All right, please take out your copy of God's Word and turn to the Gospel according to Mark chapter 9.
While you're doing that, I feel it necessary to say that Wes mentioned this morning as we're doing Father Abraham that my frail body may be able to do it.
And I just want you to know that he wasn't insulting me.
This is to protect his own.
I've got a lot of tendon muscle issues that I've had for over a decade that are undiagnosed, and that's what Wes was mentioning as we did some service yesterday, and I'm feeling it a little bit today.
So we'll see how the energy level keeps up as we work here through Mark chapter 9, verse 30 through 41.
Follow along as I read that out loud to you.
They went on from there and passed through Galilee, and he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them,
The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him.
And when he is killed after three days, he will rise.
But they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him.
And they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house, he asked them,
What were you discussing on the way?
But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.
And he sat down and called the twelve, and he said to them,
If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.
And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them,
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me,
and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me.
John said to him,
Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.
But Jesus said,
Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able to soon afterward to speak evil of me.
For the one who is not against us is for us.
For truly I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.
This is God's word to us, written for his glory and for our good.
We would all do well to listen to it this morning in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.
Let's pray together.
Father, we ask you this morning that you would bless the reading and the preaching of your word.
Father, we are a people of the book of your word.
It is by it that your spirit transforms who we are.
Father, we ask this day, Lord, that you would renew our minds and therefore shape who we are from one degree of glory to the next to look more like Christ.
That in our living we would in greater degree exalt your name.
We cannot accomplish this on our own.
We fully recognize this this morning.
And so we ask, we plead that you would work in us.
And we pray this in Christ, precious, holy, lifted name.
Amen.
So our preaching in the Gospel of Mark, we've come now to a sort of, and of course Mark did not break it down in this way,
but kind of a second act in the book itself.
Begins in chapter 8, beginning at verse 22.
We see Jesus heal a blind man at the town of Bethsaida in varying degrees.
We see it end at the end of chapter 10 with, again, the healing of a blind man.
This is blind Bartimaeus.
And the reason that it's framed in this way is that Mark's trying to say to us that Jesus is sovereign over spiritual blindness.
And he shows us that with these two real events, but that are metaphorical in this way.
Because we see the disciples coming to a dawning understanding of who Jesus is and what it means to be part of the kingdom of God.
Thus the healing in degrees we saw with the man at Bethsaida.
We, of course, get to experience, and we talked at length about the great confession of Peter in verse 29 of chapter 8.
Peter answered him,
You are the Christ.
And we're now in the midst of a series of lessons that are being taught to the disciples on their journey towards Jerusalem.
The Galilean ministry is coming to a close.
The public ministry is coming to a close.
And Jesus is working.
He's about six months out now from his crucifixion.
He's wrapping up the teaching.
The things that they have heard from him over the past two years.
He's making sure that they get it, that it clicks, that they have the proper information to be able to function forward in their discipleship.
So we saw three weeks ago, verse 31 and 38 through 38 of chapter 8, the cost of discipleship.
We then got to witness the transfiguration, that glorious moment, the climax here of the second act in chapter 9, verse 1 through 13,
of the surety of the coming kingdom.
Last week, verses 14 to 29 of chapter 9, we saw the necessity of faith, the need for it,
even a faith that is weak and imperfect, but sufficient.
This week we're going to look at the excellence of service.
And in the coming weeks, the seriousness of sin, the nature of marriage, the child likeness of faith,
the difficulty of riches, and the prominence of humility.
But for this week, the excellence of service.
And we see in this text, the excellence of service taught in principle, in a teaching moment.
So we see that they move from there, the valley that's below the mountain where the transfiguration happened.
We don't know exactly.
We're not sure of the mountain.
I postulated to you that it's Mount Hermon, which is north of the area of Caesarea Philippi.
I still hold that view.
I think likely this is where this happens.
So they've come down back into the valley where the villages of Caesarea Philippi are located,
about a three days journey north of the Sea of Galilee.
