To Be Great… | Sunday, March 22, 2026

Amen. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Anthony and team. Good morning, Cross Connection Church. It is so good to see you all here. You can have a seat this morning. I am glad you are here.

I don't know about these deep fakes that Nick is creating. I did not see that before you did, and it was frightening. You should be aware of what you think you know from social media these days, because social media can just be randomly generated and created.

There was a time before social media, and I’m sure you remember it well. Do you realize there are people who don't remember that at all? My kids' generation does not remember a time before social media. There was a time before the endless scrolling, a time before swiping, a time before likes, shares, retweets, and subscribers, a time before selfies and status updates.

Status updates are an interesting concept because they hint at something very real called status anxiety. Even if you are not a social media user, someone who is involved in social media, you may not plug into the various channels like Instagram, Snap, or X, but we still experience status anxiety. It is not new. Every culture wrestles with these issues, even going back millennia, because every single culture has mechanisms for determining where we fit in the social structure.

We are social beings, and because of that, we are always trying to negotiate exactly where we end up in the hierarchy of the social stack. That is not new. The way we judge social status in 2026 might be new, but the very idea of trying to find out where your worth or value is within society is not new.

In our day, we measure success by things like achievement and influence, sometimes by a person's impact through their platform size. That is a new idea—the idea of a platform. We judge it by follower counts, likes, subscribes, shares, and all of those sorts of things. Even if that is not your focus...

In every generation, including the younger generation today, there were still elements that established the hierarchy and status for individuals. This could be a specific school, a mentor to study under, a degree obtained, or an internship secured at the right place and time. I was just talking with a friend whose son got an internship last summer at Apple, which has now paved the way for his career as he prepares to graduate from university in May. Each generation has its own variables that help determine where one fits in the hierarchy.

This was also true during the time of Christ in the first century. There were complex matrices by which people established their place in the pecking order. For the Jewish people, one of the most important factors was lineage. Individuals would chart their status based on their family members, including their father and grandfather. Many could trace their lineage back to Abraham—Abraham through Isaac, through Jacob, and through Jacob's twelve sons. This lineage established a certain hierarchy based on which tribe of the twelve sons of Jacob one belonged to, known as the tribes of Israel.

In Genesis chapter 49, one of the tribes was identified through a blessing as the important tribe, the tribe of Judah, because it was believed that the Messiah would come from this tribe. People established their identity through their tribe, clan, and family, which was significant to them.

In addition to lineage, occupation played a crucial role in determining one's status. In that culture, an individual's occupation was often dictated by the professions of their father and grandfather. For instance, when we read that Peter and Andrew, James and John were fishermen in Galilee, we can infer what their fathers and grandfathers likely did. Many of these roles were predetermined; individuals did not have the freedom to choose their lineage, tribe, family, or occupation. They simply grew into their roles, and that became their identity. Unlike today, there was little upward mobility or choice in deciding one's path in life. People often found their lot in life and accepted it.

Most of this was determined for you. In that culture, there was another way to gain social standing through religious purification and ritualistic practice. You could choose to be more religious, more pious than the next person, and by that, maybe you could gain a greater position of social honor in the culture. The cultural capital that people drew their confidence from in the first century included things like family, tribe, and ritual observance.

Paul highlights this in his letter to the Philippians. In Philippians chapter 3, verse 4, he says, "Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, I’m trusting in who I am, my lineage, my family, all the things that I’ve done. If anyone thinks that they have confidence in the flesh, I more so." Why? Look at what he says in Philippians chapter 3, verse 5. He was circumcised on the eighth day, practicing ritual observance from birth—not because he made a decision, but because those who were his parents made the decision for him. Because of that, he had clout in that time. He was circumcised on the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. To say it differently, there were no Gentiles in his family tree. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

These cultural realities are not new. The things we use to establish our social status and the anxiety we have about status are not new either. These cultural realities are deeply ingrained in us, so much so that even when we become Christians, they do not simply disappear. They are still there, and we still wrestle with these things. They remain a part of who we are.

