The Last will be First, Part 3

Announcement: New Training Area for Kids

A quick announcement before we begin our service:

We’ve put together a new “Worshipers-in-Training Area” for kids - those two rows of chairs in the foyer.

Goal with those chairs is to provide a helpful way to train kids to sit in the service…

And this is a big shift for us, so I want to take a second to explain how it works:

If your child starts to squirm & talk and won't stop, and you take your child out of the service for that, you may end up teaching him or her to do that just to get out of the service - the exact opposite of what we’re going for!

So, the purpose of this new area is, if you need to leave the sanctuary to train your child, you can go right out the doors to this row of chairs in the foyer and sit right back down.

And this helps by removing the incentive for the child to be disruptive: squirming in church won't get them playtime.

And then it also allows you to more easily discipline and train your child as needed, while still maintaining the sense that you are in church.

And so the goal is that once you've got your child under control and trained to sit, you move back into the sanctuary - though of course every situation is a bit different.

But it’s important to remember this: the point here isn’t just to get kids to be quite. The goal is to train them to participate: to sing, the listen, to watch, and ultimately, to see the community that the gospel creates, in hopes that the Spirit would graciously use these things to bring them, also, to the gospel.

Call to Worship: Psalm 8:1-4 // Prayer

Adoration: Our Creator and King - how majestic is your name in all the earth! Your majestic glory is seen in everything you’ve made - and yet your splendor is far above all these things; and in your wisdom, you have chosen the weak and the small of this world to give you praise, that your enemies might be silenced. But who are we that you mindful of us? Who are we that you, Almighty God, would care about us? Who are we that you would redeem us?

Confession: But you have redeemed us! And so we come to you with our sins, to confess. We confess that, instead of serving those around us, so often we have scrambled for first place, preferring our own glory or comfort; that, in spite of being saved by grace alone, we have looked down on others with pride; that in many ways we have not followed your Son’s example of humility, gentleness, and service. Father, forgive us, for we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: And we have asked this forgiveness because we know that we stand in your grace. For you have saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of your own purpose and grace, which you gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began...

Supp: And so, as redeemed sinners, we ask for your power more and more in our lives to live out this holy calling you’ve called us to - that our love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that we might approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ, to the praise of your glory! // and we bring before you our brothers and sisters at Laurel Community Church: we ask for the work of your Spirit among them to purify them, to grow them in love and wisdom, and to give them boldness in witnessing the gospel, that you might glorified in them // and we lift up to you the church in China: we ask for you to grow them in purity of doctrine and boldness of witness and depth of Christlikeness, and that you would bring many, many more into their numbers that the light of your gospel in that nation would not shrink but rather grow in spite of the government’s hostility // and finally, we bring before you the Israeli-Palestinian war and the war in Ukraine; with all the complexities of these conflicts, we ask for your mercy to grant peace, and to remove the proud and violent from power, that those who live in those regions might be able to begin rebuilding their lives; but even more than all that, we ask that your people who live their might, by the power of your Spirit, shine brightly with the light of your gospel amid the darkness of war // and now, as we turn to your Word, we ask that you bless us and lift our faces with the joy of these precious truths you’ve given to us…

Announcements

Back Porch: looking wonderful, a couple more weeks to complete details on the outside...

Outside portion was all payed for by generous past donations; inside portion, our building fund is about 13k under what we need.

That 13k can come out of our general fund if needed, though we are hoping to avoid that if possible

For those of you who are members, we’re asking that you consider donating above your regular monthly giving amount to help with this need, as you are able and as the Lord leads.

And, it’s a bit to early to list a date, but once the project is done inside and out, we plan to have a celebration—probably a BBQ or something like that—partly in honor of Dr. Stanley, who originally got the ball rolling on this idea, and who gave so much of himself in service to this congregation.

Benediction

May you know the Lord’s blessing as you serve him with fear and as you rejoice with trembling; may you be blessed as you take refuge in our Messiah. Amen

From Psalm 2:11-12

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Sermon

Introduction

Greatness is found in humiliation.

