Blind Ambition

If you look in your bulletin,
you have this monster passage in front of you. And hopefully
we can try to tackle that today. Please open up Mark 10. Verse
32 is where we’ll pick it up. One other thing to look at is
you might have noticed in your first glance here that this might
be a little different translation than the Bible you have. I’ll
be reading out of the NIV. I realize that some of you might
regard that New Inferior Version, but please bear with me on that. Mark 10. They were on their way
up to Jerusalem while Jesus was leading the way and the disciples
were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again,
He took the twelve aside and told them what was going to happen
to them. He said, We are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of
Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law.
They will condemn Him to death and will hang Him over to the
Gentiles. And they will mock Him spit on him, flog him, and
kill him. And three days later, he will
rise. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him.
Teacher, they said, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. What is it you want me to do?
He replied. And they replied, let one of us sit at your right
and the other at your left in your glory. You do not know what
you are asking, Jesus said. Can you drink the cup I drink
or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? We can,
they answered. And Jesus said to them, You will
drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism
that I’m baptized with. 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. And when the ten heard about
this, they became indignant with James and John. And 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. But not so with you. Instead,
whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant. And
whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the
Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give
His life as a ransom for many.” Please pray with me before we
start for some divine assistance on this passage. Father, we thank
You for the service that You have given us thus far. And we
pray, Lord, that right now you will open our minds and our hearts
to your word. Pray, Lord, that you will grant
me the grace and the strength to bring out the truth of this
passage. Father, help us to understand this and leave this place changed
people today coming to know the price that was paid on our behalf.
So, Father, we thank you for this and help us, Father, for
we need it. We need your grace not only to
survive, but we need it right now. In your name we pray. Amen.
So you see at the bottom of your page there in the bulletin, there’s
three things that I’d like to hit today, three points, three
different offices in which Christ operates. The first is Christ
and his mission. And the second will be Christ
and his multitude. And then the third will be Christ
as the Messiah. And so hopefully we will see
today the true mission of Christ, how he deals with his people
and then his true character in undergoing his mission. First
thing, let’s look at his mission. Verses 32-34, here we see a little
bit of what has already been accomplished. See, they’re on
the way leading up to Jerusalem now. And let’s think about what’s
happened thus far in the Gospels. We see that Jesus, right, has
done various things. He’s calmed storms. He’s cast
out demons. He’s healed the blind. He’s healed
the sick. He’s walked on water. He’s fed 5,000. So obviously,
we’re not too surprised when we see a multitude or a crowd
following Him. And one thing else that we have
to keep in mind is we know how the story ends. And so if it
appears like I’m doing a lot of slandering to certain people,
you’ll see our own pride and arrogance in a lot of these characters
as well. And so we see what happened was Jesus was leading the way
up to Jerusalem and the disciples were astonished while those who
followed were afraid. Well, no kidding. You see, they’re
coming from Jericho going towards Jerusalem. Now, the journey in
and of itself was a treacherous one. I mean, we’re talking about
a 15-mile trek here, starting from below sea level, ending
up in about 5,000 feet above. So as the crow flies, you think
about that. It’s like going from Miami, Florida to Denver, Colorado
in the span of 15 miles. And it’s not like we’re dealing
with cars and bicycles. I mean, good old-fashioned Birkenstocks
is all we’re working with here. But not only is it a hard journey
in the sense of the rocky terrain and such, but think about what
is waiting for them in Jerusalem. The disciples are heading up
and Jesus says, we’re going to Jerusalem. He calls them together
and says, we’re going. That’s where we’re going. And
the reaction is astonishment and fear. Well, understandably
so. Think about what is awaiting
them. They have the religious elite, the biggest enemies of
Christ, the ones that have thought of everything they can to try
to put Him out of His power, have several times contemplated
how to kill Him. And Jesus says, we’re going there. And not only
does He say we’re going there, but it says He’s leading the way.
You think of battle, how many times do we see generals leading
the way? I mean, it’s a nice metaphor,
but generals are usually in the back and the people that are
going to die first are in the front lines, but not in this
case. This warrior came for a purpose. And think about this from the
perspective of the disciples. They’re astonished and afraid.
Well, think about it in our terms, maybe in our culture and George
Washington, right, commanding the colonial army. Well, where
did he start his revolution? He garnered support in the foothills
and things. He didn’t just walk into Buckingham
Palace. See, in the same way, the disciples are looking around
like, you know, if we’re going to walk in there, don’t we want
to get some support in Galilee or some less hostile regions?
