The Spirit of Rejection

Mark 9:38-41.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, January 26, 2020.

The title of this sermon does not use the term “spirit” in the sense of a spiritual being, or demon.  Instead, I am using it in the sense of an attitude, a temperament, or a disposition that overwhelms a person.  How easy it is for us Christians to cop an attitude that is too quick to reject others.  This can go many directions, but we are going to see that such an attitude is not one that Jesus had.

Last week, we mentioned how this chapter hinges on the issues of acceptance and rejection.  The religious leaders were already in the middle of rejecting Jesus and would execute him because they did not want to surrender their leadership of Israel.  The disciples of Jesus did not understand that their desire to be the greatest of his followers was of the same “spirit” as the Pharisees and Sadducees.  Their desire to be great would keep them from treating other believers properly.  Jesus had told them that if they did not turn from such a path and become like little children then they would not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  This issue is clearly very important to Jesus.

The principle that Jesus laid down is this.  To receive the least person in his name is to receive him, which also means, to reject the least person in the name of Jesus is to actually reject Jesus and the Father who sent him.  In that passage, the least of believers in your own group is immediately what was in view.  However, today’s passage clarifies that Jesus intended the scope to be far greater.  There are many believers throughout this world and it is easier for us to recognize that God’s work on this earth is greater than any one group of Christians, be it a local church, a network of churches, or a denomination.  However, they did not have such divisions in their day and the Gospel was not so wide spread.  The disciples did have a clear understanding of who was in their group of 12 and the greater group of 70 that Jesus had given power to minister in Israel.  Today’s story is about a man who was not a part of this group of disciples.

Now, let me just say up front that there are those who pretend to be believers, but are false apostles and false teachers.  They should be rejected.  That is not what is happening in this story and it is not what Jesus is forbidding.  So, let’s learn the lesson our Lord has for us today.

Don’t reject Christians just because they are not from your group

If your Bible uses paragraph headings then it might label this section something like, “Jesus Forbids Sectarianism.”  I think the word “sectarianism” falls short of what Jesus is saying, and yet, I am hard pressed to come up with a better word.   So, I have described what Jesus is teaching in a longer form.  Don’t reject other believers simply because they are not from your group of believers.

Churches can be cliquish towards believers who are not a part of their church, denomination, or theological persuasion.  I purposefully used the word “just” in my description of this main point because Jesus is not teaching that everyone outside of their group is to be accepted.  Make sure you caught what I said in that last sentence.  There is nothing special about being other.  The problem is that we can reject people with a knee-jerk reaction that is typically self-serving, based on pride, and sometimes because we want to be great, mainly because they are other.

As Jesus is talking, John brings up a situation that they had run into when Jesus was not with them. They had run into a man who was successfully performing the miracle of casting out demons, or an exorcism.  It is important to recognize that the man was doing this “in the name of Jesus.”  This phrase is a direct connection to the previous story, which also employs this phrase, but we will come back to this.

John explains that they had told him to stop performing these miracles because, “he didn’t follow us.”  I believe that the “us” here includes Jesus.  They are not emphasizing themselves excluding Jesus.  Rather, they recognize that this is not a person who has been a part of the group of disciples who followed Jesus.  Now, we should not make a bad judgment either way, overly to the man’s good or to his bad.  It is a valid question to ask why this man who clearly believes that Jesus has power over demons isn’t actually following him.  He has clearly seen Jesus cast out demons and has probably heard some of his teachings.  Yet, he is seemingly off on his own doing his own thing.  John proclaims that their concern was his lack of following Jesus, but it is not clear why this is a problem. 

Why is that bad?  They may see him as a loose cannon who is not under the direct control of Jesus.  Or, perhaps this is simply a matter of pride.  He did not get an official authorization from Jesus like they did.  The truth is probably a mixture of many such motivations.  The disciples had been able to cast out demons when Jesus had sent them out in groups of two to the towns of Israel.  Yet, in verse 18 of this chapter, they had failed to cast out a particular demon that was more difficult.  I don’t know if that failure happened before or after their interaction with this man.  If it happened before then maybe their pride is injured and they are taking out on this man.  If it happened afterwards then maybe God is trying to help them see that their pride is not good.  Regardless, we should recognize that when it comes to religious issues, Christians and Christian leaders do not always have pure motives behind what they do.  This is just as true for me as it is for others.  We must work hard to restrain our quick reactions no matter how we can justify them.  Like David, we must take time to ask the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and to help us make right decisions for pure reasons.  It was not the Holy Spirit that was leading them to shut this man down.

