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Let's start our service this morning by reading Accords 37 to 39. But in all these things, we overwhelmingly call, for I'm convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This morning, let's begin our worship service by singing together Christ our hope in life and death.
Christ our hope in life and death.
Christ our hope in life and death. This morning, there's just a few announcements that I,.
One announcement I want to draw your attention to that is not in your bulletin. And as we come to the beginning of this new year, there's going to be a lot of activity starting up again with Bible studies and children's ministries.
So check the bulletin for that information on those ministries and those events. But one thing that's not in your bulletin that I wanted to remind you of and make you aware of is I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we are considering hiring Joel Baker as a New FedEx counselor, a biblical counselor to be part of the staff here and to start a biblical counseling institute.
And he is going to be here not next Sunday, but the following Sunday. So that's two weeks from today. On that Sunday morning, we're going to have during the Sunday school hour, a Q &A similar to what we do when we have our guest speakers come for the equipping conference, where you'll get to know the speaker, ask him questions about themselves so that you have a chance to hear him and be part of that.
So that's going to be during the Sunday school hour on January 12th. So if you're interested in spending some time with him and getting to know him, I would encourage you to show up early for that hour and join us in here for that Q &A.
Turn your Bibles now please to Mark chapter eight for the scripture reading. Our scripture reading is going to be a portion from Mark eight, a portion from Mark nine, and then a portion from Mark 10. So we'll start in chapter eight with verse 22.
The gospel of Mark chapter eight, verse 22. And they came to Bethsaida, and they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored him to touch him. Taking the blind man by the hand, he brought him out of the village.
And after spitting on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see men, for I see them like trees walking around. Then again, he laid his hands on his eyes and he looked intently and was restored and began to see everything clearly.
And he sent him to his home saying, do not even enter the village. Jesus went out along with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way, he questioned his disciples saying to them, who do people say that I am?
They told him saying, John the Baptist and others say Elijah, but others, one of the prophets. And he continued by questioning them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered and said to him, you are the Christ.
And he warned them to tell no one about him. And he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again.
Now Mark chapter nine, look at verse 30. Mark chapter nine, verse 30. From there, they went out and began to go through Galilee and he did not want anyone to know about it for he was teaching his disciples and telling them the son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him.
And when he has been killed, he will rise three days later. But they did not understand this statement and they were afraid to ask him. And then look at Mark chapter 10, down at verse 32. They were on the road going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was walking on ahead of them.
They were amazed 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, saying, behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and the son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him to death and we'll hand him over to the Gentiles.
They will mock him and spit on him and scourge him and kill him. And three days later, he will rise again. This is the word of God. Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads. Our father, we gather together today as your people, grateful for the grace that you have shown us in your son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grateful for the grace to celebrate this Lord's day by reflecting upon the sacrifice of our savior, his offering for us and what that has meant for our lives, redemption, the forgiveness of sins and righteousness.
And we celebrate together not just that we have been saved by the blood and the sacrifice of Christ, but that we are also secured by that same sacrifice. And then we are sanctified in this life as you prepare us for our eternal inheritance.
And so we thank you that the work of salvation is yours and yours alone, and that you keep those whom you save and you sanctify all those whom you save. And we pray that today you would continue that work of sanctifying us, conforming us to the image of Christ and making us more like your son.
We pray that you would do that in this coming year that is ahead of us as we make various resolutions and purpose various things in the coming year. We pray that among them may be the resolve to pursue holiness without which no one will see you, to pursue the unity of the faith and the bond of peace, to pursue walking in the spirit and in obedience, to pursue the mortification of our sin and conformity to the image and the likeness of Christ.
May you make us a holy people conformed to your son, striving after and longing for holiness and purity and joy and delight in your word. Make your word the center of our lives, the center of our worship, the center of all of our doing and the center of our dying as we look to the one who has done and died on our behalf, Christ Jesus, in his name we pray, amen.
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us take hold of our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things like we are, yet without sin.
Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
It is so good to see each one here this morning. We're thankful that you're here. And now I invite you to open your Bibles to Mark chapter 10, passage we were just in a few minutes ago for our scripture reading.
Mark chapter 10, this morning we're gonna consider answering a question, how to be great in the kingdom of God from Mark chapter 10. We're going to talk about this very, very basic. And as I thought about it, I thought if I had to categorize this passage and this teaching, it would be basic Christian discipleship, okay?
