Unity in Humility

The Son of Man’s Death and Resurrection Foretold

Our text today is in Mark chapter 9, will be verses 30 through 50. Then they left that place and made their way through Galilee, but he did not want anyone to know it, for he was teaching his disciples and telling them, the son of man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.

They will kill him, and after he is killed, he will rise three days later. But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask him. They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, what were you arguing about on the way?

But they were silent, because on the way, they had been arguing with one another about who was the greatest. Sitting down, he called the 12 and said to them, if anyone wants to be first, he must be last and servant of all.

He took a child, had him stand among them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, whoever welcomes one little child, such as this in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me does, sorry, and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but him who sent me.

John said to him, teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn't following us. Don't stop him, said Jesus, because there is no one who will perform a miracle in my name who can soon afterwards speak evil of me, for whoever is not against us is for us, and whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because of you belong to Christ.

Truly, I tell you, he will never lose his reward, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away, it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, and if your hand causes you to fall away, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, the unquenchable fire, and if your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell, and if your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out.

It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched, for everyone will be salted with fire.

Salt is good, but if the salt should lose its flavor, how can you season it? Have salt among yourselves and be at peace with one another. Let's pray. King Jesus, we're grateful to be gathered in your presence, Lord, freely to hear your word preached, Lord, to sing songs of praise to you.

God, I pray that as we hear this word, that we would have hearts that are humbled, understanding that our salvation comes by faith through grace, Lord, that you've given it, and so, Lord, as we read in the call to worship, that we wouldn't be haughty.

Lord, that we would be lowly in your sight. And so, God, I pray for Pastor Josh as he presents the word, Lord, that your word would pierce our hearts, Lord, that we would see you for the glorious God that you are, and Lord, that we would be grateful and humble servants to your kingship.

Lord, just, I pray that our worship, our praise, Lord, that the message of your word would be pleasing to you this morning, and Lord, that everyone in this place would leave seeing your glory, Lord, with hands lifted high, and Lord, hearts turned toward you.

It's in your powerful name that we pray, amen.

The Humility of Christ and the Disciples’ Failure to Understand

Context, context, context. Last week, we saw the transfiguration, and we saw the man who came to Jesus knowing that his faith was not enough, and so he asked Jesus for faith. I do believe, help my unbelief.

And so, in the passage today, we get a contrast very sharply to the man who prayed to Jesus, who asked Jesus for more faith. We look at the continued blindness of the people who were embedded with Jesus every single day for years.

The disciples continue to not see. As we begin the passage today, Jesus is going to give his second of three in Mark clear prophecies of his death and resurrection, and the disciples don't get it. We're going to see in this passage how the disciples have started to look a little bit more like the scribes and the Pharisees jockeying for position, and they're trying to edge out anyone who would horn in on their ministry.

They like the show, and they like the flash, and the popularity, and so Jesus is going to turn to them, and so the message today, the lesson today is about humility and how the kingdom of God advances through humility in God's people.

So I've broken this lengthy text into four sections for us to look at, so I'm going to go through those right now. First, at the ultimate humility of Jesus, and then second, the embarrassing pride of the disciples, third, the principles of cooperation, and then fourth, the eternal danger of pride.

So let's look first at the ultimate humility of Jesus. That is looking at Mark 9, verses 30 through 32. I know that you just heard them read. I'd like you to look at those. This is the part where they are going through Galilee, and he doesn't want anyone to know about it.

That's a sad verse. We miss that, but it's a sad verse because what's happening is Jesus is now leaving his hometown. Galilee is where he grew up. It's his hometown. Everyone knew him there, and we've seen that he's done his ministry in Galilee, and so now he's packing up, and he's leaving town, and he doesn't want anybody to know about it because a prophet is not accepted in his hometown.

We've seen adversaries in the scribes and the Pharisees in Galilee, and then he gathers his disciples, and this passage in Mark, he's really been focusing, really chapter eight through 10, he's gonna focus on his disciples.

