32 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles.34 And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”
The Request of James and John
35 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?”37 And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”39 And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized,40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. 42 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,144 and whoever would be first among you must be slave2 of all.45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Footnotes
[1]10:43Greek diakonos [2]10:44Or bondservant, or servant (for the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface)
32 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles.34 And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”
The Request of James and John
35 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?”37 And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”39 And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized,40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. 42 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,144 and whoever would be first among you must be slave2 of all.45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Footnotes
[1]10:43Greek diakonos [2]10:44Or bondservant, or servant (for the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:
From the gospel of Mark chapter 10 verses 32 to 35. And this is from the, English standard version. And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem and Jesus is walking ahead of them And they were amazed and those who followed were afraid. And taking the 12 again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him saying, see, we are going up to Jerusalem and the son of man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. After 3 days, he will rise.
Speaker 1:
And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said to and he said to them, what do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory. And Jesus said to them, you do not know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?
Speaker 1:
Or you baptized with the baptism, which I am baptized? And they said to him, we are able. And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you will drink and the baptism, which I am baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand or my left hand is not mine to grant, but as for those for whom it has been prepared. And when the 10 heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.
Speaker 1:
And Jesus called called them to him and said to them, you know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their great ones exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you, you would whoever be great among you, must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you, must be slave of all. For even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:
Thanks be to God. Pray with me if you would. Lord we thank you for your word. Through your spirit your word can have the most profound change in our hearts. And so we pray that that would happen.
Joel Brooks:
Lord, where we need healing, I do ask that you would heal us. The hardening of our heart that needs to be shattered, Lord, we ask that you would shatter that. Lord, where we need repentance, I pray that you would bring that. Lord, I ask that my words would fall to the ground, and blow away, and not be remembered anymore. But lord, let your words remain, and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:
And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. While I was writing this message, I was sitting at Starbucks, early this morning. The one by Walmart, And it was just me and there was a couple of other people in line. I I had already sat down.
Joel Brooks:
And there was 2 women that that were kind of going in line about the same time. 1 was there a little bit ahead of the other, but this other woman just kinda cut right in and went ahead and ordered. And, and so no big deal. I got to watch these 2 women order their lattes and and then they left. But then after they left, one of the workers said, Gosh, I hate working on Sundays.
Joel Brooks:
And it's just me in there right now. Gosh, I hate working on Sundays. Another guy goes, I know church people are the meanest people. They're so mean. And then the other guy goes, I, you know why?
Joel Brooks:
It's because I think they're forced to go to church and they really don't want to go. They feel forced, they feel like they have to go, but they don't wanna they don't wanna go. You can certainly see that with the kids who come here in the morning, And they went on and on. They talked about how the kids who came were all grumpy. None of them smiled.
Joel Brooks:
Why? Because they were on their way to church. And they all just, you know, just were so glad the day that they no longer had to go to church, when they finally grew out of it and their parents didn't have to to force them anymore. And finally, one person ended and this went on and on and on. The guy goes, well you know what, In order for me to go to church, I'm just gonna have to see Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
Then I'll go. And all the while, they're providing me great sermon material. You know, there's some I I'm tempted to say a lot of truth in what these Starbucks employees, were saying. Many, many times Christians are not the most humble. They are not the most joyful people.
Joel Brooks:
Actually a lot of times Christians are selfish, they're arrogant, they're ambition, ambitious, and, I would even say they're they're quite normal. The story we're looking at tonight shows that how this was the case even with Jesus's closest friends. They were selfish, ambitious, they were sinful. And now I believe that actually, most Christians fall into that category of being that way. Most Christians are selfish, we're, we're ambitious, we're all those things because Jesus said that He came to save the sick.
Joel Brooks:
It was the sick who who sought a doctor, and so I would expect in a church actually for there to be very selfish, very arrogant, very rude people, because we're the ones who are the most sick. We're the ones who need a doctor. And so Jesus, he found us in this state. He has forgiven us. And now he's in this process of, the word of sanctification, of restoring us, of making us holy, and that is a process.
