Amen. Well, if you return in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 20, we'll be looking at verses 20 through 28 this morning, Matthew, chapter 20 verses 20 to 28. Last time we saw Jesus boldly and accurately predict and vary precise detail for the third and final time is coming, suffering, betrayal, mocking, rejection, and ultimately murder through crucifixion. For the first time Jesus says they will crucify him in our text in verse 19, immediately proceeding verse of our text this morning. And we saw that the disciples were afraid, they were confused, they didn't understand, and they shrunk from the idea of the coming suffering of the Lord, and I think because they also knew that that meant their own suffering, if they persecuted their leader, what would they do to them, the followers. And yet beloved, we looked at the fact that because Jesus so precisely and exactly predicted this event, that it should have been bold in them, that it should have strengthened their faith, that they should have saw that their Lord obviously had this supernatural knowledge from God, that he was in control even as he went to Jerusalem to purposely fulfill this plan of God, which called for his ignominious, for his shameful death. And that Jesus did this knowing that this was God's victory in his life knowing again that he would be raised, this should have been bold in them and beloved it should have been bold in us when we see that we too are promised suffering in this world as we close out the sermon with all those verses last time, showing that all who desire to live godly in Jesus, in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution and verse after verse after verse, it should have been bold in us. We should be jealous to follow our Lord knowing that as Romans 8.17 says, if we suffer with him, we will also be glorified with him for the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed to us. The fact that he predicted his suffering exactly precisely it came to pass, we also know that when we suffer as he predicted, he's in control and he's actually using us to using that to bless us and to conform us to his image and to glorify him, it is a great privilege, beloved, to suffer for the Lord Jesus Christ, it is glory to do so. And in today's text, we're going to apply this lesson that he taught them last time, that he's been teaching them and we're going to look once again at what does it mean to be great in the kingdom of God to be glorious? What is glory in the kingdom of heaven? That's the focus of our text this morning, let's pray as we turn to God's Word. Father again, we want to pause for prayer as we turn to your Word because we are not able to benefit from this word in the slightest unless your spirit go forth with your Word to quicken it to us. And so do so, Lord God, and be powerful in your people. Remember your covenant promises, Lord Jesus, look only upon your blood and righteousness. Do not look upon what we deserve, but remember that you swore to make us your people and so quicken your Word to us for your glory. We beseech the in Jesus name. Amen. Give your careful attention now to the reading of the Word of God. This is God's perfect Word from Matthew chapter 20 beginning in verse 20. May the Lord bless it to each one. Then the mother of the heavenly sons came to him with her sons kneeling down and asking something from him and he said to her, what do you wish? She said to him, grants that these two sons of mine may sit one on your right hand and the other on your left in your kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, you do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, they said to him, we are able. So he said to them, you will indeed drink my cup and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by my Father. And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and those who are great exercise authority over them, yet it shall not be so among you. But whoever desires to become great among you, let them be your servant and whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. Just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. May the Lord establish this word in our hearts this morning I pray. I want you to notice first of all this morning petitioning the Lord of the kingdom. I want you to notice petitioning of the Lord of the kingdom. In chapter 18, we saw a child like humility and faith was required to enter the kingdom of God. That was the beginning of chapter 18. And that theme of humility, of mercy, of forgiveness, of grace has really continued all the way through our text this morning. Through chapter 18, 19 and now chapter 20, that's been the constant refrain that we are to humble ourselves, that we are to forgive, that we are to aspire to rewards, but even recognize that those rewards are entirely by grace, that it's by grace alone that we have any reward from God, and that we are to be humbled, and to be able to forgive those who sin against us. It's another lesson in our text this morning beloved on humility. It's been the lesson now for three chapters. William Hendrickson comments quote more than 1900 years of gospel proclamation have not succeeded in teaching the men the lesson of self denial, and willingness to be leased in the kingdom. And I think that's because sanctification doesn't come by learning by becoming more doctrinally sound as it were, if that was the case, ministers would be the most sanctified people, and