Jesus and the Disciples

Well, it's good to be here. I'd rather talk to a bunch of preachers and preacher's wives and Christian workers than anybody else. The main reason being, you don't have to stop and explain everything.

If you mention a publican, you know what a publican is. You don't think it's a Republican. And I'm honored that you would take time to come.

I know how busy you people are. When I was in the pastorate, I was busy. So it really is a delight to be here.

Today, it may sound like I'm rambling. I'm not. Believe me, I'm prepared.

But I want to talk with you simply about ministering to solve problems. When I was teaching in the Doctor of Ministries program for Trinity Seminary up in Deerfield, we had older and younger pastors. Come right in.

Come right in. Yeah, I'd rather you be Roger late than the late Roger. And some of the younger pastors would, you know, one of them would raise his hand and say, you know, what we need to do is to get back to the churches of the New Testament.

I'd say, terrific. Which one do you want? Well, that'd kind of wake them up a little bit. And I'd say, man, I can tell you how to solve every problem in your church very quickly.

Boy, they'd grab their pinch, you know. Get rid of the people. Well, then we wouldn't have a church.

Yeah, and then you wouldn't have a job. We all know that. We all know that.

In our churches, we have people with problems, and we also have problem people. And there's a difference. People with problems are normal people.

Normal people have problems. They have physical problems, financial problems, relative problems, job problems. That's why we're there.

We're there to help them discover what Jesus can do for them in solving their problems. We also have not just people with problems, but problem people. And I want to say this right up front.

I've been criticized for saying this, but I'm going to say it right up front. I used to teach my students this. There are people in churches who, if their problems were solved, they would lose their identity.

Do I speak the truth? Yeah. They live for their problems. And if they ever didn't have those problems, they'd have no reason to exist.

And they're the hardest ones to deal with, particularly if they get into a place of leadership. Now, what I'd like to do at this first session is walk with you through some of the Gospels. And notice how Jesus prepared his disciples to deal with what we would call ministerial problems.

And the place to start is probably in Matthew 13. Now, most of what I'm going to say, you're going to say, yeah, I knew that, I knew that. Well, then I hope it all falls together so you can see the total picture.

Matthew chapter 13, our Lord was facing a huge crowd. I recommend to you that you study how Jesus dealt with crowd. He had a huge crowd, so he got in the boat, pushed off from the land, and he taught them from the boat.

Vernon McGee used to say that every pulpit ought to be a fishing boat, and I think he was right. Now, here were the disciples. Now, put yourself in their place.

Here is Jesus teaching, teaching this huge crowd. And they were saying, man, this is good. I mean, we are his disciples, and we've got all these people here.

It's going to be marvelous. And Jesus said, would you just listen to what I'm saying? First thing he did was give them the parable of the sower, which said to his disciples, okay, you see that crowd up there? Three-fourths of the hearts will not receive what I'm saying. Don't get your hopes up too high now, folks.

And the one-fourth who do receive the seed of the word, some will reproduce 30-fold, some 60, some 100. Don't be elated by a big crowd. God sees their hearts.

You see, if a big crowd inflates you, a small crowd will deflate you. And the preacher who cannot preach to a small crowd will never have the privilege of preaching to too many big crowds. Then he gave them the parable of the tares.

And you know the parable of the tares. The seed becomes not the word of God, but the people of God. In the first parable, the seed is the word of God.

In the tares parable, the seed are the people of God. And Jesus said, I'm putting my people where I want them. I planted me in Lincoln, Nebraska, and planted you in Albany or Tuscaloosa or wherever.

And in that parable, he says, wherever I plant a true child of God, the devil is going to come and plant a counterfeit. Now, you can just trace that through the Bible. You have Abel.

You got Cain. 1 John 3.12 says Cain was of that wicked one. He was a child of the devil.

Moses goes to perform his signs before Pharaoh. Jannes and Jambres come. They duplicate the whole thing, except the one that he couldn't duplicate.

John the Baptist looks out at his crowd and sees the Pharisees and scribes out there, the hypocrites, and he says, you children of the vipers, generation of vipers, that's snakes, children of the devil. Jesus called the Pharisees and the scribes children of the devil. Never called a prostitute that.

Never called a publican that. Only the self-righteous religious crowd. But wherever God planted John the Baptist, here come the children of the devil.

Jesus came, here come the children of the devil. Paul goes out on his first missionary journey, and this magician shows up, and Paul looks at him and says, you child of the devil. So Jesus was saying to his disciples, okay, this crowd impresses you, but I want you to know that wherever I go to preach, the counterfeits are going to be there.

Now why are they there? I don't know. I don't think anybody knows why people go to church. Now my guess is that 15% of them are there because they really want to worship God.

