Suffering Service: The Measure of True Greatness (Mark Sermon 53)

Turn your Bibles to Mark chapter 10. We continue to make our way through Mark’s gospel. We come to this vital passage today. Thirty-five years ago this week, I watched one of the most exciting basketball games I’ve ever seen in my life. Some of you are sports fans, some of you aren’t. So I’m going to bore some of you for the next minute or so and others will be really excited, but that’s okay. But I want to talk about this just because of something that was said. It was actually a Celtics NBA basketball game, a playoff game, game seven between the Celtics and the Atlanta Hawks.

It was the last time that Larry Bird was really just amazing and dominant as he and the Atlanta Hawks star, Dominique Wilkins, went back and forth trading baskets, one shot after another. Each one seemed to be more spectacular than the last. It was really almost like a man to man duel between the two of them with the season hanging the balance for one or the other team. During the game, the announcer, Brent Musburger, said something that has been played again and again since then, and it stuck with me even if they hadn’t played it. After Larry Bird made a particularly remarkable shot, he said, “You are watching what true greatness is all about.” I thought, “Hmmm.” I like basketball, but I’m a Christian and that is not what true greatness is all about. I mean, I’m glad the Celtics won that day, don’t get me wrong, but you know what? I’ve seen pictures of Larry Bird and he’s old now. The Boston Garden they played in doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s been torn down, it’s gone. I think about what Isaiah 40 says when it says, “All flesh is grass and all their glory is like the flower of the field.” Friends, that is not what true greatness is all about. No sports is.

What is true greatness all about? The text brings us right to that topic. It’s something that captivates our minds. People are interested in greatness. I was at a graduation yesterday for my son at UNC-Charlotte. As they have at graduations, they honor different students for academic achievement. They do it with this Latin phrase, cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude, which means with praise, with great praise, with the greatest or highest praise. So greatness. We’re interested in that hierarchy of good, better, and best. We’re always analyzing what is good, what is better, what is the greatest.

Remember for me, as somebody who loves history, at the end of the 20th century, Time Magazine listed the top 100 greatest individuals from the century that had just been completed, the 20th century. They walked through different individuals that they felt should be on the list, 100 greatest people of the 20th century.  They’re inventors like the Wright Brothers who invented the airplane, and there was Robert Goddard who invented liquid fueled rockets that enabled eventually space travel and landing men on the moon. There was Tim Burners-Lee who invented the internet; William Shockley, who invented the transistor, ushering us into the digital age. Enrico Fermi was on the list who split the atom, and then of course, Albert Einstein who gave us the theory of relativity. All those scientists and inventors were on the list. Of course, they were influential political leaders from the 20th century like Winston Churchill and FDR and Nelson Mandela. Other leaders of movements like Martin Luther King Jr. were on the list. They’re even entertainers and film stars and rock stars and authors, poets, actors, fashion icons, business leaders. So Coco Chanel, Lucille Ball, Bob Dylan, Charlie Chaplin, Sam Walton, all these folks are on the list. However, Time Magazine, the list there was not seeking to identify if any of these people were actually great people, just really that they’d had a great impact, so Adolf Hitler was on the list; Joseph Stalin was on the list; Mao Zedong was on the list. These are mass murderers, tens of millions killed because of their policies, but they’re great on the list. They’re mixed in together with people that most secular individuals felt were good people such as Billy Graham or Mahatma Gandhi, just all of them mixed together on the list. There was no filter for basic human goodness.

In our passage today, we have two disciples, James and John, seeking positions of greatness in the kingdom of God. Jesus has therefore the opportunity to address the topic of greatness, both great power and also great character in one key moment. This lesson on the nature of true greatness stands over all human beings for all history as both the goal to strive for and the standard by which we are going to be judged on Judgment Day. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter at all who the world thinks is great. The only thing that will matter on that day is, “What does God think?” What does God think? Who does God think is great?

Here in the text today, we have the standard. 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 came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. To Jesus Christ then, true greatness came down to this, humble suffering servanthood, the humble suffering servant. Whoever’s willing to pay the most, lay down his or her life to benefit to bless others will be called greatest in the kingdom of God. Now, the standard is simple. We can understand it, yet it may be one of the most difficult lessons that any of us ever learn.

I. The Perversion of Greatness: Self-Promotion

So let’s walk through the text and let’s begin with the perversion of greatness. The perversion of greatness which is self-promotion. It’s very common these days. Putting yourself forward, espousing all of your best attributes, in effect, selling yourself. It’s been going on a long time. James and John are practicing it with Jesus to some degree in this text, twenty centuries ago. Secular kingdoms have been dominated by this self-promotion and politicking throughout history. In the Roman Empire, counselors to the Caesars would orchestrate political scandals for one another to knock off their rivals by shame. That failing, they might just have them poisoned. Cicero, the leading order of the Roman Republic, was an expert at dirty politics, smearing an opponent with rhetoric and with innuendo of immorality; he’s very good at it, Cicero.

In the European courts of the Middle Ages, lords and nobles would fight joust with each other to show their courage or loyalty or military prowess. They would jockey for position. Others would go on great quests, military quests to achieve some dramatic goal in order to secure the undying affection of the king and garner position of power in his kingdom. Now, in the modern era, in our era, people use social media often to position themselves for greatness and to cancel their rivals, so to speak, using smear tactics, finding some damning incident from that person’s youth or earlier in their history to damage their career, to damage their reputation in the cyber community. As it said, the internet never forgets. There’s no escaping those past moments.

