Matthew 20:20-28 | "The Measure of Greatness"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Take your Bible and make your way to the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 20.

If you are visiting with us or you are our guest, we are glad to have you and invite you to participate with us in a Bible, in the Pew Bible in front of you, in the Rack, just in front of you, page 825, I believe it is.

You'll find Matthew chapter 20, beginning in verse 20 this morning as we continue working our way through Matthew's gospel.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

And this morning I'll remind us that we are headed to remembering Christ's work on our behalf through taking the bread and the cup together, remembering his sacrifice for us.

That's where we're headed.

We have a path to get there this morning, and it begins in Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

No, don't turn there.

I want you to go to Matthew chapter 20.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

But I want you to think about Hebrews chapter 11 as we begin, because it eulogizes one of the most remarkable men of faith in all of history.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

The man Moses is remembered in Hebrews chapter 11 with these words.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Beginning in verse 24, the writer to the Hebrews says, By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

You remember that account, right?

That he was hidden in a basket in the river Nile, and Pharaoh's daughter found him and brought him home as her own.

At some point, Moses said, I'm done with that, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

For he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt.

Why?

Because he was looking to the reward.

Most of us are not like Moses.

Moses had the world at his fingertips, Egypt in its prime, and he let it all go to pursue faithfulness toward God.

We, on the other hand, often wander through life, trying desperately to grasp whatever life in this world has to offer, sometimes even, unfortunately, at the cost of following Christ.

Moses received his reward.

But he did it unconventionally.

A passage in Matthew this morning illustrates not Moses, but us.

It illustrates you and me more than it does Moses.

But in it, Jesus instructs us to refocus our pursuit of what matters, of what is worthwhile.

And Jesus tells us here to be like Moses because Moses was like Jesus.

Look with me in Matthew chapter 20, beginning in verse 20.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

Matthew reports for us that the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to Jesus with her sons.

Kneeling down before Jesus, she asked him for something.

He said to her, What do you want?

She said to him, Command, or say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom.

Jesus answered, You do not know what you are asking.

Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?

And they said, Of course we're able.

He said to them, You will drink my cup, but but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.

Now when the ten, the other ten disciples heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers.

But Jesus called them to him and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.

It shall not be so among you.

But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Amen.

Our tendency here might be to jump be to jump to the end of this passage.

And we could quickly become fixated on Jesus being a ransom for many if we do that, if we jump right to the end.

Not necessarily an inappropriate thing to do, but if we become fixated on the statement at the end, we might overlook why Jesus made that statement about being a ransom.

We might also be tempted to see this account as Jesus sort of functioning as a disgruntled father, having to separate fighting siblings.

Here are ten disciples fighting for preeminency.

Who's going to be first?

Who's going to get the spots of privilege?

They're filled with jealousy.

And Jesus has to step in and say, hey, wait a minute.

Let's refocus for a minute.

Now, interestingly, Jesus doesn't correct the ambition of James and John, or of the rest of the disciples.

He doesn't correct their ambition, he redirects it.

He says, You've gone the wrong direction on the map.

Ambition for eternal greatness, for eternal success, for eternal recognition is not denounced, it's redefined.

So Jesus addresses the ambitious disciples.

And so I'm going to approach it similarly this morning, assuming that we all desire to please our Lord Jesus and to receive our reward just as Moses did.

We want our reward.

We desire a righteous reward.

We desire to be with Christ and to be recognized by Him and with Him.

Unfortunately, the way that Jesus responds to the disciples here ends up highlighting five ways that we undermine our spiritual ambition.

It undermines and detrimentally impacts future rewards that we might have with Christ.

Or maybe to put it differently, Matthew lays out for us five stages of hindering our eternal rewards with Jesus.

Still confused?

What we're going to talk about is how to mess up your eternity.

How to mess up your eternity.

How to undermine and take away some of what you might get in eternity because of Jesus Christ.

How do you mess that up?

Stage one.

You ignore your personal perceptions.

You want to mess up your eternity?

Here's how you do it: ignore that you have a certain way of looking at the world.

That you have a certain way of looking at the Bible, at gathering on Sunday mornings, at fellowshipping with other believers.

You see, the mother of James and John comes to Jesus.

And she asks if her sons might have the positions of honor, of utmost honor in Jesus' kingdom.

One sitting on his right hand and the other sitting on his left.

But this isn't so much about mom.

If you look down at verse 22, Jesus responds by saying, You do not know what you are asking.

The you's there are plural.

They're not singular.

He's not speaking to the mother, he's speaking to the group of disciples.

