Greed, Grace, and Greatness: Choosing Humility in a Self-Driven World - Jeff Ryan - 3TC Podcast - 6/15/25

Pastor Jeff Ryan discusses the human struggle with sin and the need for humility and forgiveness. He shares personal anecdotes and scriptural references, emphasizing that true greatness is found in being like a child—dependent, vulnerable, and trusting in God. Jeff highlights the persistence of greed in society, contrasting it with God's standards of humility and service. 

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Transcript

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Welcome to the three timbers podcast. We hope this will encourage and uplift you today. When I was growing up and going to church, my parents would drop me off for Sunday school, and then I would meet them for church, and I would come into church, and I was always just dripping of sweat, always. And my parents would ask me, they would say, Why are you just dripping with sweat? Was it really hot in the Sunday school? And I would say, I was really so hot. Well, what they did know was I didn't go to Sunday school, I went to the gym and I played basketball, so I was a late, bold sinner right there in the church, and I didn't care. As I got older, I'm still the same way. I'm a sinner, and you're a sinner. And none of us are perfect, and as much as we like to convince ourselves, as all of them, are better than the worst of us in the world, that somehow that's good enough, it's not. We are a sin filled people in a fallen world, and what we need to do is stop striving for perfection and start striving for Jesus, amen. And what we do then is we confess who we are. We confess our sinfulness, we confess our roadiness. And here's a big deal, God already knows it before we say it those things that we don't think anybody else knows or sees. God knows and sees. But here's the great news when we confess that He forgives us. And so we're not going to ask everybody to stand up and say, hey, here are my sins. But what we're going to ask everybody to do is just to go to the Lord quietly and privately right now, bowing your heads and just confessing. Let that burden go, the burden of sins to be left to the cross. So let's leave it there, and we do that by confessing to God. So let us go confess our sins and then read the affirming words of Scripture of our forgiveness. Let us go to the Lord, Heavenly Father, we sometimes think that as long as we are in a church that doesn't matter what we do with Lord, we're imperfect people, even sitting here in church, we're no better or worse than anybody else in the world. We are just blessed to know you that you have revealed yourself to us. So Father, I pray that we would give you the burden of sin, the cost of sin, the power of sin. Your Holy Word tells us that we don't live under sin. We live under a covenant of grace. I pray Lord, that we would we not only accept your forgiveness, but Lord, I pray we could forgive ourselves. I pray we could forgive one another. I pray that the hallmark of Christ followers would be that not only are they forgiven, but they forgive of others, so Father. I pray that we can shake off the chains that have maybe kept us captive for so long because of our sin and our struggle and experience the freedom that only comes in you. We ask this in the name of Jesus, amen, and would you read responsibly these words from Ephesians, seven through eight, eight in Him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins and according to the riches of God's grace that he passed upon us. Never forget that when you are struggling with making a decision or lack of decision, or something you said or didn't say, that God has forgiven you. So this was an exciting week in in my house, and probably just for me, because WWDC took place, and you may say, no, no, it's WW what Jesus would do? No. WWDC is the Worldwide Developers Conference from Apple. And I love technology, and as you know, I'm kind of a tech expert. I think we've established that over the years, and it is amazing. The new technology that keeps coming out, that Apple is rolling out with iOS 26 and all of the different things. And what is frightening to me is by the time you open up an Apple product, or whatever technology you use, it's already automated, because they're already trying to improve it and come out with something new. And there will be some people who are left behind because the technology keeps changing. Thankfully, as you all know, I'm not one of them. I'll keep you up to date on all of this. And as much as things are changing and changing and changing and changing, there are some things that have never changed, things that have not changed since the guard. L of e. And to illustrate this point, I want to show you a video clip that is nearly 40 years old, and I want you to tell me if this clip is still relevant today. I am a liberator of them. The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies the cuts through and captures essence of the evolutionary spirit greed, in all of its forms, grieve for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked upwards of mankind and greed, You mark my words will not only stay until about anger, but that other malfunctioning corporation of the USA. Thank you very much. So that clip is nearly 40 years old, which is frightening, but has anything