The more I study the Gospels,
the more I realize how these things, just one thing runs right
into the next, runs right into the next, and then he'll give
them instruction, and then he'll illustrate it, and in his providence,
he'll demonstrate it, and then he goes to the next thing. And
this is the way it's recorded throughout all of his Gospels. I want to recap for just a minute
on last week's lesson because of the impact that it has on
this week's lesson. In verses 30 and 31 of Mark chapter
9, our Lord declared to his disciples in the simplest of terms, the
greatest of all truths. He declared the eternal purpose
and redemptive will of God in the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. He told them that he must be
delivered into the hands of men. And that they would, in turn,
put him to death. And then on the third day, he
would rise from the dead. And this is, in the most basic
terms, the gospel of substitution. This is what this is about. Who
is this man? Henry used to tell us there was
four things in the gospel. Who is this man? Jesus of Nazareth. Who is he? And why did he come? What did he do? And where is
he now? You find the answers to those
questions and you will have learned the gospel. But in the most basic
of terms, this is what he tells them. This is the gospel of substitution
by which God shall justify all his elect. Over and over in the
scriptures, he tells us he bore our sins, our sins, in his own
body on the tree. He was delivered for our offenses,
not for his, but for ours. and raised again for our justification. And then he tells us in Romans
3, he says we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood. And then in Hebrews it tells
us he hath put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself. So this is the gospel in its
most basic terms. He said, I must be turned over
to the hands of men, delivered into their hands. And when I
am, they're gonna put me to death. They're gonna kill me. And then
on the third day, I'm gonna rise from the dead. And this is the, a truth taught
from Genesis to Revelation, salvation is in a person. And I dare say
there's not a young person here today who could not understand
these terms in which our Lord declared his life and death.
Now, having said that, look at verse 32 of Mark chapter 9. But they understood not that
saying, and were afraid to ask him. How could you not understand
what He said? Why is it that these men who
were chosen of God, who walked with the Lord Himself, and heard
Him speak on numerous occasions, why is it that they could not
understand the most basic gospel doctrine delivered by the greatest
preacher to ever walk the earth? Never a man spake like this man.
You may have an excuse when you leave here because of my ignorance,
but you wouldn't have an excuse when he preached. And they heard these things,
but they didn't understand. They didn't understand. And they
understood not these things because their heads were still filled
with traditional ideas about Christ. That's why they didn't
understand it, and that's why we don't understand things. The
Jews believed in a coming Messiah. Some still do. Some are still
looking for that Messiah. They believed he would be anointed
like David was of old. That God's servant, whoever he
was in that particular day, would go out and anoint him just like
he did David. begin to declare who he is, begin
to declare that this is my servant. They believed he'd come out of
the most humble of beginnings. They believed he would meet with
strong opposition just like David did of old, but he would in God's
own time rise and sit on the throne of Israel. And sitting
on that throne, he would rally the people and overcome their
Roman captors and defeat them, and in short, raise Israel back
up to that state of world fame and world glory. Restore them
to their ancient state of glory. And it's the same thing today
when I preach to men and women who come here and hear the gospel
for the first time. Their head is still filled with
ideas of God's universal love, of Christ's universal atonement,
ideas about God's desire to save everybody that'll let Him, and
God's need of men and women, and how all His sufferings and
humiliation, all the sufferings of Christ, and all this for nothing
if we don't choose to accept Him as our personal Savior. Their
head is filled with stuff like that. And then when you begin
to preach grace to them, you begin to declare truth to them,
it's clouded by these preconceived notions that they think they
know. And what they're doing, what's
so confusing, the reason they don't understand is they're trying
to make these things come together in their head. You declare the eternal particular
redemption of Christ for the sins of his elect and they look
at you like you're just making things up as you go. Where did
you get that from? Well, about every place I've
ever read. And yet over and over, the Lord
told his disciples this truth. And even after his death, This
is what they said to our resurrected savior who pretended to be a
stranger. This is after his resurrection.
And they were walking down that road to Emmaus and he hid his
real self from them and appeared to be a stranger to them. And
he said, what's all the fuss? And Peter said, this is in Luke
24, 18, Peter said, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem,
and hast not known these things that have come to pass in these
last days? And he said unto them, What things?
