We have in this passage before
us in Mark 9, verses 30-37, again the highlighting of the
stark contrast between who God is and how he operates in this
world and who man is. And there's a great indictment
of all mankind in Psalm 50 verse 21. You thought, says God of
mankind, you thought that I was altogether like you. And a wise man once said that
if you want to find out God's ways and God's wisdom on a matter,
you actually go as far as your human thinking will go. and then
try and find the exact opposite. And nine times out of ten, when
you've found the opposite, you will have found God's way of
dealing with people. Mark's Gospel pictures the Lord
Jesus as a servant. Mark 10.45 is one of the key
verses in Mark's Gospel that says, for
even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and
give his life as a ransom for many. So the Lord Jesus in this passage
before us leaves the crowd. He went out, leaves this crowd,
where the scribes had been causing disputation with his disciples. And he sets his face towards
Jerusalem and goes through Galilee. For the Lord Jesus now, the time
for him to be with his disciples is limited. This is no time for
entertaining crowds and this is a time for teaching the most
important matters, the most important lessons. When death is imminent,
critical things become the only things that matter. The messengers
of heaven had come to show the disciples who the Lord Jesus
is and what he'd come to do. He'd come to accomplish his death,
his exodus at Jerusalem. And the Lord Jesus takes this
time to teach his disciples yet again about what it means for
him to come, for him to be a ransom for many, for him to be a servant,
God's servant and the servant of God's people. And what glory
he brings to his father by his obedience unto death. Only eternity
will display the glories of our Saviour. What fulfilment He brings
to God's Word, as He brings in everlasting righteousness, puts
away sin forever, brings yes and amen to all the promises
that God had made. what satisfaction of divine justice,
what honouring of holy mercy, what a public display of God's
righteousness, and what a place of peace and refuge to hide in
as he culminates his glorious work on the cross. He wants his
disciples to be in no doubt about the fact that this is God incarnate
and God operates with sovereignty, absolute sovereignty. So he goes
in verse 30, he went out and began to go through Galilee and
he did not want anyone to know about it. God is sovereign. He is sovereign in calling, He
is sovereign in electing, He is sovereign to whom he will
reveal his glory. Galilee had been a place which
was the centre of his ministry. Capernaum and those towns had
seen him perform the most amazing miracles, and yet the Lord Jesus
was spurned by them. And from my understanding of
the scriptures, he doesn't go back there again to deal with
them. There is a time called today,
which is the day of salvation. There is a time when the Lord
visits, but he doesn't ever promise to keep on visiting. for those
who harden their hearts against Him. They will bear the responsibility
of their hardened hearts and God in His sovereignty will come
and leave them. There are stark, stark words
that are repeated three times in Romans chapter 1. God says that He gave them over. He gave people over. He gave sinners over. He just left them to follow their
own path. But He wants for His disciples
to know that He is sovereign, but He also wants His disciples
to know that He came and when He is delivered into the hands
of men, as verse 31 says, when He's handed over into the hands
of men, who handed Him over? The scriptures make it clear
that God the Father handed Him over. The scriptures make it
clear that He handed Himself over. This wasn't something that
was accident. He's to be delivered into the
hands of men. and they will kill him." So easy, isn't it, for us to
say those words. So often the scriptures just
say, and they crucified him. Just a few words. The word to
kill here is a violent, strong word. It's to cause someone's death
by violent means without legal justification. That's what happened
to our Lord. So often we become so familiar
with such graphic things that they lose their edge. He was
delivered into the hands of men and they'll kill him violently. And when they have killed him,
he will rise three days later. The Lord goes to the cross as
a sovereign. The Lord goes to the cross as
God. The Lord goes to the cross as
representing his people. The Lord wants his people to
see that the cross is not an accident of history. The cross
of the Lord Jesus is the culmination of history. It's the centrepiece
of history. All of Old Testament scripture
points forward to this one extraordinary event. The Lord Jesus, it says
here, was teaching His disciples. This was an ongoing activity
of His teaching. He was teaching them and telling
them again and again that the Son of Man will be delivered
into the hands. They will kill Him. And never
does He talk about His death to His disciples without talking
about His resurrection. His death is a trial. His death is a triumph over sin,
a triumph over Satan, a triumph as God is glorified, a triumph
as all of God's attributes are displayed in the starkest and
most graphic way. If we want to know about love,
We need to go to the cross of the Lord Jesus to see what love
is. If we want to know about mercy,
we must go to the cross. If we want to know about justice,
we must go to the cross. If we want to know about God's
holy revulsion against sin, We must go to the cross. If we want
to know what holiness really is, we must go to the cross. If we want to know what grace
is, we must spend our time at the foot of the cross. If we
want to know about forgiveness of sin, we must go to the cross. This was the centrepiece of his
ministry. It was the centrepiece and is
the centrepiece as we speak here right now of heaven. The angels
that God promises are here with us are angels that also witness
the songs of heaven. And the songs of heaven are about
a crucified saviour, a successful saviour. That he came with a
purpose, he achieved that purpose. and he's gone back to heaven
