Jesus' Mission - A Ministry Marked By & Calling for Humility - Mark 9:30-50

Sermon Series: Spare Me the Details - Just Give Me Jesus

I wonder how many of us know a ‘hard-headed’ individual.  I know one incredibly well – myself.  I wouldn’t say that my hard-headedness is my favorite personality trait.  I know that it has frustrated my wife in the past and on occasion it has also made life harder for me as I have insisted on not allowing anyone to help me with certain tasks or insisted on things being done exactly the way I wanted it.  Dealing with my hard-headedness isn’t exactly something I like to take on either.  That’s because I’ve realized that my hard-headedness has a lot to do with my pride.  I want things done a certain way.  I want the credit if something good is accomplished.  I want the pleasure and satisfaction of having things exactly like I think they should be.  Any time my hard-headedness comes out I’m reminded of my pride and that I struggle with a very ‘me-centered’ way of thinking.  The reality is that all of us who struggle with a very ‘me-centered’ way of thinking have a great need for God’s grace.  We need His grace to help us transform our ‘me-centered’ way of thinking.  And that process can begin when we understand Jesus’ mission.  In the portion of Mark’s gospel that we’ll cover in this post Mark helps his readers to understand three characteristics of Jesus’ mission and ministry and how His model of ministry should transform our way of thinking and cause us to live as believers in Christ.

At this point in the text we are just a little beyond the mid-point of Mark’s gospel.  At the center of Mark’s gospel you’ll remember that Jesus and His disciples were on their way to the  area in and around Caesarea Philippi and it was on the journey there that Jesus asked the central question of the gospel, “Who do you say that I am” (8:29).  After Peter answers “the Christ,” (8:29) Jesus takes the opportunity to share with them that the Christ won’t be a great and mighty political leader, but rather that the Christ “must suffer many things . . . be rejected . . .be killed . . . and after three days rise again” (8:31).  It appears that Peter and the other disciples struggled to accept this, so Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain where they received divine re-assurance that Jesus is indeed the Christ and where Jesus explains to them how He knows that suffering lies ahead of Him.  Last week we saw what took place as Jesus, Peter, James, and John descended back down the mountain and re-joined the other nine disciples.  They found that a father had brought his demon possessed son to Jesus for healing, but when Jesus could not be found he turned to His disciples for help.  The disciples tried in their own strength and ability to cast out the demon but were unable to do so because they were not calling on the power of God.  When Jesus arrives on the scene He put on display what His journey to the cross was going to accomplish: He showed that demonic forces would no longer have absolute power over individuals when He cast the demon out of the boy; and He showed that He would take possession of individual’s lives and grant new life (for all who are dead in sin) when He took hold of the boy and raised him up.  This was what Jesus’ mission was going to accomplish and it was something that only He could do in His power.  The disciples, apart from Jesus’ presence and power, cannot render demonic forces helpless, nor grant new life to those who are dead.  So they had to understand the uniqueness of Jesus mission and the extraordinary power that only He possessed to accomplish those things.  In the future they would have to recognize their limitations and rather than attempting the work of ministry in their own power, they would have to humbly pray and ask God to do a mighty work in and through them.

As we continue in our text this week we begin with verses 30-32.  These verses are incredibly valuable for how we understand the verses which follow.  In verses 30-32 Jesus and His disciples have left the region of Caesarea Philippi and they are traveling south, in the direction of Jerusalem, which means that they once again have to travel through Galilee.  As they are traveling Jesus is once again teaching them that “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 again.”  This isn’t anything new for Mark’s readers.  We will recall Jesus teaching His disciples the same thing in 8:31.  But according to 9:32 the disciples still did not understand what Jesus was talking about and they were afraid to ask Him.  While the disciples need to be taught what Jesus’ mission is and how He is going to accomplish it, the other thing that they need to be taught and have modeled for them is the humility with which Jesus is going to carry out the mission.  Jesus was God’s Son.  That should have been clear to the disciples.  In Mark’s gospel the audible voice of God has declared this to be true on two occasions now.  In addition to that Jesus has taught with unmatched authority about God and His Kingdom and He has performed miracles that no mere man was able to do.  If the disciples had bought into the fact that Jesus was God’s Son, then a future of suffering and death would have been difficult to make sense of.  The Son of God ought to be made much of, held in high esteem, and be celebrated – not rejected by men.  The Son of God also ought to rule in power and authority, and enjoy the best that the earth has to offer – not suffer at the hands of men.  And the Son of God ought to be pursuing a throne on which to rule – not a shameful cross on which to die.  It made sense to the disciples that if Jesus were going to be the reigning Christ then He needed to make the most of His opportunities to make much of Himself and assume a position of greatness.  But Jesus was demonstrating to them through rejection, suffering, and even death something entirely different – humility.  And for these disciples to understand humility rightly they had to understand how Jesus was going to carry out His mission to the glory of God the Father.

