Matthew, and let's go to chapter
18 of Matthew. Matthew 18. My subject this evening is little
ones. Specifically, the Lord's little
ones. This is Matthew 18, the text
is the first 14 verses. Our Lord here, in response to a question raised
by his disciples, he delivers to them a very valuable
message. Here's the question, verse 1,
at the same time came the disciples unto Jesus. Now these are His
immediate followers, His apostles. These are men that He has issued
a sovereign effectual call to follow Him. These are men that
have sat at His feet And they asked him this, they said, who
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And in response to
that question, there came forth this message. Now, the subject
being little ones, that is, the Lord's little ones, I feel at
the very outset I should ask you this. Are you one of his
little ones? I'm not asking if you're religious. I'm not asking if you're a Baptist. I'm not asking are you a member
of the church. But I'm asking you, each of you,
and I hope the Spirit of Grace will take this question and really
just pierce your heart with it. Are you one of His little ones? And I'll ask the same question
of me. Am I one of his little ones? Don't dismiss the question quickly. This is a question you need to
think about and you need to make your, as it says in Peter, you
need to make your calling and election sure. There are lots
of things you can be in the wrong about. and you'll still be okay. But this is something you can't
be wrong about and still be okay. Are you one of the Lord's little
ones? I don't care how long you profess
faith in Jesus Christ, it's still a very necessary question. Are you one of the Lord's little
ones? I don't care how long You've been a member of this congregation. Some of you are charter members,
and that's wonderful. But that doesn't mean anything
in the Kingdom of Heaven. It doesn't matter how long you've
been a member of a local church, but this does matter. Are you
one of His little ones? In other words, do you know Him? Has He saved you by His grace?
I'm not asking, have you made a profession? I'm not asking
you, can you remember back years ago when you had your experience
of salvation? I'm asking you right now, right
now, in your own soul, our things between you and God. You see, it is possible to be
a member of a grace church and have no grace in the heart. I
want God's grace. I want to know Christ Jesus.
I don't want to be a mere professor I want to know the Savior, as
it says in Philippians, and the power of His resurrection. I
want to know Him. I want to know Him who saves.
I want to know Him who redeemed poor sinners. I want to be washed
in that blood. I want to be robed in that righteousness. Oh God, make this real to me. Oh God, give me honesty. Just
be honest before God, would you? Are you one of His little ones? Am I one of His little ones? Here in this sermon, that's what
the Lord is talking about. His little ones. He is at Capernaum. We know that from chapter 17. Back in chapter 17, our Lord
has taken Peter, James, and John up on the Mount of Transfiguration. And He has put on, I don't know,
what would you say, displeasure for them. He has manifested to
them His great glory. And they saw him as he is. And then they go a few other
places and then they come to Capernaum and then that's where
he sends Peter out to catch a fish and then he said
in the fish's mouth you'll find some money to pay taxes. God's people seek to be the best
citizens that we can be. Let's ask God to bless our country,
to bless our leaders, and to use us to be faithful
in the cause of God in this world, but don't get too caught up in
this stuff. We're citizens of another country.
And it's mighty easy. You look out, you see what's
going on. There's a lot of division, a
lot of fuss and quarreling, things of that nature. That's their
business. That's not our business. That's
not what we're about. Is it? That's just not what we're
about. I'll tell you what we're about. We're about the things
of God. That's what we're about. We're about the gospel of Christ
Jesus. That's all that matters. It don't
matter what political affiliation you are, but I'll tell you what
this does matter. Are you one of His little ones?
Now that's something that sure enough matters. It doesn't matter
who you know in this world. It does matter if you know God,
though. And you can't know God except
through Jesus Christ the Lord. And we've got to know Him. He's
got to introduce Himself to us. He's got to make Himself known
to us. Otherwise, we'll never know Him.
This is the work He's got to do. You see this matter of salvation? It is a salvation that's all
of God. He originated it. He purposed
it. Back before the world was ever
made, before He created anything, He already had a people. He had
a people. We have always been His people. We were given to the Lord Jesus
Christ, our everlasting surety. We were given to Him for safekeeping.
