Joel Brooks: Hello, church. It's good to be back. In case I haven't met you, I'm Joel. I am the lead pastor here, but I've been on sabbatical for 2 months now, which is too long. Lauren and I, we have been dying to get back, actually.
After a little while, being on sabbatical feels less like rest, and more like being in exile. And that we've just been away from our family, from from this family here for too long. I mean, even a month ago, Lauren and I, we were we were in Montana for a bit, and we're looking at just some gorgeous mountains, and she's like, wouldn't you rather just be home on our front porch? And I was like, yes. I'd rather be home with good friends around.
But we really did miss you. I wanna thank the pastors and the elders and my friend, Alton Hardy, for coming and for preaching through the Psalms over the last 2 months. I've not had the chance to listen to those sermons yet, but I've heard from so many people that it was outstanding. And Matt last week got us back into the gospel of Mark, and I heard he did a great job as well, and that is where we are going to continue this afternoon. So if you do have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Mark chapter 10.
But before we open up God's word together, I want to take time, at the start of this school year to pray for our teachers. I know some schools started back this last Thursday, others are starting tomorrow, And we have a number of teachers here, or also those who work in education. And so if that is you, if you're a teacher, you work in education, would you stand right now where you're at? Alright. First off, thank you.
Thank you for, for using your gifts, to really to serve and to worship the Lord in this capacity, by training the next generation of people. What we think you are doing is invaluable, and we want to be sure to pray for you this year. So church, if you would pray with me. Father, I thank you for all of the men and the women that are standing here. Thank you for your calling on their lives.
Thank you for the way that you have gifted them. Thank you for the way that they love our children so well. And I pray that this year, you would use them in a mighty way. You would use them to point, point our children to you. Lord, there is not a subject in this world that can be detached from you.
For from you, and through you, and to you are all things. And so I pray that you would use these teachers in whatever capacity that they are able, to point these children to you. I know that there will be a lot of joys and there'll be a lot of challenges ahead this year. Would you give them, a heart capacity to take all of that in? I pray that their joys would be many and that they would be rich.
Lord, I pray that the challenges that they go through, that they would lean on you and, they would lean on you and not their own understanding. So Lord, I just thank you for them and I ask that you would richly bless them and fill them with your spirit this year. We pray this in your name. Amen. Thank you all.
So Mark chapter 10, we'll begin reading in verse 32. And they were on the road going to Jerusalem, and Jesus was 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 them, saying, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priest and the scribes. And they will condemn him to death and will deliver him over to the Gentiles.
And they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. And after 3 days, he will rise. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said to them, what do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, grant us to sit 1 at your right hand and 1 at your left in your glory.
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? And they said to him, we are a Jesus said to them, well, the cup that you the cup I drink, you will drink. And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand or my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.
And when the 10 heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus 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. First among you must be slave of all. For even
Jeffrey Heine: the son of man
Joel Brooks: came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. This is the word of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine: Thank you.
Joel Brooks: We pray with me. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that when your word is combined with your spirit, it penetrates deep into our hearts and it changes us. And that's our hope for this evening. And pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Jeffrey Heine: But Lord, may your words
Joel Brooks: remain and may they change us. But Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, amen. So there's always a moment in every parent's life when they finally realized that their child is not perfect. Somehow did not escape the fall, but has a sin nature within them.
I know every child or every parent initially that you you look at your child and you think perfect in every way, your precious little angel, but then at some point that realization comes crashing down as you see your child do something terrible. Perhaps it's when you see your child playing with other children, and, and your child hits another child, and grabs the toy, and runs away, and you just, you just think, oh my goodness, what a little demon. And and you go and you talk to your child, and you say, what what did you do? You you can't do that. We we can't just hit people, and we can't just take what we want.
God wants us to be kind, and he wants us to share. Now, I'm sure if you're a parent, every one of you have had that conversation. Ask you this. How many of you have only had to have that conversation with your child once? Over again.
And the reason you've had to do that is because there are just some sins that are so deeply embedded in us that one conversation is not going to do it. It needs to be something that has to be reinforced over and over. And that's what we see here. Some of you might have been, as you were listening to me read this story, you might have been having a little deja vu thinking, haven't we heard this conversation before? Hasn't Jesus already talked to the disciples about these things?
And the answer is yes, he has. A matter of fact, he just did that in chapter 9, which would have taken place just a few weeks earlier than this. But there are some lessons we have such a hard time learning. Jesus has to keep teaching them to us. The night that he will be betrayed, he will have to teach this lesson to them all over again.
Counterintuitive. Jisus is turning everything upside down on its head. It says you want to be great. Well, then you gotta go low. You wanna be a king?
