Sunday Sermon, August 9, 2026 - The Gospel of Mark 9:30-37 - The Greatest

As Jesus continues His ministry work we should notice that the tone o the conversations will take on a more personal nature. Jesus had introduced the concept of the death burial and resurrection to the disciples, and we see that Peter had an emotional response, and as we see the narrative start to change, we will see how Jesus wants His disciples to react, but because they have their minds towards the things of this world, they continue to be distracted.

Mark 9:30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know,

The need for more secrecy is that the Jewish leadership is tracking Jesus, and Jesus also needs time alone with His disciples, the matters that need discussing are of a deep theological nature. Jesus has to get the disciples to unlearn what they have learned about the Messiah. Remember to these men the Messiah is a political military figure, one who comes to throw out the Romans and reestablish the Kingdom of Israel.

Mark 9:31 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.”

Mark 9:32 But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.

I want to draw your attention to the reaction of the disciples, they did not understand, and where afraid to ask. Let’s deal with the second one first. Fear. Fear keeps us from a lot of things, in this case the disciples do not want to talk about death, they do not what to talk about having to deal with the Jewish leadership, they remember what Jesus had said before, that He must suffer, and die. But you would think, that they would have more questions about the end, the resurrection. Now they all believed in a bodily resurrection at some point, God will raise everyone from the death, your bodies will be reunited with the soul and you will be judged before God, they all knew this, they all believed it, but what was not computing was three days. Dead for three days and resurrected. What is all of that about? But no matter what the fear of talking about suffering and death kept them quiet. Well Darin what is your point. Their avoidance is not going to change the outcome. See the biggest problem that we have and that other people have is avoiding, avoiding that hard decisions, avoiding those hard conversations, avoiding asking questions, when it comes down to it, we are all avoiders, we all want to put off that stuff for another day, and it is fear that is the driving fact, we do not want to hear the answer, even though what? We know, we know what the answer is, and it is not the answer we want to hear, so we avoid it, because of fear. See the disciples are really no different than me or you, they did not want to talk to Jesus about death and suffering, even if it was about rising from the dead three days later, it is getting through that time which is the problem.

Second, which is first they did not understand. They were ignorant of what Jesus was saying. Well if you are ignorant you have two choices, find out, by either doing it yourself, or asking the person who made the statement, or continue to be ignorant. Guess what? Most of us just like the disciples chose to be ignorant, they chose not to what to know, as if ignorance is an excuse. It is not, you do not have to be ignorant, the disciples did not have to stay ignorant, but they were too afraid to ask questions, hence their ignorance was self-induced. They had no excuse. Guess what, you do not have an excuse, God has given you great light, He has given you the means by which to do that which He has called you to do, and if you try to pull the ignorance card, guess what, you are going to stand before Him in judgment, and He is going to show you from the Word of God and condemn you with it. I grew up in the shadow of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, they used to have a saying, that when asked a question that you did not know the answer to, you gave them the shipyard salute, which was to shrug your shoulders and throw up your hands.

The shipyard salute will not work when you stand before God and says, why did you not? You will not be able to plead ignorance then, so why do you try to plead ignorance now. God has called you to be His witness. Well I don’t know how to do that, no, you do want to do it, you have the means to learn, but because of fear being afraid of the reaction of the person the Lord has called you to witness to might have, and mostly will have a negative reaction towards you, so because you don’t want to have to face and uncomfortable moment, you allow yourself to continue to be ignorant about what the Word of God says about your witness to others, and the examples given, and how the Holy Spirit is the one that empowers you to speak boldly.

All of that in that one simple verse.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:12-13

Mark 9:33 And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?”

Mark 9:34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.

First the silliness that they think that they are going to hide something from Jesus. These guys have really short memories. For them having the right to remain silent was not helpful, Jesus already knew what they had been talking about, now He is giving them an opportunity to confess their sin. Yes, sin, because talking about who is the greatest is nothing more that pride. Our world is full of these discussions today, who is the greatest of all time, or as they like to say, the GOAT, who is the GOAT is it Michael Jordan, is it LeBron James? Football is it Tom Brady, or Walter Payton, Baseball, is it Barry Bonds, is it Hank Aaron, is it Aaron Judge? These might be fun discussions, but in the end they are meaningless, you cannot place a person in a different era and test them against another era, God has placed each person in their place and time for a reason and for His glory. For the disciples to have a discussion about which is the greatest among them is the height of pride. And do not worry, while they think their silence has kept what they were talking about a secret it has not, and Jesus is going to address it.

Mark 9:35 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.”

If you want to be first in God’s kingdom, then you need to be last, and a servant to all. In other words, refer to the Greatest Commandment, You are to Love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and you must love your neighbor as yourself. Both uses of loves in these text are agape a love that is sacrificial, so when Jesus says to be first you must be last, then you need to give up all your wants and desires to God and to your neighbor. That pride about being the greatest is the opposite of what the disciples think, and that element of first carries something most of them do not want to hear, you must be a servant. The servant entire life is to what? Serve others, to put others first. If you truly want to first in the Kingdom of God, then you have to give it all up, put it off, strip yourself of every want everything, is to be sacrificed for God and others. Jesus says that if you want to be the GOAT, if you want to be the Greatest of All Time, then you have to make yourself the servant to others, you must lay down your life.

So can we be honest for a second. Can we do that? No. We can try, we can put a lot of effort into wanting to serve others but in the end, we will default to our nature, which is to put ourselves first. Without the Spirit of God working and active in your life, you will continue to struggle not putting yourself first. You can do a lot of good things, for a lot of people but if you did all of those good things to get the praise of men, did you do it for God or for you? It was for you.

If we have the Spirit of God within us, then we need to submit to the call of the Spirit, and when the Spirit calls us to serve others then we need to serve others, we need to sacrifice ourselves and serve others, do not neglect the call of the Spirit.

Mark 9:36 And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them,

Mark 9:37 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

Here Jesus is referring to acceptance. Children, especially young children accept the teaching and instruction of their parents without question, that is of course after you get through the why stage. There is an element of extreme trust, the child trust the parent, they accept the parents teaching and instruction. Jesus is referring the disciples to this level of trust for them to trust Him. You disciples must respond to my teaching just as this child responds to the teaching of His parents.

But Jesus adds a bit of a twist, right at the end. Jesus points to another, one that sent Him. Is this the voice at the transfiguration and the Baptism, at the Baptism, we are told that He is well pleased, and the voice at the transfiguration was listen to Him. And now Jesus is saying that accepting my teaching is not really accepting me, but the one who sent me. This again is like a reference to the messenger from a king. We have not talked about our Roman reader much today, but when he reads this section, Jesus is talking like He is a messenger, and that the one who sent Him is the real power behind all that is taking place. And does this one have anything to do with Jesus being turned over to the Jewish leadership to suffer and die and to be resurrected on the third day, what part is He playing in this part of the narrative. Our Roman reader is finding out so much about Jesus, and the Kingdom of God, what it means to avoid seeking the knowledge to uncomfortable question, and how the expectation of to not to live for yourself, but to live for God and others.

There is one thing for sure, our Roman Reader has never read anything quite like this.

Darin Bracy is the pastor at Yorktown Baptist Church in Yorktown Virginia. He is a graduate of Veritas Baptist College with a BA in Ministry and a minor in History. He has a wife Stacy, two daughters, Ashlynne and her husband Justin, their daughter Harper Darin's other daughter Aftyn, and her two dogs, Eddie and Lulubelle.

You can reach Darin at his email address, Darinbracy@gmail.com and you can see his video content on YouTube – Basic Baptist Guy