True Greatness

Um, if you have a Bible, let's open up Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

Let me pray one more time as you turn there.

Father, focus us now, even in a more clear and tangible way, on yourself, on your character, on your beauty, on your word.

May we experience the word this morning as living and active.

May there be nothing about this entire worship service that is merely external, going through the motions, checking boxes.

But might there be a real communion of our soul with you, and may we be transformed from one degree of glory to the next?

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Mark chapter 9, while you're turning there, think about this.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

What area of life, and don't try to give the Sunday school answer, just be honest with yourself.

What area of life are you seeking greatness in?

Is it in your business pursuits?

Is it in your family?

Maybe with your body, maybe with your money.

Where is it where you're like, I want to be the greatest?

Maybe it's spiritually.

And then ask yourself a second question.

How do you tend to define greatness?

What does that look like in your life?

The context of the passage that we're going to be looking at, we've been going through the Gospel of Mark.

Jesus had taken the three primary disciples up onto the mountain.

They had seen him transfigured, glorified.

The other nine had been left down in the valley.

Jesus and the three come down.

They had been, the nine in the valley had been trying to cast out a demon.

It had not worked.

Jesus had cast out the demon.

Once again, he's to the rescue, and that's where we're going to pick up.

Mark chapter 9, verse 30.

Mark 9:30

They went on from there and passed through Galilee, and he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching the 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 he 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 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.

Now, Jesus is continuing to travel the twelve, and he is trying his best to stay incognito because what he is trying to focus his ministry primarily on at this point is training the twelve, preparing them to be ready to go out, to preach, to lead the New Testament church after he's gone.

And big picture lesson number one, I am the Messiah, they've gotten that.

They're clear on that.

And now he's trying to teach them big picture lesson number two.

I'm not the kind of Messiah you think I am.

I'm a suffering Messiah.

I came to die.

He has taught them this before.

They do not get it.

The last time he tried to teach it, Peter tried to rebuke him for it.

That didn't go so well for Peter.

Jesus is teaching it again.

This time they're listening, they're confused, but they are not willing to ask an answer.

They're afraid.

And maybe because they're like, you know, Peter kind of spoke up last time, didn't go well for him.

We're not talking about this.

They stay silent.

But they're getting to an argument while they're walking.

I mean, this is this makes me think about days when I might have been driving all my kids in the minivan, and they start having a little debate in the back of the car about something very stupid, and at some point they forget, Dad, as they're listening, and I'm overhearing.

Jesus hears the debate.

Jesus gets to the house, says, Hey guys, what were y'all talking about on the road?

And it's like all 12 of them just start looking at their feet.

They all go silent.

Even Peter, which was a rarity, he knew this is bad.

Because you know, Peter probably started the argument.

So he doesn't want to say anything.

But Jesus knew what they were talking about.

So he says, Well, guys, you want to talk about being great?

You want to talk about being first?

You want to talk about being the best?

Let me give you a little prop, because you guys seem to be slow learners.

Now, we don't know for sure, but it's highly likely they were in Peter's house.

That had kind of become Jesus' base of operations in Capernaum.

So again, a little speculation we don't know, but there was some child around, and we're talking like infant toddler level.

It was probably one of Peter's children.

And Jesus picks up the little kid and holds the kid.

He says, Listen, you want to be the first?

You want to be the greatest?

You got to learn to serve people like this.

Now, a lot of times there's debate about what does that mean to be childlike?

At least in this context, it's pretty clear.

People 2,000 years ago in Israel didn't struggle with having child-centered homes.

I mean, children were definitely supposed to be seen and not heard.

They were low status on the toad pole because you had to do a lot for them to keep them alive, but they couldn't necessarily serve you.

So they were seen as the lowest in society.

They had no rank, they had no position.

And what Jesus is emphasizing here is you want to be the greatest in the world, you got to be willing to serve anybody and everybody, even the lowest, even the littlest, even the most insignificant.

So John is listening, he's tracking, and he makes a connection.

He says, uh, Jesus, this is kind of like a confessionslash question.

You ever gotten one of those?

And this was probably when Jesus had sent him out two by two.

He's like, you know what, we came across another guy, and this guy seemed to be casting out demons, seemed to be doing it effectively.

He seemed to be doing it in your name, but we rebuked him.

We told him to stop.

Because he wasn't one of us.

He wasn't one of the 12.