It’s true.

In fact, you could say that God has woven this into his entire design for history. And it is certainly how his kingdom works: greatness is found in humiliation.

The only trouble is, our hearts have enough wires crossed that we think in the exact opposite way. We think that greatness is to be found in a scramble for greatness.

Has someone at work ever tried to get ahead of you by highlighting your mistakes to your boss? Or have you done that to someone else? “If I have to step on a few other folks’ fingers while I’m climbing the ladder to greatness, so be it…” that’s the thought that drives that. And it makes for a toxic work environment. But hey, at least someone got to the top, right?

And you can see this same thing in the way people will talk about each other behind their backs. You give a friend a knowing look and say, “Oh yeah, that guy over there, he’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” And your friend agrees. And suddenly, you two have raised yourselves above ‘that guy’ on the social hierarchy.

And you can even see this in kids. Kids in school will sometimes beg their parents to buy them designer cloths and such, and even cut off friendships with unpopular kids, just so that they can have a shot at membership in the popular crowd.

And then at home, as a kid, didn’t we all rush past brothers or sisters to get in the door first? Have the best snack? Sit in the favorite chair?

There’s a scramble for greatness that begins in us all the way back in grade school and before.

But again, this scramble for greatness doesn’t actually bring genuine greatness.

It might bring position or power or material comfort. It might get you a place of honor with other people. But that’s not the same thing as true greatness.

And what’s more, this scramble also causes pain in those you step on or cut off while you’re scrambling; it also ruins friendships and families, and is the source of a lot of external havoc and internal misery.

And again, the trouble is that our hearts are corrupted to the point that we naturally throw ourselves into this mad scramble for first. In fact, that’s essentially what Adam and Eve did—they tried to scramble up and take God’s place and God’s greatness. And we have inherited their corrupted hearts.

And even we—those of us who have new hearts and have believed in Jesus for salvation—even we still have a great deal of the residue of that old corruption in our souls. Genuine Christians still wrestle with this. We still find in ourselves a sad tendency to scramble for first place.

So what’s to be done?

Well, we’ve seen so far, in this section of Matthew’s Gospel, that God gives kingdom citizenship and eternal life freely to sinners—to proud, first-place scramblers like us. When we turn and humble ourselves and throw ourselves on him for mercy, he freely gives it. Thus our sins of pride and glory-seeking are forgiven.

And then, we’ve also seen that life within the kingdom is defined by grace as well. Rewards in the Kingdom are based purely on God’s grace, and he gives all the same basic reward. Thus the first and the last are equalized by grace, and that undercuts the scramble for greatness. And this truth is helpful for our hearts.

But in this final passage on this subject, today, we’ll get what I feel is the highpoint and the most practical part: the example of Christ’s humility for true greatness—an example our hearts badly need.

And so, in line with that, here’s what we’ll see as we walk through this passage:

It begins with Jesus reminding his disciples that, in Jerusalem, he’s going to suffer and die.

Then, right on the heals of that reminder, John and James come up to Jesus with their mother and try to nab for themselves the two most glorious spots in the kingdom. They’re scrambling for greatness. And then the other disciples catch wind of this and get angry at the two brothers. The whole situation is shameful and ugly.

But what does Jesus do? He gathers them together and patiently explains that his own servanthood toward sinners—his own redeeming death—is the pattern for true greatness. If they want greatness, they need to become servants, too. Then, he gives them an example of what this looks like by serving two blind men who everyone else had rejected.

That’s how Jesus teaches them what true greatness is. He defines greatness in his kingdom by his own example of humility, in which the first came to serve the last—in which he came to serve all the rest of us by dying to save us. Thus, Kingdom greatness means humbling yourself to serve the lowly just as Jesus died to save the lowly.

The Setup: The Third Announcement of Jesus’ Death

Now, as we dig into this, I want to start by asking, why are verses 17 through 19 there in our passage? What do they add to Matthew’s main point here? Well, I think they add at least two things.