He's going to try to teach them what's about to happen so that they can fulfill the mission that he's going to give them when he comes back, but they don't understand. They don't understand. It's a difficult teaching, and it occurs to me that the Son of Man being delivered into the hands of men and that they will kill him, and when he has been killed, he will rise again three days later, is really the most strange and self-attesting doctrine of the Christian faith.

There is no other world religion that would conceive of their God dying for the people because God is almighty. Every other religion wants to hold up how invincible and how proud and how alone their God is, all while ascribing that human beings can really kind of be like God if they're good enough, but the Christian God, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the prophesied empire crusher is the humble servant also.

It's a paradox. It's a paradox that also happens to be true, is that this doctrine of Jesus, the suffering servant who would die, who would be delivered into the hands of malicious men to be killed by his own creation is the most self-attesting doctrine of Christianity.

How do we know it's true? No religion would make this up. It's really quite insane to think about. It's not a religion cooked up by man. It is a religion that is given to man by God through revelation.

Jesus, the Son of Man, would be delivered into the hands of men to be killed, and not only to be killed, but to be crucified, to be killed in the most gruesome way that men could concoct in that time, not only to be crucified in a gruesome way, but to be crucified by the very empire.

That he was prophesied to crush.

This is the empire of Daniel that is the iron feet mixed with the clay that this stone that's not cut by human hands is going to propel and crush this whole statue. It doesn't look like Jesus is here to crush the Roman Empire.

That's what the disciples think is going on, and they can't understand because they have an idea. We're following the Messiah. They've professed it over and over again. We're following the Christ. You have the words of life.

Where else would we go? And yet, at the same time, they equate Christ with throwing off Roman oppression, but Jesus is going to throw off Roman oppression through his death and through the erasure of sin and death.

Hell, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? It's being taken away, and this is a difficult teaching. It's a difficult teaching today. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians, just as it is written, things which the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all it has God prepared for those who love him.

But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. Everything that you know about God, everything that you know of God, is given by the Holy Spirit.

If repetition is the key to learning, and if you've seen nothing else through the last few chapters, you should see this. You are not saved by your own work and by your own acceptance of Christian propositions.

It's not possible. The disciples saw the unrobed, unmasked figure of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, in his glory, and they don't understand. They saw him casting out demons, prophesying his death, healing the lame, healing the blind, and they don't understand.

The reason why is because the time has not come. The time has not come. So the Son of Man, he's going to come and he's going to die, and the disciples don't understand.

They don't understand.

And what they really don't get is they don't get the humility of the kingdom of God. And this is an example, as Jesus is the great shepherd who will lay down his life for the sheep. He's prophesied that he would do that.

Remember, he's going to make them lie down in green pastures. He is guiding them with his rod and his staff that comforts them. And the way he's going to do that is by making a way into the holy places where there was no way before, because the sacrifices of bulls and goats does not make anyone clean.

It's in God's forbearance that he let those sins go by until they were all punished on the cross through Jesus. How long, how long? This is the disciples, and I think Jesus has to be, it's tough, right?

These men are following you around, they're listening to your words, they're seeing the miracles. James, John, and Peter, they see you on the mountain, and you hear these crowd people who are following, who trust in Jesus and their desperation.

They know that Jesus will heal them or they know that he will cast out the demon, and the disciples don't get that. And Jesus, last week, he said, how long will this generation continue in unbelief? It recalls Numbers 14, 11, Yahweh said to Moses, how long will this people spurn me?

And how long will they not believe in me despite all the signs which I have done in their midst? And this is where we will make the turn into point number two, and I think that, I think there is no more timely message for reformed Christians and people in reformed churches than the one that we're gonna hear this morning.

We are purveyors of the embarrassing pride of the disciples. I see it over and over, I see it everywhere. Look, sometimes it's stunning to see in other people, but it's even more terrifying when we realize that we can carry this pride around in ourselves and we can be totally blind to what Christ has called us to do, all the while assenting to all of the prophecies and all of the knowledge and wisdom of our doctrine.

It's amazing. These disciples know more doctrine than anyone walking around. Jesus is teaching them every day, every day, and they don't understand. So Jesus tells them, understand, he tells them, I am going to die at the hands of men.

I'm going to be delivered over and I'm gonna die and then I'm gonna rise again. And here's what the disciples do. They take that and they start arguing among themselves about who's going to be the greatest.