Now, the same thing happens in the secular, the corporate world as well. Young ladder climbers use power techniques. I came across a book some time ago entitled and I’m not commending this book, but this is the title, 21 Dirty Tricks at Work: How to Win At Office Politics. So you heard me say, I’m not commending this. I’m just telling you what’s in the book. Techniques like stealing credit for someone else’s success, trapping someone in a compromising situation and then blackmailing them, using flattery to gain someone’s confidence and then at the right time backstabbing them at a key board meeting, et cetera, et cetera. These are the ugly tactics used for self-promotion to gain position in the corporate environment.

I don’t think James and John were at that level, but they’re jockeying for position in the kingdom. It’s been going on a long time, advancement by self-promotion. They come forward and make this selfish request. I want you to notice the context. Those of you here last week, you remember what I preached on as Jesus predicted again what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem. He was going to go up to Jerusalem and He was going to die on the cross. They were going to spit on him. They were going to beat him. They were going to crucify him. This is what’s going to happen. Then James and John come and say, “Hey, let us sit at your right and left side.”

The timing’s terrible, the selfishness. Do you see? It’s just really shocking as they come angling for this position, but that’s how they do. They come in and they ask effectively for a blank check from Jesus. Look at the text 35-37, “Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. ‘Teacher,’they said, ‘we want you to do for us whatever we ask.’” Interesting. I liked this answer, “What do you want me to do for you?” Notice that. That’s a key moment right there like in the theology of prayer. It does matter what you ask. It needs to line up with my purposes. “What do you want me to do for you?” “They replied, ‘Let us sit one of us at your right hand and the other at your left in your kingdom.'” We want you to do whatever we ask. Jesus says, “You got to tell me what you want.” They want to be effectively the second and third most powerful men on earth. That’s what they’re asking for. They want to sit at Jesus’s right and his left in his glory, in his kingdom glory, his place of access to power and of personal prestige and exaltation. In Matthew’s account, this request comes through their mother, “Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and kneeling down asked a favor of them.” One thing you learn with the synoptic gospels, whenever any one of them adds some information, that’s true. If the other one doesn’t have it, they’re just simplifying the account and leaving things out. All of the gospels leave things out, but this is what happened.

Ultimately, Jesus knows who put the mother up. It was coming from James and John, but they’re going with mom, kneeling down to ask a favor of them. “’What is it you want?’, He asked. She said, ‘Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.'” Some of you moms will know exactly what’s going on here. This is a big moment for her. Indications are from the studies and the New Testament that this woman, James and John’s mother was named Salome and was a sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus, so is therefore Jesus’ aunt and that would make James and John Jesus’ cousins. Friends, this is nepotism. That’s what this is. This is family ties. This is an old, old trick here. Napoleon places brothers on thrones all around Europe. This is what people do.

Jesus wants to expose this perversion of greatness here, verse 42, “Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are rulers, regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their high officials exercise authority over them.’” This is the perversion of these positions of power having obtained them through self-promotion. The Gentiles use them for selfish purposes. They dominate others and they stoke their egos with their positions of power, with displays of grandeur.

They’re these outward displays of power and prestige, trumpet sounding at the approach of the Roman governor, regal purple banners fluttering in the air, a manner of superiority in their speech, haughty air like the famous statement made by Maria Antoinette about the poor in France, “Let them eat cake.” There’s that dismissive attitude toward the poor. These rulers and officials love the places of honor and the most important seats and the lofty greetings and the words of praise, the trappings of power. This is the way it always is with the rulers of the Gentiles. It’s what they do. You think about the Sun King, Louis the 14th of France built the Palace of Versailles with the most elaborate displays of wealth, golden frameworks around mirrors, embedded jewels in fireplaces, crystal chandeliers, a whole hall of mirrors to give visiting dignitaries from other nations as well as his own people a sense of their own smallness and inferiority compared to him, the Sun King, Louis the 14th. Ultimately, worldly rulers use their positions to fatten themselves with luxurious living. Sadly, it seems some of this was on James and John’s mind too. That’s why Jesus mentions it. They’re hiding behind their mother. They’re using family connections. They’re angling for top positions in Jesus’ kingdom.

Now, keep in mind, the disciples’ errant view of what was about to happen was effectively a secular kingdom of power and prestige, just like Jesus is talking about here. That’s what they thought was about to happen. Jesus is going to use his supernatural power to defeat the Romans, defeat all Gentile enemies and establish a Jewish empire from sea to sea ruling over the entire earth with Jesus as the king, and them, second and third in power. That’s what they thought was about to happen. Jesus has to expose how faulty that view of power really is.

II. The Price of Greatness: Suffering

Secondly, we see the price of greatness which is suffering. “’You do not understand what you’re asking,’” verse 38, “Jesus said. ‘Can you drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I’m baptized with?’” Again, the context. As I said, the very last thing that happened is Jesus, in detail, predicted the sufferings He was about to go through. He’s bringing their minds to this again and again. They did not expect the crucifixion. They weren’t thinking it was going to happen. It did not factor in. You don’t understand what you’re asking, He says. He has to educate them. He has to strip their presumptions bear. Like all the other disciples, their understanding of the kingdom and its glory is woefully inadequate. Jesus has to educate them about the nature of the kingdom and the positions of power within it.

