Greatness in the Kingdom

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Well, the realization is slowly dawning on me that the holidays are coming up on us. And it always fills me with dread just a little bit. The holidays are a challenging time for me.

I know the holidays are a challenging time for a lot of us. And one of the big reasons why it is so difficult for me, and I’m not trying to make light of anybody else’s situation, But one of the reasons why it’s so challenging for me is I know that inevitably every family gathering that I walk into throughout the holiday season, those Hallmark movies are going to be on in the background. Yeah, I know.

And I know, right off the bat, some of you like those Hallmark movies, and that’s okay. I do not. I like nature documentaries.

Some of you don’t, and that’s okay. God made each of us different. What is it that the VeggieTales tell us?

God made each of you special and he loves you very much. He made us all different. I understand.

I don’t enjoy the Hallmark movies because, and I fully admit, I have not seen all of them. But the ones I’ve seen all have the same plot. And, you know, maybe there’s some differences there, but they all seem to have the same plot.

There’s usually some kind of high-powered businessman, or occasionally they’ll throw you for a loop and it’ll be a businesswoman. But they’ll come back to a town where they grew up, or they’ll end up in a small town in some kind of circumstance that changes their worldview, and they learn what’s important in life, and they learn the true meaning of Christmas, if that’s the holiday that they’re focused on at the time. And that’s not a bad message.

It just gets, for my taste, it gets a little tedious every hour and a half all day, every day. And once upon a time, we had the Hallmark Channel, and I don’t know why or how, because we weren’t paying for it, but it was there all day, every day. It’s a rough life.

I know, first world problems. But you know, throughout history, there have been a lot of stories that are based on that premise. I know it’s easy to hate on the Hallmark movies, but the formula works because it is such a powerful story down through human history, and it’s at the root of so many of our other stories, this transformation that somebody goes through where they recognize what’s important in life. The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens where Scrooge learns what’s important.

I mean, that’s a powerful story because it follows this plot where we start out with a skewed idea of reality, and then we are awakened to what really matters. Now, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a writer for the Hallmark Channel. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Charles Dickens.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s anybody else. Really, what they’re relying on, whether they realize it or not, is something that Jesus pointed to. the need for us to have our perspective changed and come to terms with what really is important, because what we often view as important in our day-to-day life is not the same thing as what God views as important.

That’s what we’re going to look at tonight, is Jesus challenging his disciples to change their perspectives, because they were very much in the role of these high-powered. . .

I know they were not rich, but even looking at things from a somewhat kingdom perspective. They thought, here we are the closest followers of Jesus Christ. That’s going to mean something, and that’s going to pay off big for us, maybe in terms of power, maybe in terms of prestige, maybe in terms of wealth. They were thinking, this is going to pay off for us.

And somewhere along the line, Jesus called them to change their way of thinking and change their perspective on what really matters. And so tonight, we’re going to be in Mark chapter 9, where we left off. And we’re going to start in verse 30, go through verse 41.

When you find it, if you’ll stand with me, if you’re able to do so without too much trouble as we read together from God’s Word. If you don’t have a Bible or can’t find Mark, it’ll be on the screen for you there. But Mark chapter 9, starting in verse 30, it says, and they departed from there and passed through Galilee.

And he did not want anyone to know it. By the way, to catch, if you’re just rejoining us or you’re new with us, when it says he does not want them to know it, we have just been through a series of events where Jesus was transfigured. He was transformed in front of the eyes of three of his disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration.

He met with Elijah and Moses. He came down, so they got a glimpse of his glory and who he really is. They came down off the mountain, there’s this crowd gathered there, and a man asks Jesus to heal his son who is being tormented by a demon.

Jesus does this when the nine remaining disciples aren’t able to do so. And Jonathan and I talked about it last Sunday night after the service, and he brought up, it sounds like in context, maybe they tried to do it and couldn’t. And probably the lack of faith was not their unwillingness to try, but it was their immediate giving up when, Come out.

Okay, we’ve done all we can do. So Jesus steps in and heals the man, and Jesus didn’t want the word to get out beyond that crowd. That’s what it’s talking about when it says he did not want them to know it.

Verse 31 says, For he taught his disciples and said to them, The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And after he is killed, he will rise the third day. That’s the reason he didn’t want everybody to know what he had just done.

