Good morning. It's my honor and privilege. I know I've told you that before, but I feel that every time. It's my honor and privilege to read from the word of God to you today. Our reading today will be in Mark chapter 10 beginning with verse 32 through 35. And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem. and Jesus who was walking on ahead of them. And they were amazed. Those who followed were fearful. And again, he took the 12 aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to him. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the cheap priests and to the scribes they will condemn him to death and will deliver him over to the Gentiles and they will mock him and they will spit on him and flog him and kill him and in three days later he will rise again then James and John the two sons of Zebedee came up to Jesus saying to him teacher We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said to them, what do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, grant that we may sit on your right and one on your left in your glory. But Jesus said to them, you do not know what you are asking. 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 shall drink and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. But to sit on my right or on my left, this is not mine to give. but it is for those for whom it has been prepared. And hearing this, the ten began to feel indignant with James and John. And calling them to himself, Jesus said to them, you know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. And their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you. But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. May God bless the reading of his word and you may be seated. Good morning, church family. Let's turn now to Matthew's version of that passage we just heard read from Mark. We're in Matthew 20 this morning. We'll begin looking at verse 17 in just a moment. Whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Three times in the Gospels, we're shown Jesus telling his closest followers, the 12, that he will lead them to Jerusalem, he will be betrayed, he will be arrested, he will be abused, tortured, crucified, then be raised from the dead on the third day. And all three times, this is more clear in Mark's gospel, but all three times these disciples heard this horrific yet wondrous prophecy of Yahweh's anointed king dying for the sins of his people, including them. The disciples responded all three times by arguing among themselves as to which of them was greatest. And I just got stuck on that. There's a reason why this is given to us by repetition. Things get repeated because we tend to forget this due and remembrance of me and so on. The contrast is really astonishing. Christ's humility set against his disciples' self-interest. And I say that it's astonishing for this reason. We expect worldly people to be self-absorbed. We expect worldly people to be self-preoccupied. I mean, we have just come, by God's grace, out of an election season. Are you aware of this? Did you read about this? And we were not surprised at all to hear different people telling us that they're the greatest. And they, in fact, are the answer to all of our problems and this sort of thing. We expect earthly-minded people to be swollen with self-importance, to obsess over themselves, their relative value compared to others, but friends, this teaching in Matthew 20 that we're about to look at, you could say it's for the church. Those who have sacrificed much to follow Christ, those who have followed Jesus for three years now, those whose usefulness and prominence in kingdom ministry is indisputable, are nonetheless beset with this disease of spiritual pride. And we get reminded of this three times in the gospel record. It seems that disciples' pride often rises up in proportion to their usefulness to the king. I mean, these are men who have done great things in the name of Jesus. So clearly, even the most privileged, useful believers easily fall prey to spiritual pride. And we're meant to take note of this. In fact, spiritual pride seems to be a sin that feeds on success in other areas of the Christian life. Have you noticed that? And so the takeaway this morning, and I'll give you the end of the message, just on the off chance you're pressed for time. Only the humble are preeminent in the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus relentlessly exerts himself to train his closest followers that they must keep this in mind. If they are to be useful as apostles, they cannot be self-interested. If they are to be useful to the kingdom, they cannot be preoccupied with themselves relative to others. And so Jesus reminds them of what's coming in Jerusalem, the cross whose shadow looms pretty large now by the time we get to Matthew 20. And he says, look guys, just as I came to serve, not to be served, so you are called to serve. Let's look at verse 17 now. It says, as Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, he took the 12 disciples aside by themselves, and on the way he said to them, behold, in other words, look, pay attention to this, we're going up to Jerusalem, And the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will deliver Him over to the Gentiles to mock and flog and crucify Him. And on the third day, He will be raised up." Notice that it's not I'm going to Jerusalem, it's we're going to Jerusalem. Jesus' testing will be theirs as well. He's leading them like a shepherd to his Jerusalem, where they also will be tested. