WWUTT 2208 The Son of Man Came Not to Be Served (Mark 10:32-45)

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One of the most key verses in the Gospel of Mark is Mark 10, 45. For even the

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Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we're back in Chapter 10, picking up where we left off yesterday.

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Jesus is once again going to tell His disciples about going to Jerusalem and being killed, and then

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James and John even ask for special privilege. Let's look at this together. In Mark 10, verse 32 to 45 is where I'm reading out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible, hear the word of the Lord. And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them.

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And they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful. And again He took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him.

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Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn

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Him to death, and will deliver Him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him, and spit on Him, and flog

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Him, and kill Him. And three days later He will rise again. Then James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying to Him, Teacher, we want

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You to do for us whatever we ask of You. And He said to them, What do You want Me to do for you?

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And they said to Him, Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory.

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But Jesus said to them, You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which

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I am baptized? And they said to Him, We are able. And Jesus said to them,

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The cup that I drink you shall drink, and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which

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I am baptized. But to sit on My right or on My left, this is not

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Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared. And hearing this, the ten began to feel indignant with James and John.

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And calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the

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Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.

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But it is not this way among you. But whoever wishes to become great among you shall become your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall become slave of all.

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For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give

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His life a ransom for many." As I mentioned in our introduction to the

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Gospel of Mark, that's a rather theme verse to Mark's Gospel. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give

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His life as a ransom for many. So we see once again for the third time here in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus tells

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His disciples that He is going to go and be killed, but He is going to rise again from the dead. And then you have this exchange with Jesus and James and John, which turns into a discussion with the rest of the disciples as well.

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But before coming back into this, so yesterday we had looked at that section concluding

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Jesus' exchange with the rich young ruler and then teaching His disciples. Peter had said to Jesus, we have left everything and followed you.

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And Jesus said, truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms for my sake and for the

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Gospel's sake, except one who will receive 100 times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.

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I just kind of touched on that receiving persecutions line very briefly, but I didn't dwell on that very long when we were considering that yesterday.

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Everything that we read in the New Testament given to the church, given to the saints is that we are going to suffer this side of heaven.

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And for most Christians, that's the case. For us that live in the Western world, in North America in particular, we enjoy a significant amount of religious freedom.

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That is something of an anomaly in world history. Most Christians don't enjoy the kind of religious freedom that we have here in the

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United States. And that freedom is only so far as the government is not going to come and persecute us because we worship in church.

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I think the government will try on occasion and has at some intervals done this to the church has indeed persecuted people.

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I remember back during COVID in 2020, how churches were being threatened that if you're going to gather, then you're going to be arrested.

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People were ticketed, fined, had boots put on their cars in the church parking lot and things like that.

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There were accounts of this happening all over the US. And some of you might be familiar with some of the drama that had happened as well with Grace Community Church out in LA, who challenged the governor's order and ended up winning.

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And there's a whole documentary about that essential church, which I highly recommend. It was a good documentary.

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There are certainly things here in the United States where what you do as a Christian would be met with opposition.

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If you go out and you witness in your community, you're going to find the people who hate Christianity pretty fast.

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So there is still some persecution that happens even in a nation that has in its laws the freedom of religion.

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But again, here in the US, we enjoy comfort. You could not go out and share the gospel with anybody and just be a churchgoer or have

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Bible studies in your home and things like that. You might never experience opposition of any kind, except for the occasional

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Christian professing Christian who becomes a gossip or loves sin or tries to divide the body or something like that.

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In world history, though, we see the church mostly going through persecution.

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The way that the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy in 2nd Timothy, that letter was about how

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Paul was about to be martyred for the gospel that he proclaimed. And he was telling Timothy, Timothy, when they kill me for preaching the gospel, you go on preaching the gospel until they kill you too.

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And it's also in that letter where Paul told Timothy that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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People will hate you and persecute you just because you love and desire godliness.