He didn’t want them to flock to him and sweep him into power because he still had an appointment to go to Jerusalem and be crucified. But they did not understand, verse 32, they did not understand this saying and were afraid to ask. Then he came to Capernaum and when he was in the house he asked them, what was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?

He’s asking a question he already knows the answer to. But they kept silent for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest. And he sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. Then he took a little child and set him in the midst of them.

And when he had taken him in his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one of these little children in my name receives me. But whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. Now John answered him, saying, Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us, casting out demons in your name.

And we forbade him because he does not follow us. But Jesus said, do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterwards speak evil of me. For he who is not against us is on our side.

And whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. And you may be seated. So we cover a lot of ground in this passage, in particular when you compare it with the parallel accounts in Matthew and Luke, which you have in your handout.

If you need a copy of that, we have one more up here. We probably have some in the back. We can print some more if you need some.

Where we take it verse by verse through Matthew, Mark, and Luke, how they present this story. And you’ll notice if you’ve got the handout, they seem to, it says on there, they seem at first glance to give different accounts of how these things played out. but I think there’s an easy way to fit all of these things together.

And we kind of go through that in the handout. But when you look at all of this ground we cover tonight, between him teaching the disciples as he’s getting away from the crowd about what he’s about to go through, and them arguing and him saying, what are you arguing about? And they go through these multiple questions back and forth, and he talks to them a few times about greatness in the kingdom.

There are a couple of approaches that we can take to this. We can, first of all, dig in every little detail. And I think sometimes that’s a good way to approach these things and make sure we get every detail of what he’s talking about or as much as we possibly can.

We will never exhaust the riches of God’s Word. We will never get to a point where we understand everything and there’s nothing left to learn. But we can dig in deep on details.

We can take the worm’s eye view, if you want to call it that. Get in deep and close. Sometimes I think, though, it’s helpful to step back and take the bird’s eye view of scriptures and say, what do these stories all together, what do these accounts all together tell us?

And so that’s what we’re going to do tonight. Maybe I should at some point spend a little more time digging in in detail about what Jesus meant when he said this about the little children, and we could do that. But I want to step back and say, overall, what is this passage, what is this event about?

We come to a point where the disciples needed to understand that their perspective on the kingdom and their perspective on their life, their perspective on their ministry and on Jesus’ ministry, they were looking at it wrong. They were looking at it wrong. And Jesus, flat out from this point, would not allow his followers to pursue power and prestige.

That was what they were focused on. They were focused on a very earthly, man-centered view of how the kingdom was to proceed. They were still, even though Jesus had repeatedly said his kingdom was different, they were still looking at this the way Pilate did, that if Jesus is a king, he’s an earthly king.

They were looking at this the way the Pharisees and the crowds did, that if he’s the Messiah, then he’s the one that’s going to come and throw the Romans out and bring about a golden age for Israel. He’s this political leader. He’s this military leader.

They were looking at this from an earthly perspective. And Jesus wanted them to understand that their view, looking at this through the lens of earthly kings and the power that they amass to themselves and the power that they hand out to their closest associates, this was the wrong way of viewing his ministry. Because there are at least three moments in this section of the text, taking in the parallel accounts from Matthew and Luke, there are at least three moments here where the disciples displayed this inappropriate concern for hierarchy, for who’s going to be on top and who’s going to be on bottom, and an inappropriate concern for exclusivity, who’s in and who’s out.

And they were looking at this, again, from a very earthly perspective. They wanted to know that when it came time to distribute power, They were going to be on top and not on the bottom. When it came time to be part of Jesus’ inner circle, they wanted to be on the inside and not on the out because they thought they were building an earthly kingdom.

These three moments that I’ve noticed, and there may be others, but the first is when they argued about which of them was most important in their ministry. You go back to verses 33 and 34. He asked them, What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?

But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest. so they’re they’re they’re doing what men do they’re trying to one-up each other yeah well I did this with Jesus so I’m I’m the best well I did this with Jesus well I you know they’re going back and forth they’re swapping their fish stories about ministry they’re arguing about who who is the greatest and who’s going to be the greatest now some of that’s you know when men get together some of that’s all in fun, but they evidently were taken this seriously. Then, in Matthew 18. 1, they asked Jesus to decide who would be the greatest in the kingdom.