See, he knows that James and John have sort of put up mom to do this.

Somewhere in the background scenes that we aren't privy to, James and John have convinced their mother to go to Jesus to ask for this privilege.

When you look at verse 24, the rest of the disciples, when they hear about it, are not upset with the mother.

They're upset with the disciples.

They know what's been going on.

Now, what does that have to do with perception?

Think again about the request.

They are seeking places of honor in Jesus' kingdom.

Now, if James and John were to sit in the places of honor next to Jesus, then Jesus would have the utmost honor, right?

So one on his right, one on his left, Jesus in the middle of the utmost honor.

That's their perception.

They see Jesus just as Matthew has been presenting him all along as the king of Israel, as the promised Messiah, the one fulfilling Scripture.

He is the one who will reign on David's throne with great power and great glory.

And they've heard that Jesus promised that they will sit on twelve thrones, judging the tribes of Israel with him.

They have visions full of glory and grandeur.

And James and John want more.

They want throne, their thrones right next to Jesus.

Because their perception is that they are going to reign with him soon.

Very soon.

But the irony about personal perceptions is that what we perceive to be true is not always perfectly accurate.

Remember the proverb that says that the first person to tell a story is believed until the second person comes along and you hear a different side.

See, the disciples believed Jesus when he said that they would reign with him.

And that was and still is very true.

But their perception of that reality was not entirely on target.

Notice what happened just before this in verses 17, 18, and 19.

Jesus is going up to Jerusalem with the 12 disciples.

He takes them aside and says, Look, here's what's going to happen.

We're going to enter the holy city, the city of the great king, and the Son of Man is going to be delivered over to the chief priests and to the scribes, and they're going to condemn him to death.

They're going to deliver him over to the Gentiles.

He's going to be mocked, flogged, and crucified.

James and John's visions of glory are presented immediately after hearing of Jesus' death by crucifixion.

They still didn't get what Jesus was trying to tell them.

They perceived of Jesus as a glorious and reigning and powerful king, not as a crucified servant.

Back in chapter 18, verse 1, the disciples asked Jesus, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

Do you see this repetitive theme?

They want to know how we can be at the top?

Who's going to be at the top?

How can we get our way to the top?

But Jesus replied in chapter 18 that the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the one who humbles himself like a child.

The twelve disciples don't have dreams of humility.

They have dreams of greatness.

They ignored Jesus' teaching and expectation of childlike humility, of childlike faith.

We had 150 kids here on Wednesday night hear the gospel of Christ Jesus.

Isn't that amazing?

Childlike faith.

They ignored it.

They didn't have childlike faith.

They were still pursuing who was going to be the greatest.

They ignored Jesus' statements about the last being first and the first being last.

They still perceive Jesus as a glorious and conquering king.

And that is true.

Jesus is a glorious and conquering king, but they ignored their personal perceptions.

You see, in their lack of awareness of their own perceptions, they failed to internalize the reality that Jesus must first suffer and die.

Their perceptions blinded them to the reality of Jesus' life.

The reality that taking up one's cross comes before reward and greatness.

Moses received his reward when he abandoned the riches of Egypt.

But that meant wandering and dealing with grumbling, griping people for forty years in the desert.

Indulging only in your personal perceptions leads to missing out on the complete picture of God's purpose.

And missing the whole picture is the first stage of hindering your eternal rewards.

So if you desire to hinder your personal eternity, the glories that you might gain for following Jesus, then focus only on your own perceptions.

The second stage is found in verse 21.

And it is the stage of daydreaming about your spiritual promotions.

Daydreaming's been on my mind a lot this week because I remember the first day of school being the day after Labor Day, sitting in first and second grade and looking outside and just daydreaming of what I could be doing.

The 12 disciples were enthusiastic about Jesus' Messiahship.

They were enthralled that they were the first among the people of Israel to follow the King of Israel.

But James and John let their minds drift with daydreams of Jesus' coming kingdom.

And they want to ensure that they have positions of tremendous honor when that time comes.

They want to sit right next to their king.

And interestingly, the other ten disciples are indignant.

They're angry.

They're frustrated.

They're upset with James and John.

It's not because they're more pious.

It's not because they're more religious or more faithful than James and John.

They're angry because they didn't think of it first.

Matthew doesn't show the other ten sitting back there thinking, oh, come on, James and John.

Really?

Haven't you heard anything about what Jesus said about humility?

No, they're upset because James and John had the audacity to beat them to the punch.

They wanted it too.

That's why Jesus directs his attention to all of them.