changed? I mean, we still have the mentality in our world that greed is good. And really, what is greed about? Greed is about greatness. Greed is to say that if I have more than everybody else, then I'm better than everybody else. So greed is really about being greater than everybody around me. And what we need to understand is we don't understand the definition of what great is. We seem to think that greatness is defined by worldly standards, instead of being defined by God's standards. And Whoever understands what it means to be great in the eyes of God, there's that word, whoever, again, will experience the glory of God. And we're going to talk about how Jesus defines greatness in Matthew 18 verses one through six. So if you got your Bibles, and I hope you brought them, if you didn't, please bring up your Bible app. If you don't have that, quickly, download the Bible app so that you can have that there. And so I want to read Matthew 18 verses one through six, I will be reading out of the NIV version. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? He called a little child to him and placed the child among him, and he said, Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes this lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If anyone calls one of these little ones, those who believe in me to stumble. It would be better for them to have a large millstone from around their neck to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Let's pray, Father, I pray that that your word go forth. I pray Lord that You would speak through me and just by me. I pray, Lord that your name would be lifted up and pray Lord, that you would bring us comfort, conviction and direction. I ask this in the name of Jesus, amen, to understand what is happening in chapter 18. We need to have some context from chapter 17, and the transfiguration has just happened. And you may say, Well, what is the transfiguration? We see Peter, James and John above a mountain with Jesus, and Jesus is transformed. He's transfigured that his face is absolutely pure white. We see that his clothes are shining like the sun. And you can see that in this moment. You can imagine how overwhelmed the disciples who were there must have been. They couldn't understand this. All of a sudden, Jesus looks completely different. It's all this stuff, and they immediately are overwhelmed. And Peter says, You know what? I want to build this shelter. I want to build the shelter because Moses and Elijah were there too. And so Peter thought, I'll just build a shelter. I'll do something. And isn't that just like us? We always think we have to do something instead of being present, right? We are human beings, not human doings, but we sometimes think we're human doing And so Peter said, I'll build a shelter. But as he's building a shelter, and here's this booming voice come down from heaven and says, This is My beloved Son, I will please listen to him. So I want you to put all these factors together for a minute. Peter, James and John, they are overwhelmed in this moment. They've seen a change in the way that Jesus looks. They've heard the voice of God come down from them and like them. I'm sure all of us would be overwhelmed. Them, and they fell face down to the ground, filled with fear, filled with anxiety, filled with worry, filled with regret, filled with all kinds of things. Can you relate to those feelings? Have you ever felt overwhelmed, over matched and overcome? I know I have. And in that moment, what do we see that Jesus does. He reaches down and he says these words, rise and have no fear. That stopped me in my tracks when I was reading that, that even in those moments, we are overwhelmed, overcome and over matched and down on our knees and back on our faces. Jesus says, Rise you can get on them because he is there. He is with them. After all of this happens, Jesus tells them, don't, don't tell anybody about this encounter. Hardly, because people wouldn't believe what just happened. And as they were coming down the mountain, a man coming up, we had a son who was having epileptic seizures, who the disciples could not heal. Jesus gets a little frustrated, and he tells the disciples, if you had faith as small as a mustard seed, you could move about. Jesus said, If you truly believe what I have taught you and told you who I am, you can do these amazing things. Now. Jesus has been talking to the disciples about a lot of things, about faith, about life, but he's also been talking about his impending death and resurrection, and that was to come again. They're a little confused and a little distracted. Peter comes up when they come down from Mountain and said, Somebody just asked me this question that I don't know the answer. They said, Should your master pay taxes? And Peter's like head spinning. You know, he's he's seen the transfiguration. He's seen the healing. He's got people coming. He asked this question, and Jesus says, Peter, you need to just relax. I'm going to ask you to do something that's not going to make a lot of sense, Peter, but I need you to do it. I need you to go to the lake. I need you to cash down in the fishing rod. And the first two fish that you get, they're going to have drachmas, which was the form of currency give the people what they need. Again, Jesus comes in those overwhelming moment, and he has a solution, though