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May 3, 2026 · Daniel Coughlin · Mark 9:38–50 · Gospel of Mark
This is God's word, and it is eternally true.
"For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward.
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.
If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than, having your two feet, to be cast into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good. But if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another."
This is the word of the Lord.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you would bless this word, that the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts will be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and redeemer. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Our passage this morning — the apostles see a man they didn't know, they didn't recognize, and he was doing the work that they had just struggled to do. We had the transfiguration, and Jesus and some of the disciples come off the mountain. And what were the other disciples doing? They had been trying to cast a demon out of a man, and they weren't able to do it. Jesus does it, and he says, "This one can only come out by prayer."
And then we turn the page, and there's that guy over there. Who's that guy? Who gave him permission to preach God's word? Who gave him permission to cast out demons in Jesus' name?
You ever think you're part of the in crowd for a minute, and then you look, and it turns out somebody else is actually a part of the in crowd? The disciples were there. They were the ones walking around with Jesus. They were the ones hearing his teaching. They were the ones serving the food. And here they are struggling to do this thing, and then this guy shows up and he's able to cast out the demons.
I don't know about you, but that wells up something inside of me — this pride, this desire to be the one that everyone relies on. "I paid my dues, and now that guy's able to cast out demons? What happened?"
And so what do the disciples do? They're like, "Hey now, calm down. Who gave you permission? Don't be doing that. Stop." They tried to stop this man from casting out demons.
Now, just think about that for a minute. They tried to stop him from casting out demons. Which means — whose side were they on?
There's a man with a demon. Are demons good or bad? Bad. We're all on the same page — demons bad. There's a man with a demon, and there's another guy who's removing the demon from him. And the disciples walk up and say, "Cut it out."
Whose side are the disciples on? Who does it look like, in that moment? The demon side. Is that the side the disciples should be on? No!
So what was going on in their heads? They weren't concerned with Jesus' kingdom. They weren't concerned with this cosmic conquering of God over Satan. What were they worried about? Themselves. They were worried about their own little kingdom. Their little group. Their control over who's on the in and who's on the out.
And Jesus says, cut it out.
Verse 40: "For he who is not against us is for us."
It's like — listen, calm down, guys. He's casting out demons in my name. Don't get worked up about that. That is what we're doing here. I know you don't recognize him, but that's what we're doing.
We know about three things about this guy:
That's all we know about this guy and all we're going to know.
But it's not the only time that we hear about something like this in the New Testament. Philippians 1:15 says this — and buckle up, because it's hard to understand sometimes. We're so easily set in our ways. This is what Paul says:
Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. In this I rejoice.
So what's the difference? Paul had learned something that the disciples at this point had not yet learned, which is — the point is proclaiming Christ. The point is the real presence of the kingdom of God. The point is casting out demons, destroying strongholds. Whatever it takes, God is accomplishing his purposes. He is establishing his kingdom here. He is bringing his kingdom in a very real way.
And the other option is death. We're back to the idea of there being two paths in life. One is a path of life that leads to Christ. The other is a path of death that leads where? To hell. And that's right here in our verse today.
Consider the significance of the phrase, "He who is not against us is for us." There really are only two pathways. You're either against us over here or you're for us. And who is "us"? I don't want you to get the wrong idea — it's not "me and my group." "Us" is Jesus and his church. That is the us. The other path is rebellion and death. What matters is being on the path of life. What matters is following Jesus.
One of the consequences is to be grateful for anyone laboring for Jesus Christ — anyone who is doing the work.
Jesus' warning here is severe. Look at verse 42: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble..."
Now, we don't deal with millstones. So we have to think about this one a little bit. A millstone — and specifically a millstone driven by a donkey here. A grinding stone so heavy that you had to use an animal to move it around. You couldn't move it around yourself. Probably a couple hundred pounds.
So imagine taking a couple-hundred-pound weight and strapping it to your neck and being chucked into the ocean. What happens? Not pleasant. It would be better for a man to be drowned in a horrific manner than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. To interfere with someone on the path of life. And especially someone young in the faith. Someone humble. Someone yearning after Jesus. Someone willing to go cast out a demon in Jesus' name.
Instead, what should our focus be? As a church, we've just had some baptisms recently. What should our focus be when it comes to those young Christians? It should be to help them grow, to help them learn, to help them mature in their faith.
Our church covenant is good on this point. It says — and this is what everyone who's joined the church has covenanted to, agreed to do, contracted to do:
We engage therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to walk together in Christian love. To strive for the advancement of this church in knowledge and holiness and comfort. We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love. To remember each other in prayer. To aid each other in sickness and distress. To cultivate Christian sympathy in feeling and courtesy and speech.
So if we've got somebody who's young in the faith, who's immature, who's humble and willing to learn and grow — what should we be doing? Caring for them. Rachel and Addie Solzenberger are two that were just baptized. And they're not here today. I am glad to hear that my wife stopped in to check on them. That should be something that we're driven and compelled to do — to check in when people go missing. To care for them when people go missing.
And sometimes it's going to be awkward. Sometimes people leave and they're not happy. And yet, what is our responsibility to one another? To make sure that we don't put a stumbling block in someone's way.
Because you know what usually happens in churches? We make each other mad. We annoy each other. We put a stumbling block in the way of somebody else. And you know what happens when they stumble? When they trip over our inconsiderateness? They leave. They just go away. And you never hear from them again.
Chris Dollinghaus and Nathan — I saw Nathan yesterday at the homeschool thing. They've been here for several weeks in a row. Where are they today? I hope someone — and maybe it'll be me, hopefully it'll be me — but I hope someone reaches out to them and just says, "Hey, how you doing? We missed you today." Not like, "Hey, you got a check mark because you weren't there." I'm not into perfect attendance records. I just want to know that we're caring for each other.
Whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble — it would be better for him if a heavy millstone hung around his neck and he had been cast into the sea. We need to be careful. This was a rebuke of the disciples — that they wanted to go squash down the work of the kingdom, the work of proclaiming, the work of driving out demons. And Jesus is like, "No. Listen, you're not getting the picture. You're not getting what's going on here. This is bigger than you. This is bigger than this little group here."
And this is serious. This is so much bigger than you that you have to see — one, be careful how you act with other people. But then two, also be careful for yourself. It's not just for others that we need to be concerned about. It's for our own lives, our own bodies. The things as dear to us as our eye.
