Joel Brooks: If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Mark chapter 9. It's also there in your worship guide, Mark 9. We're continuing our study in the gospel of Mark. And, I cannot tell you how relieved I am to be preaching on the text that we're about to look at, Because past mother's day, they've, they've just happened to align with the worst text in the series we were going through. Whether it was going through Genesis, the life of David, or Romans.
It always happened to be the most violent or sexually explicit text you could imagine, and it fell every mother's day for the last 5 years. But today, we get to talk about Jesus hugging little children. And so, I could not be more grateful. Next week, we get to talk about hell and plucking out your eye and cutting off your hand, but not this week. Mark 9 will begin reading in verse 30.
They, that's Jesus and the disciples, 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 is Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after 3 days, he will rise. But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. And they came to Capernaum, 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 12, And he said to them, if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and a servant of all. Then he took a child and put him in the midst of them. And taking him in his arms, he said to them, whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me, but Him who sent me. John said to him, teacher, we saw someone casting out demons into your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.
But Jesus said, do not stop him. For one who does a mighty work in my name no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me,
Joel Brooks: and
Joel Brooks: for the one who is not against us is for us. For truly I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. If you would, pray with me.
Father, we ask that you would open up our hearts and minds to receive what you would have for us this morning. May we come to know and love you more in this moment. Pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. Lord, may Your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the name of Jesus.
Amen. So this is the second time that Jesus has told his disciples that he's going to suffer and die, and then rise again 3 days later. And this is also the second time that the disciples likely nodded their heads, maybe even said some amens, but had no idea what he was talking about. Now I wanna give the disciples the benefit of the doubt, because Jesus often talked in confusing language. I mean, there are a lot of times he spoke in parables or used metaphors.
Sometimes he would he would talk about bread and he would just be talking about physical bread to eat. Other times he'd be talking about bread and he's talking about how he's bread, and they need to come to him for the nourishment of their souls. So it could be a little confusing at times. And so I'm sure that when they heard Jesus talking about how he was going to die and rise, they're they're walking away thinking, well I wonder what he meant by that. I mean, was that a metaphor?
Was it not? That's what I want to think of them. I want to give them of the benefit of the doubt there, but I don't think Mark allows us to. Earlier, Mark told us that when Jesus taught them these things, he said it plainly to them, in language that they could understand. They just couldn't accept that's what Jesus was going to do.
And here Jesus says the same thing to them again, and we read, they did not understand the saying, and yet they were afraid to ask him. I think you could probably, whenever you see that phrase, and they were afraid to ask him, see it as, and they were too arrogant to ask him. They were afraid that Jesus would think them unintelligent, that Jesus would think them weak. And Jesus is going to confirm this in the next few verses there. That really, it's their pride and their arrogance that keeps them from asking Jesus to further explain himself.
After passing through Galilee and finally arriving at Capernaum, they all sit down, and Jesus says, sounds like you guys were having a really lively discussion as we were walking this way. Somebody mind telling me what you were all talking about? And it's just silence. I mean crickets. Even Peter knew to keep his mouth shut on this one.
I mean, because there's there's just not any way that you could just say, hey, we were arguing about who's the greatest. You can't really say that without sounding kinda like an arrogant fool. I mean, you can't say, Jesus, really, if you were there in the context. If you really could see the nuance of our conversation, there's no way you could do that. And so they were just all completely silent.
They were having this argument right after Jesus said he was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die. I'm going to die. Then they began arguing over who was the greatest. This this would be like one of you coming up to me after the service, and tell me, hey, I was just diagnosed with a terminal ill illness. I've got 2 weeks to live.
And me saying, cool. Did you just hear the sermon I preach? Because I thought it was pretty amazing. I mean not to toot my own horn, but I think I heard some people say it was probably the best sermon they ever heard. And I kinda gotta agree with them.
I mean, can you imagine saying that? How how tone deaf would he have to be to say something like that? I mean, we obviously would never do that. We would think it, but we know better than to say it. I mean, we've all had thoughts like this, but we keep those thoughts to ourselves.
It's not, it's not hard to imagine how this argument went. I'm sure Peter likely chimed in first, said, hey, guys, why don't we talk about who's the greatest? I'll go first. And you know, I'm probably the greatest because after all, it was me who first confessed that Jesus was the Messiah. He also took me up on the mountain top, you know, to show me his glory.
I got to see his whole face shining. You should have seen it, but, you know, you kind of weren't invited. He gave me the nickname, the rock. And let's not forget how I walked on water. I mean, that's a pretty much a pretty big mic drop right there.
But James and John, they would chime in. They'd be like, Peter, you walked on water for like 2 seconds before you had to start crying for help. And, yeah. You got named Rocky, but we got named sons of thunder. And he also invited us to go up to the mountain, if you remember.
