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Sermon
The Gospel of Matthew

True Greatness

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April 12, 2026
Matthew 28:1-4
Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

Pride & Humility

Identity in Christ

Sanctification & Growth

Transcript

0:17Well, this morning, we're looking at Matthew 18:1-4. We've been preaching through the Book of Matthew, and your Bible may put a break after verse six. Mine does. And yet we're going to save verses five and six because I think they fit better with next week's sermon, and so verses seven to nine, which Pastor Ben will preach on next week. Before we begin, let me pray for us. Father, we ask that you would give us the mind of Christ this morning. We thank you for the death and the resurrection of Jesus, which gives us now this perfect example of humility that precedes exaltation. Help us to be more like Jesus in every way.

1:07We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We live in an age of self-promotion that is seemingly difficult to avoid. If you want to get a job, you're going to have to update your resume, which has a list of all of your accomplishments. If you, at work, if you want your boss to see the impact on the bottom line, then you got to get your name out there so that you're not part of the layoffs at the next round. A professor, by design I think, is supposed to keep this detailed list of their publications and presentations on their CV, which is just a fancy way of saying their professional resume. Or students.

1:56If you're a student, maybe in college, you want to stand out with your professor so that maybe you can get an internship with him or her, or perhaps have them write you a letter of recommendation. If you're in the retail business, your very existence is dependent upon your marketing and visibility. So we live in this age of self-promotion, and social media trains us to curate our best selves. Our culture quantifies our worth based on our likes and follows and views. And the things that we own subtly communicate who we are. The brands we wear, the cars we drive, the achievements of our children, the affiliations we have, the clubs that we belong to. We live in a world that glorifies the winners and forgets the losers.

2:50Who got fourth place in the men's Olympic hockey? I don't know. We got gold, right? That's all we care about. The message of our world is that you are what you achieve. And this can be even true in the church. We want to be seen as godly and trustworthy and competent and good parents and knowledge of the Bible, friendly, and approachable. I certainly don't want to be known as a bad preacher, a bad husband, or an incompetent leader. We all want to be thought of well. And so it's human nature to want to be viewed positively and to aspire for greatness. Jesus warns his disciples in our passage this morning about pursuing greatness the wrong way.

3:39Now, we've been throughout Matthew chapter 16 and 17, and Jesus has been speaking about his humiliation and his imminent death. And meanwhile, the disciples are consumed with their rank, and so there's much that they don't understand. And what Jesus does is as he moves into chapter 18, he pivots from talking about persecution from the outside and all of these external challenges to now talking about the church community, God's family. And so this chapter, chapter 18, is going to touch on humility and temptation and reconciliation and forgiveness, all within the family of faith. So this opening section highlights the necessity of humility in a community of faith. You could say that there's no community without a healthy dose of humility. And what we're going to discover in these opening four verses is that childlike humility is required to be a true disciple of Jesus.

4:47Childlike humility is required to be a true disciple of Jesus. The way up in Christ's kingdom is to go low. Greatness is not found in climbing the ladder of social status, but rather in the descent into lowly service for others. And so this teaching is going to call us to exchange our instinctive striving to be thought of as great, and instead to follow the pattern set forth by Jesus, that true greatness is found in humility. So we're going to look at the disciples' question, who is the greatest, and then Jesus' answer. So first, who is the greatest? Look with me at verse one. Keep your Bibles open. We'd love for you to follow along.

5:38It says there, "At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, 'Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?'" The phrase "at that time" connects this with the broader events of chapter 17. And at the end of chapter 17, Jesus had just told his disciples, "You all have a special place in the kingdom." But the disciples want to know which one of them is the very greatest. They're focused on themselves and preoccupied with their own status. It's like the high schooler. They're going to promAnd they just got this massive pimple on their forehead, and they're thinking everyone is going to be looking at that massive pimple.