Well, then you've gotta be a slave. The way towards going up is actually for you to go down. This story here begins with the disciples on the road. They're heading to Jerusalem. We read this little line that Jesus was ahead of them, and they were amazed.
It's an unusual line. They're not amazed because Jesus is just crushing it on the trail going up to Jerusalem. They're amazed because of what Jesus had just talked to them earlier about, which was his death, and how his enemies were gonna kill him. And now Jesus is leading the way going straight to the capital city where all of his enemies sat in power. They were amazed at his courage.
Now they probably didn't understand everything that Jesus meant when he talked about him dying and suffering and all of that, but they at least knew this. Some hard times are gonna be ahead. And they knew Jerusalem was a powder keg, and Jesus was a match. And so whatever was gonna happen there, it was going to be explosive, and so they were amazed at his courage taking him there. We read that the people who followed were also fearful, and because who knows if they will be swept up in that explosion or not.
Now, as they're going on the road there, Jesus, he pulls his disciples aside. And now for the 3rd time in the gospel, he spells out as clearly as he can what's going to happen to him. He says, when he gets there, the Jews are gonna hand him over to the Gentiles. He's gonna be arrested. There he's gonna be mocked.
He's gonna be spit upon. He's gonna be flogged. And he's going to be killed. And then 3 days later, he is going to rise. Now, James and John, they listened to Jesus say how he's going to go to Jerusalem and die, and they decided that this was the perfect moment to ask Jesus for something.
It's really amazing. I mean, you cannot get any more tone deaf than this, but they come up to Jesus, and they're like, Jesus, now that you're done talking about how you're going to suffer and die, we just like to ask you something, and we want you to go ahead and tell us yes before we ask you about it. I mean, seriously. I would have loved to see Jesus' expression as they came to him with this request. I mean, who actually asked for something like that?
You only ask for something like that if you're really, really embarrassed by what you're about to ask. In James and John, they should be embarrassed by what they were about to ask because it's an inappropriate question. As a matter of fact, I love Matthew's account of this. When Matthew tells this story, he basically says they didn't have the guts to ask, so they got their mother to ask for them. These are the sons of thunder, and the sons of thunder got mommy to come, and they're like pushing mom to Jesus saying, you asked Jesus to give us whatever we ask for.
But amazingly, Jesus doesn't get angry. I mean, he had every right to respond to them. Who the heck do you think you are talking to me like that? Asking me to write you a blank check? And instead, he doesn't.
He's he's so gentle with their, their arrogant demands. So he simply asked them, what do you want me to do for you? So he doesn't say, yes. I'll give you what you want. He doesn't say, no.
He just moves on and says, what would you like me to do for you? They tell Jesus that they want just this tiny little thing. Nothing really. They just wanna sit next to him on the right and left when he enters glory. We let that sink in.
Jesus just told them about his death, and now they're vying for positions as a prime minister or chief of staff. Now, Jesus, he doesn't put down their desire for greatness, because that's not a bad desire. But he does let them know they're going about it the wrong way. And he does he also lets them know that they have no idea what they just asked for, when they asked to be at his right and his left when he goes to glory. I mean, when they made that request, they're thinking about thrones.
They're thinking about, you know, trumpets blaring, they're thinking about flags being unfurled, they're thinking about 1,000 and thousands of people bowing down, and then Jesus sitting on his throne, and then them at the right and at his left. That's that's the image that they have in their mind. But when you look at scripture, the gospels all clearly teach that that is not the point when Jesus is most glorified. Jesus is most glorified on the cross. And there will be somebody on the right and on the left of Jesus when he's glorified on the cross.
And there will be those criminals who will be executed with him. So Jesus, he just looks at him. He's like, do you have any idea what you are asking for? He says, can you drink the cup that I'm about to drink? Can you be baptized with the baptism with which I'm about to be baptized?
And by that, the cup is the cup of wrath that will be poured out on him. The baptism is gonna be an immersion into suffering unlike any suffering any human has ever endured. And these arrogant fools hear Jesus asked that, and they're like, yeah. Yeah. We we could do that.
And to some degree, they would. Although they're gonna flee once Jesus is arrested, once Jesus rises from the dead, well, James is gonna have his head cut off. He'll be the first martyr. And John, his brother, is gonna be the last martyr. He is going to be exiled off to the island of Patmos, where he will die.
So in some ways, they're they are the the bookends of those apostolic martyrs there. They do drink at least some of the cup. And they are immersed at least in some of that, suffering immersion. Well, after the other disciples find out what James and John had just asked for, we read that they were indignant. Now, they were not angry at James and John because James and John had asked something inappropriate of Jesus.