I can testify that we're not, and if you don't believe me, ask Mrs. Heipel after the service, and she will confirm it to you with much evidence that ministers are not. It's just not the case, beloved. It is important that we learn right doctrine, and we aspire to learn right doctrine more and more, but we are not sanctified in the accordance with what we know. And that's why it's so important to combine our study of scripture with prayer that we would humble ourselves and pray to the Lord for grace that he would make his word and the knowledge and the truth of it effectual in our hearts. And that's an effect what the mother of Zebedee's son does when she comes to Jesus. Again, this is petitioning the Lord of the Kingdom. She comes with a prayer. I mean, she could go to him bodily, but this is what we would call a prayer. She asked Jesus for something in his kingdom. Verse 20, then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to him with her sons kneeling down and asking something from him. By the way, we know that her name was Salome. If you combine the other gospels in the various accounts where the women are mentioned, it's very clear that the mother of Zebedee's son is interesting, it says it that way. The mother of Zebedee's son is not the wife of Zebedee, though she was, that her name was Salome. And if you look at the gospels, there is a very distinct possibility that she could also be the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus. So this could be Mary's sister. We can't rule it out. We can't say it definitively. In one account there is Salome and the mother of our Lord and the other account it says there is the mother of our Lord and her sister. So unless there's a third person which there could have been that the two gospels didn't mention, Salome is Mary's sister. Which would make John and James first cousins of Jesus, which would make Salome, Mary's, or sorry, Jesus, aunt? So this might account for some of the boldness that, you know, aunt Salome is requesting something of her nephew, better listen to the aunt now, give a little bit extra attention to your family. And I think that idea that Jesus did give special favors, because we do. We give special, but we're biased to our children all the time. Unfortunately, it's wrong. We're biased to relatives. We're not supposed to. We're supposed to treat everybody equally fairly. I mean, there's a calling obviously to love our own family more than others provide for them, but when it comes to actually the Lord's kingdom, that we are to do everything according to the word of God and not according to blood as it were. And we know that Jesus did that. In fact, back in Matthew chapter 12, it should have torpedoed the idea that Jesus had any special favors for blood relatives. Remember, at that point, his mother and his brothers were seeking a word with him and Jesus answers the one he told them and he said, who is my mother and my brothers? Remember? And he looks and he waves his hand at his disciples. And he said, here are my mother and my brother brothers for whoever does the word of God, he said, are my sisters and my brothers and my mother. Jesus didn't give any special favors to family members. And he doesn't do that here to Salome, whether or not she was his aunt. But as we see this request, we notice there's a little bit of a difference in Mark. In Mark, James and John do the asking in our text, Salome, Jesus, well, their mother does the asking. And scholars don't have, believing scholars don't have any trouble with this. Obviously, all three of them were in agreement. Probably the boys had mom asked first, but they're right there with her. And we see that in the fact that when Jesus answers, verse 22, you don't get it in the English, but in the Greek it literally says, but Jesus answered and said, Yun's, do not know what Yun's asked, the you plural. You know, I love saying that and Paul footed, just drives the English teacher was crazy. But there's a you plural there both times. Jesus is answering Salome. He's answering a group of people. He's answering all three of them because the brothers were also wanting this. And that's why Mark just said, they asked, they asked through their mother as well. So it's not a difficulty to understand. All three of them are asking as it were, Jesus answers in the plural. He never answers in the singular. But what are we to make of the question in verse 21? She said to him, grants of these two sons of mine may sit. One on your right and one on your left and your kingdom, what should we make of that question? Well, let's begin by noticing the great faith that she had in Christ to ask this question. This woman was a woman of faith. In chapter 19 verse 28, she mentioned, or Jesus mentioned 12 thrones that the disciples would sit on and this woman believes it literally. She believes that the time is coming very soon. They're going to Jerusalem. She believes the time is coming when he's going to come and do his kingdom and she has to ask him quickly before it happens. I mean, they've seen Jesus do miracles like raise the dead, walk on water, comb the storm with a word. They've seen him multiply loads and fishes for 5,000 men, 4,000 men. It might be that he walks into Jerusalem, waves his hand and everybody bows down and he's king and it's too late. She can't ask for her son this special privilege. And so there's great faith here. John Calvin agrees. He says they are convinced that he