And they have now moved down through Galilee.
And we find out that they're on their way back to Capernaum, which is on the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee.
You remember this was kind of the base camp, the station that Jesus operated out of during his Galilean ministry.
So they're moving back to that place.
And we see again this theme of secrecy in verse 13.
He did not want anyone to know.
And it's interesting as we've read through Mark so far, there's this constant swearing into secrecy.
He does an amazing thing and then he tells somebody, do not tell anyone.
And we've asked the question, why is that?
It seems so much better that everyone would know.
Isn't that the place we find ourselves this day?
We want the whole world to know about Jesus, that he is the Christ, that he reigns as prophet, priest, and king.
We want to spread that word far and wide.
Why did Jesus operate in secrecy?
And the large reason for that is because he was concerned that they would take him captive.
That they would take him and make him by force become king.
That they would try to set him up militarily and politically to overthrow Rome.
It was a very common misunderstanding in this day.
It was the widely accepted understanding of who the Christ would be.
That the Christ would come and would reign politically and militarily.
That he would deliver them from their momentary trouble rather than their eternal trouble of sin.
But specifically here, he helps define for us, Mark does, that he was teaching his disciples.
So not only because of this larger reason, the bigger context of the reason for the secrecy, but he was avoiding the crowds.
He was constantly pressed in by the crowds.
He was constantly being diverted by the crowds.
And here he's got a very intensive purpose in these coming six months.
And so he avoids the crowds.
He didn't want anybody to know.
Now when you look at the first part of verse 31, it says,
For he was teaching.
So they're on a journey.
It's safe to presume.
They're passing through Galilee.
And in the process of that, he is teaching.
It's an imperfect verb tense.
So he was constantly teaching.
He was in the process of teaching.
But Mark sums it up for us in a very simple two sentences.
Saying to them, the Son of Man is going to be delivered in the hands of men and they will kill him.
And when he is killed, after three days, he will rise.
He's saying to this to them.
He's teaching it to them again and again and again.
He's trying to get them to understand.
He's making this passion prediction as he's done previously, beginning in verse 31 of chapter 8.
And he'll do it again later on in chapter 10.
Yeah, chapter 10.
Well, he's making these continual passion predictions and all of them are followed by a rather dramatic misunderstanding of who he is and what he came to accomplish.
But it was, in some sense, rightly misunderstood.
I think it's really easy for us to read these stories and really beat up on the disciples to say, like, I would have never misunderstood this.
In fact, in verse 32 of chapter 8, Mark records that he said this plainly.
He spoke it in clear language.
He didn't confuse it at all, but they just couldn't wrap their minds around it.
And that was because of their cultural context.
It didn't make sense to them that the one who had been promised, the one who would come and who would reign, was going to have to suffer and to die.
They couldn't wrap their minds around what that meant.
And so he continues to unfold it for them in this journey.
Now, it's important here, I think, to stop for a moment and remember, recall, why it is that Jesus calls himself the Son of Man.
It's an interesting title that he gives to himself.
And he does this because of Daniel chapter 7, verse 13 and 14.
One of Daniel visions, he says,
One who was human, who had human form.
But this is the title that Jesus pulls for himself.
When he came to the Ancient of Days, this is God, and was presented before him.
And to him, the Son of Man, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away.
In his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed.
They got that.
They understood that, these Jewish men that were following him.
But they didn't understand the suffering.
They didn't understand the death and the resurrection.
They had yet to really comprehend the cross.
Verse 32 says,
But they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him.
And I love that we get a number of accounts after some of the rather foolish things that are said in chapter 8 and in chapter 9 of silence.
We have a number of different ways that they just stopped talking altogether because they just didn't know what to say in response to the things he had to say.
They didn't understand.
They believed that Christ was the Son of Man of Daniel chapter 7.
They believed that he was the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace of Isaiah chapter 9.
They believed that he was the ruler of Israel of Micah 5.