And yet as we're going to see, it is founded on a profound truth as we're going to see. So Mark chapter 10, we're gonna be looking at verses 35 and 45. You have an outline in your bulletin if you care to follow along on that.
And we're going to see how to be great in the kingdom of God. Before we do, let's commit our time to our Lord and ask his blessing on our study. Our Father, we know that we are dependent on you completely to be our guide through your word.
And thank you, Father, that by your grace, you have called us to yourself. You have not dealt with us according to our sins, but you have dealt with us according to your grace. And you gave us that grace in Jesus Christ.
And so Father, now, as we look into your word, help us by the power of your spirit to comprehend all of these things. Help us then, Father, to change that we might be conformed to the image of Christ even more through our study today.
And we ask all of these things in Jesus' mighty name.
Amen.
In the ancient world, when an invading army would sweep over their enemy and conquer these people, the victorious army would take anything of value in that land. And of course, the most important things they went after at first were the gold and the silver, the jewels, the jewelry, and that type of thing.
And often the conquering army would employ mercenaries to go along and fight the battles for them. And the mercenaries were paid from what was left after the general and his army got the main spoils. And often the invasion would occur just after harvest time because they would let the enemy nation plant the crops, raise the crops, and then harvest the crops, and then they would invade.
That gave them some crops to feed their own army, some grain, but also they would use that grain to pay the mercenaries who fought with them. And particularly significant from a prestige perspective were captured religious artifacts.
Anything of value to the religious rights of the conquered nation would be taken. Symbols, objects, and that type of thing, especially if they were captured within the temple or the place of worship of the conquered enemy.
Because when the conqueror captured those religious artifacts and then took them back to his home country, putting them on display, they were saying, our God, or our gods, since they were pagan, is more powerful than your God because we've got your stuff, okay?
But another valuable commodity taken during one of these conquests was people, the people. And both captive soldiers who survived the battle and the citizens of the conquered land would become the property of the victorious army.
And in that day, when there were no rules of war, if you were taken captive by a conquering army, your future was pretty grim. And these captives would often be deported back to the conqueror's homeland, like the Assyrians did with the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC.
They swept down, they conquered them, and they deported most of the population back to Assyria. And when that happened, they were often forced to participate in a parade in the homeland or in the capital of the homeland.
This was called a triumph. The general would parade the people and all of the stuff that he had brought in order to proclaim his victory. When the Romans became the dominant world power, they became very famous for their triumphal parades.
These were called triumphs, and one account describes a Roman triumph this way. On the day of his triumph, the general wore a crown of laurel and an all-purple gold-embroidered triumphal toga, regalia that identified him as near god or near king.
In some accounts, his face was painted red, perhaps an imitation of Rome's highest and most powerful god, Jupiter. The general rode in a four-horse chariot through the streets of Rome in unarmed procession with his army, the spoils of war, and his chained captives.
When the triumph arrived at Jupiter's temple on the Capitoline Hill, he offered sacrifice and the tokens of his victory to the god, Jupiter. So you can see, a Roman triumph was as much of a religious rite as it was civil or even military.
So that in that day, captives who survived the battle, who survived the journey back to Rome, who survived the abuse of their captors, which was probably extensive, they became slaves. And slaves became a class of people who had no rights, no say whatsoever over their futures.
They essentially were the property of their captors. They were bought and they were sold. They could be executed for any reason at any time. And in that day, they were actually called human tools, human tools.
Another class of people in the ancient world were the servants. Now, in many cases, there wasn't a lot of difference between slaves and servants, but there was a basic difference, and that was that a servant served voluntarily.
He had some say in the arrangement. In fact, some people even would sell themselves as servants for a period of time in order to pay off a debt or something like that. One historian states the difference this way.
Slaves were actually reckoned as property, held to be as strictly the property of those whose slaves they were, as house furniture, land, or estate. Servants, on the other hand, were free and more or less their own masters.
But even though there were these basic differences, both slaves and servants in the ancient world had one thing in common. Culturally and socially, slaves and servants became a despised class of people.
Even if they were freed, and some slaves were freed, they still could not escape the stigma and the disgrace of being a former slave. In the Greco-Roman world of the first century, humility and having a willingness to serve other people, that was not considered a virtue.
That was considered a weakness. The Greeks even had a saying, they had a lot of sayings, but one of their sayings said this, how can a man be happy when he has to serve someone? That was their attitude.