will soon become a magnificent king, though not even the slightest trace was then visible. He is the Nazarene teacher. He's hated by the leaders. The Pharisees are plotting to destroy him. The chief priest, the Herodians, the scribes, the elders, the Sadducees, they're all against him. And John chapter 7 says and the people are divided about him. There's more and more division in the people. We can look at John chapter 6 where many of the people leave off. So there's constant controversy and division. The media is proclaiming him as a glutton in a drunkard. So he's got bad reputation in the press. He looks like this divisive controversial figure. It doesn't look like he's about to become king in the natural. Matthew Henry says, quote, they were confident of his kingdom, though now he appeared in meanness, in poorness, poverty. He was a nobody. If anything, he was somebody about to be arrested. Not about to become king. So there's a lot of faith in this request. And yet there is a lot of forgetfulness and there is a lot of pride. Can you imagine asking this request immediately after what Jesus says in verses 18 and 19. We are going up to Jerusalem. The son of man will be betrayed to the chief priest of the scribes. They will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and discourage and to crucify. In the third day, he will rise again. Oh Jesus Christ there, I got something to ask you for my son. I mean, do you feel that? And both Mark and Matthew, the only ones who record this event, show this request coming right on the heels of Jesus, predicting his shameful death, his crucifixion, the worst possible kind of death, the death of a traitor to the empire of one punished by the empire. And it was a curse of death where it was hanging on a tree as Deuteronomy taught. So there is a lot of pride and forgetfulness. Jesus has warned them against the works and merit. He's talked about his betrayal and suffering and they want to go back to the thrones. You know, well you mentioned thrones back in 1928. Let's talk about those thrones some more. We've got an idea about those thrones, but love that they're asking for the highest thrones. Now even that shows some degree of faith because there will be degrees of rewards. We've seen this in the passages in the past, but you see it in verse 23. Notice it. Look, about halfway through the verse 23, to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by my father. So there is going to be someone on his right and someone on his left. There is going to be two people that are closest to him that are most honored. He admits it. There are two. God has prepared it. There are degrees of reward. Even that request and that sense acknowledges that. But beloved, there's a lot of ambition here. They're asking from a worldly perspective. They want to be higher than the others. They want to be the two greatest. Remember, they were arguing at the beginning of 18 who is the greatest in the kingdom and they're still wanting to be the greatest. And so this is petitioning the Lord of the kingdom. Secondly, notice greatness in the world's kingdoms. Greatness in the world's kingdoms, the kingdoms of this world. What is greatness in the kingdoms of this world? We'll look at verse 22. When Jesus answers, and he said, you do not know what you ask. Though there was faith, Matthew Henry says there was also a great degree of ignorance that they still expected a temporal kingdom with worldly pomp and power when Christ had so often told them of sufferings and self-denial. This is still Matthew Henry. They dreamed of a temporal kingdom. Whereas Christ's kingdom is not of this world, end quote, Matthew Henry. They're still looking for everything to just get awesome in this world. They were thinking in terms of the flesh and what would be good for the flesh. And that's prosperity and that's pleasure and that's ease and that's rest. And they weren't thinking of the spiritual. John Calvin likewise, in addition to seeing ambition faults them for wanting a this world kind of earthly kingdom. He says this quote, instead of the heavenly kingdom of Christ, they had formed the idea of a phantom. Now to estimate the spiritual kingdom of Christ according to the feeling of our flesh is highly perverse. We saw in our Sunday school class this morning that Calvin considered a Jewish vanity to look for an established earthly kingdom to be put about in this world. Calvin says that God's kingdom is not of this world. It is this spiritual kingdom and yet they still hold onto that. They're still looking for glory in this world for things in this world to accomplish what God says he will accomplish when he returns. And this delusion continues to add all them even after Christ's resurrection. Well, into the book of Acts chapter one, remember in Acts chapter one, after he's written from the dead, he's had proven that he's appeared to them multiple times and he tells them stay in Jerusalem until I send the Holy Spirit. And what do they want to know? The one question, verse six, when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Are we going to get the thrones now? Is it going to happen now? You've risen from the dead. It's been the third day. Is the glory going to come? Is the kingdom going to come to Israel? The physical, earthly, temporal, corporal nation. They still are looking for it. And yet beloved, God's rewards are to those who are most like Christ. That's the point of this text as Jesus