Introduction:
A. In last week’s sermon, we started a section in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus was privately teaching His disciples some very important lessons on discipleship.
1. The two lessons we explored last week had to do with prayer and the passion of Jesus.
2. In today’s sermon, we will explore two primary lessons about pride and prejudice.
B. But before we get into the text, let’s start with a little humor about learning.
1. As disciples of Jesus, we must continue to learn and grow, and there should never be a time when we stop learning.
2. Winston Churchill said: “Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”
3. Sometimes being taught can be humbling and painful – some of us seem to always have to learn things the hard way.
4. Here’s a few memes about learning things the hard way.
a. Note to self: Never buy two bunnies at once – they guy always says they are two males or two females, but don’t trust him!
b. Note to self: Dish soap is not dishwasher soap.
c. Note to self: Turning up the heat does not make the food cook faster.
d. Note to self: Never play twister with a full bladder.
e. Note to self: Sometimes, social distancing is a very good thing.
f. Note to self: You have the capacity to learn from your mistakes – if you live through your mistake – don’t wake a sleeping bear!
C. As we see Jesus teaching His disciples today, I have to believe that they did learn from their mistakes, and I hope we can learn from their mistakes as well.
I. Lesson #1 was about PRIDE and Humility (Mk. 9:33-37)
A. Mark wrote: 33 They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34 But they were silent, because on the way they had been arguing with one another about who was the greatest. 35 Sitting down, he called the Twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last and servant of all.” 36 He took a child, had him stand among them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one little child such as this in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but him who sent me.” (Mk. 9:33-37)
1. Back in verse 30, Mark told us that Jesus and His disciples were making their way through Galilee and now He tells us that they arrived at Capernaum.
a. Capernaum had become Jesus “home away from home” and very likely the house they were staying at was Peter’s house, where they had stayed previously.
2. One by one, the spiritual flaws of Jesus disciples were being exposed.
a. First, it was their prayerlessness which prevented them from having the power to cast the demon out of the boy.
b. Second, it was their fear which kept them from asking Jesus about the things they didn’t’ understand – like Jesus’ death and resurrection.
c. Now, the spiritual flaw that gets exposed is their pride.
3. As Jesus and His disciples were making their way to Capernaum, the apostles began to argue among themselves about who would be the greatest in the coming kingdom of God.
a. Most of us would like to be known or at least be remembered as a great person.
b. What it means to be great is probably different in the minds of all people and most of our desires and thoughts about these matters are subconscious in nature.
c. The apostles were like us and so they struggled with these desires of greatness as well.
4. But nothing so clearly shows how far the disciples were from understanding the real meaning of Jesus’ Messiahship and the true nature of His kingdom than this argument about who was the greatest.
a. At this point in their training, Jesus had made it clear on two occasions that suffering, crucifixion and resurrection awaited Him in Jerusalem, but they were still thinking of His kingdom in earthly terms and of themselves as holding the chief positions.
b. There is something heart-breaking about the fact that the cross was on Jesus’ mind, while all they could think about was which of them would be the greatest in Jesus’ kingdom.
B. It appears to me that perhaps not all the apostles had been a part of the argument about who would have the greatest position.
1. It appears that Jesus took a small group of apostles aside and confronted them about their argument, but then gathered the whole group of apostles together to teach them the important lesson.
2. In verse 33, Mark says that Jesus asked “them” what they had been arguing about on the way.
a. If I had to guess, I would speculate that the argument was among Peter, James and John, who were the inner circle of the apostles.
b. They were disturbed by Jesus’ question and became quiet – Mark tells us that they were silent because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
c. I’m sure they were embarrassed to have been caught having such a selfish, childish argument.
d. It’s amazing how things can take their proper place or can be seen in a different light when set before Jesus.
e. How many of the foolish conversations or arguments we have would be seen for what they are if Jesus was suddenly brought into the conversation?
f. How many inappropriate or sinful activities would come to a screeching halt if Jesus was suddenly brought into the activity?
g. We must remember that Jesus is always present and is privy to all our conversations and activities, and hopefully the knowledge of His presence will help us be more careful about the conversations and activities we participate in.