And see, this is where I say, it can look like there’s contradictory stories about did they bring it up to him or did he ask? These are two different issues. See, he asked them, what were you arguing about when they were arguing about their roles and who was going to be the greatest?

And Jesus says, as we looked at here in verse 35, if anyone desires to be the first, he shall be last and servant of all. Now, this is kind of revolutionary to them. And so they hang back and they kind of wonder among themselves and they realize, okay, if that’s the standard, then they come to Jesus in Matthew 18, 1 and say, so which of us is going to be greatest in the kingdom then?

Because if their ideas about, well, I did this and I filled this role and I got to be present for this, if this isn’t going to make them in charge, if this isn’t going to make them the greatest, and it’s about serving, then they’re coming to Jesus and saying, am I the best servant? Am I the best at being last? Pick somebody.

Who’s going to be the greatest? So they come to Jesus the second time, wanting Jesus to decide who’s going to be the greatest in the kingdom. And then the third event where they show this focus on power is they opposed another man’s ministry because he wasn’t part of their group.

We see this in verse 38 where John says, teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in your name and we forbade him because he does not follow us. We saw this man trying to do good things and we told him no, no, because he’s not part of the right group. I’ve got kids who tattle and I kind of, okay, I kind of, that would be annoying to me.

All right, wait a minute. It’s one thing to tattle when somebody’s doing something wrong, but you’re tattling that he’s doing the right thing, but he’s not part of your group. That doesn’t even make sense.

This exorcist, we don’t know his name, but he worked in Jesus’ name, but he didn’t follow them. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t know anything about Jesus. That doesn’t mean he was opposed to Jesus.

That means he wasn’t part of this group that followed Jesus around as their rabbi. He wasn’t a traveling companion of theirs. So we have at least three instances here where they seem to be caught up in something other than what they’re supposed to be, and Jesus corrected them in each case.

He explained how their worldly view of power being the most important thing here, it contrasts with the kingdom’s emphasis on servanthood. He tells them in verse 35, If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last and servant of all. This is saying where the world views being first and being on top as the most important thing in the kingdom, it’s whoever’s willing to serve, whoever’s willing to get down here and get their hands dirty.

Now, that’s not a plan of salvation, that if you just serve the most, then God will love you and forgive you. But it’s talking about those who are in the kingdom already. Greatness for us is measured by how much we’re willing to serve and how much we’re willing to humble ourselves.

Then he corrects them a second time in a second way by pointing to a child to teach about humility and about servanthood. It says in verses 36 and 37, he took a little child, he set him in the midst of them. Kind of like with the Lord’s Supper, we have this visual picture because we’re visual creatures.

and if he had just said you need to humble yourself, they probably would have forgotten that easily, but instead he sets a child down as an object lesson. When he had taken him in his arms, he said to them, verse 37, whoever receives one of these little children in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. And what this has to do with servanthood, this receiving of little children, they just thought many times they were too important to be bothered by children.

They thought they were too important to be bothered really by anybody who couldn’t advance their cause. There’s another instance where children come to see Jesus and they try to turn them away. And Jesus says, let the little children come.

He says, how you receive this child shows how you receive me. And then the third instance where he corrects them is at verse 39, where they’re talking about the exorcist here. And he says, do not forbid him for no one who works a in my name can soon afterwards speak evil against me.

He explained the value of doing ministry in his name. He talks about how if somebody comes and ministers to you in my name, he’s not going to lose his reward. What he’s saying there about losing the reward, he’s saying any little thing you do in my name, any little thing you do to serve me, any humble act that you perform to serve somebody else in my name.

God notices and God counts it. Again, that’s not a plan of salvation, but that’s an assurance to those of us who believe that we don’t have to think, well, serving and humility, that’s all beneath me and beneath my time. He’s saying God notices those little things.

They were looking at things through the wrong lens. They were trying to be somebody. They were trying to be the most important, and Jesus was preparing them for what was coming by teaching them a different way of looking at things.

Because they were about to watch him go through something that was not going to make sense in their way of thinking. They were about to have to go through some things that were not going to make sense to them in their way of thinking. The majority of these men were going to be martyred in cruel ways.

All of them were going to be persecuted. They were going to live lives of humility. They were not going to be in the corridors of power.

And if they went off to serve him with this mindset still in place, they were going to fall apart. And so he’s preparing them to serve him with this reality check, that servanthood and humility matter more in Christ’s kingdom than power and prestige. It’s a lesson we need to learn as much as they do.

