Matthew 20:20-28 - Born to Serve and Save

In Christ's name.

Amen.

Take our Bibles and go to Matthew chapter 20.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 20.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

One of the things I used to love listening to on the radio was a program by them a man by the name of Paul Harvey called The Rest of the Story.

And he would share a little kind of anecdote about a person or an event or something.

And then would break it off right at a poignant part and pick it up later so you could hear what the rest of the story was.

And I'm going to do a little bit of that today by introducing you to a man by the name of Thomas Cromwell.

He was a key figure in the court of King Henry VIII during the 16th century.

He was a skilled statesman, he was a lawyer, and he played a pivotal role in the English Reformation.

He was instrumental in the king's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and the establishment of the Church of England.

He was known for being quite a clever fellow, very shrewd, full of political acumen.

He was quite effective in building Henry's rule and power and executing all of his policies on his behalf.

He was instrumental in a lot of reforms that have shaped England to this day.

English legal system, a crucial rule in the dissolution of the monasteries, brought a lot of wealth and power under royal control.

His rise to power, however, was somewhat pragmatic, even ruthless, as he went through all of his schemes to achieve the king's objectives.

He maneuvered through political intrigues, he employed a lot of different tactics to secure King Henry VIII's favor.

And he became, through all of that, one of the most influential men in English history, and certainly in his day.

Thomas Cromwell's story is a common one.

It's a common one in human history.

Because the world has a view that giving ahead means being more aggressive, more intimidating, more cunning, more demanding than the next person.

But Jesus' teaching and his life demonstrate that he and his kingdom operate from a completely different framework.

And if that hasn't been clear in what we studied in Matthew's gospel, it becomes very clear in what we're about to look at today in chapter 20.

Let's read verse 20 of chapter 20.

The mother of Zebedee's sons approached him with her sons.

She knelt down to ask him for something.

What do you want?

he asked her.

Promise, she said to him, that these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right and the other on your left in your kingdom.

Jesus answered, You do not know what you're saying or what you're asking.

The family of Zebedee was unaware of this, but the prospect of the coming passion that Jesus had just spoken about in the previous section is going to redefine for the disciples what true greatness and true power and influence means.

The Son of God was going to give them the pinnacle of greatness by the demonstration of his life given up as a ransom for many.

That's a lesson that we need to hear today.

In our country, particularly, there are a number of people of religious influence and political influence that are playing on the fears and concerns and emotions of people who are rightly concerned about where our culture is headed, the increasing rise of secularism in Western society and the breakdown of Christendom.

And these players are propositioning that the country's cultural challenges are the most dramatic thing that human history has ever experienced.

And they're trying to put us into a panic mode, causing us to be distressed.

And by so doing, they are positioning themselves as the answer to all of the issues as they cry out, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, follow me.

For all of their supposed concerns for the country and the culture and Christianity, at the bottom of it all, however, is nothing more than a desire to advance their own name and their own brand.

And amid all of the emotion that they generate, good godly Christians are tempted to think that the battle for souls is one where the war is being waged against us, and that the weapons of that warfare are to be used in the same with the same weaponry that's being used against us.

And by taking up those tactics and playing on that battlefield, we're losing an understanding of what the kingdom of Christ is really about.

With all that froth and with all that fervor, we need to realize once again that our Savior calls us to walk in a manner that's completely contrary to the weapons of war that our culture has and to fight on a different battlefield than they're fighting.

He tells us here in this passage of scripture that he, the Lord of heaven and earth, came not to be ministered to, but to minister, not to enrich himself, but to enrich others, not even to protect himself, but to impoverish himself, so that those who are his enemies might be spiritually rich beyond anything they could deserve or anything they could even imagine.

And with Christ set in our hearts as Lord, we can follow him, and we can follow the way of the kingdom that he sets forth, and we can find ourselves centered on what is eternally important.

We'll submit ourselves to him, we'll submit our concerns to him, we'll submit our prideful and power-hungry selves to him, we'll even submit our safety to him as we minister to others, as we focus on the ultimate good even of our enemies, and the honor of God and the glory of the gospel in their hearts.

With their inquiry, Peter, in the previous section that we looked at, and Zebedee's wife and her two sons here are illustrating a desire for some sort of reward based upon their sacrifice.

And that motivation is stock trade in our world today.

And it fosters an atmosphere of envy and competition, self-promotion, and comparison.

But Jesus is about to turn it upside down.

He's going to supplant this worldly mindset with a kingdom-inspired motivation in the heart.

