Three Greats

Jesus never allows our faith to stop with Him. In Matthew 10, we discover that loving God always leads to loving others, disciples make disciples, and serving Christ means serving people. When we welcome even the least among us, we welcome Christ Himself.

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You're turning with me this morning to the Gospel According to Matthew, chapter 10. The gospel according to Matthew, chapter 10. And you may be saying, hold on, Pastor Marshall, you think you've been in Matthew 10 for, like, three weeks now. It's like, yes, that's where the lectionary has us. And that's actually one reason.

Let me just throw this out there. That's one reason I enjoy preaching through the lectionary is like, I wouldn't choose some of these texts, to be honest with you. Like, they're not. You know, if it was just up to me, I'd go to a topical one that everybody kind of likes. And, you know, that I already kind of know a little bit and just hammer that in a little bit more.

But the lectionary has us stuck in chapter 10 for three weeks, and you're thinking, man, something's going on there in chapter 10. I just kind of breezed past it in my reading of Matthew, but something is going on there. So when you find Matthew, chapter 10, and then verse 40, go ahead and stand with me, and you'll see that this is a very brief reading this morning. Notice this. It's really the last part here of the chapter, the last three verses.

Matthew, chapter 10. Notice these words. This is the word of God. Jesus said, whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.

And whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous. And whoever gives even a covenant of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly, I tell you, none of these will lose their reward. Jesus, thank you so much for your word. It is always challenging to us because we didn't make it up. But, Lord, we want to understand so that we can obtain.

Obey. Would you send your spirit here in this place this morning to not only enlighten our minds, but move our wills to obey you, to love you? We pray in your name. Amen. And you can be seated.

Well, what did that just say? Right? Welcoming, receiving, and rewarding. Something like that. I want to begin this morning, actually, with this thought before we try to uncover that part of the text.

Is this. At harvest point, we often say this, and I love how Pastor Emily has actually gotten bought into this, and she brings it up more than I do, which I love, because I need the reminder as well. But we often say we gather for worship we scatter into groups and we matter to the community. So this gather, scatter, matter thing, which really has underneath it the more religious words of worship, disciple, serve. Okay?

And by the way, we just got a new shirt that I don't see anybody wearing it, but it actually says that there's a worship the disciple. And it's got serve highlighted because it's our serve shirt, you know, and this is something that we've sort of gathered around as a church because honestly, for 2,000 years now, the church has gathered around those three acts, actions. In other words, when you really look across any denomination, any sect of Christianity, they're going to put a premium on worshiping God, okay? Particularly on Sundays, you know, and discipling people all the time, everywhere going and discipling and on serving both in the church and outside these walls, you know, it's a pretty simple sort of three step understanding. And so I want to lay that before you kind of as a foundation of actually what I think this text is sort of pointing to in a broader sort of topical way, if you will.

You know, we're not just trying to get like a slogan going. I mean, it is memorable. Like we put it in slogan form. So it's memorable, you know, that way you can gather and then it's like, oh, well, that's easy to remember. And then you can remember the deeper things that it leads to, you know, so it is a memorization thing, but at the same time, it's much more than a slogan.

It actually has its basis in three greats, if you will. Three greats of Jesus. Let me just put it that way in Matthew, actually, all of them found in Matthew. The first one would be the Great Commandment. You remember that one, Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Right. Remember the lawyer asked himself, says, what's the greatest commandment? He asks for one, Jesus gives two, but really they're in step with one another. It's almost like one motion with two steps. The first toward God and the other toward others.

And then you have the Great Commission, as you know. Right. So we can call it the Great Commission because, well, it happens at the end of the book, Matthew 28. This is Jesus last words. Before, as we just said moments ago, he ascended into heaven, right?

So before or as he's even ascending into heaven, he's giving us those disciples and every other disciple that follows in their train. He is giving us a great commission and then the great commitment. And that is where Jesus says, you know, the greatest among you will Be what? The servant among you, the one who serves the most is the greatest. Because Jesus says point blank, I did not come to be served, but to serve.

And so you've got this kind of outline of three greats that actually correspond to worship, disciple and serve again. So I want to kind of tie those together. And then we're going to wrap up with just a few comments about our text here in specific. So keep in mind that little two step thing. It's intriguing to me always that in the Bible what you find is not just a relationship with God.

You would think that was all what the Bible is, but it's always littered with human beings. You're thinking, man, if we could just remove all these humans, the Bible would be a great thing. But instead they all get in the way and mess stuff up and then they have to forgive each other and then they get lost and you know, back on track now. And you're thinking, what in the world? But get this, that's not the way the Lord wants us to see his divine revelation.

It's tied together with human history on purpose. He ties himself to humans, doesn't he? We talked about that a couple weeks back, remember, with Israel, with Abraham. You start with Abraham. And God comes to Abraham and gives him promises that will tie the God of the universe, the Creator, to humanity in such a way that through Abraham, all people saw, all nations will be blessed.

He chooses the one. Remember, he elects this one out of the others in order to bless the others. That's the way he chose to do it. And you know, even the ordination yesterday of our dear sister was that kind of very thing. There's the congregation of the people of God.

And he calls out one to bless the others. So election is, I'm calling this one so that now you can bear the burdens of the people and then send my love back to them. This is the way God likes to do it. And I mean, we could sit here and go through every page and show you, but I think you get it right? He is always tying himself to us.

We're running away like Israel does. And at some point their election shows us a very image of fallen man, doesn't it? He elects him and says, I want you to be my people. They say, all right, we want that. And then what do they do?

Choose other gods. Before they ever even leave Sinai, they've got a golden calf falling before it. You're Yahweh. And he says, I'm not in gold and silver and stone and wood. No, I'm above the creation.

And he ties himself to us in covenant.

In covenant. This is the kind of thing, you know, like I'm doing some premarital counseling right now. And you know, some of you are married, some of you are thinking about it. Here's the thing. There's something in us with love that wants to devote ourself to the other in some kind of exclusive covenantal way.

Not just a casual kind of thing. I mean, tied together. And there's something about us, even in friendships, we want to do that, right? It's like there's something that draws us to each other and we want to be with them. Well, that's something God given, it actually is.

And God himself uses covenant to tie himself to us. And of course, when he becomes one of us, that's one of the most concrete ways he does that, isn't it? Like he actually enters the human story not just by interacting with humans from heaven, but from earth.

He is human and he is God in one person. That's why he's the mediator. Remember, he can do both.

Again, my larger point here is in all three of the greats, God is really doing the same kind of two step motion. It's not just love God. It's not just be a disciple of Jesus. It's not just serve God, but then it's love others. It's make disciples.

Not just be one, but make disciples. And then it's serve others. You see that? You see how those are tied together. This horizontal or, sorry, horizontal and vertical relationship between, between God and man intersects right there at the cross.

I mean, there's a literal object lesson right here before us.

And God is essentially saying, listen, you actually can't love me if you don't love others. He even says it in James. He says, how can you love me who you've not seen seen when the ones you have seen, you don't love? His point is no, if you don't love others, you don't love me. If you don't forgive others, you won't be forgiven.

If you're unwilling to serve others in my name, you're not really serving me.

These are some hard things. Brothers and sisters. Sisters. There are things that we need to wrestle with. Why do we love and why do we meet here or meet in groups to be learners of God, but that we are called to help others learn about God?

And you do it in all kinds of ways. We get so limited. Oh, it has to happen in the church building, discipleship, or it has to happen in some, whatever no, it can happen at work. Peopl