I want us to kind of start this year, this and-depth year by looking at the kind of church we want to be really.
! And looking at what does it mean to be ministry-minded, to remind me and to remind you about who we are.
I suppose how we do church. And so very often, normally we go through books of the Bible, that's what I prefer to do.
But we're probably going to look at a number of small passages. And I want to start with one verse in Mark 10.
It's Jesus' mission statement in Mark 10 verse 45. Mark 10 verse 45, a very famous verse.
It says, For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.
I'm always a little bit cynical when it comes to mission statements. Churches have a mission statement particularly.
At Kitty Islands, she wrote an article on the plague of mission statements.
And she said, I wanted to write a funny piece on mission statements.
But what I quickly realised was that nearly all mission statements are laughable. Most of them are not funny. They are really funny.
And I don't know, you might have a mission statement for your life, some people do that today. I'd rather.
But I do think Jesus did.
I think Jesus had a mission statement.
And here it is, it is the verse I just read.
For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
If you are going to have a mission statement, it is going to capture your values.
It is going to capture your goals.
It is going to capture how you want to achieve them.
It is going to capture your identity.
Now just look at that verse I read to you.
And first of all I want to see this.
Jesus' mission statement identifies who he is.
It identifies who he is.
Who is he?
Who is he from verse 45?
How does he describe himself?
Can you look down?
The Son of Man.
It captures his values, doesn't it?
Can you see that?
What are his values?
He has come not to be served, but to serve.
And it spells out his goal.
What is he aiming at?
His goal is to lay down his life as a ransom for many.
So let's think about those three things.
First of all, it identifies for us who Jesus is.
And do you notice how he describes himself?
It is his favourite self designation.
If you read the gospels, you will know this is how Jesus is always referring to himself.
He refers to himself as the Son of Man.
And that doesn't just mean, oh, he's another human being.
It could mean that.
And in one sense, it does mean that.
That he's become just another human being like that.
Splashing bones.
Except without sin, the Bible says.
He's entered into the human race.
He's got an authentic human existence.
In every respect.
Psychologically and emotionally and socially.
He's one of us.
But can you notice it doesn't say for even a Son of Man.
It doesn't say that to the left.
It says the Son of Man.
He is the Son of Man.
And there's a number of allusions where he refers to himself in this way.
And it's all pointing back to Daniel Chapel 7.
Let me read to you from Daniel Chapel 7.
Try and imagine the scene.
It's a picture of a court.
The court of heaven.
The court is in session.
And the Ancient of Days, God Almighty, is surrounded by thousands upon thousands.
10,000 times 10,000 of angels.
There's angels as far as you can see.
And the books are opened.
And then you read this.
I saw in the light visions.
And behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came like one, a Son of Man.
And he came to the Ancient of Days.
And he was presented before him.
And to him, the Son of Man was given dominion and glory and kingdoms.
That all peoples and nations and languages should serve him.
And this guy's dominion is an everlasting dominion.
Which shall not pass away.
And his kingdom shall not be destroyed.
You see what it's telling you?
It's saying that the greatest human being who's ever lived.
The greatest human being that you can imagine, he's like the Son of Man.
The greatest person who's ever walked.
There has never been, nor will there ever be, anyone worthy of glory or of, or adulation or praise.
He is truly awesome.
And so even someone with the ultimate authority that Jesus has.
Even the Son of Man, look at him out at 1045.
He came not to be served, but to serve.
It's the US Open and the tennis at the moment, isn't it?
I don't know if you've seen the club, Serena Williams has retired.
And it's an amazing thing, isn't it?
What he says, probably better at home alone.
But you know when they sit down at the end of their games.
And they go sit by the uplier's chair.
And they sit in the sun, and if it's too hot, the ball boy or the ball girl runs to them as quickly as they can with an umbrella.
They stand upright with an umbrella.
And there's a drink that's handed to them.
And there's a towel given to them instantly.
They're the great ones, aren't they?
They are served.
