own. Beware those things in your own life that you tolerate, minimize, or make excuses for. Ah, I had a really rough day. I'll stop before it gets out of hand. I wouldn't have yelled if she hadn't made me mad. At least I'm not hurting anyone else. The word Jesus uses is sin. We need to call it the same thing.

26:01The source. What's the source? What are the avenues of temptation in your life? What opportunities for sin do you keep? The source of sin, the temptations you face are represented by your hands, feet, and eyes. Notice that Jesus does not mention the heart as the source. Here, Jesus is drawing attention to the hand, eye, and foot. These are modes, channels of temptation that may catch your heart. Think about how your hand draws things near you. Your computer, your phone, that money, that food, that thing you desire. Think about how your feet can take you to where your conscience tells you not to go.

27:07Think of your eye, what it lingers on in school, in the kitchen, as you drive, at work, in your imagination. The eye is the lamp of the body, the avenue to the heart. So in order to defend against this peril, addressing your own most common avenues towards sin is how you take heed to this hazard. The impact. What is the impact of toleration, minimization, or making excuses for sin? It is better to enter life crippled than with two hands, two feet, two eyes to be thrown into the eternal hell of fire.

28:10What benefit is it to make your peace with sin? Well, you avoid a lot of immediate discomfort. You can avoid a little embarrassment, little awkwardness. You get to keep some short-term pleasures, maintain a facade. Everything's okay. It's all right. Surely, you'll be able to make a clean escape before the devastating consequences land. But what does Christ's warning reveal? The word hell is Gehenna, which is a valley near Jerusalem where refuse and bodies were thrown. It became known as a place of filth and perpetual burning. It's pictured the defiling fires of the afterlife. What's the reality that is worse than drowning by millstone in verse six?

29:14What is the woe Jesus himself alludes to in verse seven? Eternal fire. The risk of tolerating your temptation, making peace with your sin is too great. If you're thinking that someday down the line, you will turn to Jesus, but for now, you want to live it up a little, you're dangerously close to the story we started with. This is a volcano you cannot outrun. You don't know the day appointed. "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart," Hebrews 3:15. If your heart has a pang, please, at the end of this service, talk to the person next to you. Please come forward and pray with some of us.

30:17Talk to someone. But if you're a believer today, if you have the humble hope of Christ transforming you, what should you do?With the temptations and fleshly impulses you struggle with, take action. Let me highlight Jesus' exhortation found in this passage. Verse eight, "If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away." Verse nine, "If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out, throw it away." Jesus says, "Cut it off, throw it away." That means resolutely and fiercely fight. There is no messing around. We are to put temptation utterly away and to close the door to its return every day.

31:17If your hand or foot or computer or social media accounts or anything is causing sin, take no prisoner. The humble saint will resolutely and enduringly fight sin. To fight is a victory, and it may be every day for the rest of your life. Humble followers of Jesus fight temptation, period. Now, why does Jesus use this extreme language as cut off and tear out? To be clear, Jesus is not being literal. This is hyperbole. Jesus uses this extreme language to help make a point. He does not mean for you to harm yourself. Rather, he is communicating the level of investment needed to engage this fight. In the words of Puritan John Owen, "Be killing sin or sin will be killing you."

32:34As an example, I have all my eyes. I do not, however, have Facebook. I don't have that account because removing access to Facebook, for me, removes an entire realm of temptation that could otherwise be a struggle. It's not legalism. It's freedom to enjoy a greater treasure without that temptation. This practical, active defense against temptation gains additional strength within the context of community right here. Our strength to fight the good fight of faith is reinforced by shining light of truth on our temptation and allowing others to hold us accountable for the good resolves and practical steps of obedience that we're pursuing.

33:37Our flesh does resist this kind of uncompromising obedience to Christ. These kinds of radical steps are possible only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:24, "If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." This is a costly endeavor, but what is the gain? In both verse eight and verse nine it says, "It is better for you to enter life." Enter life. We already have a taste of this abundant life here within the community of Christ, and one day we will enjoy it completely in God's presence forever. "You make known to me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy.

34:47At your right hand are pleasures forevermore." To close, let me remind you why this warning from Jesus is good news and not bad news for believers. First, Jesus has won the war on the cross so that you might fight and win this battle. 1 Peter 2:24, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." Second, remember what your salvation means. If you believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, if you believe that he paid for them all, then you can say with Paul, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires," Galatians 5:24.

36:15And then you can take up this Pauline battle cry. "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everythingAs loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things, count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. So let us receive every single believer as if they were Christ Jesus, because we love Jesus. And let us war against anything that would compromise our gaining Christ. Our ability to live this kind of welcoming and vigilant life has been purchased by the one who laid his own life down. He paid the penalty for our sins and now dwells in us with the ever-present help of His Spirit. For the believer, these are warnings that lead to our abundant life now and forever.

37:51Father, I can't yell loud enough. I can't speak eloquently enough for this to take root. Which is why I prayed for your Spirit to come, to move in us, and I thank you that when you send out your word, it doesn't come back void. So I trust that you're working, that you're tilling, that you're sowing, and that some will be turned from sin, and that the life of the body here will be defended and nurtured by the power of your Spirit. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Jump to live

Jump to live

Sermon Text

Matthew 28:5-9

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