Now, note something very important. Jesus does not deny that there are such positions of power, there are. There will be individuals sitting at his right and his left in his glory. It’s actually going to happen. The Book of Revelation pictures 24 elders seated on 24 glorious thrones, encircling the throne of God. Jesus said the twelve would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel [Matthew 19:28], but they definitely don’t understand the price of all of that. They don’t understand the cross. The blood of Jesus essential that must be shed for their sins to qualify them to be in heaven at all and the suffering needed to build his worldwide kingdom, they didn’t understand any of that. So no, they don’t understand what they’re asking and neither do we really, but Jesus is ready in this text through the Holy Spirit to educate all of us. The price of glory is suffering.

Verse 38, “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I’m baptized with?” What is the cup? What is the cup Jesus is going to drink? In Gethsemane, we’re going to see him shrinking back from the cup. God reveals the cup to him, I believe at a far deeper level than even Jesus had ever seen before, and it literally will knock him to the ground and cause blood to come out of his pores as He contemplates the cup. He says in Mark 14:36, “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” What is a cup that could knock Jesus to the ground but the cup of God’s infinite wrath against sin? Jesus will have to drink it to save us from that wrath. That’s the cup. It’s a cup of suffering that He’s going to pay.

As always, Jesus brings their naive and immature conceptions again to the cross because they just can’t seem to understand it. The baptism, what is that? It’s just a different way of saying the same thing, I believe. The cup is the baptism, which is different ways of talking about it. Baptism means “immersion”. That’s what the word means, and Jesus is going to be plunged into a sea of sorrow, plunged into a sea of the wrath of God, plunged into a sea of sin as our sin bearer, as our substitute. Jesus says in Luke 12:50, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished?” Literally in the KJV of that verse, Luke 12:50, He says, “How straightened.” I am straightened as if constrained in a straight jacket. I’m like in a straight jacket until I finally die on the cross. Jesus lived his whole life under the cloud of the cross, under the pressing crush of that weight. He’s always thinking about it and they make a typically glib answer. “You don’t know what you’re asking. Can you drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I’m baptized with?” “We can,” they answered. Jesus had already said, “You don’t understand what you’re asking.” He could say it again, you don’t understand what you’re talking about. They had no real conception of this cup, no real conception of the baptism, and so they lightly said it. They overestimate just like Peter will do, “Even if all fall away, I never will,” overestimating. We’re going to spend eternity studying the infinite dimensions of that cup and that baptism. We’ll spend eternity plumbing its infinite depths. They don’t even have the first small inkling of what they’re talking about. James and John thought they could handle anything that came their way or was required for the seeds of honor and the kingdom, but then Jesus made a prophecy about their future. In verse 39, He says, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I’m baptized with.” They would share in Christ’s sufferings. There would be bitter drops that would come from Jesus’ cup. They would not drink the cup, but they would drink from the cup. They would drink an aspect of it.

“Baptism means ‘immersion’. That’s what the word means, and Jesus is going to be plunged into a sea of sorrow, plunged into a sea of the wrath of God, plunged into a sea of sin as our sin bearer, as our substitute.”

James would be the first of the twelve apostles to be martyred as the account gives us in Acts chapter 12. King Herod had him beheaded, executed. John, his brother, would die in exile on the island of Patmos off the coast of Asia Minor, having suffered for the kingdom of God and the testimony of Jesus, he said. Now neither of them would truly drink the cup, the wrath of God for sins. That’s something Jesus had to do alone. He had to do it alone. He’s the only one that could do it, but they would drink some of this. So fundamentally, the lesson here is places of honor are won by suffering for the kingdom. They have a high price tag. There is a cup of suffering necessary for all who would be honored by the kingdom.

III. The Plan of Greatness: Sovereignty

Thirdly, the plan of greatness, and that is sovereignty. They were forgetting the plan of almighty God. Ultimately, all places of honor have already been earmarked. They’ve already been tabbed by almighty God. God’s not wondering who’s going to be sitting in those seats. He knows exactly who’s sitting in those seats. Look at verse 40, “To sit at my right or my left is not for me to grant. Those places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.” Jesus is pointing to the sovereign plan of almighty God. Everything has been planned out down to the tiniest detail. Nothing has been left to chance. God the Father has planned all of human history, planned it before the world began. All the days ordained for all of us were written in God’s book before one of them happened.

It says in Ephesians 1:11, “In him, we’re also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything after the council of his will.” How much is everything? Everything, friends, is everything. So no, it’s not an accident who’s going to sit at the right or the left in Jesus’ eternal kingdom. Those places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father. How does that work? The place of honor prepared by God’s plan before the foundation of the world, the fullness of time and the right time, individuals are born into certain circumstances. God shapes them and crafts them for a role in the kingdom, and He prepares good works in advance that they should walk in them, [Ephesians 2:10], and then He prepares them to walk in those good works, gets them ready to do it, and then He empowers them to do those good works which they could never have done apart from Jesus. “I am the vine. You’re the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing.” So abiding in Jesus by the power of Jesus, they do amazing good works even to the point of martyrdom, even to the point of laying down their lies for the kingdom. They do those good works. Specific servants suffer specific miseries and pains and dangers for the kingdom, and they receive corresponding honors because of them.

Paul mentions in Philippians 2, a man named Epaphroditus. He says in Philippians 2:29-30, “Honor men like him because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me.” Honor men like him because he risked his life for the gospel. Or again, we have the great hall of faith. Hebrews 11:36-38 says, “Some faced jeers and flogging. Still others were chained, put in prison. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goat skins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground.“

The price of greatness is suffering and the honors and the thrones and all that are proportional to that. Can you drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I’m baptized with?