But they didn't understand how all of this would be accomplished.
They didn't get how Jesus got from where he was the son of a carpenter from a small town to being this Christ.
They didn't understand that he first must be the man of sorrows of Isaiah chapter 53.
And the suffering servant of Psalm 22.
They had a too narrow view of who Jesus was and therefore is.
After all, what did the scriptures tell us?
That the cross was to the Jews.
What does it say?
It was a stumbling block.
They couldn't understand.
They had a misconceived notion about who Jesus was and how it was that he came to reign.
They thought he came to reign in the physical, not in the spiritual.
He came to reign in our hearts.
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1.23,
We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles.
They didn't understand.
And they were afraid to ask.
Afraid to ask.
It's no wonder they were afraid to ask.
After Peter rebukes Jesus for thinking something could even be possible,
he's just said, you are the Christ.
And from our understanding of who the Christ is,
it's impossible that you would have to suffer and die,
that being raised from the dead even means something if you don't die.
But he rebukes in return these scathing words.
Chapter 8, verse 33,
But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said,
Get behind me, Satan.
For you are not setting your mind on the things of God,
but on the things of man.
They were right to be concerned and afraid to ask.
Afraid to challenge him once again about what he was saying would be the case.
Jesus, at this point, has fixed his gaze on the cross.
He is headed there intently.
And all along the way, he's trying to get them to understand why it is he must go.
And so they come to the town of Capernaum.
And it says that when he was in the house,
this is likely the house of Simon and Andrew.
There is a definite article there in the Greek.
The house.
And remember back in chapter 1, verse 29,
this is the house that he was at,
was likely the base camp.
Likely where he lived when he was there in the house of the disciples,
Simon and Andrew.
And he asked them a question.
What were you discussing on the way?
Now they're making this journey,
about a three-day journey.
And the nature of walking along together,
if you've done any hiking in a big group,
or even just being in a city and trying to get down a sidewalk together,
you tend to be able to group up,
and then you have to kind of spread out.
Just the nature of crowd,
the nature of narrow paths through fields,
is kind of going to cause you to have to spread out at times.
And so, this is conjecture on my part,
but I'm assuming that they get together in groups,
they're eating meals together,
Jesus is teaching them along the way,
and then they have to spread out some.
Or he's fading from the front of the crowd to the back of the crowd,
and he's teaching them as he goes.
He speeds up.
You've ever done that?
Made a little hop on the trail to get around in front of somebody,
because you want to talk to somebody else.
And he's moving back and forth,
and he's doing this teaching.
But they've been able to have a conversation.
The twelve have been discussing on the way,
who is the greatest.
But notice that they kept silent.
It's like they know in their being
that they shouldn't be having such a conversation.
Jesus has been teaching them about dying.
He's been teaching them about picking up their cross
and following him,
and how he must suffer and die.
And they're ashamed that they're having this conversation,
this great display of human pride.
What a thing to be talking about
when the one you have declared to be the Christ,
your Lord,
the one that you have followed,
given your lives for,
has said that he will die.
To be talking about how great you will be in the kingdom.
And again, it's easy here to say,
stupid disciples,
how could you do this?
But the sad thing about this
is that this is not at all unlike us.
In fact,
as part of the story,
the saddest thing is that
it's like holding a mirror up to ourselves.
We are the very same way.
It's a result of the fall.
In fact, the very nature of the fall,
Adam and Eve were perfect image bearers.
Adam and Eve were the absolute,
pre-fall, perfect images of humanity.
It couldn't get any better.
It absolutely couldn't get any better.
There was a proper order.
There was a creator that made a creation.
And they lived in perfect harmony with God.
But they believed the lie of the serpent
in Genesis 3.5.
You will be like God.
The very motivation for the fall
was that they wanted to be more than they were.
They wanted to step out of the creator,
creation role and be like God.
And humanity now, by nature,
is self-seeking, self-exalting,
self-determining, or at least we think.