6:23And yet the reality is everyone's going to be paying attention to themselves, and no one's going to be looking at you. Maybe your date. Right? The disciples are concerned with their status, their power, their authority. If we look ahead to Matthew 20:20-21, we know that the mother of James and John come with her sons, and they ask Jesus, "Can my sons sit at your right hand and at your left hand in the kingdom?" In other words, they are jockeying for the best positions adjacent to Jesus, these positions of power and prestige. And it suggests that there's rivalries going on among the disciples. Who's the best, Jesus? We want to know.

7:07In Mark and Luke's gospel, the parallel passage to this, it says that the disciples were arguing who was the greatest. Now, this rivalry doesn't come out of nowhere. If you recall back in chapter 16 and 17, what has happened? What has unfolded? Well, Peter is singled out as the rock on which Jesus is going to build his church. Peter's also the only one who walks on water back in chapter 14. He's the only one who witnessed the coin in the mouth of a fish miracle. And it's Peter, James, and John who get to see Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. And the other disciples don't get to see that, and they're even told not to talk about it. So we suspect that the disciples perhaps are growing a little bit jealous of Peter, or maybe there's this growing debate about who's the greatest disciple.

8:00But Jesus has also been telling them about his imminent death, and they might be thinking, "Well, we need some contingency plan. After you die, who takes over? Who's in charge?" That's just normal. Right? In every business, when the CEO passes, we need someone in place, the CFO, to step up and to take the reins. So at one level, it's very natural. And it's natural for us, isn't it? We want to be in places of power and influence and authority. People move to DC in order to be close to our national government or political campaigns or think tanks or lobbying organizations, or you move to Wall Street or the Silicon Valley or Hollywood to be close to the money or technology or influence.

8:46People strive to get into the C-suite or to join the board of directors or to be an investor or early-stage founder. At a smaller level, it doesn't matter at what level, we all want power and prestige. You could be striving to be the treasurer or the president of your HOA so that you can tell people where and where they shouldn't put their trash cans, right? Jesus does not dismiss the desire for greatness, but he redefines what it means to be great. And in one sense, we should all want to be great in the kingdom of heaven, shouldn't we? Shouldn't we want to be great in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount that when we endure reviling and persecution, our reward is great in heaven. And he actually motivates his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount with heavenly reward and treasures.

9:39The problem is trying to obtain kingdom greatness by earthly means. But there's also a bigger problem that's just implicit here in this opening verse. Did you see it? The disciples want to know who is the greatest in the kingdom, forgetting who stands right before them. It's Jesus. It's the Lord of heaven and Earth. It's the one who calms storms. It's the one who's shown forth with the very glory of God on the Mount of Transfiguration. And here you are debating who is the greatest. The greatest is standing right in front of you. It's like two children, maybe three-year-olds, twins, let's say, and they're arguing back and forth, "Which one of us is the fastest? Which one of us is the strongest?"

10:31And they forget that it's their dad who's carrying them both as they argue back and forth. That's the picture here. These disciples are preoccupied with themselves, and they've lost sight of the greatness and the glory of God. I wonder how many of us that would be true of us this morning. Now let's transition to verses two to four. We see now the greatness of humility. Verse two, "And Jesus, calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, '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.'" So here, Jesus brings this child into their midst.

11:25We don't know who it is. It's an object lesson. And he says, "Truly," or, "I tell you the truth." In other words, listen up. What I say to you is going to be really important. And then he says, "Unless you turn," or repent, "and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." It's this radical change away from seeking status. And the phrase, you will never enter, is this emphatic negation, meaning you will never, ever enter, or you will absolutely not enter unless you enter the kingdom-- unless you become like children. So there's two massive surprises in this text. The first, it's surprising that Jesus essentially says arrogant people will not get into the kingdom.If you lack this childlike humility, you will not get into the kingdom of heaven.

12:21It's not that you're going to be lowly in the kingdom of heaven, you're just not going to get in. And the second is that Jesus uses a child to illustrate his point. I don't know if many of us can remember when we were four or five years old, but there would be very few things you would want to emulate about yourself when you were that age, right? I have some memories of preschool. There were kids who would lick the bottom of their shoe, or they would eat those little glue sticks. Or they would chew gum stuck to the underside of the desk. I remember we were in elementary school once, and some kid dared another kid to swallow a watch battery for a dollar, and he did it.