Can you imagine losing your eye or your hand or your foot? The kingdom of God is so valuable — you should think about it as more dear to you than your hand or your foot or your eye.
And listen, if any one of us had some sort of disease that was hurting your eye or hurting your foot or hurting your hand — would you not go to every doctor to try and figure it out? Would you not persevere in figuring out why? My dad has had trouble because of his diabetes with his hands and his feet. He's had surgeries and seen doctors — it's a lot of work for him to protect his hands and feet. Because what? They're dear to him. What happens if you lose your hands? How do you eat? How do you live? If you lose your feet — think of Deb who hurt her foot. All of a sudden, she just lives right across the street, and it's hard to get places.
So it sounds harsh, right? Cut off your eye. Cut off your foot. Cut off your hand. We came to that kind of church today, huh?
We value the kingdom of God like we value our own body. It wouldn't sound harsh then. Think about war. A man goes off to war and he comes back and he's lost a part of his arm. What would we say? He's lucky he lived. If a mortar goes off right next to him, he's lucky he didn't lose more — his whole life.
If we really looked at this life as the kind of dangerous thing that it is.
I've been thinking and trying to figure out how to integrate this, so go with me — because we're going to get into unexplored territory. Have you ever traveled to the Grand Canyon? I have not, but I've seen pictures of it. You all know what I'm talking about. A giant hole in the ground with a very sharp edge.
We've talked about going, and we have all these children. And I'm like, how do you take a crew of children to the Grand Canyon? Because that's scary to me. It's flat and nice — like the edge of the pulpit here. Flat and nice and you're safe. You can play tag. You can throw a ball, whatever. And then — sudden, instant death right there. If you take one step in the wrong direction, you're dead. That's how I envision the Grand Canyon. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter — that's how I think about it.
I just don't think we think about life like that. I don't think we think of life as dangerous. I think we think of life as very safe — maybe not easy. Sometimes there's hardships. We struggle. I'm not trying to say that we never struggle. But not to the point that we really think, "My foot's causing me to sin. My eye's causing me to sin. I should gouge it out."
Because if we're going to the Grand Canyon, I'd be like, "Hey, kids, listen — you can get this far away from the edge. And any further, I'm going to tear your ear off your head." But would that not be a merciful thing for me to do? If it was between my kid falling to their death?
Should you not rather lose an eye and enter eternal life — be a part of the kingdom of God — than to proudly walk with two good feet into hell? This is the warning that Jesus gives us this morning. Not exaggerating.
And the other thing is — because now we're going to talk about hell. Just in case you are not uncomfortable, we're going to talk about hell. Because this is where Jesus goes in his warning.
I used the pulpit for my demonstration — you're up here and then you fall over the edge. You can see the pulpit. You can envision, you can make that mental connection between what I'm talking about, what I'm demonstrating, and the reality. But how does the Grand Canyon compare with this pulpit? This is what — eight inches, maybe six inches? Versus what — a mile? I don't know how deep the Grand Canyon is. Deep.
Jesus says, reading in verse 47:
"If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched."
So what do we learn about hell here?
What does it mean that the fire is unquenched? It never goes out. It's insatiable. It's never satisfied. You start a bonfire and you put a certain amount of wood on there and it's going to burn out, turn into embers and coals and then be cold again. One thing we learn here is that hell — it goes on.
"Their worm does not die." What do we learn from that? And this is horrible. Let's not try and sugarcoat it. There is no end to the fire or to the sufferer. Their life — whatever's left of them — does not go away.
Three times the Lord Jesus here speaks of hell. Three times he says the fire is not quenched. If you know anything about Scripture, three times is a way to emphasize something. If you want to know something's true, listen when Scripture says something three times in a row.
So we've got to be careful. We must not hide our eyes and our ears to the fullness of God's word — his warnings as well as his good promises. We must not be ashamed to confess our belief in eternal punishment, because that is what God's word testifies to.
And it's tough. There are all sorts of ways to try and get out of the harshness of God's teaching of hell. And maybe we would be right to be ashamed of this reality — if there was not the boundless mercy in Jesus Christ for all who believe in his name. Maybe we would be right in being ashamed of hell if there was no possibility of hope, of escape, of life.
But there is a mercy. There is a mercy for all who ask in Christ's name.
Think about a road — we're going back to the Grand Canyon here. There's a road that goes right into the Grand Canyon. If there was no way to stop, then okay, you don't have to talk about it. But let's say you're in a normal car and there's brakes and you know the road goes straight over the Grand Canyon. If you cared for someone — wouldn't you implore them to stop? Wouldn't you beg them to stop? This is death. There is no hope. You must apply the brakes.
And so in this life, there is an escape. There's a cure. There's a better path. There's a fountain open that washes all sin clean. Therefore, let us boldly and without fear hold to the fact that there is a hell — and implore men, beg them, plead with them to flee from it before it's too late.
Because this is a problem — an error that we commonly fall into in our modern evangelical church world. We could never say enough about Jesus Christ. We want to keep proclaiming God's love for mankind through Jesus Christ. How he lived a perfect life. How he died and paid the punishment for our sins on the cross. And it feels like we could just talk about Jesus and his goodness all day long.
But it's very possible — and this is the error we fall into — not to say too much about Christ, but to say too little about hell.
Does that make sense? We want to just talk about the goodness, the good things, the hope, the mercy — and we avoid the uncomfortable things. We avoid the punishment and the sin. We avoid even referencing what God saves us from. And it's possible for us even to diminish the fear of hell in our own minds, such that we make peace with our sins and we decide that the eye is more valuable than our soul.
Let that never be.
When we view ourselves as safe and secure in this life, we become complacent. Now listen — I don't want you to go doubting your salvation. If you've got your trust in the Lord, good. Praise God. Let that continue. But if you look at your life and you've got these sins that keep overwhelming you, keep coming back, that you don't know how to fight or that you've given up on fighting — those are the kind of things, those are the conversations. Bring that to the elders. Bring that to me as your pastor. Be strengthened to overcome those things.
If we become complacent, we see no need for a Savior. We see no need for plucking an eye out, cutting a hand off. We see no need to actively flee from sin.
And listen — cutting a hand off. Just think about what that means in our day and age. The phone. The computer. There are things in our life that cause us to sin.
