Study Guide: "True Greatness"

Text: Mark 9:33-37

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Greatness is usually equated with a "rags to riches" story.

But what about a man who gave up a well paying position for a small salary.  A man who sold a beautiful home in Florida and moved his family to a small house with a dirt floor.  They left a healthy environment in exchange for one that has given he and his family hepatitis, typhoid, malaria, amoebic abscess of the liver, relapsing fever, and ableeding ulcer.  Yet, this man, Doug Knapp, was greatly used of God as a missionary in Tanzania, East Africa, and in an 8 year period helped start 200 churches and baptize 34,000 African believers.  Does that challenge your view of greatness?

In our text today, Jesus and the Twelve have been traveling through Galilee, and upon arriving in Capernaum they went to Peter's home.  When inside, Jesus asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road to Capernaum?" Jesus used this experience to teach his disciples the meaning of true greatness.  Nothing could be more timely for us than this.  In a day of power seeking and ladder climbing, we too need to know that true greatness comes by choosing to serve those thought by others to be the least significant.

This is a story of paradox, of tension between the world's definition of greatness and Christ's view of true greatness. Follow me as we examine first the world's opinion of greatness and then compare that view with Christ's teaching on what constitutes true greatness.

I. True Greatness Is Not Worldly Advancement (vv. 33, 34).

  1. The disciples debated the question as to who was greatest among them.

     - Earlier, Jesus had told them that he would be delivered to men who would kill him, and that he would be raised the third day.

     - As they made their way to Capernaum, Jesus allowed them to travel much of the way by themselves, partly for privacy and partly to encourage the Twelve to discuss the terrible event he had just announced to them.  Instead, the disciples chose to discuss something far different.

2.  Verse 34 tells us what they had been debating.

- When Jesus asked his question, they all remained silent because they were ashamed to reveal the unworthy subject of their discussion. Jesus had spoken to them of his impending death, but their minds had been occupied with competitive thoughts of personal greatness.

3. The disciples failed to recognize that the Kingdom of God is not a place for worldly advancement.

- The term "who was the greatest" is very exact in the Greek.

- The meaning is that they saw each of them with some importance, but that some would be greater than the others.

2. Our society emphasizes getting ahead for greatness.

  1) Unfortunately, the world's ways & standards seem to have infiltrated the church.

    - This is nothing new.  It was true as far back as the Corinthian church.

"For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters.  What I mean is that each of you says, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos,' or 'I belong to Cephas,' or 'I belong to Christ.'  Has Christ been divided?  Was Paul crucified for you?  Or were you baptized in the name of Paul."

 (1 Co 1:11-13)

Clearly, true greatness is not worldly advancement!

II. True Greatness Consists of Choosing To Be a Servant (vv. 35-37).

Jesus sat with his legs crossed under him in the Oriental custom of a teacher while instructing a group. This action indicated that Jesus was about to communicate some very important truth to his disciples.

1. The spiritual standard of true greatness is servanthood.

  1) Jesus did not reprimand his disciples for desiring to be great; in fact, he encouraged it.  But while Jesus encouraged them to choose greatness, he corrected their false idea that was in the minds of the disputing disciples.

  2) Christ tells the Twelve that the one who wants to be the most highly honored in God's Kingdom is the one who must seek no honor for him or herself, but lay himself out for the good of others.

  3) The standard of the world runs directly contrary to the mind of Christ because the world's standard of greatness is to rule, while Christ's standard consists of serving.

  4) The word Jesus used for servant, diakonos, means literally, "raising up dust in anxiousness to serve."

2.  Our serving is to focus on the seemingly insignificant.

v. 37, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

  1) Jesus used the presence of a child to rebuke the disputing disciples.

   - He took a child from the family in whose house he was teaching to illustrate what he was teaching.

   - At first, he stood the child in the middle of the disciples, facing the half-circle of men seated on the ground in front of them.  Then, he took the child in his arms, and with all eyes on them, he began to speak.

  2) True greatness described by Jesus involved caring for so-called insignificant people, like children, because Christ cares immensely about them.

  3) We are to care for these for two reasons:

Because Jesus cares about them

Because Jesus has told us to do so.

  4) Sadly, those that the world considers to be unimportant seem to be the very ones the Church neglects most.

Close:

Bottom-line: The litmus test of our greatness is how readily/ eagerly we serve others without any concern for our reputation and ranking among other Christians.  It becomes painfully apparent that much of what we think of as greatness is incompatible with the teaching of Christ. And yet, it is true that anyone may be great if he or she chooses to be the servant of those the world shuns as insignificant.

Has your view of greatness shifted?

(Dane Fowlkes, Ph.D.)