Dispute and Denial

Our God and our Father, we look to you now, with our Bibles open on our laps, that the Spirit of God may be our teacher. We’re so desperately in need of your help to save us from simply listening to the voice of a man. And so we ask that you will come and speak into our lives. “Speak to [us] by name, O Master; let [us] know it is to [us],”[1] and then grant us grace to follow hard and fast after Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

The Disciples’ Dispute

Last week, we said that there were a number of words that we were going to gather our thoughts around, and we only managed to deal with one of those words. The word was betrayal, and we spent most of the time thinking about the theological concept of foreordination. And we leave that behind for the time being and move on to our second word, which emerges from verse 24 and following. The first word was betrayal, and the second word is dispute. Dispute.

If it is stunning to think of the betrayer emerging from the inner circle of Christ’s followers, it is hardly less dramatic to think of the disciples engaging in this conversation which Luke describes for us here, especially since they’re doing so so quickly on the heels of all that Jesus has said. He has, in the breaking of bread, spoken of his self-giving—his body broken for them, his blood being shed for them.[2] And you would think, wouldn’t you, for a moment or two that in light of that, if we’d been present, we might have been thinking far higher thoughts than these individuals? And what we’re told is that… And the phrase, incidentally, is the same phrase. In verse 23: “They began to question among themselves,” and the phrase “which of them it might be who would do this”—namely, “betray.” And then, in verse 24: “A dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be [the] greatest.”

Surely not! Can it possibly be? This sounds like a pastors’ conference, you know. I wonder if you’ve ever been at a pastors’ conference. If you’re not a pastor, the chances are you haven’t. But to go to these conferences is a daunting prospect, and it brings out the worst in all of the pastors. And when I read this phrase, I said, “These disciples, they look like a pastors’ conference.” “A dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be [the] greatest.” “How big is your church?” What does that mean? “How many services do you have? What do you do here? What do you do there?” And when you attend these events, some of the greatest insecurities in each of our lives come out as we try and let everybody know that we’re actually doing phenomenally well, even though we may be doing pretty poorly.

So I’m actually encouraged by this little scenario here. I’m encouraged that these disciples did what they did. I know they shouldn’t have, but it makes me feel a lot better, ’cause I’ve done this. Oh, I’m sure none of you have. I’m sure it’s never crossed your mind this week to think of yourself more highly than you ought, to think of yourself as more significant than you really are,[3] to give yourself an edge by thinking about doing somebody else down, of considering the fact of where you’ve been and what you’ve done and what you’ve earned and the status that you have secured as somehow or another being the really significant thing—the thing that makes the bells ring and makes the world spin.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus would choose such a group? I’m encouraged by that too. If he had chosen twelve marines, all of them with the potential of becoming four-star generals, how could we have identified with this group—except those of us who have the same potential, which limits us significantly? But what does he take? He takes this ragbag of humanity. He takes Philip, who’s a diffident kind of character. Takes Peter, who’s always got his foot in his mouth—takes it out momentarily to put the other one in. He takes Thomas, who’s always saying, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly believe that. Where’s the evidence? Where’s the proof?” Takes Matthew, who, after all, was a tax collector working for the government—a bit of a rascal and so on. Just a strange group of individuals. Have you looked around this morning? I don’t think anybody could come in here and say, “Well, apparently, he came for the brightest and the best.” What a strange group of people Jesus puts together. Yes, look at them.

“A dispute arose … as to which of them was considered to be [the] greatest.” Now, you would think they would have learned in time, because this wasn’t new. If you turn back to chapter 9 for just a moment, you realize that Jesus has been tackling this thing over the duration of time that they have been his followers. Luke 9:46: “An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and [made] him stand beside him. Then he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all—he[’s] the greatest.’” Now, this is such a topsy-turvy view of the world, isn’t it? “He who is [the] least among you … is [actually] the greatest.”

Pride is the ugliest of monsters. Pride penetrates everything. And pride, in our contemporary culture, has actually been elevated to a position of desirability.

