Scripture Reading From Mark 9

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Hi, I'm Sophia Sandoval. I'm a sophomore at American Canyon High School, and today I'm reading Mark 9, 30 through 38. 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. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise. But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him. And they came to Capernim. Yeah. And when he was in the house, he asked them, What were you discussing on the way? But they kept silent. For on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all. And he took a child and put them into the midst of them. And taking him into his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one child in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives not me, but the teacher who sent or but for who sent me. John said to them, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us. This is the word of the Lord.

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Thanks be to God.

Welcome And Quick Translation Notes

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Thank you. Awesome. Welcome. My name's Lawrence. You can have a seat. I lost a bet. I'm wearing a 49er hat right now. Bang, bang, nine or gang. Yeah. We will play again. We'll see you in the Super Bowl. Let's go. I'm gonna put it where it belongs. That's all right. Seahawks, just come on, get it. Let's go. Oh yeah. We're getting fired up right now. Some people are like, I'm leaving. This is good. Hey, uh, glad you're here. We're going through uh the gospel of Mark. I'm in chapter nine. Uh, some people asked us last uh week, hey, what version do you use? There's different translations of uh the Bible. I'm using the ESV. Uh some of you guys have the NIV, um, you guys have the N-A-S-V. There's all kinds of different ones. They say different stuff, but just the nuance of some of the language. Uh, some of you guys are like, where is that word in here? I want to see what that reads like. So this is called the ESV. Um, but use whatever you want, you can follow along. Uh, we're only doing a couple verses this week, uh, which is great because last week we did 29. So we're gonna get out here on time. Let's go. Uh, we're gonna hop right in. Um, like I said, uh, if you're newer with us, uh the Gospel of Marks, uh, it's uh right at the beginning of the New Testament, you can hop in with us. Um, so here we go.

Why We Compete And Compare

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Just like this hat thing. Have you ever noticed seriously how almost everything can become a competition? Like, even things that we were never supposed to be competitive about. Like you play a board game with friends and somebody says, like, let's just have fun. That person is lying, right? And that's when you discover who people really are, I think. That one person who says, like, I'm not competitive right before destroying your friendship over Uno, right? You didn't say Uno, you didn't do this. I mean, I do this with my kids. But here's the deal: we don't just compete while we're playing games, we compare almost everything: jobs, relationships, apartments, bodies, vacations, followers, kids, who got married first, who makes more money, who bought a house, what kind of house, who got promoted, like who seems happier, and who looks like they actually uh have their life together and know what they're doing, right? And if you're a young adult in here, this is especially strange because everybody starts at roughly the same place, and then suddenly everybody's life just takes off in completely different directions. One friend is getting married, another is finishing graduate school, one just bought a house somehow, and the rest of you are like, what kind of criminal enterprise made that possible, right? In this California, one's traveling to Europe, the other just got promoted, one moved back in with their parents, and then there's you who are just sitting there in the Target parking lot eating Chick-fil-A, thinking, I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing with my life right now. And here's the crazy part you could actually be doing fine until you see somebody who appears to be doing better. You were probably perfectly happy with your apartment until your friend bought a house. Like you actually liked your job until someone posted about a promotion, right? You were fine being single until engagement showed up and started multiplying like loaves and fishes around you, right? And nothing in your life actually changed, but suddenly your experience of life changed because what happened is you started measuring it against somebody else's. And human beings, friends, have been doing this forever, which is why what happens in Mark chapter nine is almost painfully funny. Because here's the video the disciples, they've just had one of the most extraordinary experiences imaginable. Peter, James, and John watched Jesus transfigured before him. They saw Moses and Elijah, they heard the voice of God say, This is my son, listen to him. And then they came down this mountain, watched Jesus do what none of the other disciples could do. He delivered this suffering boy, and then Jesus started explaining again that he's going to be betrayed and killed, and then raised from the dead. So you would imagine maybe that the disciples, right, they're they're walking along like in just stunned silence, like deeply contemplating the mystery of the cross, rethinking everything they've ever thought that they knew about God. Nope. They're arguing about which one of them is the greatest. I love these guys because apparently you can watch Jesus like glow like bleach on a mountain, hear the audible voice of God, watch a demon literally flee, listen to him predict his own death and resurrection, and 15 minutes later be like, okay, but seriously, guys, which one of you do you think is his favorite? And this is where Mark takes us. Because Jesus is about to confront something that exists in almost every human heart: the need to matter, the desire to be seen, to be significant, to know that somehow our life counts. And Jesus isn't going to tell them that wanting your life to matter is wrong. He's going to do something much more disruptive. He's going to completely redefine what greatness actually looks like and to understand why. We have to begin with what happens on the road.