As a matter of fact, the more we work in ministry, it may be a more needed lesson. As I say this to you tonight, I recognize that probably nobody needs this correction from God’s word more than pastors, because it’s easy to get, it’s easy to think you’re more important than you are. But it’s servanthood and it’s humility that matter in Christ’s kingdom.

That’s why he told him in verse 35, if anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. See, the world’s philosophy, this was written down by Warren Wiersbe. The world’s philosophy is that if you are great, I’m sorry, that you are great if others are working for you.

But Christ’s message is that greatness comes from serving others. So in the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God, we look at things from two completely different perspectives. In the world’s kingdom, you’re great if others are working for you.

In God’s kingdom, you’re great if you’re working for others. Those are two, you can’t reconcile those two belief systems. We have to pick one or the other. And It’s not just a matter of preference.

Because God’s perspective is that greatness is about us serving and recognizing our place in the kingdom. The only reason any of us are in the kingdom anyway is the grace of God. I don’t deserve to be His child.

You don’t deserve to be His child. But He’s made us His children anyway. That’s His grace.

And rather than being puffed up about it, we ought to fall on our knees every day and thank Him for being loving enough, for being loving enough to send Jesus Christ to pay for our sins and being loving enough to accept us in Jesus Christ. But we don’t deserve to be in the kingdom. I don’t deserve to get to do what I get to do every day as a ministry. I still think from time to time, Lord, why me?

Not in a pity party way. That makes it sound like I don’t enjoy pastoring. I do.

But I think, God, there are so many better people you could have called to do this. And the moment we start to think, oh, I’m really important enough to be doing this. And it doesn’t matter what our ministry is or what our service in the kingdom is.

The minute we start to think, I deserve to be right here, that’s where the trouble’s going to start. He taught them, especially as we look at Matthew. Turn with me for just a moment, if you would, to Matthew 18, where he talks about the child.

Matthew 18, 3 and 4, this is in the middle of this story. Starting back in verse 2, it says, Jesus called a little child to him and set him in the midst of them. He gives a little bit more information than what Mark does and said, Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in my name receives me. And that’s where it meets up with what he said in Mark about receiving him as a child, or receiving the child and receiving him.

Jesus taught here that we don’t enter into the kingdom by being impressive. See, there’s this mindset that says, I’ve got to clean up my life. I’ve got to get things straightened out, and then I’ll come to God.

Let me tell you what, there is no cleaning up in your life that you can do that’s going to be impressive to God. I have a child sitting right there. I’ve gotten where I’ll say, I have a child, and I’m not going to name names because I don’t want to embarrass the older ones.

So sometimes that’s an older one, sometimes it’s not. But I’ve got a child right here, and he’s cute, but he’s a handful. He’s not going to be embarrassed by anything I’m saying right now.

But the last few days, he’s come to us at mealtime after we’ve told him to go wash his hands. And those hands, I’ve never worked on a car and gotten my hands that filthy. I’ve gotten them filthy, but not.

. . I washed my hands and he’s so proud.

Bubba, you need to get back in there and do that again because you’re not coming to my table with your hands looking like that. But he’s so proud about how well he cleaned his hands. And we kind of chuckle about it.

But that’s how it is with the Lord. You can scrub and scrub and scrub your life. You come to God, it’s still going to be like those filthy hands.

We don’t get to the kingdom by being impressive to the Lord. We get to the kingdom by humbling ourselves like a little child and acknowledging that we are totally dependent on Him to be there. We’re only getting in because He allowed us.

We don’t deserve it. We don’t earn it. We get there by being His child.

And even being His child is His choice. He’s the one that’s given us the opportunity. And so where they thought, it’s all about being impressive, it’s all about being in charge, he says you’ve got to humble yourselves like this child.

He taught them, if we go back to verse 37 where we were in Mark, he taught them that how we serve others reflects how we see him and how we love him. Whoever receives one of these little children in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives not me.

That’s not a contradiction where he says, whoever receives me, receives not me. We would say it like this. Whoever receives a little child receives me, and whoever receives me doesn’t just receive me.

He receives him who sent me. He said, how you receive this child, how you serve, how you humble yourself in my name, demonstrates how you receive me. And how you receive me reflects on how you receive the father.