Jesus then tells them that they should not stop this guy or anyone like him.  He gives several principles that can help us to navigate these waters.

He starts by saying, “No one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterward speak evil of me.”  Notice the qualifier, “in my name.”  The Old Testament warns about people who may perform a miracle and yet lead people away from God, i.e. false prophets.  That is not what is happening here.  The man is crediting Jesus.  In fact, he is using the authority of Jesus to cast out the demons.  He is taking a stand against the evil kingdom of Satan in the name of Jesus.  He is clearly a believer that Jesus is the Messiah and that the power of God is with him.  Perhaps, he is one of the disciples of John the Baptist who were not quick to walk away from John and follow Jesus, and yet, knew that John declared Jesus as the Messiah.  Jesus emphasizes that a miracle that is done in his name, or for his glory, can only be done through a person who is legitimately believing in Jesus.  Miracles are not that easy to do.  In fact, no one “does” a miracle.  The reality is that, when a real miracle happens, the power of God does the miracle through those who are acting in faith in Jesus.  It is not possible for someone who, first, has a relationship with Jesus marked by bold faith, and, second, is clearly recognized by the presence of the power of God, to quickly turn walk away from him, i.e. apostatize. 

Notice that he does not say it is impossible.  Rather, that it is not easily done.  The name of Jesus is not some kind of magic word or spell that makes evil spirits obey you.  It is our relationship with Jesus that those demons recognize and fear.  The disciples were physically with Jesus most of the time, and this man was not.  Yet, are not we in the same position as him?  None of us have physically sat at the feet of Jesus and received his teaching and authority to minister on his behalf.  We follow Jesus in the same way that this man was “following Jesus,” by faith.  A person who is following Jesus by faith and even exercising that faith boldly will find that the Holy Spirit will help them and work through them regardless of how good their credentials are.  We must understand that a person can be saved in the morning and be used mightily by the Holy Spirit in the afternoon because they have a real relationship with Jesus by faith.

The next phrase that Jesus gives is this.  “For he who is not against us is on our side.”  This is different from the common maxim, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” which Jesus never taught.  It emphasizes not the enemy, but Jesus himself.  Those who do not fight against Jesus and his disciples should be treated as being on our side, even if they aren’t physically with us because Jesus is greater than our group, and is not limited to our group and the ways he is using us.

The last phrase is interesting because it speaks beyond the issue the disciples were dealing with here.  Basically, Jesus promises that those who bless someone who belongs to Christ in his name, that is as a believer themselves, will be guaranteed a reward from him.  We are not sure if the man was successfully shut down by the disciples.  Did he go home despondently and quit?  Or, did he wait until they left and then continue what he was doing before?  We don’t know.  Jesus is telling his disciples that they should quit trying to treat the man like an enemy.  Jesus would reward that man just as surely as he would reward them. 

In fact, there is a bit of a twist in the way Jesus words this.  The man was actually blessing people (when he cast out the demons) who were in bondage to demons.  They were not believers in Jesus.  Christians often get hung up on one side of this or the other.  We are either quick to accept the lost and yet struggle with our relationship with other believers, or we are good at accepting other believers, but struggle with helping the lost.  The disciples could have blessed this unknown brother and encouraged him in what he was doing.  However, they missed out on a reward that day.  Their desire to be great in Christ was actually diminishing the reward that they would receive from him.  Wow, take some time to think about that one.

Let me close this by challenging us.  What spirit is animating my words and actions towards the lost, and towards other believers?  Of course, we want to quickly say that it is the Spirit of the Lord.  Yet, it is often a mixture.  We want to please the Lord, like those disciples did, but we also have other motives floating around our heart that are less pure.  Pride, the desire for greatness, envy, jealousy, strife, such things can cause us to be harsh towards one another when we shouldn’t be.  The disciples were rejecting the ministry of this man that they didn’t know.  They may have told themselves that they were doing this for Jesus, but the truth is that they were doing it for themselves. 

May God help us to be humble before Him, but also to be humble before all those who name the name of Christ.  It is not my job to police everyone who appears to be doing stuff for Jesus.  They are his servant and will stand or fall before him.    We are not in a contest against each other, but rather a battle against the forces of darkness that is directed by Christ himself in ways that we do not always understand.  Beware a spirit of rejection that tries to control how people are working for Christ without the true leading of his Holy Spirit.

Rejection audio