He wasn't following us.

And Jesus said, John, don't stop him.

You're not for me, you're against me.

We're all on the same team.

In fact, they're gonna be believers.

Once you guys are going out again and I'm gone, and they can't help much.

They're not rich, they're not very talented.

But if there's just enough on Team Jesus that they're willing to do the smallest act of service for you, just give you a cup of cold water when you're parched from preaching so much.

That guy's gonna be honored.

That woman will be rewarded one day for the smallest act of service.

Now, a couple points of application here.

And the first is this I've studied this passage before, I've taught it before, but I just have to be honest, it always kind of catches me a little off guard because there's something in my heart that almost expects the passage to go like this.

The disciples are arguing about who's the greatest, and Jesus hears them, and it seems to me like he might say something like this.

Guys, stop it.

Will you shut up?

That's and again, you say Jesus would never say shut up.

Okay, he says it in a nicer way.

But the point is this that he would say, quit arguing about who's the greatest.

That's a dumb argument.

You shouldn't even be worried about that.

But do you know that is manifestly not what he does?

He doesn't say, stop arguing about who's the greatest.

He doesn't say, stop striving to want to be the greatest.

It's wrong to want to be the greatest.

He just says, you guys have the word great misdefined.

It would be a little bit like this, you know, rewind last week, Labor Day weekend's coming up, and if you're like, man, I just want to go to the beach, it's a short weekend, but I'm gonna try to get to the beach as quick as I can.

So we're loading the car, we're pointing it northwest, and we're driving out to Seattle, Washington, and we're gonna get to the beach as quick as we can.

And you have a friend that maybe has a little bit more geographical knowledge than you do, he might say, Going to the beach for Labor Day weekend is not a bad goal, brother.

Uh, but you're not gonna make it to Seattle and back uh over the weekend.

But if you go about four hours east, four hours south, you'll be at the beach.

That's a little bit what Jesus is doing here.

He's essentially saying greatness is a great pursuit, but you gotta make sure you define greatness the right way.

William Hendrickson said this the yearning to be great dwells in every human heart.

And why is that?

You can't deny it.

It's in every human heart a longing to be great because we're all made in the image of God.

And God is great, God is glorious.

So, guys, there is a very right and proper way to say, I want to be great.

I want to do something with my life, I want to be meaningful with my life.

It's not a bad thing.

You've just got to make sure that it's not misdirected.

So, what's the wrong way to pursue greatness?

And really, this passage is about pride versus humility.

Okay, so the wrong way to seek greatness, it's proud, it's elitist, and it's competitive.

And I'm gonna explain what I mean, but let me just give a little caveat here.

When I say competitive, there is a righteous type of competition.

Okay, if you go play golf later, maybe you're you don't do it on the Sabbath, but you play next Saturday and you play, it's not wrong to want to beat your buddies in golf.

It's not sin.

If you're playing in a high school football game, if you say, Coach, I'm a Christian, I don't believe in competition.

If the coach is a good Christian, he'll kick you off the team, right?

Or at least he'll bench you.

So there's a right way to want to compete.

It's not wrong.

But listen, when we're talking about the deepest things of the soul, serving God.

My sense of self-worth and identity, wanting to compete with other people is a loser's game.

It never works out well.

Okay, don't be competitive in that way.

Look at the wrong way to pursue greatness.

And we see it, unfortunately, in the 12 in this passage.

The first thing is this proud people, when they're seeking greatness, they will never ask for help when they don't understand something.

Because they're too proud.

See, pride, yeah, pride wants to be great, but there's something pride wants even more than being great.

It at least wants to look great.

If I can't be great, I want to fake it till I make it.

I at least want people to think I'm great.

I want to pretend like I'm great.

I can never let my guard down, never let them see me sweat.

So that's why the disciples, Jesus is teaching, I mean, Jesus is saying, guys, here's lesson number two.

It's so important.

I've already told you, you're not getting it.

I have got to go to Jerusalem and die.

And it's like they're all listening and they're like, I have no clue what he's talking about.

But nobody wants to say, I got a question.

Imagine you had two kids growing up in school.

And they're both terrible at math.

They're gifted in other ways, but man, they just they struggle when it comes to math.

And one of them's proud, and he's like, I don't want to be the kid that's always saying, Teacher, miss, I don't get it, I have a problem, please help me.

I need tutoring.

