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The Lord's word for us this morning comes from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 20, 17 through 28.
Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem.
On the way, he took the twelve aside and said to them,
We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.
They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.
On the third day, he will be raised to life.
Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.
What is it you want? he asked.
She said, Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.
You don't know what you are asking, Jesus said to them.
Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?
We can, they answered.
Jesus said to them,
You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant.
These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.
When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers.
Jesus called them together and said,
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.
Not so with you.
Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.
Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
This is the gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
Thank you, Brian.
Good morning.
My name is Andrew.
I'm one of the pastors here at Christ Church.
And it's great to be with you.
I'm sharing God's word with you this morning.
Will you pray with me?
Lord God, we have not come to witness a powerful preacher, but to encounter your powerful word spoken to us from the lips of Jesus.
And I just ask that we would so experience the Spirit, so encounter your Son,
that we'd be changed by the ordinary preaching of your word.
So make much of our little.
Do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
All right, so I'm not sure if Cody and Stevie Texan are tuning in, but I did want to give them a shout out.
They just had their newborns this week safely.
We're super happy about that.
Yeah, I'm super excited for them.
First-time parents, beautiful little boys, twins, Samuel and Luke Texan.
We'll call them the Texan twins, all right?
The Texan twins.
And, you know, this really got me reminiscing about my first time as a parent.
That was four years ago.
Kami is four now.
And I just remember four years ago holding that little baby girl in my arms, fresh out of the womb.
And I was like, man, I want this girl to be great.
I want her to be great.
And so I did all the things, right?
Skin on skin time with mommy and daddy.
I read to her.
I sang to her.
I smothered her with affection.
I even tried to enhance her physical capabilities.
Just one day old, I was like having her bounce up on my lap trying to make her do baby squats.
I would touch her fingers to increase her tactile senses and let her touch a bunch of different things to increase her dexterity.
I put a basketball next to her to familiarize her with the game.
I just, I really wanted her to be great.
An absolutely great human being according to all the metrics of greatness, at least in my mind.
And imagine that's what Cody and Stevie want for their boys.
It's what all of the parents in this room probably want for their kids, what all of our parents probably wanted for us.
We all want to be great.
And we all want those we love to be great.
And it was no different in the days of Jesus than it is today when a mother, not unlike any other parent in this room,
approached her Messiah King, seeking the greatness of her beloved boys, two of Jesus' innermost disciples, James and John, the sons of Zebedee.
And yet what we see here is that in typical Jesus fashion, he neither denies nor grants this short-sighted request,
but instead he points them beyond themselves, beyond their present understandings of who he is and what true greatness is.
And he points them to a far more profound understanding of himself and of true greatness.
He points them to the fact that when we miss the crux of the cross, we miss the greatness of greatness.
And that's God's word to us today.
When we miss the crux of the cross, we miss the greatness of greatness.
Now let's set the scene here first.
Look with me at verse 17.
Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem.
So this is his final journey, his journey to the cross.
And you just can imagine the things that he's feeling on his way there, right?
And so it's not surprising that he wants to talk about what's heaviest upon his heart with his crew.
So it says,
Like remember, he's got quite an entourage, but it says he takes his closest friends aside,
wanting to share with them what's on his heart, what's on his mind.
And even though he's shared this at least twice with them already in Matthew's gospel account,
and even though they typically seem to not really understand what he's talking about
or just kind of seem to brush it off normally,
he tries to be vulnerable with them again.
And he wants them to know.
He wants to prepare them for what's going to happen.
So he says to them in verse 18,
And what he does is he gives them even more information than he'd previously given them.
In verse 19, he says that he's going to be delivered to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.
And he says on the third day he will be raised to life.
So imagine you're his close friends,
and he pulls you aside and he spills his guts to you like this.
And he's not only your close friend,
he's the one you believe to be the Messiah,
the one who you believe is sent from God, right?
The authoritative voice of God, the prophetic voice right there with you.
How might you respond to all these things that Jesus just said
about his crucifixion and his resurrection?
You would think that his closest friends would be distressed, right?
Or if they didn't understand, they'd be like,
you know, tell me more, please.
I mean, Jesus was saying some pretty wild things, right?
Condemned by the chief priests in the temple,
flogged and mocked by both the Jewish establishment and Gentile Romans,
crucified, and then like raised from the dead?
What are you talking about?
Raised from the dead.
But what verse?
But what does verse 20 say?
What does verse 20 say?
Right after Jesus speaks about his crucifixion and his resurrection,
there is no consolation.
There are no questions.
It's like he hasn't said anything at all.
Verse 20,
Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons
and kneeling down asked something from him.