They nod, or they give an eyebrow and a ball right in their hand.
Now I know it's probably a bad little speech because I don't tend to be a soothe, but forget about that for a minute.
But the point of the solution is that the tennis players, they're the great ones, aren't they?
When Serena Williams sits down, Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, they're the great ones, and they are served.
So can you imagine a leak sprints in Flushing Meadow where the US Open is?
And an announcement comes over the tannoy.
It says, one of the toilets is blocked, can Serena come and unlock it?
Can Nadal, can he come off court and fix the gathering?
You can never do it with you.
It would never happen.
Because they are the great ones, and they're the ones in the limelight.
So in the workplace, there's always someone in charge, isn't there?
In the workplace, there's always a boss.
I remember in the office that I used to work in, there was a woman in charge of the stationary cupboard.
And didn't you know it?
She had the keys to the stationary cupboard.
And without her permission, you couldn't get your stationary, you couldn't have a pen, you couldn't do a piece of paper.
Now I know I'm down here on the stationary cupboard, so I think of the past.
But if you wanted to function in that office, if you wanted your paper clips, and your pieces of paper, and your pens,
she was in charge.
Well, Jesus is not in charge of the stationary cupboard.
In Daniel 7, what he's telling us is that Jesus, the one who we worship in the morning, is in charge of absolutely everything.
That's what this term, the Son of Man, means.
He's God's universal ruler.
He is the one to whom all authority belongs in heaven and on earth.
Sometimes you see on people's desks, on their computers, the boss is coming, look, isn't it?
Well, the boss is coming.
That's what this is saying.
This is who Jesus is, according to Daniel 7.
He's given all authority and glory and sovereign power and all peoples.
It doesn't matter where you're from, whether you're from Iran or Afghanistan or Argentina or England or America.
All nations, men, women, boys and girls, in every language, they're going to worship him.
And his dominion is everlasting and his kingdom will never pass away.
I do say, yeah.
Yeah, I'm sure it was alright.
But it is actually happening.
Until you look at the history of the last 2,000 years, and it is happening.
His kingdom is a universal kingdom.
It is coming and it is growing.
It is estimated that 35,000 people will become Christians today.
I find that stat just mind-blowing.
I thought it was 3,500, but no.
You've got to be Googled.
It's 35,000 people will become Christians all around the world.
It is a growing kingdom.
It is a universal kingdom.
And the epicentre of the kingdom is no longer in Europe or America.
The great growth is in places like Africa, South America and China.
And what Daniel saw all those hundreds of years before is actually happening before our very eyes if we look for it.
And this God, this God is coming to the house.
The house of this world.
If I can put it like this without being blasphemous.
If God is in the house, He is the one in Mark 10 to 45 who's got the candle on.
God is the one to make of the tea.
Because even the son of man who comes, not to be served, but to serve.
And that's astonishing, isn't it?
Do you remember what they said when, what Jesus said to Peter when they came to arrest little Jesus?
They came to arrest Jesus in the garden and Peter pulls out a sword to protect Jesus.
And what did Jesus say to him?
Jesus says to him, doesn't he?
Put away your sword.
Put away your sword, Peter.
Don't you realise, Peter, that I can appeal to my Father in heaven and you will at once send me all the twelve legions of angels.
But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so?
What does it mean to be served?
To be served is to have other people doing things to you.
It's how people work for you.
It's how people assisting you.
It's how people carrying your bags.
It's how people that will get things done.
It is how people that will make life just a little bit easier for you and better for you.
But the son of man, he did not come for that purpose.
The son of man did not come to be served.
Jesus said, I did not come into this world to get you to do things for me.
And that might come as a massive surprise to you.
You might have thought that Christianity was all about us doing things for God.
Doing things for Jesus.
It's about us carrying favour with Jesus.
About getting on his right side by doing things.
And no, Jesus said, if that's what you think this morning, you've completely misunderstood.
The gospel is not about what you do for me.
It's about what life comes to do for you.
