In the sermon 'Kingdom Bureaucrats,' Peter Allison discusses the dangers of bureaucracy within the Church of Jesus Christ, drawing a parallel between worldly structures and spiritual organizations. He uses the example of a town dump's growth into a bureaucracy to illustrate how the Church can lose focus on its mission. The sermon reflects on the disciples' experiences in Luke 9, highlighting their struggles with faith, pride, and misunderstanding of Jesus' mission. Allison explores how these biblical stories are meant to humble believers and remind them of their purpose, emphasizing that true faith and understanding come from aligning with Christ's mission. The sermon concludes by urging believers to avoid party spirit and misuse of authority, advocating for humility, unity, and perseverance in faith.

Please turn to in your Bibles to Luke chapter 9. We'll begin reading the 37th verse. Luke 9 verse 37, we pick up our narrative after the transfiguration on the mountain. On the mountain. Now it happened, on the next day when they had come down from the mountain, that a great multitude met him.

And suddenly a man from the multitude cried out, saying, Teacher, I implore you, look on my son, for he is my only child. And behold, the Spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out, it convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and it departs from him with great difficulty, bruising him. So I implored your disciples to cast it out, but they could not. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.' And as he was still coming, the demon threw him down and convulsed him.

Then Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the child, and gave him back to his father. And they were all amazed at the majesty of God, but while everyone marveled at all the things which Jesus did, he said to his disciples, Let these words sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men. But they did not understand this saying, and it was hidden from them so that they did not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying. Then a dispute arose as to which of them would be greatest. And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a little child and set him by him.

And he 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 them because he does not follow with us. But Jesus said to them, Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side. Now it came to pass, when the time had come for him to be received up, that he steadfastly said his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face. And they went and they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for him.

But they did not receive him because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did? But he turned and rebuked them and said, You do not know what manner of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. May the Lord give us understanding, that we may know His testimonies.

Heavenly Father, Your Word is true. It is precious, more precious than gold. Your Word is the Word of life. We ask that these words might penetrate deeply within us. We ask that through them, we may know you, the one who has spoken them, whose words they are.

And I ask especially that through a vessel of clay, the riches of your glory might be proclaimed to us this morning through Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Kingdom bureaucrats. Kingdom bureaucrats, that is what this passage is about.

What's a bureaucrat? What's a bureaucracy? Well, a bureaucracy is where the structure, the scaffolding becomes more important than the building. Where the organization itself, and the aspects of the organization become more important than the purpose of the organization. That's a bureaucracy.

We might think of a bureaucracy this way. Some people in a town need a place to put their trash. So they establish a dump, and they hire an attendant. Somebody to drive the, to operate the equipment at the dump, to tell people where to dump their stuff, and to keep order, and to run the dump. And it's a needed thing.

We all have the trash that needs to be disposed of. But then once they hire this attendant for the dump, then they need to pay him. So they need to hire somebody to pay their attendant. So they do. And then They have equipment at the dump.

Bulldozers are expensive. And so they need to hire a nighttime attendant to guard the place when no one else is there. And then, of course, The attendant needs to know how to attend to the dump. He needs to know how to operate the equipment. He needs to know the procedures to follow.

And so they have to hire somebody to train the attendant. Well of course, you have all these people that have jobs to do, or they need somebody to manage them, so they all work together. And then you need to have, so you need to have a manager over this organization, Because you have a lot of people and whenever you have people you have conflict And of course people have problems Whenever you have a lot of people you have to deal with problems and so you need to hire an HR department And so you see this organization begins to grow. Now when does it become a bureaucracy? Well That happens when the town looks at this organization and they say, wow, this is too expensive.

And so they lay off the attendant of the dump. See, the organization has become more important than the purpose for which the organization existed. That's a bureaucracy. And that is a danger even in the Church of Jesus Christ. Because the Church of Jesus Christ is an organization.

It's a body. It's the very first corporation. You know, that's what the word corporation means. It's a body. It's a body.

