The apostle Paul once admonished the Philippians, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). In serving the Lord and seeking to glorify Jesus Christ, we must be certain to put aside selfish ambition.
In our passage today, we will see how Jesus taught His disciples to be careful about competing with other believers; for when competition arises, we can become self-focused and forget the bigger picture. We can fail to remember, as Paul said, to “look out not only for [our] own interest, but also for the interest of others” (Philippians 2:4). It is all too easy to get caught in the trap of serving the Lord with the motive of personal gain, instead of with the intention of leading other people to faith in Jesus Christ; and when we become focused on self, we can become critical and judgmental of other believers and other churches.
Jesus Understood Team Effort Evangelism (vv. 38-39)
38 Now John answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me.”
Look again at what John said: “Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us” (v. 38). This statement sounds like something a believer might say today: “Pastor, while I was outside doing yard work, a man knocked on my neighbor’s door and started witnessing to her. I overheard their conversation, and when the man said that he was from Bacon Lick Baptist Church I marched right over and asked him to leave. I didn’t think he should be sharing on our church field.”
In the fictitious scenario I just presented, the believer had likely lived beside his neighbor for many years, and had never worked up the courage to share the gospel with her. Jesus once declared, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40). If a believer fails to share the gospel with his neighbor, then the Lord can make even the rocks cry out His name. If the Lord speaks to your heart to witness to a certain individual, and you fail to do so, then He can easily send someone else to do the job.
All too often, Christians will refuse to share the gospel with their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family members. And when someone else comes along and takes the lead, then regret over our own failure can enter the heart, and jealousy can enter the mind; and in a moment of clouded judgment we might tell the person who’s doing the witnessing to move on. Keep in mind, however, that if we tell a faithful evangelist to “get lost,” we might be condemning our friend or coworker to “stay lost.”
Did you realize that a believer can become jealous or envious on behalf of his or her church? In the example that I just shared about the church member who told his pastor how he ran off someone who was witnessing to his neighbor, he could have been afraid that his neighbor would get saved and begin attending Bacon Lick Baptist Church. Like John, he might reason, “He does not follow us” (v. 38), or rather, “He is not from our church.”
Churches, unfortunately, can be competitive. Allow me to share from an article entitled, “Competitive Church.” Matt Monyhan testifies, “When it is all said and done, churches are competing with one another for the same people . . . Churches want big numbers of people to come to their services and they don’t care where they come from.” He continues to add,
Churches try to “attract people to their church from other churches. Why do churches advertise on Christian radio? Why do churches always want you to know why they are different from other churches? It’s because we . . . compete with each other for people.”(1)
Monyhan emphasizes that much of the competition we see, is from churches that are geared toward receiving transfer growth. A church that is focused on fulfilling the Great Commission will be geared toward growth from new converts; from the lost who have recently given their hearts to Jesus Christ. A Great Commission church will be expending most of its energy and resources on evangelism, rather than fancy advertising campaigns aimed at other Christians.
I have not seen very many Great Commission churches in action; and even if there were a great awakening, and churches got back on task with their true purpose of winning the lost to Christ, baptizing them, and discipling them (Matthew 28:19-20); sadly, you would still see church competition. The gospel of John shares the account of how John the Baptist’s disciples were being competitive in acquiring new believers for their own group. Listen closely, as I read John 3:22-26:
After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He remained with them and baptized. Now John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there. And they came and were baptized. For John had not yet been thrown into prison.
Then there arose a dispute between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified - behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!”
In these verses we learn that John the Baptist was baptizing in one place and Jesus was baptizing in another. John’s disciples noticed that many people started going over yonder to be baptized by Jesus, and they became a bit nervous and informed John about it. It appears that they were afraid they would not have as many converts, and they felt that maybe they were doing something wrong.
It is good that they were questioning, in order that they might learn to do what was right; but at the same time it was bad, because they became more focused on what was going on down the road than what God wanted to do in their own ministry. It also appears that they were somewhat jealous that many people were going to Jesus to be baptized instead of coming to them.