Eventually, Paul came to the realization that he discusses in Philippians chapter 3. He states, "Those things that were gained to me, I have counted loss for Christ." He counts all things as loss that he might gain and apprehend Him—not the social status that comes from all those other things he used to trust in. However, these cultural realities that are deeply ingrained in us do not simply vanish when we become followers of Jesus. In some ways, they can actually worsen because we start to ascribe a spiritual significance to them. They take on a spiritual dynamic. This is even true for people who are, quote,

In the ministry, what ministry are you a part of? What group, what denomination, what church? Who is the head pastor of that church? Is that pastor a person of significance and influence within the denomination, maybe a leader or the president of a denomination?

These factors take on a new dimension within ministry because now there's a spiritual dynamic to it. People start to gauge themselves based on the size of the church, the impact of the ministry, and the influence they wield. I know some people who pastor churches with 10,000 members or more. I was in a meeting a few weeks ago with a guy whose church had 48,000 people at their Easter service last year. That's like half of Escondido! It makes you wonder how that is not heady, right?

Then you add to it that some of these pastors end up with a million or more subscribers on their social media channels, and what they say has significant influence. Sometimes they have to apologize for things they say because they didn't realize how much impact it might have. There is social status that comes with these dynamics. We see people in these positions and think, well, clearly they must be anointed. They have the Spirit because they have the status, and their book has done well; it has become a bestseller. Their ministry is big.

Now, I'm sure some of you this morning might think, oh no, that doesn't happen in the ministry. I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations over the years where people within the church say things like, "It must be just so glorious to be in the ministry. You just pray and read the Bible." Au contraire. It is no different from many things you find in corporate structures, where people establish their status by their deliverables and the size of those who follow them.

This is why there are books like the one that came out a number of years ago by Paul Tripp called "Dangerous Calling," or years before that, another book called "Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome" by R. Kent Hughes. Why do these books become bestsellers? Because it's an actual problem, even within the ministry.

I've been at many pastors' conferences where you meet someone who's a pastor for the first time, and within five minutes of interacting with them, one of the first questions that comes out of their mouth is, "So how big is your church?" It's a reality, even within the ministry.

The question is the quiet comparison game. My church is bigger than your church. My Schwartz is bigger than yours. That must mean that I am a better leader, that I've got more talent, that I have more of the Spirit, whatever it may be. It may sound totally carnal, and it is, but it's a part of who we are. We start to establish these hierarchies where we assume, "Well, I must be the favorite." Right, John? I can always look to my right and see John and know that I'm talking right to Tater. If you ask him, he'll tell you, "Jesus loves you," but on cue. And he's probably right.

Except that I think Jesus kept Peter, James, and John close to keep an eye on them. Right, Sandy? Yeah. So we start to say, "Well, I must be the greatest" through this comparison game. This happens in every area of life. You go through it too. The same thing that unfortunately happens with people in the ministry happens in boardrooms and within businesses. Some of you are in this place where the status is established by how many KPIs, commissions, or the biggest contracts you have.

It happens on ball fields. It happens in gyms. Who's the biggest, fastest, strongest? We establish the hierarchy. It happens in social media. Who has the most subscribers, the most likes, the most shares? All of these things. And sadly, we all know it's true; it happens in families. If you're a parent, especially of more than one child, you've heard the argument before about who's the favorite. Maybe you remember having the argument.

Now, for those of you that had one child, you got it easy. You could just straight say, "You're my favorite." But I have four. They're all my favorite. However, they've certainly talked about who's the favorite. I have siblings, and we talked about who's the favorite. Now, I know the truth. It might sound like a sickness, and perhaps there's an aspect of it that is pathological, but it's definitely not new. The text that we have before us today, I think it is...