Apparently, on the day long journey from Caesarea Philippi back into Galilee and Capernaum the disciples had had some time to talk amongst themselves.  In verse 33, when they had arrived at someone’s home Jesus took the opportunity to ask them about what they had been discussing.  Verse 34 tells us that wasn’t anything that they really wanted to share with Jesus because the topic of their discussion had been which one of them was the greatest.  Jesus knew what they had been talking about and when no one offered up an answer to His question He sat down and called them to Him.  Jesus was taking advantage of an opportunity to continue to teach these disciples in some of the areas which they were struggling to understand.  Jesus said to His disciples in verse 35, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”  Jesus sat these disciples down and began to teach them what really made an individual great.  It wasn’t power, authority, position, or influence.  Those who are the greatest are the ones who are the most humble and who are willing to sacrifice power, authority, position, and influence in order to serve others.  And who better to teach the disciples this lesson than Jesus who was modeling this very principle in His mission and ministry.  Who could argue the fact that Jesus, God’s only Son, was not the absolute greatest.  No one could argue that with any credibility.  But Jesus taught and modeled through His mission that His ministry was a ministry of humble service.  Jesus did not come seeking power, authority, position, or influence.  Jesus came to serve mankind.  God the Father sent Jesus on His mission because humanity had a great need.  So Jesus came to serve mankind – not to be served by them.  The disciples needed to see this modeled in Jesus’ life and ministry.  So in verses 30-32 we see that spelled out once again for the disciples so that they might understand what Jesus had come to do.

After saying this, verse 36 says that Jesus took a child and brought the child into where they were talking – He brought the child right into the midst of these disciples.  Then He said to His disciples, “Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me.”  Children in mainstream Judaism were not held in high esteem.  In fact they had little identity of their own – they were recognized by who their father was.  So this child would have been an example of one of the least or last in society.  The child, therefore, is not an example of humility in this text, but rather as an example of the insignificant ones whom the disciples and other followers of Christ are to receive.  The disciples weren’t to be like the child in this context, received by Jesus; the disciples were to be like Jesus, who demonstrated what it meant to humbly serve others – even the most insignificant.

When Jesus pursued the disciples and when He pursued us He was pursuing and serving those of us who were and are insignificant.  His ministry was a ministry of humble service.  And this is the same kind of ministry Jesus calls us to.  Our call isn’t to make much of ourselves.  Our call is to glorify God by making much of Him.  If we are going to choose to make much of God, rather than making much of ourselves, that is going to require humility on our part.  A humility that should look like the humility of Jesus.  Jesus says the mindset that ought to exist in each of us is that we are last of all and servant of all.  Does that characterize us?  Do we live humble lives of service?  And if so, who are we serving?  Are we serving all – including the least among us, or are we just attempting to serve those who are like us or who are in a position to help elevate and make much of us?  Serving those who can help make much of us by promoting our power, authority, position, and/or influence isn’t really humbly serving others for God’s glory – it’s selfishly serving for our own good.  How would our lives look different if we really grasped the humility of Christ and His humble ministry of service and did our best to live our lives in the same manner?

In verse 38 we see John acting out of his misunderstanding.  John says to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”  The disciples, as we saw in the last few verses, had aspirations of being great and making much of themselves.  Part of their pride resided in their identity as a group.  They believed that their close proximity to Jesus and consistency of their following meant that they were ‘true’ disciples of Christ.  Anyone outside of their group was suspect.  So when they encountered this individual casting out demons in Jesus’ name the thing that stands out to them is his absence from their fellowship.  The assumption that follows is that if He isn’t a part of their group then he can’t be a real follower and disciple of Christ.  The disciples had misplaced pride in their identity as a group and the pride in that group identity led them to believe that anyone outside their group couldn’t really be a ‘true’ disciple of Jesus.

Jesus on the other hand never took pride in any kind of group identity.  If Jesus had been driven by pride in His association with a specific group he wouldn’t have surrounded Himself with a bunch of fishermen and tax-collectors.  He would have been striving to join the ranks of the Pharisees or the scribes.  They were the ones who were highly esteemed religious leaders of the time.  Instead, Jesus’ ministry was focused entirely on making much of God – it had nothing to do with making much of Him.  Jesus both understood and modeled in His ministry that exalting God required humbling Himself.  Verses 30-32 therefore, remain key in our understanding of Jesus’ ministry and the humility that characterized His ministry. 

