“Christian Greatness” Mark 10:32-45 October 21, 2007

SCRIPTURE INTRO:

We’ve seen in recent weeks that last part of Mark is about the cross.

How Jesus came to set things right through his suffering and death.

And what it means to follow him, take up our cross.

This passage is more about what it means to follow Jesus.

INTRO: I got on Amazon.com and typed two words into the search engine:

“Management” and “Jesus.”

Just as I thought, a bunch of books appeared, and I wrote down some of the titles:

Management Methods of Jesus

Leadership Lessons of Jesus

Jesus CEO and others.

Is this passage about leadership or management technique?

Is Jesus basically saying:

Look, if you want to lead, if want to be productive, you can’t be a bully.

You have to lead from encouragement.

Have to let the people under know you appreciate them.

If you do that, you will get more done, be more productive.

That the way you get more out of people under you, take on guise of servant?

Is that what Jesus is teaching here? Is he teaching a leadership technique?

No, that’s not what Jesus was saying.

You don’t need the Bible for that.

You don’t even need Management Methods of Jesus.

I’m sure that there are plenty of secular books on management or leadership

that teach the importance of being a servant-leader.

No, Jesus was teaching something much more profound.

When James and John asked to sit at his right and left hand in his glory—

Jesus didn’t say, Ok, here’s how you get it, you have to be humble.

That’s how you get ahead in my kingdom.

He said: You don’t know what you are asking.

Can you drink the cup I drink, be baptized with the baptism I’m baptized with?

What was his cup and baptism? It was his crucifixion.

He had just talked to the disciples about this.

I’m going to be betrayed, condemned, mocked, flogged, killed.

James and John wanted to sit at his right and his left in his glory.

They thought that would be a political glory. Reigning in Jerusalem.

But what was Jesus moment of greatest glory?

It was when he hung on the cross for the sins of the world.

Displaying in himself both the justice and mercy of God.

And who was at his right and his left in his glory?

The two thieves, who were crucified with him.

So Jesus is not saying—be more humble—he’s saying, be more dead.

If you want to be great in God’s kingdom you have to die.

That powerful drive in you to be first, and to get glory,

and to pursue honor and position and comfort and self-esteem—has to die.

It has to be crucified.

From that death will come the ability to serve people in a way that is truly great.

This passage is not about techniques for being successful—

it’s about the essence of what it means to be a Christian.

It’s instruction by Jesus on true Christian greatness.

There are three parts to Jesus’ instruction—three things he calls you to do.

1. Know your heart

2. Look at Him

3. Serve other people

Let’s look at each as we look at this passage.

MP#1 Know your heart

In one of Tim Keller’s sermons he says we all have what he calls a “glory vacuum.”

Word “glory” in Hebrew is literally the word “weight” as in heaviness.

For something to have glory means that it has weight. It is real. Has significance.

God himself has the greatest glory, and Adam and Eve were created as the crown

of God’s creation, and as images of his glory.

But sin has separated us from God and so we have a glory vacuum.

What Keller means is that we are constantly looking for things that will give us

a sense of significance, a sense of importance or greatness.

The reason we are always comparing ourselves to other people—

whether it is money or looks or education is because it is a way getting glory.

James and John wanted glory.

They wanted to be men of importance and honor.

That’s why they asked for these two positions.

And that’s the reason the other ten disciples became indignant.

They wanted the same thing.

They were mad that James and John had beat them to the punch.

They thought that their shot at glory had been shortchanged.

So Jesus called them together and said:

You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,

and their high officials exercise authority over them.”

He was saying: This is the problem with your hearts.

This is the reason you are so angry with each other.

Just like Gentiles you are looking for greatness through positions of power.

And he was also teaching them what happens when people look for glory

in positions of power and leadership.

They lord it over the people under them.

In other words, if you seek to bring glory to yourself in a position

of power and leadership, then you will be incapable of leading,

you will simply be serving yourself.

Instead of doing good things, will bring devastation.

My preacher friend Charles Garland says that one of the best pop culture

pictures of this kind of leading is Scar in the Lion King.

Your remember that Scar became king of the lions to get glory for himself.

He ruled by bullying and threatening.

With the young Simba he used guilt manipulation.