We were given to Him as our shepherd and we were His sheep. And He
took full responsibility for all of the safety and the salvation
of all of His little ones. His little ones. And God the
Father looked to Jesus Christ and His little ones as being
one. We are in union The Son of God. All of His little ones were in
union with Him. I tell you, salvations of God
and Christ Jesus came into this world in fulfillment of His covenant
obligations, in fulfillment of His covenant oath. He came to
live before the law in innocence. A life of obedience. And then
He died under the curse of the law. in order to save the people
of His choice. That's the only way God can be
just and justify the ungodly. There is no other way of salvation
but the salvation of sinners in, through and by Christ Jesus
the Lord. There's substitution and satisfaction
and that's it. And you don't get involved in
that. That's none of your business.
That's none of your work. You don't lift a finger in that.
That's the work between God the Son and God the Father. And that's
the work that's already done, isn't it? It's already finished. And then the Spirit of God comes
to us. Oh, blessed Holy Ghost. Through the word of the gospel,
he comes to us. The very wind of God, the breath
of God, and he breathes into us. It's like it says in the
book of Genesis chapter 1, God breathed into Adam, breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life. It says that in Genesis
chapter 2. So the Spirit of God's got to
breathe life into us. Life, otherwise we won't live.
God said to Ezekiel, O son of man, can these bones live? Lord
God, thou knowest. Thou knowest. I can't make them
live, but you can. You can. Go out there and preach
to them bones. All those soldiers died in a
war many years ago, and now their bones are bleached out there
in the sunshine. There's nothing to them. There's
no flesh there. There's no muscles there. There's
no blood there. There's no life there. But you
go preach to them. And that's the way it is with
every gospel preacher. God calls us to preach the gospel
to people who are dead in trespasses and in sin. But Lord, there's
nothing there. I know. Lord, there's no hope
as far as they're concerned. I know. Just preach the gospel
of redeeming grace to them. You leave the spiritual work
to me, God says. And as we set forth this gospel,
a miracle takes place. A life-giving miracle. The Lord takes his gospel of
redeeming love and grace, the work of the Lord Jesus, His blood shed for sinners, His
blood that washes us, His blood that took care of the load of
the guilt that He bore on the cross and bore it away and His
righteousness freely imputed to all who believe Him. The Spirit
of God works in the heart and makes the sinner, brings the
sinner to this point to say, I must have this Savior. Nothing else is as important
as, I love my family, but I gotta have Christ Jesus. I'm thankful
for the physical life I've got, but I'm nothing without Him.
And when the Spirit of Grace brings us to that point, He gives
us the assurance that we're His little ones. We're born of the
Spirit. Born of the Spirit. We're given
life. Hear these apostles. And you know they're acting like
a bunch of children. They say to him, who's the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven? Look at Mark chapter 9. Mark
renders it this way. He gives this account of this
story. Look at Mark 9, 33. You know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, they're
the three synoptic Gospels. They're very much alike. They say the same things, many
of the same things, these men recorded, just kind of from a
different angle. a different view. Mark 9, 33, and he came to Capernaum,
and being in the house, he asked them, what was it that you disputed
among yourselves, by the way? He already knew. But he asked them. And asked them best, they held
their peace. For by the way, they had disputed
among themselves who's going to be the greatest. And he sat
down and he called the twelve. So now we know his exact audience,
these twelve men. And he saith unto them, If any
man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant
of all. And he took a child, set him
in the midst of them, and when he had taken him in his arms,
he said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such children
in My name receiveth Me, and whosoever shall receive Me receiveth
not Me, but him that sent Me." And then let me read Luke's account,
Luke 9 and 46. While we're reading here, let's
just see how Luke viewed this. He's the only Gentile writer,
He presents this in a little different light. Luke 9 and 46,
then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should
be the greatest? And Jesus perceiving the thought
of their heart. He knew they had a desire for
preeminence. He knew they wanted to be greater
than others. And this is an awful thing. I
tell you, arrogance and pride, those are terrible things. Those
are terrible things. And it's just part and parcel
of us, isn't it? And that's the way it was with
these men. These are men, hand-picked apostles. So, Jesus perceiving the thought
of their hearts, He took a child and set him by him and said to
them, whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth
me. Whosoever shall receive me receiveth
him that sent me. For he that is least among you
all, the same shall be great. So Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they
all record this. So now we know he is in Capernaum. He is speaking to his 12 apostles. Now, this is not the only time
these men spoke this way. There are other times as well.
