“Becoming a Child of Faith” (Matthew 18:1-14)

Matthew 18:1-14

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Pastor Tom Johnson, September 15, 2017

Jesus sounds like a Chicago mobster. “It would be better to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea than to cause one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble or sin.” The eternal consequences of misleading God’s children is severe. 

When I was in seminary in Fort Wayne, I washed windows to pay the bills. Once we were at an empty office building keeping it clean for prospective tenants. Geese had taken over the property laying their eggs in the shelter of the building right next to the windows we were trying to clean. We quickly found out the origin of the expression “getting goosed.” While our eyes were on the windows and our back ends were made vulnerable, one of us used our poles as a defensive martial arts stick while the others cleaned. Jesus is mother goose doing anything to protect her babes. He is tiger mom and papa bear who brings out claw and tooth before any harm comes his little ones.

And what is Jesus so passionate about? That our relationship with God would not be tripped up by sin or sabotaged by pride. He wants us to cultivate humility. The great ones in the Kingdom are those who humble themselves like little children. A false Gospel will trip us up. Little children know their understanding is limited. Their faith may be simple but it is profound. It’s humbling. Without God we are vulnerable, helpless, and in mortal danger of our sin, evil, and this broken world. And so we surrender to the power of God in Jesus Christ. We humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. At the proper time he lifts us up. Martin Luther said, “Though I am a great doctor, I have not yet progressed beyond the instruction of children in the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. I still learn and pray these every day with my Hans and my little Lena.”

God the Father does not want knowledge to puff us up. He wants us to be teachable not to be smarter sinners but more humble servants. There is always room to grow in our love and trust of him and as students of his Word. Christ is vigilant and zealous for our humble trust in him. So much so that he took up the millstone of the world’s sin and was cast into the ocean of death, sin, and evil. He humbled himself to the point of death—even death upon the Cross. He rose victoriously because death could not hold him. He won the fight for our forgiveness and assurance of eternal life and our humble walk with him. His mercy and grace is humbling because he saved us—not we ourselves. And that is how we keep our footing and not stumble as we journey forward—by that same love and grace in humility—just like little goslings under the shelter of his wings.