And even the Jews who had received from God in their own Torah the command to love your neighbor, they had taken that over the centuries and basically turned any kind of service into a good work for which God owed them righteousness.
They had just incorporated that into their works righteousness system and had perverted it that way. In other words, when you did an act of service to somebody, then God was in your debt and had to repay you for it.
And one of the worst insults a Jew could cast at someone was to call that person a slave. In fact, in Judaism, a Jew could actually be excommunicated from Judaism for calling his neighbor a slave. In Matthew 26, verses 14 through 16, we have the record of Judas negotiating his betrayal of Jesus.
It says, then one of the 12 named Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and said, what are you willing to give me to deliver him to you? And they weighed out 30 pieces of silver to him. 30 pieces of silver was not much in those days.
As a matter of fact, it was in the law in Exodus chapter 21 that if a man's ox escaped from his corral and killed his neighbor's slave, the price had to be paid to that neighbor to replace that slave was 30 pieces of silver, the price of a dead slave.
And that's exactly what the religious leaders of his day required for the betrayal of Jesus. And these guys wanted him dead, the price of a dead slave. And that was just fine with Judas. He took it. So given the history of slavery and given the attitude towards servants and slaves in that day, if somebody came to you and said, you need to commit your life to being a servant and a slave, you'd have thought they'd lost their mind.
Nobody in their right mind would wanna even pursue being a servant and a slave. And after a couple thousand years of human history, not a whole lot has changed, right? I mean, it usually in our day takes the form and it did back then too, money and power, power and money.
Look at the politics, right? It's power, money, money, power. Even now, after November 5th, there's been a steady stream of people to Mar-a-Lago, Florida, right? Seeking what? Seeking prominent positions.
They do have to fill all the cabinet positions and all that, but still, you know what's going on there and it's getting a little ugly too, right? People vying for position, trying to get prominent positions.
They're trying to get the chief seats in the coming kingdom, of course. Well, as we saw from our reading, when Jesus began his final journey back to the city of Jerusalem, he knew he had an appointment with the cross.
He knew that this was in the father's will for his life. He also knew that his little band of followers were not ready to have him depart. And so he has to begin to teach them about what was going to happen to him in the city of Jerusalem.
And it starts out in Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was way to the north. It's about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee and about 105 miles, as the crow flies, from Jerusalem. So from Caesarea Philippi, he begins to teach his disciples.
And the three passages we read in Mark were passages where our Lord attempted to teach his disciples about what was going to happen. Verse 31 of chapter eight, as we see, this is at Caesarea Philippi.
And verse 31 says, and he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things. Don't miss that word there, he began. This was when he first started teaching them about his impending death and burial and resurrection.
Up to this point, the gospel they preached was the gospel of the kingdom. In Matthew 10, Jesus called his disciples to him and tells them this. He sent them out after instructing them, saying, do not go in the way of the Gentiles and do not enter any city of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
And as you go, preach saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That was the gospel they preached. They preached the gospel of the kingdom. Why? Because the king is there and the kingdom is impending, but it had to be presented to the nation of Israel because in the Bible, Old Testament all the way through, the one prerequisite for the return of Christ to set up his kingdom is the repentance and faith of the Jewish people.
And so he made that presentation, but once they rejected him as a nation, he then had to begin to teach his disciples about his impending death on the cross. It wasn't plan B, it was in the father's will, but it still had to be taught.
And their audience in this first gospel they preached was confined to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And we know of course what the great commission is after his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension is that the gospel is to go to all of the earth, all of the earth.
But at Caesarea Philippi, he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things. Mark's gospel is noted for its rapid pace, its rapid movement when you read through it. And one of the ways that it is accomplished is with these geographic references to show you where they are at certain points in time.
In the second time he began to teach his disciples his impending death is Mark 9, 30 through 32. From there they went out and were going through Galilee and he was not wanting anyone to know about it for he was teaching his disciples and telling them the son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him.
And when he has been killed, he will rise again three days later, but they did not understand this statement and they were afraid to ask him. Now, as we arrive at our passage this morning in Mark chapter 10, the third time he attempted to teach them that and they're getting close to Jerusalem and he's once again trying to prepare his disciples for what is going to happen.
They had to learn a very important lesson. They wanted to be great in God's kingdom as we're going to see, but they had to learn that they had to be great God's way and not their way. They had to learn and we have to learn that greatness in God's kingdom is not measured by position or power or privilege.
