SPEAKER_00 0:17

This morning's reading is taken from the book of Matthew, chapter twenty, verses twenty to twenty eight. A mother's request. Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something, and he said to her, What do you want? She said to him, Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom. Jesus answered You do not know what you are asking. You are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? They said to him, We are able. He said to him, You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those to whom it has been prepared by my father. And when the ten heard, they were indignant at the two brothers, but Jesus called to them to him and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you, you must be your servant, and whoever would be the first among you, you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man come not to be served, but to serve, and give to give his life as a ransom for many. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

We're continuing on our superficial to spiritual series. And the idea is we come into life marred by sin. And so we we do things in a superficial way. We're kind of self-centered, we just want to kind of please ourselves, and we can't get past that. But as we come to Christ, things are different. As we come to Christ, he begins a new work in us, and we begin to grow in spiritual maturity. And so that's what we're, this is the journey we're on together, especially with this superficial to spiritual series. And today we're focusing on service. Service can take many, many forms. Um, you know, it can be the prime minister serving the nation is a form of service. Uh, it can be, if you walk over to North Point, customer service at Harvey Norman. This is also a form of service, right? But service as a spiritual discipline is distinct in that you're performing your service as worship to the Lord. There's a different, there's a different attitude, a different motivation behind it. And when we do that, it's an offering that is very pleasing and acceptable to him. This area of service, it can make a division and distinction between us. Because uh, for some, on one hand, we have those who uh, you know, we come to church on Sundays not just to receive, but to give back as well. Uh, and I think so many of you are in this category, whether you're serving on a Sunday in one of the many, many teams, we have the refreshment team, we have our befrienders team, we have our uh our host team, we have dancers, we have those who will be uh ready to pray and minister to people after the service. We have uh Uncle Chai up there on the camera today. Uh we have the sound booth and the projection, we have the worship, our intercession, our service pastor. I praise the Lord that so many of us are serving in one way or another. And that's just Sunday. We still have connect groups, right? We still have other ministries as well. In many ways, uh we're doing well. But there are some who, on the other hand, um are perhaps not really desiring to serve in any way. Uh can you just let me come and attend on Sunday and leave me be? All right. Um of us, hopefully not too many, do find ourselves in this category. Uh, Pastor, please, please just stay out of my personal life. I just come here to worship the Lord and to hear a sermon. Um we're perhaps at different places in our journey. But brothers and sisters, um the spiritual man or spiritual woman understands that service is an act of worship. Our service is an act of worship, whether it's outside the church or inside the church. Our service is an act of worship. We do it not just to have someone say, Well done. We do it not just to uh try to earn a bigger paycheck, we serve in different areas, wanting to please the Lord, wanting to do things in excellence to him. And so our passage, kind of the context for our passage this morning, uh Jesus, he had just finished sharing about the kingdom of God. And so if we are to go back to Matthew chapter 19, verse 28, Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. After that, he went on to foretell his approaching death on the cross and resurrection. But it seems that James and John and their mother, actually, they just stopped listening after Jesus had talked about uh this ruling and judging and twelve thrones. They didn't hear a single word after that. And so uh these two brothers, their mother, Salome, dramatically kneels before Jesus. She kneels before him and she boldly asks that her sons receive the highest positions of honor in his future kingdom. Her request reveals that, you know, they were still thinking of the coming kingdom chiefly in terms, earthly terms, of power and status. That's what they had on their minds. And Jesus, he tactfully points out their misunderstanding. Uh James, John, Salome, you you've got it wrong here. I I think you you you missed part of what I was saying. And so he tells them, you know, James and John, you will suffer for my name's sake. But it is the Father who sovereignly appoints places of honor in the coming kingdom. And they must have been trying to kind of make this request quietly of Jesus. But the over the other disciples, they overheard it and they they became really upset about it. Why? Well, because the other disciples, you know what, they are following Jesus, they set everything aside to follow him, but they were still dealing with some ambition. They also wanted prime position in this coming kingdom. I mean, as if we might think of it today, there is a stock opportunity. This stock is gonna rise. Get in early, invest your money. They felt this was an opportunity. They were following the future king. And so they were also ambitious. And when they heard James and John