And he shows, as we looked last week, that it moves from a heart of generosity, just as the landowner was moved with generosity toward those workers.

We find here that the motivation of a servant's heart is also, or of a believer's heart, is also one of servanthood.

Servanthood.

We looked at generosity last week.

Let's look at servanthood this week.

And I want us to move through this passage and see, first of all, the discussion that Jesus has with his disciples, the directive he gives his disciples, and the demonstration of how to live out our lives.

Let's begin with the discussion that begins in verse 20 with the mother of Zebedee's sons approaching Jesus and asking for something from him.

And she asked him to promise that her sons would sit at the right and left-hand side of him as he ascends to the throne in his kingdom.

Obviously, she had been listening, and they had been listening to what Jesus said right at the end of chapter 19.

When Jesus said to Peter, We've given it all up.

What are we going to get?

And he says, When the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And they're thinking, Uh-huh.

Okay, he's got a throne.

There's twelve thrones, there's twelve of us.

Why not ask for the best seats?

Right?

So their mother anticipates Jesus' ascent to the throne to rule in Jerusalem in the very near future, and that her sons are going to play a key role, even perhaps the most vital role, in that coming kingdom.

And she asks for a placement on the right hand and the left hand side of Jesus.

The right hand would be the place of honor.

You go through scripture in the Old Testament.

The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand.

Psalm 16, I'm always at his right hand.

That is the place of honor.

The left hand was also a place of honor.

Josephus talked about Saul giving a place for his son and his general on the right and the left hand side of him.

So these were close places.

The context of this question makes this quite a condemnable statement.

Take a look at what Jesus had just finished saying.

Back up to verse 17.

While going to Jerusalem, Jesus took the twelve disciples aside privately and said to them on the way, See, we are going to Jerusalem.

The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes.

They will condemn him to death.

They will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged, and crucified.

And on the third day he will be raised.

Then look at the next word.

Then there's a connection between what Jesus has said and this request by these the mother of these two men.

Right after Jesus finished speaking about his death, here comes the question.

No wonder Jesus said, You don't know what you're asking.

And Jesus begins to answer, not their mother, but them, John and James.

Because Jesus says, You, plural, don't know what you, plural, are asking.

He's not just answering the mother, he's answering the mother and the two sons.

Jesus is going to correct their answer.

Before we do, though, we we will want to acknowledge some sense of appreciation for this.

It is not a very humble request.

It deserves to be condemned.

But they at least believe that Jesus is the Christ, and they believe he's going to be successful in establishing a kingdom.

They don't understand all of that yet, but there's something there that's commendable.

But Jesus doesn't address that.

He addresses the problem and says, you don't know what you're asking for.

And then he asks them a question.

Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink?

Now, Jesus, of course, is talking about his common suffering, his passion.

And we're going to be looking at that soon as we look at the passion week.

He's talking about that cup in the Garden of Gethsemane when he says, Let this cup pass from me.

What is this?

The cup of despair, the cup of suffering, the cup of wrath that's going to be coming upon him.

And he says, Nevertheless, your will be done.

He drinks it.

And he says to them, Can you drink this cup?

And they say, Well, yeah, yeah, we can drink it.

These disciples have recognized something that there needs to be some sacrifice in order to seize the desired goal of the kingdom.

And they sort of probably think that Jesus is speaking, you know, very, very metaphorically about the hard work that comes before success.

You know, can you can you do that?

Well, yeah, I can do that.

And they misunderstand Jesus here.

They think that he's simply challenging them about their willingness to struggle to gain victory.

Are you willing to go into the battle?

Might be the way we would put it.

Are you ready to fight?

Are you really ready to trip get in, dig the ditch, and and get in this?

And they're like, yeah, yeah, I I think we've counted that cost.

I think I think we're ready.

I think let's let's do this.

Let's fight for this.

Let's go.

Let's dig in.

And he says, you don't even know what you're talking about.

You don't understand it.

And he says in verse 23, you'll indeed drink the cup.

Now they still don't know what he means.

He said, But to sit at my right hand and my left hand is not mine to give.

Instead, it's for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.

What is Jesus telling them here?

Well, Jesus is telling them that there's coming a day when he's going to drink a cup and they're going to drink a cup.

And they're not ready for the cup that Jesus is going to drink yet.

Because the day is going to come when the shepherd will be struck and the sheep are going to scatter.

And they're going to run.

They're going to see Jesus brought into seizure by the by the soldiers.