And you know the NIV says asked a favor of him,
but I think that's actually too generous in my opinion.
In the Greek, it actually says she asked something from him.
Like she's out to just get something from him.
And so he asked her in verse 21,
what do you want?
What do you desire?
And she commands him.
She gives an imperative.
In the Greek, it's not actually grant, but it says say.
She says,
Say, Jesus,
Say that these two sons of mine may sit at your right and left.
Effectively, make them your prime minister and your chief of staff in your kingdom.
And if that seems like an incredibly awkward transition from verse 19 to 20,
it is.
It is an awkward transition.
But you know, I think that this gospel writer knew exactly what he was doing
by recording this major non sequitur.
And I spent a lot of time this week trying to figure out,
puzzling as to why this chapter was written the way that it is.
Like what was the logical flow between verse 19 and verse 20?
Like why would anyone think it was cool or okay or natural
to so abruptly change the topic of conversation
and the flow of thought to demand something of Jesus
after he'd just gotten vulnerable with them,
sharing what was on his heart with his dearest friends
about some really deep stuff like being mocked and flogged and crucified.
But then it hit me.
This transition from verse 19 to verse 20
was probably supposed to strike me as odd and discordant.
And not only was this inappropriate and awkward of James and John and their mom,
but I think God was trying to show me this week
that this wasn't just a reflection of the Zebedee family,
but it was also a mirror reflecting me.
And how I too so often approach the Lord, my King, my Messiah,
not as the King of Kings crucified in my place,
but more as a genie than a sacrificial master.
It's a reflection of how I so often ignore the main thing that Jesus is about,
the main thing that's on his heart,
and instead bring to him the things on my own self-centered agenda list.
And we all do this.
We do this all the time, don't we?
Like if someone asks us,
how can I pray for you?
What do we say?
We ask people to pray that God would help us
achieve our own self-determined goals
toward our own greatness, right?
That God would help me do well in my test.
That he would help me do well in my performance.
That he would grant me favorable outcomes at work, right?
Better circumstances to make me great.
To make me great at whatever it is I'm pursuing.
We all do this.
I'm preaching right now,
and I probably asked someone this week,
can you just pray that God would give me a good sermon to preach?
Make me a good preacher?
Give me good pastoral counsel?
But you know,
if we only ever approach Jesus
as an all-powerful king,
and not as a crucified king,
we will only ever approach him wrongly.
We will only ever pray the wrong kinds of prayers,
and missing the crux of the cross,
we will miss the greatness of true greatness,
his greatness.
Now look,
I'm not saying that these kinds of prayers
should never come upon our lips,
or that God doesn't care about our lives,
or the things that we ask for.
In fact, he does.
He cares more than we do about our lives,
and he wants us to bring every little thing
on our minds,
on our hearts,
to him.
I would even say that God wants us to be great.
Notice,
Jesus doesn't rebuke or reproach the Zebedee family here.
He doesn't scold them for being arrogant,
or prideful,
or selfish,
or worldly.
Like,
who do you think you are?
How dare you pursue greatness?
No,
Jesus doesn't have anything against greatness,
or ambition,
in and of itself.
In fact,
in the scriptures,
the scriptures teach that we are wired,
to pursue greatness.
It's part of what it means to be human,
to be made in the great,
and glorious image of God,
to fulfill God's first words to humanity,
to be fruitful,
and to multiply those fruit,
and to expand over the earth,
and to rule the earth,
and to exercise dominion,
as children of our kingly creator.
We should all want to be great,
because God made us to be great.
In our classrooms,
in our workplaces,
in our families,
our relationships,
in our hobbies,
as students,
employees,
employers,
as parents,
siblings,
spouses,
athletes,
artists,
scientists,
professionals,
to use and develop the gifts
he's given to each of us
to be a blessing to the world.
Because our greatness reflects
God's greatness.
It's like what Eric Liddell said,
the Olympians,
in that movie,
The Chariots of Fire,
said this to his sister,
I believe that God made me for a purpose.
He made me fast.
And when I run,
I feel his pleasure.
To give it up would be to hold him in contempt.
It's not just fun.
To win is to honor him.
So the Zebedee family's desire for greatness
wasn't wrong.
But what was wrong
was their understanding of greatness.
That's what went wrong.
See, what went wrong
with their understanding of greatness
is that they only understood
half the gospel.
They only understood half the gospel.
Yes, James and John
and their mother
rightly believed
Jesus is king.
Jesus is Messiah.
It even says she
knelt before him.
They clearly understood
something of Jesus' greatness.
And they sought their own greatness
by proximity to his.
That's right.
That's good.
But what they failed to understand
was the other half of the gospel.
