As many of you know, we are making our way through Mark's gospel and this morning we find ourselves once again in Mark chapter 10. If you will take your Bibles and turn there and we will be looking at verses 35 through 45. Under the heading "Greatness in the Eyes of God." Let me read the text to you. Mark chapter 10, beginning with verse 35. "James and John, the two sons of Zebedee came up to Jesus saying, 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?' They said to Him, 'Grant that we may sit, one on Your right, and one on Your left in Your glory.' But Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?' They said to Him, 'We are able.' And Jesus said to them, 'The cup that I drink, you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. But to sit on My right or on My left, this is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.' Hearing this, the ten began to feel indignant, with James and John. Calling them to Himself Jesus said to them, 'You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you, shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you, 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.'"

We read in Proverbs 18, in verse 12, "Before destruction the heart of man is haughty. But humility goes before honor." This is a lesson that the disciples needed to learn, as we all do. We live in a narcissistic culture, do we not? A culture that is dominated by attitudes of self love, self importance, "me first." All you have to do is drive on the interstates and you'll get a little sample of that. All you have to do is look on Facebook and you will see the ways people try to promote themselves and gain applause. People are self absorbed. They're filled with self love and they demand that everybody else love them too. And if you have any kind of a problem these days, it seems like it's always because you don't love yourself enough, right? You've got poor self esteem. But we're told that we're never to really feel guilt, or to feel shame, that's bad. Instead, you need to be who you want to be, do what you want to do. Even if it means changing your gender, even if it means going through hormone therapy, chemical and surgical castration. Double mastectomies for young girls. If that makes you happy, you need to do that. The Center for Disease Control says that suicides in the US are skyrocketing. They've been going up like 5% every year in 2020 to 49,500. I read an article, I believe it was this morning in the daily wire, it caught my attention. The headline was "Physician groups beg for help, with emergency rooms flooded by children in psychiatric crisis, anxiety, depression and suicide attempts are common causes. Folks, this is where all of this leads when pride is not restrained. And human pride cannot be restrained apart from the indwelling work of the Spirit of God who humbles us. The serpent of pride dwells in each of our hearts and it's deadly venom seeks to poison our heart. It's a venom that will spew forth from our tongue often when we speak. It's a venom that will animate haughty eyes to look down on other people. It's what produces the swagger that we see in our culture. The psalmist says in Psalm 75 and verse five, "Do not speak with insolent pride." And yet that is the very opposite of what we see in our culture. Rather, as Peter tells us and he had to learn this the hard way, in First Peter five, beginning in verse five, he says, "clothe yourselves with humility toward one another for God as opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time." Beloved, you must understand that God hates pride above all other sins. In fact, haughty eyes is the first example of the seven evils that God hates that are listed in Proverbs six, verses 16 through 17. In Proverbs 16 verse five states quote, "Everyone who was proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Assuredly, he will not be unpunished." The same pride that ruled Lucifer and caused him to be cast out of heaven was passed on to Adam and Eve in the garden. We know that it came in the shape of what was probably a magnificent looking lizard, and tempted them to be like God by merely eating the forbidden fruit. And as a result, that lizard was cursed to slither on its belly and eat dust all of the days of its life; a common figure for personal humiliation that's used elsewhere in Scripture, and ultimately, he would be destroyed by the seed of the woman. And we also know that our first parents were also cursed as well as all creation.

Dear friends, as we look at this passage, may I humbly, but forthrightly ask you to examine your own heart. The deceptive nature of pride is so powerful. It is pride that fuels the lusts of our heart. It is pride that separates friends and families. It is pride that destroys marriages. It is pride that enters into a church and disrupts it and breaks fellowship. And it is pride that turns to rage and violence when it is wounded. And frankly, it is pride that is ultimately destroying our country. Because we live in a country that will not humble itself before the one true God. Nevertheless, self-seeking, self-serving pride is truly the hallmark of our society. We see it in the LGBTQ pride parades where the most depraved amongst us celebrate the grossest kinds of immorality. They flaunt it, in God's face. That which God considers an abomination. We see it in the whole woke movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, Antifa, the social justice warriors that are so proud they're quite confident that they know how to produce utopia in the world today. If you will only succumb to their demands, so they alone are the self-appointed social redeemers. We certainly see this kind of pride in our corrupt, narcissistic, immoral political leaders who demand that we bow to their every wish. We see it in many pulpits were predatory preachers are so arrogant that they will distort the Word of God and add their own touch on things to somehow attract the masses and then demand to be praised and obeyed and lavishly compensated.

