The Cruciform Life, Pt. 1
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\Watch what happens when a group photo gets taken. People shift, pose, and quietly figure out where they want to stand to be noticed. Pastor Nick Gatzke explains that the twelve men closest to Jesus were no different. They spent a surprising amount of time jockeying for position. Find out how to get noticed in the Kingdom of God
Let’s pray together. Father, we thank you for your word and as we look at it now, we pray that you would continue to encourage us where we need encourage, convict us where we need conviction, that you would continue to conform us to the likeness of your son for our good and your glory, we pray. Amen.
I read a funny article the other day, and it was about a trend that has been growing for the last five years or so. The trend is that savvy business people have started to make photography studios that look like the inside of private jets. They have rounded walls. They have small circular windows. There’s bright light that is shining through those windows to emulate flying at altitude. They have fine wood grain accents. and plush leather chairs. The creators of these types of studios, of course, spent time in different private jets to try to get just the right feel to recreate the environment. And why would they recreate this environment, you might ask? For a feature film, that would seem to make sense. No, these studios in Los Angeles, in Toronto, in Stockholm, Sweden, and other places, are rented out for $70 an hour. They are often booked for 12 hours a day by social media influencers, people who take pictures of themselves on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook. If they can convince people on those platforms that they have access to or are seen in a private jet, then clearly, obviously, their fame must be growing. And with fame comes the opportunity for more luxury, and luxury begets more luxury. After all, only people who’ve really made it can afford to fly on a private jet.
That got me thinking about the shape of our lives. What is important to us and what we find value in. I mean, it’s a bizarre thing to try to deceive people into thinking that you fly around in private airplanes. Like, that’s just weird. But I’m pretty sure there are some bizarre things that many of us are willing to do to have people view us in a certain way as well. In Mark chapter 10, Jesus is continuing to teach his disciples about the shape of life, the shape that a life takes for a person that is a true follower of him. And it’s the exact opposite shape that you might expect the world to present as one who is successful, as one who’s really made it. So let’s see what he says about it.
In Mark chapter 10, starting at verse 31. Today we’re going to read from verse 31 all the way to verse 52. And this is what it says. Jesus speaking says, “But many who are first will be last, and the last first. 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 12 again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and 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 to him and said to him, “teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “what do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left hand in your glory.” And Jesus said to them, “you do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “we are able.” And Jesus said to them, “the cup that I drink you will drink. And with 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 10 heard it, They began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him, and he 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 with you. For whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be a 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.””
“And they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving Jericho with the disciples in a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” And many rebuked him telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying, “Take heart, get up. He is calling you.” And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, Let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “go your way. Your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.”
Jesus has been showing his disciples the nature of relationships in the kingdom of God and especially the dynamic of status and position. He had just engaged a group of children. in the previous chapter, while teaching his disciples. Now, children had no status in Jewish society at all. They were considered to be something less than, not yet formed adults.
But Jesus welcomed them, and then he makes a profound statement. Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Children are helpless and completely dependent on their parents. Jesus indicates that is to be our posture before God, helpless and dependent. That’s the posture of faith.
And then a rich young man comes to Jesus with all of the self-confidence and self-dependence a person could have. And Jesus asks him to give up all of his possessions and follow him, but the man is unable to do it. His wealth had become a source of self-dependence.
Put those stories on top of each other, and you see that there’s a temptation in life to seek to be the first through status. But Jesus shows with the children that status will not gain a standing in the kingdom of God. And there’s a temptation in life to be the first in this world through wealth, but Jesus shows with the rich man that You don’t gain standing with God through your wealth. Helpless dependence on God is the expression of genuine faith.
And so verse 31 says, “but many who are first in the world will be last and the last first.” That is to say, I know. what you are observing as you process how things work in this world. But they are not as they seem. There are many who will appear to be of the highest standing in society or in the world. They appear to be first. They appear to be first because of the right status or because of the right job or because they have the right looks or because they have the advantage of money and possessions.
But many who are first will be last. And many who are last in the world will be first. And as Mark so often does, he stacks all of these events and all these interactions on top of each other to drive home the point of how this actually works its way out in your life. Why would you want to be considered last on earth? How does that work its way out practically? The disciples haven’t gotten the message yet. James and John ask Jesus about their place in heaven.
Their desire is to be first in eternity. without being last on earth. You know, it’s always a setup when the kids come to you and say something like, Dad, I’m going to ask you a question. I need you to say yes before I even ask it. And that’s exactly what James and John do to Jesus. But like a good parent, he doesn’t take the bait. He asks them what they want. And the answer was that they desired to be first in eternity. Disciples had already argued about this amongst themselves.