Maybe he cheats, maybe he doesn't, but either way, he's not gonna get better if he's not willing to tell people, not even mom and dad, I don't understand this math problem.

But let's say you have another kid that's equally as bad at math, but for whatever reason, he doesn't put any sense of his pride or self-worth in his math performance.

So every time he didn't understand a problem, he just ask a question.

I need a tutor, I need help.

Can I stay after class?

Can I go home?

Can I ask mom?

Can I ask older brother?

Which one's gonna advance?

Which one's gonna make progress?

Guys, this is certainly true, I think, in all of life, but it's definitely true spiritually.

Pride prevents progress.

You really want to grow, you really want to become great, pride is gonna prevent you.

Okay?

Where pride is in your life, it will hinder progress.

So let me just give a little side note here.

If there's any endeavor in your life right now, and you feel like, I feel like I ought to be making more progress in this area of my life than I am, and I'm confused why I'm not making pause and take a little time and pray and think: is there any pride in this area that's maybe holding me back?

And if you're like, okay, I've asked the Lord, but I don't know, the Lord's not speaking to me, go ask your best friend.

Go ask your spouse, your roommate.

Why do you think I'm making no progress in this area?

Can you see any area of pride in my life?

Second thing about proud people, they won't confess when confronted on their sin.

It's bad enough to be confused and unwilling to ask for help.

But you might be able to chalk that up to ignorance.

I just didn't know.

I didn't know you were supposed to ask.

But when the Lord Jesus Christ confronts you directly, like this, sitting in the house, hey, what were you talking about?

Don't be silent.

When the word of God, when the people of God are confronting you about sin in your life, the best thing you can do is to confess.

Let's go back to our two kids struggling with math.

Let's say they both decide to cheat on a test, and the teacher knows, and the teacher catches them.

But the teacher catches them in one of those kind of ways, the teacher can't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Teacher's pretty sure you were cheating.

Ask kid one, the proud kid, and he says, No way, miss, I wasn't, I just, I really, I got smart over the weekend.

Right, something changed.

That's why I made a hundred.

He lies his way out of it.

He might have won the battle, he's gonna lose the war, right?

We all know how that ends.

The lying, the covering up, the hiding.

But what about the other kid?

Maybe he has a tender conscience.

Teacher confronts him, he's like, Yes, ma'am, you're right.

I cheated.

I'm so sorry.

Maybe he gets a zero, maybe he loses the battle.

But think about what's gonna happen in that kid's life.

More humility, more honesty, more admission of, I need help, I need a tutor.

No, my parents know, I might get a whooping, but at least they're gonna know I need help with math.

Humility is one of the main things, guys, that will propel us forward.

Again, in every area of life, but certainly spiritually, certainly the ones that matter most.

Matthew Henry said this: nothing could be more contrary to the two great laws of Christ's kingdom.

And like, what are the two great laws of Christ's kingdom?

Which are humility and love, then desiring promotion in the world and arguing about it.

So here's kind of a little third sub point here about proud people.

They try to protect their position by keeping other people out.

That's what I mean by they're elitist and they're competitive.

I mean, it had really gone to the disciple's head, the Messiah is here, and he only chose 12 people, and guess what?

Yours truly is one.

You ought to be so happy to be in my presence.

And so when they're out there on their mission and it's working, two by two, preaching the gospel, casting out demons, healing people, and they meet some random guy they never met, and he's casting out demons too, they do not like it.

Because if there's a 13th guy, there might be a 14th, there might be a fifth.

I might not be as special as I thought I was.

He's tearing down my reputation.

And so they want to say, hey, you better stop that.

Because they're fighting and clawing to excel.

They're fighting and clawing to make a name for themselves.

Now, guys, listen.

Uh a lot of teams, football teams in the spring will have a uh spring game.

First team offense, first team defense.

And there might be a little bit of trash talking, a little bit of rivalry going on.

But once the fall gets here and we're playing the other teams, the real opponent, we're on the same team.

We're for one another.

In fact, some people might play both ways to win the game.

Let me give an example of a little bit more consequence.

Most of us, I think, have heard some stories about rewind in the United States government before 9-11 happened.

And there were at least some people, lots of great people, wonderful people working for government organizations, but there were at least some people in the FBI and the CIA that were tasked with protecting this country from terrorists, but because pride in, I want my organization to be better than this organization, I want more budget resources to come to me, that they maybe had information I don't want to share.