It is one of the most personally revealing and challenging texts in the Gospels. I've been thinking about this text for a long time and looking forward to coming to it because it has stood out to me for a long time. It's a great passage of Scripture that exposes something very important, which I believe is not only a desire but also a need.

We like to make a distinction between wants and needs, and I think there's something about this that relates to the very essence of what makes us human. This deep need can manifest in both negative and pathological ways, but there is also an important aspect to it. What happens in this text exposes a deep cry of our soul that is connected to being human.

Consider your pets. If you have more than one dog, they are not fighting about who is the favorite, but we argue about who is the greatest and who is the favorite. There is something deep within our soul that drives this. The amazing thing about what we will see in this text is that Jesus does not rebuke this inclination, even though we might assume that he would. He does, however, reframe it, and I believe this reframe is profoundly important. It has significant implications for the moment we are living in today in what I call the weird world.

Do you realize you live in the weird world? Of course, you know that, but did you know that "weird" is actually an acronym? It stands for Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic. We are going through what may end up being the most radical transformation of culture that anyone has ever seen, and I think this text has implications for that.

So, if you would take out your Bibles this morning and open to the Gospel of Luke, look for the last third of your Bible, where you will find the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Would you stand with me? We are going to read beginning at verse 46 this morning. Of course, we will have it on the screens as well.

Luke chapter 9, verse 46: "Then a dispute arose among them, the them being the disciples, as to which of them would be the greatest." And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their hearts and their dispute, took a little child and set the child by him and said to them, "Whoever receives..."

This little child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me. For he who is least among you will be great.

Now John answered and said, "Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us." Jesus said to him, "Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side."

God, I pray that You would speak to us this morning. Open our eyes that we would see something here that maybe we never saw before, a passage that we could easily run right over, which exposes important truth and teaches us great things. I pray that we would learn the lesson of this because we are living in a challenging time. I pray, God, that You would continue the work that You're doing in us to transform us by the renewing of our minds, that we would be able to show forth what is Your good and perfect will in this world. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said, "Amen." You can be seated.

This isn't a long passage; it's just a little more than a hundred words, but it's packed with things to think about. As I said, I've been thinking about this passage for a while. It's been something I've been looking forward to getting to, but as with every passage, it's important to remember the context.

It's just a simple reminder: when you're reading through the Scriptures and you come to a portion of Scripture, consider the context of the verse that comes before and the verses that come after, because the context is always very important. A text never exists without the context.

So what is the context of this passage? Well, the context of this story is that Jesus has just healed the son of a man who came to Him, pleading and crying on behalf of his child. This child had an illness, but there was also a spiritual component to it. Ultimately, Jesus heals this child.

When Jesus heals this child, we are told in verse 43 that they were all amazed at the majesty of God. Everybody sees this; the crowds watch what was phenomenal before them, and everybody was amazed at the majesty of God. But while everybody marveled, note this: in the midst of the celebration, everybody's cheering, they're all surrounding this man and his child. Jesus said to His disciples in verse 44, "Let these words sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands..."

This is the point in the Gospels where Jesus is beginning his long road toward Calvary. He is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will be betrayed, arrested, convicted, condemned, crucified, and killed. He starts to tell his disciples what is coming. He told them that the Son of Man was about to be betrayed into the hands of men. They did not understand this saying, and it was hidden from them so that they did not perceive it. They were afraid to ask him about it.

Then, we don't know if it was seven days later, ten days later, or immediately after, but I will assume it was right in the context of all the celebration and the sobering word he had just shared with his disciples. A dispute arose among them as to who would be the greatest. You might wonder, how do they move from marveling at the magnificence of the glory of Jesus in the healing of a child to arguing about who among them would be the greatest?

Immediately after Jesus tells them he will be betrayed, arrested, convicted, condemned, crucified, and killed, they start to argue with one another. Peter, Andrew, James, John, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Judas are all involved in this dispute. Is there anything seemingly more inconsiderate than this? We can't help but put the disciples on a pedestal. They are the closest to Jesus, the apostles, now given that title. Yet, they are arguing about who would be the greatest.

