The Way Up Is the Way Down - Part 2

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Please make your donation to Visionathon today at vision.org.au. Jesus' death on the cross was more than just another Roman execution. It was the fulfillment of his mission to serve all mankind. Today on Turning Point, Dr David Jeremiah wraps up his series, In Search of the Savior, with a closer look at Mark 10-45, that's a key verse in Mark's gospel, and encouragement to take it to heart.

With the conclusion of his message, the way up is the way down, here's David. You know that Jesus said he didn't come to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. Jesus' whole concept of life, friends, was that of service. He served others. He washed his disciples' feet.

Everywhere he went, he did good. Everywhere he went, he helped others. He was a servant of servants. And he tells us that the way up, the way to know the joy of ministry, is to get down on our knees and serve others. There should never be a task too menial for a spiritual Christian. If something needs to be done for the kingdom and you're able to do it, and you have the ability to do it, God helps you do it, you do it. Because service is the, well, it's the coinage of the kingdom's economy. And when we serve, we do business for God. Well, let's get back into the book of Mark for one last time and let's learn everything we can about what it means to be a servant leader in the kingdom. In ancient culture, a seat at the right hand of someone who was important was the seat of honor.

The seat at the left would be reserved for someone who was an intimate friend. If you have been walking through Jerusalem, even to this day, and you see a rabbi walking through there and he has his disciples, the most important disciple will walk a little bit behind him to his right and the second will walk a little bit behind him to his left and the rabbi or the teacher will be in the middle. In the value system of Jesus, glory was reserved for those who endured suffering, not those who got to the right hand first. Jesus knew who was one day very soon going to be at his right hand and his left hand.

You know who that was? Two thieves hanging on crosses right beside him. Jesus' question to his disciples is about to open up their understanding just a wee bit. Notice his response to them in verse 38. Jesus said to them, Jesus said to them, Jesus responds to James and John's ignorant, self-serving request with a question of his own. He says, Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

And he's using symbolic language here. The cup is a metaphor for suffering and baptism is a metaphor for being plunged into the midst of calamity. Jesus will not be sprinkled with a bit of suffering. He's going to be submerged in it and he's asking these two disciples, Are you ready to be submerged into suffering to sit at my right hand and my left hand?

From our perspective, we know that the question is really a rhetorical question with an expected answer. And we would have to say, Lord, we cannot do what only you can do, but the brothers declare that they can accomplish what Jesus accomplished in their pride and their arrogance. And at this point, we are surprised that Jesus says, Okay, you will then.

And they did, didn't they? Did you know that James was the first martyr of the disciples? You read about his execution in the 12th chapter of the book of Acts. And John was the last of the disciples to die on the Isle of Patmos as an exile for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. The book ends of the disciples and Jesus says, You will, you will drink of my cup of suffering and you will be baptized in the baptism of my sufferings.

And then Jesus adds one note. He says, But to sit on my right hand and my left hand is not mine to give. And if you go to Matthew chapter 20, you discover why. For in Matthew 20 we read, You will indeed drink my cup and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit on my right hand and my left hand is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by my Father. In other words, Jesus says, The Father hasn't assigned this to me. He's holding this prerogative in his own hands. And it's the Father's decision as to who will sit at the right hand and the left hand.

Now, just pause for a moment and realize where we are in this story. Jesus has predicted his death. The disciples have asked a stupid question.

And Jesus is going to take these two things and bring them together in one of the great teaching moments of his career. Notice the paradox of Jesus' doctrine, verse 41. First of all, we learned that when the other disciples heard what was going on, they began to be greatly displeased with James and John.

Now, please understand this. They weren't displeased with James and John because they had come to grips with the fact that they had done a very evil thing. They were displeased with James and John because James and John got there before they could.

That's why they were displeased. In other words, they thought James and John were rushing to the front of the line and they were going to be left behind. And so the Bible says Jesus called all of them together. Jesus called all of his disciples together. And he's going to tell them about true greatness. Verse 42, But Jesus called them to himself and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Jesus, first of all, takes a look at the common understanding of greatness.

Greatness, he says, the way the world looks at it, is based upon how far up the hierarchy of responsibility and prominence one can climb. Jesus says the pagan path to greatness comes through domination and controlling other people, having authority over others. But he says the Christian path to greatness is different. The Christian path to greatness comes through service and self-sacrifice. People are not on the receiving end of service, but on the giving end of service in the kingdom of God. It was the Lord Jesus who said, according to Acts 20, 35, it is more blessed to give than to receive. The examination of greatness.

