Wednesday, July 16, 2014

In our last visit we discovered what Jesus said about servant leadership. He pointed out in Mark 9:35, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” Verse 38 describes an experience they had, following this teaching. John told Jesus, “We saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” The irony of this statement is that the disciples couldn’t cast out a demon from the boy who had been brought to them, described earlier in this chapter. Now they were critical of one who did cast out demons in the name of Jesus. How easy to criticize what others are doing, because they’re not one of the inner group you belong to. This attitude is inconsistent with servant leadership! We should look for ways to affirm others as Jesus did in response to John’s critical comment. Even a cup of water given in Jesus name will be rewarded. To amplify this point further Jesus points out in verses 42-50, if anything hinders us from living and serving in a way that honors Jesus Christ we need to get rid of it. Servant leadership is concerned about helping others without being hindered by inconsistencies or sins in our own lives. At this point we could outline what we’ve discovered in the last half of Mark 9. The focus or title would be, Servant Leadership. The points are: don’t seek recognition, affirm others, and don’t hinder others. Keeping this in mind we should look for ways to push others forward and support them in accomplishing what they set out to do, while always checking ourselves to be sure we’re not getting in their way.