Their timing is horrible! So soon before the crucifixion! So quickly after this celebratory Passover meal! “You shouldn’t be sitting in that seat! That’s my seat! I always sit there.” “Hey, I don’t care if you were on the Mount of Transfiguration. Sit down. I like it here.” Just like children! Just like us, jockeying for position. Jockeying for position.

See, pride is an ugly monster. Pride is actually the ugliest of monsters. Pride transcends racial barriers, intellectual barriers, social barriers. Pride penetrates everything. And pride, in our contemporary culture, has actually been elevated to a position of desirability. I followed a car the other day, and it had a bumper sticker that said “Pride is honor.” I don’t think it is. I think humility is honor. Pride is ugly. But to think in that way now—to think biblically, if you like, in that kind of environment—is to find ourselves immediately at odds with the surrounding thought forms. Which is exactly what Jesus was saying to his disciples.

When you read the Puritan writers, you discover that they had a better grasp on this issue than many. And so, during the week, I did, and I want to give you just a number of quotes.[4] You won’t have time to write them down. You don’t need to. Just let them percolate through your thinking.

Says one of the writers, “Pride loves to climb up, not as Zaccheus to see Christ, but to be seen.”[5] You see, Zacchaeus climbs up the tree so he may get a view of Christ. We climb up the tree so that everyone around will say, “Oh, look at her up the tree!” Or how about this: “As [sin] is [of] the last enemy; so pride the last sin that shall be destroyed in us.”[6] Or this: “Only a [strong] Christian … can bear the … wine of commendation without the [resulting] spiritual intoxication.”[7] In other words, it takes a strong Christian to be able to live with commendation without the commendation intoxicating them and thereby distorting their view of the universe. That’s why the Scottish lady said to me a long time ago, when I was ten, “Sonny, flattery is like perfume: sniff it; don’t swallow it.” Makes the same point. Many of us are unable to deal with commendation.

And incidentally and in passing, this is why we need to exercise great care with our children. Great care with our children. We need to know when not to commend them. They are not always commendable. Their activities are not always worthy of commendation. And if their notion in life is that they exist simply for commendation, then they will grow up to be some of the most obnoxious rascals that you have ever seen in your life.

“When the devil cannot [keep] us,” says another, “from a good work, then he [will work in every way] to make us proud of it.”[8] If he can’t keep us from engaging in a good work, then he will labor to make us proud of the good work, thereby diminishing any sense of influence at all. And finally: “For the avoiding of this vice (pride), God [allows] men to fall into other vices, which men abhor and punish, [such] as theft and fornication, and drunkenness, to make them ashamed by these vices, [who] were not ashamed of pride.”[9] It’s an interesting thought: that God will allow men—and I’m using “men” generically now—God will allow men and women to fall into obvious, ugly sins that are regarded as such in the community in order to confront them with the ugly monster, which is the fact that they refuse to face—namely, pride in their own hearts. God doesn’t tolerate it. He exalts the humble, and he resists the proud.[10]

So the disciples are really missing the point, aren’t they? They’re missing the point completely. Is it that they were concerned about the seating arrangements? Possibly. Jesus has said to them in verse 27, “[Listen,]” he says, “I am among you as one who serves.” That’s the point. Now, when you read John in parallel to this, in chapter 13, you can see the impact that must have been made when, in the context of this dialogue, Jesus gets up from the table, takes a basin of water, wraps a towel around himself, and goes and washes all their feet. Indeed, it would seem more than likely that the dispute as to who was the greatest had to do with what they weren’t going to do: “I’m not washing the feet! I’ve washed the feet six times. I washed the feet at Martha’s house. I’m tired of washing your feet. Your feet stink, Peter! I am not washing your feet.” And while the debate is going on—which is this: “I am above this!”—Jesus stands up in the midst of it and, without a word, does for them what they refuse to do for one another. “I am among you,” he says, “as one who serves.” What an impact on this self-serving community! What a classic lesson in humility!

