Mark's Gospel, chapter nine and
verse 30. And we're speaking about Jesus
and his disciples. And they departed thence and
passed through Galilee, and he would not that any man should
know it. For he taught his disciples and
said unto them, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of
men, and they shall kill him. And after that he is killed,
he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that
saying, and were afraid to ask him. And he came to Capernaum. And being in the house, he asked
them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?
But they held their peace, for by the way they had disputed
among themselves who should be the greatest. And he sat down,
and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire
to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. And he took a child, and set
him in the midst of them, and when he had taken him in his
arms, he said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such children
in my name receiveth me. Whosoever shall receive me, receiveth
not me, but him that sent me. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. I don't wish to make too much
of my first observation today beyond simply highlighting it
for your notice and awareness as we kind of thread a few thoughts
together from recent sermons that we have shared together. Here's the point. The Lord has
been very busy. Only a short time ago, he travelled
west from Galilee, from Capernaum, to, we're told, the coasts of
Tyre and Sidon, where he met a Syrophoenician woman, and there
he healed her daughter. We were told on that occasion,
it was chapter 7 and verse 24, that he entered into a house
and would have no man know it. Next, he came to the Sea of Galilee,
and he travelled through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And on that occasion, a deaf
mute was brought and healed by the Lord. And we're told that
having healed that man, he charged them that they should tell no
man. Next the Lord went to Bethsaida,
where a blind man was given his sight. And the Lord tells him,
having healed him, neither go into the town, nor tell it to
any in the town. Then he asks his disciples, whom
do ye say that I am? And when Peter says in answer,
thou art the Christ, chapter 8 verse 30, we are told he charged
them that they should tell no man of him. Then the Lord headed
north to the region of Caesarea Philippi. Following the transfiguration,
the Lord charges Peter, James and John to tell no man what
things they have seen. And now, in our passage today,
we notice that Mark says, in verse 30 of chapter nine, that
they departed thence and passed through Galilee and he would
not that any man should know it. Do you notice a pattern in
all of these? Do you notice something occurring
regularly? Yes, there is. amazing miracles
performed and revelations of the Lord, and yes, there's proof
aplenty of the Lord's power and glory in those miracles. But also, on each occasion, the
Lord seems to go out of his way to quieten down all general publishing
of his work. and what he is doing. And he
seems to be suppressing any widespread awareness of his presence. It's as though the Lord is purposefully
dampening down all popular acclaim and concentrating his disciples'
attention on something more important and something more significant.
It's as if he's nudging their thoughts away from the fame and
the celebrity of the things that he is doing onto a matter which
is much more essential. Essential for their education
and for their future ministry. You see, When we think about
all of these things that the Lord is doing and how he said,
don't speak about this, don't mention this in the towns, don't
tell men about this. Let us hide away from being seen
too much in public. Let us pass through Galilee and
not let anybody know that we are here. It shows us that the
Lord wasn't, what, raising an army. He wasn't gathering a worldly
following. He wasn't playing politics with
the Romans and the Jews. But he was preparing these few
men to form and to teach a worldwide movement of spiritual believers,
men and women, boys and girls. The Lord Jesus Christ here was
birthing a spiritual nation, a kingdom defined not by national
borders, but by transformed lives. a church called out from the
world, quickened, converted and bestowed with grace and glory
from God in Christ. I said a few moments ago that
the Lord was taking the thoughts and the attention of the disciples
away from the miracles and the big events to something much
more essential. And we didn't really have to
wait very long to discover what that vital message was, because
the very next verse in our reading today, verse 31, tells us that
as he travelled from Caesarea Philippi down through Galilee,
He taught his disciples and said unto them, The Son of Man is
delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and
after that he is killed he shall rise the third day. This is the
point that the Lord is increasingly directing the attention of the
disciples to. And I want us for a moment here
to admire the Lord's persistence here upon this subject. This is the second time in a
short period that the Lord has explicitly told the disciples
of his imminent, his upcoming suffering, death and resurrection. and he is telling them for their
good. He is telling them to prepare
them for what it is that is about to happen. And in the knowledge,
of course, that they still haven't grasped the significance of these
things. So I said that we should admire
the Lord's persistence, but really perhaps what we should be admiring
more is his affection, his carefulness. his kindness towards these people. Because the other thing that
we notice about the Lord's teaching about his suffering and his death
is that he links it all the time also with his resurrection. It's
always worth remembering that. We rightly emphasize the importance
of the Lord's death. Long may we do so. but we worship,
we serve a risen Christ. He is alive. This faith of ours
is not a simple agreement to a set of historical facts or
principles or doctrinal proposals. It is at heart a living relationship
with God the Father, in and through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Lord told his disciples,
I shall be killed and I will rise again. And these two events
would change the world forever. We shouldn't be too critical
about these disciples. When Mark tells us, but they
understood not that saying. We might think to ourselves,
what is it about those words? What is it about the Lord's statement
there in verse 31? That the son of man is delivered
into the hands of men and they shall kill him and after that
he is killed he shall rise the third day. What is it about these
words that they don't understand? Wrestling with unbelief is the
core of our warfare with the old man. And while we see it
here in the lives of the disciples, we ought not to be ignorant of
the fact that it afflicts us just as readily, perhaps upon
a different subject, but it is nevertheless that unbelief which
we wrestle with. And Mark's next few verses show
us that the experience of the disciples is going to require
that a whole load of debris be carted off from out of their
thinking when the penny finally drops and the true nature of
Christ's kingdom dawns upon these men. The disciples were still
works in progress and we can but thank the Lord for his patience
with them and thereafter his patience with us for we also
are works in progress. And I mentioned the Lord's affection.