It would be as if one of your closest friends has a conversation with you and says, "I need you to be with me. I just received a diagnosis from the doctor. It's stage four. It's terminal. They told me I only have maybe six to eight weeks to live." You might try to empathize, saying, "Gosh, that's really hard. I'm sorry to hear it." But then, you might say something like, "I really hurt my ankle a week or so ago. It's been really bothering me." Or, to make it even worse, you might say, "That's terrible news. Hey, I really like your truck. Any chance after you die, could I maybe have the truck?"

Like how inconsiderate a dispute arose among them about which of them would be the greatest. If you're taking notes this morning, sometimes our worst traits show up at the worst times.

Yes, and if the dispute over greatness was not bad enough in Mark's account of the same situation, it is presented slightly differently. Jesus asks his disciples, "What was it that you were disputing while we were on the road?" To which it says in Mark 9:34, "But they kept silent." Jesus says, "Hey, you guys seem to be arguing about something a few minutes ago. What were you arguing about?" Oh, we weren't arguing. Not at all. They just kept silent. Sometimes our worst traits show up at the worst times.

You would think that by now the disciples would have realized you can't really fool Jesus. In verse 47, it says, "And Jesus perceiving their thought," which is maybe the third or fourth time in the Gospel of Luke where we see this idea that He knows exactly what's going on. Perceiving the dispute of their heart, He took a little child and set him by Him and said to them, "Whoever receives this little child in My name receives Me. And whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; for he who is least among you will be great."

Now, just before Jesus says this, again in Mark's account of this same story, it says He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all." In Matthew's Gospel, it says in Matthew 18, "Then Jesus called a little child and set him by Him in the midst of them and said, 'Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.'"

Don't miss the statement of Jesus: "If anyone desires to be first." Now, I won't ask you to raise your hands. Just internally ask yourself this question this morning: Do you desire to be great? I know the answer because I know myself, and there's something in us.

That desires to be great. We are social animals, and in social gatherings, there is a desire in us for greatness. We all have this. Even those who are closest to Jesus, His apostles, still wrestle with this because they are human, just like you and I. This passage, as I said previously, exposes what I think is not just a desire; it exposes a deep need that is a part of being human.

Have you ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of human needs? Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who established a pyramid diagram with five layers. He talks about the hierarchy going up the pyramid of human needs, the things that we deeply, desperately need. Right near the top, the fourth from the top, is the need—not just desire—for esteem. This need involves things like achievement, reputation, respect, recognition, status, and standing. All of these elements are part of our need for esteem. These are not just desires; there is something about who we are and how we were made that makes us need this.

Also in the hierarchy of needs are the needs for relationship and affection, which involve membership and belonging. We want to be a part of the community, the gathering. When we are excluded, it does not bode well for our psyche. We want to belong, and when we are part of the community, there is a deep need to be recognized as an important part of it. This is why it hurts so badly when you were a kid and you weren't picked for the team. This is why it stuck with you when you sensed that you were not the favorite; it weighed upon you because there is something about who we are that has this need.

Here’s the remarkable thing about this situation in the Gospels: it shows up in all three synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—which is significant. Even the most skeptical textual critics would say this definitely happened. Textual critics are people who do not believe that everything that happened in the Gospels is true.

Actually happened. But those most skeptical ones would even say, "Well, we think this did because it shows up in Matthew, Mark, and Luke." So it's significant because it's in all three.

Secondly, and more importantly, is this point: Jesus doesn't rebuke our need for standing, status, and esteem. He reframes it. I think this is remarkable because this seems like the perfect opportunity, I would assume, for him to chastise this. I mean, don't you kind of assume when Jesus catches his disciples having what would appear to be the most carnal of conversations—who is the greatest among us? Kind of comparing cards, if you will? Comparing KPIs? Wouldn't you assume that Jesus would be like, "Guys, really? I just told you I'm going to die, and you're trying to see if you can have the corner office? Maybe that doesn't exactly jive with what I'm looking for in my team. Maybe I need a new team."

