Matthew 20:20-28 Servanthood 101

To the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in.

Opening Banter and Welcome to Recast Church

Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and we're going to go ahead and get started. So I recognize that there's more people coming in. They'll find seats and get set up.

But it is such a great thing to be able to gather together as God's people. It's such a privilege and such an honor and such a need. We all need this. We need to be together. We need to see that we're not alone in this fight.

We're not alone in this struggle for faith and to walk closer with our God. And so beautiful setting. How many of you like it when it's cooler like today? I just I love Michigan. I love the different seasons and just about the time you're tired of one, another one comes in.

And so I just love it here. And some of you are like rolling your eyes. And I say, well, you know, it is what it is. This is Michigan. And sometimes we have cooler days and sometimes we have warmer ones.

So but I just just a couple of announcements. Hopefully you got some information when you walked in. You grabbed one of those sheets with the songs and all that. If you did not get one, now's the time to go get that.

And so just go and grab that. And then if you didn't grab communion from one of those tables, grab that as well. But a couple of things in that packet. There's some announcements that are in there. There's song sheets that are in there.

There's also a connection card. If you have a prayer request, there's a place to put those prayer requests on the back of that card. Also, if you're with us and you're willing to give us your information, we do send out a weekly email with details.

And so if you fill that connection card out and turn that in one of the black boxes on the table over there, then we'll process that information and get you on that list. We don't spam your inbox. We send you a informational email each week to basically show what's going on here.

And then we don't pass an offering plate. We really never have in our 12 years history as a church. We want giving to be between you and God. And if you choose to give, those same black boxes where you put the connection cards is where you can use that envelope that was provided for you if you choose to give.

If you don't give, let me just encourage you to recycle that by putting that in the black box, even if there's nothing in it, and we can reuse those each week. We don't want those to just be on the floorboard of your car or in the trash bin.

And so you can throw those in there and those will get recycled and reused. And so take advantage of that. I hope you've all had a good week and that you had your eyes open. Really, it's a challenge to do this, but to have your eyes open to see how God is working in your life day by day.

How many of you know what I'm talking about when I say that? To just see God working in and around you and through you. It's a privilege that we have. And I don't know about you, but one of my greatest problems in my whole life is forgetfulness.

Forgetfulness not in terms of losing my car keys or something like that, although that is also an increasing problem as I age. But especially when they're in your hand and you're looking for them, right?

You guys know what I'm talking about. Or anybody with glasses ever been looking for your glasses and your wife or your spouse or somebody reminds you they're on your face, dude. Like, okay, this is a sign of age.

But not just that kind of forgetfulness, but the more fundamental forgetfulness that I struggle with is a forgetfulness about God's presence with me. He's with me all the time. And I remember when I was like maybe in middle school and high school, that was a scary thought.

It was kind of like, okay, God's always watching. God always knows what I'm doing. God always knows what I'm thinking. Terrified. But what about the fact that God is delighting over us? What about the times when he cracks a smile and he laughs over us and he delights?

And as the prophet Zephaniah says, he dances over his people with joy and delight. Do you think about God's presence in that way? His presence of gladness and celebration when things are going well and things are going good for us.

And so I hope that you take on this morning, this gathering is another opportunity to see that God is working, to look around you and see. And I encourage you to literally look around, look around and see the other people that are gathered here.

To know that you're not alone in your fight of faith, that you are together with others. There's others who love Jesus here in this community. A lot of times we watch the news and we can feel very alone, very isolated.

You get on social media, you feel even more alone yet, right? And so we need a reminder regularly that there are other people of faith who love Jesus. And so I hope that you're encouraged in this gathering this morning and that your faith is challenged.

We talk about growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service here. And we believe that the number one way to grow in your faith is through the word of God. Taking in his word and listening to it.

So we do this morning what we do every week. We're going to be challenged to be strengthened and built up through the knowledge of his word as we walk through it. And I'm going to read it here in a minute.

So the section we're going to be looking at from scripture this morning is from the book of Matthew. As we're marching through that, we're going to find a deep challenge in this text. A challenge that wants to change your perspective, that wants to alter the way that you think about the world around you, particularly in regard to the topics of power, authority, and leadership.