Ultimately, even those great servants of God who do great things for Christ will understand in heaven how they don’t deserve to be there. Their sins were paid for by the blood of Jesus. All of the good works they did, they did by the power of Christ. So like the twenty-four elders in Revelation 4, they’re going to be continually getting down off their thrones of glory and casting their crowns before the throne of God forever, but there are their thrones and there are their crowns to cast because they belong to them.

 All positions of power and honor come from God’s sovereign plan. John the Baptist himself said this, John 3:27, “A man can receive only what has given him from heaven.” Again, Psalm 75:6 and 7, “No one from the East or the West or from the desert can exalt a man, but it is God who judges. He brings one down and he exalts another.” It’s the plan of God.

IV. The Path of Greatness: Servanthood

Fourth, the path of greatness is servanthood. The ten were indignant when they heard this. Look at verse 4. This is so human, isn’t it? Aren’t you glad? I’m not glad for sin, but I’m glad that the Bible’s honest. Listen to this, “When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John.” They’re pridefully angered. They’re annoyed. They’re irritated. Pride was corrupting their relationships already. The lust for power was in them. The precise thing that brought Satan down from his glory, a lust for power, was in their hearts too. Deep roots in human natures, deeply in these twelve. Jesus has to deal with this again and again and again with these men. He dealt with it in Mark 9. We already saw when they’re arguing, remember, about which of them was the greatest. He has to take a little child and have the child stand among them. He’s going to have to deal with it right to the end, the last supper. As they go in there, they’re arguing about which of them is the greatest. If I can just stop the narrative right there and say “none of them.”

In our text today, it says, “Whoever wants to become great…” He’s showing a pathway to greatness. How can we become great because we’re not great yet? What had these guys done? They went out on a mission trip and drove out some demons by the power of Jesus and then they came back. Other than that, what did they do? They did what we read about them doing in the gospels, which isn’t much. So you want to become great? That’s what we’re talking about. How can I become a great man or woman of God? Here’s the path. He highlights the contrast between his kingdom and the world’s, as we’ve seen. Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are guarded as rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their high officials exercised authority over them, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first 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 from many.” 

So Jesus’ kingdom, his whole approach is radically different than the world’s. He’s going to say to Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest. But as it is, my kingdom’s of another place.” He has a whole different way of doing kingdom here. It’s a whole different approach. So they lord it over. They do all these places of honor. Jesus is going to go to a deeper level. Those kingdoms are built by prideful plunder, aren’t they? Isn’t that the history of the world? Bloodshed. People become powerful militarily, they see what their neighbors have. They figure they can take them in a fight, and they do. They sweep in into their walled villages and they take their stuff, their livestock, their gold and silver. They kill and plunder and they add them to their kingdom. That’s how empires have always been built. Read about it in Habakkuk chapter 2, “Woe to him, who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime.” That’s world history, friends. That’s why Daniel 7 pictures these empires as beasts coming up out of an ocean. They’re ravenous. That’s how the kingdoms of this world are built, but Jesus’ kingdom isn’t built that way, not by those who are willing to go kill, but by those who are willing to go die.

“Jesus’ kingdom isn’t built …by those who are willing to go kill, but by those who are willing to go die.”

It’s a whole different approach as He cites his whole strategy in John 12:24, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.” That’s how the kingdom is built. That’s what we’re talking about here. The pathway to greatness is fall to the ground and die. Serve, serve others, die to yourself. Again, ambition for kingdom and glory is not a bad thing. You want to be great? Good. I want you to be great. I want you to want to be great. Let me tell you how to become great. You should be ambitious to become great. Be great like this. Be a servant. Humble yourself now. Stop living for yourself. Stop living for your earthly advantages. Stop living for your earthly pleasures. Stop thinking, “What’s the best way I want to spend my time? How should I spend my money on myself? How can I advance my interest?” Stop all that. Deny yourself daily. Make yourself nothing and find out how you can meet the temporal needs of others? How can you bless someone else today? When you have achieved a beginning level of servanthood, become an even more servant. Go even lower. Just keep going down. Now, what more can I do? Go even lower. You want to become great? Be a servant. But if you want to be greatest, first of all, be the lowest of all. The low person was a “diákonos” from which we get the word “deacon”, a house servant, almost like a paid employee who did certain levels of tasks, but could leave the estate if he wanted to, a table waiter kind of thing. That’s a “diákonos”. You want to be great, be like that. But you want to be the first of all, be a “doulos”, a bond slave. The lowest of the low. Go from “diákonos” to a “doulos”. You see the dissent right here. You want to become great? Serve.

First of all, be everybody’s slave. That’s a downward journey. The downward journey Jesus is describing is the very one He went on and is on himself. We see the paradigm of greatness, our savior. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus left heaven’s glory and went down and then down some more and then down to the lowest place. First of all, He left a throne of glory that we can scarcely imagine and took on a human form. He was born in a stable to a poverty-stricken, obscure Jewish couple. He lived a humble life as a carpenter’s son. He learned the trade from his father, Joseph. He took orders from customers for how they wanted the tables and chairs made and then did them. Let me think about the humility of that. It’s like, “Do you know who I am?” “I don’t care who you are. I want my tables and chairs by next Wednesday.” But Jesus wouldn’t have said, “Do you know who I am?” He would’ve taken the order. Having learned how to be a carpenter, He would’ve made the tables and chairs.

When the time came when He was about 30 years old, He’d began his public ministry. All it was every day was a life of servanthood of people. Think what it’s like, the healing ministry He did, which He seemed to do effectively one at a time with a touch, with a word, one person after another. No one was turned away, He never was too busy for anyone. He touched lepers. He drove demons out. He went with Jarius to heal his sick daughter. On route, He found out she was dead, and He went on and raised her from the dead. That’s who He was. Being found in appearance as a man He humbled himself and became obedient to his father, serving others day after day.