Let me answer the question. Who is going to be the greatest?

Christ.

Jesus is the greatest. Jesus is the head of the church. I'm not the head of the church. You're not the head of the church. Joseph Spurgeon's not the head of the church. No one is the head of the church except Christ.

And so all the rest of us, we go at his whim and we go at his will and we accomplish his purposes. So Jesus asked them, the embarrassing pride of the disciples, we're looking at verses 33 through 37. If you don't remember those, read them back.

They're coming to Capernaum and he starts to ask them, he asked them, what were you discussing on the way? I love this, it's mastery teaching. And it's a mastery way to rebuke someone that you know is walking in sin.

Ask them the question about what they were doing and make them say it. What were you doing the other day when you said this? It's a great way to start to get in. And Jesus understands as the teacher. He asked them, what were you guys discussing on the way?

What do they do? They don't want to tell him. They don't want to tell him. So get this. They're not embarrassed enough. They'll have the argument. They'll sin. They'll do the prideful thing. But when asked about it, they don't want to tell anybody.

Isn't that the way with the darkness of man's heart is that we love to enjoy our sin and we love to invest and pet the pet sin in our heart and we think that we've got it in a cage and we think that it's all under control until somebody asks us about it.

Brother, were you lying when you said that the other day? And we go, ooh, I didn't know they knew. And what we want to do is we want to defend and we want to cover. And that's what the disciples do. How ridiculous is it to be walking day by day with the Lord of glory, the son of man, the empire crusher, and to be having a discussion about which one of you is going to be the greatest one in the kingdom of God?

It's ridiculous. And it is a sin that infects the American church today. It infects us. Who is the greatest? That question has permeated the Christian world since the outset of the church. And we have to destroy this inclination.

We must make war on it. Whether it's conferences that are raking in millions of dollars or, more close to home, it's the mean local politics of small churches. The power struggle over who is the greatest is real.

I had a humorous, you have to laugh because it's so sad. A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with Corey where he was talking about church splits and literally that the pastor would line up half the church and he would say, if you're with me, you get on this wall.

And if you're against me, get on this wall. And they would get across the church and yell at each other and fight. This is the sin of pride, right? This is what happens. And really, I admire that church more than the Reformed church that just gossips about it and creates the self campaign.

I would rather us set up on two sides and just scream at each other than let the wildfire of gossip run through and divide us secretly and invisibly because everything that's done in secret is going to be brought out.

And that's what the disciples, they don't understand it.

They don't understand.

And guys, this is especially prevalent where ministry success has taken place. We can start feeling high on the hog. Been going less than two years, got a church plant. Look at us. People love coming to hear me preach.

Thank you, God.

Praise be to he, right? That's the stuff we'll say. It's so ridiculous. It has to be said that way. It's more ridiculous even than what the disciples are doing here because listen, guys, we have a greater word than they did.

We have greater degree of revelation. We know more than they did. Believe it or not, we know more than they did. They did not have the codified, canonized version of the word of God in front of them. There was a lot of oral tradition.

There was a lot of face-to-face teaching. You guys been face-to-face taught, right? You know how long it takes for these things to take root in your life. You don't get it after one time. It takes walking over and over again.

It takes failure. And we learn and we work and it still doesn't sink in. So they won't answer. But the Lord, like a lawyer, like a good attorney, he doesn't ask a question that he doesn't already know the answer to.

What are you guys talking about? Who's the greatest? And then he doesn't wait for them to answer. They don't give an answer because they're embarrassed. And so what does he do? Go, oh, really scored points there.

I'm gonna leave that one. No, he pushes the knife in deeper. Because this sin, if you've read the Proverbs, you know what is the sin that offends God the most?

It is pride.

Why?

Because pride is the sin of Satan in the very beginning, is it not? I will be like him and I will rule. In mankind, we look at our creator and we go, oh yeah, that's really good. That's great, God, I'm glad you've made this nature, but I've bent nature to my will and I will rule.

I will rule my life. And God looks at that and he rejects it. He resists it. Do you know what it's like to be resisted by God? Are you ever gonna win that battle? No, you're done if you are resisted by God.