In fact, let me give you one other. Look in Matthew chapter
20. Matthew chapter 20. You see, I can't believe the
way God's people can act sometimes. You just need your eyes open
as to the violence of human nature. Yours, as well as everybody else's. Because if you pull us all together,
we're just not worth anything. Do you know that? There's only
one worthy, therefore, of all the glory, and that's Christ
Jesus. And I'll tell you, He gets His
work done, even in the church, through the preacher, through
the Bible class teachers, through the musicians. God gets His work
done in spite of us, in spite of our frailties, in spite of
our mess-ups. These disciples, bless their
hearts. hard-minded. Look at verse 20. Matthew chapter 20. Then came
to him the mother of Zebedee's children with their son, her
sons James and John, sons of thunder. She's so proud of them. Moms like to be prouder of their
boys. She's so proud of them. Here
they are, two preachers, two apostles. Man, they're two of
the three that went up on the Mount of Transfiguration. My
boys. My boys. He took my boys up there. Yeah, well, he took Simon Peter
too, but he took my boys. She came with her sons worshiping
and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said, what wilt
thou? What can I do for you? She said unto him, Grant, that
these, my two sons, may sit the one on thy right hand and the
other on thy left in thy kingdom." I want my boys to have the positions
of leadership. So over here in Matthew 18, it's
not the first time that happened. It isn't the first time. These poor disciples were seeking
an exalted position, a place of preeminence in the Kingdom
of God. And it makes you wonder, how
would anybody even speak of having a greater position than others
in the Kingdom of God? Why would anybody seek an exalted
position in the Kingdom of God unless they did not have an understanding
of what this Kingdom was really about? You see, they still think
it's got to do with earthly things. That's what all the Jews thought,
isn't that right? They thought, hey, it's going
to be a great earthly Kingdom and now the King's here. Boy,
I tell you, those Romans, they're in for it. Boy, they're going
to get what's coming to them. And when He establishes His kingdom
in Jerusalem right here and takes His seat upon David's liberal
throne, I want to see them all run out of town and I'd like
to have a position right beside of you, Lord. I want to be up
there with you. Make me a general. I want to be a five-star general
in this. That's their attitude. Like I say, I remind you, these
men are apostles. And somebody might be thinking,
well, I'm sure they will be greater even in the spiritual kingdom
of God. No, they won't. They're not going to be greater. In fact, one of the apostles
who said he's not one whit behind the chief apostle, that'd be
the apostle Paul, he said, by the grace of God, I am what I
am. And by the grace of God, these men were what they were.
Judas accepted, of course. He's the exception. By the grace
of God, they did what they did. By the grace of God, they believed
what they believed. By the grace of God, they labored
in the cause of Jesus Christ. By the grace of God, they followed
the Savior. They don't get any credit here.
They don't get a higher position in the Kingdom of God. Because
God won't share His glory with the creature. He gets all the
glory. By the grace of God, they followed
the Savior. They didn't choose Him. He chose
them. They didn't call Him, He called
them. They didn't teach themselves
the gospel of substitution and satisfaction, He taught them. They didn't give themselves a
knowledge of grace, a knowledge of God, a knowledge of themselves. A knowledge of Jesus Christ.
The fact that He's going to give His life a ransom for many. They didn't give themselves that
knowledge. He gave it to them. And I tell
you, if you have a knowledge of Him and His gospel tonight,
you didn't get that yourself. He gave it to you. He taught
you. You see, no man, not a disciple,
not an apostle, not you, not me, no man deserves any recognition
in the things of God because in this salvation, it's all of
God. Every bit of it. David said,
not unto us, O Lord. Not unto us, but unto Thy name. Give glory for Thy mercy and
for Thy truth's sake. But still, someone might be thinking,
you know, since these apostles did so much, and these men, with
the exception of John the apostle, they all died a death of martyrdom,
well, surely they'll have a higher place in the kingdom of God.
