We Size One Another Up

“If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35 ESV)

Last Sunday Pastor Eric preached from Mark 9 and the interchange between Jesus and his disciples over greatness. What truly makes a person great? How is greatness measured? And how does this shape our relationship with others, especially those we only know from a distance?

The irony was that the disciples were arguing about greatness while walking with the greatest man who has ever lived. You would think His presence would have humbled his disciples, but it didn't. And still doesn't.

We size one another up.

"...from the first moment when a man meets another person he is looking for a strategic position he can assume and hold over against that person...all this can occur in the most polite or even pious environment.

The important thing is that a Christian community should know that somewhere in it there will certainly be "a reasoning among them, which of them should be the greatest." It is the struggle of the natural man for self-justification. He finds it only in comparing himself with others, in condemning and judging others. Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together." (Dietrich Bonhoffer, Life Together)