I mean, do we have to go nip it in the bud right now? But
that’s what it was. And they’re heading that way.
And see, they’re heading this way towards Jerusalem for the Passover. But what they really neglect
to see is that they actually have the Passover lamb in their
midst among them right now. And let’s look at this prophecy
now in the words of Christ of exactly what he says is going
to happen. Verse 33 says, We’re going to Jerusalem and the Son
of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of
the law. They will condemn him to death, hand him over to the
Gentiles who will mock him, spit on him, flog him and kill him.
And the three days later he will arise. So right now we see a
prophecy of exactly what is going to happen to Christ. Now, if
you talk to many academics, a lot of people would agree with you
that a man named Jesus lived. A man named Jesus was crucified.
But that’s it. And so the response I would have
to that is then how is it that a man in such graphic detail
could tell exactly what was going to happen to him? Exactly in
the order and exactly how it’s going to do it. He has such a
resolution of what he’s going to do that absolutely nothing
is going to throw him off of his purpose. Calls the disciples
together. Tell them we’re going. Absolutely.
There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it. And you think, OK,
wow, the disciples hearing this, they would have no idea how to
react. Well, interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time they’ve
heard this message on this prophecy of what is going to happen to
Christ. So they weren’t shocked exactly to say, but maybe they
should have been. You see, the son of man will
be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. Now,
both of these groups of religious elite are people that are waiting
for Christ, knowing he’s coming and knowing that there’s some
hostility and and have some problems with him. And the difference
here between these chief priests and teachers of the law is one,
these chief priests is this is a place of inherited status versus
a teacher or scribe is somebody who’s very learned. who would
often be the final authority on matters of the law or the
Torah. But one thing that I think when
we read through this passage that we almost always pass over
and when dealing with the sufferings of Christ is the betrayal. So
when we think of the cross, the first thing we think of is the
beating or the sin on our behalf. And no doubt those are overwhelming
things. to think about the betrayal of those who he’d given his life
for, of those who he’d washed his feet for. And now they’re
turning their back on him, turning him in for 30 pieces of silver.
He says they’ll hand him over to the Gentiles. Remember the
trial with Pontius Pilate. They will mock him, spit on him.
Flog him and kill him. That’s pretty self-explanatory.
We see and knowing reading through this gospel exactly what has
happened. But something that’s really profound
is if we look at the last section of that, we see that three days
later he will rise. And that’s the great glory in
knowing the story as we see how there’s victory at this. Even
though what is to take place, there is an absolute, unconditional
victory at the end of the road. Now, the Jews were people of
the book. I mean, they knew the Old Testament, not how we know
it. They really knew it. So wouldn’t
they have known the prophecies in Isaiah 53, realizing that
their Savior was going to come and be punished? He was going
to be beaten. All these things were going to
happen to us. And this is such a great passage that I encourage
you to read sometime. It just on the behalf of us as
sinners of what is to happen and how God our Father was pleased
to bruise him and crush him on our behalf. And really, this
story of what is to happen is something that we can understand
a little bit more. But think of what he’s telling
it to. He’s telling it to people that have no idea, that they have
no clue what is to happen. We have the luxury of looking
back in history and seeing this, and they don’t. So we have to
be a little sympathetic with some of the things and some of
the conversations that arise here. But the second point, let’s
look at Christ and the multitude here. Like we said, this is not
the first time that this type of discussion has come about.
Turn one page back into the ninth chapter of Mark, really in verse
30 there. And you’ll see this, and Christ
tells them that the Son of Man is going to be betrayed into
the hands of men and they will kill him. And after three days
later, he will rise. But it says the disciples did
not understand what he meant and they were afraid to even
ask him about it. But when they came to Capernaum, When he was
in the house, Jesus asked him, what were you arguing about on
the road? But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued
about who was the greatest. And sitting down, Jesus called
the twelve and said, if anyone wants to be first, he must be
the very last and the servant of all. And then he took a little
child and he had him stand among them and he took him in his arms
and said, whoever welcomes me like one of these little children
in my name will welcome me. And whoever welcomes me does
not welcome me, but the one who sent Me.” So here we see the
depiction of really what is greatness. But think about this. Our Savior
has just told us what is going to happen to Him. He’s going
to be betrayed. He’s going to be beaten. He’s going to be killed. And
what’s the response? An immediate argument. An immediate
jockeying for position. Of, okay, the boss is gone, so
I’ve got to make sure I get my letter of recommendation before
that’s all. And so often, we are the same way in that we look
at the Gospel And we think of what Christ has done for us,
but it’s not enough. We think about what else can we have?