It is measured by how well we self-sacrificially serve others in this life. And so that brings us to Roman numeral chapter one and these first verses, the request, the request. And remember, this request is right on the heels of the third time he had tried to teach them about his impending death.
Verse 34, and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. And after three days, he will rise. And what's the question of these two disciples? Verse 35, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee came up to him and said to him, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.
It's almost shocking, isn't it? And he said to them, what do you want me to do for you? Now, our Lord knew exactly what they were gonna ask. He knows everything, right? But he's so gracious and so patient and he's drawing out of them their own words, right?
He wants them to learn this lesson. What do you want me to do for you? They said to him, verse 37, grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory. At that time in Israel, there was a very high messianic expectation.
The Jewish people understood their Old Testament. They understood what the Old Testament said about a king who would come and that same king would come and he would judge the Gentiles. All the Gentile powers and unbelievers would be judged.
The disciples of Jesus were convinced that he was the Messiah. They had been with him for three years. They had seen his miracles, heard him teach, knew that he was the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant and he had the right to sit on the throne of David.
And the throne of David is an earthly throne all through scripture. And so they had seen everything that he had done. They also were Jewish and so they understood the first verse in the Bible very well.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And they knew that he had demonstrated his absolute lordship over both of those realms, the immaterial as well as the material part of all of creation, his lordship over the immaterial world.
He cast out demons, he forgave sin, he promised eternal life to all who would believe in him. He demonstrated absolute perfect lordship over the immaterial realm, the spiritual realm and everything. And he did the same thing in the material realm as well.
He turned water into wine, that was his first miracle. He created enough food from a little boy's lunch to feed thousands of people. He calmed a raging storm on the Sea of Galilee. He healed physical illnesses and physical congenital defects.
And he raised the dead multiple times. He gave physical life to physically dead people. And therefore he demonstrated his absolute lordship over both God's immaterial part of creation and the material part of creation.
They were convinced this is Messiah. He is Messiah, he's the rightful one, he's here to set up his kingdom and we wanna be a big part of it, right? What they did not understand, however, was also in the Bible, the Bible calls in the Old Testament and says there's going to be a suffering before there's glorification.
They couldn't see that there's going to be a cross before there's a crown. They were just looking out for themselves. But what they couldn't see, Jesus is going to tell them. And so he predicts his death a third time.
And remember at Caesarea Philippi, what's their reaction when he spoke of his rejection, his death and his resurrection? Peter's response, if you remember that, he rebuked the Lord for talking that way.
And Jesus had to rebuke him severely, get behind me, Satan. And then at Galilee, farther to the south, as they moved toward Jerusalem, Mark 9 31, he spoke again of his rejection, his death, his resurrection.
His disciples' response, they argued over which one of them was going to be the greatest. And then as he nears Jerusalem, here in Mark 10, again, he speaks of his rejection, condemnation, and then greater detail in how he would be treated than his death and his resurrection.
And what's the disciples' response? Well, here, James and John try for the chief seats in the kingdom. The chief seats, when an ancient king seated a visiting king, if he seated that visiting king on his right, that was the resident king saying, this is my equal.
This is my equal. If he seated him any place else, that was his way of saying, this guy's not my equal, okay? And this is why Psalm 110 verse one is so important and why it's used so many times in the New Testament.
Psalm 110 verse one says, Yahweh says to my Lord, and this is speaking of Jesus here, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies as a footstool for your feet. When Yahweh speaks of seating the Lord Jesus at his right hand, this is Yahweh saying, this is my equal, my co-equal, okay?
And it's repeated over and over again in the New Testament. James and John are trying to get the king, Jesus, to award them the chief seats in the kingdom. But if you go back to Matthew 19, 28, he had already promised all of the disciples, all 12 of them, a very prominent place in the kingdom.
He said, you will be seated on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. So they had a promise of prominence in the kingdom as judges over the nation of Israel, but this wasn't good enough for these two guys.
Also, in Matthew's account, Matthew includes this detail, Mark does not, their mother actually comes and intercedes with Jesus. Now, when we first read that, that the mother of James and John came and tried to get Jesus to give them the chief seats, we think, come on, you guys, you sent your mom to do this, that's pretty bad.
Well, and it would have been, but we have to remember that in that culture, it was not at all unusual for a mother to intercede for her sons, especially if there was some kind of a relationship involved there.