He never refused anyone, but the ultimate picture, of course, is the cross. His substitutionary death on the cross was the greatest act of humble servanthood in history. That was the consummation of his downward journey, to lay down his life willingly. He was despised and rejected, humiliated, beaten, mocked, spat upon, condemned, and crucified. Here Jesus asserts that He ended the world primarily to lay down his life as a substitutionary ransom for many. He came to serve to the uttermost, to lay down his life in the place of sinners.

Now, here, we get to the theology. We get to the core of our Christian faith. This is the central core doctrine of Christianity. This is how sinners like you and I will be able to stand before God on judgment day, blameless and unafraid, because Jesus laid down his life in our place. The word “ransom” here means the “payment of a price”, money, let’s say, to rescue a slave from bondage or a kidnapped victim from their captors. It’s the payment of a price to rescue people from danger. That’s what a ransom is. The Greek word “anti” is inserted here in the place of, so a substitute ransom. That’s the theology of our atonement. Jesus laid down his life, He shed his blood as a substitute ransom for our sins.

Some medieval theologians misunderstood this ransom idea and came up with a thought of the ransom to the devil theory. Have you ever heard something so stupid as that, as though God and the devil are equal bargaining partners? Not at all. Nothing could be further from the truth. In C.S. Lewis’s classic work, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, we see Aslan the lion making the payment of his life for Edmund’s liberation in response to the White Witch’s demands. It’s a powerful scene. But if we draw the line too directly, we could make a devastating theological mistake. Aslan clearly represents Christ in the story. The witch represents our accuser, Satan, all that’s true, but Satan is not God’s equal. Satan’s not the one receiving the ransom. Satan is going to be cast into the lake of fire for his transgressions. The ransom is paid to God and to the justice of God. The clearest verse on this is First Timothy 2: 5-6, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” There’s your ransom. Jesus is the mediator to go between, not between us and Satan or between God and Satan, but between us and God, Jesus the mediator. He pays his life as a ransom to God on our behalf. Why is that? Because the wages of sin is death. It was established in the Garden of Eden. The death penalty for sin is Ezekiel 18:4, “the soul who sins will die.” We deserve to die for our sins, not just the physical death, but eternal death in hell.

Jesus came to pay that debt, to give his life as a ransom for many. As Isaiah 53 says, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him. By his wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him [our substitute ransom], the iniquity of us all.” The reward of Jesus’ infinite servanthood is the highest position in the universe. “Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth that every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

Jesus has the place of greatest honor and greatest glory in the kingdom because He went the furthest down, but this is the same path that’s open for us, suffering service for the benefit of others, for the advancement of the kingdom.

V. Lessons

What lessons can we take from this? First of all, the most important lesson of all, trust in Christ for the payment of your sins. You cannot pay them yourself. It’s either trust Jesus or suffer eternal death in hell. Those are the choices. Jesus is willing to drink the cup of God’s wrath in your place. Trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins. Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life for you if you’ll trust in him.

Beyond that, be alert to your pride. Don’t say anything like, “Well, I thank you, God, that I’m nothing like James and John.” That would be a mistake. Say, “Lord, show me how I’m just like James and John, how I want a comfortable life, a powerful life, a prosperous life, an easy life. Just show me how I’m like that because I know I must be,” and then be willing to drink Jesus’ cup. We are positioned here in Durham to share the gospel with lost people. Most of them have already heard the gospel and rejected it. They’re not going to welcome you with open arms. If you are going to share the gospel in the workplace or in the neighborhood or as you meet, you’re probably going to have to take some heat. You’re going to have to take some fire. I don’t think it’s likely that you’re going to have one of the highest positions in the kingdom, but I don’t know who I’m talking to. Who knows?

When I read church history and I always read what some of our brothers and sisters were willing to pay to spread the gospel, I know I’m way low on the list. All I know is their honors will be my honors and I’m going to be celebrating with them just far from the center, but whatever God has for you to do is going to require suffering on your part. Be willing to suffer for the kingdom. Be willing to pay the price to share the gospel with lost people. Be willing to suffer. Understand that there will be positions of honor in the kingdom. It’s true. There will be people sitting at Jesus’ right and left and on down, but just know this. When one part of the body of Christ is honored, the whole body will be honored with it. We won’t be jealous at all in heaven. Not at all. So let’s celebrate that.

Let me say a word briefly to mothers. Today’s Mother’s Day. This morning, I was meditating on one verse that really captured me. It relates to this text, and it’s in the NIV’s translation of Psalm 18:35. There, David is celebrating God’s activity in his life to make him a victorious warrior. God had worked in him so that he could bend a bow of bronze with his arms. Here’s the verse in that translation, Psalm 18:35, “You stoop down to make me great.” Isn’t that a great verse for a Christian mother? You lower yourself. You get down to the child’s level, the infant’s level, the toddler’s level, the preschooler’s level, all that to make them great. How do you make them great?

Lead them to Christ. Teach them these themes. Teach them what God thinks is greatness. It’s something that Christian mothers can do. So I praise God for your ministry, sisters in Christ. I praise God. Stoop down, lower yourself like Jesus calls on us to do, to make your children great in the kingdom.