They really want to worship God. 15% wish they weren't there. They'd rather be home.

The other 70% waver between the two. Nobody knows why they go to church. They see their girlfriend or their boyfriend or sell insurance or who knows.

So our Lord was saying to his disciples, don't measure your ministry by the crowd. Now it doesn't mean we work harder and harder to have fewer and fewer. That's foolish.

Where there's life, there's going to be a growth. But it's not always going to be the same way in every place. So he had to get them straightened out about the crowds.

Then in Matthew Chapter 16, Matthew Chapter 16, our Lord Jesus takes his disciples, and you know this but I'm just reviewing it, up to Caesarea Philippi for a little retreat. And he wants to talk to them about what's going to happen. He's been with them about a year.

Now he wants to talk to them about what's going to happen. In Matthew Chapter 16, Verse 21, he had asked his disciples, who do people say I am? Now if I asked that question, it would be arrogant. What are people saying about me? Our Lord has every right to ask that question because if you're wrong about him, you're wrong about everything.

Well, they said some people say you are Elijah. I don't know where they were. I can't think of anybody in the Bible less like the Lord Jesus than Elijah.

Some say you're Jeremiah. That's much better. Jeremiah the weeping prophet.

Jeremiah who faithfully ministered for 40 years and saw his nation fall apart. And one of the prophets, he said, who do you say I am? And that's when Peter spoke up and said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Now, Verse 21, from that time, Jesus Christ began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, and be raised up on the third day.

This is the first time he had hinted about this. He had hinted about it. This is the first time he clearly said, I'm heading for crucifixion.

Now, the disciples had to learn about how to handle the crowd and not be intimidated, elated, or even discouraged in that now they were going to have to learn how to face the cross. Now, you know the rest of the story. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

I think of Paul's statement, and who has been the Lord's counselor, you know? And say to him, God forbid this shall never happen to you. And he said, get behind me, Satan. The apostles had a serious problem with the cross.

And our Lord was saying to them, you better get straightened out on this thing, on the cross, the fact that I'm going to go to the cross and die because this is at the very heart of who I am, what I'm going to do, and what you're going to do. One of the hardest things the apostles had to learn was to unlearn. And you have that problem in every church.

Before we can plant the seed of the Word of God, we have to dig out the weeds, plow the land up, and plant the seed. Our Lord was forever reteaching them because they would not unlearn things they'd grown up with. I pastored at Moon Church for seven years.

We had 30 different denominations there. It was not a Baptist church per se, although all I did was immerse. But it was kind of a city church, a non-denominational type church.

And when people came to unite with us, they had to be born again, et cetera, et cetera. But they all came with their baggage. This is the way we do it at All Saints Lutheran, or this is the way we do it at the First Church of I Will Arise, or this is the way we do it here.

Well, that's fine. That's wonderful. If you like that, go back there.

But this is the way we do it here. And people have to unlearn things. And Peter had to unlearn something, that it was the will of God for the servants of God to face the cross.

Anybody who goes into ministry and avoids the cross is not going to have much of a ministry. Now, I do not hold to Roman Catholic theology. I have Roman Catholic friends that I believe are truly born again, but I don't hold to their theology.

But one of their finest writers was Henry Nowen. He worked himself to death on his sabbatical. When he was supposed to rest, he ran all over, and he had a heart attack and died.

But he's written a little book, which some of you have read, called The Wounded Healer. If you've not read it, get it. It's not a Roman Catholic book.

It's a book on ministry. The Wounded Healer. And all he says is, Our Lord Jesus Christ is a healer, but he's a wounded healer.

When he went back to heaven, he took with him the marks of the cross. The only work of man in heaven today are the wounds on the body of Jesus. He's a wounded healer.

Not scars. Our hymns writers, it's hard to rhyme with wound. So they use scars.

But not scars. It says wounds. And you and I are not going to avoid the cross.

And that's why Jesus began to talk to them about that. Now we're going to get into a series of questions, four questions, that the disciples asked Jesus that point the way to how Jesus prepared the disciples for their ministry, and how he wants to prepare us, and how we prepare others. And so we turn to Matthew chapter 18.

Now let me get you up to speed on what happened before. One day, Jesus was looking at his 12 apostles, and he said, Peter, James, John, come with me. And off they went.

They went to the Mount of Transfiguration where Moses and Elijah came down. Moses finally made it to the Holy Land. And that's true.

He finally made it. And the other nine are left behind, being embarrassed because they couldn't cast the demon out of the little boy, you remember that. And then when Jesus and the three men came down, the disciples who were left, the nine said, what was that? What happened? Where'd you go? Can't tell you.