And under his rule the kingdom became a wasteland.

You’ve all seen examples of Scar.

You’ve seen it in families.

There are husbands and fathers who are trying to fill their glory vacuum

by demanding respect. Over time, home becomes a wasteland.

Their wives are diminished, and children are afraid of them.

You’ve seen, maybe experienced it in the workplace.

I’m sure that all of you have had bosses and coworkers only concerned with

protecting their position, making themselves look good.

Don’t care at all about using business to serve people.

You’ve seen it in school.

Students who are blessed with popularity, but don’t use that to reach out to kids

on the fringe, but instead, use popularity to be even more exclusive.

School becomes a wasteland of loneliness and quiet desperation.

And perhaps you’ve even seen it in churches. Pastors and leaders who use guilt

and spiritual manipulation to control people and get glory for themselves.

Churches like that do become a spiritual wasteland.

We can all think of examples, and maybe even have suffered under that kind

of self-serving leadership. But notice what Jesus is teaching the disciples.

Yes, this is a problem in the world. Yes, this is the way the Gentiles do things.

In other words, it’s the way pagans think.

But you men have the same heart.

You also crave greatness and will use positions of power and leadership to get it.

And, of course, the great lesson that Jesus wants us to get is that this is us.

We crave glory. We crave greatness.

Because of that, every little position of leadership you have, no matter how small,

will be a temptation to use as a way to get glory for ourselves.

So what’s the cure? Well, Jesus says, look at me.

That’s the second great instruction in this passage—know you heart,

then look at Jesus.

MP#2 Look at Jesus.

Jesus draws the disciples’ attention to himself and says:

“For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve

and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

He calls his life a ransom. Ransom price paid to purchase the freedom

of a slave or a person captured in battle. My life is that ransom.

My life is a substitute for you to free you from slavery.

Since the slavery that Jesus paid for was the sin of the human race—

the price he paid though his life was huge. It was terribly intense.

He alluded to it when he called it his cup and baptism.

In the Old Testament, the cup a symbol of God’s judgment on evil.

Jeremiah: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath.”

Psalms: “In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine,

and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.”

Baptism just a way of Jesus saying that he would take this on himself,

or, if you are a Baptist, Jesus’ way of saying he would be immersed in suffering.

It’s helpful, even as Christians, to ask ourselves—why did it have to be this way?

Why did Jesus have to suffer the cup of God’s wrath?

If God is a real, loving God, why didn’t he just forgive?

Why didn’t God just say to us: Be forgiven!

The reason is that all life-changing love requires substitutionary sacrifice.

Think about it, it’s true on every level. It’s certainly true of parenting.

Your children come to you in a state of complete dependency.

And what do you do? Sacrifice years of your life for them.

When they are little, you spend hours reading to them, same books over and over.

Even though terribly boring, you put yourself in child’s place,

you read childish books, because you know it will help them learn.

Still remember when we were expecting our second child,

dug deep and bought a minivan. I didn’t want to buy a minivan.

Same week we bought our minivan, neighbor, our age but free and single

bought a Mazda Miata. She came whipping in with top down.

We were wresting a car seat into the Plymouth Voyager.

We needed a vehicle that would be best for our children.

But you make those sacrifices for love.

It’s also true of forgiveness. When somebody wrongs you, there is a debt.

You can try to make them pay. Run them down, attack, curse in mind.

But if there is ever going to be any change in the person,

if you want to have any hope for the person to see the wrong done,

and perhaps be reconciled, it will cost you.

It will cost you the emotional agony of putting aside your desire for revenge

and instead praying for that person’s blessing.

You will pay in yourself for the wrong done to you.

All life-changing love requires a substitutionary sacrifice.

God is so loving and he is so just, that he had to die.

He couldn’t just shrug off evil. He paid for it in himself.

His life was a ransom for you.

And when you get that, it fills your glory vacuum.

When you realize, Jesus gave his life as a ransom for me—

that means I’m forgiven, but it means much more than that.

It means that God is completely satisfied with me now.

Because Jesus life is my life.

I have God’s acceptance.

As Bible says he delights in me,

he rejoices over me with singing.