In the Old Testament, for example, in 1 Kings 1, 15 through 17, Bathsheba intercedes for a position of honor and glory for her son, Solomon, before King David. Now there is a family relationship there, so we see that.
So culturally, it's not at all unusual for a mother to intercede for her sons. And remember, the mother was Salome. Salome was the sister of Mary, which made her Jesus' aunt. And therefore, James and John were Jesus' cousins.
They were also part of the inner circle that Jesus had set aside. It was Peter, James, and John. Remember, they were invited up onto the Mount of Transfiguration. And even before this particular part of his teaching, he had had them on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Remember, he revealed his glory. So these guys are primed for the coming kingdom. They believe it's right here. He's the king. The kingdom is gonna happen. We've even gotten a glimpse of his future glory, okay?
But what was their problem? This is C in your outline. They were seeking their own glory. They were seeking their own glory, never a good thing. When power, prestige, and prominence are at stake, even the disciples of Jesus Christ can become blind to their true spiritual priorities.
And what were they blind to? What they couldn't see was Roman numeral two. They couldn't see the requirement, what was necessary, what was necessary for Jesus and what was necessary for them. Verse 38 and following says, "'Jesus said to them, "'You do not know what you are asking.'.
"'They were blind and ignorant. "'Are you able to drink the cup that I drink "'or to be baptized with the baptism "'with which I am baptized?'. "'And they 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 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.'". The cup and the baptism are his suffering and his death.
Oftentimes in the Old Testament, the cup is used to picture severe trouble and suffering, and even baptism, which means to immerse. That's what it means. It means to immerse. That's all it means, as a matter of fact.
It often pictures being overwhelmed or immersed in trials and trouble. James and John were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. And they may have thought that he was merely talking about some religious conflict, you know, with the religious leaders, or maybe they were gonna go to a war a little bit with the occupying Roman forces, but what are they worried about, right?
He's the Messiah. And they knew from the Old Testament that Messiah is gonna come back and he's gonna judge all the Gentile occupiers. So they're more than willing to say, yeah, we're able, we can go along with this deal.
But what they weren't seeing was first and foremost, the depth of his suffering on the cross, but also what they were gonna be required to suffer. And what do they have be in your outline? Their overzealous pride.
They had overzealous pride. They thought maybe that Jesus was calling them to a higher commitment, or maybe be willing to die with him in battle. But he was the king, he was the conqueror. What are they worried about?
When God, what they couldn't see was his suffering on the cross and the intensity of it. And as a matter of fact, we are unable to see it as well, right? Who can comprehend what went on there? They could see the cross and the physical death of crucifixion, as bad as that was, but what they could not see and what's really impossible for us to comprehend fully is that when Christ hung on the cross, that God the father made him sin, the sinless one, and then judged him for the sins of all who would believe in him.
And besides, the chief seats were not his to grant. In the middle of all this, Jesus is so calmly submissive to the will of his father, his willingness to submit to the cross and so on. He also submits his will to the father to grant the chief positions in the kingdom.
That was God's prerogative and not his. Even those who are walking close to Jesus can be blinded to the trials of discipleship by pride and a desire to be great. And that brings us to Roman numeral three, the reaction, the reaction, verse 41.
They're not the only ones who wanted a chief spot in the kingdom. Verse 41 says, and when the 10 heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. Indignant in some contexts means having righteous indignation.
But in this context, it means selfish anger, selfish anger. They weren't upset because they thought it was inappropriate or unspiritual for these guys to be jockeying around for the chief seat in the coming kingdom, okay?
Which it was. They were mad because Jesus and John got there first. And they also might've been somewhat jealous of the relational hook that they had through their mother, Salome. But what did they have?
B, they all had selfish ambition, every single one of them. And even after the third time trying to prepare them for his death, they were all still just thinking about their positions in the coming kingdom.
And so he has to deal with them. And it even gets worse after that. If you look ahead in your Bibles to Luke chapter 22, for just a minute, Luke 22. Now, remember that Luke is not one of the original apostles.
Luke came along later and he got his information directly from these apostles to write both Luke and the book of Acts. And what he does then is place this event, essentially places it in the upper room.
And people get kind of upset and worked over. And a lot of the atheists and liberals accuse the Bible of not being accurate because the gospel writers sometimes place events in different places chronologically.
But what they don't realize is in the ancient world with ancient writers, it wasn't so much the timing that was the big deal. The issue was the event and what it meant, which was more important than when it took place.