No, they won't. No, they won't. Look at Luke
chapter 17. Luke chapter 17. Luke 17, verse 7. Luke 17, verse 7. But which of
you, having a servant, and that servant's out here, he's either
plowing or feeding cattle, will come unto him by and by, when
he's come from the field, and then say to him, Go and sit down
to Me." Which of you would say that? You'd say that to your
servant, he's been out there working all day, and you're the
master, you're the owner. Would you say to the servant,
hey, go in the house and I'll fix your supper for you? No. No. Verse 8, and will not rather
say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself,
and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward thou
shalt eat and drink." Does he thank the servant because he
did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. I think not. He just did what he's supposed
to do. That's what he gets paid to do. So likewise you, You, when you've done all those
things which are commanded you, this is what you should say.
We are unprofitable servants. We've done that which was our
duty to do. Don't deserve any credit. Don't
deserve any recognition. See, no glory goes to the worker,
no honor is heaped upon the servant. All the glory goes to the master. There's only one great one in
the kingdom of God. That's King Jesus. He's got all the crown rights.
He's the one who said, all power is given unto me in heaven and
in earth. And if He's got all power, that
means you don't have any of it. In fact, that means nobody's
got any power except Christ Jesus. The old pilot stood there, the
Savior before him said, don't you know I got the power to say
you live or say you die? He said, you couldn't have any
power over me at all except it were given to you. I'm so thankful
it so soothes my heart that there's one who has all power and all
sovereign rule and all authority and all control over all things
in this muddled world of ours. It's King Jesus. In this world
where it seems everything's topsy-turvy and things are just going hither
and yonder and doesn't seem to be any consistency to anything,
There's one who's ruling and actually everything is following
the course He has set for it. And that's why as the people
of God, these things just should not disturb us. We're members of a greater country. We've got a citizenship which
is up above. We're just down here visiting
for a while. When Nancy and I, we go to Japan
to visit David, they had pretty good snow over there the last
few days. But when we go over there, I
don't get too involved in what's going on in Tokyo or what their
prime minister's doing and all of that sort of thing. You know
why? I'm just going to be there a short while. Why do I care?
And you know, we get so wrapped up in what's going on in this
world. And I'm not saying we shouldn't
be good citizens. We should be good citizens. We
should be We should show honor to those to whom honor is due. The Lord, in paying His taxes
here, in the end of Matthew 17, He said, render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar's. He didn't say, go fuss against
Caesar, or let's pick at Caesar, let's ride against Caesar. He
said, just render to him what's due him, and go on about your
business. Yours is a spiritual business.
And that's the way it is with us. Well, here's these disciples. In the Lord Jesus, verse 2, He
calls to Him a little child and set Him in the midst of them.
Matthew 18, 2. Now this isn't a baby. He didn't
say, bring me a baby. He calls a little child, a child
who's old enough to come to Him. I don't know, five, six, seven,
eight years old. Don't know, but he called a little
child. He said, come over here. Come
over here. And he set him in the midst of
them. Mark, I think it was, set him in his lap. That's wonderful the Savior take
little ones up in his lap. He could be approached. He wasn't scared. I know some
children, preachers like to keep them in fear. I don't want to
talk to him, he's the preacher. Believe it or not, I'm just a
person like you are. And even the children could approach
him. And so then he took him up in
verse 3, he said, Verily I say unto you, except you be converted,
except you be changed. and become as little children.
You're not even going to be able to enter into the kingdom of
God, much less have a position in the kingdom. Here you are
arguing and fighting about who's going to be the greatest in the
kingdom. You're not going to be in the kingdom unless you're
converted. What is conversion? It's a change. It's a change in attitude, change
in spirit, Change in understanding? These men needed to be changed.