The church is the body of Christ. We think of corporations today, those are bodies that are entities that are created by the state. If you are incorporated, you have been given a body, you've been given a legal existence by the permission of the state. And of course, what the state creates, the state can uncreate. What the state creates, they own.

What the state creates, they govern. So the church is not a legal corporation of any kind. We are explicitly not a corporation because we are the body of Christ. We are the original body, the original corporation. And so corporations do have organizations.

They've always had structures. Even in the Old Testament church that Moses organized, there was a structure. There was great hierarchy. A hierarchy, a structure is necessary to any organization. A bureaucracy is when that outward structure, those outward forms of authority, the scaffolding, the structure of the building itself, become more important than the purpose.

And so we see this tendency to make the structure, to make the outward body and all that goes with it more important than the purpose for which that body exists. And we see that in the disciples. They have just received a very great privilege, three of them, Peter, James, and John with Jesus. They've been given a glimpse of Christ's heavenly glory. They've been shown what it means, something, a little bit of what it is for Christ to be the Son of God, to be God.

He was God and man. They saw his humanity every day, but they didn't see his divinity, his glory, the heavenly glory that was his. Except for this one brief moment where they saw him speak, where he was transformed, his face shown, his garments were like light and he spoke with Moses and Elijah were present on that mountain. These were men who had been dead for centuries, in Moses' case dead for well over a thousand years and to be allowed to see them and to be allowed to see them, and to be allowed to see Christ's heavenly glory was a very great privilege indeed. Nobody else on the earth could claim to have seen and heard Moses and Elijah speaking in the flesh.

So often it is after a great blessing and special favor that men fall. Often after incredible heights, men experience deep valleys of trial. After the Mount Carmel victory, you remember Elijah, he has just withstood single-handedly the entire body of Israel. And 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Ashtar. And he prevailed by the power of God.

He was a man of like passions as we are, the Bible says. And yet after this mighty victory where all these false prophets were executed because they had just off they had just spent six or four or six hours trying to offer a sacrifice to an idol. The Bible said if anybody that sacrifices to anything, anyone other than the living God was to be put to death. And they were put to death. Then Elijah trembled and faltered at Jezebel's, one woman's, threat to make him just like the prophets of Baal that he had executed.

And so you remember he runs. He runs and flees. God has to find him at Mount Horeb and say, Elijah, what are you doing here? And Elijah's like, well, you know, there's nobody left. I'm the only one.

And they're after me, they're going to kill me. And God tells him, no, there's still 7, 000 knees that haven't been to Baal. Or Paul was given an abundance of revelations. He was caught up into the third heavens where God dwells, where His glory was. He saw things that no man was allowed to see, that He was not allowed to write about.

But he was privileged to see them, things that none of us and no other man could see. And so because of that, because of the abundance of revelation that had been given to him, Paul was given a thorn in the flesh that he should become proud of the special favor that had been shown to him in allowing him to visit in some way this third heaven. And so The disciples here have been given a special favor. They've been shown what it meant with their own eyes to see the glory, the heavenly glory that belonged to Christ. And the next day after this once in a lifetime experience that only a few saints would ever experience.

The disciples come down from the mountain, and it happens on the next day. And the other Gospel accounts give us a little more background behind this event, but they come down and they are brought face to face with their own weakness, the corruption of their own heart and the other realities of life in this age, sickness, demonic oppression, warfare, and the rejection of the world. You know, that is what we battle. The world, the flesh, and the devil. And that's what we see the disciples here in this passage dealing with.

Each of these is on display. What is the purpose then of these seemingly unrelated string of events that Luke puts together? He puts them all together. And there are other things from the other Gospels. We know that other events happen in between some of these events that Luke strings together here.

Luke is writing to give a more ordered account, and his is probably the most linear account of all the Gospels. If you look at the sequence of his events. And yet, there are other things that happen in between. Because He's picking these events for a purpose. He has a message in how He puts these events together and the things that He omits and the things that He includes.

