First & foremost: Served by Jesus

Mark 10:32-45, John 13:1-8, John 15:13-17

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The first one,

Speaker 2: 0:01

mobile radio comes from mark 10:32 to 45, page one, oh, five eight. They were on their way up to Jerusalem with Jesus leading the way and the disciples were astonished. While those who followed were afraid again, he took the 12 aside and tell them what was going to happen to him. We are going up to Jerusalem, he said, and the son of man will be betrayed to the chief, priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the gentiles who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later, he will rise. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. Teacher, they said, we want you to do for us. Whatever we ask, what do you want me to do for you? He asked. They replied that one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. You don't know what you were asking. Jesus said, can you drink the cup? I drink or be baptized with the baptism. I am baptized with. We can, they answered, Jesus said to them, you will drink the cup. I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared. When the 10 heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the gentiles, Lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all, for even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Second reading is from John Chapter Fifteen. John Chapter Fifteen, beginning at verse 13. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends. If you do what I command, I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you frie nds for everything I have learned from my father. I have made known.

Speaker 3: 2:25

Do you think Santa and routes to keep your Bible Open? In fact, why don't you turn back to mark chapter 10 because we're going to look there and then we'll come to spend most of our time here. Really? Uh, and then we'll come to John Fifteen, a little lighter and there's also an outline in the that you would go on the way in, hopefully gives a bit of an idea of where we're headed tonight. It's even got a little blank to fill in if you like, doing those things. I liked them sometimes as well. Heaven, I pray for us. Heavenly father, thank you that you are a good God. Thank you that you speak to us and help us now to sit under your word here, this part of the scriptures a think your thoughts after you. As we think about serving and keeping our joy and our identity, and we ask that you would be at work by your spirit in Jesus name. Amen. Well, I thought we'd start with a bit of a. Who am I? I'm not a huge fan of foam. Wasn't very good at them, but he, we go. Let's give it a go. Who am I? I was born. Can you go? Thank you. Uh, who am I? I was born in Germany in 18, 79. Uh, at an early age. I excelled at some subjects at school, a maths and physics. Uh, and so by the age of 12, I developed my own original proof of Pythagoras theorem and age 15 though I clashed with the authorities at my school. And so it was prevented from pursuing electrical engineering as my father wished at that school. I failed the general entrance exam at a Swiss college that year, but the following year when I was 16 was admitted a scoring the highest grades in physics and maths. I went on to become a, to be trained as a teacher and electron bit of a family, a interaction. I'm married, my first wife at age 24 and we had two sons. Uh, we separated 11 years later, five years after that I married my cousin, my first cousin on my mother's side, and second cousin on my father's side. We moved to the US in 1933. And my wife died there three days later, three years later, sorry. Uh, I developed a revolutionary theory of general relativity that became world famous in 1919. I was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921. And my most famous formula is, you may know it by this stage, they equals MC squared. That's why I'm Albert Einstein a, you might be a bit of a fan of a who am I? As, as I said, I'm not very good at them, but, but I said a few things there about Einstein, didn't I, uh, some things that he did, some things that happened to him now his relationships, uh, they all formed part of his identity. A part of who he was at the house. You feel like that made up his identity. But what about at the very cool. What about at the foundation? Who was he? I'm not really sure about that, but turning that back to us, what about you? What about you? Who are you and there can be many aspects to who you are to your identity. We can define ourselves by our actions, by our loves bias skills, by Andorra buyer relationships, but honestly the evening that if the foundation of the house, which is our identity, which is who we are, if the foundation is in something in ourselves or in something in people around us, then we're almost certain to be disappointed. If we hold onto those shifting ways of finding value, of worth, of finding meaning for ourselves, then we're always going to be standing on shifting sand no matter how we try, how much we try and shore it up instead on Christ, the solid rock we need to stand and as we said last week, that's what we're going to turn our gaze this week that's turning on gays to him and seeing the core of the right thinking that we talked about last week. That might stop us from heading down the pods of wrong motivations and having the right motivations for the way that we act. And the first, the, the, this, the heart, the foundation, if you like this right. Thinking is this, it's that first and foremost, we are served by Jesus, first and foremost, served by Jesus in Mark Ten, which hopefully you guys have all got. Now, I'll just get back there in March in this little, a few episodes here. There's two big truths about Jesus that are on view. Uh, they're both fundamental. The disciples have got an idea about one, but kind of missing the other. Let's have a little look. A look at me. Verse 32 on their way up to Jerusalem, sorry. They were on their way up to Jerusalem with Jesus leading the way. And the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Now there's some odd details he kinda did you notice anything kind of stand out to you as a bit odd? Some things are ordinary. You know, they're going up to Jerusalem. Well, that seems fairly ordinary, normal for do go into the capital. Jesus leading the way. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe he used to do that. Maybe you used to send people on ahead, but the next little bit did you say that the disciples, the 12 are astonished. While those who followed were afraid. What's going on here? I think the disciples of understand why Jesus is doing what he's doing at this point, they don't get it in their minds. You see, Jesus is the chief. He's the king. He's God's king who's bringing God's kingdom and we saw that back. We would have seen that rather back in chapter eight of mark where Peter Confesses, yes, you are the Messiah. They know that, that Peter is sorry that Jesus is God's King bringing God's kingdom in, but well, he's going back relative to this place, relatively unarmed, and he's going back to the place Jerusalem, which is the stronghold of those who opposed him, that the pharisees, the chief priests and teachers of the law, and he doesn't have a force strong enough to overthrow those authorities, so overthrow the Romans to bring God's kingdom in. As many of the Jews thought that he was going to do in the way that they thought he was going to do it, and so again, he takes the 12 aside. You get some part of who I am, that I'm the chief, but you don't get it all. He still tells them here what's going to happen to him, but if we've got eyes to see it, it's really pointing to something about his identity, an identity statement. Let's look. Verse three, continual. He takes them aside. Verse 33, we're going up to Jerusalem and the son of man will be delivered over, betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the gentiles that will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later, he will rise. I'm not going to Jerusalem to overthrow the authorities with force. I'm not going to get rid of the gentiles there. I'm going to be gotten rid of by them. I'm going to give my life. That's what I've come to do. Blank kind of faces there. That does not compute, they can't bring those two things together. It seems, especially though like James and John, um, you know, like those kids in the back row at, at school, a backer or the classroom and they don't know what's going on, and then they put their hand up and asked to take the teacher the question that the teachers just spoken about or, or something like that. Well, it's a little bit like that kind of moment for James and John. They're not listening to what Jesus is saying. They're thinking about what they're going to say and after Jesus has just spoken about how he's going to suffer and die, they come with their crazy request. Verse Thirty Five teachers that we want you to do for us. Whatever we ask, write a blank check. Well, what do you want me to do for you? Jesus asked. They said, let us want. Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. You see, they know someone is Jesus. See someone's special. God's promise, King. They know somehow at some point Jesus is going to be sitting on a big throne, some to the somme of the King and God will make his enemies the enemies of his king, a footstool for his feet and James and John. They want to be there alongside Jesus with their feet up to let us be there. They've got part of who Jesus is, that Jesus is the chief, but not the other key part that Jesus is talking about. The second part, Jesus is the chief. The second part is that Jesus is also the chief servant. You say, Jesus isn't isn't just a chief who serves. He's not just like the boss at work who, who knows the workers who comes alongside them and knows what life is like from understands and is humble. He's not just like that. Achieve who serves. He's actually also the chief servant. He's the one whom the disciples need to be served by and for the disciples who see him just as the chief is going to be a hard lesson to learn and come down with me to verse 43. The second sort of sentence there, it says, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all, for even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many greatness. Jesus says is not ultimately in being served by many but in serving many but these kind of a fairly familiar concept maybe to us, but this would have turned things upside down for that those first century Jews, our culture, it's been influenced by Jesus by these words such that we value to some degree humility, humility and leaders as as a broader culture and especially in the church but not so back then. Humility was weakness and who want to be that, especially if they were trying to show everyone how powerful they were and make them obey further. Who is this son of man that Jesus talks about whom even more so we wouldn't expect to come and serve? Well, son of man is a bit of a strange title. Is it a little bit self referential? Jesus uses it to talk about himself, uh, in kind of one way. Maybe it's a little bit like the Queens, we such and such the royal way, but more than that, it's actually a term that's filled up by old testament as well. Okay. Especially one from Daniel seven and Daniel seven, one like a son of man. This, this human being comes on the clouds to the ancient of days riding on the clouds, so the ancient of days to God himself and he receives all authority and Glory and sovereign power and all nations people of all, all countries worship him and his dominion would never end. It's a bit kind of mixed it, this, this, this