C. Then in verse 35, Mark tells us that Jesus called the twelve and began to teach them.
1. Jesus assumed a seated position because that was the tradition position from which rabbis and scholars did their teaching.
2. Jesus started with a powerful principle about humility and greatness.
a. Because Jesus was God, He knew what they had been talking about (they didn’t have to tell Him) and He was adamant about correcting their false notions of greatness in His kingdom.
b. Jesus said: “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last and servant of all.”
c. This was such a revolutionary principle and was completely opposite of what most people have always believed, including the apostles.
d. The prevailing idea throughout human history has been: “If anyone wants to be first, then they must be first and be served by all.”
e. But Jesus turned that upside down saying that the greatest person in His kingdom will be a true servant who deliberately puts himself last.
f. The world does not see greatness the way that Jesus does.
g. But Jesus’ kingdom is different from any other kingdom and the citizens of Jesus’ kingdom must live by a selfless standard, not by a selfish one.
h. As you would expect, our Savior was always the perfect example of what He taught.
i. In Mark 10:45, Jesus explained: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
D. To illustrate this principle of true greatness, Jesus gave them an illustration or object lesson.
1. Jesus took a child, had him stand among them, and then Jesus took the child in his arms, and said: “Whoever welcomes one little child such as this in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but him who sent me.”
2. On several occasions, Jesus used children to illustrate spiritual principles because children can be a great illustration of innocence and openness, humility and obedience.
3. I like what commentator Martel Pace wrote about what Jesus meant by His statement: He was saying to them, “Do not aim for high position. Do not seek to have preeminence. Do not aspire to have authority over others. No, do not seek any of these positions of influence. Instead, go find someone – a weak one, a little one, a helpless one – and serve him. Go and render this kind of service because you are My disciple. Do it because you have genuinely understood what it means to follow Me.”
4. When Jesus thought of greatness in service, He didn’t think of serving as emperors or of valiant soldiers, but of serving children, and widows and orphans and the poor.
5. When we “welcome” or “serve” others, especially the most lowly and vulnerable, then we are “welcoming” or “serving” Jesus – remember the parable of the sheep and goats (Mt. 25)?
6. Pride will keep us from taking the position of a servant of the lowliest and most vulnerable.
7. But let’s remember that humility is not self-loathing or self-deprecation, but is a right view of ourselves from God’s vantage point – we are loved and valued in spite of our imperfections.
8. God doesn’t want us thinking too highly or too lowly of ourselves, but when we have a right view of ourselves, then we are able to put ourselves aside and serve others as we imitate Jesus who came not to be served, but to serve.
E. Let’s keep in mind that in Jesus’ spiritual kingdom, there are no power positions, rather there are only servant positions.
1. Elders are servant shepherds, deacons are servant stewards, evangelists are servant teachers, and all disciples are servants in one way or another.
2. My father-in-law, Glenn, used to say, “Christianity is like tennis – to be the greatest you must be the best server.”
II. Lesson #2 was about PREJUDICE and TOLERANCE (Mk. 9:38-50)
A. It appears that as Jesus was teaching about greatness and serving children, the apostle John interrupted him with a confession that was kind of a question.
1. Mark wrote: 38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us.” (Mk. 9:38)
2. John’s confession/question shows that John was trying to apply the principle that Jesus just taught them to a specific case on which they had already acted.
3. John explained that they had encountered a man who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but they told him to stop doing so because he wasn’t one of the chosen disciples – I think John was asking if what they had done was right or wrong.
4. For John, the crux of the matter was that that guy didn’t belong to their group – he was not “one of us.”
5. Don’t you think it is ironic that some of Jesus’ own chosen apostles had recently failed to do the very thing that this other man was doing and apparently doing successfully?