Can't tell you. That makes for good unity, doesn't it? And the Lord Jesus then, after that Transfiguration experience, they came and said to Peter, does your master pay the temple tax? He says, yeah. Shortest speech Peter ever made.

Yeah. And Peter turned to go in. Jesus said, go down and catch a fish.

You'll find the money in his mouth. Now, here are two events. Peter, James, and John go up to the Mount of Transfiguration.

Peter's taxes are paid by the Lord Jesus. Now we have Matthew 18.1. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Why were they saying that? Because it looked like Jesus was showing favorites, picking favorites. Now, the nine did not know what happened.

He said, don't you tell anybody what happened up there until after my resurrection. Now, we don't like people who have favorites. The Lord does not have pets, but the Lord does have some favorites.

He favored Charles Spurgeon in ways he's never favored me. You say, well, you didn't maybe live up to it like Spurgeon did. It's possible.

I never smoked cigars. Martin Lloyd-Jones told me that Campbell Morgan smoked eight cigars a day for 40 years. Now, our Lord is trying to teach his disciples, look, if I want to do this, I'm going to do it.

One of the greatest doctrines in the Bible is the sovereignty of God. Sovereignty of God. And you don't have to belong to a reformed church to believe in the sovereignty of God.

It was in the Bible before the Calvin's Institutes were written. I once asked a friend of mine who was a very ardent, very ardent and godly man, but a very ardent Calvinist, whether God predestined Wesley to be an Arminian. And his answer was, of course.

That takes care of that. But God works with his servants the way he wants to work with them. Now, we're going to get into that again because the disciples had a problem with that.

They had problems with crowds. They had problems with the cross. And they had problems with the way Jesus worked with his people, his men.

And here's the first question. Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? This is one of the basic questions that creates problems in churches. Most of the people who attend our services, I can't document it, but many of the people who are in places of leadership have an invisible sign around their neck that they hope you can read that says, please make me feel important.

Come right in. And the disciples had this problem. Who is going to be the greatest? Now, once you whip that question, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, you solve a lot of problems.

We have to teach the people in our congregations, and particularly the people who are leaders, only God is great. There are no great preachers. There are no great churches.

There are high-profile, well-known preachers. There are big churches that are well-known, and there's nothing wrong with being known. God said to Joshua, today I'm going to magnify your name in Israel.

Nothing wrong. If God wants to magnify your name, that's his business. Don't you magnify it.

I know you heard about the preacher who preached what he thought was a very, very good sermon, got in the car and waited for his wife to tell him how good it was. Remember him? She didn't say anything. Finally, he said, there aren't many good, great preachers left in the world anymore.

She said, yeah, there's one less than you think. Now, we get that way. Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Now, how did Jesus respond to this? By the way, Mark reads this way.

He began to question them, what were you discussing on the way? But they kept silent. One of them did speak up and say, who's the greatest? He taught them humility. He said, now, here's a child, and I want you to have the childlike spirit.

Don't be childish. Nothing's worse than an adult who is childish. Well, maybe there is one thing worse, a child who tries to act like an adult.

They're both just as bad. Don't be childish. Be childlike.

Meaning, know that you're dependent. A child is totally dependent, has to live by faith. So he taught them humility, and he taught them not to cause other people to stumble.

It's interesting, shortly after that, John came to him and said, Master, we saw somebody casting out demons in your name, Luke 9 and Mark 9, and we tried to hinder him because he does not follow along with us. A great spirit to have. We're the only ones.

If he doesn't belong to our, if he doesn't read our magazine, boy, he hasn't got it. And there's a lot of that today, this exclusiveness. And Jesus said, no, that's not humility.

That's just not humility. That's not the way we do it. Don't stop him.

He went on to talk to them about being honest with one another. If your brother sins against you, you go talk to him about it. Don't go tell the whole church about it.

And then he gave them a marvelous parable on forgiveness. We're now in Matthew 18. And if, verse 15, and if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private.

If he listens to you, you have won your brother. It's far more important to win a brother than it is to win an argument. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.

That's from Deuteronomy 19.15. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be unto you as a Gentile tax collector. Jesus did not say they were Gentiles and tax collectors.

He simply said, just be careful. Be careful. Well, then Peter comes, and notice what he says in verse 21.

Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times. Question. What's wrong with that statement? What mistakes was Peter making here? Now get used to this.

I'm going to ask you questions. Anybody? It's a what? All right. He had a worldly attitude.

I'm going to be real kind to my brother seven times. The rabbis taught three times. What else? What? Why? Okay.

Okay. Why didn't he come and say, Lord, how many times should my brother forgive me? You ever notice, it's never the person who comes to you about another person who has ever sinned. It's always the other person who's done the sinning.