Joel Brooks:
And often it's a long process. And so when you're in a church and you see people who are hypocrites, who are, you know, greedy, who are corrupt, think, well that's right. It probably is always gonna be that way because Jesus seeks the sick. He seeks the sick. This process is so evident in the lives of the disciples.
Joel Brooks:
Half of the gospel of Mark is, is really all about this passion of Jesus. And we use the word passion to describe romance novels and things like that, but but the word originally meant suffering. And Mark has been described as the first half of it is simply an introduction to the cross, which is the second half of the book. All about Jesus going to Jerusalem, all about his passion and his suffering. And Mark, he wants to make sure that you know if you don't understand the cross, you don't understand Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
If you don't look right at the cross, if you don't hold the cross before you, you're gonna have no idea who Jesus is. You know, everybody recognizes that Jesus died. Secular historians recognize that Jesus died. But it's the meaning behind His death that we need to look at. You know, on the road to Jerusalem or on the road to the cross, Jesus, He's carrying his cross up to Golgotha and it says that there's these women weeping and he looks at them and he says, don't weep for me, weep for you.
Joel Brooks:
Weep for yourselves. And what he is saying is, you know, you can look at the cross, anybody can look at the cross and be moved. When we look at the death of Jesus, look at the death of anybody, you can be emotionally moved. And Jesus says it doesn't matter if you're emotionally moved, don't weep because you see something like that, weep for yourselves. Selves.
Joel Brooks:
What does the cross say about you? And why I'm going through this. And so it's we need to know what the meaning of the cross is, and Mark points us in this direction. He forces us there. The cross was a huge stumbling block for those living in the 1st century, it's still a stumbling block now.
Joel Brooks:
Even after Jesus had died and he rose again, early Christians had a hard time figuring out, well, why did he go to the cross? What was the purpose of the cross? The cross was still a stumbling block that the resurrection didn't completely get rid of for the early Christians. I mean, crucifixion was for the worst criminals. It was for those abandoned by God.
Joel Brooks:
It certainly was not for one claiming to be Messiah, not for one who who was going to make every wrong right. Paul says in 1st Corinthians that he preached Christ crucified. Two statements, two words that could been be not be any more opposite. You have Christ, which means you have king, you have Messiah, you have power, you have the one to save, the one who's gonna come and make everything right, and then you have crucified, which means powerless, humiliated, a pretender. And Paul puts them together, and we put them together.
Joel Brooks:
We preach Christ crucified. So for a while, Christians didn't know what to do with the cross. Why couldn't the Messiah simply come, set up his kingdom? Why couldn't the Messiah just come and say, you're forgiven? I mean, after all, he's the son of god, and he was their creation.
Joel Brooks:
God spoke, and creation happened. He said, light, light. He said, land, land. Why can't god just say, forgiveness? And there'll be forgiveness.
Joel Brooks:
Why why why all this passion? God cannot just say forgiveness. He cannot just say you were forgiven. It's a painful process. When it when it came to creation, he could just speak it, but when it comes to recreation, when it comes to redemption, it's a process.
Joel Brooks:
It's a painful process. You you know, true forgiveness, true love, is always going to be sacrificial. Always. For instance, if somebody wrongs you, I'm not just saying, you know, does a little something wrong, but I mean, they really wrong you. Maybe they they publicly shame you.
Joel Brooks:
They make up something about you in front of all of your colleagues and everything, and it and it's totally made up and they shame you, your forgiveness of them will be sacrificial. There's no, oh, well, I just forgive you, no pain involved. That's not forgiveness. No. No.
Joel Brooks:
See, for forgiveness is, well, I you you you forgive the person, and what you're doing is you're taking the judgment that was due them, and you're turning it around and you're saying, come on me. Come on me. And so next time this, you know, this person is out there and and people are praising him and you want to just say, Yeah, but did you know what he just said? He just made all this up. He was a liar.