Verse 39 tells us that Jesus doesn’t side with His disciples in their attempts to silence this individual.  Instead, Jesus tells them to leave this individual alone.  Jesus directs the disciples’ attention away from his position outside their small group and points their attention instead to a handful of other significant markers.  First is the fact that he is calling on Jesus’ name and power to perform these miracles.  If this individual is calling on Jesus’ name and power to perform these miracles then he has recognized his own limitations and inabilities and has understood where the real source of power lies.  Second, Jesus argues that one performing these works in Jesus’ name isn’t going to be able to turn around afterwards and speak evil about Jesus.  And lastly, we will recall from past texts that when incredible miracles are performed in the power and name of Jesus that it is ultimately God who receives the glory – not the individual performing the miracle.  It appears that this individual’s ministry is marked by a humility that recognizes His limitations, a humility to call on Jesus for power to perform the miracle, and a desire to exalt God (not Himself) by doing good.  This evidence is key to understanding Jesus’ statement in verse 40, “For the one who is not against us is for us.”  Jesus isn’t calling His disciples to give everyone a pass (not to judge, in other words), but to not pass judgment on those who may be a part of a different group or who may use a different method to do the work of ministry.  If their ministry is performed with humility and with the ultimate purpose of exalting God then those individuals are probably not working against God’s purposes but for them.

The mindset that John slipped into and that comes out in these verses is one that is so easy for believers in Christ to fall into.  Pride in our group identity can result when we grow to have an affection for the other individuals in our group; if we grow to highly esteem the leader(s); and/or if God seems to be honoring and blessing the efforts of the group.  We see this in our churches all the time.  We take pride in our group and before long we believe our ministries, our traditions, and our leaders mark us as real followers and disciples of Christ.  This then nurtures a sense of competition, rather than a sense of cooperation, and we end up attempting to alter, persuade, and/or altogether stop the efforts of other churches/ministries in order to bring them into conformity with our group’s efforts and methods.  If this characterizes us we need to seek forgiveness for our misplaced pride and realize that our goal is not to make much of ourselves, but to make much of God.  This doesn’t mean that we stop looking at other ‘Christian’ ministries with a discerning eye to discern if the group is really working towards honoring Christ and bringing people to salvation in Him.  But if a group has humbly understood their limitations, is relying on the power of God to accomplish their ministry efforts, and are bringing honor and glory to God, then we don’t need to try and stop their efforts because they may differ from our own – we need to recognize they are striving after the same goal we are and praise God for the glory and honor they will bring to Him.

When Jesus explains His mission in verses 30-32 we can’t miss the fact that His ministry was also a humble ministry of self-denial and suffering.  To move forward in a mission that you know will bring suffering, rejection, and death requires one to deny oneself.  Most of us will try to avoid those things at all cost because they aren’t pleasurable and they don’t bring us any kind of self-gratification.  For Jesus, God’s only Son, to endure these things required a great deal of self-denial.  The Creator who deserves worship and praise from every created being, willingly subjected Himself to their rejection and murder.  Not because it delighted His heart to experience it, but because it was fulfilling the plan of God and bringing the most glory and honor to Him.  In verses 42-50 Jesus encourages His disciples to be marked by the same kind of humility – the kind that will deny self and endure suffering if it will bring the most glory to God.  Jesus begins in verse 42 by telling His disciples, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”  Jesus wasn’t talking about ‘little children’ in this context.  He was “warning against inhibiting, injuring, or destroying the faith of simple and ordinary disciples” (James Edwards).  Jesus wanted His disciples to know that choosing to do something that would bring them some kind of pleasure or gratification, but at the same time would cause damage to the faith of a less mature believer or even cause them to sin, is not humility.  That’s placing ourselves and our own desires above the good of others and the glory of God.  True humility, like Jesus’, practices self-denial so that God is glorified and made much of in the way we live.  In verses 43-48 Jesus instructs His disciples even further in humility and self-denial.  The goal of Christ was to bring great glory to the Father, not Himself.  Jesus wanted His disciples to have the same goal – to bring great glory to the Father and not to let their own desires rule their lives.  So Jesus uses some metaphoric hyperbole (extravagant exaggerations) to help His followers understand the great value of living for God’s glory as opposed to living for their own.  In these verses Jesus draws the attention of His disciples to three parts of the body that most of us consider indispensable: our hands, feet, and eyes.  And in these metaphors Jesus says if one of these things causes you to sin or causes someone else to sin you need to cut it off or gouge it out because it would be better to glorify God without them then to have them and live for your own glory and pleasure, which will ultimately land you in hell.  So as followers of Christ and those living for the glory of God we have to make sure that everything we do (hands), everywhere we go (feet), and everything we view (eyes) is being done for His glory.  If the things we do, places we go, and the things we set our eyes on don’t bring glory to God and cause either ourselves or someone else to sin then we need to follow Jesus’ example and be willing to deny ourselves those things for the ultimate glory of the Father. 

