Mark 9:30-41

All right, please take out your copy of God's Word and turn to the Gospel according to Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

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.

Mark 9:30–41

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.

Daniel 7:13

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.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

They believed that he was the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace of Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

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.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

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.

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

Hebrews 1:3

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

Numbers 11:26–29

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

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

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,

Hebrews 12:1

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 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

John 17:12

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.