Joel Brooks:
And you just want to scream at him. You bite your tongue. You absorb it, and it kills you. And what you're doing is, you're denying what you could justly say, what you can how you can rightly punish that person. You're denying it, and you're putting it on you.
Joel Brooks:
You're absorbing it. See, we even know that forgiveness for us is costly, It takes time, and the more and more you observe, absorb it, and the more and more time that goes on, finally it gets easier and easier until it's complete, until that debt is paid. And that person didn't pay for any of it. You took it all on yourself. That's what forgiveness is.
Joel Brooks:
It hurts. You know, that's what the story is about. It's about this process of forgiveness, how this comes about. It's about paying this debt. Let's look at this story.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus, he's heading to Jerusalem, and it's almost Passover week, and so the streets would have been absolutely packed. I like to think of it, you know, if you think of, Jerusalem as Talladega, which is a big stretch, you know, you go down I 20, normally there's no traffic at all. But when it is Talladega race or whatever it is, weak, I 20 is packed. You can't move. Everybody's coming in from every direction with campers, with with you know, just and that's what this was.
Joel Brooks:
People came and they stayed in Jerusalem for a while. It was a big festive time. And that's what Jesus is experiencing here as He's on His way to Jerusalem. The streets are packed, it's festive, people are bringing all their luggage and stuff with them, preparing to stay for a while. There's this excitement in the air and especially around Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
You could just sense something was gonna happen. Jesus started getting a little more serious. His speech started getting a little more dramatic. He started talking about, you know, there's gonna be a a battle, there's gonna be death, there's gonna be glory, there's gonna be all these things. And the disciples are getting excited because they think, He is going to Jerusalem.
Joel Brooks:
He's gonna set up the kingdom. It's finally gonna happen. He is going to become King, and what a perfect time with these throngs of people around, just waiting to crown him as king. And as they're on the road here, James and John, they, they ask him a question. Now, they come up to Jesus and they say, Jesus, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.
Joel Brooks:
Which, I mean, I mean, just just even saying they're like, I can't believe you just went up to the Lord of the universe and you just say, do for me whatever I'm gonna ask of you. You just want to cringe, but Jesus, He doesn't look at me, and He's ever humble. He's always the servant and He doesn't say, You little pompous punks, you don't talk to me that way. He doesn't. Just goes, okay.
Joel Brooks:
Well, tell me. What is it that you want? And they say, Well, just a small little thing. When you do, you know, go in there and you establish your kingdom, can one of us sit at your right and one of us sit at your left? Can we have those positions of power?
Joel Brooks:
And now, this request by James and John, it shows that they have absolutely no idea about what's gonna happen. They have no idea about the mission of Jesus. They don't get it at all. Like everybody else, they think Jesus is coming to lead a revolution. He's gonna punish everybody who does wrong.
Joel Brooks:
He's going to, he's gonna be a king. This is what they're waiting for. But that's not what's gonna happen. Now, they obviously got a lot of stuff wrong, they did get one thing right. Glory.
Joel Brooks:
They didn't know that Jesus was about to come into his glory. They just didn't know what the glory would look like. The glory of Jesus would center around his death, not his enthronement. It would center around his death, but it they were absolutely right that the cross is the blazing center of the glory of God. You don't understand the cross, you will never, never grasp the glory of God.
Joel Brooks:
They got that right. Jesus, he responds to James and John and he says, You have no idea what you just asked. You have absolutely no idea. I mean, do you know what it means to be at my right and my left? And James and John are thinking, Yes, thrones.
Joel Brooks:
But the only other time Mark mentions the right or the left of Jesus is when Jesus is on the cross, and it says that they crucified somebody to his right, and they crucified somebody to his left. And Jesus says, when you come to me, and you're looking for a throne, but if you ask to be around me, sit on my right my left, when I'm in glory, what you're asking is to be a part of my crucifixion. Do you have any idea what you just asked for? He then asked them, can you drink the cup that I drink? Can you be baptized with the baptism I'm, I'm gonna be baptized with?