it may be unorthodox or not what we think. Or we can sit there and say, that's not going to work, but Jesus is, trust me, it'll work. Jesus has been teaching the disciples what it means not to be a citizen of the world, but to be a citizen of the kingdom of God, to be a child of God. Most of this probably took place around Peter's home. Now why do I give you all of that background, because I want you to understand that there was a lot going on that I want you to see in this Jackson. If you've got your text there, you can look at the first verse right there, when Jesus was asked the question, Who is the who is the greatest and the kingdom of God, despite Jesus talking about his death, despite all of the Transfiguration, despite the healing, despite finding coins and fish, they wanted to know who was in charge. They wanted to know that who was going to take over Jesus Christ industries. They wanted to know who was going to be in charge. When Jesus died, it wasn't that they didn't hear that he was going to die. They just didn't care. They were like, Hey, we gotta move it. This thing is cooking. We got people following us. Things are happening. You know, our market share value is good. We're getting followers, we're getting likes, we're getting shares, all these things, and they want to know who's in charge when Jesus dies. They didn't have any sympathy that Jesus was going to go to the cross, and they didn't have any understanding of why he was going to go to the cross. It was for their sins and for ours. They got grieved. They got grieved because they wanted to be great. They wanted to be great in this world. They wanted to run Jesus industries. They wanted to be the face, the figurehead, the name attached to them. They got greedy. We saw that clip. Greed is good. Michael Douglas said, but not the kind of greed that this world offers. And you would think that after this moment, and we'll see how Jesus kind of rebukes them, for their readers, that they would truly have understood this moment. But I want to read to you what happened at the Last Supper. Says this in Luke 22 a dispute also arose among them being disciples, as to which one of them was considered to be the greatest. Jesus said to them, the king of the kings of the Gentiles, Lord over them, and those who exercise authority over them call themselves benefactor, but you are not to be like that. I said the greatest among you should be like the youngest and the one who rules like the ones. Service For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I'm among you as one who serves. See the disciples have always, and we have always misunderstood what it means to be great. The disciples thought that being great was being powerful. Jesus is being great as being a servant. Being great is being humble. Being great is understanding that it's not about worldly accomplishments. Do you know how many people think that God cares about your resume? People lives if the only way to get into heaven is if you have a really impressive resume? I have this title, I have this job, I own these things. I have this much in the bank. We have this tendency to think that greatness comes from our worldly resume and it does not. God is not impressed with our resume and wonders why we continue to try to build our resume. But one of the things I always love about Jesus teachings is that he uses object lessons. I'm a visual learner, so I need to see it more than I need to hear it. And so when Jesus does see that the disciples clearly are not understanding his words, he calls a little child over to him, and he says, unless you become like a rich child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Now there's a couple of things we need to understand here about the disciples. When they ask the question, Who will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? They were assuming that they were already in. It was a foregone conclusion that they were going to get into heaven. They were already and they were too good to keep out. Do you ever think like that, that you're too good to be kept out of heaven? Sometimes the world tells us that, oh, you're in church. It's too good. So what we need to understand is none of us are guaranteed to go to heaven based on a worldly resume. So the first assumption was that they were in heaven. The second thing that they assume is that they didn't have to be from the kingdom. Notice they said to get into heaven, which means they were born outside. We are born outside of the Kingdom. In order to get access into the kingdom, Jesus just said, You've got to become like a little child that had to just blow the hair back for the disciples. What are you talking about? That I've got to become like a little child to be in the kingdom of God. I thought I was in the kingdom of God. I've been part of this movement. Things are moving. Things are happening. But Jesus said, whoever humbles himself like this little child will be the greatest in the kingdom of God. And there's that powerful, transforming word we've been studying with whoever, it doesn't matter who you are, whoever, whoever humbles themselves like a child, will be considered the greatest in the kingdom of God. So it seems kind of counter intuitive to say Humble yourself like a child. Because what do we always say to young people? You gotta grow up. You gotta grow up. And