It's seen in not only appraising these disciples beforehand of
what it was that was going to come into their lives in a very
short period of time and completely disturb and destroy their sense
of awareness about the world around about them. But we see
the Lord's affection too in this, that he is single-mindedly pressing
on to Jerusalem. And we're going to encounter
that also in the next few weeks. Because the Lord knew full well,
while the disciples were ignorant and perhaps willfully so, on
what the Lord was saying. The Lord knew full well what
awaited him when he arrived in Jerusalem and he knew all that
he must suffer. He was pressing on because of
his love for these disciples and for all his church and for
you and for me who are his own. We have been taught to believe
the gospel. We have learned something of
the reason for the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
purpose of his dying. And we have received the life-giving
power of his resurrection. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
here pressing on for your sake and mine in order to accomplish
his work and to gain and to win for us all the blessings of the
covenant of grace that was in store for those for whom he died
there on the cross. The little remark that we see
in verse 32 with respect to the disciples not understanding what
the Lord was saying to them I think is also interesting and it's
what I entitled this sermon. The disciples didn't understand
what the Lord was telling them but did you notice that they
were afraid to ask? they were afraid to ask the Lord
what he meant. And I think that's quite telling,
really. I imagine It's partly because
they remember the rebuke that Peter received when he challenged
the Lord on the previous occasion when the Lord had explained so
clearly that he was going to Jerusalem and there that he would
suffer and he would die and rise again. And Peter said, not so
Lord, that's not and the Lord rebuked him, the Lord rebuked
him sharply. You remember, perhaps, from that
previous occasion, he says, get thee behind me, Satan. And when
we look at this passage, I think perhaps it's interesting to note
what's not said. Did you hear Peter not speaking?
How often does that happen? Peter usually was the one that
had something to say. He was usually the spokesman
with something, we mentioned before, on his lips if not fully
engaged in his brain. But here he's silent, here he's
quiet. Maybe having witnessed the transfiguration
and heard Moses and Elias and that voice from heaven speaking
about the Lord Jesus Christ, Peter had become a little bit
more retrospective in his comments. But if Peter, the usual spokesman,
had nothing to say, then no one else was going to step up with
a comment. They were all afraid to ask. And I suppose that in some sense
we're all guilty of this at some time or another. And yet, the
Lord our Saviour will be approached by His people. I wonder if you
remember, the Lord tells Ezekiel, this is what the Lord says to
Ezekiel, thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired
of by the house of Israel. The Lord says, I will be inquired
of by the house of Israel. That's actually a very important
and meaningful gift from the Lord. He is telling us that we
have access into His presence with our prayers, with our needs,
with our questions, with our doubts and our uncertainties,
even with our lack of understanding and our lack of belief. He will
be approached. We may approach the Lord and
not be afraid because He who stooped to conquer also stoops
to comfort, to comfort us in our weakness. John tells us,
there is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. And while there are many in this
world who ought to fear, because as Hebrews 10.31 tells us, it
is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,
we, brothers and sisters, have nothing to fear from Christ,
and nothing to fear from God. The holiness of God, the glory
of God, the majesty of God, the divine attributes of God that
ought to make the sinner shudder in his shoes is of no fear to
us who are found safe in Christ. That is the essence of our salvation. That is what makes us safe. The disciples were afraid to
ask. And so the next few verses that
we have before us finds the Lord giving another lesson. And I
think it's interesting because I think what we see here is the
Lord is taking his disciples to the same destination. but
he's doing so more gently, and he's doing so, as it were, by
another path. He's still speaking to them about
the significance and implications of his death, but he does it
in another way. And here we see the wisdom of
the Lord, because he's not pressing the point about his suffering
and death, but he's challenging the disciples on their mistaken
ambitions in another way. And I think these two sections
are not unconnected for that reason. In truth, time and the
unfolding purpose of God would very quickly be the apostles'
teacher and they would see the suffering of Christ beginning
to happen before their very eyes. They'd learn soon enough that
the suffering of Christ was about to take place and what it signified. But here as they travelled together
back from Caesarea Philippi to Capernaum, the disciples had
dismissed the Lord's words about his death. They dismissed what