Jesus is served by angels.
He is served by myriads of angels.
In the garden, when they came to arrest him, he could have flipped his fingers.
And hundreds of thousands of angels turned up.
He didn't need Peter with his little sword.
But he says to Peter, put away your sword.
Because that isn't the reason I can.
I didn't come to be served.
But I come to be served by giving my wife as a ransom.
And you notice, if you look at verse 32 of chapter 10.
And they are amazed, astonished into what was there.
And those who followed were afraid.
There's something about the look in his eye as he walks to Jerusalem.
There's something about his determination.
There's something about his whole demeanour which astonishes them.
He's striding towards his death.
He's deliberately, in a very focused way, going to Jerusalem for the last time.
And do you remember Thomas, one of the disciples, said, listen, we may as well go with him and die.
Because if he goes to Jerusalem, they will, okay.
And three times in Mark 8, 9 and 10, Jesus has warned them, each time I'm going to die.
I'm going to be delivered.
I'm going to be crucified.
I'm going to be handed over and nailed to a cross.
He's gone three times in three chapters.
And now he's on his way and he's staring into the face of his own death.
Even the Son of Man.
The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.
And to give his life to the rights of the man.
And so that's the first thing. He's identifying who he is.
He is the one who is born into the human race.
But he's more than that. He is the ultimate human.
He is God's universal ruler.
The one to all authority in heaven and earth is being given.
That's who he is.
But why then is he can?
What's his purpose?
Why does he go to the cross?
Why does he strive towards Jerusalem?
That leaves us for the second of this mission statement.
Not only does it explain to us who Jesus is, but it captures his values.
Three things I want to say about that.
His values.
That he came to serve instead of being served.
The first thing is this.
That's contrary to human nature.
It's against how we naturally are to that means.
Edith lived in a little world bound by north, south, east and west by Edith.
We are incurably self-centred, aren't we?
We're self-absorbed, self-protected.
If you want evidence of that, go on your own social media.
And you see it here in the disciples of the university file.
James and John, the sons of seven, came back to him and they said to Jesus,
Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we are for you.
That is shocking.
In the previous verses, Jesus said, I'm going to be handed over the Gentiles.
I'll be mocked.
I'll be spat on.
I will be flogged.
It'll kill me.
And then James and John come and say,
And we want you to do whatever we ask.
It's a shockingly selfish prayer.
It's a genial kind of prayer.
It's the sort of thing that kids say to their parents.
But we know better than to fall for it.
Will you give me whatever I ask?
It's incredibly insensitive too, in the light of what Jesus has been saying.
He's just described as suffering.
He's about to endure.
He's already walking in a purposeful way to a kind of death.
John Stott describes this prayer request as the worst, most blatantly self-centered prayer ever prayed.
Can you imagine the prayer meeting on Wednesday?
I say, is there anything anyone else would like prayer for?
I really don't pray that God would do whatever I ask Him.
Can you imagine it?
Listen to me in verse 35.
Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask for.
And He said, what do you want me to do for you?
And He said, you grant us the sixth one on your right hand and the one on your left in your glory.
Jesus said, you know what you're talking about.
You know what you're asking for.
You've got no understanding.
I didn't come.
I didn't come to be served.
And he said, then what do you want me to do for you?
And he said, your grand test has said,
one on your right hand and one on your left in your glory.
Jesus said, you know what you're talking about.
You know what you're asking for.
You've got no understanding.
I didn't come to be served.
But I came to be served to give my life as a rancid man.
It doesn't mean he came to be servile.
It doesn't mean that Jesus didn't give you what you want.
It doesn't mean that Jesus kind of panned at your selfishness.
What if Jesus had given them what they wanted?
What if he could answer their prayers in the way that they liked?
Do you know what would have happened to them?
Look over to Mark 15.
You'll see it.
Mark 15, verse 25.
27.
Jesus said to them, actually, you will all fall away.
For it is written by the Lord,
like the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.