So mistake number one, the other guy is the sinner, not me. Mistake number two, I want to rule. Most of the people in churches don't know how to handle grace.

They want rules. And he said, how many times? Give me a rule and I'll follow the rule. You don't run a church on rules.

Now you have to have certain guidelines. You have to have your constitutions and all this sort of thing. But the fuss we're having over where to put the Ten Commandments, they could put the Ten Commandments at every intersection in Chicago.

It would not change the city one bit. Because the law doesn't change the human heart. It's grace that changes the human heart.

So he wanted law, not grace. He wanted to know how to treat the other fellow, but didn't want to know how the other fellow might treat him, and he might be the other fellow. And so Jesus replies with a parable, and it's one of my favorite parables.

Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. Now by the time you've forgiven somebody 490 times, you are going to be in the habit of forgiveness, and I think things are going to go fairly well. For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves, and when he had begun to settle with them, there was brought to him one who owed him 10,000 talents.

That is a lot of money. It would be about $20 million, and since he didn't have the means to repay, the Lord commanded it to be sold, and of course you know the man fell down and begged him, and he forgave him the debt. Verse 27, it's interesting, it doesn't say he forgave him the amount of money, he forgave him the debt.

He said, what was the debt you owed me? Well, just forgive it. Well, this guy goes out and finds somebody who owes him about $20, begins to choke him and saying, pay me what you owe him, threw the fellow in jail. Well, the fellow slaves in verse 31 heard about this, they went and told the Lord about it.

He called them in and said, you wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you? And so he handed him over to the torturers until he should repay. How you can be in prison being tortured and get money to repay, I don't know.

Now, what is he saying about this particular forgiveness thing? He's saying, Peter, the worst prison you can put yourself into is the prison of an unforgiving spirit. Now, we've got to teach our people this. Right now, there are about what? I wrote it down.

Here it is. How many adult offenders are in it? We have 2,166,260 people in prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities right now. But the worst prison is the prison of an unforgiving spirit.

More trouble is caused in churches by people not obeying the word of God. If a brother offends you, you go talk to him. If a sister offends you, you talk to her.

And if you won't forgive, you aren't hurting them. You're putting yourself in prison, the prison of an unforgiving spirit. And once that is taken care of and people say, I'm sorry, Lord, you forgive me, and I'm going to forgive my brother and my sister, we must teach our people that when it comes to forgiveness, yeah, when we trust Jesus, there is that final forgiveness.

Colossians 2, verse 13, having forgiven you all your trespasses. There's final forgiveness. It is finished.

There is fellowship forgiveness. If I disobey the Lord, I get out of fellowship, 1 John 1, but he'll forgive me. But there's also family forgiveness, and family forgiveness is important.

And so this parable teaches us that if people are going to get along with each other in the church, there has to be a forgiving spirit. Now, there are three levels of forgiveness. We have to tell them this.

Number one, receiving forgiveness. The night I trusted Jesus as my Savior, I received forgiveness, receiving forgiveness. But then I have to experience forgiveness.

You can put your faith in Jesus and receive forgiveness, but there needs to be the experience of forgiveness. This is what God did for me. He loved me.

He gave himself for me. When we come to the Lord's table, we're being reminded, his shed blood, his broken body, to forgive us. A lot of people have never really experienced forgiveness.

I think they've done God a favor. Now, when you have received forgiveness, then you can experience forgiveness. Then you can share forgiveness.

It is very difficult for people who have not experienced forgiveness by the Holy Spirit in their hearts to share forgiveness with other people. Pride gets in the way. So our Lord is teaching them here, you've got to forgive.

You've simply got to forgive because that's the way we experience and share the forgiveness of God. Now we're going to move into the real heart of the thing. He's taught them about crowds.

He's taught them about he's going to go to the cross. He's taught them about being humble. He's taught them about being forgiving and acting like little children, being childlike.

In Matthew chapter 19, people come bringing their children to Jesus for his blessing. What do the disciples do? Tell them to get away. They haven't learned their lesson yet.

That's so sad. The rich young ruler shows up in Matthew 19. He falls down before Jesus and wants to know what it would take for him to follow the Lord Jesus.

What good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life? The Lord tells him, you know the law, you keep the commandments. Now nobody ever got saved by keeping the commandments because nobody can keep the commandments. We know that.

All he was doing was holding up the mirror of the word for the man to see, but the man didn't see the whole picture. He said, I've kept all these things from my youth, verse 20 of Matthew 19. What am I still lacking? He didn't know his own need.