They're frustrated that the brothers have the nerve to ask for the honor that they wanted when the other ten could have done it themselves.

So notice in verse 25 that Jesus speaks to all of them about humility.

Because the Lord knows that all disciples would love the place of honor next to him.

You strip away all of the little details and you get down to the basic place of your Christian faith, you will say, I want to see Jesus.

I want to be with him.

That desire to be with him isn't necessarily a bad thing.

But it becomes a bad thing if it's driven by pride in your heart.

You'll notice that Jesus doesn't say yes or no.

He says, That's not my decision.

So it's within the Father's all-wise, eternal decree to prepare specific people for those places of honor.

We can never know the Father's decision until it happens.

So don't daydream about it.

You see, daydreaming frequently overlooks what is closer in time.

I started daydreaming about 15 minutes into the first class hour.

And I was overlooking the next six hours in class, thinking about what I was going to be doing when I got out of class.

We daydream and we overlook that which comes before the glory of our dreams.

James and John were ignorant of their request.

They were ignorant because they they overlooked the reality of another right hand and left hand of Jesus that would be filled before they would sit with him in glory.

Look over at chapter twenty-seven.

Chapter twenty-seven.

Verse 36, then they sat down and kept watch over him there.

Over his head they put the charge against him, which read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.

And then two robbers were crucified with him.

One on his right, and one on his left.

When you daydream about the glory of Jesus in his right hand and his left hand, you overlook what's closer in time.

But the right hand and the left hand of Jesus are filled with death and suffering and sin.

They would be filled with crucified criminals, not glory-obsessed disciples.

And yet somehow they believed that they could face whatever Jesus would face, whatever Jesus endured, they could bear.

From this side of the cross, we know that that is pure foolishness, don't we?

No mere human being could drink the cup that even the Lord Jesus asked to be removed from him.

They could endure anything as they daydreamed of celebrating their reign with Jesus.

But Jesus said, You don't realize that you're going to drink a cup of great suffering before you drink a cup of glory.

They would carry a painful cross.

Not the cross of Calvary to pay for sin, but they would bear a cross of following Jesus and being treated as he was to be treated.

The disciples anticipated celebration and places of honor next to the Lord Jesus, but the irony was complete.

When James and John's mother stood at the foot of the cross and looked up and saw the Lord Jesus crucified and saw the places of honor at his right hand and his left, filled with death.

Perhaps even more sobering.

In Acts 12, verse 2, it says that Herod, King Herod, killed James within just a year or two of this very moment.

Acts 12:2

And John, while he lived to be an old man, was exiled to a prison island for many years.

My friends, every disciple has a cross to bear.

Pride gets driven away when the cross begins to be heavy on your shoulders.

And the splinters begin to dig into your skin and it starts to hurt.

Just ask the Irish pastor in prison this week for refusing to participate in the cultural war on pronouns.

Pride gets driven away very quickly when the cross you are called to bear gets heavy.

Yes, all eternity and all of its blessings and its glory awaits those who follow Jesus.

And we anticipate our promised inheritance with Christ in glory.

But in the meantime, just as Moses in the 40 years in the wilderness, we are called to walk in the steps of Jesus.

And we

Must not oversimplify the suffering that comes with those steps.

Don't let your daydreaming of eternity distract you from the reality of today.

The twelve were looking forward to a cup of celebration.

They would drink from a cup, but ironically, it would be first a cup representing the blood that comes from suffering.

Remember the words eulogizing Moses.

He chose rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking to the reward.

You see, looking to the real reward, not by daydreaming, but by seeing it through the light of the presence enables you to persevere.

Now, if you want to further undermine your eternal greatness, I've been lacking here, haven't I?

Daydream about your spiritual promotions.

Oversimplify your suffering for Jesus.

If you ignore that you have personal perceptions that limit your vision and you just focus on what you want to focus on, then you set yourself up to daydream.

And daydreaming, while it's a great fertilizer for your ambitions, it sets you up to come crashing down when the reality of carrying your cross smacks you across the nose.

So Jesus asks in stage three, you do not know what you are asking.

Are you able to drink the cup that I am drinking?

That's oversimplifying suffering for Jesus.

The cup that is his suffering, the disciples think, yeah, we can handle whatever you throw at us, Jesus.

Isn't that the way we do it sometimes?

Especially when life is going well and our minds are full of daydreams.

We think that whatever comes my way, I'm good with it until you get that diagnosis, until you hear those terrible words of news and you don't want to hear.

Until life begins to get difficult and the cross digs into you.

Then we realize that our dreams are full of glory, not of crosses, just like the disciples.