and now in heaven on behalf of all of his people is a lamb on
the throne as if he is slain. Paul said to the Corinthians,
I sought to know nothing amongst you but Jesus Christ and him
crucified. Paul told the Galatians that
Christ Jesus was clearly portrayed before you as crucified. This
was their gospel message. It was a sovereign activity,
ordained by God, planned by God from all eternity, and perfectly
and wonderfully accomplished. And here we have the Lord Jesus,
knowing what's coming before Him. And here we have man revealed. In verse 31 we have man's enmity
against God is revealed. Man has a passionate hatred for
God being God. And at any time that man, without
the Spirit of God indwelling him, can get his hands on God,
He would do to him what was done to the Lord Jesus. That's what
enmity against God is. Mankind hates God being God,
because mankind has swallowed the serpent's lie. You will be
like God, is how mankind lives. But also we see that without
the Spirit and without God's gracious activities, man will
not understand. The Lord Jesus had made this
plain. He made it a constant source of his teaching of his
disciples. The witnesses from heaven taught
these disciples. It was as plain as you could
make the words to be. But in verse 32, but they did
not understand this statement and they were afraid to ask him.
This is the third time in Mark's Gospel of many times where the
Lord Jesus is reported to be telling and teaching his disciples
these things. has a heart enmity against God. Man is blind by nature and practice. We cannot see the things of God. You cannot teach spiritual truths
by teaching people intellectual things. They must be taught by
God and he has promised to be the teacher of his people. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians,
if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled of those who are perishing,
whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe,
lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is
the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach
ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves as your bondservant
for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded
light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ." Until God teaches, people haven't got a clue about
what happened at the cross. Until God teaches, people haven't
got a clue about who God is. And sadly, as we see with these
men, until God teaches, we haven't got a clue about who we are. I think one of the stark contrasts
in this passage of scripture is that they do not understand,
and yet in their ignorance about the cross, what rises up. As it always does when there's
ignorance about the cross. What rises up is human pride. The Lord Jesus takes these people
to Capernaum and he began to question them. What we are discussing
on the way, the Lord Jesus never has to ask questions to find
out answers. He's not ignorant. Psalm 147
verse 5 says, is infinite. God has infinite
knowledge of your thoughts, God has infinite knowledge of your
actions, God has infinite knowledge of the intentions of your heart. There is absolutely nothing that
has ever happened in this universe which God doesn't have absolutely
perfect knowledge of. how silly it is for us to play
games with God by pretending that we can hide from Him. What
silliness in the garden to hide from God. When God asked the
question, where are you? He wasn't seeking knowledge from
Adam and Eve. He was doing what the Lord Jesus
did here. He was wanting these people to
be exposed. Just consider what had happened.
They had walked this long journey and the Lord Jesus knew, even
though He was not amongst them, He knew all of their thoughts,
all of their words, all of their feelings. And He let them go
and go and go. He gave them enough rope to hang
themselves. He gave them enough time that
there was not one of them that could say a word. They kept silent,
says verse 34. For on the way they had discussed
with one another which of them was the greatest. What an extraordinary
contrast. The Lord Jesus talks about going
to the cross and these men, having heard those words of his, turn
around and have a discussion about which of them is the greatest. There's nothing more we hate
in other people than pride. and self-righteousness. Every
time we see it, there's something in us that revolts against it. And there's nothing in us that
we nurture with more loving care than our own pride. We hate it
when we see it in other people, and all the time it's just lurking
there in ourselves. are by nature self-righteous. It's the family disease of all
the sons of Adam. From the heights to the depths
of society, we all think more highly of ourselves than we should. We are good at flattering ourselves,
and we do it so often. The Lord in his mercy and in
his special ways of teaching us has brought many homeless
people, people struggling with evident sins into our lives. The question that God is asking
of us all the time is when we see those people, when we see
those sins out there, do we say, I am better than them? Or does God give us the grace
to say, whenever I see sin in someone else, that sin is my
sin. God displays sin in this world
so that we will know ourselves and so that we would know where
the problem lurks. If you turn back in your Bibles
to Mark chapter 7, the Lord makes it clear He makes it clear by
teaching it three times. In verse 15 he says, nothing
that enters a man from outside can defile him, but the things
which come out of him, those are the things that defile a
man. Verse 20, what comes out? of
a man, that defiles a man. And so what happens when we see
these things listed in verses 21 and 22? When we see evil thoughts, When we see adulteries, when
we see fornications, when we see murders, when we see thefts,
covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness and evil eye, blasphemy,
pride, foolishness, when we see those things, do our hearts not
automatically say, I don't do that? I see that in other people,
but I don't see it in me. All these things come from within
and defile a man. That's the great test of self-righteousness,
isn't it? Do we like the Pharisee at the
