Bible Text: Matthew 18:1-11 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
The disciples are Christians. But nothing human is foreign from them. They live in a world where human sin has made the devil prince. And where the devil is prince the rules of his kingdom seem natural and obvious. The great principle of the devil is what we call in Latin plus ultra, which means something like “always more.” Never be content. Always want more, more money, more pleasure, more power, more prestige. The devil was an angel. God created him good and beautiful and happy and powerful. But he wanted more, always more. He wanted divine status, so he accused God of withholding, of being unfair, and he brought many other angels with him. God cast them forever out of His presence – that’s what you just heard from Revelation 12 – but woe to the world. Don’t forget that it was the devil who tempted Adam and Eve to sin. And the nature of our sin, and therefore the way we think, is the same as the devil’s. Plus ultra. Always more. God created Adam and Eve very good, beautiful, content, powerful in their own way, having dominion over all God created, they had everything they should want, but they wanted more. You can be like God. So they took of the fruit. This is why we think the way we do, why we are always wanting more, and competing with others for it.
So the disciples are arguing who is greatest in the kingdom of God. They aren’t arguing who will be greater in heaven. The kingdom of God is right here on earth. They’re arguing who has second place after Jesus here. Because it’s not enough that they have the Gospel, it’s not enough that they know what kings and prophets desired to look into, that they have seen God face to face, that they have the power of miracles and of casting out demons. No, plus ultra, always more, who is the greatest?
Nothing human is foreign from the disciples and nothing human is foreign from us. That’s an old pagan saying – you can read it in Terence – nothing human is foreign from me, but what it really should say is nothing devilish is foreign from us. Because this is what this desire for always more is. The devil’s a liar and the always more he tempts you to seek is a lie. Because the only true and noble power is the power God gives. And that power is always to serve. Look at God. He has all power in heaven and on earth. And He becomes a man to serve us. The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, Jesus says. That’s what true power does. The power a father or mother has to tell their children what to do is a power to serve them, to spend themselves for them, to teach them God’s word, and spank them when they’re bad and hug them and love them and feed them, to serve them. The authority a husband has over his wife is to love her and give himself for her. The authority a pastor has is to serve God by serving God’s people, why he is called a minister, a servant, like a waiter who brings food to your hungry mouths, he gives the bread of life, the word Jesus commands to your hungry ears. He serves, that’s his power. We used to call our politicians, our governors, our presidents, these powerful people, civil servants, because God sets up kings and presidents not to tyrannize but to serve the people under them. In God’s world, power means serving.
This is why we have the wrong impression of angels. We think of them as stronger than us and so we think of them as greater, of higher rank. But this is the devil’s thinking. Greatness has nothing to do with strength. Demons are more powerful than we are – are they higher? Are they greater? Of course not. This is also what is so devilish about feminism, this striving to make women the equals of men in everything, because it is all based on the idea that more power, more money, more strength, more fame makes you greater. No. That was literally the devil’s idea. Literally the idea that sank the human race into sin and corruption and misery. And it is also literally unattainable. This is the thinking behind Marxism too, that because I work for others therefore I am oppressed by them, that what will make me their equal is to have their power, their money. Again, literally the devil inspired that thought. What gives us status and greatness is living as God made us to live. Angels as angels, men as men, women as women, children as children, to serve God and our fellow man in our callings, each according to what God has given.
So Jesus sets a child before the disciples and before us. You can’t help but see children. They’re everywhere, especially around here. So they constantly preach this sermon of Jesus to us. When you see the little children think of Jesus setting this child in front of his disciples. You are to be like them. What does this mean? Not that you should be innocent like a child because God knows children aren’t innocent. I can introduce you to Lydia if you have any doubts about that. But children are content with their place. I remember my dad coming home with an oversized tootsie roll one day. He gave it to me and told me not to show my brothers or sister (there were a lot of them and he didn’t have 11 giant tootsie rolls). So I ran downstairs and hid under the pool table and ate that enormous tootsie roll, and I wouldn’t have traded that status for the status of king or emperor. I was under a pool table but I was on top of the world. That’s the point. Become like a child means take from your Father in heaven what He gives and think of it as the greatest thing in all the world. Don’t seek plus ultra, always more, because there is nothing greater than the status that your heavenly Father gives you.