And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was
a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God, and all the
people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him
to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. Now listen,
but we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed
Israel. They still had in their heads
that old conception about the Messiah. They still did not know
what the Messiah was. He died exactly as he said he
would. He'd be delivered unto the people
and the people would kill him. That's what he told them. But
now they're saying, well, he couldn't be the Christ because
he was delivered to the people and they killed him. Isn't that
something? Their hopes were shattered. But
then the Lord said unto them, verse 25, Old fools and slow
of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought
not Christ to have suffered these things and enter into his glory?
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto
them and all the scriptures the things concerning himself. What stands between us And the peace of God that passeth
all understanding is ignorance and unbelief. That's the only
thing that separates us from that peace. Ignorance and unbelief. Most of our struggles are born
out of ignorance. And we struggle because we're
trying to justify two things that are totally contrary. traditional
understanding and the revelation of God in the gospel. These two
things, they're contrary. They're never gonna merge. They're
never gonna fit. Now with these things in mind,
let's look at verse 33 of Mark chapter nine. He came to Capernaum and being
in the house, he asked them, what was it that you disputed
among yourselves, by the way? Do you recall what they were
disputing? Now this is after all of this. They were walking
along the way. They were afraid to ask him,
and they didn't understand what he said. And they were walking
along the way going to Capernaum, and they were debating among
one another who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom
of God. These men had just heard the
Son of God declare the glorious gospel of substitution. And they
went immediately back to their old understanding and debated
who would be greatest in the kingdom of God. Would they be
the king's closest advisors? What was going to be their position? Who was going to be the greatest
in the kingdom of God? Would they become great generals
and captains of thousands? What were they going to be in
the kingdom of God? How would they be used? What
honor would accompany their name? Why in the world would these
men chosen of God be engaged in such foolish activity? What
brought them to this point? Because they were ignorant of
the death of Christ. They were ignorant of God's eternal
purpose of grace. They were ignorant of the kingdom
of God and ignorant of the gospel of the sovereign grace of God.
Salvation is 100% by grace. 100%, there's no works in it
on your behalf. 100% by the grace of God. Even what he calls your good
works is God working in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure. That good work of faith, that's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Isn't that what he says? He talks
about the gift of repentance. You can't repent except God give
you the ability to do it. It's 100% by grace. Paul told the Galatians who were
being told that they just needed to do a few things. You just
need to do a few things. God'll do the rest, but you gotta
do these few things. Paul said, I do not frustrate,
now listen, the grace of God. If righteousness come by the
law, then Christ is dead and vain. Because that's why he came. So what was it that was behind
this debate that was going on? What was it that caused them
to walk along that road and debate about who was going to be greatest
in the kingdom of God? Pride. That's what it is. Pride. Every one of us are proud, self-righteous
Pharisees by nature. We have pride in how it comes
out, how it comes out. We all think too highly of ourselves
and think too highly of our own. What is this thing of pride?
Well, it's a stubborn sin, pride is. I don't care how many times
you shove it down, it just bobs right back up to the top, don't
it? It creeps into everything we
think, it creeps into everything we do. These men were no more
than simple fishermen. They were called of God, enabled
by grace to follow the Son of Man, and yet contrary to that
experience of grace, and contrary to the gospel of Christ, they
all had a secret longing to have the preeminence over the others,
every one of them. Pride is a stubborn sin. You
can't get shit of. And pride is an ugly sin. Somebody wrote one time, I can't
remember who it was, but they said there's pride of race. He was talking about the ugliness
of pride. He said there's pride of race
and pride of face. But worst of all is a pride of
grace. You can't think about grace and
be proud. You just can't do it. As you
know, grace come down to the chief of sinners. It's an ugly sin. It ruins the
character of a disciple and it makes him intolerable to be around.
