Great Gain and Great Loss

Mark 9:30-50 · 2024-11-17 · Jason Wolin · Gospel of Mark | Cross and Crown

Mark 9:30-50 · Pride. Great Gain and Great Loss — sermon from Cypress Bible Church on BibleSlides.

Great Gain and Great Loss Slideshow for this message PDF Message Download Introduction Self-centeredness is like spiritual bad breath. Have you ever been talking with someone and you almost involuntarily pull back because the breath is so bad. It’s just nostril violence. And you think to yourself that is coming out of them and they have no idea. How is that possible? But you can’t show it to them. There’s no mirror that let’s you smell yourself. And you want to know what your next thought should be? Do I have bad breath? And you panic for a moment. What if I’m that guy? But how would I ever know? If I’m immune to being able to detect my own stench how would I ever know? Well, you can easily know. It’s very simple. Here’s how? You have to ask? You have to let an objective source outside of you, give you some feedback. Today we are going to see the danger of pride and self-centeredness in our life. And it’s my hope that we see the end destination of pride and self-centeredness would awaken us to take it seriously. Review What does ‘take it seriously’ mean? Ultimately it means allowing the Spirit of God to do his work. Why? Because Spiritual work is done by the Spirit of God. Trying to do spiritual work in the flesh is a lot like trying to stop a hurricane by flapping your arms. We are just as powerless to accomplish Spiritual work as we are to change the course of a storm. Both are things that are outside of our control. Now in the text today what we see is the disciples still very much enslaved to the flesh and therefore in love with their own glory. We see pride and selfishness oozing out of the text today. Their need for the Spirit of God is obvious. Jesus is trying to prepare them for his death and their great need is to take their eyes off of themselves and focus on the glory of God if they have any hope of surviving the trial that lays ahead. Context Now keep in mind the context. The disciples are coming off the experience of a failed exorcism. They couldn’t cast out the demon. And we were told why they failed. We saw the remarkable, incredible reality that they were trying to exorcise demons without prayer. They thought that the demons would listen to THEM. THEY had the power. THEY had the authority. They were SELF-reliant in every way. And this SELF-focus, this SELF-belief, this SELF-POISON, continues all through the text today. So our outline is going to highlight the sins of selfishness. And the reason this is so important to focus on is because SELF-CENTERED thinking inhibits growth. And almost certainly, it’s inhibiting growth in all of us. It is possible: to have all sort of advantages in your life, to be in an environment where you could be absolutely flourishing and growing, to be surrounded by incredible influences but because of pride…

Cypress Bible Church · Full sermon loading below.