The feet — where do we go? In Israel and Judaism and Hebrew, they used the organ of the body as a shorthand for the thing itself:
Are you going places you shouldn't go? Stop it. Cut it off. You're not going to overcome that just by trying harder, doing better next time. Are you doing things that you shouldn't be doing? Stop it. Cut it off. Are you looking at things that you shouldn't be looking at? Stop it. Cut it off.
There's nothing that's so dear to you that you should love it more than your soul.
So if we really look — if we really see in God's word these warnings about hell, these warnings about eternal punishment, an unquenchable fire — the idea of losing a hand or a foot or an eye doesn't mean that much. If you could go to World War II and come back with only having lost an arm — God is merciful and good. If you could be a rebel against the great high King and you can limp into eternal life, having only lost a foot — praise God for his mercies.
So let us be careful. Let us live in peace with one another — not seeking great things or striving for preeminence like first place, like it seems the disciples were doing — but rather clothe ourselves in humility and love all who love Christ in sincerity. These things seem simple. But walking in them — there's great reward, and they're certainly avoiding the real risk, the real danger, the real fall, the real tragedy.
So let us put our hope in Christ for this.
Heavenly Father, I pray that we would go forward remembering your goodness and your mercy, that you would strengthen us for walking in your ways, for loving and caring for those who walk in your ways — for all those who proclaim the name of Jesus — that we would be quick to come alongside and help them and comfort them. Give them a glass of water.
That we would watch for putting stumbling blocks in the way of those around us — that if we do, we would see it, and that we could flee from it. We could repent. We could be drawn toward you, Father.
Be merciful to us and kind to us, as you have been to us in Jesus Christ. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
April 26, 2026 · Daniel Coughlin · Mark 9:30–37 · Gospel of Mark
This is God's word and it is eternally true.
From there they went out and began to go through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know about it. For he was teaching his disciples and telling them, "The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him."
And when he has been killed, he will rise three days later. But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask him.
They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house, he began to question them, "What were you discussing on the way?" But they kept silent.
For on the way, they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. Sitting down, he called the twelve and said to them, "If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all."
Taking a child, he set him before them. And taking him into his arms, he said to them, "Whoever receives one child like this in my name receives me. And whoever receives me does not receive me, but him who sent me."
This is the word of the Lord.
Heavenly Father, may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Our scripture passage today teaches that the glory of the resurrection can only be rightly understood through the humility of the cross — and that life in God's kingdom is marked not by striving for greatness, but by receiving the lowly in faith and in service.
First, in our passage, it's interesting — and it stands out — that Jesus again teaches on his death and his resurrection. What's this, the third time that we've read this in just a few short verses?
This is a teaching that Jesus — you know, following the arc of Mark, the story arc — Mark spends a lot of time telling us about healings and miracles in the beginning. He's establishing who Jesus is, what his power is. And then we hit the transfiguration, and all of a sudden a lot of Jesus' teaching is more focused on his death and his resurrection. Repeatedly. Over and over again.
And this will tie into the end. But you know who loves to hear stories over and over again? Children. Right? Like, there are books that over the course of my years of parenting — which, you know, my oldest is 16, but if you add up all their ages, I've been a parent for like 90 years. So, right — 16 plus 15 plus 14, all the way down, all the years for each individual child.
There are stories that I have read just dozens and dozens of times. And there are books that we've thrown away because of that — I'm like, I will never read that one again, no. But there are others where it's like, okay, yeah, we're going to keep going back to this story.
Children have an insatiable appetite for stories, for teachings. And Jesus, knowing our weak frame, he goes back to the disciples again and again: Listen, I'm going to suffer. They're going to turn me over. I am going to die. And I am going to rise again.
Now, I'm sure it wasn't that concise. I'm sure it was a teaching — he explained it, he gave significance to it.
And the problem isn't a hearing problem. It's not that they couldn't hear his words. They weren't deaf in the normal sense of the word deaf. The problem wasn't an intellectual problem.
Parents, do you ever get this situation where you're reading something to your kids, and then you stop and you're like, "What did I just say?" And they parrot it back to you exactly — the words that you just said — but they have zero understanding of it? Does that happen in your household as well?
It wasn't an intellectual problem. It wasn't that it just didn't sink in. They heard the words. It was part of the conversation. It was a spiritual problem.
The spiritual problem was that they heard — and I know this is hard, but just think about this — they heard, "I'm going to die. I'm going to be handed over. I'm going to die. And then I'm going to be resurrected." And you know what they thought?
Ooh, I like the sound of a resurrection. That sounds pretty good. Like, that sounds like we're there. This is the end times. Glory is coming.
And so, you know, whenever my kids do something, all of a sudden I start preaching about it — those things get integrated in. And so right now we're doing track.
And the way that this has me thinking is: you sign up for the track team, and instead of thinking about, "Oh, I'm going to have practice, and we're going to have town runs, and we're going to do hurdles, and all the hard things that you do" — the sole thought you have when you sign up for track is: I'm going to stand up on that podium and they're going to put a medal on my neck and it's going to be glorious. I am ready for that.
Now we all know that would be foolish. Because what is really the consequence of signing up for track? Running and throwing and the sore muscles and the pain. It's like being pregnant and thinking about, "Oh, it's going to be lovely holding that baby," but then kind of forgetting that there's nine months of difficulty, and then there's the labor.
There's a process to go from point A to point B, and you can't just skip over A because you're really excited for B. You have to do the work to get the results.
The disciples, though — they were ready for the podium. They had heard Jesus teaching about the resurrection and they thought, Ah, here — we're done.
We should be sympathetic. Jesus says, "I'm going to die. And then there's going to be the resurrection. I'm going to be brought back from the dead." And you know what they thought?
Well, of course, everyone's going to believe then. You can't kill someone and have them be brought back from the dead and not have everyone universally say, "The Savior! Death has been overcome and conquered!"
So this must be the end of all things where everyone comes to believe, everyone bows the knee because Jesus came back from the dead. And so now let's start divvying up and trying to figure out which one of us is going to have the seat of honor next to Jesus at the feast of the bridegroom. We're here at the culmination of all things. We're on the inside. Let's get ready to celebrate.
And then what happens? All of a sudden pride starts to swell up inside of you. I should be the greatest. "Oh no, but I was there with him on the mountain at the transfiguration." "Oh yeah, but I went out — he sent me out and I healed that guy over there. Remember that? So I should be the greatest."