They were angry because James and John had beat them to the punch. That's what they wanted as well. And Jesus sensing that, he uses this as an opportunity to gather all of the disciples together and have a little teaching moment about what true greatness and power look like. And what he says here is nothing short of revolutionary. No one had ever thought of power and greatness like this before.
Jesus teaches them that in his kingdom, everything is turned upside down. To become great, one must go low. Look at verse 42. And Jesus 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 must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. If there is ever a lesson that Christians need to learn, it is this one. Jesus starts off here by just stating a fact. He's he's making an observation about how the world operates.
He says the rulers and the leaders of this world lord it over people. They're domineering. They're authoritarian. They use power and control as a as a way of getting whatever they want. They move up by pushing people down, And of course, the disciples would have seen that.
I mean, look at the leaders that they were surrounded with. You have Caesar, you have Herod and his sons, you have Pilate. All of those men, they rule by using their power to threaten and to control people. They rose to power by pushing, and shoving, and self promoting, and making threats. They crushed anyone who opposed them.
And Jesus is merely making an observation here. He said, that's the way of the world. That's the way this world operates. Then he says, but not in my kingdom. It shall not be this way among you.
Actually in Greek, it's not so with you. You, you want to be great in my kingdom? Well, then you're gonna have to become another person's servant. You want to be first? Well then you're gonna have to be a slave of all.
Jesus tells his disciples that they must become a servant to one another. And that word servant is is the word for a table waiter. In Jesus's kingdom, he says true greatness, I'll tell you what it looks like. True greatness looks like helping out in the kitchen. True greatness looks like washing the dishes, taking out the trash,
Jeffrey Heine: looks like putting other people first and then taking care
Joel Brooks: of their needs. So it's not only you're supposed to be a servant, you must be a slave of all. That word slave is the Greek word, and it means that you have a master and that you live to do your master's will. Jesus says that we are to be a slave to all. We're to sacrificially serve everyone.
And we live in a culture, where everyone wants to be empowered. This past week I have heard that word empowered so many times in the news, in the articles that I've read. Everyone's trying to be empowered. And by this, we mean that, you can dress however you want. That's a way to be empowered.
Say whatever you want. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Do whatever you want, no matter what anyone else thinks. That's how you live an empowered life. Jesus is not so in my kingdom.
You wanna know what true empowerment looks like? It's using the abilities that God has given you to serve one another. That's empowerment. True power looks like caring for one another, meeting people's needs. Now, the closest thing that I have ever seen, to being an example of what Jesus is describing here is motherhood.
You moms are incredible. You are tireless. You have the strength of a mama bear. I mean, I go downstairs, and I and I look, and I see you carrying around those little baby carriers, and you could carry them for hours. You've got guns.
Like, I'd pay good money, go to gym. I don't have the guns that you have. You're just tireless. You can hear your baby cry from another county, and your husbands could be in the same room and hear nothing. You are so attuned and so attentive to your child that you know what they need before they do.
I mean when, my oldest Caroline, when she was little, and I would hear her cry, I'd I'd go and I'd get the passy and put it in, and Lauren would just go, Joel, that's not the I need a passy cry. That's the I need a giraffe cry. It's like, what? She goes, yes. She was so attuned.
She knew the different cries. The hunger cry, the I need the little toy giraffe, or I need the Passe cry. It's absolutely remarkable. And when a mom meets their child's need and sees that child smile, there is no greater joy. Now, hear me, moms.
You have authority over that child. You're leading that child. You have authority over that child. And you know what your authority and rule looks like? Sacrificial service, and you receive joy from it.
Another picture of this should be marriage. You know the bible, it teaches us that the husband, he is the head of the wife. And perhaps some of you just even hearing me say this, you know, you kinda get a little uneasy like, oh, can we really say that the husband's ahead of the wife? That sounds a little archaic, a little patriarchal, sounds a little oppressive to me. Yet, this is not a controversial statement when you look at scripture.
And the scripture clearly teaches this in Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 2nd Peter 3. Clear as it could be, it's not controversial, but it might be countercultural. But the reason this might rub just a few of us the wrong way, certainly rub our culture the wrong way, is because when we hear the word head or we hear the word authority, we think ruling like the gentiles rule. We think of authority as authoritarian. We think of ahead as being controlling, domineering, seeking after your own interest to get what you want, using your power to get your way.
And Jesus says, not so with you. That's not how my kingdom works. And he turns it all around. Authority, well, looks like using your power to sacrificially meet the needs of another person. It looks like service.
That's why immediately after Paul says that the husband's to be the head of the wife in Ephesians 5, he immediately says, the husbands must love their wives as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her. The headship looks like sacrificial service, a continual giving of yourself for the good of the other. Do you see just how different the kingdom of God sees greatness and sees power? Alright. So we are in the thick of an election season right now, and so I want to go ahead and tell you who you should vote for.