They're all left.
They all fell away.
Jesus was not enthroned
in some gorgeous cathedral
between two campbells.
But the Lord Jesus was enthroned
on a cross between two thieves.
One on his right and one on his left.
One day, they will take Prince Charles,
and they will not take him to Pentadal Prison,
and hang him.
They will take him to Westminster Avenue,
and they will crown him.
And he will become King Charles of the Lord.
King of England.
Just imagine Charles being cracked for his coronation.
And they say,
Charles, as you process into the Abbey,
into Westminster Abbey,
and as you walk down the aisle,
everyone is going to turn their back on you.
And as you get up to the front,
there will be peers of the round
in all their finery,
with their ermine collars,
and their red robes.
The moderator of the Church of Stockholm
will be there with the Bible.
And when you make your way to the transept
at the front of the church,
they will spit in your face.
And when the Archbishop lifts the crown,
and as he's about to crown you,
a sniper,
somewhere in the eaves,
is going to fire a bullet,
and it will shoot you through the head.
Shocking, isn't it?
That's how it was for Jesus.
That's how his kingdom came.
His crucifixion was his coronation.
It is gory,
and yet there is glory there as well.
And that's what the disciples have understood.
The kind of kingdom that Jesus is bringing
to this world is totally different
from any other kingdom.
It's clearly not what the disciples
had in mind at all.
It's culturally genuine nature.
We are essentially self-centered,
and self-protecting,
and self-absorbed,
and self-advancing.
Even in church,
we are in our lives for ourselves.
What did that do for me?
What is it for me?
I didn't get much out of that.
Rather than what can I do to serve others?
So his value is a contrast with human nature,
but it's also really counter-cultural.
It's so different from our culture.
It runs contrary, doesn't it,
to the Catholic word of politics.
And not just politics,
sports slam.
That people out for themselves,
to make a name for themselves,
whatever the cost.
Look what Jesus says in verses 42 to 44.
Jesus said,
you know that those who are regarded as rulers
of the Gentiles,
lordly no with them,
and their great ones exercise authority over them,
but it shall not be so among you.
Not so with you.
Those four words characterise Christian leadership.
And so the values that Jesus brings
are contrary to human nature.
So whether it's in the world of sports,
or the world of politics,
or the world of big business,
you know how it is,
people are playing the greasy power.
They'll step on others to get there.
Somebody has said,
in the paradoxical topography of heaven,
the way up is the way down.
That's what he's saying,
is that the way to become great
in the kingdom of God
must become a servant.
And whoever wants to be first
must be a slave of all.
He's redefining greatness.
True greatness is to serve
the needs of others.
You see, Christian leadership
is servanthood.
We pay lip service a lot,
so we call our political leaders,
don't we,
those who are in government,
we call them ministers of state,
servants of state.
That's the effect the gospel
has had in this country.
I don't know if you realise that.
Certainly don't think
our leaders realise that.
That they are there to serve.
Where did that idea come from?
It came from Jesus.
And the trouble is,
without Jesus,
it doesn't happen.
It's a great idea.
But without Jesus,
what do we see if we see
self-serving,
hungry for power,
greedy for praise,
desperate to be wanted,
desperate to be recognised,
desperate to make a name for ourselves,
desperate to be learned.
And so what Jesus says,
it's not only
contrary to our human nature,
it's counter-cultural.
It's not really the way things operate,
the way things operate
in our world.
And the third thing
is counterintuitive.
Some of you desperately need to hear
this this morning.
You beat yourself up,
believing that you've not done enough.
for Jesus.
Isn't that right?
You said to yourself,
I'm not good enough
to be a Christian.
I don't pray.
I don't read my Bible enough.
I don't evangelise enough.
I don't serve enough.
And the more worried
you become about that,
the more tight you become.
And Jesus says,
that's not why I came.
Isn't that amazing?
Jesus did not come
to get you to do things for him.
I didn't get you
to come to try harder.