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. As many of you know, from just about any direction you go up to Jerusalem, you ascend Mount Moriah. And you learn something about your shepherd just in The few words that we've heard from Jesus already, as he leads his men in this way, he does not lead his men from a distance, remote from them, you know, kind of detached from what they're about to experience. He doesn't lead them from behind, just sort of pushing them against their will along the narrow way that he's called them to live. Mark's gospel just told us that Jesus actually led his men. He went before his men as they headed toward Jerusalem. And this is how Jesus still leads his people today. He goes before us. And in this going before us, Jesus says to his first followers, look, there is a pitfall that you need to be aware of on this journey. And it's not to do with the scenery that I've just described to you. It's to do with something that's going on in your own heart. Something that your own heart is very prone to. Your heart is prone to be inordinately focused on you. Yeah. You could say it this way. Disciples' greatest obstacles often come from within themselves. The man who is asked to pray in front of others so quickly goes from gratitude at that opportunity to thinking, you know, that's a pretty good prayer. The lady who is so blessed to be hospitable in her home moves so quickly from gratitude at that opportunity to thinking, You know, I think I did better than she did at her home when it was her turn. I'm just saying. And so Jesus turns to his men. As we hear this request from them, I'm gonna read the request and then we'll see Jesus' response, but bear in mind, his goal is to train them away from this very natural, besetting sin of self-focus. It says in verse 20 that the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, bowing down and making a request to him. And he said to her, what do you wish? And she said to him, command that in your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on your right and one on your left. Now this is amazing to me because Jesus has just said, we're going to Jerusalem. I'm gonna be killed. I'm gonna die for the sins of my people. Oh, can I sit on your right hand side? When the kingdom comes in its fullness, And how about my brother, can he be on the left? Except they don't want to ask Jesus, so they send mom. Because even the proud know that it's best not to appear proud, right? Best to have someone else ask. Some of your Bibles have a study note that speculate that perhaps this mom is actually the sister of Mary. Perhaps that's true, we don't really know. We do know that she's one of the women who is seen at the foot of the cross when Jesus is crucified. So perhaps these two men think that in sending their mom, she'll get an audience with Jesus to entertain what they're suggesting to him. Mark, in his gospel, just goes ahead and attributes the question of status to the two disciples. And this will be one of the reasons Why these men become completely unraveled when the events that Jesus prophesies actually take place. These are the guys who say, we're not gonna fail you. We're not gonna scatter. We're not gonna do that. And it turns out they do. Why is that? Because they're just full, still, of self-confidence and a sense of self-preeminence. And what a warning this is to the church, because we know that Christ has actually called His church to suffer in His name. We know that that is going to happen. We know that Jesus has already told his disciples in Matthew's gospel, for example, your family relationships are gonna be messed up because of your allegiance to me. You're not gonna be the most popular people in your community. You're not gonna be the majority voice in your culture. This is exactly according to God's design. And disciples know this. It goes in this ear. But somewhere between this ear and it going out the other ear, it gets snagged on this sense of self-importance. And so we see in these disciples that spiritual pride causes them to ignore the truth they know and are meant to live by. And you see, Jesus is going to train them out of this. But it's taken three times now for him to tell them what's gonna happen in Jerusalem, and three times, with varying degrees of tenderness, he responds to their arguments about which one of them is the greatest. It is almost embarrassing to read the question when you think about it. And I, do you agree? I think you don't. You just think I want you to say yes. I think that's what just happened. All right, whether you do or not. Why is it a bit embarrassing? To me it's a bit embarrassing because I see a bit of my own heart in this. Aren't you glad you're not like me? We too want to be somebody. We want to matter a bit too much in other people's eyes. We have proud hearts where we could even fathom bringing such a request to Jesus or not. And we're so prone not to see ourselves as we truly are. And that is why, which is utterly dependent on the benevolence, the grace of the King. And that is why Jesus explains the calling to them the way that he does. Here's something that I think is really scandalous. These three people, so you got James and John, and you got their mom, they really do believe that Jesus is going to be enthroned. They really do believe that Jesus is the king of kings. But their request suggests that somehow these two brothers essentially figure that they are almost his equals. I mean, if you wanna be vice regents to Jesus, and that is why this particular sin of spiritual pride is so egregious and so offensive to the heart of God that he will train us away from this because spiritual pride is an assault on the uniqueness of Christ. How many of you know He's the preeminent one. He's the master. He is the Lord. He is the king. There is an infinite gap between the most prominent disciples and the king of kings, our Jesus. Such that it makes no sense whatsoever to be talking in terms of who gets to sit where. Notice how tender Jesus is, though, in his corrective, because in verse 22, I would expect it to say, but Jesus answered, look, you knuckleheads. But he doesn't say that. Jesus answered and said, you do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink? They said to him, we are able. Uh-oh. He said to them, my cup you shall drink, but to sit on my right hand and on my left, this is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my father. After hearing this, the 10 became indignant with the two brothers. Now you know why the other 10 were indignant. Why were they miffed at this? This is one of those talk in church things. Because they just didn't get to ask first. That's the problem. They're not indignant in the sense that, oh, how could they think such an unspiritual thing? No, they want the same thing, the preeminence. All of the disciples then, despite hearing three times from Jesus what is going to happen in Jerusalem, that he's going to die there for the sins of his people, are blinded by their earthly ambition. and so that they go straight to what's in it for them. So Jesus presses the point, are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink? In other words, not so fast, you guys. A cup is to be drained to the last drop before any of you even participate in the kingdom. A cup must be drank to the last drop