together with their mother making this request, uh, they they were pretty upset. They were upset about it. And so Jesus then he moves to contrast all this worldly ambition for greatness that's characterized by power and domination, with instead kingdom greatness, which is found in serving others. And he provides himself then as the ultimate example of this: the Son of Man who came not to receive service, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom. The world defines greatness by prominence, influence, recognition, wealth, control, and being served by others. Is that true? It's true, right? What are the maybe uh raise a hand here? Someone can volunteer here. What are the five C's of Singapore? Anyone who's ready to say them out? The five C's of Singapore? Don't pretend you don't know. What are they? Anyone? Let's hear the first one? Okay, we've got a different order, uh, sure. We we've got the what? The cash, the car, the credit card with a high limit on it, the condominium, and the country club. The country club, that's right. The five C's. Greatness. Okay, the younger generation, maybe uh you don't have exactly the same five C's, that's okay. But traditionally, this is the thought, right? The five C's. This, you know you've made it. You know that maybe you are someone great now if you've achieved these things. Uh for Americans, Americans consider the bold, charismatic, daring leader as being great. This is what we see as greatness. And so many people will uh look at certain big names right now. Elon Musk, for instance, people who are very daring, they've got the money, they've gone for it. Um, they say, oh, this is a great person. This is a really great person. In mainland uh China, uh mainland Chinese will a part, just a part of perceiving someone as great is that they don't have to do any uh any sort of manual work on your own. All right. This is just a when I lived there, I discovered, you know, as an American, we value the handyman. Each person should have a lot of skills, be able to do things on your own, to sign of independence. But in China, if you're doing repairs on your own means you're not doing very well. You should be hiring someone to come in. Even the simplest of jobs, you should be hiring someone else to do that, because in a sense, it's beneath you. So there's different ideas of greatness. There's different ideas of greatness. Even in the church, it's possible to find people who seek position, platforms, titles, and praise rather than seeking Christ and the good of others. I wish that weren't true, but it is true. It's possible to deceive yourself into thinking that you're directing affairs for the good of the church when actually you're doing so for the sake of the sense of power and recognition that you receive. The disciples, they were not immune to all of this. They had heard Jesus speaking of his coming kingdom, but they still applied worldly uh you know principles and they wanted to have personal position within this coming kingdom. They wanted advantage. And Jesus, however, he painted this radically different picture for them. In his kingdom, greatness is measured by humble service. Because the king himself is the servant king who dies for his people. It's very different. If we're honest, this worldly chase for status is really the exact environment that the disciples were breathing every day. As we look at the story this morning, we discovered there's this kind of sobering reality. Self-serving ambition completely misunderstands Christ's mission. Salome, her name means peace. She knelt before Jesus. She requested positions of the highest honor for her sons in the future kingdom. And her request, it didn't have one commendable element. Salome recognized Jesus was the king. This was someone special. There's something about Jesus. So she recognized that, you know what, Jesus will truly reign. But her request was selfish. She wanted greatness for her sons, but she didn't understand the kind of king that Jesus is or the journey that he would take on behalf of humanity. Well, perhaps she expected that Jesus would continue rising to prominence and that he would take up political rule over Jerusalem and free them of the Romans and take away all the pagan practices that had taken root and that he would cleanse, he would be strong, and that he would be just taking things over, ushering in a golden age for the Jews. Jesus, he had just predicted his suffering and his death and his resurrection. But Salome, she had only seen an opportunity here. And Jesus he responded saying, You have no idea what you're asking. They wanted greatness without considering the cost. And speaking to James and John, Jesus says, Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? We can, they replied. Yes, we can. What do you think? Is it possible to follow Jesus while still pursuing your own personal greatness? Examining our own motives in work and family life and church ministry. Do you work to be noticed or do you work to honor Christ? Ambition for God's glory and the good of our neighbor is it is admirable. Ambition that seeks to make a name for yourself is, however, sin. It's exalting your own name above the name of the one who made you, above the name of God. Here's what Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 to 4. Paul said, Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. And so we must avoid the trap of selfish ambition and instead be focused on loving our neighbor. That's God's call on our lives. That's what we're supposed to be doing. But laying aside our selfish ambition and choosing to count on others as more significant, uh it isn't just a simple shift in attitude. It comes with a cost. And it really leads us directly