And he said, well, sell all you have and give your possessions to the poor and follow me. And of course, that was not good theology, so he left. Jesus said to his disciples, it's very hard for a rich man, rich woman, to get into the kingdom of God because, of course, they're trusting their riches.

And Peter once again speaks up. Now, man, I hope I never hear anybody that's in this room make fun of Peter because he talks so much and asks a lot of questions. There'd be a lot of Bible missing if Peter hadn't opened his mouth and asked some questions.

I once heard a very high-profile preacher say, you'll know Peter when you get to heaven. He's the man with the foot-shaped mouth. Ha, ha, ha.

Very funny. That man wasn't worthy to carry Peter's shoes. When Peter spoke up, he was expressing the desires of many of us, many of us.

And so Peter speaks up in verse 27, and here's the second question. Now, the first question was, who's the greatest? That question is going to cause all kinds of trouble in churches, and Peter comes now with the second question. Then Peter answered and said to him, Behold, we have left everything and followed you.

In other words, what that man did not do, what that ruler did not do, we have done. Now, here's question number two. What then will there be for us? Question number one, who's the greatest? Question number two, what are we going to get? What are we going to get? You know, people leave churches because they didn't get what they wanted.

I'm not talking about – they always say, well, we're not being fed. You ever heard that? We're not being fed. And you feel like saying, well, by now you ought to be able to feed yourself.

I heard about a church where there was a little – it could just as well have been a man. It was a lady, a little lady who kind of ruled the roost because if she didn't like some decision, she'd say, well, that's going to cause me to stumble, and you're not supposed to make your brother or sister stumble. And preachers put up with that.

I wouldn't. I'd go to her quietly and say, ma'am, we're glad you're a part of this church, but why don't you learn how to walk and quit stumbling? Because that's what she needed. Say it lovingly.

Say it prayerfully. You know, that makes me stumble, and she was running the whole show just because of her inability to walk. Now, Peter comes along and says, what are we going to get? Many people in our churches accept offices not for what they can give into it but for what they can personally get from it.

And this is because they haven't learned the first lesson, which is humility. Humility. What are we going to get? Now, this is at the point where Jesus assured them that he was going to sit on the glorious throne and they were going to sit upon 12 thrones and so forth and so on.

Many who are first shall be last, and the last shall be first. And then he gave this parable, which has been so wretchedly torn apart and misinterpreted, but it's very important, the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. A man sent me a manuscript.

I'm glad my books are of help to you people and to anybody else. That's why we write them. But one of the occupational hazards of publishing is people who think they know how to write send you manuscripts.

And he'd written a little booklet on this parable, and he said, now the people who were hired at 9 a.m., these are the people who got saved as children. And at noon, the people who got saved in their youth or middle age, and then 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. at the old people. This had nothing to do with salvation.

You're not talking about getting saved. Nobody works for their salvation. And if you did work for it and got it, you wouldn't complain about it.

The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Back in those days, you were hired a day at a time. You know that.

And when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. Third hour, same thing, except the third hour, that's 9 a.m., and noon and 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., he didn't negotiate. The 6 o'clock in the morning crowd bargained with him.

He said, I want you to work my vineyard. What are you paying? What are the fringe benefits? How many days off? How long is the vacation? Got a good retirement program. Finally, when he satisfied them, he put them to work.

The rest of them didn't ask for that. And so he said, I'm going to teach them a lesson. So he said to his boss, the foreman, he said, call the laborers beginning with the last group to the first because he wanted that first crowd that negotiated to see what he did.

And so the 5 o'clock people came, and lo and behold, they got a denarius. And the last, the crowd at the end of the line was saying, man alive, we're going to get 12. They worked one hour.

We worked 12 hours. Next crowd came, they got a denarius. Well, at least we'll get 9. The next, a denarius.

Well, we'll get 6. And when they came, they got a denarius, and they griped. He said, hey, that's what you asked for. You agreed with me.

Take it. Go. Now, what's our Lord saying here? He has nothing to do with salvation, nor does it have anything to do with rewards.

That penny or that denarius or whatever does not represent rewards. We're not all going to get the same reward. I cannot believe that that carnal, worldly, careless, professed Christian, if he is saved or she is saved, is going to get the same reward as Dwight Lyman Moody, who went to Britain and all over the United States trying to win people to Jesus.

No. My Bible says so then everybody's going to receive their own reward according to their own work. So it has nothing to do with rewards.

All that penny doesn't symbolize anything. All it does is reveal the hearts of people. And the lesson here has nothing to do with salvation or with rewards.

He's talking about motives. Why are you doing what you do? Peter said, what are we going to get? And that question revealed a heart motive that is so dangerous. Now, I'm not criticizing Peter.

I've done this. You've done it perhaps. Peter grew out of it, though.