We think about what’s in it for us. What do we get out of this?
What do we get for dropping everything, leaving and following Christ?
Sure. Maybe we get a warm, fuzzy feeling,
but what else? What else? What about my job?
Right. What about my family? Am I going to be cursed? Is God
going to give me everything I want? And what we’ll see here is this
is not it. And it’s the same battle and
same treachery that we fight in our hearts today, 2000 years
later, that same problem. And this is today why this health
and wealth gospel is so appealing, because we see that it’s this
whole idea of grace is not just a free gift, but it’s a gift
that allows you to check out any goody that you want, that
you don’t have to return it. There’s no price to be paid.
It’s not that our purpose is to believe that God is ever always
going to give us everything that we ask for. But really, if you
think about it, if we got what we always asked for, we’d be
in pretty miserable shape. Gentlemen, amen for all those
unanswered prayers. J.C. Ryle in his book Holiness
has a great job of illustrating A point like this, and he says
all wrong thinking, all wrong theology comes from the same
root. It’s an incorrect understanding of sin and our sinful state.
And he has a great illustration to point this out. And he compares
our attentiveness to our own sin with a baby that’s amused
with toys when hunger sets in. And so let me try to paint this
picture. You see that a baby, right? You can shake a rattle
in front of it and amuse them. But when a young child is hungry,
That same rattle, that same little toy no longer satisfies them.
There’s only food that can fill that desire. Well, in the same
way, it should be true with us, is that we should have such an
understanding of our sinful state that the little toys, the little
rattles in our life, they don’t appease us until we have a good
understanding of who our Savior is and what He’s done for us.
I mean, even think about our typical Christian culture today,
many times the lyrics, right? And the songs that we sing, it’s
it’s me centered rather than God centered. We can’t tell oftentimes
in worship music whether the songs that we’re singing is about
a boyfriend or girlfriend or about our Lord. And then same
time, also think about our theology, right? The cross today. is one
that seems to entertain us. It’s one that seems to give us
confidence in our own flesh and in ourself, while the rear cross
definitely is one that slays us and definitely is one that
destroys that. Now, read verse 35 with me, please,
if you would. Go back. And you see the request
of James and John here. You see James and John, the sons
of Zebedee, come to Him and they say, Teacher, we want You to
do for us whatever we ask.” Pretty bold claim considering what He
has just told them. And think of this language. We
want you to do for us whatever we ask. It would be like this. It would be like somebody coming
into your home and saying, okay, your father is going to die on
your behalf so that you guys can live. And right before he
walks out the door, say, hey Dad, by the way, would you mind
picking me up a drink at 7-Eleven or something? This is just the
audacity of this. And think of the arrogance of
this claim. But these two, James and John, they were pretty loyal
disciples. Let’s look at where they came from. Young men, about
20 years of age. And they’d been with Christ for
a while, so they’ve seen His miracles. They’ve seen what He’s
capable of. And in the beginning of the Gospels in Mark 1, when
He calls them to service, they’re working on a boat with some hired
men. So it’s not like these guys aren’t accustomed to giving orders.
They come from a pretty well-off family that can hire servants. So what do a couple of 20-year-old
men really know about service when they’ve been leading their
whole lives? And so this must have been very humbling to a
certain degree to drop everything and run. To be wealthy leaders
and to forsake that now for nothing. But also, look at their character
here. In one particular instance, Jesus is teaching to some Samaritan
people and His teaching isn’t very well received. So James
and John, they go to Jesus and they say, well, we would like
to call down fire from heaven on this whole God forsaken place.
They say, I mean, they’re pretty serious. And I know another time
in Luke chapter nine, there’s a man that’s casting out demons
and they see him and they ask him how they’re doing that. He’s
casting out demons in the name of their Lord and they order
him to stop. Well, why? And he says, because
he is not one of the handpicked disciples. He’s not one of us.