And we got to see his glory as well. John chimes in. He just says, well, I'm faster than Peter. That's about all he had. Thaddeus chimes in.
Joel Brooks: Mean, 2000 years from
Joel Brooks: now, people aren't even gonna remember I was a disciple. But that's how humble I am. But you you can picture the arguments as as they're all jockeying for position. It's an absurd argument. It only makes a little bit more sense when you remember that they lived in a honor shame culture, in which every element of their social life reflected a hierarchy of honor.
What you wore. How you were addressed, where you sat for dinner, where you even sat in synagogue, all those things were a reflection of your status. This is why Jesus, he would talk about how, if you were going to some event or if you're going to a feast, don't sit up front in a place of honor if you're likely going to be moved to the back. Said, you know, go back to the kids table. Like sit where the kids table is with the, you know, with the plastic plates and and the utensils.
And then have the host come and say, hey, no, no, no. Come. Come sit at the adult table with with the fine China. Take a take a seat of honor. Jesus spoke to the Jews about this because they understood that world.
All of them were trying to place themselves in a higher position of honor. Now, Jesus, he talked about these things to the disciples, but really, we're not any different, are we? I mean, we're a little more subtle in how we jockey for position, but we all do it. How many times when you are in some social setting do you name drop? Let people know who you know.
Or perhaps instead of name drop, you vacation drop all the places you've been. Instagram wouldn't exist if people didn't want a vacation drop. Or, a lot of us we like to play the game of who knows the host the best. So whatever party you're in, you're like, how did you know the host? And somebody might say, well, we were best friends in college.
I'm like, oh, great. We were in the cradle together. Yeah. We used to ride bikes together all the time. Then host goes by, and you got to do a little inside joke, laugh really loud for everyone to hear.
Why? You're wanting everyone in there to know you're really in the end. You're the greatest in that room. Of course, you see parents do this with their kids all the time. I mean, what your kids do is how you establish your hierarchy in society.
My kid's in honor roll. Yeah. My kid can beat up your kid in honor roll. My kid made this GPA. We're just so blessed to have a child so smart and intelligent.
Oh, y'all use that system for grading? Well, my child actually didn't 4.0. It was a 5.2. I don't even know how high you could get now. But it's the same thing.
We're trying to establish the pecking order. Who's the greatest? Now, as ridiculous as the disciples argument was, I want you to notice this. Jesus does not put down their desire to be great. No.
He actually understands that that longing for greatness that each one of us have is a god given desire. It's not wrong to desire greatness. We just pursue it the wrong way. To become first, one needs to become last. If you want to become high, then you're going to have to go low.
The path to greatness is not up. The path to greatness is down. And so Jesus is redefining terms for them. Just like he had to redefine what a messiah was, who the messiah was. The messiah wasn't the conquering hero.
The messiah was the suffering servant. Greatness? Well, actually greatness looks like being low, being last, being a servant of all. And this is the upside down nature of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God flips down the entire value systems of this world.
The way up is now down. The path to glory? Well, it's the path of the cross. Now, I'm sure as Jesus is teaching this to his disciples, they have no clue what he's talking about. And so Jesus, in his kindness, he gives them an illustration.
He, he helps them by by finding this child who's nearby, likely a little toddler. And he picks up this boy, and he uses them to illustrate what he is trying to teach them. First places a child in front of them where they all could see. And then he picks up the child and embraces. He said, whoever receives or whoever embraces one such child in my name receives me.
And whoever receives me receives not me, but the one who sent me. There's no greater honor than receiving the one who sent Jesus. It's a beautiful picture that Jesus gives us some greatness here. It says, you want to understand what greatness, true greatness looks like? It looks like using your strength to care for and embrace a child.
This This little scene gives us such a picture of the gentleness of Jesus. Children feel comfortable around him. I love that this child has no idea, who is actually holding him. He's going to actually have to be told later, hey, there was a time that the creator of the universe literally picked you up in his arms. That's the type of God we serve.
Now this isn't the only time that Jesus is going to use a child as an illustration. Later in Mark, also in Matthew 18, he's gonna bring another child before them. And, and there he is going to say that we need to humble ourselves like a child if we want to enter the kingdom, how we must become like children to enter the kingdom. And his point there is that we have to have this childlike dependence upon God if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven. But that's not what Jesus is saying here, so don't confuse it.
Here, he's not saying we are to become like a child. He is saying that we need to receive a child in his name. And if we do so, we receive Jesus. And not just Jesus, we receive the one who sent him. And there is no greater honor than that.
So to receive a child in Jesus's name is greatness. Now, we hear this today, and we think, easy. I mean, who doesn't love kids? Well, the people in the first century actually didn't love kids. That's who.
Kids were not the center of their universe like they are now. 1st century, there were no Disney worlds. There were no Pixar, you know, films to endlessly entertain kids. Children were not seen as God's precious little angels, nor the center of everyone's attention. Children actually had a very low status in the 1st century.