You kind of assume that he would do something like that. At least I would assume that. What kind of dismissive indifference would you think he might express to his followers, who are so self-conscious and self-focused, disputing over greatness in a moment like this? Or when you're in the presence of complete greatness, you are arguing about who might be the greatest.

But Jesus doesn't rebuke their desire. Instead, perceiving the dispute, he took a child and set this little boy by him and said, "He who is least among you will be great." The phrase "little child" comes from one Greek word, which means the smallest of children. It could be an infant. He takes this little child, who in that society at that time had zero social standing.

Some of you come from a generation where you kind of understand that, because there was a saying that was hip when you were younger: children are to be seen and not heard. But in this generation, we have helicopter parents and children involved in everything. However, children were nothing in first-century Judea or Galilee. They had zero social standing.

This was the least of those who would be considered great. Why? Because he has nothing to put forward to show how great this child is. How do we measure greatness? How did they measure greatness? How do you suppose the disciples were judging greatness? I mean, just put yourself in the circle of the disciples at this moment.

When they were arguing about greatness, how do you think they were determining it? At the beginning of this chapter, all of them, the twelve, were given power and authority to preach and to perform miracles. Then they went out and preached and performed miracles. How do you think they were judging greatness?

So, John, how many came when you preached? Oh, you only had twenty? I had forty. Hey, Bartholomew, how many miracles did you perform? Oh man, it was awesome. I performed three miracles. Oh, well, I performed eight miracles. You see, that had to be the conversation, don't you think?

But then let's take it a step further. After they came back, they were involved in feeding the multitudes. Then you start saying, well, how many did you feed? Well, I fed four groups of fifty. Well, I fed twelve groups of fifty. I guess I'm just a better servant than you are, Peter.

Then you take it a little step further. We all know that in this text we've been studying over the last six weeks or so, Peter, James, and John got to be with Jesus when He healed Jairus's daughter and raised her from the dead. So everybody already kind of knows. I mean, you have to know that Andrew's like, well, yeah, Peter's my brother, but obviously he's the favorite because he's always with Jesus. He was with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.

Within that little group of the three, Peter, James, and John, James seems to be the quiet one, but John and Peter, well, John's going to speak up in this passage, as we'll see in just a moment. Peter always has something to say, which is great. I'd love to hear what Peter's got to say. You can imagine Peter saying to John, well, you know, I did walk on water. Of course, James is saying to John, didn't he sink? Yes, but I walked on water.

But then this is even better. Just a short time after this, James and his brother John are going to come to Jesus. They're going to say, Jesus, we have a request for you. Oh, anything for you boys. What's the request? When you come into your kingdom, is it possible that we could sit on your right hand and your left when you come into your kingdom? They did this in front of everybody. It gets worse.

Matthew's Gospel says they got their mom involved in it. That is just the trump card right there. How dare you? Matthew 20 states that the mother of Zebedee's sons, whose sons are James and John, came to Jesus with her sons, kneeling down and asking Him something. And He said...

To her, what do you wish? And she said to him, "Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on the right and one on the left, when you come into your kingdom." They get their mom involved in the situation. If ever there would be a great time that you would expect Jesus to rebuke them, this is the time. However, he doesn't do it—not in the way that I would expect.

Jesus doesn't rebuke our need for standing, status, and esteem. Instead, he reframes it with a little child—a little child that had done nothing, a little child that could probably do nothing, and had no ability to do much of anything. This child had no standing in the world of the first-century ancient Near East. A little child that had not preached, had not performed a miracle, was not involved in the distribution of food, and was not there when Jesus raised Jairus's daughter or when Jesus was transfigured. A little child that didn't do anything was the perfect stand-in for an essential lesson.