And it led to bad things.

Because we forgot we're not fighting each other, we're supposed to be fighting terrorists out there, and things changed.

And guys, part of what we need to take away from this in our own personal wrestling about pride versus humility is this is something that comes up so repeatedly in Mark, I think it's easy for us to forget.

How many encounters Jesus and the disciples and normal people were having with the demonic?

We are in a real spiritual battle for people's souls.

This is not a game.

It's not a competition between just making a name for myself or for our church or for our ministry or whatever it may be.

We are all, if you're on Team Jesus, it's like we need all the help we can get.

Because we're fighting against sin and Satan.

I mean, remember what the apostle Paul taught.

Our fight is not with flesh and blood, it's with spiritual principalities.

And we need to be sobered by that.

And there might be other Christians that we disagree on one or two or three secondary things, but for the most part, we need to get over it.

That's an intramural debate.

And say we're going to give ourselves toward trying to go after people's souls.

I had a conversation just this past week with a couple of my friends, different churches, but godly men, godly dads, very involved in their local church, good churches, but part of their talking about is children that have grown up in their household, in their church, and Christian schools, and the levels of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation.

Oh, guys, Satan plays for keeps.

And we need to be so sober and serious about the fight that we're in.

Another thing William Hendrickson said was this once a person has been confronted with Christ, neutrality is forever impossible.

If you're all in on, I trust Jesus, I'm following Jesus, I'm on team Jesus, any other Christian you come across that you may, again, disagree with on some of the minor stuff, if they agree with, I trust in Christ alone for salvation, we need to be on the same team advancing this forward.

Now, that that's kind of the picture of how not to pursue greatness.

How do I pursue greatness in the right way?

Because this is what Christ wants us to get out of this.

It's this true greatness is being ready and willing to serve the least and the lowly.

To whatever degree I have gifts, I have resources, I have capacity, I have time, I have money, I have energy, I have creativity, I have ideas.

I ought to be saying, God, I want to serve you.

I want to lay my life down, I want to help other people, people that have less than me in any category that you bring across my path, that I trip across, how can I love them?

How can I minister them?

How can I serve them?

That's the way that the Lord Jesus Christ defines service is be great.

Then take all that you have and look for people, and guys, even the people that deserve it the least.

Now here's the thing.

How do you know which one you're doing?

Because a lot of our external pursuits, the people that are sitting in this room, they're good pursuits.

And I'm just gonna give you a very personal example.

The car ride from my house to this church is right at 15 minutes.

Sunday morning, I might can do it in 13 if I'm not legalistic about the speeding limit, okay?

And here's the way that I tend to spend most of those minutes on Sunday mornings when I'm driving in.

I'm praying.

And I'm praying for the worship service, but I'm praying probably mostly for the sermon.

And a lot of times my prayers tend to go like this Lord, bless the work of my hands, fill me full of Holy Spirit, speak through me, speak to the people, feed the people, minister the people.

And not every week, but there are a lot of weeks where I have to kind.

Of have a little pause and say something to the Lord like this Lord, there's a lot of me that want you to pour out your spirit this morning because I really do love you and I want you to be magnified.

I want you to be exalted.

And I do care about these people, and I want them to be fed and I want them to be helped.

I want them to be built up in Christ for the next week.

But Lord, I have to confess there's a part of me, I want to be great in a sinful way.

Like I want to be liked, I want to be respected, I want to be thought well of.

I care too much about that.

And so, Lord, to whatever degree that I'm proud and I'm chasing the wrong kind of greatness, would you just expose that?

Would you smother it?

Would you cut it out of my heart?

And then to whatever degree that I really am trying to serve you, serve your people, go ahead and bless that.

Does that make sense?

So, because so many times, guys, the outward pursuits that we're pursuing with our family, in the neighborhood, in business, in community, we're good-looking Christian people.

We're upright, upstanding citizens.

We're doing good stuff.

But how do you know internally are my motivations right?

Because motives matter most.

Am I doing it for the right reason?

And here's my last point.

The key difference is are you seeking after an earthly reward or a heavenly reward?

Share a brief story.

Some of y'all have heard before.

The Great Awakening in the 1700s started in England, and the two main human leaders would have been John Wesley and George Whitfield.

And George Whitfield kind of quickly became a much better preacher than John Wesley was.

I mean, some people say George Whitfield was the greatest evangelist ever in the English language.