First, they add an almost surreal sense of weightiness to the whole story. None of Jesus’ words are some kind of abstract thought about the fact that it’s good to be humble. He himself knows that he’s about to undergo the ultimate humiliation. Verses 17 begins with:

Matthew 20:17 ESV

And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem...

And we already know why he’s going up. He’s said it twice before. Imagine that you didn’t know the story beyond this point—imagine you’d never heard the gospel and never heard about Easter morning.

Jesus has already twice told the disciples that when he gets to Jerusalem, he’ll die. And you read those parts. And you’ve fallen in love with the gentle kindness, the all-piercing truth and wisdom, the redeeming power of this Messiah. And then he says these words in verse 18-19:

Matthew 20:18–19 ESV

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

That would get your attention, right? This dark climax of Jesus’ mission—this death of the beloved Messiah—it’s about to happen. Jesus is about to ascend the hills up to Mt. Zion for the final time before his impending doom.

As a result, everything that Jesus says at this point just feels like it carries an extra weight—lands a heavier punch.

But the second thing these three verses do is that they provide a jarring and uncomfortable contrast to what comes next.

The Quest for Greatness: Give Us the Best Thrones!

And what comes next? Mrs. Zebedee and her sons, James and John, have hatched a plan. They’ve sensed that it’s time to reach for greatness. And so they approach Jesus, and then she kneels in front of him—so very reverently—with a request. And you can see the request there in verse 21:

Matthew 20:21 ESV

“Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”

Now what does that mean?

To sit at the right hand of a king is to have the #2 spot in the kingdom. To sit on his left is to have the #3 spot.

In other words, James and John would like to be the greatest and second greatest citizens in the Kingdom of Heaven. They would like to be on top of the social pile. They would like the places of honor right next to the bridegroom at the divine wedding feast.

Do you see how jarring that is?

Here the King has just announced how he will be mocked and flogged and crucified and killed to establish his kingdom. Here he has just announced how he will go down to the deepest level of humiliation to complete his mission. And then, here comes this mother and her two sons, looking to make a quick grab at the places of highest honor. Here they come, scrambling for greatness.

And the fact that her request is so jarring is meant to make us feel in our guts the weight of just how wrong this is. Just how opposite it is of the whole ethos of Jesus’ kingdom.

And notice, too, there’s a certain scheming audacity in the request:

Not long before this, Jesus had promised the twelve that they would sit on twelve thrones as rulers over Israel in the New World. Well, these two brothers and their mother thought about that long and hard. And what came up in their hearts?

Not gratefulness at such a gift from God. Not awe at God’s grace. Instead, an ugly and vane-glorious determination to get the top two thrones out of those twelve. And from that, a scheme—enlisting their mother—to snipe those top two spots before the other disciples made a move.

And isn’t that what we also do? You offer a plate of cookies to kids, and rather than sing for joy they fight over the biggest cookie. You end up married to a spouse who loves you, and rather than think, “Who am I, that I should deserve such a marriage?” you complain, “Why doesn’t he give me more attention? Why doesn’t she focus more on me?” You receive a bonus at work, and rather than thanking God, you begrudge the larger bonus given to the next guy.

And lest we single out James and John for criticism, they aren’t necessarily worse than the others. They just acted quicker. They just schemed ahead a bit more. Look at how the 10 others react when they find out:

Matthew 20:24 ESV

And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers.

And the idea here isn’t that they recognized how wrong this was and were indignant about the sin.

No, they were indignant because it wasn’t fair. They were angry because James and John had taken a swing at their own ambitions for greatness. Their hearts had the same problem, the same sin.

And it’s a sin with the same roots as Peter’s problem earlier, when he wanted to know what he would get for following Jesus. And really it’s the same kind of thing as what infected the rich young ruler’s heart, when he wanted to add eternal life to the pantheon of his great accomplishments, rather than receive it as a needy child.

It’s the sin Vainglory—of pride. Of thinking you’re a Somebody with a capital “S”, and that therefore you deserve all these things you’re in a scramble to get. You deserve recognition, reward, and greatness.

