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Feb 20, 2022

The Path to Greatness

The Path to Greatness

Passage: Mark 9:33-37

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Follow: Learning from Mark about Jesus’ Most Misunderstood Command

Everyone in every time in most every place wants to matter. Success, happiness, greatness: these words all constellate around the abiding desire to know our lives are not a “tale told by an idiot..full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” In following Jesus, we learn a particular way toward thinking we matter. It’s unlike nearly every other approach on offer.

Readings & Scripture

AN AFFIRMATION OF FAITH OR A CREEDAL STATEMENT:
Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
You have brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see You in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold
Your glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter
Your stars shine;

Let me find Your light in my darkness,
Your life in my death,
Your joy in my sorrow,
Your grace in my sin,
Your riches in my poverty
Your glory in my valley.

CENTRAL TEXT: Mark 9:33-37; 10:35-45
33 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 in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

35 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” 37 And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” 39 And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” 41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. 42 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

ASSURANCE OF PARDON Isaiah 53:10-12
LEADER:
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
ALL: Thanks be to God.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Leviticus 5:14-6:7
  • Numbers 5:5-8
  • Isaiah 51:17, 22; 53:5, 10-11
  • Jeremiah 25:15
  • Ezekiel 23:31-34
  • Mark 1:2-11; 14:36, 15:34
  • Luke 12:50
  • Romans 5:6-11
  • Romans 15:2
  • 1 Corinthians 9:19
  • 2 Corinthians 4:5
  • Galatians 5:13
  • Philippians 2:4-5
  • Colossians 1:24-26
  • 1 Peter 4:13
  • 1 Peter 5:3

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Think back: can you remember a time when you suddenly became the center of everyone’s loving attention? What was that moment? How did it feel? How long did it last? What if any lingering effect did it have?
  2. Our passage brought together two separate moments with a related theme. Even if the account is from a distant past, how is the subject of both moments a timeless issue?
  3. What makes greatness desirable? What fears are associated with not achieving it? When can that desire lead you astray?
  4. How is the customary pursuit of greatness like an enslavement? .How is the path to greatness Jesus outlines like a liberation?
  5. What does Jesus mean by his cup, his baptism? How is what James & John–and anyone who follows Jesus–will “drink” and “be baptized with” both like and unlike what Jesus will? Can you imagine a contemporary example of a follower sharing in that lot?
  6. What were the two errors mentioned in the sermon we’re prone to as it relates to Jesus as the model and motivation for this approach to greatness? How does His own life stave off those errors in us?

Illustrations & Media

InView Media Album: 02.20.2021

QUOTES: 

 

  • I spent my 30s trying to learn not to matter. - Sarah Masen
  • A Christian is an utterly free man, lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is an utterly dutiful man, servant of all, subject to all. - Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian
  • So long as your ambition is to stamp your existence on existence, your nature on nature, then your ambition is corrupt, and you are pursuing a ghost.  - Christian Wiman
  • “All our lives we’ve been unconsciously living by the philosophy, ‘The only way to gain respect is doing so well you can’t be ignored.’” –Letter from a fan to Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game
  • “Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run—in the long run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it. - Viktor E. Frankl. Man's Search for Meaning
  • You can't get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first. From which it would follow that the question, What things are first? is of concern not only to philosophers but to everyone. - C.S. Lewis “First and Second Things”

BOOKS / DOCS