“The Case for Christ - Part 2: Mark 9:37 - Service”

‘Whatsoever ye do, do it diligently as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of your inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.’

‘Moreover, all of you, gird about yourselves as a girdle, humility toward one another, because God opposes Himself to those who set themselves above others, but gives grace to those who are lowly.’

These are verses found in Col 3:23-24 and 1 Peter 5:5, respectively - Col 3:23-24 and 1 Peter 5:5. 

Tonight, we continue to look at Mark, chapter 9, to see how the Lord’s church is to glorify Christ in service unto Him. 

We noted the last time how Jesus gently rebuked His disciples when He found them arguing about who among them would be the greatest in the Kingdom of God.

He gave them the simple formula: ‘He who desires to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all.’

And to teach the application of this spiritual rule, He took the example of a child, a ‘little one’ who was so unimportant to that day’s society. 

And He said to them: ‘Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him [God the Father] that sent me.’ (v 37)

‘Receive this little one: identify with him in his place of lowliness as you serve in the kingdom of God’, Christ was saying to the disciples. 

That identification is to authenticate oneness with each other and the oneness with Christ and God the Father.

You see - each one in the kingdom of heaven is living upon the earth but, by virtue of Christ and His work, each is the citizen of the divine kingdom.

And this kingdom is God’s kingdom where His own are instilled with a divine sense that makes His kingdom work in His precise, legitimate, and authentic way! 

For this to happen, the attitude of each one is to honor Christ in humble service. 

And that is not service that is according to precedence or rank!

Even God Incarnate placed Himself under this attitude. 

The fact is that He was the supreme example of this rule of service in God’s kingdom.

He Himself said, in a similar teaching in Mark 10:45, that He did not come to be served, but to serve. 

He did not come to ‘pull rank’ over the souls of men.

Neither did He expect to be waited upon by anyone.

But - He - Who was and is ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ - came to do a servant’s work in the giving of Himself as a ransom for many.

He took upon Himself the position of being the very least among men. He took upon Himself the place and status of a ‘non-person’.

And when He did, He showed His own people how He became the Victor over the world, over the flesh, and over the devil, the fact and the truth the world has yet to see clearly and to acknowledge! 

He is now the supreme Champion and Conqueror of life, and He called His followers to take this same route toward this place of victory in life.

Yes - servanthood is what Jesus had in mind for all His own in order to change man and the world in which man lives.

So - ‘in your service to Me’, He tried to explain to the disciples, ‘when you look upon ‘little ones’ such as this child I have here before you, it must be in the same attitude he has of humility and lowliness.

And when you do, you are receiving Me as you are receiving this child.’

The world’s idea of greatness is to rule, but the greatness in the kingdom of God is to serve.

The world’s ambition is to receive honor and attention, but in the kingdom of God the desire is to give rather than receive, to attend to others rather than be attended upon.

In short, the follower of Christ has been given the ‘gift’ to lay himself out in service to others.  

Yes - willing service as a ‘gift’ is a distasteful concept for the one who has self-exaltation and exploitation in mind!

But - are you aware that this is how God regards service in His kingdom?

In the Old Testament times, when He bestowed upon the Levites and priests the service of attending to all the sacred things of God, He did this in the form of a ‘gift’.

In Numbers 18:7, they were to ‘serve’ Him for ‘...I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift’, the Lord told Aaron.  

There were those who set themselves against Aaron.

To make them understand the importance of the divine-given task before them, God impressed upon them the character of their work alongside of Aaron’s.

Theirs was a gift of service straight from the hand of God.

It was to be a service unto God that would join them to Aaron in such a way that the affection and the interest Aaron had in pleasing God and walking in His ways would also be theirs.

They are so identified with Aaron, have a fellow-feeling with him in such a way, that their hearts are inclined toward what Aaron was and did. 

And - in that way, they would become partakers in Aaron’s service unto the Lord.

It was God’s gift to them in order to show them the seriousness God placed on their commitment to Him in executing service in His Name.

And taking on this kind of mind is not without its reward.

The benefits they were promised in adopting such a mind were remarkable.

They would serve before the Most Holy Place, the place of close fellowship with the divine. 

Theirs would be ‘all the best of the oil, all the best of the wine and of the wheat, and all the firstfruits’ - the very best!

They were given the power to take on the character of Aaron’s service as though they were doing that same service themselves!  

They were granted all the best and brought into the closest of fellowship with the Lord when they were given this gift of service.

In this call of God upon them, they received the favor of God’s kingdom in taking on that ‘least and servant of all’ character as Aaron did. 

And they became one with Aaron and one with God in service unto the Lord. Think about this sometime! 

And, so, Jesus is instilling in these disciples the same divine rule: the power of taking on the character of a ‘slave’ or a ‘little one’ is as though they are partaking of that same character for themselves in serving the little ones.

Yes - living in the kingdom of God means becoming least of all and servant of all!

But - service is actually receiving the ‘Gift’ that opens the ‘Most Holy Place’ in the Lord with the promise of the ‘Best’ of everything! Think about this, too, sometime!    

There is a striking example of this rule in 1 Kings 17.

Elijah, the prophet, was facing the God-given job of confronting Ahab, the king. 

It was during a time of famine in the land when he was told to go to a certain city where he would find his means of sustenance on his way to meet Ahab. 

When he came to the city gate, he met a widow. She was gathering sticks to build a fire for baking bread with the little supply she had left.

With the unction from the Lord, Elijah asked her to share with him the meal she was about to prepare.

