Sermon Tone Analysis

The Son of Man Came to Serve

December 14 - Christmas

*Mark 10:45*

/ /

Well, it’s countdown time isn’t it?

Just eleven more days to Christmas Day!

In the meantime comes the preparation.

For us that is usually cleaning, baking, shopping, gift-wrapping, decorating banqueting, celebrating.

Do you realize that none of that was on God’s mind before the first Christmas?

What was on God’s mind for His Son and for us before the incarnation of His precious Son?

What did God the Father send His Son to do on earth?

That’s what part of this morning’s message will explore, and I guarantee you it’s not that difficult to understand.

While we turn Christmas into one giant party, does Christ stand outside peering in the window?

Or is He invited in to the celebration?

Once in the door, is He central in our minds and hearts?

Or has He been relegated to the basement?

Think about these things!

As God, in Spirit, lives in you, let Him live through your plans and preparations and celebrations this Christmas.

It is possible.

In Deuteronomy 30:11 God states: “This command that I give you today is certainly not too difficult or beyond your reach.”

Henry Blackaby adds: The Christian life is not difficult.

The same Christ who lived a perfect, obedient, and sinless life stands prepared to live it again through you (Gal.

2:20).

God's will is not hard to discern.

He has given us the Scriptures, which reveal His will, and He has placed His Holy Spirit within us to guide us to His perfect will in every situation (John 16:13).

Our greatest challenge will be to wholly commit our lives to follow God's will obediently as He reveals it.

Moses gathered the Israelites around Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim before they were to enter the Promised Land.

There, God described what they had to do in order to obey Him.

God gave detailed instructions so there was no mistaking what was expected of them.

Then God asked them to make a choice.

If they chose to disobey His commands, they would face His wrath.

If they chose to obey, they would receive His blessing.

God's Word comes to you in the same way.

It is not too complex to understand.

You don't have to struggle to discern God's will about adultery or forgiveness or honesty.

God's word is perfectly clear.

The question is, how will you respond?

Nowhere in Scripture did God excuse disobedience because His instructions were too vague or complex.

Condemnation came because they knew exactly what God wanted them to do, yet they chose not to do it!

God, through His Holy Spirit, will always give you sufficient revelation and strength to take the next step with Him.

If you are uncertain about what God is asking of you, make sure that you are obeying all that you do know, and through your obedience, God's next instruction will become clear.

Today, as Christmas is nearing, we want to look at why Jesus was sent to earth some 2000 years ago.

As you look at the Christ child in the manger, look at the man He became.

Please turn to Mark 10:45 and we’ll read our key Scripture passage for today – follow along as I read verse it -/ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

/

I want to meditate with you on Mark 10:45.

It is a very important Christmas text.

Christmas is about the first coming of Christ into the world.

It's about the Son of God, who existed eternally with the Father as "the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature," taking on human nature and becoming a man (Hebrews 1:3).

It's about the birth of a man by a virgin conceived miraculously (not sexually) by the Holy Spirit so that he is the Son of God, not the way you and I are sons of God, but in an utterly unique way (Luke 1:35) – the only begotten!

It's about the coming of a man named Jesus in whom "all the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell" (Colossians 2:9).

It's about the coming of the "fullness of time" that had been prophesied by the prophets of old that  /a Ruler would be born in Bethlehem/ (Micah 5:2); /and a child would be born called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace/ (Isaiah 9:6); /and a Messiah, an anointed one, a shoot from the stem of Jesse, a son of David, a King would come /(Isaiah 11:1–4; Zechariah 9:9); and, according to our text today, Christmas is about the coming of the Son of Man who /"came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many"/ (Mark 10:45).

This brief expression of Christmas in Mark 10:45 is what I hope God will fix in your mind and heart this Christmas season so that your faith in future grace will be strengthened and so that you will have a clear, short word of explanation that you can refer to when you are talking to others about what Christmas really means – Jesus is the reason for the season!.

So we will take it one step at a time and make sure that the words are clear and that we understand why Jesus said them – for He is speaking to us!.

Let's get the story clear: James and John, two of Jesus disciples—the sons of thunder—came up to him and said (in verse 35),

/"Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."

And Jesus said to them, "What do you want me to do for you?

And they said to him, "Grant that we may sit in your glory, one on your right, and one on your left."

But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking for.

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 able."

And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized.

But to sit on my right or on my left, this is not mine to give; but it is for those for whom it has been prepared."

/

James and John get one thing right here, and most everything else wrong.

They are right in verse 37 when they say that Jesus is destined for glory—"When you sit in your glory."

And that is a good thing to be right about.

There are some people in this room who are not yet right about that.

Here's how you can tell.

If you know that a company's stock is going to take off and go through the roof, you buy that stock and not the competitor's.

If you know this building is going to stand after the storm and no others, you get in this building, and not the others.

And if you know that Jesus is going to reign in glory in the end over every rival, then you follow Jesus and not his rivals.

And some are not following Jesus and so don't have it right about his glory.

You're not yet as far along as James and John.

They had that right.

Jesus would take his kingly seat in glory someday and rule the world.

Nobody really believes this who isn't following Jesus.

Do you believe it?

But they probably didn't understand the cup and the baptism that Jesus was talking about in verse 38/: "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"

/They said yes.

But did they know?

What was he talking about?

What is this cup?

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus pleaded with his Father, if there was another way besides the horror of crucifixion and abandonment, would he please take that cup away.

These were the words he used,

/Abba!

Father!

All things are possible for you; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what you will./

(Mark 14:36)

The cup was the death he was about to endure.

So he was saying to James and John: if you want to rule with me in my glory the way you are asking, then you must die with me—you must drink the same cup.

And did they understand the baptism?

/"Are you able to . . .

be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"/

In Luke 12:50 Jesus said, "I have a baptism to undergo, and how constrained I am until it is accomplished!"

Jesus saw his death not only as a bitter cup to drink but an immersion—a baptism—in suffering.

He said, in effect, my pathway to glory and to kingship is through suffering and death.

If you want the kind of honor you are asking for, you must follow me in my suffering and death.

And we must ask ourselves the same thing, “am I willing t suffer for the cause of Christ?”

I guarantee you, that is not a question usually asked in the celebration around the cradle, is it?

But the cradle and the cross go hand in hand!

Now let’s get back to James and John’s request.

What Jesus has done is take show them the path to glory - a pathway through suffering and death.

That is what Christmas means: on Jesus' pathway from glory to glory, he came to pass through suffering and death.