Can you guys with siblings think about how this conversation might go? "Oh no, you don't get the front seat — I get the front seat. I get it. You had it last time. And so I get it this time, and I get the biggest piece of cake because of this." Can you just — I know you don't do this at home — but can you imagine the kind of bickering and quarreling over the best stick or the best seat or the best whatever that the disciples fell into?
This kind of pride can swell up anywhere. Kids, it's easy to pick on you because I have kids and I know what it's like. I had a sister, and so I know that. But it happens in churches too.
"I've been here the longest. I've done the most. I'm the pastor. I'm an elder. I'm a deaconess." All of a sudden these entitlements work their way in. And all of a sudden you get groups — "Oh yeah, over here, this is the Paul group. And over here, this is the Apollos group." And then they start fighting over priorities.
These are the kind of entitlements that need to be addressed and killed. Otherwise, the church is at risk of wandering off the path, just like the disciples did.
And then an amazing thing happens. Jesus asks what they're talking about, and what do they say? Nothing. They clam up fast.
It's like when God asked Adam in the garden after the fall, "Where are you?" What did Adam do? He hid.
Silence is a defense mechanism. If you want to stay under the radar, use your stealth technology to stay under the radar — you're quiet. But silence before God isn't neutrality.
Why? Why is God unique when it comes to silence? When God asks a question, you know what he knows? The right answer. The real answer.
So why does God ask questions? Why does Jesus say, "What were you discussing on the way?" It is a test. And did they pass? No. No, they did not.
Because silence can be a lie. If you're accused of something and you're talking with God — who knows your heart — you know what you're saying if you stay silent? "I don't want to tell you." That's the best version. But really it's, "I don't think you know, and so I don't want to get in any more trouble than I really am" — which is the denial of what we really know about who God is.
Does God know the secret thoughts of your hearts? Yes. If you go up to the mountain, can you get away from God? If you climb really high? If you get in a submarine and you go down to the bottom of the ocean, can you get away from God? No. Let's say you go out into the middle of the forest — there's no cell phone reception there — can you get away from God? No.
Where is God? Everywhere. God is everywhere. You cannot escape his knowledge. You cannot escape his knowing your thoughts, your heart, your emotions, your feelings, your desires. He knows it. He knows what it was like yesterday and the day before. You can't get away from it. Your silence — that defense mechanism — doesn't work with God.
Problem is, sin is so easy when you're in it. Can you imagine the disciples walking along the road doing their little one-upsmanship about who should get the best seat? The easiest thing. But then all of a sudden: "Oh yeah, what were we talking about? Oh — how did we — Jesus is asking me what we were talking about. How could we have descended into such stupidity? He was telling us about his suffering and dying. Did we get so far off track?"
We don't often have God call us out for our sins directly. We don't have the voice of God coming in and convicting us of our sins. But what God has given us is the Holy Spirit. He's given us a conscience, and the Holy Spirit works with our conscience to prick us — to prick our hearts, to convict us of our sins — so that when we start down that path, every once in a while you'll get this little conviction:
Maybe it's a word of correction from a friend. A friend told me the story of a man who was gazing at a beautiful woman as he drove his car down the road — and then crashed into the car in front of him. That's a kindness of the Lord. That's a discipline of the Lord. That's a correction. That's a rebuke.
So how do you react to that? How do you react when your conscience is pricked or God's corrective discipline comes and pushes you in a different direction, grabs your attention?
Because there's a stubborn pride in man that when we're caught, we deny the reality of our sin. I think that's what the disciples are doing here. That's why they didn't just immediately say, "Oh yeah, we were pretty impressed with ourselves and we started boasting about who was going to be the best in the kingdom and sit in the best seats."
That stubborn pride — I think it comes from this idea that we think there's an eternal "innocent until proven guilty" standard. So we don't confess our sins. We don't fess up to them. Because if we don't say the words out loud, God can't use them against us in a court later on.
But God knows your sin. He knows your heart. There's no hiding. Even if there was an eternal right to remain silent, it would be of no use — because God knows your bones, your organs, he knows your heart, he knows your secret thoughts.
When God convicts, silence hardens sin. Silence hardens sin. Confession, on the other hand, opens up the means of grace. It's like opening the shades and letting the light come in — that disinfecting light.
So be careful how you respond to being called out for sin. How you respond to God's work in your heart when the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin. You can grow insensitive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. You can squash those thoughts, those feelings, those convictions. You can push them down and harden yourself to the Holy Spirit.
So the disciples stay silent, and Jesus addresses their conversation anyway. It absolutely was a test. They were discussing who was going to be the most important in glory. At a different time, it was an argument over who would sit at Jesus's right hand.
And Jesus says:
"If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all."
This is the heavenly order. And this is what the first of all was going to do. Jesus is the first of all. And he was on his way to the cross. He was on his way to lay down his life, to suffer and die. And he — not just like you and I — he came down from his heavenly throne. So he came down from higher than we have ever been or ever will be. And then he's going lower for us than we can go ourselves.
He's going down to the depths. How? He's going to die. He's going to be buried. That's the ultimate descending — from the heavenly throne to a burial ground.
Jesus is going to be the last and the servant of all as he makes his way to his cross. But the disciples — they don't want the suffering. They don't want to hear about suffering or think about suffering. They're focused on the glory. They want the crown of glory, not the cross.
This is an easy religion to sell. An easy religion to sell is all about the crown, all about the glory, all about the goodness. But it's a superficial religion. Because the reality of the Christian life is that the crown comes after the cross.
They needed to have really heard Jesus's words about being betrayed, his death and his resurrection, and to see that Jesus is preparing himself for that suffering, for that dying. That's what Jesus is committed to — to step down from his seat of glory, the glory that he had before the creation of the earth and everything in it. But they were so focused on what they were going to get, they didn't see the cost. They didn't see what Jesus was willing — was in the process of paying — for them.
And so Jesus decides a picture is in order. He calls a young child.
Children grow up pretty quick. Pretty quick they're toddling around. But this child is a picture — a contrast with what the disciples were. The disciples are there scheming about who's got the best seat. And then all of a sudden he picks up — what, a one-year-old? — and he holds up the child as a picture of humility to pull their eyes off of their upward mobility.
A child with no status, no resume, no wealth. Just a young child.
Children are a delight and a wonder. Babies are beautiful. But they're not impressive. They're not strong. They're not powerful. They're not rich. I mean, their parents might be, but the child himself — what is a child satisfied with in life? Just about anything.