Before God changes our hearts,
everything is all about us
at all times, in all ways.
And this is rightly seen as rebellion
against the created order.
This is what makes us rebels against God.
Even if you're a typical good person,
the fact that you've stepped out
of this created order
and you're concerned primarily about yourself
and what you may gain by your goodness
makes you a rebel against God.
God created us to be God-seeking,
Christ-exalting,
and Spirit-determined.
And those of us who have been found in Christ
now have the capacity once again to do this.
Do we do this well at all times?
Absolutely not.
None of us escape this lesson in this text today.
None of us escape the constant nagging
of our prideful flesh.
So what is the remedy to pride?
What is the antithesis of pride?
It's humility.
There's a response.
Remember here they haven't told him
what they were talking about,
but he asks,
and they're too ashamed to talk about it,
but he knows just the same.
So verse 35,
he sits down as a teacher of the law would.
He sits down and he calls them to him
in the house.
And he says to them,
if anyone will be first,
he must be last of all
and servant of all.
Axiom statement.
The hinge on which this story swings.
That's another paradoxical statement.
I explained paradox to you a couple of weeks ago.
I like to say that it's an apparent paradox.
On the surface it seems to be.
A paradoxical statement,
the one we discussed earlier,
is this statement is false.
Wrap your mind around what a paradox is.
This is an apparent paradox.
It seems that,
how can I possibly be first to be last
and last to be first?
It doesn't seem to jive well
in our human logic.
This is really just a restating
of what Jesus taught them
in chapter 8, verse 34.
If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself,
set down his self-determination,
his self-exaltation,
and take up his cross
and follow me.
Follow him where?
Even to the point of death.
Jesus says,
if you are to have me,
you must lose yourself.
If we are to have Jesus,
the greatest possible thing
that we could possess in this life,
we are to put ourselves down.
See, humility has a proper outworking.
If we are humble,
if we recognize the created order
and we know who we are
apart from Christ,
there is a proper outworking.
And that outworking is service.
Placing others,
their real needs,
not necessarily their felt needs,
but their real needs
before our own.
In Sinclair Ferguson's commentary
on Mark,
he says,
humility is according importance
to the unimportant.
This is a rampant problem
of the human condition.
So rampant, in fact,
that the Scripture speaks of it
constantly.
Here's a few.
You ready?
Micah 6.8
He has told you,
O man,
what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice
and to love kindness
and to walk humbly
with your God.
Luke 4.11
For everyone who exalts himself
will be humbled,
and he who humbles himself
will be exalted.
Ephesians 4.1-2
I therefore,
prisoner of the Lord,
urge you to walk in a manner
worthy of the calling
to which you have been called
with all humility
and gentleness,
with patience,
bearing with one another,
in love.
Colossians 3.12
Put on then,
as God's chosen ones,
holy and beloved,
compassionate hearts,
kindness,
humility,
meekness,
and patience.
James 4.6
But he gives more grace,
therefore it says,
God opposes the proud,
but gives grace
to the humble.
And verse 10,
Humble yourselves
before the Lord,
and he will exalt you.
John 14.6-7
Jesus said to him,
I am the way
and the truth
and the life.
No one comes to the Father
except through me.
If you have known me,
you would have known
my Father also.
From now on,
you do not know him
and have seen him.
Look at what Jesus
has to say to us
in verse 37
about the action of service.
Receiving a child
in his name
is to behold him
and therefore
the Father.
This is the necessary
outworking
of humility
and that is service.
Look at the humble example
of John the baptizer.
Mark 1.7
John's preaching.
He says,
After me
comes he
who is mightier than I,
the strap of whose sandals
I am not worthy
to stoop down
and untie.
John the baptizer
has a great prominence
in redemptive history.
From our view,
a great platform
with which to boast on.
And he says,
don't look at me.
I must become less.
He must become great.