points to himself by the end. He rewards those who are most like him. Look at verse 22. Jesus answered and said, you do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I'm about to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am about to be baptized with? We'll look at that a little bit more later. But he's comparing what they are to do with what he is to do. Are you able to be like me? In other words, I want you to skip down to verse 25 and notice the contrast with the kingdoms of this world. Jesus called them to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles, kingdoms of this world, Lord it over them and those who are great exercise authority over them. That's the way there's nothing wrong with this. There's nothing wrong with authority structures in this world. Again, we looked at this in Sunday school. God ordained the authorities that are in the state. We saw that in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2. God ordained them. The authorities that exist are from God. There's nothing wrong with the hierarchies and the authorities. We are just pray for the kings and for all authority. Paul says, this is the way of the world. There's nothing wrong with that. That's the way the world is structured, but to serve Christ for rewards in this life. To seek His kingdom in the ways and by the means of the kingdoms of this world is a great error.
I want you to see this at the end of verse 21. They ask or see asks, can my sons sit one on your right hand and the other on your left in your kingdom, in your kingdom, when your kingdom comes. Mark's version says, Mark 1037, one on your right hand and one on your left in your glory, in your glory. When Jesus sits on the throne, it says, glory, now beloved, the glory of Christ on the earth isn't until His second coming. But they are looking to the glory without the suffering. They don't want to talk about the cross and the mocking and the scourging and the betrayal. They want to talk about the thrones and the glory and they don't want to think of the suffering. And that glory of Christ isn't going to happen on this earth until the second coming, or else Jesus was wrong when He predicted this, because throughout their lives they never did sit on His right and left. The thrones weren't set up in their lives. And so that's not going to happen until His second coming. For this idea of the world's authorities and the world setting up thrones, that again is the way of the world. God is the one who divides the inheritance of the nations. The nations themselves are appointed by God. They exist by God. God divided them and there are nations and there are earthly governments. Again, we talked about this a little bit so that the idea of earthly government, again, Jesus isn't disparaging that in verses 25 and 26, but He's contrasting that with His kingdom. Notice it. His kingdom is not set up and it does not run that way. You know the rulers of the Gentiles Lord and over them and those who are in authority exercise it over them. Yet, verse 26, it shall not be so among you in my kingdom. That's not the way it works He's saying. It shall not be so among you. There's not going to be a hierarchy. Unfortunately, that did happen in the church, but that was not by the will of God. Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. Beloved in this world, you don't become a servant to become great. When you become great, you get lots of servants, right? When somebody wins an election, what happens? All of a sudden they've got all these advisors and all these people that are serving them. Even when they're campaigning, they'll get tons of people serving them, trying to come together because they're trying to be great. And again, there's nothing wrong with that in this world, but God's kingdom, God's spiritual kingdom, God's real kingdom, doesn't work that way. I mean, this was, this was even the case to some extent in the kingdom of Israel, which was a type of the kingdom of God, but it was less perfect than the church. It was more primitive and a more primitive stage. It was more physical. It was more earthly. The kingdom of Israel had a lot of things in common with the other kingdoms. They had authority structures. They had hierarchies. They had to have taxes and earthly laws regulating earthly things. There was a lot of earthly stuff because it was an earthly nation like the other nations, but God made it his. And so it showed forth this kingdom in a way that the other nations couldn't, but it was still primitive. It was still physical. It was still removed. There were authority structures. God set it up so that there would be judges and kings, and there were captains of hundreds and fifties and thousands, and there were magistrates and elders and the Seventy and all of that, all of that was from God. There was an authority. There were those who were lording and over others because it was an imperfect kingdom. It was not what the church is called to be, which is a great step forward in the spirituality of God's kingdom and showing forth God's kingdom in a greater and clearer way. The church is not called to recreate Israel, isn't it? We're not called to set up a new state, a new country that's going to be God's people. Again, we are God's people in spirit, which is a step forward, which is a greater manifestation of God's glory, a more true one, a more real one to what's coming in heaven, but what's coming in heaven is far greater. William