Last of All, Servant of All

Mark 9:33-37

Can I ask you something before we get into this? If I followed you around for one week, just watched your days unfold, what would I conclude you’re pursuing? Success. Comfort. Recognition. Or Christ. Because whatever fills your conversations, whatever occupies your thoughts, whatever disappoints you when you don’t get it, that’s usually the truest window into what you’re actually living for.

That’s exactly the trap we find the disciples in this week, walking the road to Capernaum. Dust on their sandals, the afternoon sun overhead, twelve men strung out in twos and threes the way you do on a long walk. And somewhere along the way a conversation starts. Not about what Jesus had just told them. Not about the cross he said was waiting for him in Jerusalem. They’re talking about themselves. Who’s going to be first. Who deserves the best seat.

Here’s what strikes me as I read this passage. Jesus had just told them he was going to be handed over, killed, and raised on the third day. The mind of Jesus was on a cross. The minds of his closest friends were on a crown. That’s not just a disciples problem. That’s a you and me problem.

So they get to the house in Capernaum, and Jesus asks them a question he already knows the answer to. “What were you discussing on the way?” And verse 34 tells us they kept silent, because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Can you feel how awkward that room got? Twelve grown men, and nobody wanting to be the one to say it first.

I know that silence. I’ve got six kids, and when they were younger there was a very particular kind of quiet that would fill a room when I walked in and asked, “Who did this?” Nobody’s crying. Nobody’s confessing. Just several sets of eyes suddenly very interested in the floor. That’s the silence in verse 34. And honestly, if you think about your own drive home from church last week, how much of that conversation was really about Jesus, and how much of it circled back around to you? Did I say the right thing. Did they notice what I did.

Now here’s what I love about what Jesus does next. He doesn’t storm out on them. He sits down, right there with these twelve embarrassed men, and he stays. No lecture, no walking away. Just a teacher staying close to people who’d proven how much they still had to learn.

And when Jesus sits, that mattered. In that culture, when a rabbi sat down, it meant what came next was formal instruction. So Jesus says: “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Notice what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say it’s wrong to want your life to count. There’s nothing sinful about wanting to hear “well done.” The problem was never the desire for greatness. The problem is our definition of it. The world says climb the ladder. Jesus says take the lowest place. The world says be served. Jesus says become a servant. This isn’t a new strategy for getting ahead. It’s an entirely different way of living, and honestly, everything in me pushes the other direction. Yes, it does for you too. That kind of humility doesn’t come naturally. It comes supernaturally.

Then Jesus takes a child, someone with no social standing, no influence, nothing to offer in return, and he takes that child into his own arms. Tender. Compassionate. And he says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.” Show me how you treat people who can do nothing for you, and I’ll show you what you actually believe about me.

Beloved, we are that child. Spiritually we brought nothing to Christ. No merit, no reason for him to receive us. And yet he did, not because we earned it, but because of grace. And here’s the irony sitting right in the middle of this passage. While the disciples argued about who was greatest, the greatest man who ever lived was standing beside them. Paul tells us in Philippians that though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself, took the form of a servant, and humbled himself to death on a cross. The greatest became the least. The King became the Servant. The one who deserved a crown accepted a crown of thorns, so that proud sinners like you and me could become children of God.

That’s why we’re free now. Not to earn God’s love, Christ has already secured it. Not to prove our worth, the cross settled that. We serve because he served us first.

So this week, don’t ask “how can I be noticed.” Ask “whom can I serve.” That question only makes sense once you know who served you first.

Listen to the full sermon here: Last of All, Servant of All

And worship with us Sundays at 10:30 AM at Northview Middle School Auditorium, 302 28th Ave NE, Hickory, NC (behind Publix on Hwy 127). We’d love to see you.

Tripp Castell
Pastor, Hickory Presbyterian Church