Because by the time you get to Acts 3, you find Peter saying to that lame beggar, I don't have any money, which probably proves he was a Baptist preacher. I don't have any money. But such as I have, I give you.

He moved from, what am I going to get? To such as I have, I give you. And our Lord is teaching Peter and the disciples and us that ministry is not getting. Ministry is giving.

Now, he issues some interesting warnings here. He said, now look, God is generous. Don't negotiate.

Don't negotiate. Now, Lord, if you'll do this, I'll do this. No, no, no.

No, you don't do that. Now, Lord, I have been good, and I've done this and this and this. Now, you owe me this.

God doesn't owe you anything. He doesn't owe me anything. So God is generous.

Don't negotiate. God's will is personal. Don't investigate.

How much did he get? What did he get? What did she get? That's none of your business. Lord, why are you blessing this church up the street? He was in Greek class with me and almost flunked. I passed.

How come you're blessing him? Now, this goes on in ministry, and it goes on in our churches. You leave somebody's name out of the bulletin, see what happens. You give a word of thanks from the pulpit to the people who took care of the redecorating of the gymnasium.

Leave somebody's name out. See what happens. We've got to teach our people.

Look, you want to teach science school class? Don't negotiate. Just be faithful. Teach your class.

God will reward you. He'll give you exactly what he wants you to have. And don't watch other people.

I get so tired of people who think that because I've done something once, I have to do the same thing over and over again. I'm not obligated to set a precedent for myself. If I come to Albany and speak the word of God, it doesn't mean I have to go to some other place.

I have to do what God wants me to do. But everybody thinks the preacher and everybody else, now you did it for her, why can't you do it for me? We've got to teach people. No.

Don't go around saying, what am I going to get? Verse 10, I have to smile at in Matthew 20. And when those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more. I can just see them.

Bless their hearts. So we get three little lessons out of here. God's will is generous.

Don't negotiate. And God's will is personal. Don't investigate somebody else.

And God's will is always right. Don't speculate. Oh, what am I going to get? Oh, what am I going to get? Oh, it makes you miserable.

It makes the church miserable. Well, Peter is trying to learn this. Notice now in Matthew 20, 17, he brings up the cross again.

In fact, this is now the third time that he brings up the cross. He brought it up again when he came down from the Mount of Transfiguration. And now he's talking about it.

It's so often true that whenever the disciples got into one of these, what am I going to get, he brought up the cross. Because Jesus wants me to remember I'm making no sacrifices comparable to what he made. We've got to remind our people of this.

I think that one of the biggest mistakes I made in my preaching ministry was not to preach along these lines to my people and say, folks, you and I are servants of God. We're not here to get what we can get. We're not here to be praised.

It's good to thank people. Paul often thanked people for what they did. But we don't go around saying, who's the greatest? And what am I going to get? At this point, at this point in Matthew 20, Salome shows up, the mother of James and John.

And she says, I have a prayer request. Who was the lady that stood up and said, I have an unspeakable request? I think she made an unspoken request. I've got a prayer request.

When you set up your kingdom and the disciples are sitting on thrones, and he told them that. People say, oh, if you're going to pray, claim a promise. She's claiming a promise.

She's claiming a promise. Someday I'm going to be on my throne and you'll be on 12 thrones. Wonderful.

If there are going to be 12 thrones, six on one side, six on the other side, I want the two adjacent to Jesus for my sons. So she's claiming a promise. You can claim a promise and have a bad prayer.

All three of them were united on what they were asking. You can be united with the whole church and still have a bad prayer. She fell on her knees before.

You can be humble. Still have a bad prayer. She said, I want you to put my sons on those two thrones.

Once again, it is, what are we going to get out of it? What are we going to get out of it? And Jesus had to answer that spirit. Our Lord had the problem with the disciples twofold. One, they lived in the Roman society, and the Roman society was a stratified society.

I thank God that the founding fathers in America said there will be no nobility in this country. We do not have lords and ladies and dukes and duchesses and things like that. I get a little upset when I go into a bookstore and I see a title like American Princess.

There are no American princes. The last American princess was Queen Liliuokalani, whom we kicked off the throne in Hawaii and took over. The only throne and the only palace on American soil is in Honolulu.

But nobody pays any attention to it. American dynasty, there are no American dynasties. The same thing is true in the church.

Well, Jesus said no. Verse 25, don't live like the Gentiles, these Romans. That was their first influence.

Second was the Old Testament. There was a lot of that in the Old Testament. The disciples, up until Acts chapter 1, wanted to see the Old Testament kingdom restored.

There are people who like a stratified society. Jesus said no, that's not my church at all. I don't know if you read Watchman Nee.