And Christ goes on to tell us that if He is not against us,
then He must be for us. Now, please turn over to Matthew
very quickly. Matthew 20, verses 20 and 21. This is the parallel account
of what we’re reading in Mark’s Gospel, but something interesting
that you’ll see here. It says, Then the mother of Zebedee’s
sons came to Jesus with her sons, kneeling down, asking a favor
of Him. So when these two separate accounts,
we see a difference in one, the mother is present and then the
other it’s not. Well, this tells us a couple
of things. A, that this plea towards Christ is clearly premeditated. They thought of this. They thought
this is a family affair. We’re going to go ask him. We’re
going to kneel down. We’re going to appeal to his
royalty and we’re going to ask him. But notice Jesus’s response
here. And he says, you know, what is
it that you want? She said, Grant that one of these two sons of
mine may sit at your right and at the other on your left in
your kingdom. Go back to Mark’s gospel, if you would. And you
see now this ambition of once again, what we’ve said the third
and final time, Christ has told us in graphic detail what’s going
to happen. And their response is this. Before you go, give
us the vice presidency. Give us whatever we want. Give
us whatever we ask for. And to sit on the right and left,
really what these guys are asking is they’re asking for the two
highest places in Christ’s administration. See, the Jewish people saw their
coming Messiah as a warrior that would have an earthly kingdom,
not just a heavenly one. And so really they were looking
for a lion and what they got was a lamb. But nevertheless,
what are they saying here? They’re saying that in a sense,
Of all the people that have ever lived, that James and John are
the most worthy of this thing. Their mother comes to them, comes
to Jesus and says, my sons are worthy of the two highest places
that you have to offer. I think of that. We think, wow,
how arrogant, how prideful. Look at our own hearts, at our
own blind ambition. And how often do we do that?
How often do we take in light of the gospel, the suffering
and the sacrifice on our behalf and say, hey, by the way, What
about this? What about this job? What about
this? You know, this thing is going
on in my family. How about you just take care of that? And then I’ll promise
to worship you. James and John aren’t asking
these things naively. They’re asking them knowing exactly
what they wanted. But what is Christ’s response?
A humble one as always says, you don’t know what you’re asking.
You have no idea. And let’s look at what they were
asking. They’re asking for the two highest places in heaven.
And how does Jesus respond to him? He says, you don’t know
what you’re asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized
with the baptism that I’m baptized with? Kind of tricky language
here. And what is their response? Oh,
yes, we can. Of course we can. Now, do they
understand what that means? No idea. They don’t have any
idea. Notice the way Jesus responds. He answers back in a question
form. It’s pretty interesting. You think today it might get
annoying if every time you ask a question, somebody asks you
a question right back. But this was a Jewish form of
teaching. This is how rabbis would teach
their disciples, because what would happen is they would ask
them a question, force their disciples or students to search
for the answer themselves, take ownership of your own answer.
And so he says, can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized
with my baptism? Now, what are these two metaphors
mean? Well, one, the cup. The cup is really a metaphor
to see it’s a contents that must be consumed. And several times
these Old Testament prophets refer to this cup that has to
be consumed. I think the most notably for us is think of the
garden of Gethsemane. When Christ is in the garden,
realizing what is to come. Realizing what the next hours
hold and His sacrifice that is to take place. And He says, and
He prays to the Father, He says, Father, take this cup from Me.
but not My will, but Thine.” And so he realized there’s a
price to be paid. And the second is the baptism,
to dip or immerse. So we often associate this with
a water baptism. But what he’s asking him here
is can you be dipped into the hatred of all of mankind’s sin
and the wrath of God on their behalf? Remember, to the degree
now of which Christ did this for us, to the degree when He
was hanging on that cross, the sin of all mankind, laid upon
Him, so much so that the Father turned His face from Him. And
Jesus saw how He had been forsaken because of the wrath and the
iniquity of all mankind being placed on them. He says we can. Absolutely. Not a problem. They’re
so blinded by this ambition of we know what we want. We don’t
care what it takes to get there. Who cares? And what is amazing
about this is you should look sometime at the banquet feast
in Luke 14, when Jesus comes and tells a parable at the Pharisees’
house about how all the Pharisees would seek to sit at the finest
seats around the table, the places of the greatest honor. And what
Christ says, if you should take the seat of the lowliest importance,
and when the guest of honor comes in and he asks you to move up,
you’ll be exalted in that way. But if you come and sit in the
head seat, the guest of honor comes in, tells you to move down,
how humbling a thing that is. And we see that principle of
he who humbles himself will be exalted in God’s eyes, but vice
versa in the other way. Now, his response is very gentle.