Hendrickson says this a little bit longer, quote, worldly people spend all their energies in order to get to the top, and once having reached that peak, they cause all others to feel the weight of their authority. Jesus is saying that in the kingdom over which he reigns, greatness is obtained by pursuing a course of action. Listen, which is the exact opposite of that, which is followed in the world. You don't pursue greatness. You pursue love, and that's what is greatness in the kingdom of God. John Calvin agrees the design of Christ was to distinguish between the spiritual government of his church and the empires of the world, which again are not wrong to be that, but they're not his church. They're not his kingdom. His kingdom is a spiritual kingdom that is not to look like the nations of this world. How are rewards given in the church who are most rewarded, not those who who accomplish the most, but those who humble themselves the most? Matthew Henry says it this way, quote, the way to be great and sheath is to be humble and serviceable. That's the way it is in the kingdom of God. The way to be great and sheath is to be humble and serviceable. We read this all over the place in the New Testament, Philippians 2, 3. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, right hand and left hand thrown. Give us those, please. Ambition. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in loneliness of mine. Let each just steam others better than himself. Does that for five minutes? Do we really? The steam others has better than ourselves. That's not our default position. We're constantly thinking that we're better. We serve more. We're more humble. There's a great way to be prideful, right? Look how humble I am. This is something that only occurs by God's grace in us, beloved. That's why Christ here points to them in verse 27. Whoever desires to be first among you, you want to be first, let him be your slave. Let him be your slave. God's rewards are given not for how high we rise. That's what happens in the world and rightly so, but in God's kingdom it's different. God's rewards are given for how low we willingly go. When you see the lowest service and you run and do it, that's greatness in the kingdom of God because that's what Jesus did. That's what exactly what Jesus did. William Hendrickson says in effect that this request of Zebedee's mother and of Zebedee's sons is a request for suffering. He says this quote, the prayer for glory is a prayer for suffering. Make my sons the two greatest. She's actually saying make my sons suffer the most. Be careful what you ask God for. I know and this is true a lot of times with seminary students, Lord, give me the spirit of Luther. Give me the spirit of Calvin. Give me his ministry. I want to serve you like Luther and Calvin to ask for that is to ask for the suffering of Luther and Calvin and ask to go through the crucible of Luther and Calvin. You can think of Calvin when he was called back to Geneva how he said he would rather die a hundred deaths for to go back to Geneva is to die a thousand times every day. Something that many Geneva's college students have said repeatedly times that time, but he suffered in Geneva and it was hard and their ministries were hard and difficult. Calvin dies in his 50s because he worked himself to death. Give me the spirit of Luther. Be careful. Make me great in your kingdom, Lord. We should all aspire for that but we should know what that means. It means to be great like him and being lowly and being one who suffers for the glory of God and so I want you to notice thirdly greatness in Christ kingdom. Notice greatness in Christ kingdom. Greatness in the world kingdom is by your achievements but that's not the way the kingdom of Christ should be. And so in verse 24 when the 10 heard it they were greatly displeased. They were indignant. They were angry. So it means with the two brothers why? They weren't angry because the two brothers were airing doctrinally and that would brought some discredit to their movement or they were sinning and that makes Jesus look bad so they weren't now. They were angry because the two brothers wanted to be better than them. They wanted those thrones for themselves. That's why they were angry. That's why Jesus in verse 25 he calls them all together. This whole idea of ambition has got to stop. Verse 25 but Jesus called them to himself. All right knock it off guys. You know that the rulers of the Gentiles Lord is over them and those who great exercise authority over them in shall not be this way among you. Matthew Henry says the only time the apostles are ever seen to quarrel in the Gospels is when they're fighting about who's going to be the best. Who is better? Who is greater? We do that all the time in church, right? We have our teachers that we think are better than one another that are and we get we become part of this part of your part of that party. I remember when I was down and studying under R.C. Sproul in the year 2000 in the Apologetics class and R.C. is showing his system of Apologetics and how it differs from the Vantillian presuppositionalism for example. And of course there were students in the classroom trying to take sides and trying to provoke Sproul to really go after Vantill more and so forth. I might know one of those students