B. Of the four Gospels, only Mark and Luke mention this incident.
1. Certainly, we don’t know many things about this man and his situation, and neither did the apostles.
2. Obviously, this man was not one of the apostles, there were only 12 of them, and they had been called for a special purpose.
3. But Jesus had preached to the multitudes and the disciples weren’t with Jesus every moment of the day, so Jesus could have had private meetings with others along the way.
4. We can assume that this man had met Jesus at some point, had come to believe in Him, and was even being empowered and sent out by Jesus.
5. Is it hard to imagine that Jesus had other faithful disciples scattered about Galilee, Judea, and even in the Gentile regions of Syria and the Decapolis?
6. The number of other people, like this man, who were preaching Christ and serving among the people is unknown to us.
C. So, how did Jesus respond to John’s confession/question?
1. Did Jesus compliment him or correct him?
2. Mark tells us: 39 “Don’t stop him,” said Jesus, “because there is no one who will perform a miracle in my name who can soon afterward speak evil of me. 40 For whoever is not against us is for us. 41 And whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ —truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward. (Mk. 9:39-41)
3. Let’s notice the two important principles laid out by Jesus in His response to John.
a. The first principle is “whoever is not against us is for us.”
1. In Jesus’ mind there are only two categories: those who are “for Jesus” and those who are “against Jesus.”
2. Jesus classified this man as someone in the “for Jesus” category.
3. And Jesus declared that anyone who would try to serve in the power of Jesus’ name would not also speak evil of Jesus.
4. There is a real enemy of Christ and Satan is clearly that enemy.
5. But we must be careful that we don’t immediately judge everyone who is not apart of our group as against Christ or an enemy of Christ.
b. The second principle is “even the smallest act of kindness done in Jesus’ name will be rewarded.”
1. In other words, don’t stop someone from doing good in Jesus’ name because good things result from service in Jesus’ name – both for the giver and the recipient.
2. But that doesn’t mean that their reward is a guarantee of eternal salvation.
3. As you know, we are saved by grace and not by works and so no one can earn their way to heaven.
4. As we apply these principles to our relationship with God and our interactions with others, I think it is important that we don’t set ourselves up as judge and jury of all things religious.
a. God is God and He is the ultimate judge of everyone and everything.
b. As important as it is that we be people of the Word who are attempting to follow God’s commands accurately and faithfully, we know it is not our rightness or righteousness that saves us, rather it is God’s grace and mercy poured out on us through Jesus.
c. We must not be so narrow and presumptuous as to believe that we have a corner on the truth and are following everything perfectly, nor should we conclude that we are the only ones whom God might or can work through.
d. When we encounter whole-hearted believers from another Christian group, we must humbly seek common ground and seek to learn from them things that we might be missing and teach them the things they might be missing – but we have to start at a place of mutual respect and acceptance.
5. I believe the example of Priscilla and Aquila in Acts 18 is a good one for us to follow.
a. They met a man named Apollos who knew the Scriptures, had been instructed about Jesus, and spoke with great fervor, though he only knew and practiced the baptism of John the Baptizer.
b. Apollos was a great believer who was serving God with the knowledge that he had, even though his understanding was not complete.
c. So, what did Priscilla and Aquila do? They accepted Apollos’ faith and invited him into their home where they introduced him to the baptism that brings someone into Jesus.
d. It appears that Apollos welcomed this new understanding and went on to faithfully serve the Lord and His church.
D. After Jesus taught His disciples the two initial principles in response to John’s question, He went on to add a few other related principles and warnings.
1. Jesus said: 42 “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away —it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.
43 “And if your hand causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. 49 For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good, but if the salt should lose its flavor, how can you season it? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” (Mk. 9:42-50)
2. There is a lot in these verses and the last verse is probably one of the hardest in the Bible to interpret, so I won’t be able to go into detail on everything here, but there are some very clear and important things for us to hold on to.
3. The first thing to notice is how serious it is for anyone to lead someone else away from God.
a. Jesus says that anyone who causes one of these little ones who believe in Him to fall away, it would be better for him to be given concrete boots and be thrown into the lake.