But if you look at Luke chapter 22, remember we're in the upper room. We've gone now into the final week of our Lord's life and we're up in the upper room the night before he was betrayed. And we know from the other gospels, including John's gospel, that one of the first things he did when he came into the upper room was to take off his outer garment and to wrap the towel of a servant around his waist and wash their stinking feet with a basin of water as a picture of how they need to be serving one another.
And then he gave him extensive teaching on the coming Holy Spirit and what it means to be in unity and so on. And as we get to this passage, chapter 22, Luke's account of it, it's actually after the Lord's table.
He took the Passover meal and he converted that into what we call the Lord's supper, a graphic audio visual picture with the loaf and the cup of his death, substitutionary death. And then in verse 22, he even talks about his betrayal.
Chapter 22, 22, he says, "'For the son of man goes as has been determined, "'but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed.'". And that's Judas. Verse 23, "'And they began to question one another, "'which of them it could be who was going to do this.'".
And after all of that teaching on sacrifice and all of that teaching in the upper room and of all of those graphic presentations, the washing of their feet, the Lord's table, and all of that, look where Luke places this event.
Verse 24, "'A dispute also arose among them "'as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.'". Isn't that just wonderful? Now, whether or not it actually occurred in the upper room, again, maybe not, but Luke put it here to stress and emphasize the absolute incongruity of anybody wanting to be first in the kingdom after being taught about the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Well, go back to chapter 10 of Mark's gospel and what's going on here with these 10. They're indignant. They all had selfish ambition. And our Lord, though, he's so gracious and so patient. He doesn't chide them for wanting to be the greatest.
He doesn't chide them for wanting to be the first in the kingdom. He has to teach them that greatness in God's future kingdom is not achieved man's way, but God's way. Jesus has to turn their thinking upside down by teaching them the principle that theologians call eschatological reversal, eschatological reversal, okay?
Look back in 10 at verse 31. But many who are first will be last and the last first. This is all through scripture over and over again. And Jesus taught this way, eschatological reversal. What you see right now in this day and age is one thing, but in the future, things are going to get turned upside down.
And when you see this now in scripture, it's gonna pop off the page at you because it's all over the Bible. And what these men thought was that they could become great by being appointed to a chief seat.
That's how men achieve greatness in the world. But that's not the route to greatness for the disciple of Jesus Christ, which brings us to Roman four, the route. How do you get there? And Jesus is gonna give them a lesson on how to be great in the kingdom of God.
What he says there in 42 through 44, and Jesus called them to him and said to them, okay, it's all you guys. Hey, you guys get over here. Gonna hold school here on how to be great in the kingdom. Every single one of you.
You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant.
By the way, all those pronouns are plural, your servants, all of you servants, okay? And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all rather than act like those in the world and lord it over people or exercise authority over people.
Disciples of Jesus Christ are to become two things, two things, and it's important that we see that they're both right there. He says, it is not so among you. Very important to see there. That's a present tense.
Usually it translates as something into the future. He's talking about the here and now. In fact, one New Testament scholar says, verse 43a is not an admonition to behave in a certain way as much as a description of the way things actually are in the kingdom of God.
You wanna be great in the kingdom? You have to become a servant. You have to become a servant. A servant is one who voluntarily serves others. It's the word diakonos. We get the word deacon from that.
Sometimes it's even translated minister in the Bible. And because of the work they commonly did in households, oftentimes it's said to be a table waiter. One Greek dictionary says the main thought in the word is service rendered to another.
So what Jesus is saying, each one of you must become servant to all of you, but that's not all. You also have to become a slave, a slave. A slave is one who forfeits their own rights and serves others.
And it's a well-known word. You've heard the word doulos, doulos. Have to become a doulos. The root of the word is actually the Greek verb deo. The Greek verb deo means to bind, to bind. So a doulos is one who is bound in service to somebody else.
Very important to see that. Various definitions. One whose will and capacities are wholly at the service of another. One who gives himself up wholly, completely to another's will. And he says you have to be slave of all, all of you guys.
Okay, this is comprehensive. One commentator describes these two requirements for greatness in the kingdom this way. To be slave of all is lower than a mere servant. The indication is of leadership that is radically other-centered, focused on meeting the needs of others rather than controlling others to meet one's own needs.