Jesus Predicts Cross And Resurrection

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Says they went on from there and they passed through Galilee, and he did not want anyone to know. So let's just stop for a second. This feels strange at first because Jesus has really spent much of Mark surrounded by crowds, like people literally are pressing into houses, they're following him along shorelines and running ahead of the boats where he's going. And they're bringing the sick, they're bringing their friends, they're begging for healing. But now Jesus intentionally avoids attention. Why? Well, Mark actually tells us the next verse that he's teaching his disciples that this isn't like a public campaign. This is actually a private formative moment right here. Jesus knows now that they are approaching Jerusalem. And the closer they get to Jerusalem, the closer he gets to the cross. So the priority is beginning to change. Earlier in Mark, Jesus has been showing them what he can do. Now he needs them to understand why it is that he came. And that's a very important distinction because it's possible to be impressed by Jesus without actually understanding him. You can admire his compassion that we've seen, appreciate his ethics, uh, respect his teaching. You can be fascinated by his miracles and still completely misunderstand the actual sinner of his mission. And that matters whether you are a follower of Christ, Christian, the Muslim, the Buddhist, uh, atheist, agnostic, or you're just trying to figure out what you even believe. Because almost every worldview can find something. They can find something in Jesus that they actually admire. You know, the the Muslim can honor Jesus as a prophet. Uh, the Buddhists can appreciate his compassion that they see and his detachment from materialism. And the atheists, you know, if they try really hard, can respect portions of his moral uh teaching, or the agnostic can find him historically fascinating. And if you're the skeptic in the room, you can say, like, whatever else I believe, ah, I can't argue with that. Jesus has clearly changed human history, he's had a massive influence. But Mark, right here, he keeps pushing beyond admiration. He's not going to allow Jesus to remain simply just an inspiring teacher because he keeps saying something about himself that forces the deeper question. And so Mark continues. For he was teaching his disciples. Uh, he was teaching his disciples, uh, and he said to them, The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise. So there it is again. The cross. Jesus has already told them about this in chapter eight. Uh, remember, um, Peter confessed, you are the Christ, and immediately Jesus, what he did was he explained that the Christ would suffer, be rejected, be killed, and then raise again. And Peter actually hated that idea so much that he actually rebuked Jesus, which is a bold move. Like, imagine correcting God on his five-year plan. Like, Jesus, I love what you're doing, huge fan. Just a little feedback on the whole Messiah strategy, right? And he shut that down immediately. And now, again, he says it. But notice this wording right here the son of man is going to be delivered. So, this is something important to note that this phrase, son of man, actually reaches all the way back to the Old Testament in the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter seven. Daniel, if you're not familiar with him, have you ever heard of like Daniel and the lion's den? You can read about that why he was there in the first place. But this is where Daniel sees a mysterious figure coming from the clouds of heaven and receiving an everlasting kingdom. And so, first century Jewish listeners at this time, this language carries enormous weight with all this authority and this idea of kingship and victory and uh dominion, right? Every nation eventually brought under his reign. So imagine the mental whiplash right here as Jesus takes this glorious figure from Daniel, and then he says he will be delivered into the hands of man. This is literally the one who should receive kingdoms of humanity will be handed over to humanity. The judge will be judged, the king will be condemned, and the author of life will be killed. This is the upside-down center of Christianity. This word translated here, delivered, matters. Uh, in the Greek, as it's written, it can mean handed over or betrayed or delivered into someone else's control. Later, we'll actually see that Judas will hand Jesus over, that religious authorities will hand him over, that Pilate will hand him over. But underneath all of these human decisions, Mark is actually showing us something deeper. That Jesus isn't accidentally losing control of the story. The cross isn't just plan B. He's actually walking toward it knowingly. This is one of the enormous differences between Jesus dying and simply just being a victim of execution. He knows what's coming and he keeps going. Christianity does not claim merely that Jesus was just an unfortunate religious teacher killed by an oppressive empire. Rome crucified thousands of people. I mean, if the story is just simply that Rome killed another Jewish man, there's nothing particularly unusual about Good Friday. The Christian claim is much larger. That Jesus believes his death is somehow central to his mission, and Mark will keep explaining why. He'll eventually say that the Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many. And then he says, after three days, he will rise. And that changes everything. Because here's the deal: anybody can predict their death. I mean, eventually you're gonna be right, right? But Jesus predicts his resurrection. And this is where the skeptic in the room right now should lean in rather than check out because the whole thing rises and falls here. Paul, the apostle later in the New Testament, will say that if Christ has not been risen, Christian faith is empty. That's an astonishing admission. Christianity does not finally say, like, believe, because these teachings make you feel better and you become a better person. No, no, no. It makes a historical claim that Jesus died. And here's what happened: His followers became so convinced that they encountered him alive again, and that something happened that transformed frightened disciples into people that were actually became willing to announce the resurrection publicly, even when doing so cost them. And history tells us it cost them a lot, much more than probably we would be willing to give. Like you, you, you may investigate that claim and remain unconvinced. That's fair, but you cannot remove resurrection from Christianity and still have Christianity. It is not an accessory, it is the center. And apparently, the disciples have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Mark says, but they didn't understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him. I love the honesty of that verse. They don't understand and they don't ask about it. Some of you did this through your entire education. Professors say something, everyone nods, you nod, right? You have absolutely no idea what happens. Then the professor asks, any questions? And what happens? Silence, right? I went uh uh a handful of weeks ago to a parent meeting. My son's doing cross country, and I'm in their parent meeting and I'm listening to him, and he's going over the schedule, telling us what he'd do, and he ends it with, is there any questions? Anybody have any questions? Nothing. And we get up to leave, and what happens? A huge lime forms to ask him questions, right? Why? Because everybody's thinking, I definitely have questions, but I'm not gonna be the one who proves that I have questions, right? That's the disciples right here, and there's actually something sad underneath their silence. They were afraid. I mean, I tried to think about that. Maybe they're afraid of appearing ignorant, maybe afraid of just another correction like Peter received, maybe afraid they understand more than they want to. Because sometimes we avoid asking questions, not because we think that there's no answer, but because we're afraid of the answer. If Jesus really means the cross, what does that mean for us? If the Messiah suffers, what does following the Messiah mean? If the path to greatness actually goes downward before it goes upwards, what happens to all of our ideas about success? That question is about to explode.