I didn't get you
to be better,
come to be better.
I came to do things
for you.
Not to get you
to do something for me.
And that's counterintuitive,
isn't it,
for all of us.
But until you get that,
until you understand that,
you have not understood
the gospel.
But once you understand that,
once you understand
it's not about me,
it's not about me
serving him.
It's about him
coming to serve me.
And so it frees you.
It frees you.
It frees you to do what?
It frees you to serve others,
paradoxically.
So let me ask you
this question.
Will you let yourself
be served?
Will you allow yourself
to be served by Jesus?
And pride is the problem,
isn't it?
It's my problem.
And we're reading
about a man
who came home drunk
every night.
And every night
his wife had to help him
to bed.
And every night
she'd take him upstairs,
she'd go to dress him,
she'd put him to bed.
And one night
when she took him
to bed,
she said,
John,
let me pray for you.
And he grumbled
and he grumbled okay.
And so she started
to pray
and she said,
Lord,
I pray for my husband
who lies here drunk.
And a little voice
came out from
under the covers,
don't tell him I'm drunk,
tell him I'm asleep.
And that's our problem,
isn't it?
We're too proud
to admit a story.
We won't climb down,
we won't humble ourselves.
We won't admit
we've got a problem.
We won't admit
that we need Jesus.
Early on in the chapter
there's a really important
little section
where the parents
of believers
bring little children
to Jesus
and the disciples
lash them away.
It's too important
for that.
They're bringing
their children
so that Jesus
might bless them
and the disciples
send them away.
It's far too important.
And Jesus says,
no, no, no,
unless you receive
the kingdom
like one of these,
you cannot
answer the kingdom.
You've got to become
like a start
you owe us
a little child.
It doesn't mean
you've got to become
childish,
but it does mean
that you've got to
become a child of life.
A little child
is tumultingly dependent.
They are brought
to the Lord Jesus.
They rely on others
to supply their needs
and that's how
people become Christians.
And that's how
you get to the kingdom of God.
And so how is this possible?
Here's my third point.
I'm running out of time.
Here's my third point.
We are incurably
self-centered.
And we live in a culture
where self-promotion
is the order of the day.
And so we're like
little birds,
you know,
the little birds
caught in an oil spillage
and they are trapped
and they're trying
to get away
with the covenant stuff.
And we're contaminated
by sin in our culture.
Selfishness
and self-absorption.
We can't shake it.
And yet Jesus
has come
to do something about it.
And so here's the way
that he's coming
to deal with it.
Not by giving his life
as an example.
Jesus is not Gandhi.
Inspirational figure
that he was.
And we can be challenged
and we can be inspired
by the example
but the problem is
he can't live
like Jesus.
Jesus did not
come into this world
to give himself
as an example.
An example of
sacrificial love.
He came to give himself
as a ransom.
And the only time
we use the word ransom
is when there's been
a kidnapping.
In the ancient world
they did a prisoner
of war camps.
People were taken
prisoner in the ancient world.
An army would take prisoners
and they were either killed
or they were made slaves.
And the only way
you could get them
free is by paying
a ransom.
And that's the picture
of the Angus book.
And that's what Jesus
is saying about
his mission statement.
He's explaining to us
why he's coming
to this world.
He didn't just come
to give you an example
of life.
Because quite frankly
it would crush us.
And we'd say,
wouldn't we,
well that is wonderful
but I cannot live like that.
That's not maybe
something you were saying today.
Because an example
of sacrificial love
just condemns you.
It doesn't help you.
Jesus says,
no, I actually came
to pay the ransom price.
To set you free.
There's a famous
illustration,
isn't that?
Of the two people
that, let's say me and you
were walking across a bridge.
And I want to show you
how much I love you.
And so,
I run across
to the side of the bridge
and jump over the bridge
into the water
shouting,
I love you.
What are you going to say?
Oh,
he loves me.
So you're going to say
that he needs his mates.
It's a really poor example.
It's pointless.