The values of the kingdom turn the world system upside down. Eschatological reversal. When the church obeys our Lord's command to love one another, it always results in self-sacrificial service within the body of Christ.
That brings us to Roman numeral five, the reason. He's gonna answer the question, why should we do this? Why should we seek out being slaves and servants? This is the answer to the question maybe some of you are asking right now in your own hearts and minds, why?
Well, here's the reason, verse 45. And all scholars and all commentators on the gospel of Mark say that verse 45 is the key to Mark's gospel. It is the focal point of this entire gospel account. He says, for even the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Christ himself came to serve. This is A in your outline. He himself came to serve. Jesus Christ is our supreme example in all things, is he not? And even his own position and authority in the kingdom to come was because of his self-sacrificial service in this life on the cross.
Don't miss that. He died on the cross and that happened in time, space and history. It was an accomplished event in time. And that then qualified him to be exalted to the right hand of the father, which happened.
The cross had to happen before the crown happened. And when he comes back to this earth to rule, he will be exalted. Matthew 25 says, and he's talking about it himself. When the son of man comes with his angels, it says, then the king, he says, will sit on his glorious throne.
The glorious throne of David is an earthly throne. It is never spoken of as being in heaven. It is an earthly throne. And very interesting, it's a very rich statement that he makes, a ransom for many.
The word is loutron, loutron. It's only found here and in the parallel passage in Matthew's gospel. It is the price paid to release a slave from captivity. Think of that. A price paid to release a slave from captivity.
And even the word life here, there's three words for life in the Greek New Testament. Bios, we get the word biology and those words from it. That's physical life. Zoe is commonly referred to as the eternal life we have, divine life.
This word is actually the word, it's psuche. We get the word psychology from that word. This is the word that is translated elsewhere, soul. So if you wanna make a very literal rendering of this verse, even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his soul a ransom in the place of many.
Because that little preposition for, that is the word anti. Anti means in the place of, in the place of. Antichrist, when he comes, oh yes, he will be against Christ, which is how we commonly think of that word anti or auntie.
But it actually means in the Greek New Testament, in the place of. This is one of the clearest statements in the Bible of the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. It is very clear just from this verse.
His death was the ransom that purchased us from the slavery of sin. And the language just bears that right out. How do we become great in the kingdom of God? Well, the application for all who are believers in Jesus Christ, pretty simple, pretty plain, become servants and slaves.
Christian, how are you serving the body of Christ? That's the lesson here. And if you have not yet trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, you are a slave and you are a servant, but you're a slave to Satan, as scripture says, and you're a servant to your own sin.
I encourage you to turn from your sin and trust in Christ as your Lord and savior and do it quickly and escape that slavery and become a servant of Jesus Christ. And then begin to build a life of service to him and the church.
What did the disciples learn the lesson of greatness that Jesus tried to teach them all those times? Well, certainly they did eventually. They, when they saw that death on the cross and his burial and then his resurrection.
And remember Acts chapter one says, after his resurrection, he spent 40 days with the disciple, 40 days teaching them about the kingdom. And their question that they had after that was, is it at this time?
They got the kingdom part right, but what they did not understand was the timing at that point in time. And then when they were empowered on the day of Pentecost to take that gospel of the cross out to the world, they certainly did it.
And we're the recipients of that as well. James was the first of the apostles to be martyred under Herod Agrippa in the early forties. And John, his brother lived to an old, old age. And as an old man was exiled on the Island of Patmos.
Okay.
And also before he died, he wrote five of the New Testament books. In one of them, he said this, first John 3, 16, listen to it and then we'll close. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us.
And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
Let's pray. Our father, our Lord went through a lot to teach his disciples this lesson. And certainly father, the greatest example of self-sacrifice in the history of time was his sacrifice on the cross, making full payment, full substitutionary payment for the sins of all who would believe in him.
And so father help us through this passage to apply these things to our lives. Help us to seek out to be servants and slaves in this life. Knowing father that we serve a gracious and loving savior, not a despot or somebody who is cruel and abusive, but one who loves us and loves us enough to die on the cross for our sins.
And father help us each one to practice these things in our lives, to implement them and help us father to do it all for our joy, for your glory. In Jesus name we ask it.
Please stand. But nothing of our efforts stand, no lay. Legacy serves the Lord, does raise the house in vain. It's builder's trial. We bless you and keep you. Yahweh make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you.
Yahweh lift up his face on you and give you his blessing.
