Glory Time?

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Mark chapter 10 verses 32 through 45. And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem.

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Jesus was walking ahead of them, and they were amazed and those who followed were afraid.

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And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was going to happen to him, saying,

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See, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes.

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They will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him.

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And after three days, he will rise. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him,

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Teacher, we want 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, Well, grant us to sit, one at your right hand and the other at your left, in your glory.

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And Jesus said to them, You don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which

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I am baptized? And he said to him, We are able. And Jesus said to them, The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which

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I am baptized you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.

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And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them,

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You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.

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But 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 the slave of all.

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For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ. In the name of Jesus.

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Have you all ever seen that well bumper sticker that says Jesus is my co -pilot?

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What a miserably awful terrible bumper sticker that is. Jesus is my co -pilot.

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I want you to think of it this way. Oftentimes there are people within the visible church who turn

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Jesus into, well, their coach, their life coach, whose whole goal is to help them achieve glory for themselves.

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This we talked about just a few weeks ago. We noted there are two religions in the world. One follows the theology of glory or the theology of self -glory.

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The other is the theology of the cross. One is all about going from glory to glory in this life so that everybody can say, oh, this person is so amazing.

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They've changed the world. May I remind you, Hitler changed the world.

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The cross, the way of the cross, the theology of the cross, calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, consider ourselves dead, and follow

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Christ. So our text today, our gospel text, is going to get at the heart of, well, another example of idolatry.

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Self -idolatry. And you're going to note that the gospel makes no sense to those who think that God is all about helping you achieve glory for yourself.

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Think of it this way. When I was a young lad, I thought that Christianity was about me really trying hard, pulling myself up by my bootstraps, and making a good effort so that everybody can say that guy, he's tight with God.

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Look at my Bible when I was a young lad, and look through the highlights.

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You will see all of the law passages. You will do this. You shall not do that.

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Do this. Do that. All highlighted. Multiple colors. Little notes in the margins. All the gospel texts.

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No highlights at all. Why? Because the gospel made no sense to me. None whatsoever.

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Gospel? Why do I need to hear that Jesus died for me? I'm not a pagan. I believe in Jesus.

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You only tell somebody who isn't a Christian that Jesus died for them. That's baby stuff.

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I've moved on to the heavy lifting. In fact, if people could see my spiritual body, they would go, that guy looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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Although right now, he looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy. But see, that's backwards.

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Upside down. Inside out. And it would be funny if it were not absolutely satanically tragic.

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You see, the devil is all about himself and his glory. And he wants us to believe that Jesus is all about you and your glory.

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So let's return to our gospel text and watch this amazingly boneheaded satanic move on the part of James and John.

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First verse, 32. They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them.

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They were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. Let me explain. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem.

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He's the Messiah. He's the Son of God. Oh, we all know what that means. They're going to crown him king.

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We're going to kick the Romans out, and we're going to bring the kingdom of God here to earth.

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Raise the roof. This is what they're thinking about. And of course, the people following, they're afraid because they're going, what's going to happen after Jesus becomes king?

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Are the Romans going to send another legion of soldiers? Are we going to go to war? What's this all mean?

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And you can almost see Jesus seeing this whole scene, taking the twelve aside, and kind of in football coach style, saying, boys, take a knee.

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Take a knee. So there they are. They're around Jesus, and he says this quite plainly.

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We are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes.

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They will condemn him to death, deliver him over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him.

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And after three days, he will rise. Now, brothers and sisters, this is the gospel.

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Because Jesus is going to do all of these things and suffer all of these things so that you and I can be forgiven of our sins.

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And literally, what Jesus just did here is like the equivalent of shooting little

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BBs at a ten -foot -thick concrete wall. It's not penetrating.

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How do I know? The next verse. It's almost as if James and John, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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We don't know what any of that means. So, James and John, and we've learned this, by the way.

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There's a little detail. Take a look at your Bullockton cover. Take a look at your Bullockton cover. You're gonna note there's a woman there, and then there are

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James and John. What's the woman doing there? We learned from a cross -reference that these fellows didn't even have the guts to do this themselves.

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Whoever wrote the gospel of Mark was polite. They sent their mom to do this.

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So their mom is thinking, oh, oh, what's gonna happen next? Jesus is gonna establish his kingdom, and I want my boys to have the best spots in the kingdom.

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So James and John sent their mother and said, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.

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He said to them, what do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, grant us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.

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Hmm. They are jockeying for cabinet positions in the new

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Jesus administration that is going to be set up in Jerusalem very shortly, at least that's what they think, when you come into your glory.

