Like a Little Child
Mark 9:30-37

9:30 Then they departed from there and passed through Galilee, and He did not want anyone to know it. 9:31 For He taught His disciples and said to them, "The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, He will rise the third day." 9:32 But they did not understand this saying, and were afraid to ask Him. 9:33 Then He came to Capernaum. And when He was in the house He asked them, "What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?" 9:34 But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest. 9:35 And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all." 9:36 Then He took a little child and set him in the midst of them. And when He had taken him in His arms, He said to them, 9:37 "Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me." (Mark 9:30-37)

Discussion among the Disciples

Last week, we saw that the disciples and the scholars were arguing, but we see that the disciples were discussing among them."Jesus will go to Jerusalem, and start the Kingdom of God by sitting the throne as the King. When it will happen, who can sit the next to Jesus? Who can occupy the upper seats?" They fight for seeking higher rank among them. Therefore, they could not answer to Jesus when the Lord asked them, "What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?"(9:33) All of them are silent. Because they were discussing what they did not want to be listen by Jesus. Did you have the same experience? However, Jesus listened their discussion, He knew what they were talking. I think that Jesus is present among us and He silently listens to our conversation. We cannot see Him, but He can see us. We cannot hear His voice, but He can hear our voices. You know a phrase, "Jesus is the unseen guest of this home, He is the silent head of this table." As this phrase saying, I hope that all of us can talk each other always being aware of His presence. I hope that we can talk not for our own satisfaction, or just pleasing human, but pleasing the Lord. We may need to listen to the Word of God for knowing His will and speak according His will.

Be Servants

Jesus sat down and called the twelve who disputed about the order of rank. When you read "He sat down." in verse 35, what did you remember? Did this verse remind you "the Sermon on the Mount"? Matthew 5:11 says, "He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him." On the mountain and here in the house of Capernaum Jesus "was seated" "sat down" and taught the disciples. This shows that He spoke to them from the throne, the place of authority. Therefor the following words should be taken very seriously. We have to listen to them with all of our hearts and we should obey them. Jesus required the disciples to listen Him by sitting down His seat. This morning He requires us the same thing. Let's listen to Him and take His word as the most important words to us. Jesus taught the disciples two things. The first one was verse 35, "If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all." Jesus said, "If you want to set yourself first, be a tail-ender." to the disciples who wanted to be first.

We live in the competing society. All want to be first. If they cannot to be first, they want to be the second. If not to be second, third. All live competing others. A couple of weeks ago, I watched a video when I visited a home with my wife. A grand daughter of the homeowner was doing gymnastics in the video. As you know, gymnasts have to do floor exercise, balance beam events, parallel bars, side hose, and others. I couldn't even jump lope well. I really amazed how she could tumble herself. I asked the grandma, "How young has she started the exercise?" The grandma answered, "She has been practicing since she was five years old." She also said, "It costs a lot that she learns and participates the tournaments. Both of her parents work so hard to make her do this." Not only the young people, but also their parents, are making their best efforts to be first. If you make your pace slow, others will leave you behind and you may drop out of the race.

His teaching seems nonsense for our society. Does this word work even now in our competing society? The answer is "Yes." I'll show an example. A Japanese newspaper evaluated the leaders of top companies in Japan using five scales. The first three are "willpower of decision," "leadership," and "how their subordinate follow and trust." The last two, which reflect today's world, are "linguistic" ability and "skills of computer." What do you think? Which one is thought as the most important factor for the top leaders? It is the confidant from the subordinates. And for wining the trust of the followers, leaders are expected to put themselves lower. Leaders have to make a right decision at a right time. Ability of decision making is must for a good leader. However if the leader made a big decision without consulting the other people, who would follow such a leader. A good leader also has a strong power to lead the people. However if he loose the trust of the others, his leadership never works. None follow him. If a leader cannot win the confidant from the followers, he cannot be a top leader of a company. A good leader knows to respect others, lift them up, and make himself law. Some leaders just seek their own success and don't mind the followers. Some companies just seek their own profits and don't take care of the nation's profit. Such leaders and companies will break down sooner or later. Taking a long-range view, the leaders who work for serving others and the companies that serve the society will be successful.

Even though non-Christians follow the rule of the Bible, they get ahead the world. Biblical principles really work well in today's business situations. Therefore Bible study is becoming popular among businessman. However the word, "serve" has deeper meaning in the Biblical context. Please look up Mark 10:43-45. Jesus said, "Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." Jesus used the word, "serve" for implying his death. For him "to serve" means "to give his life." Jesus is the King and the Lord. He is above all. He is the top of tops. He has all authorities. Such person became a servant. In the Bible, "servant" means "slave." We should serve Jesus. But he served us. He served us, and finally he gave his life to us.

We see a beautiful poem in Philippians 2:5-8. "Christ Jesus, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." Why the words of Jesus so powerful? Why they take our hearts? Because Jesus did not just teach us, he lived just like what he taught. He actually became a servant and left his own steps, examples on the earth for us. Therefore we can follow his steps. Once we lived far from God according our own desires. But we are saved, and became the servants of God. God imputed us willingness and power to follow Jesus. As wee seek to God, God will give them abundantly through His Holy Spirit. Listen to the teachings of Jesus thinking about what he did for us. The teachings of Jesus get work in our life. Have you experienced that His teachings worked in your life? Seek it, He will give you.

Like a Little Child

The next teaching of Jesus is in verse 37, "Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me." Who Jesus called "little children"? They were the powerless people who need someone's support like actual little children. Jesus, first, taught, "If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all." And now he teaches "Receives one of these little children in My name." This second teaching confirms the first teaching. His teachings may be paraphrased like this. "If you really become a servant, you can receive little children, handicapped people, spiritually young Christians, needy people."

The disciples were discussing who is greatest. Some want to become great in good sense. They really want to develop and grow themselves. But most of us tend to find the people who seem to be inferior and compare themselves to others, then said, "I am greater than him." We call such people not great people but "hammerman" "high-muck-a-muck" "hoohaw" "mucky-muck" and "stout fellow". These people control weaker people, but on the other hand, they butter up to stronger people and use others authority as their own authority. Such actions just come from inferiority complex. During the world war II Japan kick around and push around Korean, China and other Asian countries. Why? I think that Japanese government had inferiority complex to the western countries, and the government leaders wanted to be rule over the surrounding countries for wiping out their inferiority. In Japan bullying is very popular among school. Why? I think adults brought their bias into children. Little children are okay to play with different colored children. They don't mind other children's clothing or language accent. The world of children is better than the adult world. But as they learn prejudice from adult, they start to cast away other children. We need to clear away prejudice and inferiority from us to put Jesus teaching into practice.

We need to become little children to be able to accept the people who are in weakness. We have to understand that we are saved only by the love of God, through the grace of Christ, we ourselves are "little children" who need to be supported by other people in Christ. When we become like little children, we can accept the people like little children. The way that we can follow Jesus, is the way of love. We are accepted as the children of God. Therefore we can accept others.

While Jesus was teaching the disciples, He took a little child in His arms. Jesus has the highest authority. He taught his disciples with the authority. But at the same time He took a little child in His arms. His authority never scares a little child. His authority received a little child with love. Here again Jesus showed his example. He himself received a little child in his arms. Since Jesus left his example, we can follow him. We can get the power to do same as Jesus did.

Jesus said, "Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me." If we refuse the people like little children, we may refuse Jesus. If we refuse Jesus, we refuse God the Father. Do you take this word seriously? We'd like to take this in our hearts, and practice the teaching in the fellowship of brother and sisters. We pray that God may lead us to the loving and caring fellowship from the competing race to be first.