Now, notice the explanation of it in verse 43. Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever of you desires to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever of you desires to be first shall be the slave of all. Now, please note Jesus is not against ambition. He's not against the desire to be great. He's against being ambitious about the wrong kind of greatness. The contrast is between the world's definition of greatness and God's definition of greatness, and here is how one author has put it. There is a profound difference between the false ambition for power and the true ambition to love and serve.

It is the difference between trying to raise ourselves up and trying to lift up fellow human beings. In the discussion of who belongs on Mount Rushmore of the NBA basketball world, one of the discussions that comes up in every one of the conversation is this one. Which of these people made the players around them better? Michael Jordan always rises to the top. Michael will always be at the pinnacle of the greatness of the NBA as it stands right now, because even though he himself was incredibly gifted, somewhere along the way, perhaps through the coaching of his famous coach or through his own understanding, he began to realize that for him to be great, that meant to win championships, and to win championships, he couldn't do it by himself, and so he had to take the players around him who weren't really great players and through his ability elevate them to a new level and make them great.

That in turn would make him great. And if you've ever watched even the old films, I used to watch Chicago Bulls every time I could, and I remember over and over again, Michael would come out during the first half of the game and he would hardly even shoot. He wouldn't even try to score. If he had an easy layup, he would take it, but his whole mentality was finding the open people, getting the other guys on the team involved, getting their confidence up so they would score. Then in the second half, when he had their confidence up, he would move in and he would do his thing.

It was almost like if you want to see Michael, don't come into the game until the half. By the end of the game, all the players were playing at the highest level of their ability because he understood that greatness was not elevating himself first, but lifting up all the people around him so they could be great. There's a profound difference between how the world looks at greatness and how God looks at it. Because you see, the preeminent virtue in the kingdom of God is not power, but service. Service is so powerfully the nature of God. Jesus' point is just simple. Greatness comes through giving, not through seeking for yourself.

You've seen this before from me, but I can't leave this without giving you this visual picture. In the world's understanding of greatness, the triangle is like this, and you know how it works. When you go into an organization to begin your service, you come in at the bottom level, and at the bottom level, the triangle are the most number of people. The entry level has the most number of people. Those who work hard and play the game, do everything they're supposed to do, they start to move up the entry level little by little. As you get closer to the top, there are fewer people at your level until you get all the way to the top, and now you are at the top of the triangle, and you look down and think about, look at all the people who are serving under me.

And Jesus comes along and says, you've got the triangle upside down. And he says, whoever wants to be the greatest among you, let him be the least. And Jesus says, when you are in the greatness competition, if there is such a thing among believers, the question is not how many people are serving you, the question is how many people are you serving. And greatness in the kingdom of God is all about serving.

It's about serving others. Now let me just say that sometimes people say, well, I serve God, and you ask them how do you serve God, and they give you nebulous answers, so I'm just going to take this out of the nebulous. The only way you can serve God is by serving others. You can't just serve God in your head. You can't just serve God in your wish. The Bible says you serve God by serving others. Jesus put it this way.

Whatever you have done to them, you've done to me. You give somebody a cup of cold water, Jesus says you serve me. So maybe you say, I love God, and I serve God. My question to you is who are you serving? What are you doing?

How are you helping somebody? Because greatness in the kingdom is not about how many people you have under authority. Greatness in the kingdom is about how many people you are serving and how you serve them.

Now we're almost done, but not quite. We have this prediction of Jesus' suffering and the presumption of the disciples about what this means, and Jesus telling them what it means, and he's going to nail it now with an example that you can't get away from, the example of greatness. In a single sentence that rises like a mountain peak above all the previous statements about his purpose, Jesus is going to personalize servanthood as the standard of greatness. By the way, men and women, Mark 10 45 is the central verse in the book of Mark.

Did you know that? It may not be just, you know, perfectly centered in the book, but it's the central verse because here's what it says. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give his life a ransom for many. This is the key verse to the book of Mark because up until 10 45, we are reading about the life of Jesus as he is serving other people, his miracles, all the things we've been studying.

From 10 45 to the end of the book, we're going to see Jesus sacrificing himself for the whole world, his passion, and just a couple of verses will be in the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Now, in this verse, which is the most important verse in the book of Mark, Jesus says, first of all, that the Son of Man, and that's a title that only is related to him and did not exist before Jesus. What does that mean, the Son of Man?

It means that Jesus is the true representative of man. Even though he was 100% God, he was 100% man. He is not merely a human being. He is the human being. He is the true man, and he says, for the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and when he uses the word serve, he uses the word which is used for the lowest kind of serving.

In fact, in Luke's account of this incident, Luke identifies what Jesus is talking about, so we can't miss it. In Luke 22, 27, we read, for who is greater, he who sits at the table or he who serves? Is not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the one who serves. Jesus says, I am your servant.