to our second truth this morning. Kingdom greatness is inseparable from suffering. Kingdom greatness is inseparable from suffering. When Jesus asked James and John if they could drink his cup, he was talking about his divinely appointed destiny. The cup represented divinely appointed destiny, which in his case was suffering. James and John, they quickly answered, Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, of course we can. We can drink the cup. But their eyes were blinded to the suffering. They were only uh recognizing future glory was to be found. Jesus knew that they would, in fact, share in his suffering, even if they didn't understand it yet. They would suffer for his name's sake. And in Acts chapter 12, we read that James was killed for the crime of being part of the church. And he was killed by King Agrippa I. He was a martyr for his faith. He did suffer by being called by the name of Jesus. In church history, it tells us that John also endured suffering and that he was exiled to the Isle of Patmos for a very long period of time. You know what? They did share in suffering for the name of Jesus. They said, yes, we can drink the cup, but they didn't realize what that meant. The all-important difference is that Christ was God in human form. He lived a perfect life without sin, and that after his death, he rose again by the power of God. Christ was the perfect substitutionary sacrifice for all who put their faith in him and call him Lord. Romans chapter 8, verses 16 and 17, it tells us the Spirit bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided. Sounds good so far, right? We're heirs with Christ. Provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. And so here's the truth, church. Here's the truth. Following Christ, it does not guarantee us comfort, it does not guarantee us status or success. The Christian life, it will include being misunderstood, it'll include sacrifice, it'll include loss, opposition, and costly obedience. That's all part and parcel of following Jesus. But for those who share in suffering for his name's sake, we will experience resurrection glory with him. That is our blessed hope. At the end of our days, we don't need to fear death. We have nothing to be afraid of because we will share in resurrection glory. Amen. And so when we embrace this life of sacrifice and costly obedience, we quickly realize that God's way of operating is entirely different, entirely different from our own. That's because the kingdom that Jesus is building is a radically upside down kingdom. It's upside down, so the way things are done here. The ten disciples, they overheard this power play that James and John were trying to make, and they became indignant. They became angry. They were especially upset because James and John were attempting to increase their position through nepotism. Do you know what nepotism is? Familiar with the word? Nepotism is giving special advantage or privilege to family members. Because Salome was actually Jesus' aunt, his maternal aunt. James and John were his cousins. And so they were trying to. There's the front door, and then through Guanxi, sometimes we can get things done that we can't get done otherwise. This is what was going on. Salome, his aunt, she wanted to use her position. She came, she knelt before Jesus. I have a request of you, Jesus. Your cousins here, James and John, will you give them a position? Well, there was rivalry among the disciples, and they did all want to be first in Jesus' kingdom. They had left everything behind. They were following him, and they followed him even to their deaths. We know they remained faithful, but they were a work in progress, and there was rivalry there. And so Jesus, he gathers them together not just to settle them, uh settle their argument, but to teach them about the culture of his kingdom. Come here, come here now, all of you, come here. You know what? Yeah, the world around us it seeks power through position. Of course they do. They grasp for power to control others and elevate themselves. But from our passage today, Jesus says, Whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be your slave. It's an upside-down world, isn't it? The world tells you that to be great, you need to be rich, you need to be famous. You need to exercise power over people, you need to be the one calling the shots. But to be great in Jesus' kingdom, you have to become a servant. The word servant here is the word diaconos, from which we get the word deacon. Same word. It's a position of service. And servants in the Roman world during Jesus' time, they were employed for service positions. They could be a domestic helper, they could be a steward or manager in charge of estate supplies, uh, could be agricultural workers uh hired for landowners' fields, a personal assistant, uh, these sorts of positions. For Jesus' disciples, the idea of greatness being found in the position of a servant uh would have been somewhat absurd. That doesn't make sense. I become great by being a servant? Uh uh are you sure? Are you sure, Jesus? But Jesus went on to say that whoever wants to be first, whoever wants position, which is what James and John wanted. Whoever wants to be first has to be a slave to others. And many times uh people read the New Testament and they'll kind of put these terms interchangeably, servant and slave. All right, we we don't really sometimes we don't see a difference between them. But this these words are not the same, these positions are not the same. That is just not the case. The word slave is from this Greek word doulos, doulos. And while a servant was considered a person, a slave was considered a possession. Not a person, a possession. A servant could earn