The way that you think about leadership. Now I'm not a huge fan of the term or the phrase servant leadership. How many have heard that phrase before? Servant leadership. The reason I'm not big on it is because it's, I think, an abused term now in our culture and even in the church.

What that phrase has come to mean often in America is using service as a tool, as a leveraging tool to gain power and authority. I think about the way that I was trained growing up and even going to seminary.

They required a class on leadership, on administrative leadership, which is good to some degree, but you couldn't find a class on the roster of servanthood. There weren't any classes on service, but there were classes on leadership.

And I think we know what I'm talking about here. There are leadership conferences. How many of you have known of leadership conferences? Some of you might be able to name a favorite leadership guru or even a Christian leadership guy.

There are books galore on leadership. How many of you remember bookstores? Do you guys remember bookstores? Remember back when you used to go in and there were shelves and you could look through the books?

And there used to be, I mean, for those of you that are younger, you're probably, what's that? But there used to be these places where those of us that are older would go and there would be an entire section on leadership, maybe a whole wall on leadership.

And good luck finding the servanthood or the service section. There just are very few books written about how to serve well. And I'm not trying to point a finger at the corporate world. This is within the church.

This is within the circles that we run. This is even within our own hearts. And all of this is coming from a people who follow the Lord, who spoke these words that we're about to read together, words that should produce a proliferation of books about service and servanthood that ought to produce even beyond that, not just words about serving, but actual service and servants.

The goal of this interaction in our text that we're reading this morning between Jesus and his disciples, the goal of it is to shift the target that we're aiming for. It's as if from birth, many of us have been oriented towards leadership.

And that has been the target that the world will always put in front of us. It's like the world's default, humanity's default is to aim our children for leadership, to aim them for greatness, whatever we might conceive of that being.

And Jesus is here trying to say, if you're my people, then your target shifts, your aim shifts, you're aiming and all the big thing in front of you that you've been targeting and aiming for is leadership.

Once you come into faith in Christ, he wants to direct your aim in a different direction, aiming for something else. Whether you're a leader, a natural leader, I say a natural leader because some of us at the end of the day, you just recognize that whatever gifts and talents that God has given you, you look behind you and there's people following you.

Any of you know what I'm talking about? And some of you, even from a natural following position, still know that there are people who just have a natural knack for leading. But regardless of where you're at on that spectrum, we all have the same target that Jesus is giving to us this morning.

And I'm convinced that by the end of reading it together here in a moment, I think it's going to be clear to you where Jesus wants you and me to set our aim this morning. So if you're not already there, open to Matthew chapter 20, verse 20 through 28.

And yes, as scary as it is, our text is Matthew 20, 20. But it is what it is. So Matthew 20, 20 through 28, I encourage you to navigate in your device or, you know, in an app or in an actual physical Bible so that you can follow along and see that the things that I'm reading are coming directly from God's word.

In recast, this is a word that wants to change you. This is a living and active word that is explaining God in a way and explaining his desires and what he wants from us in a way that can alter us and change us if we'll believe it and trust it and go out and live it out by faith in him.

So let's dive in and buckle up because you might get swept up in this. Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons and kneeling before him, she asked him for something and he said to her, what do you want?

And she said to him, say that these two sons of mine are to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom. Jesus answered, you don't know what you're asking for. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?

They said to him, we are able. And he said to them, you will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my father.

And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers, but Jesus called them to him and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them.

It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Even as the son of man came not to serve, not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The Irony of James and John's Request for Honor

Let's pray. And as I pray, I just want to let you guys know, I'm going to pray for David Schrock. David Schrock was going to be filling in for Dave Bunt this morning and he was in an accident. He's okay, he's at home recovering, but he had to have an emergency surgery on his elbow, which I'm going to be praying for him.

He was going to be leading us in worship this morning and so Rob is going to be serving as the backup to the backup, or the backup to the guy who was going to be backing us up. So I'm just really grateful for Rob stepping in on a short notice and filling in, but we're going to pray for David Schrock this morning and for his recovery.