Joel Brooks:
They probably have this silly grin on their face and like, Yeah. Yeah. We can. We can do it. And once again, they have no idea what they just asked for.
Joel Brooks:
They just agreed to. You see, when they're thinking of this, drink this cup, they're probably thinking of these wonderful Psalms or places in Isaiah. You know, Psalm 23, it talks about, you know, this cup of blessing, my cup overflows. This joyful drink that they're gonna have. They're not thinking of places like Psalm 75 or Isaiah 51, that says, no it's the cup of God's wrath that's gonna be poured out.
Joel Brooks:
The very cup that Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, He says, Father remove this cup from me. Take this cup from me. I do not want to drink this cup. And it is it is so tense at this moment. He is dreading it so much.
Joel Brooks:
He's he sweats drops of blood, wanting to avoid that. And yet here, these disciples are going, yeah, we can take this drink. Bring it on. And when they're thinking of baptism, they're thinking of maybe a baptism like, John the Baptist baptized, in which, you know, to be baptized under John the Baptist simply meant, you agree with his message, and you want to follow his message. And they're thinking, Yeah, we could be baptized under you.
Joel Brooks:
Yeah, we'll we'll follow that. We agree. We're your disciples. But when Jesus thinks of his baptism, he's thinking of what he says in Luke 12, when he says, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. His baptism is death.
Joel Brooks:
They want glory, but they want to get it the way the world wants to get it. When the disciples, the other disciples, they hear James and John's request, they're ticked. You know, they're probably not so much ticked because they requested it, they're probably ticked because James and John beat them to it. Because they were all ambitious, they were all selfish, they were all thinking this way. And look at Jesus's response in in verse 41.
Joel Brooks:
Well, it says, when the 10 heard it, they became indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, you know that those who were considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But 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 slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus, he says that most people try to influence society by wielding power, by getting power. That's how that's how people have always done it. That's how they did it then, that's how they want to do it now. This is how you, you try to bring about change, whether it's good or bad, you have to somehow get power to do it. And if you think of our lives, almost everything we do, we're essentially on a power trip.
Joel Brooks:
And I was just going through a bunch of things in my life, and I was thinking, you know, even the way I pick friends, is really about power. You know, I want to pick a friend who, who can give me something. A friend who's valuable to have. A friend that, you know, I can always count on there. A friend that makes me feel good when I'm around them.
Joel Brooks:
A friend that could get me places, take me places, and I think of those things even when I pick a friend. What do I want? I want power. I want to use them towards some other ends. We accumulate wealth so we can wield power.
Joel Brooks:
You get rich enough, get enough wealth, and nobody can tell you what to do. You tell everybody else what to do. Then you could bring about change. You know, if we could get rid of my boss and I could become boss, and then, then we'd make some changes, some good changes. And it's all about getting power.
Joel Brooks:
Kingdoms and nations, they follow this rule. All you have to do is is look back through, through any of your history books and you're gonna find that it was powerful people who brought about change. People who were ambitious, people who had great wealth, people who knew how to use the sword. But Jesus, he says, if you really want to change the world, you've got to give up ambition. You've got to give up pursuing power.
Joel Brooks:
You've got to become a servant. Do you have any idea how hard this is? Jesus is turning everything upside down. Everything upside down. You want to become first?
Joel Brooks:
Become last. You want to receive glory? Well, you got to embrace humility. You want to be great? You got to become nothing.
Joel Brooks:
You want to have power? You've got to give away all your power. You want to live? Well then, you're gonna have to take up your cross and die. And he's turning everything upside down because that's the kingdom that he's bringing.
Joel Brooks:
It's a kingdom we would scarcely recognize in which everything is turned on its head. That's the values of this kingdom. That's the, that's what he has been preaching all throughout the gospels when he says, blessed are you who mourn, blessed are the poor, blessed are those who are hungry, love your enemies, bless those who persecute you. Those things don't come naturally, they're, they don't come as an instinct. Your gut tells you they're wrong.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus is turning it all upside down. I mean we're taught, if you wanna take on evil, you gotta fight it. You gotta become greater than the evil. And Jesus says, you wanna take on evil? You absorb it.
