In this section of Mark, we will learn about Kingdom greatness as defined by Jesus. He defines it as service and welcome of the lowly — a comprehensive inversion of every cultural status system, including the competitiveness that had already infected the disciples.
(A) Kingdom Greatness: Humble as a servant, delighting in His name proclaimed (Mark 9:33-41)
Jesus asked them a question he already knew the answer to (Mark 9:33). Recall where they had just been and what they had just seen in the chapter prior. The Transfiguration, where Peter, James and John saw with their own eyes Jesus in His glory, and the healing of the boy with the unclean spirit. If there is any doubt that Jesus is the Christ, surely it was unfounded and ridiculous for first-hand eyewitnesses like them to think that.
Yet, here they were arguing about who the greatest disciple was. Jesus was addressing here the pride and status-chasing that had crept in the disciples. They were no better than the Jewish elite who were plotting Jesus’ arrest. You can almost hear the arguments - I saw the transfiguration, you didn’t, so I’m the greater disciple. I’m in the inner circle. I am Jesus’ greatest disciple. How sad and disappointed Jesus must have felt - all this time with Jesus, and this is what they squabble about? As they make their way to the cross, the ultimate humiliation, the disciples were more bent on arguing who was the greatest.
Jesus knew, and when He addressed it with them, they kept silent and their shame was evident (Mark 9:34). This is similar to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve hid from God in shame, for they knew they had done wrong.
We know this feeling of guilt and shame that hangs over our heads when confronted. Jesus knows. He knows our hearts, he knows our deepest desires, he knows our every thought, our motives, our loves, our lies, our all. Paul said, "Do not pronounce judgment before the time, until the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God" (1 Cor 4:5). Do you think you can hide from our Lord? Do you think he cannot hear? Jesus knows.
Pride and one-uppness also creeps in without us even realising it. Our sinful hearts are bent on comparisons, and our culture celebrates that. The scary thing is that we so easily bring this into our faith, and we focus not on being a better Christian, but being a better Christian than him/her. If the disciples who saw the transfigured Christ in recent memory can, then we are not beyond that. Guard your heart and soul, that we might not slip into temptation.
Be watchful of this attitude in yourself and others. Is the ministry of the church or of the leaders’ God’s glory, or self-glory? Are we building up God’s church and His body, or are we building up a brand? Do we seek to see God’s name lifted high, or our own? We should be mindful and careful and wary of such behaviours, and address them quickly and directly, as Jesus did.
Jesus answers Himself. He sits down and teaches them. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all. (Mark 9:35)” Notice what He does not do. Jesus does not tell them not to strive for greatness. Rather, Jesus takes this view of greatness that the disciples have, this desire to be great that has been tainted by sin and selfishness and pride and self-desire, and all the ways to be great that they think are right and justified, and flips it on its head. Jesus does not dismiss their desire for greatness, but He does redefine what it means to be great in His kingdom.
What does Jesus say then? True greatness means willing to be the last, not the first. True greatness means serving everyone humbly, even the least of all, not ascending to greatness from the front. What a radical and upside down way to understand greatness.
Jesus helpfully gives them an illustration with a child, because children are the least among the "all" in Mark 9:35. Commentators have talked about how children were marginalized and treated as objects then, and how in some translations, “children” and “servant” are the same word. Regardless, Jesus’ point is clear — if you want to be first and the greatest, you must be the servant of children. John Piper put it well - “You must take time for children. You must not look down on or despise children. You must not say this is simply women's work. If you would be great, you will not rule out nursery duty; you will pray earnestly about teaching primaries; you will think hard about leading a boys' club or girls' club.” Children and Youth ministry is not less important, your youth pastor is not less than.
And what does Jesus say? “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me. (Mark 9:37)” In other words, if the disciples would humble themselves to serve children because of Him and what He said, they receive Jesus and God Himself. The greatest shall be the last, and the last will receive God Himself. That is how kingdom greatness is defined.
Some application for us to consider. What do you strive for? What are you ambitious for? Do you seek to be great? How do you seek to be great? What drives your ministry? Is it visibility? Is it the praise of others? Seek to serve the last, seek to serve the children, who are not even capable of praise. Seek to serve those that do not look like you. Seek to serve the least of all, for that is kingdom greatness.
What if you do not strive? What if you do not desire to be great? It’s a good thing worldly greatness and kingdom greatness look quite the opposite. Take heart - serve the lowly and the last, for that is kingdom greatness.
What would it look like to serve the lowest and the least outside of church? What would such radical humble servant-heartedness look like at work with superiors and peers and people reporting to you and the cleaning aunty? What would this look like at home, with family and our neighbours that we don’t really like? If we lived out this command, how drastically would how we are be?
How does John respond? An initial read here makes it look like John’s moved on to a new topic. Yet if we dig deeper, we see John confessing the pride and jealousy he had in his own heart. You can see the argument here — who is this nobody using YOUR name, casting out demons? We must stop him, he isn’t one of us.
John and the disciples thought of Jesus more as a brand name to carry around. They thought that protecting Jesus’ ministry meant a religious exclusivism that made so much sense to them. Perhaps it stung a little more given the fact that they were just unable to perform the same miracles, even though they were Jesus’ actual disciples.
John’s response is an extension of that same line of pride that Jesus was addressing in Mark 9:35-37. The same root under the one-upping and desire to be the greatest shows in how they viewed themselves as Jesus’ inner circle. Indeed they were, and they felt the urge to enforce that.