In one sense, the angels have higher status than we do. But it’s not because they’re more powerful. They are and thank God for that, because they protect us and our children every single day. They are always around us, filling this room right now, guarding your home, keeping harm away from your head. Satan would devour you but angel hosts sing o’er you. They are powerful, but strength doesn’t make status, doesn’t determine rank, in God’s kingdom. Lions are stronger than we are too. It doesn’t mean they’re greater. The angels are greater than we are because they don’t sin. Because they are constantly looking on the face of the Father who is in heaven. They are greater because they always do His will, as Psalm 103 preaches, “Bless the Lord, you his angels, who excel in strength, who do His word, heeding the voice of His word. Bless the Lord, all you His hosts, You servants of His, who do His pleasure.” That’s what makes the angels great. When you think about Gabriel and his anger against Zechariah, when Zechariah doubts the word that his wife Elizabeth will conceive, what rank is Gabriel pulling here over Zechariah? It’s not one of strength. He says to him, “I am Gabriel who stand in the presence of God and I was sent to speak to you and to deliver these glad tidings to you.” That’s Gabriel’s status, that he is doing God’s will, doing what angels were created to do, serve their God by serving us. And when Gabriel appears to Mary, the mother of God, he doesn’t pull rank, he honors her in her lowliness, attributes to her the higher rank, calls her the highly favored of the Lord. He exalts her. Why? Because she says, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” She receives Jesus into herself in humble submission. There’s status before God.
But our status was not and should not be below the angels. It is only because we sided with the devil that it is. The devils are below us, not because they are weaker, they aren’t, but because they refuse to serve and so can only do harm and rage against God and us and what God created them to be. And we fall with the devil when we sin, when we envy others because of their status, when we compete in this silly satanic game. It is the devil’s game and it only leads to misery and status of rebels against our loving God.
So Jesus says, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame than to go whole into the everlasting fire.” If only it were that easy! If only you could cut off your hand and then all sin would be gone! I cut off my hand and all anxiety is gone, all depression, all discontent, all lust after what doesn’t belong to me, all selfish anger, all doubt of God, all this contending for more and more, gone. But that’s not how it works. Sin comes from the heart. And in order to get rid of it, you have to cut the heart out and that kills.
That is the point. He who seeks his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will gain it for everlasting life. God has to rip out the heart that seeks plus ultra, more and more, and give you a new heart that says with the blessed virgin Mary, Behold the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your Word. And God gives you a new heart by giving you Jesus. There is contentment, there is happy submission to God. Faith in Jesus is no head knowledge. It is what conquers the devil and all pride and sin and death itself, because it takes hold of the God who serves you, who has become one of you, who has so exalted our human nature. Look how He did it. Our Creator was born a little child in Bethlehem, with angels singing His birth, and declaring God’s glory here in the humility of a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. Set that holy Child in front of you and see what God thinks of all the status of kings and earthly power, all this seeking of more and more status. See the King of glory with no place to lay his head. See Him take all your weakness on Himself, all the corruption that our sinful striving put on us, see Him bear it in His holy body and cry out from the depths of His soul in bitter anguish as He dies forsaken by His Father on the cross. See God humbled to death because He loves you. There’s power. See Him crush the devil’s head, end the devil’s reign by taking the lowest place. That’s what faith sees and loves. The Spirit who proceeds from Christ and came to you in your Baptism, kills the Old Man, rips out the heart that sides with the devil, and gives you a new heart, that cries Abba Father, to your God, and receives from Him for the sake of His Son, full forgiveness, full life, and status as sons of God.
And that status is greater than the angels. It’s what the angels desire to look into. It’s why they so fiercely protect us. They are constantly looking at the face of the Father. What do they see in that face? A constant love toward His Son, and His Son is one of us. That’s what lights up our Father’s face, He sees His beloved Son, and we are His body and He is our head, we are His Bride, one flesh with Him. So the angels rejoice that we have been lifted up with the eternal Son of God to the heights of heaven. They rejoice because we have been given status above them. They see us kneel down and receive the body and blood of God and they wonder how greatly God must love us sinners. And the devil who would rob this all from us, the angels fight him with all the power of God.
So we strive after a different plus ultra, a different more and more. We already have the highest status. There is nothing more for us to gain from this world. There is only to seek more and more to be conformed to the image of the Son of God, to confess our sins and try to do better, to suffer for Jesus’ sake in love for one another. Until at last the angels come to bear our souls home to our God and we join with them singing in heaven what we sing here on earth, holy, holy, holy to the Lord of hosts, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.