Childlike Faith Is Not Childish Faith (Matthew 18:1-6 Explained)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
What's the most famous part of Matthew chapter 18? Conflict resolution, right? When we think of Matthew 18, anybody who's been in the church for any period of time, we think of conflict resolution. Well, if a brother sins against me, I need to go to him, and if he doesn't hear me, then I need to bring another person, and if he doesn't hear me, I need to bring more people, and then finally you kick him out of the community. That's what we traditionally think of in Matthew 18 However, Matthew 18 is far more than conflict resolution. It is commonly, in most churches, when they teach Matthew 18, they will teach it under the title of the upside down kingdom. Why? Because God's kingdom is being manifested through the teaching of Jesus Christ in Matthew 18, and it looks absolutely different than the kingdoms of this world. Whether it was Rome of that time, Jerusalem of that time, whether it's our modern churches, the Baptist conventions, or the Pentecostal conventions, or all of the other hierarchies of churches, the kingdom of heaven looks very different than what the kingdom of earth looks like, and it does not operate the same way. In the kingdom of earth, everybody wants to know who matters the most. Some people will walk through the door of the church, and they'll say, who's the most influential? Who is the one who has the platform? Sometimes they'll say that that's the one who has God's favor. Who's the greatest? This was not just the question of the disciples in Matthew 18 This is the question that gets asked in most churches and most communities on a regular basis. Sometimes they'll go as far as to be like, touch not the Lord's anointed.
What are y'all laughing about? Touch not the Lord's anointed is often used completely out of context in modern Christianity. It's used to cover up sins, religious abuse.
And it's our problem today is that we all think that we're the Lord's anointed. And we think that we're more anointed than somebody else who the Lord is also anointed. And so we're constantly in conflict with one another because we're doing what the corporate people do. Right? What do the corporate people do? They climb the ladder. How do you climb the ladder? Well, I was in the corporate world for a long time. The easiest way is to climb the ladder is for me to make sure that I pull Stephen off the rung ahead of me and take his spot.
And then what do we do? We approach church in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus, Yahweh, the Feasts, the Festivals, the Sabbath, all these things. We approach it with the same way. I'm going to pull you off the ladder down so I can elevate myself. Jesus has spent the last three chapters destroying the disciples' understanding of greatness. Peter had confessed Jesus. Jesus had predicted the cross. Three disciples had gone up the Mount of Transfiguration and they had heard Yahweh say to them, this is my beloved son, listen to him. They finally understood his kingdom wasn't like Rome. They just didn't realize that his kingdom wasn't like theirs either. And everybody wants a kingdom, but very few understand that we are not the king in the kingdom. If you would, open your Bibles to Matthew 18, we're going to start in verse 1 About that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little one to him and put the child among him. I wanted him to show his crocodile. He didn't even know what we're going to preach on today, but he was like, hey, dad, look at my crocodile. I wanted him to come up here because that's the first thing I wanted you to see. Because Jesus had the opportunity to do all kinds of things when they said, who is the greatest in the kingdom? He had the opportunity to give them a metaphor. He had the opportunity to do anything. And what he did is he brought a child in their midst. Bunch of grown man in their 30s, maybe 20s, and he brought a child into their midst. Then he said, I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like a little child, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Peter had walked on water.
Anybody walked on water? No? Okay. Every once in a while I gotta check just to see if anything cool has happened. We've seen some miracles in this church. Like, seen some miracles in this church. Peter confessed that Jesus was the son of God, the son of man, and the Messiah. And Peter had stood on a mountain and witnessed Moses and Elijah part in Jesus' remain. If anyone deserved to be considered the greatest of this group that's there, it was Peter. Definitely Peter. Instead, Jesus walks past Peter and he picks up a child.