That Jesus would be
a crucified king.
And that his true greatness
didn't just come from some
generic crown upon his head
but specifically
from his crown of thorns.
See, by ignoring Jesus'
vulnerable discussion
about the suffering
he was about to face,
by missing the crux of the cross,
they were missing
the greatness
of his greatness.
And so what Jesus does
is he gently and patiently
tries to redirect them
to his cross
and to the truth
about what real greatness
is about.
So I want to have us
turn our attention now
to Jesus' teaching
on true greatness.
Look with me at verse 22.
In verse 22,
it's clear to Jesus
that they have no idea
what true greatness is.
You don't know
what you are asking,
he says.
And so the first thing he does
is he tries to help
them connect the dots
between his cross
and his greatness.
And so he asks them,
can you drink the cup
I am going to drink?
I'm going to explain more
about that cup in a minute,
but what you at least
need to know
is that it's not
a desirable thing
to drink this cup.
It's the same cup
that Jesus desperately
pleads with his Father
about in the garden.
Father,
if it is possible,
may this cup
be taken away from me.
Yet not what I will,
but yours be done.
And it's a cup of suffering
and sorrow
and anguish
and loneliness
and forsakenness.
And so by asking
this question,
Jesus is indicating
that the way to greatness
involves drinking
a bitter cup,
a bitter cup of suffering
and hardship.
He's saying that the road
to greatness
isn't a walk in the park.
It's costly.
It's hard to swallow.
It's not just a matter
of asking your mom
to get you a nice seat
next to the king.
No.
It's like Dr. King said,
nothing worthwhile
is gained without sacrifice.
It's costly.
Jesus says to the sons
of Zebedee,
do you really know
what it takes,
what it costs?
Are you really able
to drink this cup
all the way down
to the last,
most bitter dregs?
And it's not quite clear
that they do understand
what Jesus is communicating
to them
about the bitter cost
of greatness
in his kingdom.
Because James and John
are like,
yeah,
we can drink it.
We got this.
Yeah, Jesus,
we'll be your cup bearers,
whatever it takes
to share your greatness.
We can pay it.
We can pay the cost.
But really,
they have no idea.
So Jesus continues
in verse 23.
He says,
well,
you say you can
and I can even tell you now
that you will indeed
drink from my cup,
but regardless,
to sit at my right
or left,
it's not for me to grant.
These places belong
to those for whom
they have been prepared
by my Father,
Jesus says.
And this is the next thing
that we learn about greatness.
It not only involves
a bitter cup,
but ultimately,
greatness is judged
and decided
by the Father.
Jesus,
their great Messiah
and King
is setting for them
an example of greatness.
And it's not about
seizing authority,
but rather submitting
to authority.
The authority
of our Father
in heaven.
Jesus is saying,
look guys,
honestly,
I myself,
the Messiah,
I don't even have
the authority
to grant who will be
at my right
or my left
because even I am
under the authority
of my Father.
And He decides,
not me.
You guys want to be
at my left
and right in the kingdom,
but don't forget
whose kingdom this is.
How did I teach you
to pray?
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done.
And Jesus consistently
points them back
to not my will be done,
but my Father's.
You know,
in Mark's gospel account
of this story,
the two sons are recorded
saying to Jesus,
they say,
teacher,
we want you to do
for us
whatever we ask.
And I think this is,
this really betrays,
I think,
their understanding
of greatness
in the kingdom of God.
They think that greatness
is about getting
whatever you want,
having that much authority.
And that's what so many of us
think when we think
of greatness as well,
don't we?
We think of power.
We think of authority.
We think of self-determination.
When I put my basketball,
right,
into my newborn Cammie's hands,
what was I thinking?
I want her to dominate,
all right?
I want her to dominate
on the court.
I want her to have her way
with her opponents.
When I read to her,
what was I thinking?
I want her to be great
at school.
I want her to be able
to get into whatever school
she wants,
right?
But what if greatness
isn't about ascending
to some status
where we can always
have our way,
where we can always
impose our will?
What if greatness
is submission
to the Father's way?
What if the best
and greatest way
to be human
is not freedom
from the Father,
but following the Father?
Like, think about that
for a second.
If greatness
is about getting
our own way
and it's not about
going God's way,
what kind of a world
would that lead to?
Everyone pursuing greatness
and thus everyone
pursuing the power
and authority
to go their own way.
What would ensue?
What would ensue
but vicious,
cutthroat competition
and division
and hatred?
And I mean,
that's exactly
what happens here
with the other ten disciples.
Verse 24 says,
they're indignant.
Yo, bro,
you asked your mom,
you tried to use your mom
to manipulate Jesus
into one upping us
in the kingdom of God?