They're going to see Jesus brought into trial.

They're going to see Jesus being mocked and condemned.

They're going to see Jesus put on a cross and they're going to run.

They're not ready for that.

But after the resurrection, they'll be ready.

And when the implications of Jesus' death and the resurrection come to them, they're ready.

James becomes one of the first martyrs of the church in Acts chapter 12.

Acts 12 · chapter mention

John, he's on the Isle of Patmos, exiled there under persecution.

They'll drink the cup, they'll share the cup of sufferings.

But first they need to learn to submit to the Father's will, just like Jesus is submitting to the Father's will, willing to submit to the suffering, not to set up the thrones.

He said, This isn't time for that to happen.

Now the other disciples step in.

And so in verse 24, it says the ten disciples heard this, they became indignant with the two brothers.

How dare you think that the kingdom is won by force and that rewards come from due recompense to all your sacrifices?

No, that's not what they thought at all.

They're like, those guys got there first.

How dare they got there first?

We I I should have been the one.

They're thinking James and John with their mother had schemed to get advantage, to take the best seats.

Why do I say that?

Because Jesus is about to address all of them and teach them all a lesson.

Because all of their hearts are in the wrong place.

Verse 25 to 28, he redirects their attention, all of their attention.

He doesn't just tell the two brothers about what the kingdom is like, he tells them all about what the kingdom is like, and that moves us from the discussion to the direction that the Lord gives us.

Take a look at verse 25.

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them.

It must not be like that among you.

On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave.

Jesus is gathering all together his disciples, who are filled with this sort of worldly ambition, and he gives them a stark contrast between the world's conception of greatness and the kingdom of heaven's conception of greatness.

Greatness in the world is seen by having power and influence, being able to tell others what to do, to have control of the levers of life, whether it is through your connections or through your money.

And he's saying people love to have that ability to execute their will through other people.

That's what a ruler is.

That's what life is about.

And these disciples must have thought about the Roman occupation that was over the country as they were subjected to heavy taxation and under the thumb of foreign military rule.

And these oppressed people who had to deal with the hardships of never being their own boss must have wanted and longed for those positions of power and authority and influence of self-rule.

And they thought, that's the way we win.

That's the way we gain significance.

That's how we get back our respect.

And so they thought, let's go after those positions of power.

Let's go after those positions of authority.

Let that be our aim.

Jesus here says, No, no, no, no.

That's how the world rules.

They look at serving as something demeaning, something beneath them, but he exalts service.

He exalts it as the best status for humanity.

And he gives them this shocking realignment of their values.

Would you be great?

You need to be a servant.

Would you be first?

You need to be a slave.

And Jesus makes what is a Hebrew parallelism here.

We call it a synonymous parallelism.

He's taking two similar words, slight difference, in order to accentuate and to focus in on just how strong a point he's making.

He's taking greatness and firstness and servanthood and slaveness, and he's forcing them by the repetition, by the strengthening of the repeat, by the slight variation.

You want to be great, then be a servant.

You want to be first, then be a slave.

You want to be great, be a diakonos.

You want to be first, be a doulos.

One's a servant, the other's a slave.

One works for somebody else, the other is completely under the control of someone else.

Do you want to be first?

You want to be great?

You need to work for higher.

You need to give your life over.

That's what he's telling here.

If you got an ambition to be great, you got an ambition to be first, you got to be ambitioned to be in control, you got an ambition to make your will be done through others, you have an ambition to increase the kingdom that way, then give up your life.

Give it up.

Give it all up.

Rearrange your life with the goal of giving yourself to the benefit of others and not for what you can get out of it.

And against that backdrop of human ambition, Jesus explains the proper goal in his kingdom is not authority, but service.

Not power, but sacrifice.

Not self, but others.

Wonderfully, these men learned the lesson.

Not yet.

But they will.

John himself will call himself in Revelation chapter one and verse one, the doolos, the slave of Jesus.

He will call himself that.

Peter in 2 Peter 1 will call himself the doolos, the slave of Jesus.

Jesus' own brothers in James chapter 1 and Jude verse 1 will call themselves the Dulos of Jesus.

James 1 · chapter mention

Paul will call himself both words.

He calls himself a Diaconos, the servant in 2 Corinthians 3.6 and Ephesians 3 and Colossians 1.

He calls himself the Dulos, the slave in Romans 1 and Galatians 1.