Jesus says, don't oversimplify the suffering that comes with following me.

He said, Remember, whoever wants to be my disciple must take up his cross daily and follow me.

But if you don't really care about your eternity with Christ, then go ahead, oversimplify the suffering that comes from following Jesus.

And to further undermine your eternal greatness, refuse Jesus' definition of greatness.

Jesus called the disciples to himself and says, Listen, you know how the world functions.

You know how life is, you know how the corporate world is, you know how things go in this world.

The rulers lorded over everybody else.

Whoever has greatness and authority exercises that authority over other people.

It shall not be so among you in verse 26.

But whoever would be great among you.

You want greatness, here's greatness.

Whoever would be great must be your servant.

And whoever would be first among you must be your slave.

Notice that Jesus doesn't downplay the desire for greatness.

He doesn't speak against having your best life now or your best life in eternity.

Instead, he defines what that means.

He redefines it from what the world thinks it is to what God thinks it is.

He says, here is what the best life is now, here is what the best life is in eternity.

Now the rich young ruler, we've already looked at back in chapter 19.

The rich young ruler was the image of greatness in that world.

The disciples' misguided perceptions viewed that young man as blessed by God with position, with power, and with authority.

What more could anyone want in this world?

He's a young man and he's risen up the corporate ladder and he's got a great job, he's fit for life.

What more could you want?

The disciples' daydreams were filled with the visions of the same, ruling and reigning with Jesus in his kingdom.

What could be better than finagling your way to the top to be on Jesus' right hand or Jesus' left hand?

Today it's pretty easy to hear that greatness is defined by wealth, position, politics, power.

You will feel drawn to the teaching that God wants you happy, that God wants you healthy, and if you're not, then somehow you're not right with God or your faith isn't great enough, you haven't prayed hard enough, you haven't given enough.

The twelve disciples were good at daydreaming.

They couldn't wait for the fulfillment of their visions of grandeur.

They couldn't wait for the day when they ruled with Jesus.

Life would be great and they would be great.

But then Jesus touches their high flying balloon with that proverbial needle.

Vanishes.

Their daydreams vanish into thin air.

Because Jesus says, look at look at the world you live in.

Consider the way to position and power and greatness in the world that you live in.

Now, consider that and do the opposite.

Because what the world trumpets is foolishness.

In God's eyes, greatness is humility that drives you to serve others as if you were their servant.

Don't drive yourself to obtain what is foolish.

Don't labor for what will not endure.

Instead, ironically, serving others is the path to greatness because that is how the last will be first.

You want greatness, Jesus says.

You want position, you want honor?

You want the places at my right hand?

Then be a nobody.

Be a slave of everyone.

Don't work to be known.

Labor to be unknown.

Because the way to glory is not the ladder of success, but it's down to the bottom.

Now, of course, only the Spirit of God can generate a spirit of humility like that.

We must know that we serve a Lord who commands us to consider others as more significant than ourselves.

Of course, if you want to undermine your weight of glory in the Lord's kingdom, refuse the Lord's definition of greatness and climb up that ladder as fast and as far as you can.

Pursue the world's definition of greatness.

But it's very clear that Jesus says to his disciples, listen, if you follow me and you're focused on eternity, then the treasures of Egypt are going to mean nothing to you.

If you want to walk in Moses' steps, and by doing that, walking in the Lord's steps, you might consider visiting a brother or sister in the hospital and praying with them.

Encouraging them to entrust all things to Christ.

You might speak to fellow believers struggling mentally or struggling physically, encouraging them to entrust themselves to a faithful creator who does all things well, even when we can't understand it.

If we have pursued Jesus' definition of greatness, a homebound believer of Christ in our fellowship would continually feel as though they haven't missed fellowshipping with the saints because of the number of people seeking to lift them up on a daily basis.

If we are all pursuing what Jesus says to pursue, then we might just end up like the church in Acts chapter 2, where there are no needs in our fellowship because we are so focused on meeting the needs of one another.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Because servants don't have anything but what the master gives them anyway, and so what the master provides to us is ideally suited to meet the needs of others.

If we measure greatness and glory with Jesus' measurement, we might even need sorry, Scott, a building campaign.

We might need to build a larger building because people will notice that we are Jesus' disciples because of our love for one another.

And by our witness, others will believe and want to join and say, I want a part of that.

What is that like?

My friends, the irony is that greatness comes through service.

And being first comes through living as a servant to one of to one's Lord and to one's to the Lord's people.

But but if you want to to undermine, to dig underneath and to make it unsteady, and you want to in some way undo your eternal glory in Christ, then refuse to apply the Lord's definition of greatness.