13:06Don't do that, by the way. I don't think it's good. And so these are the people you want us to emulate, Jesus? Are you sure? So what's Jesus teaching? I want to highlight two primary things. First, true disciples must possess childlike humility. True disciples must possess childlike humility. Jesus says, "Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." And so he's saying you must pursue this greatness by childlike humility. And so what does he mean by childlike humility? Well, in Jesus' day, children had no honor, no authority, no social standing. There were no massive first birthday parties where you'd all surround this little one-year-old, and they would tear into this birthday cake.

13:57And there's no Baby Gap clothes and car seats made of carbon fiber and cashmere and organic cotton pajamas. Toddlers are not thinking about their mismatched socks or their undone hair or the snot running down their nose. They're just unconcerned with prestige or titles or appearances. And Jesus says we need to have that same level of humility, or just a lack of concern with our appearances. The greatest in the kingdom is the one willing to become lowly and insignificant. The greatest in the kingdom is the one willing to become lowly and insignificant. The way up in Christ's kingdom is to go low, and we're not to pursue it through the values of the world.

14:47The world cares about money and fame and power and prestige and education and intellect and high-status professions. We just naturally esteem a doctor more than someone who has to clean the toilets. And yet, in Christ's kingdom, we're told we must not show partiality to the rich and to discriminate against the poor. In fact, James tells us that if we do so, we actually blaspheme the very name of Jesus. So this is serious business. Man looks at the outer appearance, but God looks at the heart, and Jesus himself teaches in Matthew 23, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

15:32So Jesus' disciples are to put on childlike humility, and Jesus embodies this humility best at the cross. And we know this, don't we? He revealed the pattern and the pathway of greatness at Calvary. Philippians 2 says, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be held on to or grasped." But what did Jesus do instead? He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

16:21The cross is the greatest expression of childlike humility, of humility that ultimately results in exaltation. And how does that passage end? "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." The call to humility is a call, fundamentally, to be more like Jesus this morning. The call to humility is a call to be more like Jesus. And an aspect of this childlike humility, I think, is also this faithful trust and dependence. So a child instinctively depends on their parents. If you have young children, you're going to get home from church, and they're going to turn to you, and they're going to be like, "Mom, what are we eating?

17:26Dad, what's for lunch?" And the implied reality is that you're going to feed me because I'm your child, and that's just what you do. No guile, no pretense when a child crawls up into their parent's lap and says, "Read me a story." Children instinctively depend on their parents by nature and by necessity, and Jesus is saying, "Be like that." So the kids among us, listen up. Any of you going to show me a storybook Bible, by the way, from last week? I don't see any hands. Okay. Kids, there are times when adults are to be more like you, more like you children. When you trust mom and dad to provide, and you say thank you for a yummy dinner, God wants us to be like that with him.When you listen to your parents simply because they told you so, God wants us to obey him like that. And so there's something really beautiful in this passage where big people can learn from little people. Faith is taking God at his word, just like a child takes mom and dad at their word.

18:39The second thing that Jesus teaches us in this text is that true disciples must put away selfish striving for status. True disciples must put away selfish striving for status, or selfish ambition, you could say. It can't be present in true disciples, because unless you become like these children, in childlike humility, you will never enter the kingdom. In other words, you cannot claim to be a Christian while steadfastly refusing to repent of selfish ambition. It's really quite striking here, shocking almost. In Galatians 5, Paul is describing this long list of sins, and he says at the end of that, "Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."

19:34These are the works of the flesh. And we commonly associate that list with those who practice sexual immorality. But if you look at the list in Galatians 5, he includes things like jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, divisions, and envy. Have you ever thought this sin of jealousy, this sin of rivalry, this sin of envy is actually going to keep me out of Christ's kingdom? Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. These all relate to our life together within the community of faith. Paul's list includes all of these things that we would say are respectable sins that we often neglect or underemphasize. And so again, Paul is emphasizing that these are serious business, and I think he takes his cue from Jesus.