before any of you will even participate in the glory of the kingdom of heaven. We're going up to Jerusalem, men, for the purpose of this cup. Jesus will reference this at Gethsemane. Remember what Jesus said in the garden, Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will. Jesus is speaking of the cup of God's wrath, isn't he? Are you hearing this? He will take upon Himself every last drop of the Father's wrath for the sins of every one of His people. Are you one of His people? Then He's done this for you. Had He not, you would not be in His kingdom. Had he not, you would have no cause to even contemplate the glory of the kingdom in its fullness, which is your inheritance. This is the reason God the Son was born into humanity. Psalm 75 and verse 8 says this, for a cup is in the hand of Yahweh and the wine foams. Just picture this. It is full of his mixture and he pours from this. Surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs. Think of this. Almighty God. This is a metaphor. mixes and prepares to administer the exact dose of his eternal wrath for what your sin actually deserves. Mine too. Every sinful thought, every sinful deed, every failure to love God as he's worthy to be loved, every failure to love neighbor as we're called to love other image bearers. The record of my sin is, you could say, the list of ingredients in this cup of wrath. And all of the wicked must drain and drink down its dregs. Unless you trust in the one who drank it for you. I beg you to hear this because some of you are here today because you heard there was gonna be turkey at the fairgrounds and I'm glad you're here. Don't misunderstand me, I'm eating it too. But the thing of it is, is God may have allowed you right now in your life to have something of a wake up call. You're in a room with all of the Jesus people and there's a guy in front of you talking about the wrath of God. And you're thinking about an illness that you have or a setback that you've had that has gotten your attention. You're thinking about what's going on in the world around you and you get the sense that it's all going to hell in a handbasket anyway, and it is. And this is a mercy from God that you would wake up and hear his call, that a cup of wrath awaits you unless you turn to this Jesus, unless you repent of your sin and trust in the one who drank this cup of wrath for you, it's yours. And so I urge you, friend, to repent and turn to Christ. He is all sufficient to save you. He drank every drop of the cup of that wrath that would otherwise be yours. You're hearing this. One day, the scripture says, there is judgment coming and God is no respecter of persons. It will not matter who was preeminent in this world by human measure throughout history. The scripture says that all who have been governed by the spirit of Antichrist, all who have lived for self, all who have ignored God's gracious plea in Christ will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his rage, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. You see, the lamb, Jesus, was born into this world for this very purpose, to go to that cross and drink that cup, as it were, for the sins of his people. This is how he's come to serve us. This is why he came, to be betrayed, to be condemned to be delivered over to his enemies, mocked and flogged and crucified. All of that is the horrific earthly context for the drinking of this cup of wrath. And so you see, why am I belaboring this? Because we're meant to see the disconnect between the enormity of what God has done for his people in Christ and for them to say, I wonder if I'll get the best seats in the house. I wonder if I'll get to be one of the special ones. William Hendrickson in his commentary on Matthew says this, more than 1900 years of gospel proclamation have not succeeded in teaching men the lesson of self-denial and willingness to be last in the kingdom. And you know, why is that? Well, it is to do with this business of forgetting the cross, forgetting the enormity. of what it meant for us to be brought into the kingdom in the first place. God the Son offered as a ransom for those of us born enslaved to sin's curse. And so now Jesus, are you still with me? Not every once in a while is a tremendous encouragement. Jesus, he's done talking in paradoxes, the first shall be last, the last shall be first. He's done talking in parables, you know, a landowner hired laborers, day laborers to work in his vineyard. He simply points ahead to Jerusalem now because they're on their way, he and his men. And he references this Roman cross where fear and failure await his men, and he reminds them of this critical principle of the kingdom and their future ministry. A cross precedes the crown. Humility precedes glory. Don't forget that. It's true for him. and it will be true for them as it is true for us. Look at verse 23, my cup you shall drink. Jesus said to James and John, what a bitter cup of suffering the apostles would soon experience. We talked last week, or I did, and you didn't object, to Peter, for example, being told by Jesus that he would be crucified as his master was crucified. Their cup is not the cup of wrath. Jesus drank every drop of that for all of his people, but there is this fellowship of suffering that all disciples belong to because of allegiance to the king. The road to greatness and glory is paved with humility. And you can just go down the line among the apostles. to see the evidence of this. A different James, the half-brother of Jesus, who became a leader in the Jerusalem church, was martyred in AD 66. John, the apostle, as you know, was exiled to the island of Patmos, where he wrote, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation. that this cup of suffering for their allegiance to Christ was profound. So the hopeful thing in a passage like this is we know through the lens of scripture and hindsight in history that they were moved from self-obsession to humility by work of the Holy Spirit. But for now, what does Jesus do? You look at verse 25 and you realize, okay, these guys aren't getting it, and so I'm gonna just give them a reference to something they're really familiar with, and that is the world they live in. Jesus called them to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. The way of the kingdom of heaven is so foreign to these guys still, Jesus simply refers to the way things work in the world. Rulers in our world still today tend