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Now think back a few weeks. We talked about what the glory of God is. Remember the story of Moses after the whole golden calf incident.

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In Exodus 34, actually 33, he asked to see God's glory. God says, yeah,

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I kind of know, but here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna cause my glory to pass by. I'm gonna hide you in a cleft of a rock and you can see the backside of my glory, so to speak.

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So this occurs. Moses is in the cleft of the rock in Exodus 34. The hand of God is over the cleft and the glory of God passes by.

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He can't see it, but he can hear it, and the glory of God is this. Yahweh, Yahweh, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, pardoning iniquity.

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You see, the glory of God is to forgive sins. So these fellows don't understand what

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Jesus's glory is at all. They are thinking of glory in the way you and I think of glory.

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Well, I want to be a celebrity. I want to be a bazillionaire. I want to jet around the globe and meet with important people and have lots of money and be numbered among the pretty people.

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I want People Magazine to write glowing stories about me. In fact, I'm pretty sure this year, although last year

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I was a little disappointed, I will be named People Magazine's most handsome man ever.

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Self -glory. This is what they're thinking and this is idolatry.

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This is actual objective evidence. They still have the poison of the serpent flowing through them because Satan is all about himself.

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Look how patient Jesus is with them. Jesus said, you don't know what you're asking.

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Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And they said to him, we are able.

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Jesus said to them, all right, the cup that I drink, you will drink. The baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.

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A little bit of a note here. The cup he's talking about is the cup of persecution, the cup of being rejected, the cup of being treated poorly, mocked, beaten, flogged, things like this.

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In fact, all but one of Jesus's disciples, with the exception of Judas, you have to kind of put him in a different category, they all died martyrs deaths.

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They all died martyrs deaths. John would have, but God spared his life, at least how church history goes.

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And as far as the baptism, this is something we all participate in as well. Consider what

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Romans 6 says, that each and every one of us who've been baptized have been baptized into Christ's death and into his resurrection.

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This has to do with his suffering, bleeding, dying, and rising. We have been baptized into him.

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So we, like the disciples, we have also been baptized into his baptism.

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But then he says this, to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.

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So the question is, when Jesus comes into his glory, for whom was it prepared to sit at Jesus's right and left?

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Answer, well, consider Jesus on the cross. The details of his crucifixion are quite clear.

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Jesus was crucified between two thieves, one on his right, one on his left.

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It is the glory of God to forgive sins, and it is Jesus's greatest glory that he bled and died for you.

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Bled and died even for your self -glorifying idolatry. In fact, this is really kind of the point of what

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Jeremiah was getting at in our Old Testament text. Listen to what Jeremiah says again. Behold, the days are coming, declares the

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Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And you're thinking, well, that's great, but I'm not

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Jewish. Oh, I would beg to differ. Everybody who has been baptized into Christ has been been grafted into Israel.

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You are part of Israel. So I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel, the house of Judah. Not like the covenant

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I made with their fathers, the Mosaic covenant, on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the

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Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, declares the Lord, I'll put my law within them.

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I'll write it on their hearts. I will be their God. They shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying,

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Know the Lord, for they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest, declares the

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Lord. Now that little piece of Jeremiah's prophecy is looking forward to the world to come.

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Because we still have to evangelize. We still have to tell people, know the Lord. Know the

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Lord. Yad -de -ah. Yahweh, know the Lord. Because each and every one of us was born dead in trespasses and sins.

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But then you get these last words. I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

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That is the gospel. You see, in the new covenant, the thing we have now is the forgiveness of our sins.

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And consider this then. James and John, not understanding what it is that they are asking for, are asking for something satanic.

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And the good news is that Jesus is going to Jerusalem. The good news for them is that he went to Jerusalem.

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He was delivered over to the chief priests and scribes. They did condemn him to death. They delivered him to the

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Gentiles. They mocked him, spit on him, flogged him, and killed him. And after three days he rose again.

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Which made it possible for Jesus to not remember this satanic request of theirs.

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But the reality is this. As much as we want to condemn them, we must confess that we are all guilty of these same things.

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When Christianity turns into kingdom building or statue and monument creation to yourself, you know you are involved in the theology of self -glory.

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Years and years and years ago when I first became a Lutheran, one of my pastors, Pastor William Swirla, in a sermon on this exact text, had a very interesting test.

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He says you can always tell you're dealing with the theology of self -glory in this way. Whatever it is that you are really dreaming about, really wanting

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God to help you with, imagine yourself standing at the foot of the cross while Jesus is there bleeding, sweating, with the crown of thorns pressed into his head and laboring for every breath.