And to help them see the ugliness of all this, Jesus likened it to the behavior of gentile kings. Verse 25:

Matthew 20:25 ESV

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you.

Julius Caesar was an example of one such gentile king. As a Roman general, he led his troops to the cruel death and torture of countless non-Roman civilians as he conquered Gaul and subdued its people. As a politician, his life was one long scramble for glory and power at the expense of others, less than 100 years prior to Jesus’ own life.

And so, here, Jesus is telling them: “You, the disciples of the kingdom of heaven, are acting like the most vain and prideful folks imaginable—the kings of the nations. The ones who lord over and tyrannize those beneath them.”

But brothers and sisters, this accusation comes to our own hearts as well. We may not be guilty of political tyranny or atrocities in war. But in our own ways, we do what James and John did. We use our power to serve ourselves. We use our leverage to vie for comfort at the expense of others. We look for opportunities to increase our own greatness, and hurt others in the process. And it can look a thousand different ways.

Parents who get exasperated at kids because, well, “They’re not doing what I want.” And then lord it over their kids, pursuing their own comfort rather than their children’s good in the way they discipline. Parents, haven’t we all been there?

Small churches like ours that grumble at the entertainment-based megachurches—maybe we have some fair critiques. But then pride and envy take over and it becomes something that’s not pleasing to our Lord.

The scramble for earthly greatness is pervasive in our culture, in our history, in our hearts. But it’s not great in the eyes of our King.

Drinking the Cup: Suffering, True Greatness, and the Imitation of Christ’s Death

No. What’s great in his eyes is utterly different. What’s great in his eyes is a path of laying down your life in service to others.

And you can start to see this where he replies to the request of James and John in verse 22:

Matthew 20:22 ESV

“You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?”

Now, what’s Jesus talking about there with “drinking a cup?”

Well of course, it’s a metaphorical cup. In this case, a cup of humiliation; a cup of suffering and death.

And Jesus was using this image of "a cup” from the OT. There, it is a symbol of God’s judgement—of his wrath against sin and his judgement against sinners and sinful nations. For example, in Jeremiah 25:15-16 the Lord says to the prophet:

Jeremiah 25:15–16 ESV

“Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.”

So it’s a cup of wrath—a cup flowing with God’s hatred of sin. And to drink the cup is to experience God’s terrifying justice.

But what that means is that, here, Jesus is saying that he himself will drink the cup of God’s wrath on behalf of sinners like us and in our place. He’s saying that in love he will humble himself to the point of death and drink the cup for us so that we might instead be redeemed and have life. He is about to give his life as a ransom for many.

So Jesus is saying to James and John, “You’re asking for greatness? Don’t you realize that my path to greatness will take me down into indescribable humiliation under the God’s wrath for the salvation of sinners? Are you able to drink that cup?”

And the rhetorical answer of course is, “No.”

But what’s their response?

“Oh yeah. We can totally do that.” They have not really picked up what Jesus is putting down. In their eager scramble for greatness, they’ve completely missed what’s going on. They’re just clutching at thrones at this point.

But how does Jesus respond to their eagerness? Verse 23:

Matthew 20:23 ESV

He said to them, “You will drink my cup…”

What does that mean? Well, in the most important sense, Jesus’ suffering and death are totally unique. Only Jesus died to ransom sinners, carrying our guilt on his shoulders and drinking the wrath due to us that we might be redeemed.

But in another sense, Jesus’ sufferings are a pattern for our life. So actually, James and John would drink the cup. Not a cup of wrath for them, but still a cup of suffering and humiliation, of dying for the sake of others and for the spread of the kingdom. That’s the shape of the Christian life.

And as it turns out, James would be martyred for his faith within a decade of this conversation.

John would go on to suffer injustices, including exile to the Island of Patmos.

But then Jesus adds a crucial line:

Matthew 20:23 ESV

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

Do you see what that does? It dis-couples the genuine pursuit of kingdom greatness from the worldly scramble for status.