And even though this is the longest of all of the synoptic gospels, there are still things that he doesn't include. And so what is the theme behind these events here that he strings together? And I think one of these events, One of the reasons these events happen is to humble the apostles. Just like Paul was given a thorn in the flesh because of all the revelations that he has received. Here, as soon as they come down, the very next day, we see that the remaining nine are in a debate with the scribes and the Pharisees.

And it seems to be over this man who had a son who was, other gospels say, epileptic. But he had seizures, and they are attributed to a demonic spirit. And the disciples are unable to cast out this demonic spirit from this son. So you can imagine here These are disciples who just a little while ago had been sent out with a miraculous faith to be able to heal sicknesses and cast out demons. And they had come back and related all that they had done.

And now here they find they cannot cast this demon out. You can imagine that would be a bit humbling. All these people are here, this person has come to Jesus, and he's not there because he was up on the mountain. And so the disciples step in, you know, they can do this. And they find that they can't do it.

A little bit embarrassing. I think secondly, so that they are not deceived by the corruptness of their own heart, because if we aren't constantly reminded, we commend ourselves to ourselves, and we forget what we really look like. And so these events that happen Show the disciples the corruption of their own heart the the sinfulness of their own flesh Thirdly I think it's to show That so they're not to show the difficulty of battling the evil one. So they're not ignorant of the difficulty of battling the evil one. They have been watching Jesus cast out demons for quite some time.

And Jesus made it look so easy. He would simply say, depart from him, and the demons always did. There was seemingly no difficulty for Jesus to cast demons out. He made it look deceptively easy. But like the seven sons of Sceva learned a little later, it's not so easy.

It's not so trivial. Satan is a mighty angel, whom even mighty heavenly forces dare not bring reviling accusations against him. Demons are powerful. And so I think it's not, they would not be ignorant about how difficult and what is really at work there. Remember, Gabriel was sent to come to Daniel, and he had a battle for three weeks with the demons that ran Persia in order to be able to get to Daniel.

The whole time that Daniel is praying and fasting, Gabriel is battling these demons to get to him. These are mighty forces. Jesus didn't want his disciples to be deceived into thinking there was nothing to it. Fourthly, I think it's to experience the reality of being rejected by the world and to be tested. Because it's in times of testing that we discover our actual state.

When things are easy, we can cruise along, and everything is going fine, and we think, well, everything is just fine with me. But it's in times of difficulty. It's in times of trial. It's when the world rejects us. It's when we're put under pressure and stress that we see what is really in us.

It's when our true theology comes out. When we're in stress. When we're being tested. Tests shake us up and they reveal what's inside of us. And what spills out is what was there all along.

And so we see then in this bureaucracy, this kingdom incompetence. The disciples are unable to cast out this demon. And they're unable to cast out the demon because they had no faith. Jesus says, O faithless, Ah, Pistos, no faith, no faith. O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?

Now Luke, it's not clear in Luke exactly who he is speaking to. He probably is speaking to everybody. But the other accounts make it clear because the disciples are definitely included in this, if not the primary target of this assessment. Because they come to Him privately, they record, and ask Him, how come we couldn't cast this out? And Jesus said, it's because you have no faith.

And then He went on to say, if you just had a little faith, you'd be able to say to this, if you had faith just like a mustard seed, you'd be able to say this mountain be cast into the sea, and it would be cast into the sea. So it's not, Jesus isn't saying you don't have enough faith, because it's not the strength of our faith that does anything, it's the strength of the object of our faith, of Christ. And all you need, Jesus said, is a little bit of faith. Just a little bit. Jesus said they weren't able to cast it out because they had no faith.

Now they had just been casting out demons, They'd been sent out two by two just earlier to do this. Now what happened here? Well, that was what we might call a miraculous faith. And when we looked at that passage you'll remember that many unbelieving people have had that faith. Saul was an example of somebody who prophesied among the prophets, yet he was not a regenerate person.

