[0:00] 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.
[0:18] 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.
[0:35] 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.
[0:47] 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.
[1:02] 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?
[1:17] 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.
[1:32] 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.
[1:45] 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.
[2:00] 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.
[2:13] 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.
[2:23] Let's pray together. Father, we ask you this morning that you would bless the reading and the preaching of your word.
[2:35] 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.
[2:57] 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.
[3:08] 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.
[3:28] 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.
[3:42] 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.
[3:53] 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.
[4:07] 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.
[4:19] 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.
[4:32] 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.
[4:43] 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.
[4:57] 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.
[5:15] 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.
[5:29] 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.
[5:45] 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.
[5:57] 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.
[6:12] 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.
[6:25] 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.
[6:40] 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.
[6:56] 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?
[7:06] 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?
[7:18] 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.
[7:33] 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.
[7:43] 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.
[7:58] 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.
[8:10] 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.
[8:22] 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.
[8:32] 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.
[8:45] 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.
[8:57] 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.
[9:08] 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.
[9:24] 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.
[9:35] 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.
[9:47] 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.
[9:59] 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.
[10:15] 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.
[10:37] 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.
[10:53] 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.
[11:05] 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.
[11:21] 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.
[11:38] 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.
[11:53] 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.
[12:10] 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.
[12:26] 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.
[12:39] 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.
[12:55] 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.
[13:10] 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.
[13:25] 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.
[13:37] 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.
[13:51] 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.
[14:04] 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.
[14:19] 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?
[14:32] 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.
[14:47] 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.
[15:04] 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.
[15:15] 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.
[15:28] 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.
[15:44] 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.
[16:04] 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.
[16:18] 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.
[16:32] 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.
[16:43] 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.
[16:56] 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.
[17:08] 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.
[17:26] 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.
[17:40] 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.
[17:55] 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.
[18:11] 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.
[18:26] So what is the remedy to pride? What is the antithesis of pride? It's humility. It's humility. There's a response.
[18:38] 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.
[18:49] 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.
[19:00] 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.
[19:12] 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.
[19:23] 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.
[19:37] 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.
[19:51] 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.
[20:09] 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.
[20:21] And that outworking is service. Placing others, their real needs, not necessarily their felt needs, but their real needs before our own.
[20:33] 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.
[20:47] 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.
[21:00] 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.
[21:15] 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.
[21:26] 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.
[21:44] 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.
[21:57] 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.
[22:11] 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.
[22:24] 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.
[22:39] 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.
[22:51] 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?
[23:14] 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.
[23:30] We're not even worthy to untie the Lord's sandals. And as all good teachers do, Jesus drives this teaching with an example.
[23:41] 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.
[24:07] 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.
[24:18] 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.
[24:33] 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.
[24:44] Place others even those you don't think deserve it before yourself. Show honor to the unhonorable. Follow his logic here.
[24:56] 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.
[25:21] 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.
[25:34] 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.
[25:47] 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.
[25:58] 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.
[26:18] 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.
[26:30] 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.
[26:40] He was not following us. He wasn't one of the twelve, one of the disciples. John's zeal was misplaced in this case.
[26:53] 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.
[27:06] 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.
[27:24] 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.
[27:46] 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.
[28:03] 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.
[28:14] 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?
[28:31] 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.
[28:43] 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.
[29:01] 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.
[29:18] 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.
[29:32] In verse 18, Paul writes, what then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed.
[29:43] 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?
[29:54] 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.
[30:07] 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.
[30:19] 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.
[30:33] 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.
[30:45] 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.
[30:57] 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.
[31:13] 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.
[31:41] 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.
[32:00] 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.
[32:16] 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.
[32:32] 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.
[32:43] 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.
[32:57] 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.
[33:13] 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.
[33:34] 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.
[34:05] 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.
[34:20] 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.
[34:38] 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.
[34:54] 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.
[35:05] Beloved, we all fail at this. We have been granted opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to be least of all.
[35:17] 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.
[35:38] 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.
[35:54] 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.
[36:09] 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.
[36:22] 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.
[36:34] 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.
[36:45] 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.
[36:56] 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.
[37:12] 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.
[37:25] Let's pray together. Amen.