but R.C. didn't do that. You know what he did? He stopped it. He stopped it when the division was happening. He said you want to know something about Cornelius Vantill? He said when we wrote our book classical Apologetics that Linsley and Sproul and Gerstner wrote, the whole book criticizing Vantill's presuppositionalism. He said we received from Cornelius Vantill a handwritten note in that like shaky really old person script because Vantill was very old at the time. Thanking them for their book. Thanking them for taking his thought so seriously to develop an entire book to present what they thought was the right position. Not too many had that spirit today doing. We like to class by my teachers better than yours. I love it. That's not the way it ought to be in the kingdom of God.
And this world until we die or until Christ returns greatness is measured by lowliness of service and humility. Whoever desires to be first among you let him be your slave. The person who serves in the lowest and most humble way will actually be the person in whom the greatest advance will have occurred spiritually. You want to see the most sanctified person? See the person who is doing the lowest acts of service that nobody sees and they don't do them because people see them. Those are the people who are great in the kingdom. How did Jesus become exalted overall? This is how he did. He became the lowest of all. He becomes a sin offering. I want to save it to the next point. But Jesus becomes the greatest of all because he came as the lowest of all and he did so willingly. And we see this in the Apostle Paul when the Apostles Paul's credentials are challenged, right? I mean it's hard to argue with the position that the Apostle Paul was the greatest apostle, right? He writes half the New Testament, 13 of the 27 books. And two-thirds of the 14th book, the book of Acts is all about the Apostle Paul. It's hard to argue that the Apostle Paul is the greatest, all the churches he established across the empire. And yet when the Apostle Paul's credentials are established, he doesn't talk about the amount of scripture that he wrote, the amount of inspiration he was given, the works and the miracles that he did, all that he accomplished. You know what he boasts in when his credentials are challenged? Second Corinthians 11, 23, are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more in labor, more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently in deaths often. If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. In fact, he can say in Galatians 6, from now on, let no one trouble me, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. That's what he boasted in. How he was treated like a criminal. How he was persecuted and beaten and rejected and imprisoned, and he said, here's my bust. How the world looked at him as one who was just constantly put to shame. Verse 22, Jesus answered and said, you do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink? You see it's in suffering. This cup and this baptism, by the way, the baptism is not in the critical text. You have an ESB doesn't say you baptize with the baptism, I am baptized with, but in Mark's account it's in all of them. So we know he said it. We know he said the cup, the baptism. What's he talking about? He's talking about suffering. The cup of suffering and the baptism of suffering. Are you able to go through this? Of course, Jesus goes through a different kind of suffering, doesn't he? He's talking about this persecution that he's about to face. The adversity of the world, are you able? And they said to him, we are able. We are able to do as you do. We are able to do what you're going to do. We are able. In 1926, Methodist teacher and writer, Earl Marlet, wrote to him, are you able? It was based largely on this passage. United Methodist Bishop John Wesley Hart puts to him in the context of its time, quote, toward the end of the 19th century and early in the 20th century, the dreams of the coming kingdom of God inspired the YMCA and YWCA, as well as the vision of the evangelation of the world in our world, in our generation, it's going to happen. We're going to do it. A companion spirit inspired many young people to volunteer for service in the first great world war with the motto, quote, to make the world safe for democracy. They were both serving the kingdom, I guess they thought. Mirror words cannot begin to recapture the power and abiding love which the familiar words are you able brought to generations of young people. You see, with a time of great optimism, the church is going to end sin in the world. It's going to bring God's kingdom to the earth. It's going to shut up the throne. Don't you know? They were going to do it. They were all excited to do it. They were able. The original him had six verses. After each verse came the refrain, Lord we are able, our spirits are dying. Remold them, make us like the divine. Thy guiding radiance above us shall be a beacon to God, to love and loyalty. Verse 1, by the way, it's only four verses in the himnals today, but I'm going to give you the original. Are you able, said the master, to be crucified with me? Yay, the sturdy dreamers answered to the death we follow thee. Lord we are able, our spirits are dying. Remold them, make us like the divine. Are you able to relinquish purple dreams of power and fame to go down into the garden or to die a death of shame? Lord we are able, spirits are dying. Remold them and make us like the divine. Are you able when the anguish racks your mind in heart with pain to forgive the souls who wrong you who would make your