Not Another Earthly King [A]

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One of my favorite movies has always been Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Now that doesn’t mean I endorse everything that’s in that movie. There are some things, there are scenes in that movie that bother me.

As a matter of fact, I think one of the reasons it’s my favorite is it’s one of the first movies I remember watching with my dad, and he would record movies when they’d show them on TV, because that’s what you did back then. And it’s amazing to me now, you know, with things being available on Amazon and Netflix, how much cleaner they were when they were shown on TV in the early 90s. We’ve sat down and tried to watch some movies with our kids, and I’m telling Charlotte, oh, I don’t remember that part.

But Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, their goal in that movie is to find the Holy Grail. And I’m going to spoil the ending of it for you. If you haven’t seen it, I’m sorry.

I know some of you may be just eager to see it. You’ve had 30 or 40 years. So I think it came out in the mid-80s sometimes.

So if you haven’t seen the ending and you’re eager to see it, just plug your ears until I wave my hand, right? So at the ending of it, they’re on this search for the Holy Grail. And I realize this is all fictional. But they come into this cave and they’re presented with a table lined with cups.

And they’re told, you have to choose. And if you drink out of the true grail, it’ll bring you eternal life. Which we know that’s not how it works.

Also, I’ve been puzzled, as much as I love the Indiana Jones movies, I’m not sure how, if his dad drank out of the holy grail, how he was dead in the fourth movie. That’s a major plot hole that somebody needs to reconcile for me. What?

You had to stay in that area? Okay, oh, no, no, I don’t. Okay, we’ll talk tomorrow.

I’m not. . .

All right. Anyway, I’m not trying to shut you down. I’m saying we’ll talk tomorrow because I’ve got questions about that theory.

Anyway, so they are presented with this row of cups, this table full of cups, and they have to pick which one was Jesus’ cup that he supposedly drank out of at the Last Supper. And Indiana Jones’ rival goes ahead and he picks the most spectacular cup on the table and he says, this cup truly belongs to the king of kings. And he drinks out of it and turns to dust. And the knight says he chose poorly.

So Indiana Jones picks the most humble looking cup on the table and says this, one that you almost wouldn’t even notice, and says this is the cup of a carpenter. And again, I know that that’s a fictional story. By the way, end of the spoiler, if you’re plugging your ears.

I know it’s a fictional story, but that has stuck with me for a long time, and it illustrates, in my mind at least, how so many people misunderstand Jesus and what He was about, at least in His first coming. We know that He’s coming back as the King of kings. There’s no doubt in my mind.

We were talking in the foyer just before church started about Him coming back, And I made the statement before long, he’s going to pull over the car and take off his belt. We understand that he’s coming back as the king of kings. But to understand his first coming and the significance of that, many times people misunderstand what he came to do.

Even in his own time, there were people that thought he should be drinking out of the spectacular cup when he came to drink out of the carpenter’s cup. He talked about being a king. He taught about his kingdom.

But even in his own day, and this is not the first time we’ve hit on this subject, if you feel like I’m repeating myself through this series, blame it on Mark, all right? Actually blame it on the Holy Spirit who inspired Mark. But there are some things I submit to you that are in there multiple times, or the point is made multiple times in different stories, because it’s hard for us to grasp.

And evidently it was hard for them to grasp who Jesus really was and what the nature of his kingdom was. They thought he was coming to be some powerful earthly king. They thought he was coming to be somebody who would drive out the Romans, somebody who would set up a golden age in Israel.

They were looking to be the entourage, the hangers-on, who were going to get to be swept into power with him. But from this story that we’re going to look at today, I say story, it’s really a series of conversations that Jesus has, about three conversations. We’re going to see how the disciples not only misunderstood what Jesus meant when he mentioned the cup that he drinks from, which ties in with the cup I just talked about, but how the world in general so frequently misunderstands the role that he plays or that he played.

And so we’re going to look at Mark chapter 10. We’re going to start in verse 28 tonight where we left off last time. And we’re going to go through verse 45.

If you would, turn there with me in your Bibles. And once you find it, if you would stand with me if you’re able to do so without too much trouble. And if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find the passage, it’ll be on the screen for you back here.

So starting in verse 25, I’m sorry, verse 28. Then Peter began to say to him, See, we have left all and followed you. So Jesus answered and said, Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospels who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children, and lands with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

But many who are first will be last, and the last first. Now we’ll come back to that in just a second here. When Peter starts in by saying, we have left things behind, we cannot separate this from the context of what we’ve been reading, where the last time we studied this, He’s dealing with the rich young ruler who he said, if you want eternal life, you would have to follow the commandments. Meaning, if you’re wanting to earn it, you’d have to earn it by being perfect.

The man says, I’ve followed the commandments perfectly since the time I was a young man. And Jesus says, then there’s one thing you lack. Sell all you have, give the money to the poor, and follow me.