You can give a child a stick, or a pile of dirt, or a simple toy, milk — a cardboard box — and most children are going to be delighted with the simplest of pleasures. The child is not thinking about being the greatest. He has no capacity to compare himself among others. Our minds are full of thinking what's in it for us and how we've got to earn what we get.
I was thinking about this because I invited a man to church this week, and his response to me was kind of funny. He said something along the lines of, "Well, you know, I don't want to go to church because I like to work on Sundays, and I know that in the Bible it says that you're supposed to rest on Sundays — rest on the Sabbath. And so I struggle to go to church."
And if you really think about what he said — he wants to be right before he comes to church. Struggles to rest on Sundays. And not like works from 10:30 till noon — over the church hour — but just working in general.
And I'm sympathetic, because:
And I try to explain that the gospel invites us to rest because Jesus has already done the work. Jesus does not ask us to first work and then earn our rest. No — we're called to this childlike faith that trusts in the Father's provision for us.
"Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. Come to me," says Jesus.
And think about it — he just picked a kid out of the crowd and called him up and then holds him in his arms. There is no glory like being just a received child. Just welcomed.
There's no glory in receiving a little child either. Loving, teaching, caring for little children — it requires love and faith, because it's selfless. When our love and our faith dry up, everything becomes about ourselves. About me — how I'm growing in influence, how I'm growing in money, how I'm growing in stuff.
And I think this is why our generation isn't having children, but is instead killing the children inside their wombs. Because we've given ourselves over to a selfishness — this life is all about me and what I can accumulate, what I can get. This life is all there is. There's no resurrection. There's no hope for after I die. And so we become consumed with what we need today. I can't sacrifice. I can't pour myself out.
But receiving the least in Jesus's name is receiving Christ. And receiving Christ is not just receiving Christ, but is also receiving the Father — the Father who needs nothing.
Because receiving — that's like hospitality. That's giving a cup of water. That's caring for. How do we care for God the Father, the creator of all things? Work the logic back:
So how do we receive the Father? We look at the helpless. We look at the weak. We look at the needy. And we receive them. And receiving them is receiving the creator God who needs nothing.
It's hard to get our minds around. But we see that Jesus wasn't just teaching humility — he was actively walking it out. He was doing it.
And this is what the disciples needed. They failed the test. They couldn't see just from the plain teaching that he needed to die and suffer and be raised again. They needed to experience it. They needed to experience it firsthand.
At the cross, they saw Jesus become the last of all, the servant of all, delivered into the hands of men. They saw him be killed and resurrected on the third day.
So what about you? Are you going to fail the test like the disciples did that day? Or are you going to learn from God's word and the examples that the disciples were for us — the example that God provided for us?
Does that sound weird to anyone — to practice resting? It is. And I know a lot of you, and I think it is hard. The idea of practicing resting, dwelling on God's grace.
Resting in God's goodness. Resting in God's grace. I think that's a challenge for a lot of us. Resting on God's day of rest — clearly a challenge for that man I was talking to. Resting in God's provision that is enough for you today.
And not just enough for you — but what if God brings someone into your life who has a need? Is God's provision enough for you to be generous and share? Is God's provision enough for you to care for a little child?
This is more than just head knowledge. And it's more than just desires. This is a childlike contentedness that allows us to receive Christ by receiving the overlooked neighbor, the uncared-for child, any of those who cannot repay, who have no status, who have no loveliness.
Invite someone into your home that cannot host you in return. This kind of one-way giving, one-way generosity.
Children — little guys — you get two pieces of candy and you see another little kid who didn't get any. Let's say you go to a parade. They're throwing out candy or t-shirts or whatever it is, and you grab something and you see the neighbor didn't get one. What do you do? You give it to them. Maybe.
You bigger kids — candy is not really the thing anymore. How about giving your kindness and friendliness to someone who isn't interesting or exciting? Someone who doesn't provide upward social mobility. It takes love and faith to be kind and to be generous with what God has given you.
But we are to learn to live in faith by seeing that Jesus became last of all. He became the servant of all. He was delivered into the hands of man. He was killed. On the third day, he rose again.
And only after the cross did they finally start to understand what God's kingdom is.
This is the foundation for the life of faith and how we receive Christ — by receiving those who cannot repay us, those with no status, no claim except need, by laying down our rights, our dreams, and desires for those around us.
We don't do this to earn our way. We do this because we've seen that Jesus has done it for us — and that in God's kingdom, greatness is not measured by prominence, but by self-sacrificing love. Not by how high we climb, but by how willing we are to lay down ourselves for the good of someone else.
This is our response to the kindness of God in Jesus Christ — that we would not seek to be first, but follow our Savior who came down from his throne, going all the way down to the grave, so that we might be raised with him.
Heavenly Father, help us. Help us to trust you. Help us to see that you went before us, that you go before us, that you provide for us. Not so that we can grow our own kingdom, not so we can establish our own righteousness, not so we can make ourselves right before you — but Father, out of the overflow of your provision to us, enable us, give us tender hearts to be generous, to lay down our lives for our wives and our children and our neighbors, and first and foremost for our love for you.
Father, we need help for this. We need faith and love for this. Fill us with your Holy Spirit, and Father, make us quick to respond to the work of the Holy Spirit in our life — that conviction of sin — for we are weak and we need you to treat us like children sometimes, teaching us that same story over and over and over again until we learn, and until we start to exercise faith and start to grow in it.
So Father, help us to rest in your grace, in your mercy, all for your glory. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
April 12, 2026 · Mark 9:1-13 · Gospel of Mark
This is God's word, and it is eternally true.
And Jesus was saying to them, "Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power."
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them.
Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
For he did not know what to answer, for they became terrified. Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him." All at once, they looked around and saw no one with them anymore, except Jesus alone.
And as they were coming down from the mountain, he gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man arose from the dead. They seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead meant.
They asked him, saying, "Why is it that the scribes say that Elijah must come first?" And he said to them, "Elijah does come first and restore all things. And yet, how is it written of the Son of Man, that he will suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I say to you that Elijah has indeed come. And they did to him whatever they wished, just as it is written of him."
This is the word of the Lord.
Heavenly Father, may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
So our text picks up right after where we left off a few weeks ago. Jesus had been teaching that the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the church leaders, be killed, and rise again on the third day — the very things that we were just remembering as we celebrated Easter together and Good Friday. Killed and rose again three days later.