The surgery went well and so let's pray. Father, I thank you for your grace and your mercy that covers us. I thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus and even as we encounter a text like this that challenges our view of power and authority, I just pray that you would deal with each one of our hearts in terms of the way that we can grab so readily for control, especially during a season like this.

It's just, it's in us, it saturates us. It's a default setting that we strive for our own way first and we have a tendency to elevate ourselves at the same time as pushing others down. And so Father, I pray that you would deal with each one of our hearts in terms of our own pride and our own arrogance and our own striving after status and authority and Father, that you would let service be a target.

And I just am reminded of that in terms of David Schrock, just so many different loose ends from picking up the donuts that he was, he's been picking those up every week and coming out here and setting up the sound equipment every Sunday and just faithfully serving in so many aspects in so many ways.

And so Father, I continue to help his body to heal. I thank you for the good surgery and a good result to that. And I ask that you would allow everything to recover well for him and that you would be with his spirit as a guitar has been so important to him and to have his elbow jacked up right now is sad.

So I pray that you would just be with his spirit and give him strength during this time and encouragement as well. And Father, I thank you for Rob's willing service that we would be able to step before your throne and worship you.

You are worthy of our worship. And because of what your son has done for us, that uniting reality of the cross, that we would lift our voices together and praise before you this morning in Jesus name.

Amen. Thanks a lot to Rob for leading us in worship. Again, I just, I just can't tell you how glad I am for people who will just step in in a moment's notice like that and just, just lead us. And so hopefully you were able to worship God this morning and encourage you to re-find your place in your Bibles or your devices to Matthew chapter 20 verses 20 through 28.

And having that up in front of you is going to help you because that's kind of the roadmap. That's where we're going. We're going to talk through that passage. And so being able to look down and reference that as I'm talking is going to enhance your ability to kind of follow along and track with what we're talking about here.

So there's really all kinds of irony that comes to us in the text of scripture. God is a, is a gifted author. And so he's able to just draw some things out and he's an author of life. And the irony comes in the placement of these events where they happen in the context of the life of Jesus.

So the irony is that this text comes immediately on the heels of what we looked at last week, which was Jesus predicting that he was going to be rejected, that he was going to be flogged and beaten by the Romans, and then he was going to be crucified.

And he predicted that approximately two weeks, give or take a few days before the events actually happened. And so he told his inner circle of followers, Hey, this is the future that this is where this kingdom thing is going.

This is where I'm going to go and I'm going to be this sacrifice. And so the contrast is really stark between that kind of humble, I'm about to be shamed. I'm about to be rejected. I'm about to be mocked and flogged and crucified.

And the next thing that we read is this text, James and John, the sons of Zebedee and their mom come asking for a political favor. Could you put us in authority? Could you make us leaders? Could you make us rulers in your movement?

And the mother of James and John is a historically known figure. Her name was Mary Salome, according to historians. She's going to be present according to the gospels. She's present at the crucifixion.

She's there when Jesus dies. But beyond that, she was privileged with this great and awesome privilege of being one of the first people to be there at the empty tomb. She went with the mother of Jesus and a few other friends early in the morning on that Sunday to go finish the preparations for the body because the Passover, I mean, the Sabbath had gotten in the way of that.

So when they went there, they're the ones who found the empty tomb and the stone rolled away. She was there. So what I'm pointing out is that this woman is not an extra in the story. She was in the larger group of disciples traveling around and following Jesus.

It would not be rare for her to interact with Jesus. And in our text here in verse 20, we see she comes to Jesus and with deference and respect, in a very respectful manner, she kneels down and asks him if she could ask him a question.

She asks him there in verse 20, can I ask you a question? Now, how many of you have ever done that to somebody? Hey, is this a good time? Can I ask you a question? Wise communicators do that from time to time.

The funny thing is, if you're ever the recipient of that question, hey, can I ask you a question? You know, a couple of things true are true right away, right? This is not going to be a short conversation, okay?

And the person asking the question is a little nervous about asking it, right? Do you know what I'm talking about? And so you know that like, okay, it kind of puts you a little bit on guard. Like, I think so.