striving pain? Lord we are able to forgive all. We are able. I can forgive just as you command me too. You tell me what to do. I'm able. Are you able, still the master, whispers, down eternity, and heroic spirits answer? Now is then and Galilee. Lord we are able. By the way, they're not in Galilee. It's not possible. They just crossed the Jordan from Prairie into Judea. Interestingly, they will drink the cup. Notice verse 23, you will indeed drink my cup. You will be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. Jesus is referring to their suffering and death. James died first, one of the apostles, thrust through with the sword in Acts chapter 12. John the last to die. Two traditions, he either dies in banishment, he dies for Christ, or he's brought back from banishment and executed, he dies for Christ, but they both drink the cup. And they were both baptized with the baptism. However, I want you to notice that it's not the same way as Jesus. I want you to notice fourthly and lastly, the great sacrifice that established the kingdom, the great sacrifice that established the kingdom. There's a sense in which they drink his cup in her baptism because they just like him suffer and die. And human suffering and human death is the same, but they don't suffer and die for how Jesus suffered and died for what Jesus suffered and died. Look at verse 28, just as the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Here is the lowest that anyone could possibly go. The lowest possible thing in creation is to become the object upon which the wrath of God will fall and be exhausted upon it. That's lower than a man and that's lower than a worm. Jesus becomes the lowest of the low. He becomes the thing that God hates most. He takes upon himself all of the sins of the elect of all ages.
The son of man did not come to be served. I don't come like the world's leader. He doesn't come down and God put him in a palace. He was born in the stable when it got worse from there. He becomes the lowest of the law to give his life a ransom for many. Beloved, a ransom. John Calvin, notice is one more time, quote, Christ mentions his death in order to withdraw his disciples from the foolish imagination of an earthly kingdom. This isn't the way to build an earthly kingdom. You don't die to do that. You die to build a heavenly kingdom, a kingdom that's not of this world. Calvin says, only here and in Mark's parallel and the whole New Testament is the word that Jesus uses for ransom used. Lutheran. It's the word that's over and overused again in Numbers and Leviticus to describe how the slave had to be ransomed from slavery. How the Levites had to be ransomed because they took the place of the firstborn and the firstborn had to be ransomed because God's judgment fell on the firstborn and there was a ransom that God had to have paid an order for his judgment not to fall upon them. Remember? And so they pay this ransom, this Lutron. This is the substitutionary atonement of the cross. Jesus is declaring it. I'm going to ransom souls by my life and this kind of service that Jesus voluntarily undertakes the lowest of the low. When we have a mind even approaching that, now we can see something of the greatness of Christ and those who would follow him this way. The bourbons used, by the way, the verb form is used only a couple of times also, 1 Peter 118, knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without spot or blemish. Beloved, our cup is not his cup and our baptism is not his baptism. There's a likeness in the world and the flesh and the actual results. Both the cup that Jesus drank and the baptism which was what he was baptized was the wrath of God, was a sin offering, a ransom for many he says, they don't drink that cup. We can't drink that cup and we can't be baptized with baptism. Our cup is the opposition of the world, what God? We show forth God's character in Christ and we show forth God's message in Christ and the world hating him and hating that message hates us and persecutes us and that's our cup and that's our suffering. But they only persecute us when they see him and us. And so to be like him, by example, by imitation and living for God to protect the persecution of the world that through which God himself poured his wrath on Christ, beloved, that's a great privilege. We're never more honorable or more glorious when we bear suffering because we have shown something about what Jesus is like. But we don't take his cup. He took it. He alone is able. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for sending Jesus the only one able to be a ransom for sin and offering Lord God. Let us each recognize that we deserve to be cast off, that we needed the Son of God to die, such as our sinfulness. And yet such is his love that he was willing to do it. Father, let us never think that we are able to go forward and do as you have done. We could never do it. We can only imitate in an earthly way. What you suffered at the hands of men, but we can only do that because you took apart and alone the wrath of God by which now we have been reconciled. Now God is with us when we suffer, though, when you suffered, you cried out, my God, why have you forsaken me? Lord God, we are not able, but Lord Jesus, you are. And so we pray that you would be with us, that you would cause us to humble ourselves, that we could show forth some of your greatness in this world. So that is our glory. And we pray this in your name. Amen.