Or Judas was one of them. Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him, who was the son of perdition, was also one of the twelve that was sent out. He had this miraculous faith to do these things, but He was not regenerate either. And so they had been given this miraculous faith for that time. They had been sent out at the peak of Jesus' popularity.

But now, as John relates, the people are beginning to depart from Him. They're leaving Jesus because He's telling them things that they don't want to hear. He's telling them that He's come in the flesh to suffer, gross injustice, to die and to rise on the third day. Jesus is telling the crowds that they cannot come to Him except the Father draw them, that they can't come in their own power. And so the apostles, the disciples are seeing this.

They are being told now, Jesus has begun to reveal to them why He's come. He's come to die. He's come to suffer injustice. He's come to be mistreated, to be given an unfair trial, to be a victim of an unjust court, and to die and to rise again on the third day. And so their miraculous faith has disappeared and they are unable to cast out this demon because they have no faith.

They are unbelieving. So he calls them a faithless and perverse. Just like Moses called the Israelites, twisted generation because of their unbelief. Jude says that generation of Israel fell in the wilderness because they were an unbelieving generation. They were not regenerate, they weren't justified, as we talked about earlier.

And so there is a kingdom in competence here on the part of the disciples especially. See, Jesus tells them elsewhere that this kind can only come out by prayer and by fasting. By prayer and by fasting. And that wasn't something that the disciples were very competent in. Every time we read about them being with Jesus When Jesus is praying, they're sleeping.

They fall asleep. He goes to pray, He takes them with Him, and their eyes are heavy. He was on the mountain praying when He was transfigured. And the disciples were there with Him, and what was happening? They were sleeping.

They only woke up when the place was filled with heavenly glory or its passion in the garden. Jesus is praying such that the sweat is falling from Him, like drops of blood, and the disciples are sleeping. They can't pray with Him. And Jesus is a little bit upset with them. Can't you pray, He said, with Me, one hour?

In this moment, in this great hour of My temptation, my suffering. So the disciples are incompetent in kingdom work. They don't know how to pray and fast, and so they are unable to cast out this demon. They are also ignorant. Kingdom ignorant.

While the people are all amazed at the majesty of God, because Jesus comes and heals their diseases, He casts these demons out. This demon was sending this child into convulsions. Some other texts say epilepsy, or basically lunacy. This demon is causing him to convulse. It's causing him to foam at the mouth.

It's hurting him. The demon is throwing him down and bruising him. And Jesus just walks up and casts him out and restores this child, heals the child, and gives him back to his father. And Jesus is routinely doing this. And the people are amazed at all this.

He's fed 5, 000 people out of a few loaves and a couple fish. But while they're all marveling at what Jesus is doing, He says to them, Let these words sink into your ears. Let these words sink into your ears. He's told them this before. What He's going to tell them, what he wants to tell them is what is the mission of the Son of Man.

Why has He come? What is His purpose here on earth? The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men. Their understanding of Messiah, and Peter had confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Anointed, but their understanding of the Messiah was something very different from the reality. They were looking for somebody who would come and do to the Roman army what Jesus did to the demons, and drive the Romans out, and restore the glory of the kingdom under David and Solomon and so that the Jews would be this mighty people that all the nations of the world looked up to And honored and respected because of the glory of their kingdom.

That's what they were looking for. And Jesus says, no, no, that's not why I've come. I've come to be betrayed. I've come to suffer injustice. I've come to die and to rise again on the third day.

Jesus is concerned here that His disciples understand the Kingdom correctly, and that they understand the crowd correctly, and they understand His role, His mission on earth in the flesh correctly. Jesus wants His disciples to understand that the popular praise and adulation that He was receiving when last this crowd was fickle, that they would betray Him. Don't be moved by the crowds. Don't be misled by their praise. It's fickle.

You can't depend on it. It's going to disappear. And secondly, as we said, he wants his disciples to understand his mission. But They could not. They did not understand this saying.