Finally, realize someday we’re going to see Christ in his glory, and we’re going to see the extent of his infinite greatness, what He was willing to do to get you to heaven. You’re going to be like those twenty-four elders. You’re going to be on your face. Whatever crowns you have to cast, you’re going to be casting them.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for the beauty of this text. Thank you for the greatness of Jesus. Thank you for the truth and what it teaches us about his kingdom. I pray, Lord, that you would enable each of us to be willing to suffer for the kingdom, to be willing to pay the price to see the Triangle area, Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, reached with the gospel. We thank you that you’ve enabled us, positioned us to be a light shining in a dark place. Lord, thank you for how the Bible teaches us the truth about our pride and about true humility and true greatness. By the Spirit, help us to drink in the truth of this word, to know that Jesus shed his blood, that we would not have to bear the price for our sins, and that we have a role to play in the kingdom. Help us to play it. In Jesus’ name, amen.

How can we understand true greatness? This is a question that presses itself on our minds consistently… anyone who follows sports knows the term “GOAT”: the “greatest of all time”. Some speak of this athlete, some of that; they debate the various credentials of each one, their records, their achievements. But it’s still just sports.

More serious-minded people try to evaluate genuine greatness among the leaders in world history. They look to great achievements that bettered the lives of human beings… measuring greatness by how individually influential this or that leader was.

Time Magazine, at the end of the 20th century, published an issue in which it listed the one hundred greatest or most influential people of that century… the greatest minds, the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century:

There were inventors and scientists, like the Wright Brothers who invented the airplane; Robert Goddard who invented the liquid-fueled rocket that would eventually lead to landing a man on the moon; Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the internet; William Shockley, who invented the transistor and ushered in the digital age; Enrico Fermi, who split the atom; and of course, Albert Einstein, who developed the theory of relativity that changed the course of physics.

Of course, there were influential political leaders, like Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King, Jr; Nelson Mandela.

There were even entertainers, film stars, rock stars, authors, poets, actors, fashion icons, business leaders: Coco Chanel, Lucille Ball, Bob Dylan, Charlie Chaplin, Sam Walton, etc.

However, the Time Magazine list was not seeking to identify if any of these people were actually great people… just whether they were most influential, having had GREAT IMPACT. So Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Mao Zedong, all mass murderers, were ranked in the sequence right next to others who were considered genuinely kind or loving, such as Billy Graham and Mahatma Gandhi. There was no filter for basic human goodness.

In our passage today, we have two disciples, James and John, seeking positions of greatness in the Kingdom of God. Jesus has the opportunity to address the topic of greatness… both great power and great human character, in one key moment. This lesson on the nature of true greatness stands over all human beings for all of history as both the goal to strive for and the standard by which we will be judged.

It ultimately doesn’t matter who the world thinks is greatest… on Judgment Day all that will matter is what God thinks. Here is the standard:

Mark 10:43-45  … whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  45 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.”

To Jesus Christ, true human greatness came down to this:  humble suffering servanthood!  Whoever was most willing to lay himself down for the good of others would be called greatest in the Kingdom of God.

This standard is so simple, yet it may be the most difficult lesson any of us ever learn.

I. The Perversion of Greatness: Self-Promotion
A. Greatness by Self-Promotion

1. Very common these days: putting yourself forward, espousing all your best attributes, selling yourself

2. However, it’s been going on a long time: James and John practiced it with Jesus twenty centuries ago

3. Secular kingdoms have been dominated by this kind of politicking throughout history

a. In the Roman Empire, counselors to the Caesars would orchestrate political scandals for one another to knock off their rivals by shame; that failing, they might just have them poisoned; Cicero, the leading orator of the Roman republic was an expert at dirty politics—smearing an opponent with innuendo of immorality

b. In the European courts of the Middle Ages, Lords and Nobles would fight jousts with each other to show their courage or loyalty or military prowess, and thus jockey for position; others would go on great quests to achieve some dramatic goal in order to secure the undying affection of the King

c. In the modern era, people use social media to cancel their rivals… smear tactics, finding some damning incident from their enemy’s past to destroy their career… and as it is said, “The internet never forgets”

d. The same thing happens in the corporate world as well: young ladder-climbers do so by power techniques; I am aware of a book entitled Twenty-one Dirty Tricks at Work: How to Win at Office Politics; it discusses techniques like stealing credit for someone else’s success; trapping someone in a compromising situation and then blackmailing them; using flattery to gain someone’s confidence, then backstabbing them at a key board meeting

e. So what James and John were doing has a long and dark history… advancement by self-promotion

B. The Selfish Request

1. Mark’s account… a sweeping blank check!

Mark 10:35-37  Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”  36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.  37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

Wow! Note the blank check they asked Jesus to hand them: “We want you to do for us WHATEVER WE ASK!”

Not so fast, says Jesus. First tell me what you want.

If we pray “according to God’s will” he hears us and gives us what we ask

Here, James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, are engaging in powerful self-promotion… they want to be the second and third most powerful men on earth. They want to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in his GLORY! In his Kingdom glory!

This is the place of access and power and exaltation

2. Amazingly, this request actually came through their mother!

Matthew 20:20-21  Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.  21 “What is it you want?” he asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”

a. Indications are that James and John’s mother was named Salome, and was a sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus… thus she was Jesus’ aunt and James and John were Jesus’ cousins

b. This is nepotism… using family ties to wrangle a position in court

c. Napoleon positioned his brothers as heads of state all over Europe

C. Further Display of the Perversion of Greatness

Mark 10:42  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.