Surely, after he had done this, his words would have rung out with compelling impact. Verse 25: you imagine him just finally wiping the water from his hands, sitting back down, and then saying, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; … those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors.” Then notice: “But you are not to be like that.” “You’re acting,” he says, “in the way in which contemporary culture acts. You’re acting just in the manner of earthly kings and rulers.” And what he’s not doing is saying, “This is a system that, when perverted, is wrong.” He’s saying, “This whole notion is wrong.”

Earthly kings and rulers, in the day in which Jesus is addressing the issue, used their authority as a means of establishing status and honor. The Roman world—and, indeed, to some extent the Jewish world—operated on the basis of benefaction. The benefactors were individuals who were prosperous enough not to have to pay taxes. They were, if you like, able to make quarterly returns. They didn’t have the stuff taken out of their paycheck. It wasn’t gone before they got their paws on it. They were in a position where they could decide how they were going to be disbursing all of this material, and they could find ways to do it in a most advantageous fashion. And what they did was, since they did not have to pay taxes into the community, they used their wealth to do things for the towns and cities and villages in such a way so as to legitimate their public office and to establish a position of privilege within the community. In order to provide leadership, you had to be wealthy; therefore, only the wealthy could provide leadership. And Jesus says in verse 26, and I take it to you again, “But you are not to be like that. You’re not supposed to be like that.”

Now, before the searchlight of God’s Word, let’s be honest: the mechanisms within the church of Jesus Christ owe far more to the thought forms of the surrounding culture, in many instances, than they do to any divine principles that are laid down in the Scriptures. And we dodge and weave around it. Jesus takes the system on headfirst. Instead of exploiting their positions, the followers of Jesus should exercise leadership by serving rather than seeking to be served. To do so, then, is to alter the emphasis from status and from honor and to place it upon the well-being of others.

That’s why he had taken the little child and put him beside him: because in the context of the day, as in the context of an earlier generation here in the United States, children, by dint of their age, were the lowest on the totem pole. They were supposed to be seen and not heard. They were supposed to speak when they were spoken to. Doesn’t this all sound very archaic? Doesn’t this sound like your great-grandmother? As opposed to the contemporary environment, where the youngest dominates the restaurant, where the unruly little tike becomes the devotion of humanity, where the adults say, “Well, who am I to interfere? After all, she has a mind of her own, you know.” Yes, and you were given as her mother, dumb cluck, in order to prevent her from turning out like a monster! So step up!

Jesus takes the child, and he says, “Here! The least is to be the greatest, and the greatest shall be as the least.” In other words, “I’m going to turn everything on its head. And when you find yourself moving around, acting as if everyone owes it to you, acting as if you have honor and prestige as a result of things that are only the evidences of the grace of God in your life, then,” he says, “you need to gaze again into the mirror of the Word and have a check.”

“Is it the one who is waited on or the one who waits who is the greatest?” He asks the question. And the answer is—it’s a rhetorical question—the answer is: the person who gets waited on is greater. He’s paying the tip. He’s paying the bill. The waiter is the waiter. Jesus says, “I am among you as the waiter.”

Well, let’s contemporize it, at least for some. You’re watching the Memorial Tournament down in Columbus. Who is the greatest: the one who plays or the one who caddies? Clearly the one who plays. He gets to choose his own clothes. Nobody tells him, “You have to wear this,” or “You have to wear that.” He may have to wear a pin, but he likes to wear a pin because it says status: “I can get in here.” But the caddies… ’Cause I traveled with a caddy this week at the Memorial Tournament—one of my friends. And when we got off the bus and we went into the bag room, the clothes that he’d been wearing—his Adidas tracksuit—came off, and he put on a white jumpsuit. I said, “Andrew, you just look like everybody else.” He said, “That’s the plan.” And now, as he moves around, up until that point, some would have said, “You know, he’s a pretty good-looking guy in an Adidas tracksuit. Is he one of the players from South America?” But as soon as he put on the white jumpsuit with his name across the back—actually, not his name across the back; someone else’s name across the back—he loses his identity in servanthood. Right? And everywhere he goes, any status he has emerges as a result of the fact that he carries, he doesn’t play; he rakes, he doesn’t chip it out of the sand. Jesus says, “I am among you as the one who carries. I am among you as the one who rakes. I am among you as the one wearing the white jumpsuit. It is the kings of the gentiles who act in this way.”