And say, ah, that doesn't matter.

He's just some wacko.

But there's a final stage to hindering your eternal reward in Christ.

And we might even say it's a stage that leads to destruction.

Stage five is to dismiss the astonishing payment of your ransom.

Sorry, computer guys up there, I can't advance to the last slide there.

Dismiss the astonishing payment of your ransom.

Notice that Jesus says in verse 28, even as He's making a comparison.

He's saying, I'm doing this.

This is me.

The life that I'm describing to you is my life.

It is the life that Moses chose, even as the Son of Man came, not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The three uses of the word to there tell us that Jesus' coming had a purpose and that his goal in coming to this earth was deliberate.

His death was no accident, his crucifixion was no fluke.

The Messiah came not to be great, not to be a great ruling king served by others.

The all-glorious king came to serve.

Therefore, as his servants, we should also serve.

But before that time, at the right time, Scripture says, He came in humility.

He came as a slave.

And he calls all of us to do the same, not because there's some kind of psycho pleasure in it, but because there is a deep-seated joy in serving the one who bought us.

But by all means, if you want to undo your eternity, dismiss the astonishing payment.

Jesus came not to be waited on hand in foot, not to be honored with worship from all of creation, even though he deserves it, but to give up his own life so that many enslaved to sin might be freed to follow him.

And that following is a self-crucifying, pride-crushing, daydream-awakening path of suffering like Jesus on the road to our eternal reward.

These disciples, minus Judas, received their reward.

Just as Moses did.

But like all of us, they needed their daydream balloon popped.

We might rightly say, not so much a refocusing of what they were pursuing, but of who they're pursuing.

Because the who here is the Lord of glory displayed as a ransom.

The language here is from Isaiah chapter 53, beginning in verse 10, where it says, It was the will of the Lord to crush him.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

He's put him to grief.

When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he will see his offspring.

His days will be prolonged, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul, he will see and be satisfied.

By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted as righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many.

Yet he bore the sin of many.

And he makes intercession for the transgressors.

What Isaiah prophesied, Jesus fulfilled.

The goal of his first coming was not to reign, but to suffer and die.

Oh, he will reign for all to see at the appointed time.

But he first came to bear our sins so that many might be counted as righteous.

Jesus was our ransom.

He paid our price so that we might be freed from the bondage of sin.

But the great irony in this payment is not that the king, the all-glorious, all-wonderful king, uses his resources to pay a massive debt.

That's not the irony.

The irony is that the king himself is the ransom.

He gave his life as a ransom for you.

And so he lays before all who hear that message the command to say, cast off your life and follow me.

Lift up your eyes to me and see that I'm the one in whom you need to trust.

It's through me that you find your greatness.

And you find that by demolishing your pride, humbling yourself as a child, and believing in the great King who is lifted up to die.

But if you wish to undermine your life after death destructively, then dismiss that astonishing payment.

However, if hearing this humbles you before the cross, and if your heart clearly perceives the God of creation taking the form of a slave to die, a death on a cross to free us to follow him, then let your soul be filled with joy in the storms of life.

Let his Spirit spur you to worship and to service in the same way as he gave his life.

If we perceive this truth correctly, then the cross should demolish our daydreams and should inspire our lives to change our outlook, our church, and what the Lord demands of us, because the most significant person, the Lord Jesus says, is not the wealthiest, not the most powerful, not the most significant in the world's eyes, not the most happy, not the most healthy, but the one who serves in humility because he follows Jesus.

That can be each one of us.

Here I am, Lord Jesus, use me to take the lowly step to serve one another.

And that when we leave today, whether it's after our fellowship or after our fellowship groups, that we will encounter people who will look at us strangely and say, What's gotten into you?

And you can say, The Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus.

May we, by your grace given to us through the cross, be humbled this morning.

Some might need to be humbled to the point of crying out to you for salvation, for the forgiveness of sins for the very first time.

Oh, answer that prayer, Lord Jesus, and give life.

New life, eternal life, a promise of reward with you in eternity.

Some of us might need to be encountered by having our pride beaten down.

Maybe we've felt successful in our Christian walk.

Maybe we've maybe we've just gotten an attitude that, hey, this is good.

I'm on my way to eternity.

Lord, humble us properly by the work of your spirit so that we might grasp the depth of the love of God for us.

That love that would compel the eternal creator to become one of his creation, to die, to ransom us from our sin.

Lord, may we all have our hearts and minds and souls tuned to that amazing grace of your love for us.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.