He has some little aberrations, but for the most part he's got some good things to say. One of his books he talks about preaching up in the agricultural area of China among what he called very humble people. Little farmers who didn't have much education, but they were believers.

They loved God. He said, I was going through a personal crisis and didn't know what to do. Finally, I humbled myself and I said, brothers and sisters, would you pray with me about this crisis that I have? They said, we will.

He said their prayers were very halting. They were very sincere. He said it wasn't the kind of praying I heard in Shanghai.

He said the answer came through those people. He said I learned a good lesson. There are no great people in the church, and the humblest member of the church may be the one you need to talk to for your own good.

I used to visit God's people for my own heart's good. Usually on Friday afternoons, I'd try to go to the hospital or go to the rest home so that when I got in the pulpit on Sunday, I had a tender heart. I had a tender heart.

I didn't want to get up with an academic sermon. I had a tender heart. Jesus said, it's not so among you.

Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. Now, we don't like that. The American public says, how many work for you? That's not the issue in the church.

It's for how many do I work? I don't like interruptions. You don't like interruptions, but the interruptions turn out to be the ministry. Jesus said, don't be like the Romans.

If you want to be great, be a servant. If you want to be first, be a slave. Then he points to himself again and the cross, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

He is our example. We're going to see that when we look at the epistles. I want us to move now to John chapter 13.

We get to the third question. The first question was Peter asking our Lord Jesus Christ who's the greatest and the other disciples with him. Then Peter saying, what am I going to get? The third question is in John chapter 13.

Lord, do you wash my feet? Peter still hadn't caught on. Our Lord had said over and over again, I'm here to serve. I'm here to serve, serving even to the point of death.

Philippians 2, obedient unto death, even the humiliating, excruciating death of the cross. Now Jesus washes their feet. He was giving several lessons at this time.

He was reminding them that even while you're serving the Lord, you can get dirty. The Old Testament priests every once in a while had to wash their hands and their feet while they were serving God. You can get defiled while you're serving God.

But the main lesson he was giving them, he tells them, I want you, verse 15, I gave you an example that you should also do as I did to you. The slave is not greater than his master. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

Every one of us, I'm sure at some time, has been called upon by God to do something for somebody who never did anything for us. The nice folks in the church, they're always doing nice things for us. We have no problem doing nice things for them.

But it's the folks that don't do anything for us or even worse, oppose us. And yet Jesus says, you're asking a question now. Are you going to wash my feet? Yes, I'm going to wash your feet.

I'm telling you and I'm showing you that I, your Lord and teacher, I'm doing this to you. Why can't you do it to your fellow Christians? Once again, we touch upon this matter of pride and humility. Now, this is a fine line.

Lloyd-Jones used to say, living the Christian life is walking a knife's edge. And it is. There are times when you make a decision and it's just that knife.

If you went over too far this way, it'd be wrong. If you went over too far that way, it'd be wrong. It's just a knife's edge.

And sometimes it's hard to know how do you do this? And the answer just comes, well, let's do what Jesus did. I would rather err on the side of love and grace than on the side of law. And I think this is what God wants us to do because it breaks people down.

They can't believe this. You would do this for me. Lord, do you wash my feet? And he said, yes, I'm going to wash your feet and you're going to wash everybody else's feet.

We have to hurry to John. By the way, it's rather interesting. If you look at Luke 22, no sooner had Jesus done this, and guess what's happening? And there arose also a dispute among them as to which of them was regarded as the greatest.

That was their chief indoor sport, to sit and discuss who is the greatest. And, of course, Jesus is the greatest. Just about the time we think we have stumbled and we haven't done a very good job, that's the time we have shown people Jesus by our love and by our service.

And I have to remind myself I'm here to serve. I'm sitting at my computer writing a book. Man, it's deathless prose.

Boy, wait until they read this. You know, phone rings. Oh, come on.

One of my friends called up one day. I won't name him because you all know him. It's not him.

One of my friends called me up and said, I can't find a verse in the Bible. I said, do you own a concordance? He said, it's not even in the concordance. I said, then it's not in the Bible.

And I had to wait and get my sense back so I could sit down and write my book. You've had calls like this. What time is the 6 o'clock meeting? But that's what our Lord put up with.

Now, remember, Jesus was training these men to take his place. You remember in John 17, that marvelous statement. He said, I have glorified you on the earth.

I finished the work you gave me to do. Now, what was that work? One, the cross, the atonement, dying on the cross. Number two, training the disciples.

Now, the biggest mistake, one of the biggest mistakes I made in my ministry was not spending enough time with people God had gifted for leadership. I'm doing it now. Now, I work with some of the college students in our church.

