Want to be the greatest? SERVE!

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Welcome back to the Iron Saints Podcast with your host, Dan Willis.

Welcome back, saints.

It is a new day and we are right back at it.

Thursday, almost there, almost towards the end of the week.

We're still kind of working our way through Luke 9 here.

Yesterday, what we dealt with was this idea of Jesus foretelling his death again.

We kind of wrestled with the idea of this boy being healed, the lack of faith from the apostles to make it happen. Today we're going to keep moving forward. If you guys are one of those that just love to do things in order, you can go all the way back to Luke 1. It's not exclusive. Feel free to go back to Luke 1. It's going to be the entire journey is there for you from Luke 1 to here.

If you're happy to just hop in though, today we're going to keep going.

And there's an argument today that we're looking at of who is the greatest among us that we're going to tackle. So go grab your Bible. And let's do this.

So as always, guys, I read from the ESV.

I encourage you to have a physical copy of the Bible with you to read. It just improves the devotion, I find, where you're able to actually physically look at the word and you know take notes in your in your Bible. But if you are driving, obviously you can't do that. If you're commuting, if you're at work, sometimes you just don't have that ability. So rest assured, I am going to read. But today we're going to go from Luke chapter nine verse forty-six.

All the way through to verse 56.

So here we go. An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side and said to them, whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you is the one who is great. John answered, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us. But Jesus said to him, do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you. When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him because his face was set towards Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell the fire to come down from heaven and consume them? But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on.

So this passage of Luke is really about who's it for, right? Jesus foretells his death.

We've seen the Transfiguration. We see it's about faith.

He's trying to communicate this. People aren't seeing it. And now we get this sandwich.

We get this again, this beautiful progression in scripture where it's showing us this. Who is the greatest among you? Right?

All right. Who's the best?

Who among us?

Is it Peter? Is it John? James?

And he points to a little kid and he goes, the child. The child.

And they're going, but he wasn't in the running.

It's us.

Like, it's us men. It's us apostles.

No, no, no.

You misunderstand.

The child's the point. Whoever receives the child in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives him who sent me.

Oh.

Oh, this is not about us and our qualifications. This isn't about us and what we are qualified to be. Instead, this is about have we heard your calling and your teaching that we're called to serve even the smallest child? In the least, whoever serves the least of these will be the greatest among you.

What an amazing lesson that is. Completely contrary to the world, right? The world, you want to apply for a position of posterity, right? You want to be the greatest.

Let's say you want to be the president or prime minister, or you want to be the CEO of the company.

You've got to throw down your impressive regimen and acumen of experience and knowledge and look at what I've learned and what I've done and I've done it before and I've done this and I've done that. And Christ is going, nope, nope, none of that's important. When you can humble yourself to serve the least, then you serve me. And if you're serving me, then you're serving the one who sent me. You want to be the greatest?

Serve the least.

Now, what's interesting then is they completely didn't get the lesson. They go on out and they see somebody who's out there casting out demons, literally fighting the fight that God himself had sent people out to do, and they rebuke him. We told him he shouldn't do that, Lord. He shouldn't do that. He's not part of our group. He's not part of our little circle.

You shouldn't do that. That's not good.

No, no, no, no.

And Jesus goes, why did you do that? Come on, guys.

Like, If he's not against you, he's for you. If you're going to pick a fight over every little thing because it's not done exactly your way, it's going to lead to problems. It's going to lead to division. It's going to lead to hardship. Like, what are you doing? Don't stop him. If he's not against you, he's for you. You guys are making enemies where you don't need to make enemies in this. And we do this all the time. This is one of the reasons why denominations exist. And instead of us just going, well, We're both for Christ.

All right.

Instead, we go, well, we're both for Christ, but I like to have only wine at communion. I like to make sure women's heads are covered in our congregation. I like to only sing hymns and we only sing psalms, but we don't use instruments and you use a band and all of these little differences. And it's like, okay, but you're all for each other, right? Everybody is for the concept of Christ alone, by faith alone, to the glory of God alone. And how do we know that?

By Scripture alone.

That's it. That's it. Everything else that we put on top of it is more.

It's more than that.

There's nothing you can do to gain the kingdom. All you can do is have Christ love you. We love because God first loved us. 1 John 4:19. It is there. This idea of, well, no, you should stop. You're really not. You're not from the right group. Can you imagine? Can you imagine somebody out there? With a bowl of water baptizing a nonbeliever, somebody who's decided to commit themselves to the Lord, and somebody was to come up and say, well, no, sorry, you're from the wrong denomination.