temple? Say, I thank you God that I'm
not like this publican. I thank you God that I'm not
like that and here are my credentials. I don't do this, I don't do this,
I don't do this, I don't do this, I don't do this. I do all these
things and look at this publican beside me. Self-righteousness is a terrible,
terrible, terrible disease. We justify ourselves before God
and men. We may, by some strength, be
able to control some of the external things. God says the problem's
not external things, the problem's a heart. a heart problem, and
unless God gives a heart transplant, what will happen is that some
external, obvious, wicked, embarrassing sins will be dealt with, and
then rising up in the heart will be some sins which are much,
much deeper and much, much more perverse. The sins of the Pharisee
are the sins of self-righteousness. They were extraordinarily moral
people, extraordinarily religious people, but they were self-righteous. These men were discussing who
among them was the greatest, and yet standing before them,
telling them plainly what was going to happen, was the only
man who ever walked this earth who had reason, to be self-righteous,
because he truly was righteous. Pride, pride had blinded these
men from seeing the significance of what the Lord Jesus was going
to do at the cross. It had blinded them. The pride
of your heart, says Obadiah 3, has deceived you. Pride is a
deceptive, deceptive sin. I went to the surgeon three or
four weeks ago in Sydney to have my shoulder looked at and he
asked me all sorts of things about history and pain and pain
relief and all sorts of things. We were chatting away and while
I was doing it he was getting the pictures out, put them up
on the screen. And he started looking at the
pictures and he no longer talked about pain or anything else.
He said, I operate on Mondays and Tuesdays. So the problem's
deep, isn't it? The problem is that my bones
don't fit together properly anymore. The problem is not something
that I can fix with medicine on the outside or even medicine
on the inside. The problem of our hearts is
a serious, deep problem that blinds us from who the Lord Jesus
is and what he has done. May God have mercy on us. Pride keeps men from repentance. Look at the Pharisees in Mark's
Gospel. They saw the Lord Jesus again
and again doing extraordinarily miraculous things, teaching wonderfully. displaying God's glory, displaying
His grace and His forgiveness, and never once could they rejoice. Never once could they thank God
for what they saw before them. They couldn't even thank God
when a tax collector like Matthew, an enemy of their people, is
turned from his tax collecting and they want to celebrate. All
they can do is be there to carp and criticise. Pride keeps men
from trusting the Lord Jesus. Pride robs us of peace, peace
personally and peace with one another. Pride destroys brotherly
love. Pride builds fences rather than
bridges. Pride promotes self. And always
to promote myself, I must tread someone else down to get a little
bit higher. The view is always better when
I'm treading on the carcasses of others I've destroyed. Pride makes people malicious,
uncaring, unforgiving, unbending, unyielding. And there is just
nothing more deceitful than pride. But here we have the Lord Jesus
revealing his graciousness. He could have turned on these
apostles as he did with Peter earlier. But here, with his own,
and on his way to Jerusalem, he wants them to get the lesson. And sitting down, verse 35, he
called the twelve and said to them, If anyone wants to be first,
he shall be last, and a servant of all. God's kingdom is a spiritual
kingdom. The things that are honoured
in God's kingdom are not the things that are necessarily honoured
amongst men. So he calls them to himself,
he teaches them and then he shows them by example. He told them
about where he was going, he told them again and again about
how he came to be a servant, he came out of love for his bride,
he came to serve his bride, he came to heal his bride of the
one deep poison that lay in her heart, her poison that she got
in the garden, the poison of self-righteousness, you will
be like God, the poison of doubting God's Word, the poison of doubting
the seriousness of playing games with a holy God. He will be judged. There will be judgment. And that
judgment for God's people was dealt with on the cross. He came
to serve. He was the first, but he was
treated by men as if he was the last. He was the servant of all
his own. as John said about the Lord Jesus,
He must increase and I must decrease. So true greatness in the Christian
world is nothing like the greatness in the world out there. True
greatness here is about being a servant. It's not about me,
it's about you. It's not about my will, it's
about God's will. It's not about my honour, It's
about my husband's honour, my Lord Jesus' honour. It's not
about my comfort, it's about the comforts of God's children. And so he takes a child and he
sets the child before them. And he takes this child in his
arms and he says, said to them, whoever receives A little child
like this in my name receives me, and whoever receives me does
not receive me, but him who sent me." It's a beautiful picture of the
Lord Jesus showing his people what it is to be a servant. To be a servant is to be like
a child before God. We just simply trust Him. We trust His greatness. We trust His promises. When our
kids were little, I just loved picking them up and throwing
them up in the air. Very dangerous, silly thing to do probably. Or
you'd twirl them around. Jennifer used to love sort of
running and jumping into my arms. She could do it because she knew
that I was going to catch her all the time. God's children
run like that. They run and they hide themselves
in the Lord Jesus. The word taking him in his arms
is a word that means to encircle them, to embrace them. And it's a beautiful picture
that Isaiah gives in chapter 40 verse 11. He will feed his
flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his
arm and carry them in his bosom. and gently lead those who are
young." So true servants, true greatness is to be a servant.