Now, the first verse of chapter 9 feels like it almost is more connected with the previous conversation than what follows it. "And Jesus was saying to them" — doesn't that sound like a continuity of what just came before? So verse 1 really almost belongs in chapter 8, and then verse 2 should pick up chapter 9. But we have the chapter breaks we have.
And so Jesus was saying that the things he was talking about — the kingdom coming with power — would happen before those standing right with him died. So what do we know from that? They would not taste death. If you remember back, you have to put your thinking caps on and remember several weeks ago — Jesus had just said, "Take up your cross." He was talking to them about their deaths. And now he transitions and says, "Truly I say to you, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power."
So it seems safe to believe that actually happened. The people that he was talking to weren't going to die before they were going to see the kingdom of God come with power. And then, as if just to prove that, within six days we get the transfiguration. But not all of them. He takes three disciples with him.
If you notice through Scripture, it's really common that Jesus picks three. It's usually Peter, James, and John. They're kind of the inner circle. Like, there's your best friends and then your good friends and then your acquaintances and then everybody you're connected with on Facebook. The really tight inner circle is Peter, James, and John. And he grabs them and takes them up on the mountain.
Two things that we should see from this setting.
What happens in the Bible at certain places? We joke about one of them in my family. You know, what happens at a well? If the Bible says they were at a well, what's going to happen? Someone's going to get married. Romance happens at wells. What happens on mountains?
Well, more than worship — people meet God. That's what we read in First Kings. Elijah hears God's voice. He goes up to the mountain and he hears God's voice. Where does Moses go when he receives the Ten Commandments? To the mountain. He goes up on the mountain. So if you see people in Scripture going up on the mountain, you know what to expect.
Just like when you watch a movie — when the ominous music starts playing and the scene turns dark, you know the bad guy's going to come on the scene. These are just ways God communicates. God is very familiar with this idea that settings matter. Why did God create mountains and valleys? One of the ways is to teach us something. If you go up, prepare to meet God — at least in Scripture.
So why does he grab three men? Why does he grab Peter, James, and John to bring them up on the mountain? This is the other thing that if you know your Scriptures — what's the significance of bringing three witnesses with you?
This is how in their courts of law they could establish something as a verified fact. Deuteronomy 17:6 — at the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses, even crimes justifying the death penalty could be proved. So if you want to establish something as fact — as it really happened — you grab three witnesses. That's your establishment of fact.
So just by knowing the setting, just knowing that Jesus grabbed three guys and went up to a mountain, what can we expect? That Jesus is going to meet God — he's going to hear from God. And that this is going to have to be testified to later on. There's a reason you gather witnesses. There's a reason sometimes you write things in a letter as opposed to saying things out loud — because you want documented fact. You send something certified mail because you want to be able to prove later on that they got notice. Whereas if you just have a phone call, you can't do that.
Verse 2 tells us that Jesus was transfigured. That's a big word. In the Greek, the word is metamorphed. Which — what does that make you think of? Butterflies.
What happens when a butterfly metamorphizes? It goes from a gross worm to a pretty butterfly. Its glory is exposed. It goes from caterpillar-esque — leggy and elongated — and there's some cute caterpillars. But a butterfly? There's a glory of a butterfly. Wings and colors and antennae and — boom — a different thing.
So Jesus is changed from one form to another. Still Jesus. But now what's happening? And if you were here for the Easter service, what does it remind you of? Whiter than snow. When the women got to the tomb, what did they see? It was empty, and there were two angels. And what did the angels have on? Dazzling clothes. The version I read said "dazzling clothes" — it makes me think of an ice skater with sequins. Dazzling. Bright.
Jesus' clothes are described as being so white that the best laundromat in the world couldn't get clothes that white.
Have you seen — they have a black paint these days, and it's the blackest paint ever? They'll take a fork and paint the fork black, then paint the background black. And they'll move the fork in there, and it's indiscernible. You can't see the fork because there's so little light reflecting off of it. It's the opposite of that. This is the whitest, brightest, shiniest thing ever. It's so shiny that the disciples kind of stupefy. They forget what they're doing. Their speech doesn't make sense. They're afraid. They're fearful.
Just imagine that. You walk up the mountain and all of a sudden — you know, today, everybody's got a phone in their pocket that glows. We're used to seeing glowing things. You walk in at home and you turn on your light and your 7,000-watt LED light bulbs shine so much that you can't see anything when they're turned off. Your car headlights shine 17 miles in the distance, they're so bright. We're used to seeing bright, shining things today.
They weren't. If it wasn't the moon or the stars, it was something on fire. They didn't have monitors and screens that just glowed constantly, filling their eyes. You can just imagine — What is going on? This is amazing. This is incredible.
But not just radiating light. Also, Elijah and Moses appear. Now, how did they know it was Elijah and Moses? They're not wearing name tags. I don't know what Elijah looks like. I don't know what Moses looks like. But somehow God made them know that there was Jesus over there conversing with these two guys — and one was Elijah and one was Moses.
Overwhelmed by the scene, Peter wants to fit this glimpse of power and glory into something that he already knows. Six days earlier, Peter was calling Jesus the Messiah, the Christ. Today, he says, "Rabbi" — teacher. Okay, maybe that doesn't mean anything.
But then Peter says, "Let's make some tents. I got an idea. Let's set up some booths. We'll set up one for you, one for Elijah, and one for Moses. This is the kingdom of God right here. We're going to start by just making little huts for you guys to hang out in. And when people want to come visit and hear the word of God, they'll come up here to this mountain and visit you in this little tent."
Which — God's done that before. God's presence came to earth and was specially present in the tabernacle, specially present in the temple. So it's not unreasonable what Peter's hoping for here. It's just — on the scope of what really is happening — Peter's like, "Oh, yes, great. We're going to go to McDonald's for dinner tonight." It's like, yeah, that's something. But — we're going to go get steak, man. This isn't fast food.
He wants to fit what he sees into something that he already understands, something that's graspable for them. If it was today and we saw that, we'd come up with some sort of natural explanation for what happened. "Oh, he must have used some sort of new detergent." Or, "They didn't actually see other guys. It was just this shared hallucination because they all ate the same mushrooms." We would come up with some sort of convoluted explanation that kept things comfortable, that kept things in the realm of how we can understand them.
Sometimes I worry that I pick on Peter too much. But what I see in Peter is what I see in all of us. We want things to be understandable. We want things to be explainable, within our grasp. Let me say it differently — God scares us. God working scares us. God being involved in our lives in ways that we don't have control over scares us. Just like it scared Peter and the other disciples to see what was going on.
