The Gospel of Mark – Part 33

Ministry Matters – Mark 9:30-41

Mosaic Rockford – Dave Spooner – May 3rd, 2020

Intro:

Jesus now has a primary focus of training and equipping His 12 disciples.  He knows that His time is short and His time with them is ending.  They are on their way to Jerusalem and Jesus must prepare them for what is to come and equip them for their ministry after He is gone. 

Jesus again explains to them a second time what He must do, and this time He adds a little more detail.

The mission of Jesus

Mark 9:30-32 ESV

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, 31 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.” 32 But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.

They left the region after the transfiguration on the mountain and the ministry to the boy with a demon and head through the region of Galilee to the costal town of Capernaum.  Jesus primary task as this point was to teach and prepare the 12 for what was to come.  He wanted to slip through the region unnoticed as to not draw a crowd.   As they were traveling, Jesus was teaching His disciples.  We don’t know all that they were taught on this trip, but we do know the most important thing that He taught them.  That He was “going to be delivered into the hands of men”, he would be killed and rise again. The added detail is that “he would be delivered into the hands of man”.  This meant that someone was going to hand Him over to those who were going to kill him. This was a new revelation.  It was not going to go down that those who wanted to kill Him were going to find Him and take Him away.  What was going to happen is that someone was going to turn Him into them. It is safe to say that Jesus knew exactly who was going to do this, because of what happened in the upper room.  What is shocking is that none of them knew who it was because Jesus treated them all the same and never gave away who it was by his words or actions until the final moment. What does this tell us about Jesus?  He loves us all equally, even those who would betray him and cause Him the deepest of pain.  Jesus knew that Him mission required betrayal and suffering and yet gave Himself over to the will of the Father.  And in fulfilling His ministry, He loved and treated them all just the same. This is a good lesson to each of us.  In fulfilling our calling to be like Christ, we to must love and care for people all the same, not just giving the best of us to those who will love and treat us well, but also give the same love to everyone, even to those who mean to do us harm.  That will twist our words and use our love against us. The disciples still had a hard time accepting the hard truth of what Jesus was telling them was going to happen.  He ended up having to tell them the same truth over and over for them to grasp the reality of it.  And the same is true for us.  If the truth is something that we are strongly opposed to, we have a hard time receive the truth, and will fight against anything that does not line up with what we think is reality, especially when the truth in contrary to what we want.As Jesus was leading them toward Capernaum on the way to Jerusalem, to be betrayed by one of them, to suffer and give His life for them, they were arguing among themselves about who was the greatest among them.

The greatest among you

Mark 9:33-37 ESV

And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. 35 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.” 36 And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him i