And it's such a delight to pour yourself into them. Work, of course it's work. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

And do the best you can. They call you up. They come to you with problems.

That's okay. It's what you're there for. And I'll go to my grave if God calls me home, knowing there's going to be some preacher boys out there.

I should have started this a lot farther along, way back when. Well, who is the greatest? And once again, he said, hey, come on. If you want to be great, you just be the youngest.

If you want to be a leader, you be a servant. Let me put a parenthesis in here, then we have to quit. Watch out for books on leadership.

There are two kinds out there. There are those that take secular leadership ideas, put in a few Bible verses, baptize it, and say this is the way you do it. It isn't.

It isn't. There are others who go to the Word of God, fall on their face before God, and find out what God says about leadership. Let me give you a little definition of a leader.

A leader is a person who uses his or her God-given ability, God-given authority, and God-given opportunity. A leader is a person who uses his or her God-given ability, God-given authority, God-given opportunity, to help other people discover and develop their own gifts. That's what a leader is.

Not somebody important. Not somebody with a skyscraper office. Just somebody who says, I want to help you develop.

I thank God for the people who touched my life. I won't name them, but they just helped me to find myself and to do what he wanted me to do. One quick question now.

There's one more question left. After the resurrection, our Lord comes, and they've been trying to catch fish, didn't catch anything. You'd think Peter would have learned his lesson, but he said, I'm going fishing.

It's likely that seven of the apostles were fishermen, because when Peter said, I'm going fishing, six guys followed him. Isn't that a problem? Some guy in the church decides to go off on his own. He always drags somebody with him.

That's sad. I wonder why Jesus chose so many fishermen. Remember, these guys didn't go fishing for fun.

If they didn't catch fish, they didn't pay their bills. Why did Jesus choose so many fishermen? Think about that. Fishermen don't quit.

We fished all night and caught nothing. What are you doing getting ready to go back out? If I'd fished all night and caught nothing, I'd be selling my nets. Fishermen don't quit.

Fishermen are courageous. Fishermen know how to work together. Jesus said you've been catching living fish.

When you catch them, they die. From now on, you're going to catch dead fish. When you catch them, they're going to live.

That's what he's called us to do. Well, final question. You remember the Lord Jesus restored Peter with one question, repeated three times.

Peter, do you love me? You know what the main requirement is for being a shepherd of the sheep and tending the lambs and feeding them? You know what the main requirement is? To love Jesus. Jesus didn't say, Peter, have you read Calvin's Institutes? No, I've read it. I'm glad for it.

But he didn't say, Peter, are you orthodox? He said, Peter, do you love me? And I've learned that the more I love Jesus, the more I'm going to love his people. And sometimes they break my heart. I just sit and cry.

But my own children broke my heart sometimes. I still love them. So Peter says, I love you.

I love you. Well, then he said, follow me. So that means you're now back being a disciple again.

Now, as Peter is following Jesus, John comes along. It says in verse 20 of John 21, Peter turned around and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved. Peter said, now here's the fourth question.

And, Lord, what about this man? What's this man going to do? Someday study the distractions in Peter's life. He got his eyes off of Jesus and looked someplace else. Here's one of them right here.

And Jesus said, none of your business. The fourth problem we face in the church is people get their eyes off of Jesus and start looking at other people. Now, what God does with you in your ministry is none of my business unless I know there's something wrong and I can help you.

Don't believe everything you hear about preachers. I can think of at least two times in the last 50 years when it's been announced that I was dead. Was it Mark Twain who said the reports of my death were greatly exaggerated? Don't believe everything you hear.

And don't watch some other preacher. When we were living in Covington, Kentucky, when I was at Calvary Baptist Church, a lady across the street, you won't believe this, but I'm not kidding. The lady across the street would sit on her porch with binoculars, and she could look right into our living room.

It's okay. We had nothing to hide. Don't watch other preachers.

And tell your people, look, keep your eyes on Jesus. If you're going to follow Jesus, keep your eyes on him. Turn around and look, what's this man going to do? Jesus said, none of your business.

If I say he's going to stay here forever, that's my business, not your business. It takes a great load off of your heart when you don't try to play God in people's lives. It just takes a wonderful load off.

Well, we're going to pick some of this up again. I want to talk to you about the churches. Four questions.

Who's the greatest? What will we get? Are you going to wash my feet? What shall this man do? And these four questions, unless they're answered correctly, cause all kinds of trouble in our churches. Pray over them. Think about them.

We'll pick some of this up again. Thank you, Father, for the word, for the example of Jesus as he patiently worked with his disciples. Help us patiently, patiently to be examples and encouragers to your people for Jesus' sake. Amen.