they didn't understand and instead they discussed the personal ambitions
that each of them had in their make-believe kingdom that they
imagined was going to be established. And I just want to make a plea
here for those of you who may listen to these services, these
sermons, and don't believe or don't understand what it is that's
being said. The disciples heard something
that they could not explain and they couldn't reconcile. And
for fear of embarrassment or perhaps fear of rebuke, They
dismissed the thought of the Lord's suffering and death and
they went on acting as though it had never been said. Don't do that. Don't follow a
bad example. To be forewarned from the Word
of God is to be forearmed. Our Lord Jesus Christ is risen
from the dead, is ascended into heaven and has promised that
He is coming again. He is coming back to judge this
world, to judge men and women of this world in righteousness
for their sin. As surely as he suffered and
died and rose and ascended to heaven, he is coming back. And the sign says, danger ahead. Don't ignore the warning that
the Lord Jesus Christ has given us in his word. So the Lord arrived
back in Capernaum with his disciples and the Master challenges them
on the subject, the topic of their conversation as they had
been on the road together. The Lord says, what were you
talking about when we were travelling? And nobody speaks. So the Lord
takes a child and he sets the child in the midst of his disciples. He calls the disciples to him,
he sits down and he takes a child. Setting that child in the midst
of them, he says, as it were, you won't hear about my death
because you're too full of personal ambition. So let me tell you,
about where true greatness, your true ambitions ought to be in
the kingdom of God. And here he conveys a valuable
lesson to prepare the disciples for the roles of ministers and
servants that they would be called to take up in the kingdom of
God following the Lord's suffering and death and resurrection and
ascension. And what they learned we should
also learn as well. The first thing was that the
Lord reminded the disciples of his Godhead. He knew their hearts,
and he knew their minds, and he knew their thoughts. Even the topics of their secret
conversations were known to the Lord. So let us never imagine
that we can hide anything from the all-seeing eye of Christ
and the all-knowing mind of God. Jeremiah could say, Thou, O Lord,
knowest me. Thou hast seen me and tried mine
heart toward thee. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
knew Jeremiah from before Jeremiah was born. And the Lord Jesus
Christ knows you and knows me. He knows us and he sees us. and he understands what is going
on in our hearts and in our minds and in the things that we say
and do. So that was the first lesson that the disciples had
here. Let us learn it also. The second one was this. Not
only did the disciples mistake the nature of Christ's kingdom,
their ambitions for personal greatness were worldly and selfish. Status in Christ's kingdom is
gained not by self-promotion, but self-sacrifice. Greatness
in Christ's kingdom is measured by service, in helping the weak,
not in being served. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
is our example. We don't, we can't please God
by trying to be holy. We are holy in Christ. We are justified, we are sanctified,
we are made holy in the Lord Jesus Christ by the holiness
and the righteousness which is Christ's, which is God, it's
a gift to us. We please God by following Christ's
example and serving his body, serving the church and serving
one another. Helping one another is the evidence
of our gratitude towards God for the gifts that he has given
us. The disciples had to learn that lesson and so ought we. And the third lesson was this,
Matthew's parallel passage here to this portion in Mark enlarges
upon the lesson that the Lord gave with respect to this child.
And Matthew adds the words to the Lord's words, except ye be
converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter
into the kingdom of heaven. You see, the criteria for salvation,
for belonging to the family of God, for receiving Christ and
the Father, for being one of the Lord's little ones, is God's
grace. It is a spiritual transformation
and conversion. And that was true for the disciples
and it's true for us. Preaching conversion would be
the great labour of the disciples' remaining lives. And it is true
that they needed to be converted, their thoughts had to be changed.
And it is true that our thoughts have to be changed also. We cannot
enter the Kingdom of Heaven in our sinful, natural, fallen state. We must be converted, we must
be changed, we must be forgiven, cleansed, reconciled and made
alive spiritually in the new birth. That is the work of God
the Holy Spirit. and it flows to sinners personally
and individually by grace in our hearts. May the Lord supply
that converting grace, that grace by which sinners are saved. May
the Lord cause us to believe in him, with the simple trust
of a child, may He grant that faith by which all covenant blessings
are secured by the Lord Himself, as He died upon the cross and
received and enjoyed by sinners like us. And may we thus receive
Christ and His Father to the salvation of our souls. Amen. Thank you.