And he calls as a badge of honor Phoebe the servant, Tychicus, the servant, Epaphrus the servant, and again Ephrus the slave in Colossians chapter 4.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

Plato, in his word Gorgias, has Calicles saying this.

How can anyone be happy when he's the slave of anyone else at all?

That's their assumption.

Slavery and happiness can't go together.

Jesus, if we could have him play with Plato's words, would say, How can anybody be happy unless they're a slave to other people?

So he lays out the direction of our life, that our weapons of warfare are not carnal, but are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

But it's done through a methodology that doesn't look like the world's methodology.

It's done through the character and heart of servanthood, of looking out for others.

And Jesus tells him what that looks like in his demonstration, as he mentions in verse 28, and this is our last point.

In verse 28, he says this just as, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, to give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus has been setting up in these past few things that we've looked at over the past few weeks of this first last, first, last, first, last theology.

And now he's saying, the first one, him, comes to be the last one for everybody.

And he makes it striking here.

Go back up just a little bit with me and take a look at verse 18 and look at the words that Jesus uses as his self-designation here.

The son of man will be handed over to the chief priest, right?

You see that?

Then you drop down to verse 28, just as the son of man did not come to be served.

Well, who is this son of man?

The son of man is the figure in Daniel chapter 7 that Daniel sees in a vision, this apocalyptic, glorious, messianic figure who rules forever over everything and is seated amongst the Almighty.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

This is the Son of Man, the conqueror of the universe that he's speaking about here.

This is the term that he picks up for himself.

This revealed Messiah, this glorious one who's worthy of all honor and power and majesty and dominion.

This is Jesus with a prerogative higher than anything can be imagined or seen.

He says, You want to know about greatness, you want to know about firstness, you want to know about advancement of the kingdom?

Watch him die.

Watch him give himself up.

Watch him suffer for his enemies.

Watch him take sin upon himself.

He says, Let me teach you about greatness.

Let's go to Jerusalem.

Let's go to the cross.

Let's go to the agony in the Gethsemane.

Let's go to the trial and the mockings and the false accusations.

Let's go to the road where I stumble and fall.

Let's go to the tree where I die.

Let's go to the grave where I'm buried.

You want to see greatness?

Watch what happens there.

Watch what happens to humanity because of that.

Because out of that we exist.

Out of that we live.

Out of that, we have heaven as our home.

Out of that we have the assurance of the forgiveness of our sins.

Out of that we have an understanding that he who is the Son of Man will indeed return as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

But he tells you, first of all, he's going to be a servant and he's going to be a sacrifice.

He's going to live not in exalted positions and not in a demonstration of his power, but in the example of his suffering and the endurance of his passion on behalf of others that would be a ransom for them.

And to loose them from that.

This is why the Apostle Paul says later, you've been bought with a price.

What is that price?

It's the price of the blood of Christ.

And so he corrects them.

He gives them the direction to go, but he tells them what it looks like in himself.

He said, Gentiles, pagan rulers, they rule this way because they think greatness is found this way.

They think influence is made this way.

They use their power and influence to work through others, to execute their will and desires.

But you're going to find a way forward in this world that works in that way by doing something opposite.

You're going to go a different way.

You're going to go the way of the cross.

And so Jesus is saying, take up your cross and follow me.

Follow me down the same pathway.

And he gives us that very thing that lies behind the direction of our lives, of being generous and being giving to others, because he was generous and giving of himself.

It was not directed toward his own personal benefit, it was directed toward our need.

And when we operate in society directed on our own benefit and not on the need of those that are in our society, we are running cross-grain to this sacrificial servant mindset of Jesus Christ.

We don't need to protect ourselves.

We don't need to force our way in.

We need to stand unique in this world with a heart of love and a life of sacrifice and a willingness to surrender, even our very existence, so that the word of Christ might rule in our enemies' hearts, not so that we can gain a niche in society and feel comfortable enough with our days.

And others are going to be able to live because of the death of you.

And this is why the apostle Paul said, I'm wasting away, but you're living, he says to those in Corinth.

I die daily.

Yes, he goes to the places of influence.

Yes, he's in Caesar's house.

He's in jail under the Roman governors.

He is among them.

And what is he doing?

Lobbying for a Christian voice in society?

No.

He's saying, you know the gospel, Agrippa.

Believe it just like I do.

He's preaching the gospel.

And saying, send me to prison then, if that's what happens.

The motivation of our service, according to the world, is broken.

It needs to be refocused.

Focused in a wholly different way that we don't even naturally think like.

That is counterintuitive to all of our muscle memory.