But John Wesley was a much better leader and organizer.

And so George Whitfield, I think, came to America seven different times during the Great Awakening.

He left England a lot.

And so part of what happened is Whitfield spent all this time over here evangelizing the colonies, that John Wesley was able to organize all the followers, all the converts, even Whitfield's, into the Methodist Church and a lot of it's called the Wesleans.

And at some point, Whitfield came back and kind of one of his most devoted, loyal followers, two different stories I've heard, and I do think both of them are true.

One said, Do you think we're even going to see Mr.

Wesley in heaven?

I mean, this young convert, he was competitive.

I'm Team Whitfield, not Team Wesley.

And Whitfield said, No, I don't think we'll ever see Mr.

Wesley in heaven.

And the young convert maybe was a little excited about that, and Whitfield said, I think Mr.

Wesley will be so close to the throne worshiping, and we'll be so far in the back we won't see him.

And at some point, and I'm not sure if this was the same conversation or another one, but somebody said, But you know, you've led all these people to Christ, and now they're calling them Wesleans.

And Whitfield said, May the name of Whitfield perish.

And there was another guy that probably had some of the seeds that led to the Great Awakening, Count Zindendorf, most of us have never heard of.

And here's probably one of the reasons we never heard of him, because one of the famous things he did say was, preach the gospel, die and be forgotten.

What are you living for?

What am I living for?

Am I living for an earthly reward?

Am I living for human praise and acclaim?

Or can I honestly say, by God's grace, I care less and less about the human acclaim and praise, but I really care about a reward one day from the Lord Jesus Christ, for him to look at me and say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

That's purifying.

That's pursuing true greatness the right way.

Now, one last thing I want us to think about very briefly.

Why?

Why is it this way?

Why is this true?

Why is it universally true that true greatness is about serving others?

Let me, let me, you're like, I'm not a preacher, I can't identify with your last example.

Let me kind of go in a different realm.

George Washington, great general, wins the Revolutionary War against the only superpower of that day, England.

13 colonies barely get along, and he wins the war.

But when the war was still going on, there's another true story about a painter who had spent time in America and he was painting, he was in England at this point, painting a portrait of King George III, the sworn enemy of George Washington.

How dare those rebels over there?

And King George asked the painter, you know, what's your General Washington gonna do if he actually wins the war?

Because he was thinking he's not gonna be able to manage the.

And the painter said, I think he's gonna resign his commission and just go back to being a farmer.

And King George, his sworn enemy, said, if he does that, he'll be the greatest man in the world.

Because there's something in the human heart, guys, because we're made in the image of God.

We love humility.

George Washington wasn't a perfect man, but he got a lot right.

And part of it was in his service, he wasn't trying to make a name for himself, he was trying to serve other people.

And there's something that we can say, there's greatness there.

Not perfection, but there's greatness.

Why?

Because the God that made the entire universe, the God that made every human being in his own image, the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

I mean, he is the greatest being of all time.

And what is it that's so great and glorious about his life?

He was sitting on a throne in heaven, at least metaphorically speaking, and he chose to empty himself.

He chose to set aside all the divine privileges and come to earth and be a poor man, to be a humble man, to go to the cross, to die.

Why?

To serve us, to serve me, to serve you, to serve rebels, to serve people that get into arguments and spat about I want to be the greatest.

We didn't deserve it.

He loved us, he died for us, he rose again.

To the degree that with our mind's eye we're seeing him, we're worshiping him, and we're enjoying and delighting in him.

There ought to be a sense in which, slowly but surely, I'm becoming more like him.

And to whatever small degree he's given me some greatness, he's given me some resources, some power, privilege, reputation, whatever it is.

I ought to be on the lookout.

Who can I serve?

Who is God calling me to serve, you to serve, us to serve?

Let's pray.

Father, we love you.

We're grateful.

We don't love you near enough.

We don't serve you near enough.

Well, Lord, that's one of the reasons that we're so thankful.

This is not a works-based religion.

Thank you for the mercy that we have in Christ.

Thank you for the cleansing.

Thank you for the forgiveness.

Thank you for the covering.

Thank you for the safety.

I pray for all of us that we would not be selfish about our Christianity and all the privileges that come with it.

But we really would be so joyous.

We would be excited to go to work with dad, to ask to be put in the game, to serve, even to suffer for the least and the lowly.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.