Greatness

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. This week, we continue in the Gospel of Mark, in Simply Jesus, with I think one of my favorite passages, one of the most profound, clarifying passages of Jesus' ministry. It's at the end of all of these things, right before he's going to enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and that tumultuous week, which I think we've covered already in the sense that you might not realize this about the Gospel of Mark, but all the Gospels, they are not biographies. They don't cover everything kind of consecutively and even-handedly. They emphasize certain things. One week of Jesus' life is one-third of the Gospel. The week from Palm Sunday through Easter is one-third of the entire Gospel of Mark. That kind of tells you where Mark thought the emphasis should be, right? That that week changes all of history. Well, this is kind of the passage and next week about blind Bartimaeus, this blind man and the healing of that right before Jericho. This is the passage that defines what's going to happen during that week. Why is this passage so important? Jesus contrasts who he is, what he is, and what disciples are to be with the way the world uses power and position in politics. And I think it's because of this. I don't know if you realize this. I've realized it more and more with people here in our culture, but most people in our society who are rejecting Christianity per se are not rejecting it because of Jesus. They're rejecting it because of Christianity and Christians. And it's not that we are dutifully displaying how wonderful Jesus is and just promoting Jesus. The problem they see is that they see a lot of people using religion as a means to justify their power plays and their politics and their positions in society. And so they criticize religion as just a self-justifying sham, a game to game the system to get the rubber stamp of approval. Basically, you choose what you want to believe, and then you say that's what God said. And therefore you justify your positions, your ideas, your politics, your morality, and then you decide to push it on everyone else in society. They see this kind of as a contradiction at the heart of Christianity. I would agree with them. Sadly, a lot of Christianity has just turned into a kind of a power game these days. And, well, even at the time of Jesus, his disciples wanted to play that power game, and we see that with James and John in our text today. And the rest of the disciples wanted to do it too. They all wanted to be the godot. That's the term I'm using. I don't know if you could put that up. Are you there? Yes. Okay. Godot, which is greatest disciple of all time. You know, you've heard the goat before. Now, I want to be the greatest disciple, and we'll see that as we read Mark chapter 10, okay? And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and to the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles, and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him, and after three days he will rise. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. Would you have that audacity? Kids do that all the time, don't they? And he said to them, What do you want me to do for you? At least he's smart enough to ask, Okay, so what is it? And they said to him, Grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory. Jesus said to them, You do not know what you are asking. 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, We are able, and Jesus said to them, The cup that I drink you will drink, and the baptism with which I am baptized. You will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared. And when the ten heard of it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So from this passage, we're going to look at these three points. Our human quests for greatness, whatever form they take, finally greatness as he redefines it in this text, and finally greatness as realized in his life. But first, ...