September 4th: Become Like Children

The Holy Scriptures make it clear that Satan went after Adam in the Garden, tempted our Lord Jesus Christ in the wilderness (and had drastically different results with the Second Adam Christ!), and here in our Gospel in Matthew 18, the evil one was attacking the apostles. Luke 22:24 states the situation plainly: “A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.” This is the embarrassing and shameful truth about sinners: all of us are concerned about our status, all of us are prideful, all of us want to be in a better position and fear being left out or lacking recognition. Selfish ambition, however, is an idol. Timothy Keller in his book Counterfeit Gods quotes Helen Rubin in the magazine Fast Company: “Of all the subjects we obsess about…success is the one we lie about the most — that success and its cousin money will make us secure, that success and its cousin power will make us important, that success and its cousin fame will make us happy. It’s time to tell the truth: Why are our generation’s smartest, most talented, most successful people flirting with disaster in record numbers? People are using all their means to get money, power, and glory — and then self-distructing.” (92) Christ the Lord took a child into his arms and said to the ambitious apostles, you have to turn and become a child (Mark 9:36 & Matthew 18:3). It was like Christ was saying, “Does this little child look like he cares about running a kingdom?!” No! He is content and happy to be in my arms. What wisdom poured out from our Savior! The place to be isn’t running after our false gods of success, but to be found in the arms of Christ. The only problem is that we resist God’s counsel at every turn and unless our hands and feet and eyes that cause us to sin are addressed (through cutting them off and tearing them out, Matthew 18:7-9) we will remain stuck in the condemnation of sinful ambition. Jesus who is the Greatest in the kingdom of heaven (the apostles should have known the answer to their question at verse 1) took the initiative to save us while we were still enemies of God (Romans 5:10). For us, His hands and feet were “cut off” when the 5-7 inch Roman spikes went through them on the cross; for us, the Father “tore out” His eyes as He turned from the Son’s perfect payment for our sins, and in Christ and in Christ alone is humility achieved, the humility which saves…but make no mistake about it, when this humility of Jesus is given to you and me (as we are incorporated into His life through Holy Baptism, the Word of Christ proclaimed, and Holy Communion), it always shows and gives a new way, a new life…we become children of God and rely on Christ for everything. By God’s grace, the Holy Spirit then leads us to a humble confession that expresses the desire for the old man of ambition to die and for the new creation in Christ to remain in the arms of Jesus today and forever. See you Sunday! Pastor Espinosa

Also this Sunday: the Holy Baptism of Isabel S. Wickam. We rejoice that Isabel will receive the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit!

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