20:35So in a church this size, I imagine that there are some old wounds that have yet to heal. I imagine hard words were spoken at some point that caused a small group to sort of blow up or a friendship to fall apart. I imagine that there's people who are jealous of others, envious, rivalries, dissensions. And Jesus teaches us that we must turn and become childlike in our humility. The rest of Matthew 18, he's going to teach on forgiveness and reconciliation and how to live together as a family of faith, and here is this first opening prerequisite. You must be humble like Jesus. Humility is the soil where unity grows.

21:30It allows us to yield our personal preferences or to listen before we speak or to assume the best of others or to repent quickly and to forgive readily. So true disciples must possess this childlike faith and humility and to put off our selfish striving for status. So true disciples are to exhibit childlike humility, and Jesus calls us to model our very lives after his very pattern. Jesus himself teaches that he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he was up in the upper room with his disciples. And what did he do?

22:19Took off his outer garment, wrapped a towel around his waist, and proceeded to wash his disciples' feet. And Peter, again Peter, is like, "Lord, you will not wash my feet." And what does Jesus say in response? "What I am doing, you do not understand now, but afterward, you will understand. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you." So contrary to our culture, self-promotion is not the path to greatness this morning. Kingdom people are marked by childlike humility and going low in serving one another.

23:16So I think this text pushes us in four practical directions. I want to touch on four applications from this text. The first is that we need to first see the greatness of Jesus. We need to see the greatness of Jesus. The disciples' foundational problem is that they lost sight that Jesus is the one who's standing in our midst. We would stop talking about where we rank relative to someone else if we truly got a good glimpse of Jesus in all of his glory. Pride obscures the greatness of Jesus so that we're preoccupied with ourselves. And so something you can do is you can think about, how often am I thinking about myself versus how often am I thinking about encouraging someone else?

24:10When we fix our eyes on Jesus, we gladly forget about ourselves. There's even some, I would say, who have not yet come to JesusAnd you have these intellectual strongholds that God has to fit into my box, my logic. He has to make sense to me. And I think what this text is calling for is this childlikeness in faith. Even in coming to Jesus himself, you need to lay that down. He does not need to make sense to you because he is the Lord of heaven and earth. Revelation 5 gives us this scene where multitudes glimpse the greatness of Jesus. And let's look at what happens there. It says, "Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders and the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.'" What's happening there? In the final days, at the consummation of the kingdom, everyone who is in heaven will glimpse the greatness of Jesus.

25:22And what will they do? They will cast down their crowns, and they will proclaim, "Worthy is the Lamb." They're not going to be saying, "Wait, how come you have more crowns than me? How come you look so much better than me in heaven? How come you're further up in the line than me?" We're just all going to be fixed on Jesus and say, "Worthy is the Lamb." Second application, confess our pride. We are called to confess our pride this morning, to confess our striving for external validation rather than for the Father's approval. We must confess trying to look good on the outside while the insides are in disrepair.

26:12We are to cultivate an inner life of holiness and hospitality and service to others. We are to confess all the ways that we have sought to get glory for ourselves. We're to confess our jealousy this morning, our envy, our rivalries, our dissensions, our disputes. If you've ever thought of a fellow believer, "You're dead to me," you need to repent of that. "I want nothing to do with you." You need to repent of that. "Okay, we sat on that side, now we're going to sit on this side because I don't want to see that person ever again." You need to repent of that.

27:05The truth of God's word both hurts and heals us this morning. It tells us that we indeed are sinners. If we persist in jealousy and envy and divisions and rivalries, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. But if we repent and confess and put ourselves at his mercy, he washes us clean, and he calls us holy and beloved, chosen children, and he welcomes us into his family, and he's glad to have us there. We are washed and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. So in the kingdom, it's good to be small and insufficient, for his power is perfected in our weaknesses. Third application, embrace dependence on God.