I mean, think of the way he could have reacted here. He could have
said, you guys are idiots. I just told you all these things
and this is how you respond to me. But he’s not. He’s graceful
and merciful and still being humble in the middle of this.
Now, James and John, when Christ answers that, you know, indeed
you will, you will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with
this baptism. James and John seem to be very
arrogant here, but where do they end up? If you look in Acts chapter
12, James is beheaded for his faith and is seen as the first
martyr among the disciples. And John is tortured and sentenced
to solitary confinement. on the island of Padmos until
he died. So they did. They did drink this cup. And
they were suffered by this baptism. But in v. 40 we see, “…but
to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant, for these
places have been prepared long in advance.” What does that mean? Well, you see, one thing is Christ
isn’t really concerned about the types of rewards you are
receiving for your good works. He’s concerned with one thing,
and that’s His mission. Graphically, again, He has told us what’s
going to happen. Now, the question we ask in our
head is, wow, maybe one of these places is reserved for me. The
Father’s prepared them all. Am I going to get one? Well,
ask yourself this question. Are you one that truly suffers
for the Gospel? Are you one that the cause of
Christ consumes you on a daily basis? And the answer in your
heart, because God can measure your motive, that true answer
that you have in your heart is to what degree your treasures
are being laid up. If you claim to be following
and acting quite differently, then there’s a rude awakening
for us. But once again, these things are futile in the mind
of Christ. These come for one reason. His mission on the earth
and the death that’s awaiting Him. But there’s some people
that overhear this conversation. The other 10. The other 10 disciples.
And it says in verse 41, when the 10 heard about this, they
became indignant with James and John. Well, what we see is, wow,
at least somebody’s paying attention, right? At least somebody understands
that these guys are just prideful and arrogant. At least somebody’s
humble around here. Well, really, if you can imagine this, they’re
in an even worse state. Because all they’re mad about
is James and John beat them to the punch. They got to ask them
and use this political maneuvering to try to get their own places
in eternity and our own places on earth locked up. And the other
disciples look at James and John and with their own arrogant hearts,
they say, these guys, these guys are the ones that think they
deserve to be on the right and left. No, it’s me. It’s me. And we
can see that by looking previously and what we read in Mark 9. Well,
we see this is a frequent topic of conversation. Who’s the greatest?
There’s frequent debate around the dinner table. And this is
something that they’ve argued about several, several times.
And at the point here, Jesus seems to call a time out. And
He says, wait a second, alright. Once and for all, everyone get
together. I’m going to explain this to
you. I’ve done it before. But let me lay it out as pure
and simple as I can possibly do it. And so you’d think, ok,
wow. Jesus is going to tell us now
how to be the greatest. He’s going to spill the beans.
He’s going to give us the keys and the secrets of what we have
to do. And so if I want to be the greatest,
this is what I have to do. So you can just picture them on
the edge of their seats. Right. And you want to talk about
an anti-climax. And he tells them that you have
to be the slave of all. You have to be the last if you
want to be first. You talk about the air going out of a balloon,
out of a room. That’s exactly what it’s like.
So that brings us to the third and final point here is Christ
is the Messiah and the character of our Savior. Read me verse
42 through the end here. He says, You know that those
who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them
and their high officials exercise authority over them. But not
so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become
great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to
be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not
come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom
for many.” This idea that humility defines what true greatness is
flips the world upside down. What do we even know today about
how to get ahead? How do we do that? It means doing
everything possible. It means getting the right connections.
It means doing everything except trying to be humble. It means
to blow yourself up, to lie on your resume. Things of this nature
in Christ is absolutely not. Now, the leadership that these
guys had known in their time They don’t know democracy. This
isn’t 21st century United States. They knew dictatorships. They
knew emperors. They knew Caesars. So they don’t
have an understanding of what it’s like to have civil rights
and voting. And so James and John aspire
to this leadership. What would make them any different
to think that they would be merciful and gentle? We’ve looked at their
character before and they would be the exact same way. They would
be ones that are regarded as rulers and that would lord it
over them. It’s amazing to think that the
greatest man of all time was also the most humble. And we
see in verse 42, his model of the principle he illustrates
here. And he says, he lorded over them and exercised authority
over them. Well, what’s this talking about? This is talking
about the leadership of that day. And he says, this is not
how it’s going to be. My kingdom is not of this world,
right? Not just of a heavenly one, but the systems of this
world are different as well. It doesn’t matter how tyrannical
you can be. It doesn’t matter how great of
a speaker you can be or how many people you can get to go in a
movement. These things don’t matter. Emperors would take endless
resources and time to have monuments and temples constructed in their
name. If you look at the Roman emperors, every single one of
them did something to make sure that their greatness lasted for
eternity. Well, how did they think they
could do that? Well, by sending hundreds of people for several
years with the taxes of the poor to build themselves a shrine
and a statue that they could live their legacy on forever.