Now, for those of you who are internalizing this and getting yourself on a dreadful guilt trip because you make quarterly returns and you’re prosperous, let me point this out to you: This is not some kind of socialism on the part of Jesus—you know, up the workers, and up the caddies, and “Rah, rah!” for the whatever it is. What Jesus is saying is this: that if you find yourself in a position of authority, if you find yourself in a position of leadership, if you find yourself with the privileges of benefaction that legitimate your existence, if you have been entrusted with resources, if you have been granted significance, then it is absolutely crucial that in your heart of hearts, somewhere in the core of your being, when people commend you and grant you adulation and open doors for you, that before God, in the silence of your own room, you know that the greatest significance that you have is as a result of the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ, and that the foot of the cross is absolutely level, and that there is no greater privilege than the privilege of serving.

What a dispute!

“I’m going to the cross now. What are you talking about, fellas?”

“Oh, we were just having a little discussion. Nothing much.”

Peter’s Denial

Next word is denial. We probably won’t get much further than denial. Gets worse, doesn’t it? Verse 31…

Incidentally, I’m not deliberately jumping the conferring of the kingdom. What Jesus is simply pointing out is “Don’t focus on these earthly kingdoms. Just recognize that the kingdom that I’m conferring on you works on a different principle. Let your focus be on a kingdom that is eternal.”

“Simon? Simon…” Now, that must’ve reverberated in Simon’s mind, because after all, when he had been called as a disciple, Jesus had given him a new name. His name Simon means “shaky.” Mr. Shaky. And Jesus calls him, says, “Hey, Shaky? I want you to follow me. And from now on I have a name for you. You will be known as the Rock.”[11] You can imagine Peter saying, “That’s nice. I like that. ‘The Rock.’” And here, in the way in which a mother sometimes, using the middle name of a child, arrests their attention… “Jonathan William!” “Yes, Mom?” “Simon, Simon…”

Now, what is Jesus doing? He’s simply pointing out to him that he is, once again, very shaky. In fact, underneath his new name there is still a very shaky individual. And with justification, he reminds Peter of his frailty. He tells him expressly what’s going on: “Satan has asked to sift you as wheat”—not Peter expressly but the disciples as a group. How do we know that? Well, we know that because the “you” is plural. It’s not singular. “Satan has asked to sift you,” plural. “He’s going to tumble you all up and down”—the whole disciples group. It’s not that Peter is isolated in terms of the approach of the Evil One.

Incidentally and in passing, the Evil One has no free and unlimited right of access to the believer. People ask me this all the time: “Do you think I’m overwhelmed by Satan? Do you think I’m dominated by demons? Do you think” whatever else it is. My answer is “Absolutely not. No.” “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”[12] Satan has no access to you. He has no free unlimited approach. He cannot come, as it were, and knock your door and invade your house. The only way he may do so is if he gets permission, first of all, from God himself. If you doubt that, go back and read the book of Job, and pay careful attention to what the approach is here: “Hey, Simon, you need to know that Satan has asked if he can sift you and your colleagues as wheat.” He requires permission. God grants permission sometimes, and he does so within certain boundaries.

You think about it in relationship to the Puritan quote that I just gave you, as I just think about it myself. The Puritan said, “God suffers us to be—God allows us to be—confronted by A and B and C.” In other words, God allows these temptations to come at us. And the request has come: “I want to have a go at your boys.” And Jesus says, “That’s okay. Go right ahead.”

“But I have prayed for you.” He moves from the plural to the singular. “I have prayed for you.” “I’ve prayed for you expressly, Peter. And my prayer has been this: that your faith may not fail. And I want to say to you: when you’ve turned back, I want you to strengthen your brothers.”