We have seen similar episodes in the Bible - Joshua did this with Moses in Numbers 11 and John the Baptist’s followers did the same when they saw more and more followers going to Jesus and not John. This should not surprise us, and if we’re being honest, is not foreign to us either. How often do we see such an attitude in our own circles today? We live in a time (and country) where we have gotten so comfortable as Christians that we are happy to tear each other down or throw shade at each other because we don’t always agree with each other - whether by theology or denomination. What wisdom does Jesus have for this?
Jesus tells them not to stop the man. An initial reading here sounds like Jesus is pretty chill - leave him be, whoever is not against us is for us - that sounds like a really low bar. “Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward” - He goes even further - how much more petty and small an act can you get than giving a follower of Christ a cup of water?
This presents us a bit of a conundrum — is Jesus saying we should live and let live? Is he saying that as long as they use my name, they are good? Shouldn’t we be careful about unhealthy churches and unbiblical and ungospel-centered preaching? Haven’t we talked about this here at fellowship as well, where we’ve exhorted us to seek out good healthy gospel preaching churches? Is Jesus saying something different?
The short answer is no, but yes. Jesus Himself warns against the false prophets earlier in His teachings, and Paul writes extensively about the importance of guarding the gospel and against false teachers. Surely Jesus is not preaching a “loose” gospel. He prefaces his teaching by being specific “no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me” - so Jesus speaks of true teachers, not false teachers. What He is preaching is the correct attitude for those in ministry - instead of being angry and up in arms, He calls us to be tolerant and free from jealousy.
What are we to do with this then? In all we do, seek the glory of Jesus’ name — no more and no less. We should be careful to examine ourselves, especially in our reformed circles. Accusations of pride and religious exclusivity go both ways - are there secondary things and issues at hand that we cling to too tightly?
We should celebrate each others’ churches! We should pray for them, we should visit each other, we should work with each other, we should encourage members to go to each others’ congregations where it makes sense. There is much freedom in the gospel - praise God for that! For the one who is not against us is for us.
(B) Kingdom Living: Radical obedience for the sake of others and ourselves (Mark 9:42-48)
Jesus charges the disciples with a heavy responsibility. The first charge here is to not cause little ones to sin, and the consequence was dire - Jesus gives us a vivid image to deal with. This is not difficult to understand, but how often is this something we give so little thought to? Jesus’ words are a warning to make sure there is nothing in our lives that would make one of his “little ones” stumble. The direct context points us to a warning specifically against causing them to sin because of our elitist, self-serving attitudes. It is the attitude that belittles a new believer, that writes off sincere questions of one perhaps less educated, the sneer and cold shoulder that turns away from those who do not look and sound and speak like us. We must be clear - Christ hates this in his Church.
Who do we speak to and surround ourselves with in our community groups? Do our groups all look and sound like us? Are we consciously or subconsciously an elitist bunch? Do we make it easy for those different from us to come to church?
Are there specific ministries and people groups we avoid because we think we are better than? Or have we slapped on excuse after excuse — I will pray for them/that ministry, I have other ministry priorities in this season, or I am an introvert?
May we not be be the people with millstones around our neck to be thrown into the sea. After discussing the responsibility to not cause others to stumble, Jesus moves on to the responsibility to keep one’s own life free from sin.
Jesus turns up the heat in Mark 9:43-48. Importantly, we must see that He does not mean this literally - not that he didn’t mean it at all or actually, but that a literal reading of this would be incorrect. One commentator put it well: “Such mutilation is not only contrary to the Scripture, but it is possible to be minus hands, feet, and eyes and to be neutered and still be the most libidinous, materialistic, proud person in town!”
What Jesus is calling for is not physical mutilation, but spiritual mortification—the cutting off of harmful practices from one’s life. The hand, foot, and eye encompass the totality of life. The hand symbolizes what we do , the foot where we go , and the eye what we see.”
The logic is simple — it is better to go to drastic measure to prevent yourself from sin, than bear your sin and go to hell. And along with the vivid image of the man in the water, Jesus gives us a vivid image of hell — unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. Such pictures are meant to show us what is at stake — the consequence of not guarding your soul from temptation and sin is eternal damnation. In light of that, turning from, cutting off sin should be decisive and complete and severe.
Are there places where your feet carry you to where you should not be? Are there events that you attend that involve temptations you cannot handle? Are there hidden things you do with your hands that if someone else knew about, you would be most embarrassed?
What are we reading? What are we watching? Are there things we read and watch that we want no one else to see? How much time are we filling our minds with things of this world? Dramas of sex and money and power and violence? How little time are we spending in God’s word?
We should be willing to endure pain to conquer our sinful habits. It hurts to sever your foot or to tear out an eye, and it hurts to give up wrong things in our lives. “Better your blood on the ground than your life on the rubbish heap for eternity.” If God is speaking to you to do it— do it now!
This is contrary to what the world tells us to do! The world tells us to embrace what we want for that is our true self. Yet, Jesus calls us to die to ourselves in order to live.
(C) Kingdom Readiness: Suffering, sacrifice and saltiness (Mark 9:49-50)
Mark 9:49-50 can be confusing, but makes sense in light of the Old Testament. We are meant to read salt and fire and understand that Jesus here is referring to sacrifices made to the Lord. In Leviticus 2:13, we read, “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.” This is similar to Exodus 30:35.
Jesus speaks of how His disciples will be salted with fire, a picture of suffering (Mark 9:49). We should not be surprised by suffering. As we read in 1 Peter 4:12–13, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
But, how can we obey and follow? Perhaps you are struggling with sin today and feel like the call here is too much to bear. How can we obey Jesus of this upside-down Kingdom? Look at Jesus’ example on the cross in Philippians 2. This upside down Saviour did not leave us to die. He came to live the life that we were to live, and die the death we were to die. But He did not stay dead, but was resurrected and lives today.
This is the gospel, and the gospel changes our life. How will we respond?
Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.