And Jesus says not at all. Even the religious elites of
this time, how would they do it? If we look at the Pharisees,
right, what would they do? They would wear these long flowing
robes, these long drawn out blasphemous prayers. And they would make
a point to show how righteous they were in front of everyone
that they came upon. Remember when they would put the money
into the tithe offerings at church, they would make sure to dump
several small coins in so that all people could notice their
greatness and how much they were giving away. This is absolutely
the principle of what was common to the people of this day. And
Christ says in verse 43, it says, not so with you. It’s not the
way it’s going to be. Now, some people even today would
take this advice and they look at it as complete foolishness.
I said this makes no sense. How in the world am I going to
get ahead in life for me at last? How’s that going? How am I going
to be a slave, but yet be exalted? There’s no connection there.
Well, if you see the mysteries of the gospel, right, they are
indeed foolishness to those who don’t have an understanding of
the sacrifice that was made on our behalf. See, the only reason
that we can take this as wisdom and enlightening is because we
understand it firsthand in our hearts and we can relate with
the testimony of what Christ has done in His sacrifice for
us. But to be the slave of another, still to us, isn’t that a constant
battle? It still is every single day. You see how every word in
Scripture seems, when we read it, to discomfort our souls and
nourish our spirits and spur us on to good works for the Lord.
But other people, foreigners to this book, look at it and
they see it as just repeated good morality. That’s nice. And that’s good for you. It’s
just mundane and repetitive. But we see it as something completely
different. Here, look at this last verse. This is really the
crux of it all. For the Son of Man did not come
to be served, but to serve and to give His life. as a ransom
for many. See, this term as the Son of
Man, it’s kind of an odd term. He’s the Son of God, isn’t he?
Well, this is a messianic term. This is what Christ uses to describe
Himself over 80 times in the Gospels. And isn’t it a humbling
term, the Son of Man? Doesn’t it just do a great job
of illustrating how the Son of Man really came to serve on our
behalf Think again what he’s done. He calls himself the son
of man. What has he done? He’s healed the sick, right?
Fed the hungry. He’s purified the possessed. He’s the perfect
model of servant leadership. But how did some look at him?
Think of Pilate. When Pilate looks at him and he’s on trial
and he looks at him and he says, are you a king? You don’t look
like a king. Look at that robe you’re wearing.
Look how dirty you are. You’re poor. All your followers
want to kill you. Where’s your support? Where’s
your defense of yourself? Where’s your kingdom? Where are
all these things? Didn’t you ride in here on a
donkey? And what did he do? He remained silent. He could
have talked himself out of this at any moment. He could have
taken that cup and put it away from himself, but he didn’t.
His mission and how he reacts with the multitudes. Now we see
here this principle of a ransom. He came to serve, but he came
to give his life as a ransom for many. What’s a ransom? We
don’t know what a ransom is. Because a ransom is directly
tied to slavery. Well, slavery really doesn’t exist in this
day and age. And when we think of slavery, what do we think
of? We automatically think of 17s and 1800s, the Deep South, right? The Atlantic slave trade and
just terrible beating and things of this nature. This is a little
bit different. And if you look in this Jewish culture, slaves
typically were not beat, were not punished in the same manner
that they were. It was more of an agreement and
there was a wage paid. But this wage was one that barely
would have covered the cost of daily living, much less be able
to buy or pay the ransom of a freedom. So how is it that he paid a ransom
on our behalf? And why do we need a ransom to
be paid? Well, it’s a sinful world. And we were born into
sin. And you see, we’re not sinners
because we sin, but we sin because we’re sinners. It’s nothing that
we can avoid. Coming out of the womb, that’s how we are. And
if something did not happen to breach this gap from a perfect
and holy God and sinful people, we would be doomed for eternity.