27:52Embrace your dependence on God. Being dependent upon God is a good place to be. Contrary to our culture, self-sufficiency is not a virtue. Self-sufficiency is not a virtue. And I know we work hard so we don't have to depend on others. And yet dependence upon God and his people is more biblical. The church is described as being interdependent. Pastor Josh mentioned it in the covenant affirmation, didn't he? That we exist as members of a body. The primary metaphor used to describe the church is a body, and we have different parts, and every single part, every single member is needed. They're indispensable.

28:38If one member suffers, we all suffer. If one member is honored, we all rejoice together. And so for some of us, we need to take down our pride and let people into our lives. I know that there are people, we'll just say, oh, they're private. They're really private. They don't want to share that prayer request. They might share it with one or two people. They don't want it going around, or they don't want to reach out to Helping Hands. They're really self-sufficient. Oh, they don't want everyone knowing that they're going through this struggle. I don't think that's a virtue. And I know it can be taken too far.

29:13But I think for some of us, we need to begin to open up so that we let others into our lives so that we can actually be part of this body. We need your strengths as much as we need your weaknesses here in this church. We need your strengths as much as we need your weaknesses. Invite others in to say, "I need your help. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to raise my kids. Do you think you could help me? I'm struggling in my marriage. I've never told anyone this, but do you think you could help me?" Part of humility is recognizing that we are members of this body arranged for the good of this church.

29:56Fourth and final application, love and serve with humility. Jesus establishes this paradoxical pattern for us. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Greatness is found in serving one another, in becoming a slave. And so true greatness is attained through glad-hearted serviceAnd by God's grace, I know hundreds of people who serve here at the North Church.

30:37You know all that bread that sits out there, someone has to go pick it up, drop it off, and then other people sort it and bag it, and then they put it out there so that some of you can enjoy it. Or the baptism testimonies, someone had to edit those. Or Lord's Supper, all those tiny little cups, hundreds of them, thousands of them, someone has to fill each and every single one, and then someone has to go around and gather all of them afterwards. The meal we serve on Wednesday, small army prepares and cooks and sets up, and others clean up and do the dishes and wipe the tables and sweep the floors.

31:14And we have a team that oversees security and parking, and people who greet and mentor and disciple and host and teach and organize and decorate and play instruments and manage sound booths and work the library and advance slides and set up and tear down and hold babies, serve children, host students, disciple college students. And if I didn't mention you, as Josh said, consider yourself mentioned, right? And most serve in obscurity. And we have those who pray, who are praying for this gathering, those who are evangelists, and none of them, by God's grace, I think, are doing it to draw attention to themselves, and so we praise God for that. And yet, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of you, who are not engaged at all, who are missing out on the joy of serving this body, putting yourself low, not trying to seek status. "I want people to notice me, notice how smart and intelligent and successful I am." But rather, to go low and to serve in obscurity. You're missing out on the joy of loving and serving others. And so this is an invitation to every single person here this morning.

32:28If you're not serving in some way, shape, or form, we would love for you to exercise your gifts for the common good. So this text calls us to this childlike humility, the pattern set forth by Jesus himself, and without which we will not enter the kingdom of heaven because it first requires that humility to recognize that we are sinners in need of the gospel, in need of a gracious savior. And then to live harmoniously within a church family, we need to exhibit this humility time and time again. And one day, we will be increasingly and perfectly conformed to the humility of Jesus. There will be no more pride, no more comparison, no more jealousy, no more insecurity, no more jockeying for power, no more people saying, "Can I sit on your right hand?

33:33Can I sit at that table?" Instead, there will be no one on that day who says, "Who is the greatest?" Because we will all be in the presence of the Great One, and we will have full and perfect sight of his astounding greatness, and we will cast down our crowns, and we will worship him for all eternity. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Father, we so want people to think highly of us and to be great, and so help us, Father, to pursue that greatness with childlike humility. Make us a true family of faith where humility is abundant and that there's no place for envy and jealousy and rivalry and dissensions.

34:31Help us to confess these. Help us to walk by faith. Help us to trust you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Matthew 28:1-4

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