That baptism isn't valid.

Why?

First of all, why?

Right? Same thing with communion. You have somebody who has been repentant. You see somebody who has shown the fruit of Christ in their life. They're walking and they come to take communion. And this happens often, especially within the Catholic Church. You see this happen where people come to take communion and they go, I'm sorry, you're not Catholic. Could you just please cross your arms and we'll give you a blessing, but you can't take communion? What? Come on. We can do better than that. We can do better than that. Now they move towards a Samaritan village, and we know from previous passages that the Jews and the Samaritans, they don't get along so great, right? They're not best friends and nobody's expecting them to be best friends culturally. They're going to be at odds, but the days are coming near. Christ is told that he's about to die. He's getting ready, sets his face to go to Jerusalem, right? And he sent messengers ahead of him. They went into a village. The Samaritans are there, but they didn't receive him because his face was set towards Jerusalem instead of Mount Sinai where they worship, right?

And we've seen this before. We understand why that's important.

And when his disciples, James and John, saw it, they said, hey Lord, you want us to rain fire down from the heavens and wipe these people from existence? How dare they turn their face from you? And he turns to James and John and rebukes them. He doesn't rebuke the Samaritans. Christ understands why they are the way that they are and says, guys, what are you talking about? You want to have the fires rain down from heaven on these people? Like, where are your hearts? Jesus just goes on to the next village.

Like, okay.

This, this isn't the place. I'm just going to go to the next village. I'm not going to burn it down to the ground. There's an awful lot in these 3 little passages, which is why I wanted to do them together. But it's really laying out a continued lesson from the last chapter where we are seeing Christ saying, where's the faith? Where's the faith? If God first loved you and you have been saved by the Holy Spirit's working in your heart, where is the love? Where's the faith? Where's the compassion, the mercy, the grace? Instead, you guys feel like you have this badge of honor on you, and there is no badge of honor. My gospel is one of service. My gospel is one of love, compassion, and mercy. My gospel is one of focusing on bringing souls to God. That's the focus. And if you're not doing that, you're missing it. So I challenge you today, guys, as you go out, take a look around you. And discern for yourself. Are you serving the least of these? Do you rejoice to see the work that God is doing? Take the time. If you don't see it, just figure it out. Figure out how you can make that change. Pray to the Lord, go to the scriptures, figure it out, but make it happen. If you are doing it, power to you. And please, blessings on you. Keep going. Keep going. All right, guys, I want to pray for you. I always want to send you out in prayer. Can't face a day without prayer. As always, if you guys have prayer requests, the social media channels are down below. Feel free to message me directly on those channels. I'm more than happy to take your prayer requests. I always try to keep them anonymous.

Some guys say that they don't care, in which case I'll pray for them by name. I just think that that's—

well, God knows who you're talking about.

At times it can be good for the others that are praying as well that they have that name, but for the most part, I pray for anonymity. So that's that. Um, Lord, thank you so much for these amazing men that have taken the time to hear your word today, that have taken the time to listen, to understand that your heart is a heart of service, your heart is a heart of compassion, your heart is a heart of mercy. It is not a heart that desires pride or arrogance or practice or performance of Uh, worldly praise. It's not about degrees or dollars, Lord. It's not. It's about hearts saved, hearts changed, loving God and loving one another.

I pray for the men that are out there suffering, Lord.

Their marriages are under attack. I pray that you're with them. That love is special. That love is something that you've given us that no man should tear asunder. Or woman for that matter. I just pray that the marriages might be reunited, that there might be love that is built again, Lord, where there's friction and strife, that there would be compassion and patience. Be in those places, Lord. I pray for those who are in business that have either lost their jobs or are suffering through massive trials, Lord.

I pray that you would, you would be in that place and that you would give them the reassurance that this too will pass.

There is another day, there's another thing, and there's a purpose that you are doing in this. And it can be hard, Lord.

Job Lost it all.

It was all taken from him. His, his family, his wealth, his home, all of it was gone. And yet to trust in the Lord was to see those blessings return twice-fold. Be with people, Lord, in their suffering. Help them as they're going through this.

I thank you so much for the blessings, Lord.

There have been stories of healing, unexpected healing, surgeries going well.

I just pray that those, those blessings would inspire and ignite hearts to continue moving forward for you. In your name we pray. Have an amazing day, guys.

I will see you tomorrow with another episode, and until then, take it easy.

Thank you for listening to the Iron Saints Podcast. If you are looking to share your prayer requests, check the description for social media or email to contact the show. Blessings on you all until next time.