This account reminds me of how some churches act. A church down the road might start attracting people and begin growing by leaps and bounds, and another church will see what is happening and begin asking what they are doing. It is good for a church to ask what another church is doing, in order that the people might learn and grow in effectiveness; but it is not good if the people of one church sit around and criticize the other church.
In following the remainder of the account, the New Living Translation renders John’s reply, in John 3:27-30, as follows:
God in heaven appoints each person’s work. You yourselves know how plainly I told you that I am not the Messiah. I am here to prepare the way for Him - that is all. The bride will go where the bridegroom is. A bridegroom’s friend rejoices with him. I am the bridegroom’s friend, and I am filled with joy at His success. He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
John said that the bride will go where the bridegroom is located (v. 29). In the New Testament, the bride is symbolic of the church and the bridegroom represents Jesus Christ. John basically said, “The people of the church will be drawn to where Jesus is at work.” When this interpretation is applied to verse twenty-nine, the remainder could be interpreted as saying, “All the people of God’s church, or His kingdom, will rejoice with Jesus whenever they see that He is at work somewhere.”
What we learn is that when God is at work somewhere then people are automatically going to be drawn there, and we just need to rejoice when we see that God is moving. The same thing is true when we see someone witnessing in Jesus’ name, or hear of a church that is faithfully preaching the gospel. As long as an individual, or a church, is preaching Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way unto God the Father (John 14:6), we should rejoice and be supportive.
In our primary passage, in Mark chapter nine, Jesus told His disciples, “Do not forbid him” (v. 39). Forbid him from what? Working a miracle in Jesus’ name (v. 39). This individual was working in “Jesus’ name.” He was not healing in the name of some other deity. In fact, had he been attempting to heal in another name, he would have surely met with defeat. The fact that people were being healed proved that he was on their side and working for Team Jesus.
The apostle Paul once told the Galatian believers, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6). He continued to explain what he meant by “a different gospel.” He stated that Peter and James “were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14), for they still upheld circumcision, which led many Gentiles into believing that circumcision was a necessary requirement for salvation (cf. Galatians 2:11-13).
So, Paul informed Peter, “Man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16). Therefore, if someone is preaching salvation through any other means than simple faith in Jesus Christ alone, then you will know that person is preaching a different gospel, and that he should be rebuked.
Jesus also told His disciples, “No one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me” (v. 39). He basically said, “No one who speaks on My behalf will turn around the very next day and denounce Me.” “If he is working miracles in My name, then be sure to support him.” Jesus understood team effort evangelism. The goal of evangelism is not for growing one’s own private kingdom; the intention of evangelism is for growing THE KINGDOM.
Jesus Stressed Aiming for the Same Goal (vv. 40-41)
40 “For he who is not against us is on our side. 41 For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
Jesus said, “He who is not against us is on our side” (v. 40). All too often we can get caught up in identifying the wrong competition. We are not in competition with other believers; but we are at odds with the devil and his evil schemes. Paul said, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). We are in competition with the world, striving for the hearts and souls of men; and if we mistakenly view other believers and other churches as our competition, then we become distracted from our real mission.
“He who is not against us is on our side” (v. 40), meaning that anyone who preaches “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), he or she is on Team Jesus. In an article entitled, “Church Planting Is Not A Competitive Sport,” Mark Myles states,
If we are in this for the gospel, and we are, then we are in this together with other churches, not in competition with them. In fact, we’re on the same team! If we’re in competition with, and always trying to outdo another expression of the Body of Christ, then we are either on the wrong team, or playing the wrong game.(2)
Rather than saying that many of us are “playing the wrong game,” I must be blunt and say that many of us are “playing games” period. Our focus is not the propagation of the gospel and receiving commendation from the Lord; but rather many believers are seeking to receive the praise of men.