The Awkward Argument About Greatness

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Mark says, and then they came to Capernaum, and when he was at the house, he asked them, Hey guys, what was it that you were discussing along the way? So, just real quick, Capernaum has come as something like this ministry home base for these guys. This so this is a familiar house, it's a private room. And Jesus asked him a question. Hey guys, when we were, you know, walking here, what was it you guys were talking about? Which is one of those questions Jesus asked when clearly he already knows the answer, right? Parents know this question. You walk into a room, something's broken, two children suddenly become very interested in the carpet, right? And you're like, what happened? Nobody knows, right? And apparently the lamp fell by itself somehow, right? This may or may not be a true story. Jesus knows, right? He's not asking for information right here. I think he's inviting a confession. And so Mark gives us one of the funniest transitions in the passage, but they kept silent. Because on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. Of course they kept silent. Because what are you supposed to say, right? Jesus has just said, like, I'm gonna be betrayed and killed. And then behind them, the disciples are basically having an ancient LinkedIn argument about who has the strongest leadership profile. Like he's describing sacrifice that's gonna happen, and they're like discussing status. Jesus is talking about literally giving his life, and they're talking about like improving their rank. And before we laugh too hard, we we do this, right? We do this, we just have better vocabulary for it. Like we call it influence, platform, or achievement, we call it networking or personal brand, career trajectory, followers, recognition, being seen or being invited, being important. And none of those things are automatically evil. Ambition isn't automatically sinful, leadership isn't automatically pride, uh, uh achievement isn't automatically ego, but something inside of us can quietly turn good things into a scorecard. Like who's ahead, who makes more, who got promoted, who got invited, who got married first, who owns the house, who has the better career, who has more fault, who seems happier, who's winning, right? And and frankly, you know, we're discovering this social media puts everybody's scoreboard in your pocket. I mean, you can be completely content with your life until you see somebody else's. Comparison can turn gratitude into disappointment, and I'm telling you, 30 seconds. And different people play this game differently, right? We're all in the room. Welcome, we're all together. Some of you want to win. Like you see a ladder and you immediately start climbing. Some of you don't necessarily need to win, but you desperately want everyone to like you while you're climbing. Uh, some of you hate the whole competition and would rather everybody relax, get a coffee, and stop making everything feel so intense. And then some of you are quietly studying the ladder, right? Checking whether it was uh properly constructed, researching the weight capacity and wondering why anyone's climbing before reading the instructions. Different personalities, all in this room, all in this book, same temptation. We measure ourselves against one another. And here's what makes verse 34 so revealing. Some of them have just seen the transfigured Christ, and all of them heard about it. They've heard that the voice of God said, listen to him. They've watched Jesus deliver a suffering child. They've heard Jesus predict his own death and resurrection, and somehow the conversation becomes hey, which one of us do you think is the greatest? This is how deeply the human hunger for status is. Religious experiences alone don't remove ego. Miracles don't automatically produce humility. Bible knowledge doesn't automatically produce humility. Being close to Jesus doesn't, as we can see here, automatically produce humility. You can stand next to Jesus and still make everything about you. And maybe that's precisely why Jesus stops. Because he's about to completely redefine what greatness means, not destroy it, redefine it.