That’s not a commandment for everybody. That’s not saying that that’s how we earn eternal life. That was a test designed to show the man the idols that still dwelt in his own heart, that he was not following the commands perfectly.

And it says that he walked away sad because he had a lot of possessions. Now, Peter, on the heels of that, is saying, well, what about us? And also they had the conversation about it being more difficult for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle.

And them saying, well, if he can’t make it into heaven, who can? And Jesus says, with man it’s impossible, but with God all things are possible. So Peter now comes back to this man who has refused to leave things behind, and he’s saying, well, what about us?

We’ve left so much behind for you. And Matthew gives a little bit more information that Peter follows that up with, what is there for us? Basically, we’ve left everything to follow you like he wouldn’t, so what do we get in the kingdom?

Got to understand where he’s coming from. And Jesus begins to talk about the repayment that they’ll receive, the reward that they’ll receive. Now verse 32.

Now when they were on the road going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was going before them, and they were amazed. And as they followed, they were afraid. And he took the twelve aside and began to tell them the things that would happen to him.

They’re afraid, possibly because of some of the things that they’ve heard. They’re afraid, maybe at the thought, that this man who appears to be so favored by God is not going to make it into heaven. The question they asked, what shot do we have?

They were probably worried about that. They were likely worried about the future of what was going to happen when they went to Jerusalem, because everybody kind of understood Jerusalem is not a good place for Jesus to be right now. It’s not going to be a welcoming place.

Then he took the twelve aside and began to tell them all the things that would happen to him. Here’s what he said, verse 33. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles, and they will mock him and scourge him and spit on him and kill him, and the third day he will rise again.

So he’s telling them, you’re worried about what’s going to happen in Jerusalem. Let me tell you, don’t worry. It’s going to be terrible, right?

If you just know going into it, it’s going to be terrible. You can stop worrying about it. They had a spelling bee at the school the other day, and one of my children was worried about, I’m worried about how I’m going to do.

And I told that child, don’t worry about it. Just do your best. Statistically speaking, you’re probably going to spell something wrong because it goes on until only one person is left. And one time I won a spelling bee even having missed a word because we all missed the word in that round.

So everybody misspelled something. I said, at some point you’re going to misspell a word. So just don’t worry about it.

Do your best. I don’t know if that helped or not, but it’s kind of that approach. It’s going to be terrible when we go to Jerusalem, but it’s going to end up well. Verse 35, then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him saying, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.

And he said to them, what do you want me to do for you? You see the wisdom of Jesus on display. He doesn’t say sure.

He says, what do you want? They said to him, grant us that we may sit on your right hand and the other on your left in your glory. But Jesus said to him, you do not know what you ask.

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They said to him, we are able. They clearly didn’t understand.

So Jesus said to them, you will indeed drink the cup that I drink and with the baptism I am baptized with, you will be baptized. But to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared. And when the 10 heard it, they began to be greatly displeased with James and John.

But Jesus called them to himself and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you. But whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. And you may be seated. Thank you.

I realize that was a long time to stand, but I appreciate you. There were some things that I needed to explain about the text as we went through it because I didn’t know if I’d come back and deal with it or not. We are in between the story of the rich young ruler that we did last week and the story of some healings that he does on the way to Jerusalem.

As I was going through this section in between, I didn’t feel like any of the three sections, any of the three conversations going on here, that any of them would, gave me the material I was looking for that I needed to form a whole message just on that, that would be much different from what I’ve told you about Mark in the past. And yet I put the three conversations together and trying to figure out what all together they tell us? What is the point that we can draw from all three of these together? And finally, I realized after struggling through it for a while, what these three sections of the text, what these three conversations tell us together is that they show us how different Jesus is from other earthly kings.

You know, we’re taught as preachers that when you’re preparing a message, you want to come around eventually to what are we supposed to do with this message. But I don’t know that that’s always the case. I mean, a lot of times, yes, we want to go out and apply what we’ve learned, but sometimes the point of the message is just to be in awe of Jesus.

Sometimes the point of the text is just to be in awe of Jesus, not to go do anything. Now, if the Holy Spirit leads you to go do something as a result of your awe over Jesus, then please do what the Holy Spirit tells you to do. But sometimes the point of the text is just to recognize who he is.

And in this text, I see about five things that separate Jesus from earthly kings, from other earthly kings. And true to Adrian Rogers’ style, they all involve the letter S. So we’re going to go through these five tonight that I see in this text.

One way that our king stands out from earthly kings is that our king supplies the needs of his people. You see this in verses 29 through 31, where he’s talking about what they’ve left behind and what they’re going to receive in return. You see, earthly kings, they focus on supplying themselves.