This is textbook, perfect visual persuasion. Point number three: kingdom greatness is measured by being, not achieving. This is not an easy lesson to learn. We all wrestle with this today. Did you know that I desire to be great? And so do you. We desire to be great, just as Jesus's apostles did. I am so grateful that Jesus didn't rebuke them, and he doesn't rebuke our desire. He does reframe it. He says, "Do you desire to be great?" Inside, we all kind of say, "Well, yes." And he said, "Okay, here's how."

The path to prominence, according to Jesus, is dramatically different from the course in our culture or any culture. I love the way this is framed when you read it in the Greek language, because Jesus says, "He who is mikros, micro, among you will be megas, mega." I like that. He who is micro will be mega. In Matthew's account, Jesus says, "Unless you are converted and become as a little child, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Now, there's a lot that could be said about that, and a lot that has been said about that.

Many different ways exist for people to interpret this. At the very least, I think it could mean that God does not value your worth by your output. Let me say that again: God does not value your worth by your output. This would be a really great time for you to be like a Southern Christian and say, "God does not value your worth by your output." There we go.

Your value, your worth, and the dignity of who you are have everything to do with who you are as the one who made you. What does that mean? Well, in the opening chapters of the Bible, as God is making everything, could we say He saved the best for last? He saved the most important part of His creation until the final thing He made. He formed man and woman from the dust of the ground and breathed into them the breath of life. But what did He say when He did this?

In Genesis 1:26, God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness." In verse 27, it continues, "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them." Then God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion."

This is crucially important. Before humanity ever succeeded in doing anything that God had made them to do, He granted them inherent dignity, value, and worth by the mere fact that they were made in God's image.

The especially important question that we need to wrestle with at this cultural moment is the question that King David asked 3,000 years ago in Psalm 8:4: "What is man?" That's the question. It's an anthropological question. Why is this such an important question? I'm going to talk about this a lot next Sunday night if you come out for the AI discussion. Because that is the key question. Many of the people who are creating the technologies that are going to radically revolutionize everything in the Western world and throughout the world answer the question, "What is man?" by saying he is just the current highest form of consciousness that came about.

By random chance and mutation over billions of years, he will be subdued and overcome by something greater, and we just may have created it. What is man? Psalm 8 asks, "What is man that you, God, are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?" For you have made him a little lower than the angels, who are also conscious creatures of God's creation. You have made man a little lower than the angels, but you have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands, and you have put all things under his feet.

Notice the progression here, because it is crucially important. God made us in His image; He crowned us with dignity, value, glory, and honor, and then He gave us a task to perform. The task, the doing, comes after the being. The tasks, the purpose, follow the ontology of what He made you as, created in the image of God. That is crucially important. It's going to become significant in the coming weeks, months, and years.

So how did Jesus' disciples respond to this? Because this is classic. They were arguing with each other about who should be greatest. Jesus perceives the dispute and says, "Okay, let me answer how you become great," using a child as a beautiful visual persuasion.

Then John, look at verse 49. Now John answered, and I love that it was John, because there's a part of me that just expects it should be someone else, but it's John. It's important that it's John because it's believed that he was the youngest of the disciples, and by the very fact that he's the youngest, he's the least. So John has to give a status update.

John answered and said, "Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us." John says this in such a way that he expects a certain response, doesn't he? What response is he expecting? He seems to be expecting Jesus to say, "Good job, John. You have to keep those outsiders outside." So John says, "Lord, Master, we saw someone casting out demons. We forbade him because he's not with us." He thinks Jesus is going to say, "Attaboy, John, good job. You're my favorite. Keep up the good work." John is doing what we do.

When we think that we're a part of the greatness team, we gatekeep. We set up the boundaries. It's us four and no more. It's our team. John was doing what insecure people always do when they're not sure about their standing; we police the boundaries harder. Gatekeeping is a symptom of status and identity anxiety.