I am not even worthy
to untie
his
sandals.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
in his book
Humility
and How to Get It
said,
We are not worthy
to unloose
the latchets
of Jesus' shoes
because
if we do,
we begin to say
to ourselves,
what great folks
are we?
We have been allowed
to loose the latchets
of the Lord's sandals.
If we do not tell
somebody else about it
with many exultation,
we at least tell
ourselves about it
and feel that we are
something after all
and ought to be held
in no small
repute.
We're not even worthy
to untie
the Lord's
sandals.
And as all good
teachers do,
Jesus drives
this teaching
with an example.
There's a child
in this house.
We don't know
the age of the child.
We don't know
the name
of the child,
but he brings
the child over
into the middle
of their conversation
and he takes
him in his arms,
which is such a
beautifully tender
moment to think
of our Lord
wrapping his arms
around a little child
and says to them,
Whoever receives
one such child
in my name
receives me
and whoever
receives me
receives not me
but him
who sent me.
Now we have
to understand
in our culture
much of what we do
revolves around
our children.
This was not
the case
in this day.
The status
of children
was very low
in this day.
No rights.
They were lowly.
We could probably
take some lessons
from them.
They maybe
could have taken
some lessons
from us
in this regard.
But it's hard
for us to think
about the service
to children
when some of our
lives seem to
revolve around
service to our
children.
But this was not
the case in this day.
The lowest of the low
children were.
So what is Jesus
communicating to us?
Be last
so that you
will be first.
Place others
even those
you don't think
deserve it
before yourself.
Show honor
to the unhonorable.
Follow his logic
here.
Follow the great
logician.
Receive a child
you receive Jesus
therefore you receive
God.
And it certainly
works in the other
way.
And we can see
this more clearly
from our vantage
point on the other
side of the cross
that if we have
been accepted by
God it's because
we've accepted
Christ
and this works
out into the
acceptance of
the child
or those who
we don't deem
worthy of our
service.
Service is one
great evidence
of our faith.
Not the only
but it is one
great evidence
of our faith.
Us making
ourselves low
and serving
this world.
Let me read
to you again
John 14
6 and 7.
That actually
snuck its way
into my notes
further up.
That's why
I was lost
for a second
there.
Here's where
I intended
to read it.
Jesus said to
him,
I am the
way and
the truth
and the
life.
No one
comes to
the Father
except through
me.
If you had
known me
you would
have known
my Father
also.
From now
on you
do know
him and
have seen
him.
The writer
of Hebrews
chapter 1
verse 3
says Jesus
is the
radiance
of the
glory of
God
and the
exact
imprint
of his
nature.
Do you
see that
for us
to experience
God,
to understand
him in
his fullness,
to have
him,
service
is necessary.
Now to
further drive
the point,
Mark records
for us
another event
and I don't
know if it
came right
on the heels
or not,
but certainly
he was inspired
to put it
in this order
to further
drive the
point.
John speaks
up.
We don't
see John
speaking very
often and
he tells
them a
story about
someone he
saw casting
out demons
in the
name of
Jesus and
they tried
to stop
him because
he was not
one of
us.
He was not
following
us.
He wasn't
one of
the twelve,
one of
the disciples.
John's
zeal was
misplaced
in this
case.
They had
been corrected
on debating
amongst
themselves
who was
the most
important.
It set
aside this
status issue
amongst
themselves,
but that
had not
stopped
them from
thinking they
were more
important as
a group.
They've
turned their
status from
within the
group to
outside of
the group.
We saw
somebody doing
a work in
your name and
we told them
to quit it
because they're
not one of
us.
The disciples.
The very
thing that he's
doing here in
his zeal is
incredibly
misplaced and
Jesus says to
him,
do not stop
him.
For no one
who does a
mighty work in
my name will
be able soon
afterward to
speak evil
of me.
For the one
who is not
against us
is for
us.
Surely, I
know that you
guys are all
so studious and
you know your
Old Testament so
well that your
mind is
automatically drawn
to the story of
Eldad and
Medad in
Numbers chapter
11,
verse 26-29.