What a wonderful statement, isn’t it? “I have prayed for you.” Think about what it means when somebody says to you that they prayed for you, or that they are praying for you. They call you on the phone and say, “I prayed for you this week,” or “I’m going to pray for you in light of what you’re facing.” It means a great deal, and so it should. And Jesus looks Peter in the eyes, and he says that “the Evil One has plans to disrupt you as a group. I want you to know, Peter, that I have prayed expressly for you.” The ministry of Christ, in part, for the believer today remains a ministry of intercession. Read the book of Hebrews, and be encouraged by it.[13] Remind yourself of some of the songs we sing: “Jesus is King, and I will extol Him,” and that wonderful line or two where it says, “[And] we have a Priest who[’s] there interceding, pouring His grace on our lives day by day.”[14] It’s an immense thought that Jesus, the second person of the Godhead, is before the Father in heaven, and he bears your name to the Father. And he says, you know, “Miriam is facing this, Father, and I am asking you today… Tom is going through this. Amy is overwhelmed by this. These dear ones are consumed by these things, and Father, I’m speaking to you on their behalf. I am pleading their case.” Sometimes, when you find yourself overwhelmed, remember that. “Intercessor, friend of sinners, earth’s Redeemer, plead for me.”[15]

And the assignment is clear: “When you have turned back…” And what an encouragement there must have been in that! “When you[’ve] turned back, [I want you to] strengthen your brothers.” “Strengthen your brothers.” In other words, “When you get yourself back on an even keel, Peter, what I want you to do is to strengthen others who are not on an even keel.”

Have you been restored at some point in your life? Some declension? You’ve found yourself in Bypath Meadow, to use Pilgrim’s Progress? Or you fought a royal battle with Apollyon and lost? Or you ended up in Doubter’s Castle? Or your feet were filthy from the Slough of Despond, and you thought you’ll never get out? And somehow or another, the Lord Jesus came, and he picked you up, and he set you on a rock, and he established your going?[16] Would you realize what he wants you to do? He wants you now to comfort others with the comfort that you’ve received.[17] He wants you now to strengthen others whose hold is shaky. He wants you to get alongside people who find themselves in Bypath Meadow and say, “You know what? I was there! I want you to know that it is possible to get out of there. I’ve been in Doubter’s Castle! I can’t tell you—I thought that I would never see the light of day again! But let me tell you the Scriptures that helped me. Let me tell you the way that the worship of God’s people constrained me”—whatever it is. “Once you have been turned back, once you have been strengthened, then, now, you go ahead, Peter, and you strengthen these other guys. They’re going to need you, Peter.”

Now, you would expect maybe—just a chance—that Peter would say, “Oh, thank you, Jesus. Thank you so much. I mean, I’m disappointed to hear the news, but thank you for the promise that you’re going to bring me through.” But no, no, look what he does: “Well, Jesus, thank you for mentioning this, but I just need you to know that I’m ready to go with you to prison and to death.” Now, don’t let’s be too hard on him. Presumably, he felt that he was. He felt that he was! “I know these other fellas. I can’t bank for them, Jesus, but me? It’s Rocky! I’m your man! I know you called me Shaky. I know you were just trying to get my attention. But I’m not shaky anymore. I’m Rocky!” “Adrian!” “I’m Rocky! We can do this, Jesus! I… You know, don’t waste a moment’s thought on this, Jesus.”

I love him for this. I really do. I’m glad he did this. ’Cause if he got it right at this point, then I wouldn’t have anybody to go to every time I was impulsive and impetuous, and made these great declarations of faith, and then hit the wall at 140 miles an hour. I mean, think about it. Think about last Sunday—you know, when God spoke into your heart, and you said, you know, “Oh, this is the Sunday for… I’m ready now. I’m going out of here. I’m going to, you know… Whew! I’m going to serve you! You know, I can go to prison for you, die for you.” And you hadn’t got, you know, to the end of Pettibone Road and that had gone flying out the back window. You said, “How do I get all these hellish thoughts in my mind. I mean, we just had the benediction! It was the start of the rest of my life. And I haven’t got to the corner, and I said, ‘What is that jerk doing there? What is she doing? What is… Oh man, does this place… What in the…’”