young people can be kids, teenagers, their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. It doesn't matter. We say it's time to grow up, and now hearing Jesus is saying, it's time to be like a little child. So does that mean we can keep our rooms messy and not eat our vegetables and just talk back all the time? That's not what it means to be a child. Means three powerful things, and I encourage you to write these down and ask yourself, if you are like a little child in this way, children are dependent little. Children are dependent on others. They do not have the ability to produce and survive on their own. Children are dependent. Children are vulnerable. Children cannot protect themselves from the world. They are not strong enough, they are not experienced enough, they are not smart enough. And children, and we love this about children. They're trusting. Children are trusting. So can we sit back and can we say that I am dependent on God, I I understand I'm vulnerable without God, and I completely trust God. So let's, let's flesh this out a little bit. If we're what we're saying those three things, what we're saying is that we recognize that we are powerless and God is all powerful in your life. Do you recognize that you're powerless. As hard as we try to change things and to move things forward. Do you realize, if you accept I don't have the power he does. He has the power to open the doors. He has the power to heal. He has the power to provide. Do we recognize that children do when children are hungry, they don't go to the kitchen? Go to you and I and they paid us for food. Do we understand that we are safe with God, a small child will run to their father or to their mother when they're scared. Why? Because they know that that's a safe place for them. Do Do we understand that we can't work off our sins? It's not a work release program that we are forgiven. Friends, you are forgiven. And I think many of us struggle with forgiving ourselves, but we are forgiven by God. And do we own our weakness? Do we own it that we're weak just because you're a husband, a wife, a mom, a dad, a brother, a sister, whatever we are weak, we are flawed. People. Children accept who they are. One of the things I love that when kids are sad, they cry, when kids are happy, they laugh, when kids are hungry, when kids are tired, they see, they accept who they are and what they feel in the moment. And that's what we need to be. Jesus said, Whoever becomes like a child will be great. That's what makes us great, in the eyes of God, is that we allow ourselves to be who God created us to be, which is dependent, which is vulnerable, which is trusting. Think about this. Kids depend on adults, for food, for shelter, for every little thing they are 100% dependent. Little children that don't say, I'm going to make a big roast. They say, Mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, Aunt, I'm hungry. Can you make the food? Because I don't know how to get the food. I don't know how to prepare the food. Kids are dependent. We need to be dependent, and what we need to do is the opposite of what that question. We need to turn from greed to grace. The greed that says I can, the greed that says I will, the greed that says I am to the grace of God is God who provides. God is with me. We need to turn from sin to grace, from ourselves to God. We need to reorient our priorities. That whole clip was about Michael Douglas character, greed and power. That's all it was about. And if you know the movie, he's trying to basically take Charlie Sheen and make Charlie Sheen just like him. Make it about greed, make it about power. Make it about you care that happens to anybody else, but we need to understand the words that Jesus says here, whoever humbles himself like a little child will be the greatest in the kingdom of God, whoever. It doesn't matter if we've been off track, whoever does this, Jesus says you need to be a servant. You need to be a servant. One of my favorite movies, and I can't believe when I say this is if you've seen the Kevin James movies, Paul Blart, and I'm a big Paul Blart fan. I confess that person later on, and in one of the movies, he has this great line that he says to a bank a room full of other security officers, officers, he says, Help somebody today. And I love that line because it reminds me, who are we helping today? Who can we serve today? Jesus serves us every day, all day. Who can we serve today? Jesus says that he is a servant. If you want to be great, you have to be a servant. This is what it says in Matthew 2028 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for men. It says in Matthew 2311 the greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Obviously, the College World Series is in town. It's a great event for our community, and one of the teams that has made it is Murray snake. And if you haven't heard of murray state, don't be alarmed. Not many people have. They were one of the lowest seeds to ever get here. And what has made their story so unique is that they're not like the traditional programs of the big colleges, whose coaches make millions of dollars, whose fans come to these gorgeous, pristine baseball stadiums with tons and tons of people. See at Murray State they have 800 seats in their stadium. Their stadium backs out to the parking lot of the Lowe's. The coach mows