First Means Last And Servant

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So the disciples think that greatness means being above people, and Jesus is about to tell them that greatness is choosing to move toward people from below. They think greatness is measured by who notices you, and Jesus will measure it by whom you notice. They think the kingdom is a ladder, and Jesus is about to turn the ladder upside down, and what he says next may be one of the most counter-cultural definitions of greatness ever spoken. Because remember what they're arguing about who's the greatest? Who matters the most? Who gets the position? Who's closest to Jesus? Who has the most influence? And Jesus does something incredibly intentional and said, And he sat them down and he called the twelve. Now that sounds like a really insignificant detail. I just want to let you know it's not. In first century Jewish culture, a rabbi sat when giving formal instruction, unlike myself where I'm standing. So when Jesus sat sits down and calls them over, he's basically saying, like, hey guys, class is in session. And I can imagine that they already know this isn't going to go well. Because Jesus asked what they were arguing about and nobody answered. So now he sits down, and some of you know this feeling like your parents never needed to yell, they just said, Hey, come sit down. And what happened? You immediately started reviewing every decision you had made in the previous 72 hours of your life. And so Jesus says, if anyone should be first, he must be last of all. And servant of all. So notice what he doesn't say. Guys, stop wanting your life to matter. He completely redefines what significance looks like. He says, You want to be first? Fine. Go last. You want to become great? I love that. Serve. You want your life to matter? Use it for somebody else besides just yourself. And that would have been deeply countercultural in the Roman world in which they lived. See, Roman society was intensely uh hierarchical. Uh, like the status mattered, family mattered, uh, wealth mattered, your connections, your network mattered, and honor was something that people literally pursued publicly. And importantly, honor was limited. And so somebody moved up. What that meant is that somebody else moved down. Sound familiar? Because we have different scorecards. They're just followers, titles, salary, degree, platforms, influence. Like who actually knows your name? And Jesus doesn't merely rearrange this scoreboard. What he does right here is he destroys it. Because in his kingdom, greatness is not measured by how many people serve you, it's measured by how willing you are to serve people who can do absolutely nothing for you in return. And then Jesus gives them a visual.

The Child At The Center

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And he took a child and he put them in the midst of them. And taking him in his arms, he said to them, So, real quick, we just need to understand this culturally because we tend to, I think, remote romanticize this scene. We hear child and we think, you know, like innocent, adorable, valuable, precious sometimes. And of course, children are valuable and precious sometimes. Um, but children, children did not possess like a social status. Uh, like in the ancient world, um, children, uh, it's it's it's it's much different than children often have in like ours right now. They were loved, but they had virtually no power, no influence, no social leverage, no ability to advance your career. So there wasn't, you know, a need to be hanging out with a kid. So if you're trying to climb a social ladder, stopping to impress a child accomplish absolutely nothing. And that's actually precisely Jesus' point right here, right? The disciples are arguing about who deserves the highest position. And Jesus reaches for someone with virtually no position, and he places a child at the center. And then he picks up and says, I love this detail. He picks up the child. And what's great about this is Jesus could have made this theological point from across the room. He'd been like, see that over there? Instead, what he does is he embraces this illustration. And then he says, Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. I mean, that's enormous. Jesus says, You want to know how to receive me? Receive the person nobody's trying to impress. Notice the overlooked. Welcome the person who cannot improve your status. Make room for someone who has nothing to offer, because the kingdom of Jesus continually moves towards people, the world moves past. And then he takes it a little bit further. He says, Well, when you receive them, guess what? You receive me. And when you receive me, you receive the Father who sent me. I mean, think about this progression. Child, Jesus, Father. The person everyone assumes matters the least is suddenly connected to the presence of God Himself. That should completely reshape shape the way Christians see people. You know, the person serving unnoticed, the person standing alone, the person nobody invited, the person without connections, the person whose name can't actually open a door. And Jesus says, pay attention. This is where greatness is hiding. And whether you're a Christian, an atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, agnostic, or you're just here because someone promised you lunch afterwards, surely there is something worth considering here. What kind of world do we create when everybody is trying to become more important? And what kind of world might we create if greatness were measured by how we treat people who can give us nothing in return? But apparently, John is still processing the lesson because his immediate response is almost intentionally, unintentionally hilarious.