human being who's receiving things that seem to only really rightly be attached to someone who's divined. Someone who's God. And so this term has all of these things mixed into it. When Jesus refers to the son of man, the ruling one, the one who would rule the world fitting it is then for Jesus to use it to refer to himself. But then Jesus says, this one, this one, or even the one who will rule the world even he didn't come to be served, but to serve, to give his life as a ransom for many. Now when we hear the word ransom a, most often these days, it's kind of you think of kidnappers and people being held captive and and but kind of put, putting that kidnapping bit aside, the ransom is the price paid for the freedom of another. What's the price paid by the chief servant? It's his life given for the freedom of another and who is the other in this section? Who is this other? The other in this verse. It's not just one person like maybe a husband pushing his wife out of the way of a bus, a saving her, but sacrificing himself, not just one other, and it was not the sacrifice of those tie navy seals and cave divers who risked their lives to save all 12 boys and the coach trapped in the underground cave with one of the seals losing their life in the process. Not a sacrifice for the few, but a sacrifice. A ransom of the one for the many, just one life, one perfect life given the life of the one who sat for all eternity at the right hand of the father, ruling with him the life of the one, by whom and for whom all things were made in very nature. God, as we sign just a moment ago, the life of the one through whom all things hold together and have there been these life given to death, a humiliating death, the death of criminals that he'd done. Nothing wrong. This was the ransom paid. It's given us as a ransom. I don't just a sort of strange act of love, but a price paid for the freedom of many, not those for those who deserved freedom and were unfairly held captive, but the process to free those who justly deserved judgment for unworthy servants who deserved death for rejecting the God that gave us life. So I want to ask you, who are you? Are you one of the many? Are you one who's been rescued? Who's been ransomed? Do you see that first and foremost that you need saving from the deserved consequence of your own rejection of God? Have you honestly admitted that to Jesus and asked for forgiveness? Have you accepted that forgiveness, that freedom of who we are, that he brings? Are you first and foremost served by Jesus? Depending on him in your whole being with the foundation of the House that your identity is built on? Thanks. Served by Jesus. This is crucial you see, because unless you're willing to be served by Jesus, you have no part with him. Those aren't my words. Those are actually Jesus. Was Jesus words from John Chapter Thirteen, just a couple of chapters earlier than what I read for us. I've got some words on the screen. I will come to that in a minute, but you say over in the gospel of John Chapter Thirteen, Jesus shows the disciples how much they need him to serve them. And he does it by washing the disciples feet. It was a humiliating task to do this usually reserved for slaves. Uh, and even some rabbis said that even Jews who were slaves, it was, it was too humiliating for them, but Jesus himself at this moment stands up, takes off his outer garment and gets down on his knees and washes their feet, showing them the way that he will be king, showing them just how much they needed him to serve them. Now, Peter, I never wanted to keep silent. When he's got a thought in his mind, he says, no, my Lord, you shall never wash my feet. How can I let you? Who were the Lord do this to me? But Jesus replies with these words, unless I wash you, you have no part with me. Unless you're willing to be served by Jesus and accept all that, that means you have no part with him. Accepting that it means accepting that on your own. You can't serve yourself, that you're helpless without him, but when we do accept this, when we do accept that at our most fundamental, we need to be served by Jesus. Then this, he transforms our lives, our desires, our wants. He transforms us. Not only is it a good foundation to build a house on, it's a true and stable foundation that is unshakeable, the nature and necessity of Jesus serving us, clean out any other foundation that might be in the way that we might be trying to hold onto any other cause for boasting. It clears out any kind of self dependence and pride because in and of itself, the fact that we need to be served by Jesus says, you can't do it. It's not in your power. There is no price that you can pay to ransom your life, but on the flip side, when at your core, you are fundamentally one served by Jesus. Then he brings you into a wonderful freedom and security of your identity that can never be shaken, who you are, your worth as a person. Your value no longer depends on how good you are on what you can do, on how clever you are, on what relationships you have on what others think of you. You say receiving this service of Jesus means that at your very core, at the foundation of who you are, the grace of God is enthroned. Nothing can come before the grace of God. Nothing can come that might say that you should merit the grace of God. Nothing can come in. I should say, you should receive it rather than someone else. No, it's only grace and I think on the flip side, in terms of the way that that honors God, there's nothing more central to who we are either is that nothing more central than our identity, the very core of who we are and so what could be more honoring, more glorifying to God to God. Then having him define and shape our very foundation have very cool. He. He humbles us on this foundation. When we attempted to be proud, he gives us real value. When we attempted