I think you can ask me a question. I think this is going to be all right. So we've done that at times to test the waters. And those of you with high school boys or that used to be a high school boy, you can maybe relate to what I'm talking about here.

Trying to pull out information from a high school guy is a little bit tricky. And so I remember a particular ride home. I had dropped my son off at an activity and then went and picked him up. And on the way home, I just kind of want to know how the activity went, but you can't just directly ask a high school boy.

So how was that? Silence. Or you just get what word? Good. That was good. Back to listening to music or whatever. So I actually said, hey, is it okay if we play a game? I'm going to ask you three questions and you answer them as honestly as possible.

And to my surprise, my high school son said, yes, yes, dad. And then he added, and that's one. And so I said, are you serious? You can't be serious. And he said, yes, and that's two. So I was like, okay, I got to craft one really good question here.

I get one question about this. So that's talking with a high school boy and, you know, ask, is this a good time to ask a question? But verse 21, there's clarity to what the actual question is. So it just kind of gets past all of that.

And she's aware that what she's asking is not an out of context kind of request, not just kind of out of the blue. Like, hey, can my son sit at your right hand and left hand when you're in your kingdom?

Well, she must have been there and present when he uttered the phrase or told them about rewards. And you can glance back at it. Chapter 19, verse 28, in this very same context, you can glance at that verse where the disciples had said, wait a minute, we left everything to follow you.

And you said that those who leave things to follow you will get something. What's in this for us? And Jesus honestly told them, hey, in a future kingdom, you're going to sit on twelve thrones and you're going to judge the tribes of Israel.

And judge means to rule and to reign there. So she must have known that her two sons, James and John, were already in it to sit on a throne in a future kingdom. And so she's just saying, I'm not really satisfied with them ruling, being twelve among millions.

I'd really like them to have the highest seats there. And you can imagine. Can anybody imagine a mom asking for something like that? Anyone? My son's special. My child deserves fill in the blank. And you can imagine it maybe right now more than any time.

So she's asking for prominent positions. She wants her two sons. By the way, you think about the proximity. Think about the physical layout of a throne room, so to speak. And you've got the king at the middle.

And then imagine like some kind of circle or some kind of line of advisors there sitting and ruling with him. He's sharing some of his rules, sharing some of his authority. How many of you know that being close to him matters?

You hear everything that he says. You don't miss anything. You're out on the fringes. You're out at the edges of that actual physical formation. You're going to miss some things. But further, you always have his ear.

You're right next to him. So to sit on the right and the left is a place of power and authority. And I want to point out three observations about this request that the mother, Mary Salome, brings to Jesus.

Three observations. First, it's clear that she and her boys, we want to start with a positive here. It's clear that she and her boys actually trusted Jesus and trusted that he was going to come into a kingdom.

They had that by faith, not by sight, not by any kind of obvious, like just walking around with him. I was like, well, he's going to be a king. They're trusting that by faith. And that is a good thing.

A lot of times we can just blast the biblical characters as being doofuses. Well, he should have never asked us. It was just a power grab. It was just gross. No, there's some faith that's expressed here by Mary and her boys.

It's a good thing. By the way, she didn't come alone. They came with her. They're in this. We don't know if they were drug there with her. And she was like, boys, get over here. We're going to do this.

Or if they kind of said, mom, why don't you be the buffer? You ask. So we don't know exactly how that happened, but they're there. And it is commendable that they trusted in Jesus enough to believe that he is indeed the king.

He's going to have a kingdom and they're going to have a part in it. But the second thing is what we, what our minds naturally turn to. And that's this request is posturing for leadership among the 12.

It's missing, significantly missing the humble, independent nature that Jesus has been calling for from his followers all along in his teachings. It's missing the, the core of the service that he desires of his people that he's not been shy to say we ought to be serving and loving others and not clamoring for authority.

And that a childlike faith is the faith of his kingdom and who is greatest in his kingdom. And he pulls a child into the midst of the disciples just back in chapter 18. So it's, it's really, really, it shows that they're not getting it.