Tribalism And Controlling God’s Work

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It says, then John said to him, Teacher, uh, we saw one casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us. Did you catch it? Jesus just said, Receive people. And John said, Okay, so, anyways, we stop this guy, right? I mean, Jesus is literally teaching inclusion, and John immediately brings up somebody that they've excluded. I mean, notice his wording also. He doesn't say, um, he wasn't following you. No, no, no. He says he wasn't following us. There it is. The ego came right back. The disciples had has subtly like moved themselves into the center, like, we're the official group. We are the insiders, we know Jesus personally. He doesn't have our credentials and he didn't go through the process. He is not a part of our circle. And there's incredible irony here. Earlier in this chapter, the disciples tried to cast out a demon. Do you remember this? And they failed. Now the guy who apparently succeeds, and their response is, Jesus, good news, we shut him down. Like you almost expect Jesus to say, like, you stop the guy who could actually do it, right? But underneath, I think this humor is actually something serious. Why? Because we love belonging, and belonging is really beautiful, but belonging can quietly become superiority. I'm gonna poke a little bit. This is our group, this is our church, this is our tribe, this is our political party. This is our people, our theology, our way. And before long, instead of asking, is Jesus at work here? We start asking, are they one of us? That is an entirely different question. And Mark places this immediately after the argument about greatness because it's the same heart problem. Greatness says, I need to be above you. Tribalism says, you need to be inside of my group before I trust you. And Jesus is dismantling both because the kingdom does not revolve around our importance, it revolves around him. And that is where verse 38 just leaves us hanging. John thinks he is, he thinks he's protected the Jesus movement, but Jesus is about to show him that sometimes our desire to protect what God is doing can become an attempt to control where God is allowed to work. The disciples are learning that following Jesus means surrendering more than their sin and their woundedness. It means surrendering status, comparison, recognition, control. Even our need to always be the insiders. Because maybe greatness was never about becoming the person everybody notices. Maybe greatness looks much more like becoming the person who notices everybody else. And maybe the clearest evidence that you're getting closer to Jesus is not that you increasingly feel more important, but that the people that the world considers unimportant increasingly become important to you.

Prayer Invitation And Final Blessing

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We're just gonna leave it hanging right there. I mean, we're just gonna, we just gotta sit and that. Some of you need prayer. Um, if that's you, we would love to pray for you. Love to connect with you. I love that um, I'm gonna tell you guys right now. I'm just gonna be straight up. I sat with this the whole week and I was like, da, dang it. Oh, and then this now I just get to do this. You like that? Yeah, you like that? Happen to me first. I'm not gonna do this by myself here. Ah, right. So I need prayer too. Um, some of you guys came here to pray. We would love to pray for you. Um, we have people in the back of the room at these little prayer walls, they would pray for you. You can use our tech service and pray for you. Um, and some of you um are figuring out what you believe and why you believe what you believe. And right here, you just saw the Christology of Jesus. Um, it all hangs on that. And so if it's not the people you believe in, good for you. We're trying. But if you're ready to give your life to Jesus, uh, the resurrected Jesus, uh, we would love to walk with you through that process. Um, that changes everything. It changes everything. And frankly, it gives you a whole lot more grace to deal with this. Um, if if you want to have a conversation about that, we got a little nook out there in the lobby. It says this changes everything. We got a journal. I wrote a little journal that helps you like, what is this? How do I take next steps? Let me kind of reconstruct what some of this is to me in my life. Uh, we would love to give that free gift to you, have a conversation, and just walk with you in that journey. Uh, I don't want to pass up that opportunity for you to be a part of there. And lastly, I would just say just keep coming back. I mean, I'm if you read ahead, you're more than welcome to. If you read ahead, we all go and get in some stuff. Like he's he's gonna talk. Like if you've heard of red letters, there's a lot of red letters right here. He's saying some things, and that's why we sit in this verse by verse, because we're gonna absorb what this means then, what does it mean now? What is this for us? Who are we becoming? Uh, and I'm thankful to be in that journey with you. So keep coming back. If you're new with us, keep coming back. This is great. I'm gonna send you off with a blessing. We have this posture, you can just sit there of just open hands, just giving up and receiving, and frankly, surrendering. So my blessing is this may you not be great this week, and you may you experience the fruit of making someone else bigger and you smaller, and experience truly the grace and the mercy and the peace and actually the joy that comes from that as Jesus promises. May you be surprised and blessed. All right. Love you guys. I'll see you next week.