Now, God in his mercy protected Peter and James and John by sending a cloud down. This is another thing that God does. When the Ten Commandments were delivered, a thick darkness descended, a thick cloud. God's glory is so overwhelming — his glory and majesty and power.
And so Jesus here, for a moment, reveals some aspect of who he is. His power and his glory through this transfiguration. Most of the time, it was all bundled up and compressed and concentrated down into the person of Jesus. You just look at Jesus, and he looks like a normal person. But here, just for a moment — just a little bit of it — they just got a glimpse of who Jesus really is. And they're afraid.
And then, just like the Father did at Jesus' baptism, he speaks here. And the voice comes out of the cloud and says, "This is my beloved Son."
In both instances, the Father and Son interact. And we should hear this and take it and be careful about some teaching that's fairly common these days — a teaching of either Unitarianism or Oneness, usually Oneness Pentecostalism. I feel like it's growing in popularity and growing in frequency, so it's worth warning you about.
There's a view that says God can only be one. He could not be three. And he just appears in different ways sometimes. It's called modalism, if you want to be technical about it. It's an old heresy that comes up with new flavors and new ways. What it does is it reduces God from being the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — three persons in one God — and reduces God down to, often, just Jesus. Jesus is God. And sometimes this Jesus-God presents himself as the Father. Sometimes this Jesus-God presents himself as a Son. And sometimes this one God, this one person, Jesus, presents himself as the Holy Spirit. That's this Unitarian Oneness idea.
What it doesn't make sense of is when the Father says, "This is my Son, listen to Him." It doesn't say, "Listen to me down there." There's a difference in person, in communication — not just in role, not just in what they do, but who they are. They're different persons. One God, three different persons. Persons who interact, who do different things, who have different responsibilities.
In salvation, God the Father sent Jesus to go do the work of salvation — of purchasing salvation, of being the sacrifice. And then they send the Holy Spirit out to effectuate that salvation by working in the lives and the hearts of man.
So I just want to clarify that this is a good showing of Trinitarianism — of the different persons within the Godhead. And we should be careful and use discernment when we hear people overemphasizing the oneness of God in a way that actually denies who God has revealed himself to be.
Now think about the context of when he says, "This is my beloved Son." Jesus is standing there with Elijah and with Moses. And he says, this one — this one is my beloved Son. Does that mean he doesn't love Elijah and doesn't love Moses? No. That would be foolish. So why does he say it? Why does he especially love Jesus?
One — because he's God. He is the Son. He is co-eternal with the Father. They have always existed together. They have always been in fellowship and relationship. Moses and Elijah were created. There was a day before they existed, and then they existed. God made them to be Moses and Elijah.
But there's something more than that, too.
What did Moses do? A lot of these times, you have to be very familiar with your Bible to understand the rest of the Bible. And this is the glorious thing about these Bible reading programs that get you reading the Scriptures regularly through. You're reading about Elijah, then you're reading the New Testament, then you go back and you read about Elijah, then you read the New Testament — back and forth — because our brains can't get it all in one read-through. We can't get it all with just me standing up here and reading a few verses every week. You have to know Scripture in order to understand Scripture.
Because Moses and Elijah here are real people, but they're also kind of shorthands for ideas. Moses — he's the one who received the law. He got the Ten Commandments. God's people got the Ten Commandments through Moses. Then Elijah — Elijah is one of the most significant and prominent prophets.
And so here we have Jesus with the representative of the law and the representative of the prophets, and God saying, "This is my Son. I love him." And it just fits so nicely in the New Testament idea that Jesus is the fulfillment of the whole Old Testament — both the law and the prophets. And here is Jesus, that fulfillment of it, that beloved Son that both Moses and Elijah helped prepare a people for.
So there is the reality of what's going on, and then there's also the significance of what's going on. And so the cloud comes down, Moses and Elijah disappear, and it's just Jesus there again.
This isn't the culminating event where the kingdom of God is reestablished and the resurrection has happened and all the powerful people get their own tents and tabernacles. This is just a momentary display of Jesus's power and glory, right here on the cusp of the crucifixion — right before the power of the church to condemn Jesus, the power of the Roman Empire to kill Jesus.
Here is Jesus's power just momentarily displayed. The love of God for his Son momentarily displayed. Why would God do this? Why the timing? Why now?
Part of the answer is to show that Jesus willingly laid down his life — that no one took his life from him, that he had all the power and glory. He didn't need to earn the power and glory. He had it all. He had it all with the Father from before all time.
And he came to earth not to establish his own glory, not to establish his own power, not to establish his own standing with God — but to redeem a people, to redeem God's people, the people that would believe and come to the Lord.
This was always in Jesus. It was just veiled. It was just covered up in the man of Jesus. The transfiguration just showed them what he really was — that glory and that power, that magnificence. And they saw it just for a moment, just enough to be able to testify that it was there with Jesus even before the crucifixion.
What we see here is that Jesus brought enough — but not more than enough — witnesses to establish his power and his glory and his beloved status with the Father, even in the presence of Moses and Elijah. Better than the law, better than the prophets. But because it was a preview, Jesus orders these few witnesses not to say anything. This is a sneak peek of what's to come.
Now, what's interesting is the disciples' reaction. Because Jesus starts telling them, "You can't tell anyone until after the resurrection happens." And so they start talking about, "What's he talking about? This resurrection? Did you hear that right?"
And they're like, "Okay, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, Jesus. We've heard the scribes say that Elijah has to come first before the Son of Man comes in his glory. So how — we don't understand how this resurrection is going to happen if Elijah hasn't come first." They're concerned that Jesus has the order wrong, that Jesus has somehow messed up what's really going to happen here.
And again, I just think this is so normal for mankind. We have our understanding of Scripture — how Scripture should work, how God should do things. And anytime it works differently, anytime God reveals something differently, it's like, "Whoa, I'm sorry. No, that's not the order it's supposed to go in."
We understand exactly how the second coming is supposed to proceed. "Wait, sorry, no, that's not right. That was supposed to happen, and then this." How many times during my lifetime has someone said, "Well, this is the fulfillment of this prophecy, and therefore Jesus' return is going to come on June 16, 1987"? I don't know if that was the exact date, but there have been billboards bought announcing — because "we understand with precision these end-time events" — "Therefore, Jesus will return on this day. You better get ready."