1. This is the common perversion of these positions of power

2. Having obtained them through self-promotion, the Gentiles use them for selfish purposes

3. They dominate others and stoke their egos with big displays of grandeur

There are outward displays of power and prestige; trumpets sounding the approach of the Roman governor, regal purple banners fluttering in the air; a manner of superiority in their speech, the haughty air; like Marie Antionette’s cavalier attitude toward the starving poor of France, “Let them eat cake”… so these rulers and officials love the places of honor, the most important seats, the lofty greetings, the words of praise, the trappings of POWER

Louis XIV, the “Sun King” of France, built the Palace of Versailles, with the most elaborate displays of wealth, of golden frameworks, of imbedded jewels in the fireplaces and crystal chandeliers, of lavish artwork and mirrors—a whole hall of mirrors—to give the visiting dignitaries from other nations as well as his own people a sense of their inferiority and subordination

4. Ultimately, the worldly rulers use their positions to fatten themselves with luxurious living

Ezekiel 34:2-4   ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock?  3 You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.  4 You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.

5. Rulers should use their positions to care for the people; but usually they use their positions to feed their stomachs and clothe their bodies with silks

6. Sadly, it seems all of this was in James’ and John’s mind… and the mind of their mother!

So… James and John, hiding behind their mother, using family connections, try to angle for the top positions in Jesus’ Kingdom

Keep in mind, all the disciples assumed the kingdom of Christ was imminent, a triumphant conquest of all enemies resulting in a world-wide Jewish empire

James and John wanted the most important positions in that kingdom OF GLORY

II. The Price of Greatness: Suffering
Mark 10:38  “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

A. Education: You Don’t Know What You’re Asking

1. Jesus strips their presumption bare

2. Like all the other disciples, their understanding of the Kingdom is woefully inadequate; Jesus has to educate them about the nature of his kingdom and the positions of power within it

3. NOTE: Jesus doesn’t in any way deny there ARE such positions… there ARE seats at his right and his left (literally or metaphorically)… the Book of Revelation pictures twenty-four elders on glorious thrones; Jesus said the Twelve would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt. 19:28)

4. But they definitely don’t understand the CROSS of Christ essential to pay for their sins, and the suffering needed to build his kingdom

5. So… NO! They don’t understand what they’re asking

6. And neither do we. But Jesus is ready to educate us all on the price of glory

B. The Price of Glory: Suffering

Mark 10:38  “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

1. What is the cup Jesus is going to drink?

a. In Gethsemane, we will see Jesus knocked to the ground sweating great drops of blood concerning that cup

Mark 14:36  “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

b. It is the cup of suffering he will pay on the cross

c. As always, Jesus brings their naïve and immature minds to the cross, the PRICE of glory

2. What is the “baptism” he is to be baptized with

a. Again, it is the same thing… the cross, the agonizing death he must endure to pay for the sins of his people

b. Baptism = immersion; Jesus will be plunged into a sea of sorrow and pain and sin as our substitute

c. It was just about crushing him

Luke 12:50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!

KJV: “I am straitened…” constrained, as in a straitjacket; crushed; it weighed him down every single moment of his adult life

C. Their Glib Answer… and Jesus’ Prophecy About Them

Mark 10:38-39  “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”  39 “We can,” they answered.

1. The disciples had no real conception of this infinite burden

2. They lightly said they could drink Jesus’ cup and be baptized with his baptism

3. We will spend eternity studying and plumbing the depths of Jesus’ cup and baptism, they infinite dimensions of his atoning work on the cross

4. But James and John glibly thought they could handle anything that came their way or was required for the seats of honor in the kingdom

5. Jesus then made a powerful prophecy about their future:

Mark 10:39  “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with

Both of them would share in Christ’s sufferings… but in different ways

James would be the first of the Apostles to be martyred; he was executed with the sword at the command of King Herod in Acts 12; John, his brother, would die in exile on the tiny island of Patmos off the coast of modern-day Turkey

BUT neither of them would truly drink Jesus’ cup… the cup of atonement under the wrath of God; that was Jesus’ alone

Fundamentally, the lesson here is this: places of honor are won by those who suffer for the kingdom; there is a cup of suffering necessary for all who would be honored in the Kingdom of God

III. The Plan of Greatness: Sovereignty
A. They Were Forgetting the Plan of God

1. Ultimately all places of honor are planned and prepared by the meticulous sovereignty of Almighty God before the foundation of the world

2. Nothing has been left to chance: God plans all things carefully and down to the final detail

Ephesians 1:11   In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will

Isaiah 14:26-27  This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the hand stretched out over all nations.  27 For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

B. The Places of Honor are PREPARED by God

1. God prepares good works for us to do

Ephesians 2:10  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

2. God positions us and prepares us to do them

3. God empowers us to do them… but only IN CHRIST and by his power

John 15:5  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

4. Specific servants of God are rewarded for the selfless courage they show in drinking from Jesus’ cup

Philippians 2:29-30  honor men like him,  30 because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me.

Hebrews 11:36-38  Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.  37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated–  38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

5. Ultimately, God gets all the glory for their lives of courage

Revelation 4:10-11  …the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:  11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

C. So, All Positions of Power and Honor Come from God’s Sovereign Plan

John 3:27  “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven.

Psalm 75:6-7  No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man.  7 But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another.

IV. The Path of Greatness: Servanthood
A. The Ten Indignant

Mark 10:41  When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John.

Pridefully angered… jealous that they didn’t think of it themselves!

The Greek word implies profound annoyance, irritation

It is amazing how pride was corrupting their relationships: the lust for power was precisely what brought Satan down, when he yearned to ascend to the utmost position in heaven and take God’s place

Sadly, this stinkweed of sin has DEEP ROOTS in human nature… He’s already dealt with it in Mark 9, when they were arguing about which of them was the greatest and he had a little child stand among them; Jesus would deal with it AGAIN the night of the Last Supper and of his agony in Gethsemane; in the upper room, they would argue that very night about which of them was the greatest!! So Jesus washed their feet, humbling himself like a slave; how stubborn is this selfish pride, this self-glory!!