Jeffrey Heine: I mean,
Joel Brooks: I would not touch that with a 10 foot pole. I mean, a 100 foot pole. No way. But I'll make an observation. And, and if you disagree with this, well just shoot me an email.
But my observation is this. Right now, every candidate, every political party, they've gotten to where they've gotten by pushing, shoving, jockeying for positions of leadership, just like the disciples were. They try to influence culture through power and through control, And Jesus sees that, and he says, not so with you. You don't do it that way. Hear me.
If you try to influence our culture through the use of power and control, then then yes, it's true that you might briefly suppress a few evils every now and again, but you will never change hearts. And if we as a church wanna seek the welfare of the city like we are commanded to in Jeremiah 29, then what we need to do is so sacrificially serve and sacrificially love this community, that although the people of this community might disagree with what we believe, imagine the city apart from us. Do you think that's true that this community, they look at us and they're like, oh, yeah, I disagree with you, but boy, I can't imagine what our city would look like if you weren't here. This leads us to verse 45. Verse 45 is where Jesus tells us the reason that he has come.
When you read through scripture, this is actually pretty rare. If you're new to church, maybe you're just visiting because you're curious about the bible, curious as to who Jesus is, it's a great Sunday for you to be here. Because rarely will you read Jesus actually saying, for this reason, I have come. This is one of them. He says, for even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Jesus here, he once again uses his favorite title for himself, which is the son of man. I actually preached a whole sermon on that way back when we were in Mark chapter 2. But this title, the son of man, it comes from Daniel 7, in which Daniel has a prophetic vision in which he is given this glimpse into heaven. It's it's a vision, but he's given a glimpse into this courtroom into which there are many thrones. And he sees the Ancient of Days sitting on a throne, but then all of the other thrones are unoccupied.
And if you remember when I preached through that, I said that these thrones are likely for humans because God created mankind, and he gave man dominion over the world, and we were to rule and to reign over this world. But here was the problem. We tried to rule and reign like the gentiles. We tried to push and shove and to get our way. And instead of being selfless, we were selfish.
And we we tried to use our power to get what we wanted at the expense of others. And as a result, no one is worthy to sit on the throne. And so, Daniel, he's looking and he sees the ancient of days and then he sees just empty thrones. But then, one who has the appearance of a son of man And here is a perfect man, one who rules and righteousness. And he is worthy to sit on one of the thrones.
Jesus, he says, I'm that man. I'm the son of man. That's why it was his favorite title. Jesus was worthy to sit down on the throne and rule, because he has used his authority to seek the good of others and to serve. That's what he means here when he says, even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.
Jesus came as our example. He came to remind us what it means to be human. How how God created us or intended for us to live. How we were supposed to exercise dominion in this world by seeking the welfare of others, not through selfishness and through power and through control. So Jesus is our example.
But thankfully, Jesus is more than our example. Because when we look at Jesus, and that's our standard, all of us will most certainly fail. And so, Jesus didn't come just to be our an example. He came also to be our savior. That's what he means when he says he came to pay our ransom, to give his life as a ransom for many.
He didn't come just to serve us in general. He came to give a very specific type of service. It was a service of offering his life as a ransom. That word ransom means a payment to set someone free. It means a payment to liberate somebody.
In other words, Jesus is saying, all of us are in bondage. Here's the thing. We think we're free when we do whatever we want. We think we're free when when we use our power to promote our own self interest to maybe to to put others down. And Jesus says, that's not freedom.
That's slavery. But I have come to set you free. And what Jesus is doing is he is offering his own life as a ransom in order to liberate us. In other words, Jesus, he lived the perfect life, and therefore he should be rewarded for that. But instead, he's gonna take that reward, and he's gonna use it as payment to liberate us.
It's the very heart of the gospel, what we have here. Jesus is saying, my life for theirs. I'll take death, give them life. And Jesus says, that's why I came. I came not just to be your example, but I came to be your savior.
I'll end with these words from Paul in Philippians 2. Paul writes this this beautiful paragraph here in which he combines everything that Jesus just taught about along with Daniel chapter 7, and he puts them together into this beautiful paragraph. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Here we get to Daniel 7. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and has bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father.
Amen. You would pray with me. Thank you for coming and being our example. And thank you even more for coming and being our savior because we fall so short. Jesus, you have come to liberate us.
And I I pray that now that through your blood we have forgiveness. We have been given your spirit. We have been given new life. Lord, I pray that we would use that new life to look a whole lot more like you. And we pray this in the sweet name of Jesus.
Amen.