Their misunderstanding
of greatness
only turned community
into competition
and friendships
into fighting.
So Jesus sets
all of them straight
in verse 25.
You know that the rulers
of the Gentiles
lord it over them
and their high officials
or as it says
in the Greek,
the great ones
exercise authority
over them.
And what he's saying
is that in every other kingdom,
in every other kingdom,
rulers are overlords
and the great ones
wield authority.
And to them,
this makes complete sense,
right?
Because why wouldn't
rulers rule
over those who are under them?
And why wouldn't
the great ones
exercise authority
over the lesser ones,
right?
But according to Jesus,
verse 26,
not so with you.
Not so in my kingdom,
he says,
for unlike any other,
Jesus' kingdom
is an upside-down kingdom.
With no social hierarchy,
it's ordered by an economy
of love and service.
Verse 26,
not so with you,
Jesus says.
Instead,
whoever wants to become
great among you
must be your servant
and whoever wants
to be first
must be your slave.
And you have to understand
that especially
in Jesus' ancient
pre-Christian world,
ruling,
not serving,
was the greatest status.
A servant worked for hire
to maintain
their master's property.
And a slave
was forced
into service,
right?
As one commentator puts it,
a slave was virtually
a non-person,
someone with no rights,
no existence
of their own.
Rather,
they existed solely
to serve others.
Doesn't that sound awful?
Like,
these are the lowest,
the lowest possible positions
in society
that Jesus is talking about.
And yet,
what he's doing here
is he's reversing
their status
to great and first
in the kingdom economy.
And not in some,
like,
abstract,
conceptual,
idealistic way,
but he makes it personal.
He holds himself
the king of kings,
the king of the kingdom of God
to the same standard.
And he offers himself
as the prime example
of this servant-hearted,
even self-sacrificing
greatness.
Verse 27.
And whoever wants
to be first
must be your slave,
just as
the Son of Man
did not come
to be served,
but to serve,
and to give his life
as a ransom
for many.
Jesus points them
to true greatness
by pointing them
to his cross.
He's saying,
I'm the Messiah.
I'm the king.
And even I didn't come
to be served,
but to serve.
And not just to serve,
but to sacrifice,
to sacrifice my whole life
as a ransom.
So according to Jesus,
greatness doesn't primarily
consist in getting,
but in giving.
Not in asserting supremacy,
but in assuming servanthood.
And Jesus calls
every citizen
of his kingdom,
both then
and now today,
to pursue
this kind of greatness
through self-denying,
sacrificial service
after the pattern
of his cross.
Now I wish
I could end
the sermon here,
right?
But I'm pretty sure
that for a lot of us,
myself included,
like for those of us
who've grown up
in the church,
and honestly,
even for those of us here
who aren't even Christians,
a sermon like this
probably seems
pretty standard,
unsurprising,
and therefore redundant,
and probably uninspiring,
right?
No duh,
Pastor Andrew.
Of course a Christian minister
is going to get behind
the pulpit
and say something like this.
Yeah, we got it.
Be more like Jesus.
Serve more like Jesus.
Love more like Jesus.
Sacrifice more like Jesus.
Okie dokie.
I'll try harder this week.
I'll try harder
to wash a few more dishes
at home, right?
To give a little bit more
effort at work.
To block out
Saturday, June 24th,
on my calendar
for the next Project Peace
day of service, right?
How's that for
sacrificial service?
I got this.
And I don't at all mean
to discourage
or downplay
any such resolutions.
But if try harder
is all that you've heard
today,
then I've totally
failed you
and you haven't
heard the gospel.
Dude, this isn't some
moralistic,
love your neighbor better,
give more,
serve more sermon.
If all we heard
from Jesus today
is a challenge
to make some
moderate behavioral
modifications,
then I'm afraid
we all have still
missed the crux
of the cross
and the greatness
of greatness.
Like really,
if our only takeaway
from Jesus' words here
is to just
moderately try
a little bit harder
to love our neighbors
like Jesus,
then honestly,
we're probably
not actually pursuing
the greatness
that God wants
for us.
But some other
kind of greatness,
another kind of greatness
patterned more
after a conventional crown
than Jesus'
crown of thorns.
And if that's the case,
then we have totally
missed the crux
of the cross
and the greatness
of Jesus' greatness.
greatness.
And we need to be
honest with ourselves
if that's the case.
Because if that's the case,
the good news about Jesus
isn't actually
very good news to us.
And we can't even
call it a gospel.
Like perhaps the good news
of Jesus
that the way up
is down,
that the cross
precedes the crown,
that it is better
to give than to receive.