It was hidden from them so that they could not perceive it. They just couldn't understand that. They couldn't wrap their heads around it. The fact that God ordained that Jesus would suffer an unjust trial and be mistreated by the Jews and the Romans, doesn't mean that the Jews and the Romans were justified in their abuse and mistreatment of Christ. Absolutely not.

In fact, Peter brings that out when he addresses the crowd at Pentecost. And he puts into one sentence, you by wicked hands, he said, by wicked hands have crucified the Lord of glory. But in the same sentence he said, it was by the predetermined counsel of God. And so the fact that God has ordained all this to happen doesn't in any way justify what they have done. But Like Christ, we too are sanctified in this life by suffering, by afflictions, and by trials of various kinds.

And this is why we are to count them a joy when we encounter these trials of various kinds. These injustices as Jesus came to suffer because we are being sanctified by them. That is why we can leave vengeance in God's hands because we are pilgrims in this earth. This world is not our home. Glory is not normal for this age, but rather it is affliction that is to be expected.

Jesus said that the world hated Him and we should expect the world to hate us as well. But we are not to be afraid. We are not to be afraid because Christ said, I have overcome the world. In this world you will have affliction, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.

So just as Christ's purpose in coming to this earth was to be unjustly treated, to die, and to rise again. So our calling in this life is to face the persecution of the world. The disciples didn't understand that. They didn't understand that that was Jesus' purpose, and they didn't understand that that was what they were going to be called to do as His disciples. Jesus had told them that earlier, when He had talked to them about, take up their cross and follow Me, and whoever desires to save his life is going to lose it.

But whoever is willing to lose his life for My sake will save it. And he's going to talk again here about the cost of discipleship to them. But they're afraid even, they don't understand it, and they realize they don't understand it, and they're afraid to ask. Because they're fearful that He would Rebuke them. They're afraid to ask because it would reveal their pride.

It would hurt their pride. They didn't know. And to ask would reveal their ignorance. And so this pride comes out in the next event that Luke records, this kingdom pride that the disciples have. Remember, we battle the world, the devil, and our own sinful flesh.

We battle pride. We all battle pride. There isn't any one of us that doesn't battle pride. It's a part of our sinful nature. We see that here in this next section where they are disputing, I think it's Mark that tells us that they were on the road to Capernaum and they are disputing, among themselves, who is the greatest?

You see, they were more interested in climbing the corporate ladder, the bureaucratic ladder. That's what bureaucrats want to do. They want to climb the ladder. And so the typical bureaucrat is more interested in his success within the bureaucracy than he is in accomplishing the purpose for which he exists. The disciples here are showing that they're more interested in their position, in their pecking order, in the kingdom than they are in reaching those who are lost, being fishers of men, being disciples of Christ, Learners, students of Christ.

If their primary focus was knowing God, they would have been too busy praying and fasting to worry about who was highest on the kingdom ladder. See men here, men who were teaching, who should have been teaching others, men who should have been disciples of Christ, extending His ministry as Jesus was teaching them to do when He sent them out two by two to heal the sick and cast out demons, and to preach the gospel that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners, to die for our sins, and to rise again. Instead of doing that, they were arguing about who was greatest. So when they arrived in Capernaum and had settled in the home, Jesus asked them, what were you talking about on that road? What were you discussing?

And they didn't answer. They didn't answer. They knew that they had spoken in pride. They knew that they had been wrong in what they were doing, and so they didn't answer. So Jesus takes a little child and sets that child in their midst and says, this is what you are to be like.

Whoever receives this 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." He was least among you. You see, little children accept what we tell them. Little children, very little children, are willing to be led. Very little children are not trying to climb the corporate ladder, although that happens soon enough. And so Jesus illustrates what they were to be like.

They were to be like that little child. He who is least among you will be great." I'd like to just read Mark's relation here. Mark's relation of this account. Then he came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house, he asked them, What was it you disputed among yourselves in the road? But they kept silent on the road, for they disputed among themselves who would be greatest.

