Sermon Tone Analysis

Matthew 20:17-28

Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?

Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?

The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.

It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.

Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.

For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.

Dillard, Annie.

Teaching a Stone to Talk (p.

49).

HarperCollins e-books.

Kindle Edition.

What exactly does it look like in 2022 to ‘deny one’s self, take up his/her cross, and follow Jesus?’

We Jesus followers use that clear call often.

I wonder if we really understand what we are speaking.

In Matt 20 Jesus privately shares with His disciples one more time what will happen to Him when they arrive inn Jerusalem - Matthew 20:18-19

This last explanation is the most detailed of all three.

Jesus outlines the process by which He will be arrested, tried, and handed over to the Roman authorities who reserved the right of capitol punishment.

He reminds His disciples that even though He will die, He will be ‘resurrected’ on the third day.

Just as the previous occasions, the disciples respond.

The first time Jesus shared what would happen Matthew 16:22

The second time Jesus tells the disciples of what awaited Him, Matthew simply records that they were deeply distressed (Matt 17:23).

On this occasion, the disciples response follows a different pattern:

John and James’ mother simply wanted whats best for her children.

Jesus sees through her request as He addresses John and James:

At this the other ten became ‘indignant’ or as the NKJV translates, ‘greatly displeased.’

I also appreciate Eugene Peterson’s translation in The Message:

“When the ten others heard about this, they lost their tempers, thoroughly disgusted with the two brothers.”

(Matthew 20:24, The Message)

Jesus uses their response as an opportunity to explain to all of them - and all who will follow Him - what it means to deny one’s self, take up one’s cross, and follow Jesus.

Redefine Your Identity

First, ‘Deny your self.’

Let’s be clear what Jesus is not saying.

He is not saying that we who follow Him are to suppress our unique giftedness and nature.

He is not telling us - contrary to what many of my friends thought we heard when we were teenagers: to follow Jesus means going to some remote tribe in Africa and being eaten by cannibals.

What is Jesus asking of us?

A. We are NOT LIKE THE WORLD

“On the contrary...” Again, the Message translation is helpful:

“It’s not going to be that way with you.

” (Matthew 20:26, The Message)

Over and over again non-believers look at churches where people are bickering, where people are jockeying for positions of authority and leadership, churches where people gossip incessantly about one another and ask:

WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE PART OF THAT?

To be different begins with a redefinition of our identity - we are ‘servants’/slaves.’

B. What is a servant/slave?

One source tells us that:

The main sources of ancient slaves were warfare, piracy, brigandage, the international slave trade, kidnapping, infant exposure, natural reproduction of the existing slave population and the punishment of criminals to the mines or gladiatorial combat.

J. Albert Harrill, “Slavery,” in Dictionary of New Testament Background: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 1125.

In Jesus’ world - as in our own - to be a servant/slave was not a desirable position.

To be identified as a slave/servant was to be denied even basic human rights.

Yes, there have always been generous and caring slave-owners, but they are by far the minority.

Slaves/servants are generally in that position because of some failure, some weakness, some disastrous choice.

And yet, Jesus willingly and even cheerfully describes Himself as a slave, as a servant.

Are we ‘able’ as John and James claimed to willingly forsake our ‘rights, privileges’ and offer ourselves as mere servants?

Paying the Price

When defining what a disciple was to be, Jesus said that each must ‘carry their own cross.’

When John and James’ mother asked Jesus to assure her that her sons would be given positions of prominence and responsibility Jesus asked the two men:

The ‘cup’ to which Jesus referred

is to be understood in connection with OT language where it is an image for being overtaken by disaster

John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005), 820–821.

The disaster which Jesus anticipated He identified in vs 17-19.

John and James were not being asked to give their lives to crucifixion.

Only Jesus was and is qualified to offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice.

So, what does ‘take up your cross’ or ‘drink this cup’ mean?

A. Discovering God’s strength in our weakness

We often have an inadequate understanding of Jesus;.

Yes, He willingly gave Himself for our sin, but never mistake willingness for cheerfulness.

The pain which Jesus experienced was excruciating.

Being crucified is understood to be one of the cruelest forms of torture and death invented by human beings.

At every step Jesus had to depend on God’s strength to persevere.

Later in Matthew’s gospel Jesus will pray -

John and James were being promised that their future would be painful, difficult, filled with experiences that we can only begin to imagine.

Prior to his marriage to his first wife - who would die in Burma - Adoniram Judson wrote to his soon to be father in law these words:

I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean;

to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress;

to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death.

Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of and the glory of God?

Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?"

Anderson, Courtney.

To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (pp.

80-81).

Judson Pr.

Kindle Edition.

His wife would die in Burma after bearing four children - of whom none survived.

What is the ‘cross’ we have been asked to carry?

B. Facing the Future with Assurance

Each time Jesus spoke of His death He also spoke of something that had no precedent: He will be resurrected!

Yes, Jesus had ‘raised’ the dead to life.

However, in Jesus’ case ‘resurrection’ meant that He would never die!

When we ‘take up our cross,’ when we ‘drink the cup’ we are acknowledging that no matter what is asked of us, no matter how costly it appears, we will respond with confidence, knowing that God has promised us a life beyond what we are experiencing here and now.

Follow Me

Jesus is not calling any of us to do that which He Himself did not do.

Read any of the four Gospels and watch as Jesus gives and gives of Himself.

Yes, He gets weary.

Yes, He gets hungry and thirsty.

Yes, He gets discouraged.

But Jesus always gives of Himself fully.

Whatever the need, whatever the circumstance, Jesus willingly meets the need.

On one occasion a leper - an unclean person with highly a highly transmissible skin disease falls before Jesus and asks

Jesus’ response:

Jesus not only spoke a word, He touched the leper - risking His own health, risking the anger of those around Him.

When we choose to follow Jesus we are being asked to lay aside our reputation, our health, our hopes and dreams in favor of serving as a slave the needs of those whom God brings into our lives.

We are Able?