I don’t mean to be so autobiographical, but the fact of the matter is that… Now, what do you do there, in that situation? What does Jesus come and do? Does Jesus come and say, “No, no, no, no, no, that’s okay. No, your thoughts are great. They’re great thoughts. No, first three are discounted. You’ve got three freebies; they don’t count. It’s only once you get to four and on. And four, five, and six, I’ve heard them so many times, I’m not even paying attention to them anymore. But let’s talk about seven, eight, and nine. That took it to a new low.” No, he doesn’t do that at all. He says, “You know what? That is exactly the way you are, and that is exactly why I died for you, and that is exactly why you need to trust in me, and that is exactly why you need to remember that I am there interceding for you: because you are chaos on two legs. You are a sinner. You are a wanderer. You are impulsive and at times repulsive. But I love you. I died for you. You’re my girl. You’re my man.” This is grace, you see.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let [this grace, Lord,] like a fetter,
Bind my wandering [soul] to thee.
Prone to wonder—[oft] I feel it—
Prone to leave the God I love;
[Take] my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it [in] thy courts above.[18]

You see, this is the great truth.

In the service of Christ, self-reliance doesn’t count as a plus; it counts as a negative.

Now, the problem with Peter—and with this I probably need to close, which is always an encouragement—but the problem here with Peter was not a lack of self-esteem, was it? He would have found it very funny to read most of the contemporary literature on “The reason you’re messed up is because you don’t think enough about yourself.” No, the problem was that Peter was unwilling to face up to what he really was. He was unwilling to recognize that he could become so unfaithful. He had developed a sense of self-reliance that was dangerous. It’s always dangerous. In the service of Christ, self-reliance is bogus! Self-reliance doesn’t count as a plus; it counts as a negative.

Do you see how different this is from the framework of the thinking of the time and how different it is from the framework of our thinking today? What Peter needed to do was face up to what he was really like. But he couldn’t see himself. Have you seen yourself? No. I have never seen myself—mercifully! I’ve seen myself in a mirror, but I never saw my self self. I saw a reflection of myself. You can never really see your profile. Your mother asks you, “Do you hear yourself?” But you never really hear yourself.

So Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, thinking about this says, “Wad [to God] the giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us!”[19] It would be painful, but it would be helpful, wouldn’t it? To face up to what we really are in the cold light of dawn and in the searchlight of Scripture. And Peter couldn’t see himself! He was blindsided by his view of himself, and his view of himself was overemphasized.

“Hey, Shaky!”

“I’m not Shaky. You gave me a… I’m Rocky.”

“Oh, Peter.”

“I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you[’ve] [known] me.” What’s with the rooster? Isn’t it interesting? You look at that, and you say, “Of all the things, you know, why do we have to say ‘the rooster’?” Well, of course, he didn’t say, “before your alarm clock goes off.” But essentially, what he’s saying is “Before your alarm clock goes off, you’ll deny me three times.” In other words, “Peter, I know you’re making this great affirmation of faith, but your hold on me is so shallow that before the day is out, you will deny me three times. And I want you to know that it’s before the rooster crows, because when the rooster goes, you’ll remember this.”

And I think that’s the second reason he mentions the rooster. Because if you look forward—and we just go forward for our encouragement—when Peter denies Jesus in verse 59, and then he replies in 60, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and “just as he was speaking, the [cock] crowed,” and “the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter,” and “Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: ‘Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.’ And he went outside and [he] wept bitterly.” And Jesus ties his denial to the rooster because with the crowing of the rooster he will ring the bell of Peter’s conscience. He’ll ring the bell of Peter’s conscience. That in itself is an act of grace. “I’m going to give you an alarm clock, Peter. And when the thing goes off, you’ll remember what I told you today.”