They focus on taking the people’s possessions and enriching themselves and supporting themselves. But Jesus promised to take care of the needs of his people. I mean, that’s a pretty standard thing with earthly rulers.

That’s why Samuel warned the people against having a king. He said, he’s going to confiscate your goods to supply the royal palace. He’s going to take your stuff.

He’s going to take it by force. But Jesus promised instead of the people taking care of him, he was going to take care of the people. The disciples, as I mentioned already, they were kind of concerned about what they had given up to follow Jesus.

I don’t know that they were looking necessarily for a monetary payoff, but they’re concerned that their sacrifices are going to be in vain or at least not remembered. And so Jesus answers in verses 29 through 31 and says, Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospels who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first. One thing, well, I’ll come to that in a minute.

He says with persecutions in verse 30, we often overlook that. And if memory serves, Mark is the only one who mentions that phrase. You should be able to see it in your chart there.

I may be wrong. If so, let me know. But I think Mark is the only one that mentions that.

What he’s telling us is that there will be trouble. This is another place where Jesus is warning them, don’t worry about it. It’s going to be tough.

You know that going into it, and so you can prepare for it. To follow him, they were going to face persecution. We may face persecution at times.

It’s not going to look the same as their persecution, but there is going to be trouble if we follow Jesus Christ. However, in the midst of that trouble, he says there is no one who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time. And a lot of times we will spiritualize it and say, oh, well, we’ll receive our reward in heaven. I had to read this very carefully, but he says they will receive this a hundredfold now in this time.

And then he talks about in the time to come eternal life. He’s talking about this repayment. We’re going to be given all that we need.

It does not mean that we’re all going to be rich. This is not a prosperity gospel preaching. But the earliest Christians took this very literally, that for some of them, they would lose their homes.

For some of them, they would lose their families for the sake of the gospel, that when they went to follow Jesus Christ, people wanted nothing to do with them. They were forced from their homes. I know it’s hard for us to understand sometimes this idea, We may have relatives who don’t necessarily like our beliefs, but they don’t usually disown us here in the West. But there are parts of the world today where becoming a Christian will get you shut out of your entire community and everybody that you know and care about.

Your family cuts you off. You are sent away from home. He warned the disciples that for them this was going to be the case.

But he says if you lose father and mother and brother and sister and wife, you’re going to be repaid a hundredfold. Now there was an early attack on Christianity written by a pagan philosopher named Celsus who accused Christianity of teaching that you get a hundred wives. You’ll notice when Jesus is talking about the things that are restored a hundredfold, he does not mention wives in there.

So an attack from somebody who’d never actually read what Jesus said. He says that we would receive fathers and mothers, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecution. The earliest Christians understood this to mean that when their families wanted nothing to do with them because of Christ, they gained a brand new family in Christ called the church.

And I know many people will say that their brothers and sisters in Christ are in many cases closer to them than their blood relatives. And it doesn’t mean that anybody ceased caring about their blood relatives, but there’s this bond that we have in Christ that supersedes everything else. And for people who have been disowned by their families for the cause of Christ, the church becomes their family.

And see, they didn’t understand yet that the church was going to come into place, that Jesus had that plan for them. But he’s saying, I will restore for you a hundredfold. You’ve lost a family member, here’s a hundred more.

What about houses and lands? Some of these people were scattered and driven away from their homes, and yet they could go and find Christian hospitality wherever they turned. that they would be invited into homes, that they would be given food, they would be given lodging, they would be taken care of, that the church became the family and the support structure for people who needed it.

I have experienced this, not being shunned by my family, I don’t think, unless I’m just too oblivious to notice it, and I keep coming around. But several years ago, and I’ve talked about this before, several years ago I went by myself to the national convention when it was held in Phoenix. That ended up being quite an ordeal, just everything that could go wrong.

My debit card got flagged for fraud. My vehicle broke down. It was a terrible trip, but some good things came out of it.

I left early, as a matter of fact, to go for another conference before that. So I’d been away from my family for a week and a half, which was unusual. And being out there by myself in a place I did not know anybody, it was just overwhelming for me. I like home, right?

I went to a church where I didn’t know anybody, and when I walked in, I realized it wasn’t the church I had intended to go to. I’d been looking for a church that was about two miles down the road. This one was a different kind of Baptist church, that in my experience here at home and in my experience in my childhood, they don’t necessarily like our flavor of Baptists.

And I mentioned, yeah, I’m in town for the convention. And then when I realized where I was and who they were, I thought, oh no, this is not good. But that was one of the most loving groups of people.

Just the short time I was there, the fellowship I experienced with those people, they didn’t know me from Adam, but we had Christ in common. I still keep in contact with some of those people. It’s the bond we have in Christ. It’s the welcome that we receive in Christ. And for some people, for them, this was their support system.

This was the repayment they received. for the family and the houses and lands that they had given up. They received new ones through the church.