They're all caught up with who's going to be the greatest in the
kingdom of God. The Lord said, you've got to be changed. You've
got the wrong mentality here. You're focusing on the wrong
thing. So he says in verse four, whosoever
therefore shall humble himself as this little child, and you'll
notice throughout these first 14 verses, little children, little
child. He keeps mentioning that over
and over again. He said, the same is the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such
little child in my name receiveth me. You say, well, this is a
message to the little children. Well, little children, They should
take heed to the message of the gospel, and I speak to the children
who are here tonight, and I speak to the children who might be
watching on the internet. Listen, Christ Jesus is the Savior
of sinners, of children, and adults. And you may come to Him. You may come to Him. If you need
a Savior, you want forgiveness of your sins, You see something
of the glory of Christ Jesus? The necessity of His blood redemption? See something of your own sinfulness?
Listen, you come to Christ Jesus, Christ receives His sinful men
and women and boys and girls, doesn't He? He does. You just
come to Him. And if you come to Him, it's
because He's drawing you. He's drawing. I want you to look
at this verse 6, but whosoever shall offend one of these little
ones, now right here is what you've got to underline this,
which believe in me. Those are some key words right
there. Which believe in me. I'm going to shock you maybe
a little bit. We were taught when we was growing
up, Jesus loves all the little children of the world. That's
not true. But He does love many little
children, because they're His little ones. And they've been
His little ones, you know how long they've been His little
ones? Since before He made the world, they've been His little
ones. But He says this, He's talking
about those who believe in Him. He is using this 5, 6, 7, 8 year
old child, whatever it is, as an illustration. As an illustration. The Lord's little ones are all
of His children. All of His people. We are His
little ones. We are His little ones. We are
totally dependent upon Him. We are little ones who have been
converted. We have been changed. This change
is due to His grace. What does this change involve? He takes away a heart of stone,
gives us a heart of flesh. That's change. He converts us. He brings us out of darkness
into light. That's a change. That's conversion. He brings us out of error into
the truth. That's the nature of this change.
This is a change of masters. The Lord Jesus is our master. We bow to Him now. It's a change
of motives. We seek His glory. And it's a
change of attitude. We're not rebellious toward Him.
We believe Him and we bow to Him. This conversion, when does
it start? In regeneration. A regeneration, that's a one-time
thing, isn't it? Sure. Regeneration. You're made
alive once, but you know, conversion, that's ongoing. He's always changing
us. Well, I feel the necessity of
being changed still, don't you? Sure. He used this little child to
instruct Little children, they're dependent
upon their fathers. We're dependent upon our Heavenly
Father. Where do we get our life from?
Our fathers. Where do we get our spiritual
life from? Our Heavenly Father. A child is generally teachable.
And I tell you, God's little ones are teachable. I've run
up against a few people during the Forty years that I've been
pastoring, you couldn't teach them anything. But the Lord's
little ones, now you can teach them. And they'll say to you,
I'll tell you pastor, you show it to me out of the Scriptures.
And I'll believe you. I'll believe what God's showing. In its context, God's children
can be instructed, they're teachable. God's children are quick to forgive
because we reflect our God who has forgiven us. Anybody you
can't forgive, anybody you have trouble forgiving, that's not
good. That's not good at all. There have been people that I've
had to ask forgiveness from. Please forgive me. I've written
letters. I'd say things. Sometimes we
talk off the cuff. and say things we ought not say,
and we have to go back and say, I'm sorry. You ever said, I'm
sorry? Somebody told me, some person
said, I've never said to anybody, I'm sorry. Well, I'm sorry for
them. Because we all mess up. We all blunder. Forgive me. Please forgive me. I've done
wrong. I've said wrong. Didn't aim to
do it. Didn't aim to hurt your feelings.
But I did and I'm sorry. Please forgive me." And I tell
you, a real child of God will say, hey, think nothing of it.
I forgive you, brother. In fact, somebody said to me
the other day, said, I need to ask you forgiveness. I didn't
even know what they were talking about. And I hope there's nobody that
I've ever wronged or who's ever wronged me, that if I saw them
on the sidewalk, I saw them in the store, that I couldn't go
over to them and say, hey, how are you doing today? I see the
attitudes of some people who profess to be the children of
God and I say, where's that forgiving spirit?