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So to inherit the kingdom of God, we will go through persecutions in this life.

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We've never been promised to have a comfortable or easy life. So even though Jesus says here to his disciples that you will receive all of these things, but you will also receive persecutions.

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He is telling them that what is in store for us is not going to be a great kingdom here on earth, but the kingdom of God in heaven and what you experience here on earth is not going to be so terribly comfortable.

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Keep that in mind because of what we're coming into with James and John making this request about sitting on Jesus left and his right.

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I came across this quote from Paul Washer yesterday after I had already recorded the lesson.

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But listen to this. He said, if following Jesus Christ does not cost you anything, it's because you've bought into American Christianity.

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Being a Christian in this world will be hard. As Jesus said to his disciples in this world, you will have tribulation, but take heart for I have overcome the world.

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When they hate you, remember they hated me first. The reason why the world hates you is because you don't belong to the world.

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John will go on to say in 1 John, we belong to Christ. We belong to a different kingdom.

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And so we are strangers and exiles in this world until we come into the kingdom of God in glory.

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Peter's first letter, 1 Peter, that letter is regarded as the suffering letter.

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So he tells Christians how to suffer well in this life until we enter the next.

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And so, yes, we receive all of these things by the promise of God, even more than we gave up brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, children, lands.

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But you receive these things with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life.

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Now Jesus was not telling his disciples that they were going to go through anything he was not going to go through. He himself was going to be persecuted for what it was that he taught.

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And so he goes on to say to his disciples, verses 32 to 34, something he had told them before.

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Just like we saw in Matthew's gospel, Jesus tells the disciples this three times. So it's the same in Mark's gospel.

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They were on the road going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was walking on ahead of them and they were amazed.

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And those who followed were fearful. And again, he took the 12 aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to him.

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Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and the son of man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him to death and will deliver him over to the

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Gentiles and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him.

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And three days later, he will rise again. So once again, making sure the disciples understand, yes, you will receive all these things, even in this life and in the life to come eternal life.

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But in the meantime, you must go through persecution because Jesus was persecuted. So likewise, his disciples, his followers will be persecuted as well.

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Now at the beginning of that, where it says Jesus was walking on ahead of them and they were amazed and those who followed were fearful.

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I mean, this goes all back to everything that Jesus had been teaching them up to this point, the exchange with the rich young ruler, saying that it is impossible for man to get into the kingdom of God, but not with God.

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All things are possible with God. And then saying to them, you will inherit all of this, even on this side of heaven, and you will receive eternal life, but you will be persecuted.

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So all of these things that he's saying, they're kind of like. And each time

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Jesus has talked about this, the three times that he has told them about how he is going to be persecuted and put to death.

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The first time Peter opposed him and Jesus said, get behind me, Satan, for you're not thinking with the mind of God, but with the mind of a man.

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The second time he said it, they were a little bit intimidated to ask him any further questions on it.

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And here the third time, it's like they're even, they're even more withdrawn. I don't know what to say or ask him about this.

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We don't understand it. And we don't get why he keeps saying that he's going to be put to death and we're going to be persecuted.

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I thought that he was going to be the Messiah. He's the rightful heir to David's throne.

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He's going to ascend to the throne. He even congratulated us when Peter said that you are the Christ, the son of the living

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God. So why is it that we're going to go to Jerusalem and be persecuted?

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If it's not to advance this kingdom that he's been talking about. So they're really confused about this, but they still have in their minds that this is going to be an earthly kingdom that they will inhabit.

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They're going to kick out all the bad people. Israel's going to be great again. And so James and John verse 35, the two sons of Zebedee came up to Jesus saying to him, teacher, we want you to do for us what we ask of you.

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Whatever we ask of you is a pretty bold request already in the way that they word this. And Jesus said to them, what do you want me to do for you?

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So not just going to say, okay, sure. Yeah. Ask whatever you want and I will grant it to you.