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You see crucifixion is cruel that way because in order to breathe you have to pull yourself up to breathe.

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So there he is letting himself down, having trouble breathing because he's on the cross.

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And then ask him there for what it is that you want from him. And if it seems inappropriate, that's because it is.

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So ask God like the televangelists do. While Jesus is bleeding and dying, God, Jesus, I would like a 65 million dollar

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Gulfstream jet, a Lamborghini, Maserati, Aston Martin.

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Oh man, could you imagine how much I would look like James Bond if I drove an Aston Martin? Can I have that Jesus, please?

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It doesn't fit, does it? So take your thoughts, your dreams, your aspirations, the things you really desire, and ask them there.

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While Jesus is in his glory, bleeding, dying, so that you can be forgiven.

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And now all of a sudden you can see the bite of this text. This isn't about them.

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This is about us. This is about you and me, and how we fall short so terribly.

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How we want Jesus to glorify us. And to this we must, again, say repent.

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The good news is that Christ went to Jerusalem and died for you, so that God will not remember these self -idolatrizing, is that a word?

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Satanic requests, and dreams, and aspirations. Those all come from your sinful nature.

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Not from God. Not from the Holy Spirit. Jesus wills for you in this life to repent, deny yourself, take up your cross, follow

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Jesus. In other words, if it's all about how I'm going to be the greatest, you don't get it.

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And so the story then continues in our gospel text. Word got back to the other ten disciples that James and John had made this request.

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And you can almost see them going, I was going to ask for those, one of those seats. Oh, I hope he doesn't, he doesn't get it.

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I want that, you know. So when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.

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Time for another holy huddle. Jesus, patient Jesus.

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Boys, take a knee. Let me explain this to you again. You know that those who are considered rulers of the

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Gentiles lord it over them. That's a great way of talking about it. Lording it.

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I am an authority. I have power. You obey me. Put in your dues and maybe you'll be able to be as great as I am.

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They lord it over them, and they, in their great ones, exercise authority over them.

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And isn't that how it works? Over, over, over. The guy on top. It's Yertle the turtle.

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The king of all that I see. King of a rock. King of a tree. Always wanting to go higher and higher and higher.

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But Jesus says that's not how it will be among you. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant.

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Whoever would be first among you must be the slave of all.

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There's no glory in being a slave. There's no glory in being at the bottom. I would beg to differ.

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Read Philippians 2. Christ became the servant of all, though he was by nature

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God. He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped. He made himself nothing, and being found in the form of a slave, he became obedient.

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Obedient even to the point of death on the cross. Therefore, God has exalted him to the highest position, so that the name of Jesus every knee would bow in heaven on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord, to the glory of God the Father. There's no glory in this life for those who are slaves.

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But humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. He will lift you up. Count yourself nothing.

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You are a sinner, forgiven by grace. Carry your cross. Suffer, be persecuted, serve, even if it means in obscurity,

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God sees. All of this because you are forgiven, and Jesus is actually the one who is the slave of all.

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He was your slave for you, so that you can be forgiven. Rather than send us all to hell as we deserve,

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God in his great mercy and compassion, in his great love for us, sent

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Christ to bleed and to die for us. And this story shows just how backwards, upside down our thinking is.

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All of this discombobulation caused by satanic sin. But God in his rich mercy sent

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Jesus, and he was delivered to the chief priests and the scribes for you.

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They condemned him to death for you. They delivered him over to the

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Gentiles for you. They mocked him for you, spit on him for you, flogged him for you, and killed him for you.

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So that you can be forgiven. So that God will never remember your sins again.

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Because of what Christ has done for you on the cross, all of your sins, every one of them, has been cast into the sea of God's forgetfulness.

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And if you could find where it is, and can find the shoreline of the sea of God's forgetfulness, the path that leads right to the place where you can enter it, there is a sign posted.

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And the sign says, no fishing allowed. And this is good news.

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This is good news. Because if God remembered our sins, we're doomed.

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But the good news is, because of what Christ has done, the slate has been wiped clean.

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The debt has been paid. God remembers your sins no more.

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So repent of all of your self -glorifying little projects. Repent of all of your dreams, and visions, and aspirations of being fantastic, and great, and lauded among human beings.

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Put it all aside. Deny yourself. Take up your cross, and follow the one who bled, and died, and rose again, so that you can be forgiven.

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In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 56744 And again, that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 56744 We thank you for your support.

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