So we should probably run the other direction. So what Jesus does, and that's gonna carry us through the rest of the passage today, is that Jesus identifies the lethal danger of pride to the mission of God, okay?

So what does he do? He comes up and he brings up an object lesson, right? He brings up a child and he says, anyone who wants to be first in this kingdom is going to minister to one like this. He brings an object lesson.

So what is he saying through that? Well, let's look really quickly what humble men act like. We know what proud men act like, don't we? Do you want me to review? Here's what pride acts like. Pride is always about self, even through humble brags, right?

It's always gonna direct every story back to myself. Yeah, I thought we were talking about me, okay? It's gonna talk about my spirituality. It's gonna talk about how good I look. It's gonna talk about all the works that I've done.

It's gonna talk about all the success that I've done. And guess what? It's gonna be jealous of anyone who comes up and rivals my success, right? So we get a bunch of idiots in the pulpit because they're the biggest idiot of all who thinks that they're the best and anyone who challenges them, they're gonna stamp them down.

It's satanic. It's completely unchrist-like because the kingdom of God is bountiful blessing that is not limited. Are there any limits on the blessing of God? Are we running out of the blessings of God?

Are we running out of spot in the kingdom of heaven? Are we running out of righteousness? No, the Bible is a well of righteousness and he gives it freely to those who ask. Help our unbelief, right? So proud is all about self.

It's all about stamping anyone else down. It's all about causing divisions and making someone else's stick shorter to make yours look longer. That's the way it works. You're approaching me and you think you're as good as me, I will cut you down through a stealth campaign usually because we're cowards.

And that's what proud people are like too. They are cowards. They do not want anybody to know. They wanna lie and they wanna live in secret and they wanna appear righteous while having hearts of malice and envy.

It's disgusting. And we all feel it, do we not? So what do humble men act like? Well, first, humble men love people who cannot promote them. These men in this time, as Jesus brings this child up, remember, we're not even, we don't know this child's name, right?

We don't know his lineage or her lineage. No one knows about this child. This child is lost to history. And Jesus brings this child up and he says, first, if you wanna be great in the kingdom of God, this is who you serve because this person offers you nothing.

And you know what? You'll see it later. The disciples, they weren't all that concerned about people offering people a glass of water in the name of Jesus. They were worried about the miraculous work of casting out demons because casting out demons brings a crowd and giving somebody a cup of water doesn't draw any attention to you.

So it's about certain works in the kingdom of God. In our day and age, it's mostly about preaching, right? And making, building a platform. That's what builds pride. Humility is not about that. Humility is serving people who can never give you any earthly reward for doing so.

They love the people who cannot promote them. They sacrifice for those who offer nothing and they say nothing about it. Matthew 18, four, whoever therefore will humble himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

And we know that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist. Anybody as good as John the Baptist in here? The greatest man born of woman? The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than him.

And if you are humble and you have the humility of a child, do children think themselves great? Well, yeah, in their delusion, but eventually they start to realize like, hey, they can't really do anything.

Like my kids, it's like, hey, I want a cookie. They come and ask me, or well, no, let's be real. They come and ask Kelsey, right? They're not asking me because I don't hear them until the fifth time they've said it, right?

This is the power of manliness, right? We don't hear things, but they are humble. They know they're dependent. They know that they need things. So a humble person knows that they need things. You know what we primarily need?

Faith.

We need faith.

We need to ask for it. Matthew 18, three, the verse before, truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So what are children like?

Is he saying be stupid like children? No, he's not saying that, right? Are we to only take the milk like children? No, no. What he means here is that we have to have the faith of children that is dependent, that is not out ahead of itself, that realizes we can't do anything by ourselves, that we need the condescension and the compassion of a holy God.

We can't do it ourselves. And that is the antidote to pride. You can't be proud if you understand that you can't do anything. How can we be proud about the church and its ministry success if we know that God builds the church and that he uses stupid idiots like me to do it?

Why?

Because the more idiotic I am, the more glory to God. And guys, if you don't know, I'm an idiot, right? I do stupid things all the time. A couple of weeks ago, I hit like 15 golf balls straight to the right every single time.