Just listen
carefully to
this.
Now two men
remained in the
camp, one named
Eldad and the
other named
Medad, and the
Spirit rested
on them.
They were among
those registered,
but they had not
gone out to the
tent, and so
they prophesied
in the camp.
And a young
man ran and
told Moses,
Eldad and
Medad are
prophesying in
the camp.
This is the
declaration of
John.
How dare
they?
They're in the
camp prophesying.
And Joshua,
the son of
Nun, the
assistant of
Moses from
his youth,
said,
My Lord
Moses,
stop them.
But Moses
said to him,
Are you
jealous for
my sake?
Would that
all the
Lord's people
were prophets,
that the
Lord would
put his
spirit
on them?
They're not
against us,
they're for
us.
Moses says,
Praise God
that he's
doing a
work in
the lives
of Eldad
and Medad
for the
sake of
the people
and his
glory.
Paul had
learned this
lesson from
Paul's
imprisonment as
he writes to
the church
at Philippi,
chapter 1,
verse 14
through 18.
And most
of the
brothers,
having become
confident in
the Lord by
my imprisonment,
are much
more bold to
speak the
word without
fear.
Some indeed
preach Christ
from envy
and rivalry,
but others
from good
will.
The latter
do it out
of love,
knowing that
I am put
here for
the defense
of the
gospel.
The former
proclaim Christ
out of selfish
ambition,
not sincerely,
but thinking to
afflict me
in my
imprisonment.
The very
motivation behind
some of these
men sharing
the gospel is
to heighten
the tension
of Paul's
imprisonment,
to make
the political
and religious
atmosphere
more challenging
for him.
In verse 18,
Paul writes,
what then?
Only that in
every way,
whether in
pretense
or in truth,
Christ is
proclaimed.
And in that
I rejoice.
Yes,
and I will
rejoice.
The name of
Christ was being
spread.
Would Paul have
desired them to
do it from
love,
from pure
motivations?
Of course he
would have.
But he was
just glad
that the name
of Christ
was being
proclaimed.
Jesus
wraps this up
speaking about
this cup of
water.
For truly I
say to you,
whoever gives
you a cup of
water to drink
because you
belong to
Christ,
will by no
means lose
his reward.
Now the
giving of a
cup of water
was a basic
feature of
Eastern
hospitality.
A basic
thing.
This was a
common offer
that was made
to people as
they were
traveling because
it's very
dry in this
area and
water was a
great way in
which you
could serve
somebody.
In fact,
it was such a
commonplace thing
that there would
have been no
reward as a
response to it.
Somebody offered
you a cup of
water,
you may have
extended to
them,
hey thank you,
but you
wouldn't pay
them for it.
It was a
common thing
that was done
in this day.
But it's key
for us to see
here that not
just that they
give you the
cup of water,
but they
give you the
cup of water
because you
belong to
Christ.
The one who
is not against
us is for
us.
Because you
are a disciple
of the Christ,
I'm giving
this offer to
you.
Interestingly,
this is the
only place Jesus
uses this title
of himself in
Mark's gospel.
He never refers
to himself as
the Christ again
in Mark's gospel.
So the fact
that this
person has
humbled
themselves to
do a simple
act of
service to
gain the
greater reward
becoming last
so that he
will become
first is the
period of what
Jesus is trying
to say to
them about the
excellence of
service taught
in principle.
That's not all
he's done.
He's also
taught them the
excellence of
service or will
in example.
remember back
at the beginning
of our text,
back in verse
31, he says,
the Son of
Man, I am
going to be
delivered into
the hands of
men and they
will kill me.
And when I'm
dead three days
later, I will
rise.
He sets for
them an example
of this.
Jesus humbled
himself on the
cross and
therefore he was
exalted.
Beloved, we're on
this side of that.
They had yet to
behold it.
Jesus just said
it to them.
We have seen
it.
We read about
it.