This particular passage ends with verses 49 and 50 where Jesus says, “For everyone will be salted with fire.  Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?  Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”  The imagery Jesus uses here points our minds to the OT sacrifices.  Leviticus 2:13 says, “You shall season all your grain offerings with salt.  You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.”  According to the OT law, salt was a required part of every burnt offering.  In OT times there was no refrigeration, so salt was used to preserve things and to keep them from becoming rotten.  In Jesus’ metaphor here salt is equivalent to a preserving agent in our own lives.  Jesus just spoke about denying ourselves in order to preserve God’s glory and our assurance of eternal life with Him and keeping us from rotting in hell.  Denying ourselves those things which would cause ourselves or others to stumble and sin is what Jesus means when He tells His disciples to have salt in themselves and to be at peace with one another.  And in addition to the salt requirement for burnt offerings, burnt offerings were also to be wholly consumed by the fire if they were going to be acceptable offerings to God.  This has great significance for each person who chooses to follow Christ.  Following after Christ is something we should commit all of ourselves to.  Paul says in Romans 12:1 “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.”  If we apply that to OT law the sacrifice “must be totally consuming or it is worthless” (James Edwards).  If we don’t surrender all of ourselves to living for His glory and if we aren’t willing to deny ourselves those things which would cause ourselves or others to stumble and sin, then we have to examine where our true devotion lies.  Following Christ in His mission to glorify God requires the humility to deny ourselves and to be wholly consumed by Him, so that every part of our life builds others up and brings glory to the Father.

As long as we are here on earth we are going to wrestle with the flesh and desires that we have to gratify ourselves.  When an individual surrenders his or her life to Christ as Savior and Lord, the desire to live for self doesn’t just go away.  While we are being made more like Christ, it is a process that will not be completed until death and we come into His presence.  So until that time, one of our greatest acts of worship is the daily commitment to make Him the object of our worship, rather than ourselves.  When we make Him the object of our worship we acknowledge Him as the greatest and most worthy object of praise and glory.  But when we choose those things which will gratify a sinful desire of ours, we make ourselves supreme.  So guys, when your sitting in front of the computer and your heart’s desire is to check out a couple of porn sites, whose Kingdom are you living for?  Who’s the object of your worship?  Who are you making supreme?  Ladies, when you’re visiting your friend’s home and coveting her house, her décor, and the pictures of her most recent extravagant vacation, whose Kingdom are you living for?  Who or what is the object of your worship?  Who are you making supreme?

We desperately need God, by His grace, to open our eyes and our understanding to the truth of Jesus’ mission and ministry.  Jesus is God, Himself – the Creator and Sustainer of all things.  And yet, when Jesus came to earth, He did not come to achieve power, influence, and status so that He might become the greatest among men – He came to humbly serve.  When Jesus came to earth He did not seek to be a part of the ‘right’ groups, but instead surrounded Himself with fishermen and tax collectors because He humbly came to make much of God.  And when Jesus came to earth He did not seek riches and thrones, buy humbly denied Himself and instead sought out a cross.  Jesus’ mission and ministry had no hint of ‘me-centered’ thinking.  His mission and ministry was to fulfill the Father’s plan and to make much of Him.  And by God’s grace, we can make our mission, our ministry, our way of thinking the same thing!    

Questions for Small Group Discussion

1.  Read Mark 9:30-37 and Luke 22:24-27.  In these verses we emphasized the point that Jesus' ministry was a humble ministry of service.  And in the text Jesus states, "If anyone whould be first, he must be last of all and servant of all."  How are our lives as individuals and as a church marked by humble service?  Who are you serving as an individual?  Who are we serving as a church?  Are we receiving and serving the least among us, as Jesus modeled when He took the child into His arms or are we receiving and serving only those who are like us and who can benefit us?  What must we change and do differently if we are going to do this better as individuals and as a church?

2. Read Mark 9:38-41.  In these verses we emphasized the point that Jesus' ministry was a humble ministry of exalting God and that He wasn't filled with pride as a result of the group He was a part of.  What types of things can we do to help guard ourselves from having an unhealthy sense of pride in our church?  What types of things can we do to help foster a sense of co-operation and partnership with other churches and ministries, rather than sliding into a sense of competition?

3. Read Mark 9:42-50.  In these verses we emphasized the point that Jesus' ministry was a humble ministry of self-denial and suffering.  Jesus didn't seek out riches or thrones but denied Himself even comfort so that He might fulfill God's plan and bring glory and honor to the Father.  Are there things that, in a practical sense, we treasure more than the fulfillment of God's plan?  If so, what are they and how do they prohibit us from seeking the fulfillment of God's plan?  Can holding on to those things cause either someone else or ourselves to stumble and sin?  What does our response to those things look like if we take them lightly?  What does our response to those things look like if we take them with the seriousness that Jesus' suggests we take them with?  

4. What step of faith does this passage of Scripture require us to take as individuals and as a small group?  How do we work this out on mission?