You might remember just back in chapter 9, they’re walking along the way. They’re arguing about who amongst them are the greatest. They’re worrying and jockeying for status. This was an old-fashioned locker room flexing contest. And they all wanted to be viewed as having the biggest muscles. And that raises all kinds of interesting questions about the nature of the relationship of these disciples, doesn’t it? Like, did they really like each other? Did some of them like each other or not? We don’t really know. It’s a little microcosm of how different people from different walks of life get along as they try to love each other and serve the Lord and follow him with their life, and they weren’t there yet.
In some ways, it’s a microcosm of a whole bunch of other people. From all kinds of different walks of life, love each other and serve each other and sometimes get along and sometimes not and maybe aren’t quite there yet. And so James and John decide that they weren’t going to bother with trying to prove themselves to be superior to the other 10. They thought they’d go right to the master to secure their place as the greatest among those 12 disciples and among all other humanity, mind you.
And they asked the question, grant us, grant the two of us and only the two of us to sit at your right hand and at your left in your glory. How did we get back here so quickly? I mean, Jesus already addressed this with them. Well, it turns out pride is pretty hard to kill. Andrew Murray once said that “pride is a hideous monster. Humility is the mother of virtue.” I like the little saying with regard to pride, “your halo only has to slip a few inches to become a noose.”
There was a young woman that asked for the appointment with her pastor to talk about her besetting sin, which she was worried about, and her sin was pride, and she could not break free from it. And so when she came in and she met with her pastor, she said, “Pastor, I’ve become aware of a sin in my life and I can’t control it. Every time I am at church, I begin to look around the room at the other women and I realize that I am the prettiest one in the entire church congregation. And none of these other women compare to my beauty. And I can’t stop thinking about it. What am I supposed to do with this sin?” To which the pastor replied, “Mary, that’s not a sin. That’s just a mistake.”
One author says “to be ambitious of true honor and of real glory and perfection of our nature is the very principle and incentive of virtue. But to be ambitious of titles and place and ceremonial respects and pageantry is as vain and little as the things are which we court.”
The request of James and John to sit at his right hand and his left hand in your glory was really a request to share in that glory. You see, when they said that Jesus was to enter his glory, they obviously thought that Jesus’s glory would be on his throne. Their request was not to just be near to the Savior. Their request was one of personal ambition. For them, glory meant ruling on the throne. But we know that the actual moment of Jesus’s greatest glory wasn’t on the throne. In the moment of greatest glory, he would be flanked by a person on his right and his left, but they would be criminals hanging on a cross, flanking his own. And so his response to the disciples was, you have no idea what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the cup which I am baptized. Those expressions point to a cup of suffering that Jesus would drink and an Old Testament imagery of baptism or immersion as a sign of God’s wrath, like the floodwaters rising to exact judgment on sinful humanity.
Jesus would endure suffering and the wrath of God. Were they willing to do that? They had no idea what they were asking. Jesus really would become last. He would become the lowest of the low. And this would be the road to glory for him. And becoming last will become the road to glory for you and for me as well. At this point, you’re thinking to yourself, I’m sure, how could these stupid disciples keep missing the point? And we should be asking, in what ways are we missing the point in the way we live our lives right now?
Jesus models that the last on earth will be the first in eternity. He goes on to describe that for them. He’d already told them twice of his coming suffering and persecution. Just… Back at the end of chapter 8, he predicted suffering and rejection by the chief priests and death and resurrection, and it was followed by a call. And the call was, if anyone would come after me, “let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” And then just one chapter later, at the end of chapter 9, he predicts his death at the hands of men and his resurrection after three days.
And this was followed by disciples arguing about who was the greatest, and then he issues them this call. He says, if anyone would be first, “he must be last of all and the servant of all.” And now in chapter 10, here we are again, the third time that Jesus is telling those who are closest to him what is going to happen. And he says in verse 32, you can follow with me. “See, we’re going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and 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.” Jesus refers to himself as the son of man. This is a reference. This title is a reference back to the Old Testament. Back to a vision in Daniel chapter 7, a vision of the end times, a vision of God.
The title itself, Son of Man, is not insignificant. The Son of Man is the picture of glory and honor and the highest of status. Just listen to a couple verses of it with me. Daniel 7, 13, it says, “I saw in the night visions and behold. With the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man. And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people’s nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” Glory, honor, kingship. authority and dominion over all peoples for all time. That was the son of man. And Jesus applies the title to himself. And then he explains how he’s going to be killed. These two things are not compatible. Glory and honor. How could the son of man be killed?
How could the most glorious one be persecuted? How could the one who should obviously have the highest standing, the one who is definitely first, how could that one be killed and have the lowest standing and definitely be last? And herein lies the point. The first on earth are last in eternity, but the last on earth are first in eternity.
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This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.