Like hitting the house, just shelling the house like an idiot. Like, can't fix it. That's what I am. That's who you're following, right? But you're not following me, you're following Christ. That's the idea.

Humble men and humble women know that they are dependent. They point to Christ, not only in the pulpit, but in everyday conversations and relationship. This is not a game that we can be playing. If you talk to me in my personal life, you should see Christ in my family and you should hear him coming from my mouth.

That's what we should talk about. Not in a weird, pietistic way where it's like, oh, brother, I know that you wanted to read this book, but let's really talk about the greatness of the gospel right now.

It's not like that, okay? But Jesus is forefront in our lives and we live our lives in honor of him. And we point to that. You know what? This is the hardest thing. You know what humble men do? Is they call out sin directly and they continue discipling.

Because we don't hold our comfort and our relationships with people up more than the eternal danger of sin. So we call out sin directly and men who will call out sin directly in personal conversation, they know that that conversation is coming right back at them eventually.

And so somebody who's got a bunch of dirt that they're hiding up, they are not gonna accuse you of sin in a personal way, all right? Understand, clear conscience, right? You will call out sin if you have a clear conscience and that's what humility looks like.

Being humble before your Lord. Let me give you one last one and this is what Jesus typifies in this passage. Humble men do not grow easily frustrated, but they keep going. Do you think it would have been easy for Jesus to be frustrated with these guys that are following him around?

Man alive, they don't get it. They just don't get it. Over and over, what is he gonna have to do? Well, he knows, right? He knows and these men, these men that he appointed before the beginning of time, these men that are gonna follow him, one of whom is going to betray him, right?

He knows that those men are going to build the church through the confession and he has called them and he is patient in teaching them because there's a greater thing. And guess what? If we want to be ministers of Christ, if we want to go and we want to be mature, humble Christians, we cannot grow easily frustrated with those that we are discipling, okay?

People are gonna do stupid stuff. People are going to not listen to you. And over time, what we do is we don't grow frustrated, but we love and we humble ourselves and we keep walking and we keep calling out sin and we keep being receptive to our sin being called out and we don't get defensive and we understand that we are dependent on God for all of this.

Am I describing something? I hope I'm describing the way the church is supposed to work. Have you ever seen it? I don't think many of us have seen it very often, okay? We've really lost our way. We've really lost our way.

So this is a message to the disciples because he knows that they are the ones that are going to start the church after the resurrection. He's trying to get them ready. And so he gives them this stark lesson.

And if that's not enough, you gotta have the faith like a child. You have to take care of this child who's gonna offer you nothing. I know I've had the crowds, but I really am here for the lost. I'm here for the worst.

That's what Jesus was doing over and over again. Does he pick out the highbrows? No, it's the worst. It's the worst sinners over and over that Jesus is ministering to. And now we get principles of cooperation.

Cooperation in the Name of Jesus

So look, here's what happens. It's so, it's mind-blowing to me. Jesus says, if you don't serve this child, then you have no part of the kingdom of God. So we move to point three, the principles of cooperation.

I'm gonna read this one entirely because we need to bask in this one, all right? Verses 38 through 41. John said to him, teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name. And we tried to hinder him because he was not following us.

But Jesus said, do not hinder him for there is no one who will perform a miracle in my name and be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For he who is not against us is for us. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name because you are of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward.

There's a lot of rebuke in this passage, but there's a lot of encouragement also. So I don't wanna look through so I don't go forever. This could be one sermon by itself. I'm not gonna go an hour and a half.

So I'm gonna label this to some principles. Here's some principles we should get from this text. Number one, doing good in the name of Jesus is not to be hindered. Doing good in the name of Jesus is not to be hindered.

Now, we first have to define something. We have to define what good is, right? Good is defined by God's law. It's righteous acts. Anyone who is doing righteous acts in the name of Jesus, we are not to hinder them, no matter how much we don't like their denomination.

You understand? If the flag-waving, drooling-on-the-floor Pentecostal church that's jumping hymns or jumping pews and screaming at each other in tongues all the time, if they go down and they have a soup kitchen and they're handing out gospel tracts to the people in town, we should not hinder that.