to think that we're worth nothing. First and foremost, undeservedly served by Jesus is that you? For certainly then as those who are served by Jesus that were brought into the privilege of serving Jesus. I say privilege rather than servitude because although we are servants, servants of the king, servants of the Lord, unworthy servants at that Jesus doesn't actually treat us as mere servants, but much, much more. He brings us in to know his business. He rises us up. Let's flip over to mark. Sorry John, Chapter 15, flip over. If we all do it together, then we'll all get there at the same time roughly. So in Chapter Fifteen, should we bet, alright, 100 pages over John Fifteen and we'll pick it up at verse 15. I no longer call you servants, Verse Fifteen, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead I have called you friends for everything that I learned from my father. I've made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit. Fruit that will last. It's Jesus says he servants don't know the big plans of their master. The master is an answerable to the servants question of why you're the servant. He's the master. Just get on with it, but Jesus doesn't treat the 11 disciples or asked for that matter like that as mere servants. He brings us in to know his plans. He, he raises us up to be offering it to be his friends and so to the disciples and to us through their writings, Jesus makes known the big plan of God, how it starts and ends with Jesus, the world, made by his son, for his son, and how things will finally be brought under Jesus when he returns and in this he doesn't just expect us to blindly follow him like this, although we could, but he graciously opens himself up. He brings us in not to merely just see and marvel at his big plan, but to take even to take part and sharing it. It's like he's. God's got this massive lego world in his garage and he says to you, come, come, come in and have a look at this, and you start standing made you feel privileged to stand there and marvel, and then he doesn't just leave it there. He says, no, no. Come in. Let's get in and have a guy. Let's build some things. What an awesome boss because that's what it is, isn't it? He's the boss, but he brings us in and he raises us up. He tells us he's a big plan, but you and I might not know what's going to happen tomorrow. We might not know what's going to happen to your health, to to my health, to your family, to your job, to your temporary life here in this world, but we know the big plan of God. We know the god, this God who sacrificed himself, that he might serve and save us. We know Jesus, the Lord, the son of man who's not ashamed to call us, you and me, his friends, indeed more than just friends as we'll see over the next couple of weeks and we know intimately the God who knows all of the little what's and why's of every little thing that we don't know what's going to happen in our life. He knows them all and we know that he's in control and a good loving father. What more could we want at one level except of course to be God ourselves and we'll the first time they tried that didn't go so well? Did it? Can I urge you as well as I urge myself to be content with what God has given for us to know, but to to to talk to him, to tell him how worries to seek him out, to tell him how cares and thoughts for he really does care, but to trust him and encourage others with why you trust him with why you really think he is the best boss because that's what it is. Brag about him in scripture sometimes with the little kids. When we sing that song, you know Jesus is the boss. It could be Jesus. He is the boss of the fish in the sea or Jesus is the boss and and we do this. I do this action for boss, but sometimes that can give a bit of a negative kind of connotation. That kind of the boss. It's like, you know the grumpy boss who makes you pick up the dog poo or something, but actually Jesus isn't like that. He's not the Boston makes you do the crummy jobs that no one else wants to do. He's actually the best boss. We make crummy bosses of ourselves and of others, but he's the best boss who serves us first surface, emphasizing the biggest way possible and then brings us in, not as me servants, but raises us up as friends. One final brief point here before we finish, and that's cool. We get served by Jesus. You see, there's a bit of a progression if you like on the outline, you can kind of sit there first and foremost, served by Jesus, only then serving Jesus, but what we've got to know, and I want to finish with this, what we've got to know is that we never move on from being served by Jesus. That's going to remain the foundation, the foundation of your building, of your house, of who you are, your identity. What happens if you build a house on a, on a, on a frame, on a foundation, and you try and lift the house up and move the house. It's gonna fall apart, isn't it? That foundation isn't something that we ever move on from one mistake that we can have in thinking about as we grow in Christian maturity and is we've always got to keep learning new things in order to grow and be be built up. That's kind of half true. We do grow and deepen in our knowledge as we understand more and more, but we actually need to keep learning and applying and deepening our knowledge of the fundamental of the foundation, correcting ourselves, being corrected in things we think we already know her. Let those things slide into the background and we lose the bedrock. We lose the firm foundation. Don't despise reapplying what you think you already know, but ask God to renew your joy at that secure foundation because that's the answer to the question of who are you? Isn't it? Are you first and foremost? Are you still served? First and foremost by Jesus is only by God's grace that we might keep that first and foremost. I mean.