They had the same status as a slave. As a matter of fact, the word for servant and the word for child in Aramaic is the same word. Children have the same status, same word as a slave. And then that's hard for us to even imagine today, because we live in a world where we take endless photos of our kids, because they are the center of our worlds. I once took probably about 2,000 pictures of of one of my daughter's, soccer games because they won the championship at the JCC when she was 9.
It was just a weekend tournament. There were only 4 teams. 1 of them forfeited. And yet despite all that, I have, like, 2,000 pictures. I could do a documentary on on my child's, you know, achievement there.
That's how we view kids. Let me ask you this, for those of you who have kids, does your schedule or their schedule dictate how you do life? Their schedule has more weight. They're the center of our worlds. Now, did parents in the 1st century love their children?
Of course. Of course, they loved their children. But outside of family affection, children were mostly seen as a burden or an inconvenience. They were seen as just another mouth to feed, just another body to clothe, pretty much useless until they became adults. I actually read a first century proverb that said this, if you want to waste your life, do these three things.
1st, sleep in the morning. 2nd, drink midday wine. 3rd, spend your time talking to children. Talking to children was seen as a way of wasting your life. If you wanna experience, you know, today how 1st century Greeks and Romans view their children, this week, just do this.
Make reservations at one of the nicest restaurants in Birmingham, and just bring all your kids and see how people look at you. If you don't have kids, borrow some. Just go. Look at look how the hostess sees you when you are coming. That kind of look of you're bringing them.
They're not gonna add anything to the scene. They're just gonna be a distraction. They're needy, loud. So because of this low view of children, infanticide, was a common and perfectly legal practice in Greek and Roman society. It was not uncommon at all for a father to not name a child after it was born, and a child was not thought to exist until the father named it.
And would not name the child and instead take the child outside the village, just put it in the wilderness to let it die. Not an uncommon practice at all. Aim perfectly legal. It was not also not uncommon for children to be abandoned or even later to be sold into slavery by their parents sold into slavery. And I know this sounds absolutely abhorrent to us today.
It's hard for us to even imagine this, but you need to know that's because
Joel Brooks: of the influence of
Joel Brooks: Jesus and his followers. The influence of Jesus and his followers. Seeing abortion, infanticide, or child abandonment as evil, those don't just fit in with Christian ideas. Those are Christian ideas. The world's first orphanages, the world's first foster care programs, even the world's first hospitals, all came from the church.
Because it was a Christian idea that all people were created in God's image, and therefore should be treated with dignity, regardless of their status, regardless of what they can or cannot contribute. So let me be clear about this. Seeing the worth of every individual human is a Christian idea, because the world did not see it that way before Christ. And I find it I'll just say interesting. Now, today, many people who have outright rejected Christianity, outright rejected the Lordship of Jesus, they actually have no idea how much of their morality is based on his teachings.
So the world might reject Christianity, but it cannot deny its impact. Now, when Jesus lifts up this child and embraces him, he says, if if you do this to this child, you're doing it to me. When he does this, he's teaching his disciples what greatness looks like. And it doesn't just look like loving on this child, but also who this child represents. And that's embracing and receiving those who have nothing to offer.
The least of these. A child is weak. A child is dependent. A child has accomplished absolutely nothing in life. Parents, you know you can slave all day serving your child, giving things to your child, and they will never thank you for it.
A child has no powerful connections that you can benefit from. I mean, a father is never gonna go to their child and say, you know, hey, Jimmy. I noticed that Joe is on the same little baseball team as you. You know, Joe's dad works for Merrill Lynch. If you can maybe go and put
Joel Brooks: in a good word for me, like, it
Joel Brooks: doesn't work that way. Like, it doesn't work that way. Children don't help their parents. Parents help their children. So a child is helpless and needy, and Jesus says, in order to be great, you need to embrace those who are helpless and needy, and do it in his name.
And there is no, no God himself, and there is no, no greater honor than that. So right now, if you want to hug Jesus this week,
Joel Brooks: if
Joel Brooks: you want to leave this place and say, I want to hug Jesus this week, what you need to do is embrace someone who can give you nothing. You should find the person at your office that everyone ignores. The one that everybody avoids or maybe talks behind their back. And I'm not saying go give them a hug, don't get HR involved or anything like that. But at least go have a conversation, a meaningful conversation with them.
That person that's in your home group that's really needy and you know who they are, them. If you're going to spend time this week networking, don't network up. Start networking down. Bring somebody a meal. Jesus will later say, you know, even if you bring somebody a cup of water in his name, he will reward you.
And then I would say, of course, take care of children. This is mother's day, and so I do want to make sure I take a moment to thank and to praise my wife for the way that she has so faithfully taken care of our children. She has served them so well over the years. I get all the attention because I'm up here. Some of you even think I'm great simply because I have a pulpit and I have a mic.