And it's not just merely poor taste that they ask for this. It's also crazy poor timing. Jesus just predicted his coming death. And now this mom and her two sons are looking for positions of leadership, clamoring for authority in a kingdom where Jesus just said, I'm going to suffer and I'm going to be shamed and I'm going to die.

The third observation about this is in verses 22 and 23. It helps us to know that the word you is plural there. The conversation turns from not just merely talking to mommy to actually talking to the boys too.

She, he talks to all of them and whoever originated the idea to ask for this type of authority is not really that important because what you need to know is that the text makes it abundantly clear that all three, John, James, and their mommy are all in this.

They all want the same thing. They're all in it together. They all want the same thing for the boys. And so Jesus replies, you all it's, it's plural. You all don't have a clue what you're asking for. You see, what I think he's getting at there is what was a common problem, uh, about the first coming of Jesus.

They were misguided in what they were asking for because they didn't understand the true nature of his kingdom. He came to be the suffering servant. He did not come to kick out the Romans and set up an earthly political kingdom in the here and now.

There are many who still struggle with that thought in our, in our culture, in our society, but, but Jesus didn't come to set up an earthly kingdom. He came up to set a spiritual kingdom forward, uh, one of sacrifice and love.

And it crosses all kinds of political geopolitical boundaries across the globe. So Jesus appeals to the way his kingdom will come in here in this text. He said, my kingdom is going to come in through suffering guys.

Are you sure you want a high position in that kingdom? Think about what you're signing up for. Do you really get it? Do you really understand the reason Jesus asks them in verse 22? Are you able to drink the cup that I'm going to drink is an appeal to his future suffering because of the metaphor of the cup in that day and age.

So you got to realize that he didn't need any further explanation to them. Uh, Mary and her two sons, James and John got it right away. They knew that he was talking about suffering. When he mentioned the cup, the ancient image of the cup, the cup was a, a picture of like a picture, a bottle or a cup or a chalice filled with water filled with bitter water.

That was yours to drink. This is your allotment. This is your portion. And the idea was that everybody in life is given an allotment. They're all given a cup. We all have, we might call it now, um, the way we would use it because of Jesus, we would, we would call it a cross to bear, right?

But everybody's given, uh, an amount of suffering, an amount of difficulty, and it varies from person to person, but everybody's got a cup to drink. And Jesus says, are you going to drink from the same kind of cup that I'm drinking from?

Because it's a, it's a better cup. It's a, it's a, it's a nasty tasting cup here. It's an ancient metaphor as if God gave him something bitter to drink, but James and John are confident here. And they stepped forward with bravado.

They were also known as the sons of thunder. I picture them to have a kind of a boisterous personality, uh, sons of thunder, meaning that they were just kind of loud and boisterous individuals. And so, um, I imagine that they were pretty ready with a response.

Can you drink this cup? And here in this context, their reply of, yeah, we can drink with you. It's a, it's like a commitment that they're making with their mouths to suffer with him in bringing forth his kingdom.

Sure. Sure. We'll suffer. We know you're going to be a king. We will be with you to the end. Peter himself had a similar experience where Peter said, yes, I'll die with you. But how did that work out?

What it really is here in this text is a generalized bravado, a bravado that probably many of us can have because of the phrase words are cheap, right? We can talk a big talk, but when it comes game day, do we show up, right?

We love to trash talk and talk smack and all that stuff. And we're pretty awesome until the rubber meets the road. Words are cheap. And here in this context, James and John are confident. Yes. Yes. Of course we can drink your cup with you.

Jesus put us to the right, put us to the left. We're with you to the end and they are not completely wrong. They just are. They're just missing a component here. They're missing the fact that they're going to go through a season of significant fear and significant doubt.

When they see their master crucified, when they see him die, when they see him buried, they are found in an upper room, terrified with the doors locked, hiding from the Romans. They split dodge when he was betrayed in the garden.

And so they're going to go through that season, but there's going to be a change for them. And it's very significant. It's good that they go through that dark season. It's good that they go through that time of doubt and that time of frustration and time of fear because it validates the resurrection.

What changed these guys from hiding out behind a door, terrified of the Romans to going out and sharing it with everybody and themselves even suffering for him. What changed is that they encountered the resurrected Lord.