His question is profound. What is greater, the host and the guest or the waiter? And Jesus said, I am the waiter. The meaning is this, the Son of Man, the man who lives the truest human life, waited upon others instead of seeking others to wait upon him. And Jesus redefined the true nature of greatness. To be great does not mean to lord it over someone.

It means to willingly serve under someone. By giving his own life as a ransom, Jesus would soon show his followers what servanthood was all about. Sometimes when we study the servanthood of Jesus, we think, well, he just did that for us so we would have an example. But no, it's far more than that. It's far better than that.

It gets better and better as you understand it more and more. Jesus is not just an example to us of a servant. Jesus literally serves us. He has come to serve us in the truest and most dignified and biblical sense of that term. His purpose is to carry our burdens and our sorrows and our worries. And listen to this.

I never saw this before. When we get to heaven, he will still be serving us up there. Did you know that? Let me read to you Luke 12, 37. Blessed are those servants whom the Master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them to sit and eat and come and serve them. That leads me to believe that when we get to heaven, our Savior will not ever abandon his servanthood mentality, but even in heaven, we will see our Lord serving and serving us. Wow.

That's almost off the chart, isn't it? And then, not only is the Son of Man and the Servant, but notice verse 45. He is to give his life a ransom for many, and this is the crowning moment. This verse invites us to discover and reflect upon the true purpose of Jesus' life.

He did not come to be served by people. His purpose was to serve others, and he served others by giving his life as a ransom. Now, that's not a term we know very much about, except if you watch movies about people getting kidnapped, then you know something about a ransom. Did you know that in the Bible, this is the only place where the word is ever used? It's a really significant word because Jesus is saying, I have come to be the ransom, not to provide it. I am the ransom to redeem you. It is a word which was used in the New Testament times of people who were slaves, and they would be bought out of their slavery. Or back in the New Testament times, if you were put into prison, and you had friends with enough money, they could buy you out of your sentence, and you would be redeemed. And whatever money they gave to get you out, that would be called the ransom. Jesus has said, you are bound in slavery that you can't get out of. You're under the bondage of sin, and I am coming into this world, and I myself am going to be your ransom. I am the purchase price of your redemption, and through my death on the cross and what I have done, I am paying for your freedom in its entirety. I am your ransom. And he said, that's why I came.

I didn't come to be served by others. I came to give my life as a ransom for many. Someone should ask us, what was the moment of Jesus' greatest greatness? And we would all, if we thought about it carefully, would have to say, it was the moment when he hung on the cross outside of Jerusalem as the ransom for our sin.

Stop and think about that for a moment. What was the greatest moment of the greatest person who ever walked on this earth? It was his sacrificial death on the cross. They went 3,500 feet up the long road from Jericho to Jerusalem so they could witness the greatest moment in the life of their leader.

And what was that great moment? He hung on the cross. And who was on his right hand?

A thief. And on his left hand, another thief. And there between the representation of sinful man, he gave himself up voluntarily so that we could be set free.

He became our ransom. I wonder what the disciples thought when Jesus was done with his lesson and his illustration. I don't have to wonder too much because you could kind of check on this if you read the Bible carefully. Before the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, John said to the Lord Jesus, grant me that I might sin on your right hand in your glory. But after experiencing the overwhelming love and grace of Christ, we read these words from the pen of this same man. By this we know love because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren, 1 John 3.16. And 1 John 4, beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. I think John got it, don't you? I think he got the message. I think Jesus got through his hard heart. And as the resurrection was over, John began to process this.

I was there on the greatest day for the greatest moment of my lovely Lord when he gave himself up on the cross for my sin. And if he loves us that much, the lesson I take away from that is that's the way I should love others. So it comes right down to this, men and women. Greatness is all about serving, isn't it?

And here's the good news for every one of us. Everybody can be great because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know Plato or Aristotle. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity.

You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics. All you need is a heart to serve and you're on your way to greatness in the mind of God. So here's my question. Are you serving? Or better yet, who are you serving? And don't come up with any of this mitigating nonsense about how you love God and you serve God and you can't identify anybody who is at the other end of your service.

Are you serving? If you want to be great in the eyes of God, the way up is the way down. On your knees before the Lord, serving him. Hallelujah. Well, friends, that's the end of our discussion from the book of Mark. As I mentioned, when we meet tomorrow, we begin our Christmas presentation called, Why Thenativity?

With a whole month of teaching on the meaning of Christmas. Have a great day. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll see you tomorrow. I'm Gary Hoogfleet. Join us tomorrow as we begin the series, Why Thenativity? It's here on Turning Point with Dr David Jeremiah.