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Let me hear your heart first. And they said to him, grant that we may sit one on your right and one on your left in your glory.

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Now again, the disciples are thinking about this kingdom on earth that Jesus is establishing and he's going to go up to Jerusalem and he's going to sit on a throne.

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They've just been talking about here how they're going to Jerusalem and what to expect when they come to Jerusalem. Okay, fine.

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You're going to be persecuted. You're going to be put to death. You're going to rise again. So James and John say, well, let us sit with you on your throne.

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Perhaps they think that this is some sort of pledge or commitment of faith.

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We believe you. We believe everything that you're saying. So you're going to rise again on the third day.

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Well, then let us sit on your left hand and on your right. They think that Jesus rises from the dead and now

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Israel is going to be restored and it is going to be a great empire once again, like it was in the days of David and Solomon.

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Fine. So it's going to be after Jesus is persecuted and rises from the dead. We believe that.

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So now as a pledge of our faith, we want to ask and we want to request that we be able to sit with you in your glory, one on the right hand, one on the left.

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And remember that James and John were with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.

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They saw Jesus transfigured before them. So when they say in your glory, they're even thinking, they're perhaps thinking that when

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Jesus sits on this throne, it's going to be in that transfigured state that we just saw up on the mountain several days ago.

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So when you come in your glory and this is your glorious kingdom, that wonderful sight that we saw, that's going to be you sitting on your throne.

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Can we sit one on your left hand and one on your right? And Jesus said to them, you do not know what you are asking.

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Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which

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I am baptized? Now Jesus was going to drink the cup of God's wrath when he died on the cross, the wrath of God poured out on him in our place.

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Remember that Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane, Lord, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me.

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But not as I will, but as you will. And that cup that Jesus is talking about is the cup of God's wrath.

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So there is a cup that Jesus drinks from that is unique that no one else drinks from.

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You and I will never have to drink from that cup as followers of Jesus Christ. We won't experience the wrath of God because Jesus has taken

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God's wrath upon himself. He drank the cup of God's wrath down to its dregs.

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There's also a baptism that Jesus goes through that we don't have to go through.

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Now we are baptized with Christ. We're buried with him in our sins. We're risen again to walk in new life.

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But Jesus conquers death for us. And then as it said in Roman six, when we are baptized, we're baptized into a death like his so that we might have a resurrection like his.

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But we don't go through exactly what Jesus went through when he dies for us and he rises again from the dead.

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There's something unique about what Jesus experiences in that. So he says when he says this to James and John, can you drink from the cup that I'm going to drink from or be baptized with the baptism with which

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I am baptized? And they say to him, we are able. Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you shall drink and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which

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I am baptized. But it's not exactly the same. It is as it said in Roman six to us.

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Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

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We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life.

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You and I have that. If we're followers of Jesus, if you've been baptized, if your life has been transformed by the

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Holy Spirit that fills you, then we have shared in this death and resurrection with Jesus.

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It's an already and a not yet. You've already gone through that, but you're still alive. And then the day is going to come in which your body will die and you will be resurrected.

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First your soul will go to be with God forever in glory, and then your body will even be raised up on that day that Christ returns.

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The dead in Christ will rise first. So we will have resurrected bodies as Jesus has a resurrected body.

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So in this way, James and John can experience the same thing that Jesus went through.

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You and I experienced that when we are persecuted and we share in Christ's sufferings.

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It's as if we drink from the same cup that he drank from. There's an aspect of that that Jesus fulfilled that we don't have to partake in.

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But nonetheless, these things we do share in. We share that cup. We share that baptism.

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But then Jesus goes on to say in verse 40, but to sit on my right or on my left, this is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.

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Now we don't know exactly who that's in reference to, who is exactly sitting on Christ's left hand and on his right.

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Now Jesus is saying this to James and John because it's not arbitrarily chosen.

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People are not just kind of chosen at random. It's not as if because James and John said this first, that Jesus is going to give it to them.