When that sinks in, you start to care less and less what people think of you—

because you know what God thinks of you in Christ.

And that start to free you from the need to compare yourself with other people.

And it frees you from seeking and using positions of power and leadership

to get glory for yourself.

If you are in those positions, enables you for the first time to serve people

and not yourself because you have all the glory you need through Christ.

And that is exactly where Jesus takes us next.

MP#3 Serve other people

Now we get to the big point that Jesus is making with his disciples.

They wanted greatness, they wanted glory—you will never get the world’s way,

by lording it over people, using positions of power for yourself.

Look at me. My life is a ransom given for you. Let that be your glory.

Then he says to the disciples:

“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,

and whoever wants to be first among you must be slave of all.”

Let me make four brief applications about leadership and service.

1. God places Christians in positions of leadership to serve people.

In the few weddings that I’ve done in my years here, I’ve said something

in some of them that has always gotten a laugh.

Read Ephesians 5—“Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church

and gave himself up for her.” And then I say to the groom.

That means that today is not just your wedding, it’s your funeral.

Everybody laughs.

Jesus calls you to love your wife by dying for her.

That doesn’t mean throwing yourself in the path of a charging bull to save her.

It means dying to your wants, your way, so your wife can have what she wants.

The spiritual leadership of a husband means nothing less than serving his wife

And that is true in different ways of every place of leadership

that the Lord puts you in—big or small, formal or informal.

Who are the people you are leading? You are called to serve them.

2. Leaders should be the ones who repent the fastest.

It’s always hard to admit you are wrong and ask for forgiveness.

But it’s especially hard if you are a leader.

There have been times over years I’ve had to ask people in church for forgiveness,

and it’s been very hard for me to do that. Because of that old glory vacuum.

To admit my wrongs seems to diminish my glory.

But if you know Jesus has ransomed you with his death,

so that God looks on you with favor, then your glory is secure.

And as a leader, you ought to be the first to repent.

Christian parents ought to be the first to repent in a family.

Christian bosses and teachers ought to be the first to repent.

One of the greatest ways to serve people is to say—

I was wrong, please forgive me. Can only do that if your glory is secure.

4. It takes living in community to learn how to serve.

And the community I’m talking about is the church.

Jesus says: “Whoever wants to become great among you . . .

whoever wants to be first among you . . . must be slave of all.”

He’s talking to the 12 disciples who were the foundation of the church.

This is where you learn the service I am talking about.

This is where you learn what real greatness is—in the life of the church.

If you just show up at church, worship, talk to a few people and leave—

if you make no effort to get to know the different members of the body,

so that you know their needs and can serve them—even if it’s just to be able

to talk with them about what’s going on in their lives—will never learn to serve.

The church is a community that forces you to get to know people

who are different from you, many people wouldn’t normally pick as friends,

but people united with in Christ—so that you can serve them.

I will never forget a strange person in my home church, frightened sister and me,

she was so odd. She had a need of some kind, had to come over to our house.

When she left we said to parents—why does she have to be in our church?

Where else but in the church will she find people to love and serve her?

We learn, and our children learn from watching the way we serve each other

in this church, what it means to great in God’s kingdom.

4. When we serve other people, we learn to be served by Christ.

We read this passage and we immediately think it is saying that the way we

serve Jesus is by serving other people. But that’s not what this passage says.

It says the exact opposite. Jesus says:

“For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve”

And then he says, now, serve other people.

Do you understand how amazing that is. Jesus is saying:

You don’t serve me when you serve other people—I serve you!

You don’t become my helper, I become your helper.

That’s why the Christian life is such a humbling thing.

We admit every hour that we need help.

We turn to Jesus and say—I can’t serve this person.

I can’t let go of my own glory.

And when you turn to him in that way, Jesus becomes your servant.

And all of his commands become not so much things we do for him,

as they are things he enables us to do for others.

And the Christian life becomes a life of serving others in the strength

that he supplies as our servant.

And it is loving people with the love he gives us as our servant.

And it is sacrificing, and suffering with the hope and joy and patience

and glory that he gives us as our servant.

The Christian life, the great life is walking in the shadow of our servant King—

the one who came not to be served, but to serve,

and to give his life as a ransom for many.