Mark 9:38-41 Whoever is Not Against Us
Good Morning! We are back in Mark’s Gospel, chapter nine, verses 38-41, page 845 in the pew Bibles.
I hope you have enjoyed being put through the ringer in the Gospel of Mark as I have, I hope so because we aren’t finished!
Last week we were with Jesus and His disciples in Capernaum, probably in the house of Peter, dealing with the selfish ambitions of the disciples and their willful ignorance of the plan of God that was playing out before them.
Jesus ended that passage we looked at with the phrase, “Whoever receives one such child as this in my Name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but Him who sent me…”
And then John pipes up… “Speaking of doing things in your Name…”
Mark 9:38…
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. 41 For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.
Let’s pray
So what’s happening here? Jesus and the disciples are here in Capernaum on their way to Jerusalem and to the cross, whether or not the disciples wanted to admit it. They have gathered in a house, maybe Peter’s house, we don’t know, and Jesus has been instructing them, and to be honest, He has been exposing some pretty serious misunderstanding on their part as well as some pretty serious character flaws.
Unfortunately for them and for us, He is not finished.
The disciples had earlier tried to stop a guy from casting out demons in the Name of Jesus. What do we know about this guy? Not much on the surface, he was just some guy. But let’s dig a little deeper.
Where were Jesus and the disciples again? Capernaum
Had they ever been there before? Yes
Had Jesus preached and cast out demons around there before? Yes
Here’s the most important question, had anyone else cast out demons in Jesus’ Name anywhere around there before? Yes
We have to go back to Mark 6:7-13.
7 And [Jesus] called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts— 9 but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. 10 And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 11 And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. 13 And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.
So what does this tell us? It tells us that we can safely assume that this guy had come to faith in Jesus either through the preaching of Jesus Himself or the disciples, and that He had witnessed the disciples casting out demons in Jesus’ Name, so he was just following their example by faith.
Was this a good thing? Yes. Did the disciples see it that way? No.
So what was the problem?
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”
Not, “because He wasn’t following YOU,” but, “because he wasn’t following US.”
The disciples saw this guy as unjustified in his actions because he wasn’t following Jesus with them, he was just off on his own, not part of their group.
Here is a guy who clearly has faith in Jesus Christ, who just didn’t leave home to follow Jesus and the disciples. Maybe he lived in Capernaum, or somewhere near there, heard the gospel from Jesus or the disciples on their missions trip, came to faith, but stayed home, he didn’t drop everything and leave, he just stayed put but shared what was freely given to him with others.
But instead of being celebrated for his faith and his work for the kingdom, he was vilified by the disciples and they tried to make him stop without asking Jesus about it first. They felt justified in trying to stop him because he was not a part of their group, they thought he was unjustified in his actions because he wasn’t one of them.
I want to think the best of the disciples and say that they just thought that if you’re going to work for Jesus then you had to leave everything like they did in order to follow Him…
But given the context and how they had just been exposed for their selfish ambition, it’s hard to imagine that their motivation for stopping this guy from casting out demons in Jesus’ Name was anything other than a desire to keep the honor of doing that work for themselves. They acted rashly, they didn’t seek the Lord’s Word on the subject, and stopped a man who was working for the Lord and His kingdom.
John says, “Jesus, we tried to stop a guy from casting out demons in your Name because he wasn’t one of us, isn’t that great?”
And Jesus replies with a short, three point sermon. He gives us three ‘for’s.”
39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. 41 For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.
Do not stop him…
For no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.
For the one who is not against us is for us.
For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.
The first, “for.”
For no one who does a mighty work in my Name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.
This man had enough faith in Christ to cast out demons in His Name, he couldn’t possibly immediately turn around and dishonor the Name of Christ. This wasn’t a power that one could just buy and misuse for their own gain like Simon the Magician wanted to do in Acts 8. And he wasn’t a false exorcist like the seven sons of Sceva in Acts 19 who tried to cast out a demon in the Name of Jesus that Paul preaches and got beat to a pulp and chased off.
The man had authentic, saving, powerful faith in Jesus and would not be able to perform a mighty work one minute in Jesus Name and then turn around and blaspheme that same Name.
The Second, “for.”
For the one who is not against us is for us.
This man was a reverer of Jesus’ Name and a promoter of His cause, he was sincere in his faith and confidence, there was no reason to stop him.
Paul wrote about this from a Roman prison in Philippians 1:12-18
12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
What was Paul saying? Even though people were preaching Christ to make his life more miserable than it already was he rejoiced because either way Christ was being proclaimed.
The disciples should have done the same but they didn’t.
The third, “for.”
For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.
This is by no means a method for buying one’s way into the kingdom, rather it is a subtle form of Christ worship.
JP Lange wrote, “The respect and love which is even outwardly shown you in the very slightest degree by men in the world, for Christ’s sake, or in His name, proves that they stand in a certain spiritual connection with Him, which under His blessing may increase and become more strict. The smallest token of friendship you receive as disciples of Christ, is a token of friendship to your Master, which is rewarded by Him with the blessing of greater friendship.”
The disciples had been paid a great compliment by being imitated in their work for the kingdom but rather than accept imitation as the sincerest form of flattery, they took it as a slight against their imagined authority.
So here’s the problem with all of this. It’s easy to point out the flaws and foibles of the disciples, they really make it easy. The trouble is, they are a mirror of our own hearts.
Matthew Henry wrote, “Thus we are apt to imagine that those do not follow Christ at all who do not follow Him with us, and that those do nothing well who do not do just as we do. But the Lord knows them that are His, however they are dispersed; and this instance gives us needful caution, to take heed lest we be carried by an excess of zeal for the unity of the church, and for that which we are sure is right and good, to oppose that which yet may tend to the enlargement of the church and the advancements of its true interests in another way.”
Unity is not the same as unanimity, nor uniformity. We are not all the same, nor do we all always agree, but we can certainly unite under Jesus as Lord.
My assumption is that you all are gathered here in this place with these people because you like it here, that it suits you and just feels right, that’s fine, that’s good, but that doesn’t mean that those who gather across town that feel the same way about where they are or who they are with are wrong so long as they are gathered in Jesus’ Name.
We must be careful to avoid the trap that the disciples had fallen into, the trap of narrow exclusivity, vilifying all but themselves, as if they were the only ones who got it right. Jesus’ Church is a vast expanse of people who love Him and who follow Him and His Word it may just look or sound or feel a little different than how we do it.
We must still measure everything by God’s Word just don’t get trapped in thinking that our interpretation of how it all works out is the only right interpretation just because we like it more or it suits us better. Whoever is not against us is for us!
Amen.
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