Joel Brooks:
Let them do their worst to you. Take it on. That's why Jesus is going to the cross. He is gonna let evil do its worst to them. Do your worst, and he takes it.
Joel Brooks:
And that's how he ends up in glory, and that's how he redeems the world. This is how we have to bring about true change. You know, Jesus is absolutely right. We looked at this a few weeks ago during our prayer time. But Jesus I mean, you ask any historian who is the most influential person in the history of the world, they're gonna say, Jesus had more influence on society than anybody, yet he had nothing.
Joel Brooks:
He had no possessions. He did not have a home. He did not really have any friends, they all deserted him. He didn't wield, the sword, he didn't have an army. He didn't have any political office.
Joel Brooks:
He was the victim of horrible injustice, and he never even spoke an evil word. And ultimately, he died, and that he changed the world. He changed it. His closest friends absolutely did not get this. This is the 3rd time in the gospel of Mark that Jesus talks about his death.
Joel Brooks:
In Mark 8, he tells everybody, says, hey, I'm gonna go to Jerusalem, and I'm gonna be killed. Peter says, nuh-uh, and he rebukes Jesus. He rebukes Jesus. No, the Messiah does not do that, Jesus. Mark chapter 9, Jesus says, I'm going to Jerusalem, I'm going to be killed.
Joel Brooks:
Do you understand this? Their very next conversation is they had an argument about which one of them was the greatest. Yes, we hear you Jesus, you're going to Jerusalem, yada yada. Okay, it's gonna be hard. Which one of us do you think is the greatest?
Joel Brooks:
And now they come here and it's no different. I'm going to Jerusalem. I'm gonna die. Hey Jesus, can I sit at your right and at your left when you come into power? During these power trips.
Joel Brooks:
And Jesus is saying, you gotta give that up. You know, this is why when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, Peter gets out a sword and he tries to he tries to kill one of the soldiers. Because he thinks that's what's supposed to happen. That's how you overcome evil. And Jesus, he says, put away the sword, Peter.
Joel Brooks:
I haven't come to wield the sword, I've come to fall under it. I'm gonna be cut off. And if you don't understand that, you don't understand why I came. I've got to absorb evil instead of dishing it out. I just kept saying, if the church could just learn this.
Joel Brooks:
Y'all been enough around churches to know that a lot of churches are about power. You know, churches compete with one another, always try to one up the other, fight for people in different neighborhoods, gotta get them. You know, pastors, they they want power, they want that special privilege with God. I am not immune to that. I'm guilty of it.
Joel Brooks:
I I confess, I was thinking about this, I'll confess to you guys. There are times when I hear about something really arrogant, I'd even say shameful, that other churches are doing. And I hear that, and instead of grief, my first instinct, my first thought is jubilation. Because I think, that's right. You're doing it bad, but God, that puts me in special privilege.
Joel Brooks:
I get to sit at your right. I'm doing it right. Your pastor is not immune. None of us are immune to this. We want power.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus wants us to embrace the cross. He wants us to take up the road of a servant. He says he's come to give his life as a ransom. And that word ransom simply means payment. It was used to buy back a a servant or to spring somebody from jail.
Joel Brooks:
You paid this ransom. He said, I'm coming to give my life as a ransom, and I didn't come to be served, I came to serve. He's going to the cross and he's gonna turn that cross into a throne of glory, is what he's gonna do. And Mark is pushing us in this direction, he wants us to see it. If if you have a chance this week, I strongly encourage you, read through the the gospel of Mark, only takes 2 hours.