We should be in favor of that. Do you see how far we've gone off? Just in point one. We have to be patient to test the fruit. We have to be patient to test the fruit. And I'm gonna tell you what boils up in us, and it's the worst in the reform camp.

I know, I'm beating on us again. Here we go. We can never be envious. So there's a story from Numbers 11, okay? I came across it this week and it really made a big impact on me. There's these two men, they're named Eldad and Medad.

They're great names. Eldad and Medad, Numbers 11, 26 through 30. What happens is there's a group of 70 approved and they go out of the camp and the Spirit comes down and they prophesy. And the Bible says that they prophesy once and they don't prophesy anymore.

But back in the camp, there's these two men that never left. They're not registered, right? There's two men that never left and the Spirit comes on them and they prophesy. Medad and Eldad. And Joshua tells Moses, you need to restrain them.

You need to restrain them. You know what Moses says? He says, do not be jealous on my account, Joshua. I would that all the people of Yahweh would be prophets. Does Moses strike you as a little mean man or a great man in that passage?

Do you see, it's very counterintuitive because we think in our flesh that to be great, that we have to really be me first and out there. And we really recoil in our day and age from the word servant leadership.

And the reason we recoil from that is because servant leadership has been distilled in this idea that you're a servant leader of your wife and so you do whatever she says to serve her, right? Yeah, that's not what it means.

See, Numbers 11 gives us what a servant leadership looks like. See, the servant leader is so confident in his position in Christ and so humble understanding that Christ does all of the work, that he's okay with anyone else doing the work.

And what that does is make him look like a great man. See, the servant leader, the servant leader is all about doing the work beside his people and moving on from place to place and teaching them so that the work would progress.

And you know what he looks great from? Is all of their work that he's led them. See, the leader focuses on a mission. The leader doesn't micromanage people along that way. He equips and he sets forth and he urges and he pushes.

And then he's willing to take shots for them. That's what servant leadership looks like, okay? Doing good in the name of Jesus is not to be hindered. Moses did not hinder those men. He recognized the fruit of their prophecy that it came from the Lord.

Principle number two, those who perform a miracle in the name of Jesus will not lightly speak against him. So this throws a divide for us on definitions of miracles. I do not wanna go there today, that's coming soon.

I promise you, you know, I'm not gonna make you mad today. The definition of miracles, we can assess that salvation is a miracle. We can all agree on that, right? Salvation is a miracle. And so anyone preaching the gospel unto salvation should not be hindered.

I don't care what they're doing in their church. If they're preaching the true gospel unto salvation, that should not be hindered. We can have our concerns, that may be bad. But if they're preaching the true gospel, then we should not hinder that work.

And the true gospel is this, right? It's that salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone. And it's revealed through scripture alone. So if anyone is doing that, they will also not lightly speak against him.

It's gonna be difficult for them. We actually have an example of that this morning. You know the hymn that we all love that we sang, It Is Well With My Soul? Written by a rank heretic, okay? He is, he was a rank heretic.

But do you know what? He wrote that song in the name of Jesus, and it has blessed the church for decades, and it was well done, and he should not have been hindered in writing that hymn. But when he started espousing heretical views, he should be kicked out of the church, which he was.

So he went and started his own cult, all right? Because that's what heretics do. But he was doing a good work at that time writing that hymn. It's doctrinally rich, and it's blessed the church. And God uses, a lot of times, strange means to bless his people.

Principle number three, those pushing the mission forward with good acts, they are with us.

They are with us.

At times, people who might later fall or have sharp disagreements with us, they are with us in good work, and they should not be hindered. Influential pastors and teachers who proclaim the true gospel, but they fall away into grievous sin, that doesn't mean that everything they did before was nonsense.

It means that God used them for a time to do good work, and then they were not of him, and so they fell away, and that is a warning for us to be in Christ. The warnings are coming later. This is all bathed in a warning, too, right?

Young Christians who are full of zeal, they might lack mature wisdom, but they're pushing the mission forward. And what we should not do is say, hey, stop being so fired up, man. You're making me uncomfortable.