Where is that grace you talk about? You see, if God's been
gracious to us, we're going to be gracious people. I believe
that. We're going to be gracious people.
Now, we may not in the beginning be gracious, but the Lord's going
to trouble us about it. And we're going to have to go
make it right. I'm sorry. And a child can be corrected
and they'll be better off for it. The Lord corrects us. If
you were one of his little ones, he'd correct you. And you know what a child does?
Tries to imitate his father. Little ones try to imitate their
father. When I was growing up, I may have told you this story
before. If I have, just act like you ain't heard it before. But
when I was growing up, my daddy was a preacher and he'd pretty
loud. I get it, honestly. He was a preacher, and my sister
and I, we'd play church. And I was just a little fella.
And I'd get up, and I'd have a Bible, and I'd pound. I had
a table, and I'd pound. I was imitating my daddy as a
preacher. And we had a song leader in our church. And I never will
forget, he led the singing with his fist balls like this. And
I'd lead the singing, and that's the way I'd lead the singing
still. I was always afraid he was going to maybe punch us out.
I didn't know what he was doing. And sometimes he'd leave with
both hands like this. But I'd imitate him, too, because
I respected him. And I respected my daddy. And
I thought, my daddy's just the greatest preacher I'd ever heard.
And I loved him. So I tried to imitate him. And
I tell you what, here's what the Apostle Paul says, Be ye
therefore imitators of God. That's what it says in the book
of Ephesians chapter 5. Forgive as you've been forgiven,
be imitators of God. Does God hold a grudge against
you? No. He said, I fully, freely, all
forgive. Don't you hold a grudge either.
Well, I'll tell you, I just can't get over what so-and-so did to
me or did to somebody else. You need to get on past that.
Just get on past that. Little children. Imitate your
father. He doesn't hold anything against
you. And I'll tell you something else, a father is very protective
of his little ones. The Lord protects His little
ones. Let me read the rest of this. Look at verse 7. Woe unto the world because of
offenses. For it must needs be that offensive
comes, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. Wherefore
if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them
from thee. It's better for thee to enter
in the life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two
feet to be cast in the lake of fire." Is that saying we should
mutilate ourselves? Of course not. What it's saying
is, cast away everything between you and the Lord. Just get rid
of it. Get rid of it. He says, if your
eye offends you, pluck it out. Cast it from you. Better to enter
in the life with one eye than having two eyes be cast into
hell fire. Take heed that ye despise not
one of these little ones. Don't you despise one of God's
little ones. For I say unto you that in heaven
there angels always behold the face of my Father which is in
heaven. And if you ask me, do I believe that children of God
have guardian angels? I'll take you right here to this
passage of Scripture, and I'll say, yes, we do. They're angels. They're assigned to our case.
Assigned to our case. Why are they assigned? Why are
we important? Verse 11, For the Son of Man
has come to save that which was lost. We are His lost sheep.
That's why we are important to the Lord. We are His lost sheep. He comes after us. He says, How
think ye, if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone
astray? Doth he not leave the ninety
and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which
is gone astray? If so it be that he findeth,
and with our Lord there is no if, he finds all his lost sheep.
Verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more than that sheep, more of
that sheep than of the ninety and nine which went not astray,
even so Watch it. It is not the will of your Father
which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
It is not His will. He's not willing that any of
His little ones should perish, but they all come to repentance.
And you know what? They'll all be saved. All His
little ones, they're going to be confronted with the gospel
of God's grace. They're going to be brought to
faith. He's going to give them faith
to believe. He's going to convert them. He's going to change them. Are you one of His little ones?
And I believe by the power of the Spirit, by the leadership
of the Spirit, by the grace of the Spirit, I can say, I'm one
of His little ones. And He sure takes good care of
me. He who chose me sent His Son to redeem me, His Spirit
to quicken me. He keeps me by His power. He'll
preserve me throughout this life and someday He's going to take
me to glory and I'm going to be glorified. It sure is wonderful
to be one of the little ones, isn't it? Praise the Lord for
His grace to us.