Mark 9:35
He sat down and called the twelve apostles. He told them, “Whoever wants to be the most important person must take the last place and be a servant to everyone else.” Mark 9:35 God’s Word Translation
Humility and Serving Others
The Master having all authority over all things invites the disciples to consider one of the most revolutionary spiritual new norm of greatness within the Kingdom of God. He examines their hearts and motives in an effort to communicate to them and all other disciples to follow, that greatness, preeminence and a sense of importance come by humility and service.
His faithful disciples in order to navigate successfully within The Kingdom must have all pride and vanity checked, one’s ambitious ways and views shall be frustrated.
Within the Kingdom of God, instead of being first, The Master commands that His disciples will be last and instead of having superior reverence and respect, one shall be debased, and treated with neglect and contempt.
Instead of being master over others, His disciples shall be the slave of all others. Their hearts shall be full of grace and their souls will be governed by love.
Progenitor of Greatness within The Kingdom
History has recorded a man, who was truly a great one, as he went about serving. He was born in an obscure village and the child of a poor peasant woman. He grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old.
Then for three years he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher and he went about doing some things. He did not have much, he never wrote a book, never held an office, never really had a family, nor a house. He did not go to college or visit a big city, nor did he travel more than two hundred miles from where he was born.
He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with “Greatness!” He had no credentials but himself. He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him.
They called him a rabble-rouser,
a trouble maker
and an agitator
while he practiced civil disobedience
and broke injunctions.
He would later be turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. The irony of it all is that it was his friends who turned him over to the authorities, while one of his closest friends denied him publicly.
At the time of his death, the people who killed him gambled for his clothing, the only possession that he had in the world. When he was dead he was buried in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a friend.
More than nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one solitary life. Who is he and do you know him?
“He is King of Kings!”
“He is Lord of Lords!”
Some have stated that in Him there is no east nor west, in Him there is no north or south. There is just one great fellowship of love throughout the whole world.
He did not have anything,
He just went around serving and doing good!
May each of us who desire to become the very best disciple for our Master in this current age, follow not after the “ways of the world” but in all that we do, do everything unto the Lord, with all Grace and Mercy!
This blog post was inspired by my most recent revisit of the sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct” and the biblical review and interpretation of Mark 9:35.
Grace and Peace