And here's the hard part — because this is the hard part that I have with Peter as well. Peter's like, "All right, awesome. Moses and Elijah — let's build the tents. Let's build the tabernacle. Let's go. This is great." And I'm kind of sympathetic. I'm like, yeah, we should celebrate. This is good. We should be ready for Jesus' return. There is a good element of these bad prophetic interpretations. There's a bit of a good heart to it, a bit of a good desire to honor God, to set up tents and tabernacles, to make this be the worship thing.
But the problem is — what do we do when God tells us it's something different?
And let me say — I don't think there's any part of saying "Jesus definitely will return on XYZ date" that's good. We should not do that. He says that no man knows. And so if no man knows, no man knows.
So what's man's problem when it comes to seeing God's revelation? It's sin, and it's our pride in particular. It's our pride that says, "I got it figured out. I know exactly how this is going to proceed, and it's going to proceed just the way I think it should."
This happens with conversions as well. How many people see some famous movie actor or rock star get converted and they're like, "Oh yeah, this is what the kingdom of God needs. We need a celebrity. We need famous people to be Christians, and then everyone will want to be a Christian." Or — "I can never imagine that person getting saved because they're too wicked and they're too sinful." Or — "She used to be, he used to be a fill-in-the-blank, whatever the horrible sin of the moment is. They could never be a Christian."
Christian nations come and go. You look at how the gospel spread — the gospel spread in many places that are now ruled exclusively by Islam. We need to have some humility when it comes to how God reveals himself, how God carries out his purposes. We should hope. We should worship. We should pray. We should be ready for Jesus's return. But the idea that we can reduce that down to a spreadsheet — the idea that we can reduce that down to "I know it's not going to happen because this hasn't happened yet" — is hubris and pride.
And it's the same thing that kept catching the disciples by surprise. Jesus had already talked to them about him dying and rising again three days later. And then he starts talking about the resurrection, and they're like, "What's he talking about? Did he just say resurrection again?"
What's our duty today? Our duty is to praise the Lord. It's not to figure out all the prerequisites and all the fulfillments.
We were talking about something earlier, and Randy and I disagree on something. And you know what's okay? That's okay. We don't agree. Whether something — you know, a hurricane hit, and someone said that was God's judgment. And some people got worked up about that. Was it God's judgment? I think we can wonder. We can have a conviction. And will we know with perfect clarity? Will we know with perfect certainty? We won't. So we have to have a little bit of humility when we have those conversations.
We have to remember that God is the author of Scripture, and that his being, his mind, his words even — the only way that we understand it, the only way that we're not immediately terrified and killed, is when he, by his grace, covers up his glory by putting a cloud in between us and the true revelation of who he is. We just can't even receive it. We can't even accept it. That's how high he is above us. He condescends. He comes down. And the ultimate coming down is Jesus Christ — putting all that glory into the body of man. And then, boom, at the transfiguration, there is just this tiniest little glimpse of it, and it throws the disciples into a tizzy.
Let us have humility with how we come to God. Where God has revealed things clearly, let us cling to them and proclaim them and hold them as true. And where he hasn't, let us exercise humility and grace and compassion with one another as we all stumble through this life trying to figure things out, trying to overcome sin, trying to overcome the defaults that we were raised with — that seeped in through culture and through schooling and through our parents.
We tell our kids all the time — we're just messing you up in different ways than we were messed up. We're pointing you to the truth the best we know how. But you look back on the ways that people used to say things, and they weren't faced with the same kind of trouble that we are faced with now. They had different trouble, and so they had to clarify different things.
This comes up in legal practice all the time — you write something down with an idea in mind. Take the right to bear arms. One of the common objections is, "But they didn't have machine guns at the time. They didn't have rocket launchers. So are arms really arms as we understand them today?" It's a fine question. It's a fair question. And it's a conversation that should happen. But they said "arms" then because that's what they were dealing with. And so we have to use discernment and clarity to look back and try and figure out what was meant before.
The reason I have this in mind is honestly because of our men's study — you look back on some of the confessions of faith, and they talk about Adam and Eve both sinning in the Garden of Eden, and that being the capsule event. And then you look at how our modern culture has taken sex and gender, and we've totally confused everything. Well, you can't look back on things that were written 100 years ago and expect them to have addressed the complications of transgenderism, because that wasn't the conversation.
Now, you can look back on God's Word. Why can you look back on God's Word differently than you can look back on man's word? Because he created us, and he knows all the things — all the controversies that are going to come up. And he chose to write the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek with all the flavors and variations of the words that are used in those languages. And that's how he communicated truth to us.
And so we can look back on God's perfect, unerring, infallible Word — his perfect Word, his perfect communications — and we can look into that even with our 21st-century eyes and try and understand how we should be dealing with problems today.
And the real problem is that the disciples were trying to find a way to avoid what Jesus was saying — that now was coming a time of suffering. Because that's what Jesus kept going back to. Now is coming the time for suffering. And they didn't want the suffering to come. They wanted the glory to come.
So this is what Jesus explains again in verses 12 and 13. He says, "You've missed it. Elijah has indeed come." That was John the Baptist. He came, and they killed him too. That's what they do with God's messengers. That's what they're going to do with God's Son.
The Son of Man must suffer and be treated with contempt. That was God's way of bringing in his kingdom. He was going to come gentle and mounted on a donkey before he came in power and in glory. He suffered many things on our behalf so that he might a people redeem.
So it wasn't a time for building tabernacles. It was a time to prepare for suffering. And that's what the disciples missed time and time and time again. And that's what I fear we're too easy to miss as well — that the Christian life is a time of suffering. It's not a time of glory. It's not a time of honor. It's a time of suffering in this life. And to the extent that we run away from that is doing the same thing that Peter did — denying God's plan, denying what God has prepared for his people.
Heavenly Father, I pray that we would lay down our pride. That we would lay down our hubris. Our rebellion. And that when you say it is a time of suffering — and that there will be continued death and suffering — that we would, instead of losing hope, look forward to the glories of the eternal life with you. The reality of the resurrection. The hope of having eternal bodies that no longer are subject to sin and death.
Father, strengthen us for this. Give us faith and hope. And help us not to turn away from the living sacrifice that you have called us to walk — from picking up our cross and following you. We can't do this on our own strength, Father. We need you. And it is a glorious thing that you went before us — that you didn't call us to do something that you haven't done. But you call us to follow you.
So Father, strengthen us for this work. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.