the lawn himself. The players are responsible for getting their. Are on and off the field, no matter how many times it needs to happen, because they don't have a ground crew. The the outfield fence has holes in it, and the water pools in the outfield. And the coach of murray state is trying to build men who know Jesus, not players. And He leads by serving him. He leads by getting out there and mowing the lawn of the baseball field. He is showing them what service is about and preparing for this I came across this Dutch poem that really struck me with this line that I wanted to read you. It says, Make me oh Lord, a child again, so tender, frail, small itself, possessing nothing, and indeed possessing all. When we understand that in ourselves, we possess nothing, but in Jesus, we possess everything, whoever we are, in many ways, it is incredibly immature to think that we are great. If we think that we're great based on any worldly standard that we have, that's a very immature way. A child knows they're not great. A child does not proclaim that they are the best thing ever, the smartest one ever that they can do everything that they can. That's why we have so many laws of childhood wealth, because children cannot be responsible to care for themselves. I also want to focus a minute on that one humble anyone who humbles themselves like a child, if you and I will humble ourselves. There's three things we need to do, and we already did, one of them. The first is this, repent of your sin. Repent. We need to understand we're sinners, and not whether from that, but embrace that. We repent we are forgiven. Secondly, we need to recognize our spiritual depravity, that we have nothing if we don't have Jesus. And third, we need to reorient our hearts to humility. Peter and the disciples, they pivoted pretty quick to, I know you're dying, Jesus, say, Hey, who's in charge after you go? Who's the next in line? See, they need to reorient their hearts and become humble like children. We need to do the same. Jesus also says, Whoever causes any of these little ones to not come to me, they'd be better off having a millstone tied around their neck and thrown into the ocean. What does that mean that if there are those people who are seeking Christ, it is our job to clear the path, not immediately. It is our job to show people the way that Jesus and everything we say and everything we do has an effect. We either are inviting people to know Jesus or repelling people to know Jesus everything we do, people are watching the church. People are watching the people of God, not just on Sundays. They are watching and we are either inviting them to say, I want to know that Jesus, you live for, you talk about, or we are telling people away because we're being hypocrites. Everything that we do. I love the bumper stickers. Everybody see them that say, be kind. Those are great bumper stickers. I think we need to be kind to everybody, whoever they are. I also think I'd love to see bumper stickers that said, Be humble. You know, be like a child, be dependent, be vulnerable, be trusting to God, trust me. I sat in church for a lot of years, a lot of years, that I was none of those things. I wasn't dependent, I wasn't vulnerable, I wasn't humble, I was arrogant. I could do it on my own. I didn't need anybody. I was good enough. I convinced myself that I didn't need to be like a little child. But let me tell you, when God follows you, it is much more powerful than when you submit to him yourself, much more powerful. Michael Douglas said, greed is good. My rebuttal would be, God is great, and we have to make sure that we live that out. Whoever we are, serve others. Humble yourself. Be dependent on God, be vulnerable. Trust in God. Whoever Jesus says, does that that will make you and I great in the kingdom of God? Amen, let me pray for us as our worship team comes back up, Father, we thank you that as much as we strive and we pray in the eyes of the world, Lord, it is a fruitless endeavor that Lord, we can rest. From that, that rat race, that I've got to be better, I've got to have more My name has to be known. I've got more likes and more followers, and have to have a bigger bank account and a nicer house and drive a bigger car for none of that matters. You're not impressed with our resume. We're trying to impress the wrong people. All we need to impress is you by being your child today, on Father's Day, Lord, You are our Heavenly Father and Lord, I pray that we would be your children today, that we would be dependent, that we would be vulnerable, that would be trusting you. I pray, Lord, that we would stop trying to play adults, that we would just be kids, your children. So on this day, we recognize and we're thankful. I'm thankful for you, our heavenly father, who's always there, who's always cared will never leave us, who will never forsake us, Father, I pray for those who are missing their fathers right now, for those who yearn to be fathers, I pray for her that you would just give up comfort, that Lord, we can fall into your arms if we're hurting or angry, or that we can crawl up into your lap and laugh and celebrate your faithfulness, because you are our father. Thank you for joining us for more information about three timbers, church ministries and services, visit three timbers.org. We would love for you to join us in person. You.