B. Jesus Highlights the Contrast Between His Kingdom and the World’s

Mark 10:42-45  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.  43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  45 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.”

1. Jesus’ kingdom is radically different from the world’s

John 18:36  Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

2. We’ve already spoken of the way the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over others and use their positions of power to benefit themselves

3. Now Jesus is going to a deeper level

4. The kingdoms of the world are build by bloodshed and plunder… conquest with the sword

Ezekiel 38:11-12  You will say, “I will invade a land of unwalled villages; I will attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people– all of them living without walls and without gates and bars.  12 I will plunder and loot and turn my hand against the resettled ruins and the people gathered from the nations, rich in livestock and goods, living at the center of the land.”

Habakkuk 2:12-14  “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime!  13 Has not the LORD Almighty determined that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?  14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

5. Jesus’ kingdom is built with servants willing to die, not to kill

John 12:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

C. Servanthood: The Path of True Greatness

1. Ambition for Kingdom Glory is NOT Evil… Jesus Redirects It

2. Whoever wants to be great, must be a SERVANT to all

a. The Greek

b. Humble yourself now

c. Stop living for yourself, your earthly advantages, your earthly pleasures, your earthly prestige and power and glory

d. Deny yourself daily, and make yourself nothing, and meet the temporal and eternal needs of OTHERS

e. And when you have achieved genuine servanthood and want still more, go EVEN LOWER

3. Whoever wants to be greatest… first in rank… must go even lower and be slave of all

a. The low position was servant… diakonos… almost like an employee is today, who got paid for his work and could walk away if he chose

b. a diakonos did menial labor in a house—scrubbing floors, cleaning rooms, waiting tables like a tablewaiter, living to see that others have enough food to eat, enough to drink, that their bodies are comfortable and all their needs met

c. BUT the lowest position was a SLAVE… doulos… bought at a price, owned by the master, given the most menial chores, no matter how abasing

4. So in effect Jesus is describing a DOWNWARD JOURNEY to greatness for the leaders of His church

5. That is the path Jesus himself went

V. The Paradigm of Greatness: Our Savior
Mark 10:45  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.

A. Jesus Left Heaven’s Glory and Went Down, Down, Down to the Lowest Place

1. Took on a human form

2. Born in a stable to a poverty-stricken, obscure Jewish couple

3. He lived a humble life as a carpenter’s son, learning the trade till he was about thirty years old; taking orders from Joseph and from their customers, making wooden items

4. When the time came to begin saving work, he humbled himself to be baptized by John as if he were a sinner himself, though he never sinned

5. Then in his ministry, he served everyone who came to him for any need… touching lepers, going with Jairus to heal his daughter, healing lame and blind and deaf and demon-possessed people

6. He never refused anyone, was servant to all; it seemed anyone and everyone could impinge on his time… and never once did he murmur, never once did he lord it over anyone, claiming “Do you know who I am?” He never demanded worship, or forced people to speak to him with titles of honor

B. The Greatest Picture of Servanthood: Death on a Cross

1. BUT the ultimate servanthood was this:  His substitutionary death on the cross was the greatest act of humble servanthood in history

2. In his downward journey, he went so far as to lay down his life willingly

3. He was despised and rejected, humiliated, beaten, mocked, spat upon, condemned, and crucified…

4. He humbled himself even to the point of death, even death on a cross

5. Here Christ asserts that He entered the world PRIMARILY to lay down His life as a substitutionary ransom for many

a. His death was no accident… it was the very purpose of His entering the world

b. Christ came to serve to the uttermost, to meet the greatest need with the greatest cost, the greatest sacrifice:  His OWN LIFE

C. Theology of Atonement: “Gave His Life as a Ransom for Many”

1. The word “ransom” means the payment of a price; sometimes the word is used to refer to money paid to rescue prisoners of war, or money paid to get slaves out of their servitude:  MONEY PAID TO GET SOMEONE OUT OF TROUBLE

2. Along with this it is striking that Jesus life is the RANSOM and it is paid literally “INSTEAD OF” many… in the place of, is the Greek word “anti”… this clearly teaches SUBSTITUTIONARY ATONEMENT

3. Some medieval theologians misunderstood the word “ransom” and thought Jesus was paying a ransom to the devil:  nothing could be farther from the truth; Satan has no such authority to receive the ransom price

4. No, the ransom was paid to the justice of God, the Law of God’s claim on us as sinners… the DEATH penalty

Genesis 2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.

Ezekiel 18:4  the soul who sins shall die.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death

Christ came to pay the debt of many sinners… to give His life in their place, to lay down His life as a RANSOM in the place of MANY

Isaiah 53:5-6  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.  6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

D. The Reward of Jesus’ Infinite Servanthood: the Highest Position in the Universe

Philippians 2:9-11  Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,  10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus has the place of greatest honor and glory in the kingdom. But his downward path of suffering humble servanthood is the pattern for all who would follow him.

To those people, suffering servants, he will reward with places and emblems of honor in his eternal kingdom.

VI. Lessons
A. Be Alert to Your Pride

B. Be Ready to Drink from Jesus’ Cup

C. Understand the Places of Honor in the Kingdom

D. Follow the Path of True Servanthood

E. Honor Christ for His Humility

F. Allow Christ to Pay for Your Sins