Now, I have to resist the temptation. I can hear Dick Lucas, my dear mentor, in the back of my head, saying, “Come, now, dear brother, don’t do this.” And the average preacher’s going to ask you about the roosters in your life, you know. We can’t go there—you know, “What is your rooster?” and all this, and the people go and ask for the tape: “Can I have the rooster tape?” So we’re not doing that. We’re not doing that.

But think about it: Isn’t it an act of God’s grace that he rings the bell of our conscience? However he uses, whatever he uses—headlights on the driveway, the telephone ringing, the word of our mother, the recollection of a poem, whatever it is: bam! Rings the bell, arrests us, says, “Come on, now, that’s far enough. Don’t go any further. And when you get back on an even keel, strengthen all those other guys. They need you.” What a wonderful Jesus!

“Now, I’m going to go and die.” “Well, I’m not washing the feet.” I’ll come back to this this evening, if there is a “this evening.” He says to them—in the middle of all this, he says—“You are [the ones] who have stood [with] me in my [trial].” “You[’re] [the ones] who have stood [with] me in my [trial].” That sounds like a commendation, doesn’t it? That sound like an attaboy. You think how we would operate with a group like this: “You know what? I don’t need you guys. I can make stones sing.[20] I can get children for Abraham out of anywhere.[21] I’m frankly sick to death of the whole lot of you—one in particular; the other eleven of you are useless. I’ve done my best with you. I’ve poured my life out for you. I’m about to die for you. You think I’m going to have to put… Get out of here!” That would have been understandable, wouldn’t it? “We’re going to have to get a new team. This group is no good—faltering, stumbling, bumbling bunch of rascals.” And he says, “Guys, come here. You’re the ones who stood with me in my trial.”

“No, no, we’re the ones who are arguing.”

“Don’t worry about the arguing just now. You’re the ones who stood with me in the…”

“No, we’re the ones who argue.”

“No, no, no. You’re the ones who stood with me.”

You see what grace does? See why we have to be gracious with people? You see why your marriage is all messed up? Because you won’t be gracious. “Well, I’ll never forget!” I understand. But if you want to be gracious… “Well, I’ll…” Do you want to be gracious? “Well, they’re…”

“The kings of the gentiles operate on a different basis. You must not be like that. I am among you as the one who rakes the traps, carries the bag, wears the jumpsuit. Go out and do the same thing.” It’s a revolutionary message, isn’t it? And without his empowering grace, it’s a chronicle of despair.

We’ll come back to this.

Father, thank you so much for the Bible. Thank you for Jesus and for the clarity with which he speaks. Grant that all that is of yourself may resonate in our hearts and minds, and that which is untrue or unwise or unhelpful, we ask for grace to forget it. We pray that the love of Jesus may draw us afresh to him, that the joy of Jesus may fill our hearts and banish everything else that fights for control, and that the peace of Jesus may guard and keep our minds.

And may grace, mercy, and peace from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with each one, today and forevermore. Amen.

[1] Frances Ridley Havergal, “Master, Speak! Thy Servant Heareth” (1867).

[2] See Luke 22:19–20.

[3] See Romans 12:3.

[4] See I. D. E. Thomas, ed., The Golden Treasury of Puritan Quotations (Chicago: Moody, 1975), 223–26.

[5] William Gurnall, quoted in Golden Treasury, 223.

[6] John Boys, quoted in Golden Treasury, 224.

[7] William Jenkyn, quoted in Golden Treasury, 225.

[8] Henry Smith, quoted in Golden Treasury, 225.

[9] Smith, quoted in Golden Treasury, 226.

[10] See James 4:6.

[11] John 1:42 (paraphrased).

[12] 1 John 4:4 (KJV).

[13] See Hebrews 7:25.

[14] Wendy Hill, “Jesus Is King” (1982).

[15] William Chatterton Dix, “Alleluia! Sing to Jesus” (1866).

[16] See Psalm 40:2.

[17] See 2 Corinthians 1:4.

[18] Robert Robinson, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (1760).

[19] Robert Burns, “To a Louse, on Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet, at Church” (1786).

[20] See Luke 19:40.

[21] See Matthew 3:9; Luke 3:8.