But the truth is, I I do my job in the sunshine. She does it in the shadows. But what she does when the great reversal happens and the kingdom comes and we see what Jesus actually values, you'll see who's great. You'll see who's great. The path towards greatness is down, not up.
And I would encourage you all this week, do something for Jesus that no one else will notice. I challenge and encourage you to do that this week. Now, what the disciples do not realize here is that when Jesus is using this child as an example, is that he actually sees them as children. They're the children. I mean, what exactly is their status?
What exactly do they have to offer God? I mean, all that arguing and posturing about who's the greatest and all they've done, what have they actually done that Jesus hasn't empowered them to do? Exactly who are they apart from Christ? Nothing. They bring nothing to the table, yet Jesus has embraced them.
This is the gospel. We are loved by Jesus, not because of anything we've done for him. We are loved by Jesus just because he loves us. Are. I've heard this said that the
Joel Brooks: only thing we actually
Joel Brooks: bring to Jesus is our sin and need to be forgiven. We don't bring anything else. Now, we have to constantly remind ourselves of this. The disciples are going to be constantly needed to be reminded of this. I mean immediately after this, they once again, they showed their pride, they showed their jealousy, they began complaining about other people doing works without following them.
I don't know if you noticed this, but they said, hey, other people, they're casting out demons, and they're not following you, Jesus. They don't say that. Said they're not following us. Once again, they they they see see themselves as the center. It's all about them jockeying for power, Them thinking of themselves as great.
Jesus later would have to remind them again of what true greatness looks like. On the night that Jesus was betrayed and he was arrested. Another argument, the disciples did. And you know what they were arguing about? Almost immediately before Jesus was arrested, they were once again arguing over who is the greatest.
It's amazing. And this time, pastor, after their argument about who is the greatest, Jesus, he doesn't bring a child out before them. He brings a towel. And he stoops down and he washes their feet. As a reminder, you want to know what greatness is?
It's when you descend down to the level of a servant and you wash feet. No one has descended down more than Jesus, You came from heaven to this world to take the form not just of a human, but of a servant. Not just of a servant, but one who would go and die for us. This is the gospel. Jesus loved us despite us having nothing to offer him.
We'll spend the rest of our lives reminding one another of that beautiful, glorious truth. Let's pray to him. Jesus, thank you for thank you for descending to us at a level I I can't even fathom to go from the glories of heaven to literally laying down your life on a cross, all so that you might have us. May we never get over the wonder and the beauty of that. Lord, would you continue to show us how to be great?
May we truly serve others as a way of pointing them to you in your greatness, And we pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen. So what I want us to do as a way of responding is I wanna just take a moment to pray for some of you. What I wanna do is is first, I'm gonna pray for those who are foster parents, who are who work with foster care or in adoption services. So if that's you, if if you are a foster parent or you work in foster care, or you work, with some adoption services, would you mind standing where you are?
Hate to embarrass you, thank you. But I I do want to rob you of rewards in heaven in this moment. Yeah. Thank you. Keep standing.
Also, is there anyone here who specifically works in a ministry or a non profit that serves those in need? If that's you, if you wouldn't mind standing where you are at. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.
And then, if anyone who serves in our children's ministry, if you wouldn't mind standing in this moment. Thank you all. Can I pray for y'all? Pray with me, church. Father, we pray for our foster parents, those who open up their homes, their hearts, their families, to children, with unknown backgrounds.
There are so many challenges and adjustments that they have to make to bring those children into their families. And all the while, these children, they're experiencing feelings of fear and uncertainty. So Lord, we pray for encouragement and strength. We give them understanding, patience, and grace as they open up their homes and their families to children in need. We pray for the agency workers in both adoption and foster care.
God, we pray for their safety and their emotional health as they're on the front lines, and they come face to face every day with very difficult situations. Would you give them strength to overcome discouragement and burnout? Would you restore their hope and peace? Help them understand the deep impact they're having in the lives of these children and in the lives of these families in a daily basis. And we pray for all of those who serve in ministries that serve the least of these.
Would you strengthen them by giving them your joy? Joy in knowing that in every meal they serve, every hug that they give, if they do it in your name, they're doing it unto you. And lord, we also pray for those who serve in our children's ministry. Taking care of children is not volunteer work, It is kingdom work. Through their love, they are teaching our children about your love.
So would you bless them as they faithfully and so selflessly serve you. And finally, father, for all of us, both standing and sitting here, would you give us the heart of Jesus? Would you remind us that the kingdom of God looks very different than the kingdoms of this world? What you value is very different than what our culture values. So through your spirit, would you give us a love for the things that you love.
Thank you, Jesus, for the way that you've loved us, even when we have nothing to offer you. We love you, Jesus. We pray this in your name. Amen.