She, also under the unction of the divine Spirit, agreed - even though she had nothing left for any more meals for herself and family.

She did as Elijah asked, as hard and as painful as that may have been for her.

And Elijah gave her the promise of the reward God had prepared for her when, by faith and in humility, she followed through.   

And what happened? 

The woman was blessed with a miraculous supply of food: ‘And the barrel of meal wasteth not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake by Elijah.’ (v 16)   
 
Do you see what it is that took place?

The poor widow entered into Elijah’s mission and shared in his work. His was to confront Ahab. Hers was to feed Elijah as he was on his way to see Ahab.

And the two worked as one before the Lord to accomplish the will of the Lord.

She took upon herself the character of his work and shared in his service unto the Lord.

And the Lord reckoned the two as one in service unto Him. 

What a simple way - yet, such a powerful force of life!

Listen: service unto the Lord is to be done with the idea of our oneness in Christ. 

It is to be done in the dignity of His glory for it is all the same service in the Lord’s eyes, whatever course it takes.

It takes on the same spiritual character and it involves the same reward of ‘the glory of God in Christ’.

The service may not be glamorous! 

It may not be great in the world’s eyes! 

It may be so small that it is scarcely noticeable by the world!

But one service is no less important than the other, so long as it is done in the will of God and in the power of Christ.
 
And so long as it is always done in the spirit of giving without the thought of receiving - without the thought of any self-exaltation but done only in the ‘servant to all’ mind.

The really great man does not say to himself: ‘How can I get the most for myself in this situation? How can I enhance my own prestige? How can I fulfill my own lust and needs?’ 

Oh - no! What he says is: ‘How can I help the most to serve others?’

Do you realize that practically every problem in this world could be solved if every person would live for what he could do for another in the most helpful service to that person?

That would work between husband/wife relationships, child/parent relationships, in the political arena, in the economic world, in the church.

I know this is an idealistic trumpet sound for the world just to arbitrarily take on but, when Jesus spoke of changing selfish ambition to helpful ambition, He was laying down one of the greatest practical truths this world could ever know.

For the ambition to rule and receive, Jesus substituted the ambition to serve.

For the ambition to have things done for us, Jesus substituted the ambition to do things for others.

What a wondrous divine concept that is for this present world!

Actually, the world really knows nothing of who the greatest people of this world really are. But there is the time coming when the world’s ‘Who’s Who’ list is going to be radically revised in the divine register. 
 
The day is coming when God’s greatest, God’s noblest - those who were seemingly least upon the earth, those who are righteous because they trusted Christ in a lowly service - ‘will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of God’, as Jesus said in Mt 13:43.
  
This is when it will be seen how the Lord’s true church has been keeping step with God’s plan of proclaiming and promoting the doctrine of and about Christ. 

But - what happens when service in God’s kingdom goes awry - when the Christian is irresponsible and he turns to selfish ambition?   

It was John who wrote in 2 John 9 the following: ‘Everyone who goes ahead and does not remain in the teaching with reference to Christ, [please note: ‘with reference to Christ’, not to anyone or anything else!] does not have God. The one who remains in the aforementioned teaching, this one has both the Father and the Son.’

The teaching Jesus gave about position and service was becoming a serious problem in the church around the beginning of the second century. 

Two dispositions circled about in Asia Minor at that time. One was intellectual arrogance and the other, self-exaltation.

John warned the church in his letters about this. The church was to keep step with God’s plan by holding firmly to the
teaching of and about Christ.

But it was the false teachers who were relegating Christ to lesser positions in order to ‘move on in spiritual life’, as they thought of it.

And this was causing restlessness and rebellion in the church. 

In his third letter, John spoke of such a teacher by the name of Diotrephes who was a member of the church. 

Since he was of Gnostic leanings in his doctrine, he outrightly opposed John and insisted on establishing himself in some high ranking position.

He became a colorful example of exactly what the disciples were arguing about. He did not ‘receive’ John but took the place of ‘head-man’ who ‘loved to have the pre-eminence’. 

This was that lust for power that Jesus described as being evil. This is exactly what He warned His disciples against.

So Diotrephes played right into the hands of the enemy because he did not stay within this teaching of Jesus.

Thus John described him in 3 Jn 9-10 as a man who was ‘prating against us with malicious words’.

The Christian must remain true to the ‘doctrine of Christ’, John warned.

He must walk in Christ, not behind Him nor ahead of Him, but always in correspondence with the will of God.

The true forward progress of the Church is in following her Lord, not in irresponsibly running ahead, failing to finish the task God has set.

So John used Paul’s thoughts to tell the church without hesitation or fear that the example Diotrephes had given is ‘not the way you learned Christ, assuming indeed that you have heard about Christ, and were indoctrinated in Christ, as truth is in Jesus.’

And he used Peter’s thoughts to say to the church: ‘Moreover, all of you, bind about yourselves[or ‘be clothed with’] as a girdle humility toward one another, because God opposes Himself to those who set themselves above others, but gives grace to those who are lowly.’

This partaking and identifying with one another through humble service to one another is the rule that makes everything workable in the Christian scheme of things. 

Thus Christ is glorified in the church where the ambition of rank is changed to the ambition of humble service unto Him. 

We will stop here for tonight and, Lord willing, continue on from here the next time.

In the meantime, may the Lord bless you mightily as you move these thoughts before Him throughout this working week. 

Let me encourage you to stay the course in Christ! Trust Him explicitly! Love Him supremely! Crown Him with willing and humble service for ‘ye serve the Lord Christ!’

Amen. So be it!  Let us pray!