Joel Brooks:
I'm a slow reader. 2 hours. And when you read Mark, you're gonna get a lot of the view of Peter because, Peter and Mark were companions. Now, I want you to notice who people think Jesus is throughout the book of Mark. The book begins with this saying, it says, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Joel Brooks:
And so right at the beginning you have this declaration, Jesus is the Son of God. But after that declaration, no human gets it until the very end. Not one person recognizes Jesus as the Son of God throughout the entire book of Mark until the very end. You have the father twice calling Jesus his beloved Son. Demons three times saying, I know who you are, and they call him the Son of God.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus himself calls himself, I'm God's Son. He calls Jesus father, his father, father. But everybody else misses it. He heals a paralytic man in Mark chapter 2. People walk away going, who is this man?
Joel Brooks:
He can even forgive sins. In chapter 4, Jesus, in the midst of a hurricane, he tells it, be quiet and stay quiet, and the hurricane is, people walk away. The disciples are going, who is this? In chapter 5, after Jesus heals a demoniac person, they don't understand who he is. Who is this person?
Joel Brooks:
Leave us. In chapter 6, people are asking Jesus, who, who Jesus is, and they're thinking, maybe He's John the Baptist raised from the dead. Maybe He's Elijah. Maybe He's a prophet. But nobody gets that He's the Son of God.
Joel Brooks:
Finally, when you get to chapter 9, which is the great confession of Peter, when Jesus asked Peter, who do you think I am? He says, well, I think you're the Messiah. You're the Christ. But in Mark's gospel, he doesn't say, the Son of the living God. Just says, I think you're the Christ this time.
Joel Brooks:
And so, over and over Jesus, he demonstrates what we would see as glorious things. Glorious miracles and people look at it and they go, Who is He? And it's not till He's finally on the cross, and He's bleeding, that a Roman centurion, or what Mark would call, 1, a gentile who lords authority over people. A Roman centurion, he finally looks at Jesus and when Jesus dies and he is bleeding, he goes, surely this was the Son of God. All the other times when Jesus, He He displays His glory, displays His miracles, people miss it.
Joel Brooks:
But when Jesus is bleeding on a cross, a Roman pagan looks at Him and says, that's the Son of God. And that's why we always go to the cross, to see the blazing center of God's glory. Jesus is only understood as the son of God when we see him becoming powerless, when we see him becoming the ultimate servant that Isaiah speaks about. This is how we see him in all the glory. And if we wanna show the world this Jesus, that means we have to take up the cross.
Joel Brooks:
We have to follow him. We have to lay down our pursuit of power, lay down our desire to be great, lay down our ambition, and become lowly servants. We don't lash back at people who lash out at us. We forgive. When we come to this table, I want us to remember this.
Joel Brooks:
Don't leave here thinking, okay, now I'm gonna serve Jesus. I'm really, I'm, that's what I'm gonna do because Jesus says, no, you don't serve me. You didn't get it. Nobody serves me. I came to serve you.
Joel Brooks:
There's nothing that you can do, no work that you can do to earn your salvation, to bring a smile to my face, to make me have favor upon you. There is nothing. There is nothing. I have done it all. What he says is, now that through my strength, I serve you so you can serve others.
Joel Brooks:
So you can serve others. And we remember that as we come to this table. And the Corinthians, when they went to, when they were taken in the lord's supper, remember they were all being so selfish and they were getting there first. Some were even getting drunk and they were they were eating all the the food. So people who got there late, they couldn't have anything.
Joel Brooks:
Paul says, do you remember what this is about? Service. When you get there, serve one another. Jesus gave himself to us so that we might give ourselves to others. I often think of Philippians and how so much of us, we want to partake, we want to have the glory of Jesus, but we do not wanna share in His sufferings.
Joel Brooks:
Pray with me. Lord, I know that I am armed to the teeth. I'm ready to fight anybody. I've got a lot of weapons at my disposal. There is nothing that sin in my life has not corrupted.
Joel Brooks:
I can use my tongue to hurt instead of to heal. I can use my arms to hit instead of to embrace. Lord, teach me to kneel and to serve. Thank you for being the ultimate servant. We remember that now.
Joel Brooks:
You gave yourself completely. And when we look at the cross, you absorbing the punishment, absorbing the evil do us. We could give you we could just give you thanks. That's what we do, and we remember. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, our present and our future king.