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And even their requesting this causes some stir among the disciples who are upset at them for asking of this.

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We know from Matthew's gospel, it was their mother specifically that asked on their behalf that they could sit on the right hand and on the left.

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And again, it's a request thinking that this is going to be the earthly kingdom.

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It's going to be a great kingdom here on earth that Jesus is going to establish, and we want to be able to sit right there with him on either side of his throne.

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But it is not to be arbitrarily given out. Jesus does say though, in Revelation 3 .21,

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to the one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne.

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So forget the right hand and the left, all of those who conquer and enter the kingdom of God get to sit with Christ on his throne.

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And here James and John are asking for the left hand and the right hand, but we have the promise that we will reign with Christ as fellow heirs with him of his eternal kingdom.

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So again, in verse 41, the disciples are upset to hear James and John even request this.

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And calling them to himself, Jesus said to them, you know that those who are recognized as rulers of the

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Gentiles lorded over them and their great men exercise authority over them. This is a pagan thing.

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These men who have these hierarchical statuses, I'm higher than you, I'm better than you,

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I'm a better human being. Some of those Gentiles even claiming to be God because they assume those thrones.

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Now it's not that all hierarchy is bad. There's hierarchy in the Bible. A husband is supposed to be ahead of his wife.

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There's masters and slaves. There are employers that we are to be subject to and to do so to the glory of God.

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Romans 13 one tells us that we're to be subject to the governing authorities. So hierarchy has been established by God.

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It's not as if all hierarchy is bad, but this idea that one person has more worth than another because of the high positions that they hold, that's, that's a pagan viewpoint of rulers and peasants.

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But it is not to be this way among you, Jesus says. But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant.

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And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. And this goes back to what we had read yesterday, where Jesus said in verse 31, many who are first will be last and the last first.

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So those who lorded over you here in this life, they're going to be your slaves in the next, which is really just to say that they don't get to inherit the kingdom of God where you will sit on those thrones.

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But whoever wishes to be first among you shall be a slave, shall be a servant and taking after Christ who exemplified this for his disciples, for as we read in verse 45, for even the son of man did not come to be served.

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If there was anything who, if there was anyone who deserved it, who could have said, bow to me and serve me, one person on this planet, whoever lived, who could have done that and had the right to do it.

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And everybody would have bowed and served him at his command. It's Jesus Christ.

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And yet that is not the way that he came. Even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

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Again going back to him telling his disciples about how he is going to be beaten and spat upon and killed.

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And on the third day rise again, this is the ransom that he gives to purchase the lives of those who will believe in him.

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Those whose sins had separated them from God and they were as good as dead, the wrath of God upon them because of their rebellion against the high throne of heaven.

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And yet Jesus would die for us and rise again from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish, but we will have everlasting life because of the ransom he paid on our behalf.

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Jesus served us and so we as his followers must serve one another.

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And by the way, Jesus is still serving us for he is at the right hand of the father interceding on our behalf, advocating for us before the father.

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So in this way, Jesus is still serving even his church, though he is also the head of the church and seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

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But the glory that we will receive in Christ will be later. We will sit down with him on his throne as Jesus also conquered and sat down with his father on his throne.

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We are promised that we will become fellow heirs of his eternal kingdom for all who have faith in Jesus.

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So hold fast to him. However, things are going in the world right now, always political upheaval, always things in an election cycle getting crazier and crazier as the days get closer to that election.

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But we have nothing to fear if we believe in Christ, for he is on his throne. He will never be unseated and we are promised a place with him in glory.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read here, and I pray that we would learn as Christ has taught us to be servants to one another.

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To put others' needs ahead of our own. To not be looking out for our own glory, but to glorify

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Christ in all that we say and do. Thank you for the gift of your son who died for our sins and rose again from the dead, so that by faith in him our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life.

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Lead us in his righteousness today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

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Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.