Who Are You Restricting In Worship?

Mar 9:34 But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest.
Mar 9:35 And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.
Mar 9:36 And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them,
Mar 9:37 Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.
Mar 9:38 And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.
Mar 9:39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.
Mar 9:40 For he that is not against us is on our part.
Mar 9:41 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.
Mar 9:42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.

There is a great concern for Christians in these verses. The idea of this verse is that where you serve and with whom you serve is not as important as whom you serve. There are two things we must realize in connection with this idea.

The first thing is that our idea of service is not the best way of service for all people. Here we have the diverse group of apostles being corrected for believing that their way of service was the only way to serve Christ. Christ was very specific in stressing that we are not to judge, restrict, or hinder another servants service to him because they are performing that service in a way that does not align with our ideas. When we reject these people we are not receiving one of these little ones in His name and we are in essence rejecting Christ. All who profess Christ are a part of His body and we cannot reject a portion of His body without rejecting Him. Do we serve only a portion of Christ? To do this is to join the Pharisees in prescribing worship based upon tradition and not Holy Spirit guidance.

The second thing is that our idea of service is not more important than the spiritual growth of the other person. The idea of offending one of these little ones is to say that anyone who comes behind you is one of these little ones. We are to be very careful about harming their growth or desire for growth. We do not allow sin when it is sin but is not sin to perform a service to Christ in a way that we would not perform the very same service. You see Christ did not dwell outwardly as the apostles when they were concerned that they do not walk with us. Christ said leave them alone because they do walk with us in spirit and truth. After all did He not say this is how the true believers would worship Him?

Therefore, let us take care to worship and serve Christ as God leads. Let us take equal care to not hinder those who are different. After all Jesus chose twelve diverse men to get this point across and He is still forming the body as He chooses despite the wishes of the 21st Century Pharisees.