True servants have childlike faith. There's a wonderful story
that Spurgeon told of a man who was a peddler in England, a poor
man who just travelled around peddling goods from village to
village. And he used to go through country
villages selling his goods. And this poor creature, while
going around on his journeys, heard some women singing a little
chorus. It went like this, I am a poor
sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. Jack said to himself, That sure
suits me." So he started to hum the tune to himself as he walked
along. By God's grace in time, the words
of the little chorus worked their way into the poor peddler's heart. After some time, he was converted
and began to attend church regularly. Finally, he made up his mind
to publicly confess his faith in Christ and join the church.
So he went to see the pastor. The pastor asked him, What can
you say for yourself? Not much, Jack replied, only
this. I am a poor sinner and nothing
at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. You must tell me
more than that, the pastor said. No, I can't, Jack Anson, for
that is all I know. That's my confession of faith.
Well, the pastor said, I cannot refuse you church fellowship,
but you'll have to come before the elders and deacons. They'll
have to see you and judge you. At the appointed time, the poor
peddler met with the elders and deacons. They wanted to see if
they could find some fault in him. Being asked to stand and
state his experience, Jack simply said, I am a poor sinner and
nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. One of the
old men said, is that all you have to say? Yes, that's all
he answered. The pastor said, you may ask
him some questions if you wish. And so another man spoke up,
Brother Jack, do you have many doubts and fears? No, Jack answered,
I can never doubt that I am a poor sinner and nothing at all, for
I know that's what I am. And I can never doubt that Jesus
Christ is my all in all, for he says he is. How can I doubt
that? Then another man said, but sometimes
I lose my evidences and my graces. Then I get very sad. Oh, Jack
said, I can never lose anything. For in the first place, I am
a poor sinner and nothing at all, so no one can rob me if
I'm nothing. And in the second place, Jesus
Christ is my all in all, and who can rob him? He is in heaven. I never get any richer or poorer,
for I am always nothing, but I always have everything. But
my dear brother Jack, another man, asked, don't you sometimes
doubt whether you are a child of God? Well, he said, I don't
quite understand your question. But I can tell you I never doubt
that I am a poor sinner and nothing at all, and that Jesus Christ
is my all in all." They were astonished at Jack's simple,
constant composure. They had a world of doubts and
fears. When they asked him why he never
doubted, he just said, I cannot doubt that I am a poor sinner
and nothing at all, for I know that and feel it every day. And
why should I doubt that Jesus Christ is my all in all? For
he says he is. Oh, said one of the men, I have
my ups and downs, I don't. Jack replied, I can never go
up, for in myself I am a poor sinner and nothing at all, and
I can't go down, for Jesus Christ is my all in all. The deacons
and elders kept trying to shake the simple man from his simple
faith. Why, said one, brother, I sometimes
get so full of grace, I feel so advanced in sanctification
that I begin to be very happy. I never do, Jack replied, I am
a poor sinner and nothing at all. Then I go down again and
think that I'm not saved because I'm not as sanctified as I used
to be, the brother continued. I never doubt my salvation, Jack
said, because Jesus Christ is my all in all and he never alters. They admitted Jack into the church
and he continued all the days of his life with this simple
confession, I am a poor sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus
Christ is my wall in all. Before I close, there's just
a wonderful section at the end of this, where the Lord Jesus,
as so often in the scriptures, likens God's children to children. John does it in 1 John chapter
2. The Lord says, whoever receives a little child, one child like
this in my name, receives me. And whoever receives me does
not receive me, but him who sent me. God loves to give. God's children live by receiving. That's what grace is, isn't it?
From this fountain of grace we just receive one blessing upon
another blessing upon another blessing. God says that he's
given to his children all spiritual blessings. all spiritual blessings
in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus before the world began
is given them. And as we go through Christian
life we just receive from God's fountain grace upon grace. And to receive the Lord Jesus
is to receive God himself. like the poor peddler. If you
have the Lord Jesus, you have absolutely everything in this
world. We are people who just receive
from a gracious giver. God's children are the bride
of a husband who just loves to give to his bride all the time.