Paul had to withstand Peter. This is quite a while after the
After the Holy Ghost came down, and after they learned all these
precious truths, and Peter came down from the church there in
Jerusalem, and he came down there to Antioch, to that little church
there, and Paul had to withstand Peter to the face because of
Jewish prejudice and pride. Solomon wrote this, the fear
of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogancy and the evil
way and the froward mouth, God said I hate. I hate. And then he said this, pride
goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall. So pride is a destroyer. It was pride that caused Lucifer
to be booted out of glory. Pride. He was listening to God
declare all that he was gonna do with Jesus Christ. And he said, oh no, no, I, I
will ascend to the throne. I'll sit on the throne. I'll
wear the crown. I'll do this. I'll do, pride. It's pride that ruined man in
the garden. Pride that keeps sinners from
coming to Christ. He said seven things doth the
Lord hate. And right at the top of the list
is pride, a proud look. And then pride is a blinding
sin. It was the pride, the pride of
man that caused these disciples to not understand the atonement
of Christ. And pride is a subtle sin. It
can be had and actively engaged, and you can be doing it and still
not even know that you have it. It's subtle. And pride is a soul-robbing
sin. Men and women are often robbed
of the blessings of God, especially during worship and during the
preaching of the gospel because of pride. Something went crossways. Boy, they don't hear anything
from that point on. Pride. Brother Don said, all hurt feelings
is nothing more than injured pride. Now you think with me for just
a minute. If you're clear down here on the bottom, you're just
a pulper, you're just a beggar, you're just a sinner, and God
saved you by his grace. Nobody ought to be able to say
anything to hurt your feelings, because you're guilty of all.
Isn't that right? So what is it that gets injured?
Pride. Pride. Pride is a dividing sin. He that
is of a proud heart stirreth up strife. And all gossip is
born of pride. It's born of pride. And brethren, pride is contrary
to the grace of God. Grace saves the unsavable. That's exactly what it does.
With man, it's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. He's
unsavable, but with God, all things are possible. Grace saves
the unsavable. He brings hope to the hopeless.
He clothes the naked. He gives sight to the blind.
He feeds the hungry. He raises the dead. He cleanses
the lepers. If anybody, if anybody, had a
right to pride, it was Christ. But he wasn't proud. He wasn't
proud. Beware pride. Nothing is more
unbecoming the elect of God than pride. And then in Mark chapter
nine, look at verse 35. The Lord sat down, and he called
the 12 around him, and he saith unto them, if any man desire
to be first, you wanna be first, you wanna be greatest? If any man desire to be first,
the same shall be last of all, and the servant of all. This world defines greatness
as being on top, I took this directly out of the dictionary. Being on top, being the first
choice, being the most highly esteemed, the largest, the best,
the strongest, the most powerful, the most influential. But our
Lord says greatness is seen in service to others. Isn't that
something? He shall be servant of all. And then the Lord took a little
child and he set him right in their midst, Mark 9, 36. And when he had taken him in
his arms, he said unto them, whosoever shall receive any of
such children in my name receiveth me. And whosoever shall receive
me receiveth not me, but him that sent me. Here our Lord uses this little
child as he often did. On several occasions he did that. Because little children are so
easy to teach. They're so easy to teach. They're not easily offended. Little children are trusting. You tell that little kid he's
afraid, everything's gonna be all right, I'm right here. He'll believe you, he'll trust
you. And something else about little
kids, they forgive quickly. They don't hold grudges. They
forgive quickly. Believers are God's children.
That's what he's telling them. Anything we do for his children
is considered to be done to him. I wonder how much we really believe
that, huh? So many, you know, we're looking
at other things and we're seeing preeminence in these things and
we're pushing toward those things and here our Lord says, no, it's
not in that. Here's where it is. It's in becoming
a servant. You receive this little child.
That's how I'm to receive God's people, as a little child. Children,
a lot of times children just say whatever pops in their head,
they'll say it. Well, man, every time my child did that, I didn't
take it out back with a belt and wear it out. But we're ready to do that to
somebody, ain't we? Believers are God's children.
If we really believe this, it'll make us thoughtful and caring
for one another. It'll make us mindful of others'
needs and ready and willing to help. Oh, may our great Savior teach
us how to serve Him and how to serve His children for Christ's
sake. Thank you.