1. Drowning someone with heavy weights isn’t just something the Mafia does, it was a method of punishment in the ancient Roman world.
b. The word that Jesus used for causing someone to “fall away” or to “stumble” is the Greek word “skandalizo” from which we get the word “scandalize.”
c. How might a person cause a believer to fall away? It could be by discouraging them by judging of them, or by teaching them falsely, or by being a bad example for them to follow.
1. Ultimately, Jesus’ point was: don’t do it!
d. Then Jesus said whatever would cause us to fall away should be removed from our lives.
1. Jesus was using hyperbole, which means He was using an exaggerated illustration to make His point.
2. Jesus wasn’t recommending a literal cutting off of hands and feet and gouging out eyes, but He was trying to help us see that anything and everything that we can do to avoid sin and avoiding causing others to stumble is worth the sacrifice to avoid hell.
4. Another thing to notice is the belief that Jesus had about heaven and hell.
a. There are only two eternal places someone can go: to heaven or to hell.
b. No one ever used stronger language in speaking of hell then did the loving Son of God.
c. Here we see that Jesus employed a phrase from Isaiah 66:24 to describe eternal corruption and everlasting ruin of hell – “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
d. The word Jesus used in vs. 43, 45,and 47 for “hell” is the Greek word “Gehenna” which refers to the valley of Hinnom, that is a valley southwest of Jerusalem that became a garbage dump for Jerusalem – fire burned in it constantly – which made it a perfect illustration of hell.
e. In Matthew 25:41, Jesus says that the accursed ones will be thrown into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
f. Everyone of us should do everything we can to make sure we don’t end up there with them!
5. The final thing to notice is this statement of Jesus that “everyone will be salted with fire.”
a. This is a very difficult statement to interpret.
1. Fire is sometimes considered a good thing and other times a bad thing.
2. Salt is usually considered a good thing in Jesus’ teachings.
3. But to put the two of them together is the thing that is hard to understand.
4. Being salted with fire could refer to facing judgment day – being tested by fire.
b. I want to direct our attention to the last sentence to see that Jesus ended with the words: “Have salt among yourselves and be at peace with one another.”
1. Whatever “salted with fire” means, in the end, disciples of Jesus are the salt of the earth and part of being the salt of the earth and the light of the world includes living at peace with one another.
2. Perhaps this statement looks back to how disciples of Jesus are supposed to treat the little ones and how they are not to cause them to stumble and fall away.
c. When we act with prejudice and intolerance with those who think differently or are not a part of our church family, then we are not being the kind of salt that God wants us to be.
d. Like those apostles whom Jesus was teaching on this occasion, we must not act with blind exclusiveness or with the arrogant assumption that God’s actions in the world are limited to us and our group.
j. Let’s seek to be salt and live at peace with one another.
Conclusion:
A. There are many lessons that Jesus needed to teach His disciples and some of the lessons needed to be learned the hard way.
1. Last week, we noticed that they needed to learn about prayer and about the passion of Jesus.
2. Today, we have noticed that they needed to learn about pride – that the way to greatness is through humble service, and they needed to learn about prejudice – that those who are not against Jesus are for Him and that we have to be careful to not cause anyone to fall away.
B. I hope that all of us will continue to learn and grow in Christ.
1. If any of us have learned something today about pride or prejudice or anything else, then we need to act on it, I hope we will ask for God’s help to put it into practice immediately.
2. If anyone has not yet obeyed the Gospel, turning their life over to God, then I pray that you will and that you will not delay.
3. None of us is guaranteed a tomorrow and Christ may return at any moment.
4. If you believe in Jesus and are willing to turn your life over to Him and turn away from a sin-filled and self-centered life, then you can be baptized into Christ today, and have your sins removed, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and be added to the family of God.
Resources:
• Truth for Today Commentary: Mark 1-8 and 9-16, Martel Pace, Resources Communications.
• Jesus Teaches His Disciples, Sermon by David Owens