And 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. And then he took a little child and set him in the midst of them. And when he had taken them in his arms, he said, Whoever receives one of these little children in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me, but Him who sent me. See the disciples had become bureaucrats. They were more focused on themselves than on their purpose.

Our purpose is, like John the Baptist said, to become less and less. It's so that the glory of Christ might be more and more revealed in us and through us. And when we're focused on our position And where we are, we show we are filled with kingdom pride. They are also filled with a party spirit. It's another characteristic of a bureaucracy.

Us versus them. It comes all about preserving the institution without any recognition of why that institution exists. It's the institution for the institution's sake. And so John says to Jesus, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name and we forbade him because he does not follow us. He wasn't of our party.

He wasn't of our group of people. And so therefore, we had to stop him, because that's the other party. And the other party is always bad. The disciples have become exclusive, Overly exclusive. Here, even in Jesus' day, there are some people who are casting out demons in His name, but they weren't part of the immediate disciples that were following Jesus.

But they were part of, Jesus says they were part of his kingdom. They were doing kingdom work, and the disciples are trying to stop them because they weren't doing it as a part of their clique, their organization. Paul lists in Galatians 5 the works of the flesh as sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions. That's what Jesus is addressing here. Rivalries, dissensions, and divisions.

He goes on to talk about envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. And I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. This was a petty rivalry between other Kingdom workers, people who were casting out demons in Jesus' name. A rivalry is a competition. It's where we exert effort to reach an objective or a goal that someone else is pursuing.

And not all competition is wrong. I should say not all competition is wrong. Paul speaks to us in Corinthians about the Christian life being like a race and where to run so that we win. But rivalry is where we think our group is better. It's superior than other groups who are engaged in the same kind of work.

It's where We put down everybody else and support our group because it's our group. It's our party. And rivalries like this are all too common in our day, and always have been as you can see presidential elections in our day are a big rivalry. They weren't always like that in this country. In fact as originally designed, There were no parties, there was no campaigning, and there was no fundraising.

And there were no popular elections to choose a president. Did you get that? No parties, not one dollar in fundraising, No campaigning. In fact, it was considered an extreme breach of etiquette to even mention a party affiliation. Once those parties came a little bit later, then there were no elections.

The winner of the presidency would have been notified by a message, probably like today, learning on Facebook. You see, the party spirit reads strife. And it produces and flows from a divided body. In 2 Samuel 2, just after Saul had died, the party spirit in Israel created a civil war. Some followed Abner and some followed David.

Some followed Abner supporting Saul's house and others followed David. Absalom played this party spirit in Israel. And when he tried to win all the hearts of the people to himself, and to put down his father, he said, well, your father doesn't really care about things. He's too busy. You know, Me, I care about you.

That's a party spirit. He's elevating himself over his father. After Solomon's death, a party spirit arose between Jeroboam and Rehoboam and caused Israel to divide into two kingdoms. A breach that was never healed and led to frequent civil war. But it's in the church as well.

The same party spirit. And Paul rebukes it very strongly in 1 Corinthians 1. I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same things, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment. There will be no divisions among you, no party spirit where you all rah rah behind one man. You know, we have theologians today that God has gifted.

So They become the hero. They become the rock star. And we're them. We follow them. Paul said, For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household that there are contentions among you.

Now I say this, that each of you says, I am of Paul, I am of Paulus, I am of Cephas, or I am of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul? The disciples here were falling into this party spirit. And John, the apostle that Jesus loved, the one who probably more than any other New Testament writer wrote about love loving one another loving the body he had yet to learn that and he is here now rebuking these people there's other Christians who are we're working in Jesus name simply because they weren't of His party.

They were a different crowd. It's a party spirit. It's a party spirit. And where that party Spirit exists, it creates division, creates confusion, and James says it brings the demonic with it. It's an opportunity for Satan to establish a foothold among people where there are divisions, where there's this party spirit, sectarianism.