The giving of ourselves.

The giving of our careers, our relationships, our talents, our resources, our time, and perhaps even our lives.

To see that the kingdom of heaven is done.

And to do so with gratitude.

Jesus is stripping away from us all that we think is important and all the ways that we think are workable.

All the power of influence that we think we can muster.

And he's giving us a radically counticultural paradigm of life as a believer.

Our culture is trying to press us into a mold.

It's trying to say the battle is here.

Here's the weaponry we're using.

Fight us here.

And we're saying, no, wait a second.

The battle actually is here.

And this is the weaponry we're going to use.

The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life.

I'm at your service.

Well, look at the passage next week.

But some blind men approach Jesus and he says to them, What do you want me to do for you?

Wow.

We want to receive our sight.

Here you go.

Gentile greatness, no serving.

Jesus greatness, just the opposite.

So let me bring this all to a close.

In our era where we are dazzled by celebrity Christianity, we're tripped up by ecclesiastical self-aggrandizement, where we're being pumped to wage the war through power plays.

We're losing the power of the kingdom of heaven.

We are stripping away servanthood and suffering in our attempt to make the gospel more attractive or to give it what we think is a stronger foothold.

But actually, we're just giving up and surrendering territory.

We don't need to give up or surrender.

And we need to attach ourselves to the cross of Christ and to suffer just like he did.

And to listen once again to the words that Jesus said to Peter.

Because all those who pick up the sword are going to perish by it.

Do you not think that I couldn't call to my father in heaven and have ten thousand legions of angels come?

Peter, if it really was about winning it here, I've got all the resources to do it.

I could make it happen.

Of course he would.

What he wants us to win are never dying souls.

And they're won a wholly different way.

Because there's a different path to victory, because there's a different victory in view.

Not a comfortable one.

He's here to build one that will stand through eternity, not just one who will last through Western civilization.

He's here no matter how long the ages roll in human history.

And whether we become like the Romans, simply a passing phase of civilization that this world has seen, come and go.

No, the rule of Christ will stand forever and ever and ever.

Hallelujah.

Amen.

Let's learn from our Lord Jesus.

Let's learn from history for the rest of the story of Thomas Cranmer.

Cranmer was an influential man in the English Reformation.

He was influential in the transformation of English society in so many different ways.

I don't have time to begin to even tell you.

His policies were put in force, and he made enemies doing it, because he did so through intrigue and strength of force.

And all those people that he angered were waiting and looking for a moment to get back at him.

And eventually they found one.

Cromwell was heavily involved in one of Henry's other marriages, this time to Anne of Cleves, which Henry wasn't too happy with after a little while.

And because he was unhappy with Anne of Cleves, he was unhappy with Thomas Cranmer, who had set him up with Anne of Cleves.

And therefore, Thomas Cranmer lost the significant place at the right hand of Henry VIII.

And as his influence faded, his enemies seized the opportunity.

And they had him arrested on charges of treason and heresy.

And the king, who was once his staunchest supporter and whose wealth and influence as a king had been mightily increased, signed over the warrant for his execution.

And on July 28th, 1540, Cromwell was beheaded in the Tower Hill of London.

Everything that had brought him to power was the power that brought him down.

He was brought to nothing.

And he reminds us of the danger of trading our integrity for power, our influence of suffering and servanthood for strength.

Because if we fight with the weapons warfare on the weapons or on the world's battlefield, we're giving up our weapons, which are mighty through God, and we're giving up the battlefield that Jesus said we're to wage on.

Let's pray.

We feel so much like the disciples at this moment, probably a bit bewildered by it all.

Because, Father, what Jesus is teaching us here is so different than what we're used to doing and hearing and watching.

And Lord, we need a supernatural understanding, a recognition of what it means to truly look at the kingdom of heaven from your point of view.

Father, we're entrenched in the ways of this world.

But you tell us not to be pressed into the mold of the world, not to be conformed to its dictates, but to be transformed by the renewing of the Word of God and the Spirit, so that we might be able to discern those things are excellent, that we might be able to give ourselves to what is your good and pleasing and perfect will.

Lord, give us that spiritual insight.

Give us those eyes and give us that heart of our Savior, a heart of generosity, a heart of servanthood.

And may it first be seen in how we care for each other in our generous love toward one another and serving each other with the gifts and the resources that you've given us.

And may we be able to move out as a body and as individuals from our body into this society and show them that you exist and that you live and that your life and love can transform their hard, dark, evil hearts.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.