to see themselves as over, meaning better than others. The rulers, every whim is fulfilled by those whom they lead. This is the natural way of things. That doesn't surprise us at all. It ought to surprise us, though. when that mindset creeps into the church. Because in the king's family, the path to preeminence is that of humble service. And friends, this is the vibe we who are Hayden Bible Church are meant to have in our community. Serving, not concerned about notoriety, Not concerned about making ourselves known, but concerned about making Christ and his glory known, amen? But I have noticed, do you guys care if this is practical for a minute? I've noticed as a man that some people call pastor, that there's a big difference in pastoring a church of a handful of people where you're just kind of glad somebody showed up on a Sunday to what we're experiencing now, all due to the blessing of God. And so we need these reminders as church folk that every good thing we have comes from our God. So Paul says to the Philippians, have this way of thinking in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. who although existing in the form of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped? but emptied himself by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God also highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. It's such a familiar, wonderful eruption of praise from the Apostle Paul, but you see the pattern there. The cross precedes the crown. Greatness via humility. And so Jesus tells his men, you look at the world, you see how this world is operating? It is not this way among you, verse 26. But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Notice that Jesus does not correct his disciples' desire to be great in the kingdom of heaven. What he corrects is their complete misunderstanding of what greatness actually is. If you want to be great, you must be a servant. The word is diakonos, gives us the English word deacon. What is a deacon? What's a diakonos? It's someone who did the common menial labor in the home, waiting on tables, scrubbing floors, cleaning rooms. In other words, the idea is that there's not a task in the kingdom that the servants are not willing and glad to embrace. They're not above certain things. You wanna become great, says Jesus, be one of those. You wanna become first, then you'll have to become a slave, a doulos. What's the difference between a doulos and a diakonos? Well, a servant may decide he wants to leave. A slave doesn't do that. A slave is owned by the master of the house. And doesn't the scripture say to God's people, you've been bought with a price. You belong to another. And you have a benevolent master. And you now serve his agenda, not your own. And these men, they need to learn this. So Jesus says, just look at what's gonna happen in Jerusalem. just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. That's what you keep your gaze on. When you set the tone, you set the drumbeat, the rhythm of what service and prominence in the kingdom is to be. I want to just say a couple of things before the fellows in the back haul me off here. I don't want us to miss, there are some doctrinal truths in this passage that we don't want to miss. Don't miss, for example, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. What is a ransom? A ransom is the price paid to buy somebody's freedom. How little sense does it make to think of pecking order in the family of God when we're reminded that the only reason we even belong to the family is that Christ paid our ransom, that His shed blood is what bought our freedom from bondage to sin and sin's hell. We also don't want to miss the doctrine of limited atonement. And a couple of you folks in the first service started twitching over this, so let me just say this. This is not to do with the worth, the value of Christ's shed blood. That is infinite. But the shed blood of Christ has efficacy for those who are his own. Jesus says, I came to give my life a ransom for many, not for all. Call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. What an inexplicable blessing it is to be counted among the people of God. All of grace. And so this business of wondering how we rank in the family of God's people, well, it just makes no sense at all, really, does it? Does it? See, if you don't answer, the sermon won't end and you've got dinner waiting for you. Let me just end with this encouragement. The Scripture makes really plain to us that our King sees every act of service in his family. So that means nobody has to worry at all about glad service in his name out of sheer gratitude for your salvation going unnoticed. Listen to Revelation 14, it says, How interesting! The deeds of the elect don't... merit the inheritance, merit the salvation, but they follow us in the sense that God is a generous rewarder of those who serve Him. So it's this order of things, the cross and then the crown, is important for us to keep straight. Remember what Jesus said of the Pharisees, he said, they serve to be seen by men and they have their reward, meaning what? Oh, they wanted to be seen, they got seen. That's their reward. In the book of James, we read these words, James 4.10, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up. You see, this is what Jesus is training His men to embrace. You keep your gaze on Christ. You keep your gaze on His preeminence, His supremacy, His position, if you will, and its benefits to you, and you'll not stray down that road of being overly concerned about how you measure up compared to some other believer. Does that make sense? A perpetual sight of the Lord is the key to a disciple's battle with pride. We keep our gaze on him. All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this gentle rebuke of your disciples because we are your disciples and we need this, Lord, we need this reminder that before there is glory, Lord, there is a call to humility. Lord, before there is a crown, there is a cross to bear. And we thank you, Jesus, that you have done everything necessary to bring us into your kingdom in the first place. And we pray that we would be attentive to the promptings of your spirit. when we go down that road of sizing ourselves up relative to others. Lord, we want to be those who serve so that you might be made known, so that your fame, Lord, spreads. And we pray this, Jesus, for your namesake, for the witness of our church in this community.