Point number four: when status is our priority, exclusion becomes our instinct. The two images we have here—of Jesus taking this little child and John pushing out the outsider—confront us with this reality. John was expecting the attaboy from Jesus, and he didn't get that. Notice what Jesus says in verse 50: "Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side."

Never forget that how you treat others reflects how you see yourself in them. The disciples wanted to police the boundaries of their team to control who could legitimately serve. John says, "Hey, we saw some rando that didn't have the disciple card trying to do our thing, and we said no." Jesus responds, "He who is not against us is on our side."

That's revolutionary, especially since it's recorded in Matthew 12 and Luke 11, which we'll get to probably in a year. In those passages, Jesus says, "He who is not with me is against me." But here, he says, "He who is not against us is on our side."

We judge greatness by comparison and position, and our position in relation to others. We say, "Well, they're not a part of our church. They're not a part of our denomination. They're not a part of our team. Therefore, they're not with us." Because they're not with us on our team, we conclude they must be against us.

Jesus says, "No, if they're not explicitly against us, then they're on our side." Well, that's challenging, because that might actually mean God can still use Catholics.

Wait, what? I don't agree with them on everything, but there's going to be an awful lot of Catholics in heaven. Maybe they'll be surprised because they didn't have to go to purgatory. Praise Jesus! We'll just be like, "Hey, welcome to the club. Glad you're here."

Sometimes our worst traits show up at the worst times. Thankfully, Jesus doesn't immediately rebuke our inclinations. He does challenge them by getting us to consider.

Point number five: greatness is not determined by our output or our team, but by our closeness and connection to Christ. He's the great one. He brought this little child near Him. Greatness is established not by our output or our team. We're not saved by works, lest anyone should boast, but by His grace towards us.

I think this reality is going to become increasingly important for us to remember as we move into a radical reshuffling of society, which we are all going to witness. I don't think I'm overselling this. I've been deep in research on this for three years now, and I believe it is going to radically reshape everything.

With the emergence of what's called agentic artificial intelligence, the position that you worked so hard for, that you got an education for, that you got an internship for, and that you worked for decades to have, is going to be discovered very quickly. If your work touches a computer in any way, if there is a computer in the loop, it will be discovered very quickly that your job can be done faster, cheaper, and more efficiently by a computer without you.

The crisis of meaning that is about to happen to many people we know, who don't understand that they were created in God's image, is radical. It will be an evangelistic opportunity for the church if they recognize and understand this, because we have a great message: your worth is not determined by your output. These things should always be seen as tools that help us do tasks and not overlords that rule us. However, the temptation will be for many industries and many corporations, especially in an economic system...

That values the shareholder over the worker. The bottom line will be that this computer system can do more than these people, and they cost a lot more money than this computer system. So, hey, we're going to give you a really nice severance, and you can keep your computer. But they're going to choose servers over people. That's going to be the temptation.

And what's the answer? It's an anthropological question. What is man that you're mindful of him? He crowned you with glory and honor. We have the only answer that really is the true answer. You need to know what it is because you're going to be next door to or in the cubicle next to the person who finds out that their worth, which they believed was their output, just got completely redone by a computer system that learned what they did and did it faster, cheaper, and more efficiently.

What is greatness? It's being close to Christ. Would you stand with me as we close in prayer?

God, I thank you for this challenging text, but it's such a good lesson. Success and greatness are not contingent on our output, our standing, or our achievement. But, Lord, our greatness is found in the fact that you made us in your image. You crowned us with glory and honor. You gave us a task to perform. But God, ultimately, those tasks, those things that we do, they don't ultimately establish who we are—our true identity.

God, help us to learn that lesson. Help us to be able to not only know that lesson but to be able to frame it for others because there are a lot of people who are going to be experiencing a crisis of meaning, and they're going to need to know the reality of who they are as they're trying to figure that out.

God, teach us, change us, and help us to be a light shining to those who are in darkness, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said, Amen.