He taught them that their love for the little children, their love for the least of these, demonstrated their love for Him. Now, am I going to say, if we have a moment where we’re not as loving as we ought to be, it means we don’t love Jesus. He knows we’re fallen.

He knows we’re imperfect. He’s speaking in general terms here. That if the pattern of our lives is love toward others, and I don’t mean the world’s flowery version of love.

I mean a sacrificial, unconditional, active choice to love people and treat people with love. If that’s the pattern of our lives, it demonstrates a love for Him. And He taught them that humility is something that God chooses to use.

And He taught them that what mattered was how a man obeys and serves God rather than his background. If you look at verses 39 through 41 again, I know we’re skipping around a lot, but as I told you, we’re looking at the highlights of these things. Verses 39 through 41, where he tells them, Do not forbid him this exorcist. For no one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterward speak evil of me, for he who is not against us is on our side.

For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name because you belong to Christ, assuredly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. He’s concerned with the fact that this man is obeying him. He’s concerned with the fact that this man is serving in his name.

He’s concerned with what anybody would do to serve them in His name. Whether they come from the right background, whether they’re part of this little group or not, it’s their obedience to Him. And still what matters today is not where we’ve come from, what group we’re part of, whatever that group may be, it matters that we’re being obedient to Him.

And if somebody’s being obedient to Him, let them do it. God bless. Even if they don’t look like us.

Even if they don’t sound like us. Even if they don’t do it the way we do it. And I’m not talking about an anything goes thing.

I’m talking about being obedient to the Lord. But if somebody’s being obedient to Him, get behind it. And the reason why this all matters so much is that Jesus Himself is our greatest example of servanthood and humility.

This whole thing began because Jesus led His disciples quickly away from this crowd of people that probably would have tried to sweep him into power if given the opportunity. And he was teaching them along the way in verse 31, the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill him. And after he is killed, he will rise the third day.

What we see here is that Jesus was deliberately offering himself up to be betrayed. He knew, he knew that when he went to Jerusalem eventually, at just the right time when he went there, he was going to be betrayed. He was going to be humiliated and rejected.

He was going to be tortured. He was going to be killed. He was going to be buried.

He knew that all of this stuff was going to happen, and he went anyway. He went on purpose. He chose to go through this.

He went to do all of these things with the intention of rising again. Now, why would somebody do that? We go through life, and if we know we’re coming up to a difficult situation, we do everything we can to avoid it.

If there’s a way, don’t we? Sometimes there’s not and we just have to pull our socks up and go on. But if given the choice, we steer clear of it.

Jesus went on purpose and for what? He went there to purchase forgiveness for the sinner. He went there to purchase forgiveness for the very people who were going to put him on the cross to begin with.

I can’t think of a greater example of servanthood and humility than a willingness to actively seek out the opportunity to do that. to endure all that suffering for the people who were wicked enough to cause it. You look at Jesus and there’s no one who deserved to be served more, and yet there’s no one who served more.

You look at Jesus and there’s no one who’s ever been more glorious, but there’s no one who’s ever humbled himself so much. And so as we read through everything Jesus is telling them there, he’s not just saying things to them. He’s not just preaching servanthood and humility.

He’s practicing it. And he’s prepared to practice it at great personal cost by offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. I mean, that was very much in his mind.

This is not just servanthood in the sense of be nice. This is servanthood in the sense of Jesus came to serve and to humble himself all the way to the cross so that we could be forgiven. And as he is our Lord, we don’t get to look at that and say, I don’t want to follow you in that area.

If he’s our Lord, we follow him in being willing to do the same thing. Or we stop pretending he’s Lord. And when I say willing to do the same thing, you and I can’t be crucified for somebody else’s sins.

It doesn’t work that way. But being willing to humble ourselves and serve is a different story. And I want to close with this tonight.

The description of the greatest in the kingdom that Jesus gives, I think, applies to him. Who is the greatest in the kingdom? All these years, and that just came to me this week.

I mean, have I missed this all this time and y’all knew this? Maybe I’m just a little dense. Because you still find yourself thinking, okay, I need to serve more because that’s going to pay off in the long run.

No. The greatest in the kingdom is the servant of all. Hello, it’s Jesus.

Jesus is the greatest in the kingdom. But here’s the kicker. You and I are only as great in the kingdom as we reflect Him.

How we reflect Him determines how great we are in His kingdom.