In order to receive worldly recognition we must single-handedly win the day by gaining as many notches on our belt as possible in order to maintain our bragging rights. As Christians, we must come to realize, sooner than later, that seeking to fulfill the Great Commission requires team effort, and that we are all working toward the same goal. Listen as I share an illustration:
In the 1998–1999 NBA basketball season, David Robinson, a frequent all-star and veteran center for the San Antonio Spurs, learned to share the limelight with the new dominant player of the league: his teammate Tim Duncan. San Antonio won the NBA playoffs in 1999 with Tim Duncan as their star player. In Sports Illustrated, Robinson reflected on what that was like for him.
He said, “I can’t overstate how important my faith has been to me as an athlete and as a person. It’s helped me deal with so many things, including matters of ego and pride. For instance, I can’t deny that it felt weird to see Tim standing on the podium with the Finals MVP trophy. I was thinking, man, never have I come to the end of a tournament and not been the one holding up that trophy. It was hard.”
“But I thought about the Bible story of David and Goliath. David helped King Saul win a battle, but the king wasn’t happy because he [himself] had killed thousands of men. He only thought about David having killed tens of thousands. So King Saul couldn’t enjoy the victory because he was thinking about David getting more credit than he was.”
“I’m blessed that God has given me the ability to just enjoy the victory. So Tim killed the tens of thousands. That’s great. I’m happy for him.”(3)
Through his faith in Christ, David Robinson came to realize that because he was playing on a team and working towards the same goal, he needed to rejoice that his teammate was in the spotlight. As believers, we are each working for God’s team; therefore, we should rejoice in another’s victory. In his book Church is a Team Sport, Jim Putnam tells us, “The team, the whole church, must work together to bring people to the goal. Programs must be designed to make the team win, not to make individuals or certain groups look good.”(4)
Jesus concluded by saying that this other fellow who had been casting out demons in His name “Will by no means lose his reward” (v. 41). His reward was recognition in the eyes of God; and if the disciples did the same work as he did, then they too would receive recognition from the heavenly Father. Jesus was saying, “If you focus on the work to which you were called, this man will be rewarded, and so will you.”
Time of Reflection
I find it important to note that only five verses prior to our main text that Jesus had asked His disciples, “What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?” (Mark 9:33). Mark stated, “But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest” (Mark 9:34). The disciples were focused on self-glory at the very moment that John said, “We saw someone . . . casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him” (Mark 9:38). I want to ask you this morning, “Where is your focus?”
If your focus is on yourself instead of others and the propagation of the gospel, then perhaps you are someone who forbids the work of the kingdom. Maybe you are someone who judges another church. Perhaps a fellow believer is working really hard at sharing the gospel, and is receiving praise for his or her efforts; and therefore, you criticize the individual out of jealously. When your criticism stunts the person’s enthusiasm, then you have forbidden the work of the kingdom.
Jesus once informed Peter that he would be martyred for his faith, and Peter, feeling let down, asked Jesus about the fate of the disciple whom Jesus loved. Jesus replied, “What is that to you? You follow me” (John 21:22). This is some good advice! Let’s stop worrying about what God is doing in the life of a fellow believer, or a church down the road, and let us stay focused on what God wants to do with us right here and right now. If we see the Lord at work in another person or in another church, then let us be supportive, knowing that we are all working toward the same goal.
Once again, the goal is making sure that people hear the gospel message of salvation in Jesus Christ; and the message is this, according to John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” And Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” The truth of the Bible is very clear that without knowing Jesus, we are lost in our sins and destined to hell when we die; but we can be forgiven of our sins and receive eternal life if we will confess Jesus as Savior and Lord of our life.
NOTES
(1) Matt Monyhan, “Competitive Church,” posted November 11, 2010, Four Hills Church: www.fourhillschurch.com/blog/2010/11/11/competitive-church (Accessed July 15, 2011).
(2) Mark Myles, “Church Planting Is Not A Competitive Sport,” posted August 3, 2010: markmyles.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/church-planting-is-not-a-competitive-sport/ (Accessed July 15, 2011).
(3) Mark Moring, “Mission Accomplished,” Sports Illustrated (July 5, 1999), pp. 36-40.
(4) Jim Putnam, Church is a Team Sport (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008), p. 123.