They encountered Jesus Christ in his resurrection and they went out with boldness from there and they did indeed suffer. And so Jesus here says, as a matter of fact, you guys are right. You can drink and will drink of the same cup as me.

You will indeed suffer for me. You will indeed drink from the same types of sufferings that I will. The mocking, the flogging, even martyrdom. James is the first of the 12 apostles to be martyred, according to church history.

According to traditions also, John suffered greatly. He was the last of the 12, according to tradition, to die while he was exiled on the island of Patmos, where he wrote the book of Revelation. But according to the same church traditions, John survived after some gruesome attempts by the Romans to try to put him to death, but they were unsuccessful.

So I'm guessing that he had suffered significantly at the hands of the Romans before they finally gave up trying to kill him and put him in exile. So Jesus says, you're right. You will suffer for me. But to sit at my right hand and my left hand has already been determined by my father, he says.

And this whole scenario shows how little they understood where the kingdom of Jesus is going. I love the way that some scholars highlighted for me some dark irony in the frequent mention of the left hand and the right hand of Jesus.

They see in this a little bit of a pattern, a little bit of a play on a soon coming event. Think about this. The very moment Jesus just predicted that he's going to die, then these guys are asking to be at his right hand and his left hand.

And it does not seem inconsequential. It seems like it's intentional. Think about it. The very moment when Jesus is about to two weeks later, when his kingdom, his left and his right will be very undesirable positions that are reserved for two thieves at his left and his right.

James and John do not here know what they're asking for to be emissaries of his kingdom, but they will learn the sacrifice of persecution and rejection and martyrdom that mark the cup of their master to be at his right hand and his left hand while he gains victory in his kingdom is to be crucified, is to take up your cross, follow him to the place and to be nailed there and sacrificed.

They were obviously not paying attention to my sermon last week, but were we? Were we? How can we point a finger at James and John? And what I'm going to say next applies just as thoroughly to me as it does to all of us, because how can we point a finger at them when we are just as thick as they are?

We can see that the way of his kingdom is humility, is kindness and patience and love. And we encounter that on Sundays in the messages and in his word. And then we're out demanding our way again on Monday, if not on Sunday afternoon, right?

I think you guys are cut from the same cloth as me. And so I think all of us to a person here, I don't need to see a show of hands. I think we all struggle with control and having things our own way, but word spreads to the other 10 disciples that James and John had attempted this power grab.

And it says in the text, they were indignant. They were much grieved is kind of the word, but indignant is a really good translation of that Greek word. And I wonder if at least part of their frustration in this comes from not having been beaten to the punch.

They go, wait, why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we think to ask for this authority? And so from verses 25 to 28, Jesus rounds up all the 12 together, all of his inner circle to teach verbally about leadership and authority in his kingdom.

And all of this context of mommy coming to ask for authority and the way that the disciples responded, all that is a setup. It's a contextual setup for this teaching that he's going to directly instruct them and us about leadership here in this text.

Jesus Reverses the World's Model of Power and Authority

There are four realities about leadership and authority. If you're taking notes for that, that Jesus gives to challenge our preconceived notions, our American notions, as well as their first century Palestinian notions, their Jewish understanding about authority and leadership.

And so the first thing that I want to point out that Jesus highlights for us is don't look down on others. Don't look down on others. Now it might not be very clear from the English text, but it's, it's thoroughly clear.

It's over the top clear in the Greek text that that's what he's getting at in verse 24. Jesus tells his followers that the leaders in the world, the way that natural leadership happens, kind of like survival of the fittest kind of idea applies to leadership in the world around us, that the powerful ones, the leaders will naturally Lord over others with the emphasis on the word over and powerful ones.

He goes on to say, exercise authority over them again, emphasis on over. So the Greek verbs in this text begin with a prefix that always, always, always points downward. It's the prefix kata. It can be added in front of other words and it means doubt in a downward direction.

And so the orientation of earthly sin curse leaders is always a top down kind of leadership. What, what it really gets to is it assumes my high standard and my right to rule by the basis of my, some position that I'm given or somebody else's more low than me.