And this shows us, I don’t think I’m going to make it through this tonight. We may have to come back to this in January, how Jesus is different from earthly kings. But the fact that he would take this care into providing for his people shows us how he’s different from earthly kings.

Don’t we often feel like our leaders are just in it for themselves? I do. Even some of the ones that I like, even some of the ones that vote the way I like, when I’ve met them, I think, you don’t care about us at all.

You just want to keep getting elected. That’s why you do the right thing. Not all of them, but I’ve met some people like that.

Jesus is different from earthly leaders because he cares about his people and he supplies the needs. He meets those needs more than any earthly king ever would. And then we come to verses 33 and 34 and we see our king suffered for the good of his people.

It says in verses 33 and 34, this is where he’s warning them about what’s going to happen when they go to Jerusalem. He says, behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles, and they will mock him and scourge him and spit on him and kill him, and the third day he will rise again. He’s trying to reassure them that he’s got a plan.

But his plan involves suffering. We don’t like suffering, right? Right?

That’s why we call it suffering and not Disneyland. Suffering is unpleasant, especially the suffering that he describes here. He says, I’m going to go up there.

I’m going to be betrayed. None of us like being betrayed either. A lot of times it’s the betrayal that hurts worse than what the betrayal leads to.

But I’m going to be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, the people who have made themselves my enemy. They will condemn him to death. So not only that, but his people were going to condemn him.

They were going to say he was no longer, not only is he not the things that he claims to be, but he deserves to suffer for it. He was going to be rejected by his people. The reason for Jesus coming was to promise salvation first to Israel and then to the Gentiles.

But he says his own people were going to look at him and condemn him. They were going to reject him and say, we don’t want that. We don’t like rejection either, do we?

They were going to condemn him. They were going to condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles. Now, the reason for delivering him to the Gentiles is because they could condemn him to, the Jews could condemn him to death, that since the Romans were actually in charge, the Jews couldn’t impose the death sentence, they had to convince the Romans to do something about it.

So Israel rejects Jesus and then sends him to the Gentiles to have him beaten and tortured and executed. He says, when we go to Jerusalem, that’s what’s going to happen. And they will mock him while they are murdering him.

Jesus said they were going to mock him, they were going to scourge him and spit on him, and kill him. Don’t look past that word scourge too quickly. The more I study the medical aspects of what Jesus went through, not only on the cross, but in the time leading up to it, I don’t think we can imagine.

I’ve got a collection of about 10 articles from medical journals that I’ve been sifting through and trying to compile an account of the things the Bible passes over because in their knew what Roman crucifixion looked like. We don’t. I mean, we haven’t experienced it.

We haven’t seen it. And as I read the things that would have been done to him, not only the crucifixion, but the scourging before it, and you add the mockery and the humiliation that accompanied it, it makes it all the more incredible that he knew this was going to happen, and he went to Jerusalem anyway. He didn’t just, he didn’t arrive at Jerusalem and things just sort of happened.

He didn’t think, well, there’s a good chance this could happen, but I’m going to go to Jerusalem anyway. I’m going to risk it. He told them this is what’s going to happen.

He said, I’m going to die. I’m going to die in a cruel and inhumane way. Three days later, I’m going to rise again.

It’s going to be awful. It’s going to be a terrible experience. It’s going to be a terrible experience for Jesus.

It was going to be a terrible experience for the disciples, but he said, let’s go anyway. Jesus didn’t just talk about the suffering that his people would endure. You know, the persecutions he mentioned earlier in verse 30.

He was determined to endure more than they would have to. Whatever you and I might endure for Jesus, he’s endured more for us. He was going to go endure and he was going to do it for them.

He was going to do it for us. And the explanation for that is in what he says later on that he was going to give his life a ransom for many. All throughout human history, people have frequently had to suffer for their leaders.

They frequently suffered because of their leaders. I watch a lot of history documentaries. I’ve seen a lot of stories about kings and dictators and people that have imposed unimaginable suffering on their people and just made their people bear it, made their people deal with it because it was good for the leader.

It’s almost unheard of for a king to say, I’m going to suffer for you. In fact, in our world today, even when you look past the earthly leaders, there’s no shortage of religions where the gods of this world, The gods that are worshipped throughout this world will call on their followers to die for them. In contrast, Jesus died for us.

Our king was willing to suffer for the good of his people. Not just to provide for us, but to provide the ultimate need for us, which was salvation. We didn’t deserve it, but Jesus Christ loved us enough that he said, I’ll go to Jerusalem.

I’ll go to the cross. Not just from Galilee, but before Jesus came to earth in the form of a baby. Before Bethlehem, Jesus was in the presence of the Father and loved us enough that He said, I’ll go to the cross.

He knew the suffering that was in front of Him and He came anyway.