Perhaps this news
about God
becoming a servant
and humbling himself
unto death
on a cross
to pay the ransom
for his beloved people,
perhaps we find this
to be more of a threat
to our pursuit of greatness
than actual good news.
Maybe we prefer
alternate empires
and don't actually
want to live
in a kingdom
where just anyone
can be great
not through self-assertion
but through
self-abandonment.
You see,
that's what we really
need to consider
this morning.
Not just whether
we understand
Jesus' teaching
about greatness
with our heads
and not even just
whether we are
copying Jesus'
model of greatness
with our hands,
we need to consider
whether we are
truly convinced
of Jesus'
cross-shaped
greatness
in our hearts.
Whether we believe
what he says
about true greatness
and greatness'
inextricable
link
to his cross.
Or else,
all this stuff
about self-denial
and submission
and sacrifice
and service,
not only will
we never be able
to live it out,
but we won't want to
because it won't make
any sense to us.
See,
if we only read
this passage of Scripture
as a word from Jesus
about how we're supposed
to live and die
for others
just like he did,
we've missed
the most important part
of what he's saying.
Like,
yes,
we ought to live
and die
for others like Jesus,
but it's only when
we first realize
that he is the one
who has lived
and died
for us.
That we will ever
even understand
how we can do
the same
for others.
The crux of the cross
is that the bitter cup
reserved for us.
The bitter cup
was reserved for us.
The cup,
the prophets
and the psalmists
spoke about foaming
with bitter wrath
and judgment
reserved for all those
who neglected
to do justice
and love mercy
and walk humbly
before their God.
The poison cup,
every single one of us
deserve to drink.
Jesus,
though it was
his worst nightmare
and though
he deserved nothing
but the sweetest
overflowing cup
in the banquet
of banquets in heaven,
he drank our cup
in our place.
The creator of the universe
came into the world,
but his existence
among us
was not to be served
as the creator
that he is,
but rather to serve
his creatures
as the savior
that he chose
to become
graciously,
voluntarily.
And he gave his life
in the place
of our lives
as a ransom
to purchase
our liberation.
And guess what?
The scriptures tell us
that therefore,
precisely because
he humbled himself
and became a servant
unto death
on a cross,
God exalted him
to the highest place
and gave him the name
above every name
that every knee
will bow
and every tongue
confess that he is Lord.
The crucified servant
is the great
and exalted one,
risen and seated on high.
And this,
this is the gospel.
Good news
of a better kingdom.
Good news
of a better identity,
a better purpose.
Good news
of a better way
to live.
The good news
that Jesus' greatness
was not for the purpose
of serving himself,
nor our greatness
for the purpose
of serving ourselves.
The gospel
is the only news
that can liberate us
from our slavery
to ourselves
and make us cheerful,
sacrificial servants.
This transformational news
of the crucified
and exalted Christ.
Now, can you imagine?
Can you imagine
what kind of a spirit-filled people
the church might be
if we believed
this liberating gospel?
If we inhabited
this upside-down kingdom?
And if we went forth
into our schools,
into our neighborhoods,
into our workplaces,
our clubs,
our homes,
subverting all
the broken hierarchies
and insisting
upon being servants,
willing to give
all of ourselves
for the sake of others.
What if we were
the kind of people
that bore witness
to a cross-shaped greatness,
pursuing the liberation
of all those
held captive
to all these lesser kingdoms
other than the kingdom of Christ?
That's what
the greatest of Christ's
citizens do.
Because in Christ,
every obstacle
has already been removed.
We don't need to worry
about being served.
We don't need to be worried
about being served anymore.
Because Christ has already
served us to the full.
No more vying to sit
at His right or left.
We are happily seated with Him
in the heavenly places.
No more giving begrudgingly
out of our scarcity.
We can give lavishly
of ourselves,
even unto death,
giving out of the spring
of His abundant
resurrection life.
Because Christ Church,
ours is the greatness
of Christ.
The cross-shaped
greatness of Christ.
A very existence
on this planet,
not primarily for ourselves,
but for the good
of the city.
For the glory of Christ.
And that's the kind
of people He's wanting
to make us into.
Will you pray with me?
Lord, we confess
that being a servant
is not attractive to us.
But as soon as we confess that,
we realize
that that must mean
that Jesus is not
that attractive.
Help us to see the beauty
of a God
who became a servant.
and help us to be so ravished
by that truth
that you make us
cheerful servants ourselves.
Pouring ourselves out.
Not in a legalistic way,
but out of love for Christ.
The one who loved us,
gave Himself for us.
A ransom.
The one who drank
the cup for us.
We soften our hearts
to the gospel,
we pray.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.