wages, but any wage collected by a slave was considered uh the masters, it would go straight to the master. They didn't accumulate wages for themselves. A slave had very little freedom, they could not say no to their owner. A slave had no physical rights over their own body, and they could be beaten or abused at will by their owner. A male slave had no right to his children, his paternity was not recognized, and the children of female slaves they became the property of the master. If we're to summarize and to simplify things, a slave exercised no autonomy or authority except that which the owner or master gave them. And so the disciples they were arguing about who would be first in the kingdom, and Jesus responded that to be first you must be a slave to others. These are hard words. I don't know about you. I find them to be very hard words, and I'm sure the disciples found them to be very hard words. And it must have immediately silenced them. Each and every one of them. A slave? Are you serious? Do you know what you're saying? To be great, I need to give up all right, all autonomy, and be a slave to serve without any wage, without any way to choose my future? Your kingdom must be upside down. And just as the weight of that word slave settles over the silenced disciples, Jesus points them to the only model that could ever make sense of such a radical call. And so Matthew, he records these life-altering words in verse 28, the last verse of our passage today, says, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus, the Son of God, come down in human form, deserved every right of dignity. He deserved everything. He deserved people bowing down before him wherever he went. He deserved the finest palace accommodations and comfort that human hands could provide. He deserved a constant stream of offerings being brought to him, right? He deserved all the praise and worship that this world could provide. He deserved our service, our worship, our everything. He deserved it all. And we humanity, what did we do to this person who deserved everything? We put him to death instead. Why did we do that? Because he dared to share a message of good news with us, a message of hope, a message that urged us to turn from our sin and be reconciled to our Creator at long last. And we killed him for it. Jesus did not come to be served, but instead to serve others. He laid aside his rights, he laid aside all those things that he deserved, and he chose to live in complete obedience to God the Father. He came to give his life as a ransom for many. And this word ransom, it comes from this Greek word lutron. Lutron in the Roman world, if you want to buy a slave's freedom for whatever reason, then you would need to pay the Lutron, because the Lutron was the price of release. The price of release. Jesus came to give his life as a Lutron for many, not just one slave, but many. For as many as who would repent and rely upon Jesus, putting their faith in him. And that, my friends, uh this is the freedom we're reminded of today. This is the good news for us. This is why that we are here in this place to worship God. Because we're reminded that our freedom in our salvation was bought at a great price. And so we worship the Lord. And so Sunday after Sunday, we come in here and we sing songs that glorify his name. We sing how great he is, how wonderful he is. The one that deserved all of our service, he came and served us instead. And we killed him for it. And if the story ends there, uh you know what? It's the greatest of tragedies, I think, if that's the story. But it doesn't end there because he rose again. We serve not uh someone who came and died for us only, but someone who rose to life again because he was God incarnate and he is risen. And so as we continue our journey together from superficial, from selfish, from self-seeking, and we journey towards being spiritual people, growing towards spiritual maturity. Uh, we're confronted today with the example of Jesus, who told his disciples that they ought to be servants to one another and even slaves. And I think this talks about our attitude towards service and our relationship with one another. We need to be serving one another. Sometimes it doesn't come naturally to us, we still do it. We do it as service, we do it as worship to the Lord. And so, church, I wonder how you feel the Lord is speaking to us today. And I'll invite the worship team to perhaps come forward at this time. Uh, usually I like to suggest at least one or two concrete ways that we can apply what we've heard from the Lord's word. But I'd like to do things a little bit different this morning, and I've asked the worship team to lead us in a simple response song called Lord, I offer my life to you. I asked very late on Friday afternoon, quite late to be making any requests, uh, but thankfully Sarah was very gracious and said, Yes, we will do it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

As we sing together, I want to invite you, church, to um, as we begin to sing, maybe you can just stand, lift your hands to the Lord, and close your eyes. We're gonna have our eyes closed during this song, unless you need to see the lyrics. We're gonna have our eyes closed. We're not gonna be looking to our right or our left, we're not gonna be looking to see what our neighbor is doing or anyone else. And I want to encourage you to turn this song into a simple prayer. A simple prayer and to offer your life once again to the Lord for his use.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

We pray that you've administered to the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about each of the Christian church, please visit our website at iccin.com. Have a blessing today.