The church today is divided into many different groups. We have, there are reasons for that. And in this age it is necessary, but it's not the ideal. It's not what the church will be one day. The church will be united.

We're not going to have all these different divisions and sects. But in the time that it is this way, we need to recognize that all those who are not against Christ are for Him. That we're on the same side, we're on the same team. And where we can help other groups of people who may believe a little differently, we ought to be doing so. Where we can cooperate with them, we ought to be doing so.

God forbid that we have a party spirit, a spirit that Jesus rebuked. He who is not against us, Jesus said, is on our side. There's also here a misuse of kingdom authority. The next incident that Luke records is the rejection of the disciples by some Samaritans. They were sent by Jesus to prepare for His arrival, but this village did not receive them.

They were rebuffed. They were turned away. They were rejected. They were slighted. And what they thought was their holy zeal, but was really their wounded pride, they asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven on the offending parties.

After all, it was biblical. That's what Elijah had done. When King Ahaziah sent that captain of 50's to bring Elijah to him, and they said, come up, O man of God, and Elijah said, well, if I'm a man of God, then may fire come down from heaven and consume you. And they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just like Elijah did? And Jesus rebuked them again.

He says, you do not know what manner of spirit you are, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. They wanted to use what they thought they had, this authority, this power, they wanted to use it to avenge themselves and their own pride that had been hurt and wounded by the world that had rejected them. Remember, we battle the world, our flesh, and the evil one, the devil. But Jesus tells them that they didn't know what they were saying. They didn't know how wrong of a spirit they were displaying.

The Son of Man didn't come to destroy people with fire from heaven. He came to save people. Now he will come back again as a judge, but he hasn't yet. And it's not our place to avenge our wrongs, to avenge all the times that our pride has been wounded, or we've been rejected, or rebuffed. That's not what authority is for.

Sometimes those that have authority will misuse that authority for their own personal benefit, to satisfy a personal slight. John 15 tells us that we are not of this world, but we have been chosen out of this world, therefore The world hates us. The world, we can expect persecution, we can expect tribulation. And the purpose of kingdom authority is not to avenge all those slights and wrongs. Now as we look at this account of the disciples battling the world, the devil, and their own flesh, we need to remember that These disciples were not children.

They were men. They were Israelites who had grown up in the church. A church that was looking and waiting for the Messiah. These were the church of their day. But we also have to remember that these were written for our benefit, because we are like them.

Paul told the Corinthians, now all these things happened. He's speaking in 1 Corinthians 10 of all the things that He had just been talking about that happened to the Israelites in the Exodus and how they sinned and how God judged their sin and they fell and so on. And He said, now these things happen to them as examples. As examples for us. They were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

He said, therefore, that him who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. So if these disciples appear here to be ignorant or juvenile or immature or worldly, fleshly, consumed by the lusts of the flesh, consider how our life or your life would look if it was played across the pages of scripture. If our thoughts and our private discussions as we drive down the road were brought to light by the one who knows all thoughts and sees all of our actions. See these things were written for our benefit, for our admonition. They were written because we are just like these disciples.

And we need to learn not to be kingdom bureaucrats, not to have party spirit, not to mortify our pride. We need to learn the purpose of God's kingdom, and it's His glory, not our own advancement. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, You have written these pictures, these accounts, unflattering accounts of the apostles in the days of their training. You have written them for our benefit so that we who are like them might learn as they did.

So we ask Lord that these scriptures might penetrate deeply within us, That you might convict us where we have sinned as these disciples have. That you might teach us where we are ignorant as these disciples were. That you may correct us where we have gone astray, as these disciples have, where we have become more enamored with the things that you have given to us than we are with you, the giver of all that we have, the lover of our soul, the Savior of our bodies. Thank you Father for your words of life. May they be, may they minister to us, may they be a healing balm, a lamp to our feet, a light to our path.

May they be more precious to us than gold and silver. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.