But what happened? made Him who knew no sin to become sin on
our behalf. And when Christ was crucified,
He appeased this wrath. He paid this penalty. But He
paid the penalty for all that would believe. For all that could
look in their hearts and say, I’m guilty. I deserve to be the
one up there. When we humble ourselves, we
are exalted. When we carry around that pride
in our heart of, I don’t need a Savior. What have I done? Look
at the person next to me. I’m a lot better than they are.
They’re going to need the Savior, not me. We still, we so often
think that. We are so self-righteous. 1 John
1, 8-10, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify
us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned,
we make Him out to be a liar and His Word has no place in
our lives. It’s pretty convicting. But like I said, there’s light
at the end of this tunnel and we see John 3, 16, the most quoted
verse of all time. But there’s so much truth in
it. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only begotten
son that whoever should believe in him shall not perish, but
have everlasting life. You see, the application of this
is extremely hard. I wish it was as easy as there’s
three steps that I could give you to make you walk out a changed
person and nothing would ever happen and you’d never struggle
with this ever again, but that’s not the case. We see that on
a daily basis, on an hourly basis, we struggle with an incorrect
thinking of who we are. Philippians 2, 5-11 tells us
that we should have that same attitude of Christ Jesus. Thinking
of others greater than ourselves and thinking of ourselves is
not greater than we ought. For He that was truly great humbled
Himself even to the point of death. He became obedient even
to a cross. So you see, Christ has this mission.
There’s nothing that’s going to stop Him. You see how He dealt
with His people. And you see His character as
a Messiah. And we see in the beginning of
verse 45, and I’ve translated it for even the Son of Man. Other
translations are better. It says, just as the Son of Man.
That is in the same way we should act. Just as our Savior, just
as the Son of Man laid down His life, we should be willing to
do the same. We should be willing to serve at any cost and at any
price. But when we walk out the door,
the interesting phenomenon is that we seem to still struggle
with these same things. We’ve got to realize that this
ransom has been paid. And if there’s one thing that changes,
it’s this. We have to realize that this message is not a secret. that there’s people out there
that need to know it. You hear the old cliche, right? If you
had the cure for cancer, would you keep it to yourself? Well,
you know what? Not everyone dies of cancer,
but everyone dies of sin. And we have that cure, so why
wouldn’t we go out and preach it to the world? And the best
way we can do that is not by passing out a four spiritual
laws booklet or a how-to guide. The best way we can do that is
in our own hearts, believing, repenting, and following the
great commandment. See, if we look and we humble
ourselves to take this passage in its entirety, this verse 45
is the epitome of what it is to be redeemed, to be bought
at a price. And it’s a sacrifice that we
all thought we would never have to have paid on our behalf. Well,
while reality is tragic in that it is not the Romans, it is not
the Jews, it is not the disciples that hung them on the cross,
it was us in our sin. And so we should never forget
that. But the victory in it is three days later He will rise
and He is risen. And so with that, the glorious opportunity
of when we leave, we realize that it’s not over. That there
is a light at the end of the tunnel. And that we may lose
some battles along the way. But it’s inevitable that the
war has already been won on our behalf. There’s nothing that
we can do that can compare with the greatness of knowing that
Lord. Let’s close in prayer. Father, we are deeply grateful. We cannot even today understand. We cannot even today admit to
the degree of our wrong thinking and our wrong acting. All we
can pray for, Father, is that Your grace You will give it to
us liberally and abundantly, continuing to show us our faults,
continuing to illuminate the darkness in our lives, Father.
And help us to never measure up against anyone else. Help
us to never believe that we are worthy to sit at Your right and
Your left. God, the only place we’re worthy of is hell. But You have prepared places
for us in advance. God, so help us not to do good
works in just a fear of hoping our rewards are great, but help
them to do that from a grace-motivated response, God. But hearing this
and understanding Your Gospel message propels us on to good
works. And that by realizing this fact of what was done, this
ransom that was paid, it would be impossible for us to keep
this fire in our belly, but that we would want to go out and spread
this Good News. For You’ve called us, Lord, to
go out and make the disciples. And Father, the way we do that
is loving You. But we need your help. We are a sinful people
saved by grace. Lord, we thank you for all the
blessings of today. And we pray, Lord, for repentance
as we leave. Help us, Lord, to enjoy the fellowship
and the gifts that you’ve given us in your name. Amen. Go to the who? Back door? It’s called the glorification
of the worm right here. This is it, huh? Don’t listen
to what they say. Just, yes sir, thank you sir. Hey, how you doing
buddy?