Multiple accounts
of it.
All the outworkings
of the things
that Jesus
accomplished for
us on the
cross.
Paul uses it
in Philippians
chapter 2
to motivate us
to humble
living.
Beginning of
verse 5,
have this mind
among yourselves
which is yours.
You possess it
in Christ
Jesus.
Who, though he
was in the form
of God, the
power of God
did not count
equality with
God a thing
to be grasped.
Jesus himself
was God.
You are not.
Verse 7,
But he emptied
himself by taking
the form of a
servant, being born
in the likeness of
men, and being
found in human
form, he humbled
himself by becoming
obedient to the
point of death,
even death, on a
cross.
It's the worst
form of death
ever invented
by man.
Therefore, God
has highly
exalted him, and
bestowed on him
the name that is
above every name,
so that the name
of Jesus every
knee should bow
in heaven and
earth and under
the earth, and
every tongue
confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to
the glory of God
the Father.
Jesus became the
most last, and
now he is the
most highly
exalted.
blessed.
Hebrews 12,
verse 1 and 2,
after the great
faith chapter,
chapter 11 of
Hebrews, says,
Therefore, since we
are surrounded by so
great a cloud of
witnesses, all these
men and women of
faith in the past,
let us also lay
aside every weight
and sin which
clings so closely,
and let us run
with endurance the
race that is set
before us, which
includes service.
Verse 2,
looking to Jesus,
the founder and
perfecter,
of our faith,
who for the joy
that was set before
him endured the
cross, despising
the shame, and
is seated at the
right hand of the
throne of God.
For the joy set
before him, for the
exaltation that
would be his one
day, he made
himself least of
all and suffered
on our behalf.
It's only by the
grace of God that
we can be set free
from ourselves,
from our self-service,
from our pride.
We should cry out
together, Lord, save
me from myself.
Thank you for
redeeming my soul,
but deliver me from
my old me, the old
self-serving me, the
old self-exalting me,
the one that wants to
be greatest at all
times.
Someday I'll be
least if this is the
engagement of my
life.
Make me small.
Make me little.
Give me the service
so that someday I will
be exalted.
Beloved, we all fail
at this.
We have been granted
opportunity after
opportunity to be
least of all.
So that someday we
might be exalted.
This is to our shame.
There is so much to
be done just for us,
just within our own
congregation, ways in
which we can love and
serve one another, to
put the needs of
others before our own,
to lift them up,
that we might be low.
And then extend that
to the world around
us.
This is the mission
that God has given
us to.
There is so, so much.
If you don't think
you have an issue
with pride this
morning, there is
your issue with
pride.
Lord, save us from
ourselves.
Now here's the
wonderful encouragement
of this story.
We can't miss this.
Right?
The disciples are so
daft.
They just don't get
it.
Right?
He's talking about
suffering and that you
must die to follow
him.
And they want to talk
about the ranking that
they're going to have in
the kingdom of God.
But Jesus doesn't cast
them away.
Right?
He doesn't say, you
bunch of idiots.
I'll go find another
twelve.
Right?
You're so thick-headed
and you just can't catch
on.
I've said it again and
again.
I've said it plainly.
We've been walking
for days and I've been
talking about this.
He doesn't cast them
away.
Remember the high
priestly prayer before
Jesus was crucified.
John chapter 17
verse 12.
Jesus praying.
He says, while I was
with them, I kept
them.
I kept them in your
name, which you have
given me.
I have guarded them
and not one of them
has been lost except
the son of destruction.
Right?
You know the rest of
that story.
Jesus kept them.
Jesus finished the
task that he started.
He called them to
himself and he
completed it.
We'll see every single
one of these men one
day, except for John
who died as an old
man in prison and in
exile, all of them
would go to the cross
metaphorically.
They died in various
ways.
All of them would get
one day the power of
the cross of Jesus
Christ and what it
means to be made
small so that one day
we will be made
great.
Let's pray together.
Amen.