“You will drink my cup. You will imitate my sufferings and so find true kingdom greatness. But stop worrying about thrones and status in the kingdom. Leave that in God’s hands! Instead, go and pursue this kingdom greatness for the love of your King.”

Now, it seems that all of that went over James and John’s heads at that point. And then the other disciples got angry at them for their greatness-grabbing. And so Jesus gathered all of them together to teach them plainly about all this—about true kingdom greatness.

And so he tells them, down in verses 26 and 27, “...whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.”

And again, this is not some arbitrary principle of virtue. Jesus explains that his disciples must become servants, verse 28:

Matthew 20:28 ESV

even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus came to serve. He humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, so that many who were doomed to hell might be ransomed to heave. And that pattern of service in Jesus’ life defines what it means to be great in Jesus’ kingdom: it means to humble yourself for the good of others, and become their servant.

And so it is that the heavenly quest for greatness sees the greatness of Jesus in his humiliation and death and wants to imitate that. Kingdom greatness means humbling yourself to serve the lowly just as Jesus died to save the lowly.

Learning to See True Greatness

But again, brothers and sisters, we don’t naturally see greatness this way… we have to learn to see it. So let me direct you to at least three ways you can see it in this passage:

The first one is in the interaction between Jesus and the disciples:

James and John, along with their mother and the other ten, are all pretty blind. Jesus has been teaching them about this for the past chapter and a half at least, but they don’t see it. And so there is a sense in which Jesus has a right to be frustrated with them. And Jesus was not afraid to use sharp words when the situation called for it.

But look at the patience of Jesus’ tone toward his disciples. It’s a rebuke, to be sure. But it’s very patient and it’s gentle. Jesus humbled himself to their level in order to continue to slowly and patiently teach them about the kingdom—modeling the very kind of service he was talking about.

Do you have that kind of patience when discipling someone else? Younger believers: you’re meant to aspire to this: to growing in maturity in your faith until you’re able to help others along the way. And sacrifice of time and comfort, along with an attitude of humility and service, are required.

Mothers and fathers: this means you’re supposed to sacrifice yourself by, getting down on you’re children’s level, and patiently teaching them again—disciplining as needed, for sure—but always with patience and for their good.

Well, the second way you can see this kind of humble service in this passage is in the healing of the two blind men.

There they are on the road leading from Jericho to Jerusalem, and these two blind men start crying out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” And that’s in verse 30. These blind men are helpless and needy, and they know it. They are like little children, lowly, least, and last, and helpless and crying out to Jesus for mercy.

And the crowd acts just like the disciples. The crowd fundamentally doesn’t get who Jesus is. They think these two blind men aren’t worth his time, and they’re annoyed by their crying out, and so they try to shut them up. But they won’t shut up. They have a faith that’s desperate for divine mercy.

And what did Jesus do? He stopped and called them to himself and healed them so that they could see.

That is to say, Jesus humbly served these two lowly men as a model for us of true greatness.

And the way it’s described there in verse 34—that they recovered their sight and followed him—symbolizes the third thing in this passage: the ultimate act of service that Jesus was about to do in Jerusalem—his death as a ransom for many, that would give us spiritual sight and summon us to follow him.

And it is this third thing—Jesus’ death as the servant-savior—that we are to focus on. We are to gaze at what he has done for us. We are to meditate on the greatness of his humiliation, the beauty of his cross, and ask that his Spirit draw our hearts into the imitation of it.

Let us be a people who delight to visit and to pray for one another in difficulty and suffering, and who love to serve one another in whatever way the Lord puts in front of us.

Let this kind of heart in us overflow past the church and into workplaces, friendships, neighborhoods.

Let our hearts desire that our humble service—our refusal to scramble for first—would make our gospel witness plausible and desirable to our unbelieving, and would delight the heart of our King.

Greatness is found in humiliation.

All of history was designed that way by God. No angel in the sky can fully bear the sight of Jesus’ glorified human scars, by which the greatness his of divine love and saving power has been displayed! Kingdom greatness is humbling yourself to serve the lowly just as Jesus died to save the lowly.