And yet,
if you've fallen off the bridge
and are in the water
and I jump up
over the side of the bridge
and rescue you,
that's very different,
isn't it?
That shows my love for you.
That's the meaning of the cross.
Even the Son of Man,
he came to give his life.
No one takes his life
away from him.
He gives his life away.
As a substitute,
let me finish
with an illustration.
There's a bridge
on the Potomac River.
The 14th bridge,
but it's now called
that Arlan D. Williams Bridge.
We have something
that happened in 1982.
On the 13th of January 1982,
during an extraordinary period
of freezing weather,
Air Florida Flight 90
churned off
from the EI
of Washington Airport.
It failed to gain altitude.
It crashed into the 14th street bridge.
It hit six cars
out of a truck
killing four motores.
After the crash
into the bridge,
the plane continued forward
and it plunged
into the freezing river.
Soon after,
only the tail section
remained afloat.
And only six of the airliners,
79 passengers,
survived the initial crash.
And they were even
escaped the sinking plane.
According to the other
five passengers,
one passenger continued
to help all the others
reach the rescue groups
dropped by the helicopter.
Repeatedly,
he passed the line
to others
instead of using it himself.
His name
was Arlathan D. Williams.
While the other five
were being taken ashore
by the helicopter,
the tail section
of the Boeing 737
shifted and sank
into the water
and dragged
Arlathan D. Williams
into the water.
The next day,
the Washington Post
described his heroism.
It said he was about
50 years old
and one of half
a dozen survivors
clinging to twisted wreckage
bobbing about
at the night
in Petonga River.
When the first helicopter
arrived
to the cockpit
of the police crew,
he seemed
the most alert.
Life vests were dropped
and then a flotation board.
The man passed
then to the others
on two occasions.
The crew recalled
that he handed away
a lifeline
from the hovering machine
that could have
dragged him to safety.
The helicopter crew
who rescued five people
lifted a woman
to the riverbank.
They dragged three more persons
across the ice
to safety
and then the lifeline
sent a woman
who was trying to swim
away from the second wreckage.
The helicopter
returned to the scene
but Arlathan D. Williams
was gone.
And every time
they lowered the lifeline
he passed it somehow.
Again and again
they pulled it up
and there was
someone else in the room.
And every time
he gave away
his place of salvation
to someone else.
And the last time
they got back
he'd gone.
He died.
He died to what?
Saving others.
Substituting himself
for others.
Giving them
his place of deliverance.
He took the destruction
that was coming upon them
and four or five people
owed their lives to him.
And that's what Jesus
is saying
his mission is.
That's why he came
to the human race.
And that's why he came
one of us
to go to the cross.
He's not dragged there
against his will.
It's not some terrible
little tragedy.
He deliberately
set his face
towards Jerusalem
and he goes
for this very purpose.
And not just for four
or five people.
Can you see our
course for many?
For many?
And that warns you
doesn't it?
That warns you
as we close
that it's not everyone.
He's warning us
that not everyone
is going to be rescued.
And so the question
as we finish this morning
is this.
Are you one of the men?
There is no reason
why any should perish.
It's really interesting
how the chapter ends
is to do with
plan part in the way.
Jesus is on his way
to choose them.
And he won't stop
for the disciples
but in verse 49
he does stop
on his tracks.
All the grandiose schemes
of Jesus and John
he won't stop
but there is one man
who cries out for mercy
who recognises he is
and Jesus stops.
And he cries out
Son of David
have mercy on me.
And a blind man
has made you see.
They are not physically
blind and seen.
But there are none
so blind as will not see.
And his disciples
they wouldn't see
what Jesus was telling them.
They didn't want
to hear it.
They didn't want
to see it.
But Jesus stops
to show mercy.
The Bible says this.
It says this to you
this morning
so that everyone
who calls
on the name
of the Lord
will be saved.
So will you call
to him this morning?
And if you call him
you will stop.
and he will have mercy
and he will say
God's name.
Thank you.