And dear friends, we see it in ourselves. The tendency towards self-love, self-worship, self-promotion, self-interest. It lies dormant within our hearts. And if we're not careful, it will demand obedience. And it will bring misery and destruction into our life. And the world in which we live offers every imaginable form of temptation to allow the full expression of our pride. I always go back to the two dominant ways of tempting us to manifest our pride, our Facebook and pocketbooks. Endless opportunities to sound off and show off. And for this reason, we're warned in first John two beginning in verse 15, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world." And sadly, the unregenerate laugh at all of this, they scoff at us in their unrestrained egotism, in their self-righteousness they oppose God who poses them and their pride. In Isaiah chapter two, God warned the people of the horrific and unparallel judgments that he's going to pour out upon the nations of the world during the time of the tribulation, the pre-kingdom judgments that we are now awaiting, just before His return. We read in Isaiah two beginning in verse 11, "The proud look of man will be abased and the loftiness of man will be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. For the Lord of hosts will have a day of reckoning against everyone who was proud and lofty, and against everyone who is lifted up, that he may be abased." And then in verse 17, he says this, "The pride of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men will be abased." Now, of all people, Christ's disciples should have learned this lesson well. They should have learned the importance of conquering their pride, and putting on the garments of humility, but at this stage in their life, in their ministries, we see that they had a long way to go. And what they must learn is that greatness in the eyes of God does not come through self-advancement, or through self-promotion. But it comes through self-sacrifice, and servanthood. Principles, the world rejects and many Christians as well. Like the disciples in our text, we will all do well to examine our life under the penetrating truths of Scripture, for indeed the Word of God is a living word. It's active and sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces through the very core of who we are and exposes us.

Now, let me remind you of the historical context once again. From his miracles to his parables, Jesus has demonstrated that he is who he said he was, that is the Messiah of Old Testament prophecy, who had come to offer himself officially and finally as the king of the Messianic Kingdom, in exact fulfillment of all of those prophecies. But this offer was conditioned upon national repentance. As we studied some last week, as indicated in passages like Leviticus 26:40 through 42, and Luke 9:19, 41, through 44. But tragically, the Pharisees, representing all of Israel, rejected the fullest possible revelation of the Messiah. Now after accusing Jesus of casting out demons, by the power of Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons, as we read in Matthew 12, the unpardonable sin, as it's often caused, Jesus announced the building of a new ecclesia, which he called "my church," in Matthew 16 verse 15. And throughout this season of his ministry, he will describe the mystery form, which the kingdom will assume, during the interregnum; an interval when a kingdom does not have a ruler. In this case, the interregnum would intervene between His death and His Second Coming as King of kings. We live in it now, in the church age. But it was only after the Pharisees rejection, and on the heels of that, Peter's confession, that Jesus was indeed, the Son of God, the Lord, the Messiah. It was only after that, that Jesus began to clearly describe his suffering, and death and resurrection. Matthew 16, verse 21, "From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day." And as we look at the flow of the Gospel accounts, we see that it was immediately on the heels of all of this, to assure the disciples that he would return and fulfill his promises regarding a coming kingdom, he transfigured himself on a mountain, before Peter, James and John. He allowed the effulgence of His glory to beam forth in a way that was absolutely astounding, so that they could see His glory, because that was a preview of the glory that He would display at His second coming. It portended the glory that Jesus described in Matthew 24 and verse 30, the glory of "'the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.'" So now Jesus is making his final journey to Jerusalem.

We pick it up in verse 32, of Mark 10, "They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them; and they were amazed and those who followed were fearful." Again, they know that he is heading into the lion's den in Jerusalem. Verse 33, he says to them, "'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him. And three days later, he will rise again.'" And remember, during this final journey, Jesus gave them the parable of the pounds in Luke chapter 19, a parable that describes a nobleman who went away to a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. And this would not only correct the disciples misunderstanding that the kingdom would come immediately, but it would also make it clear that there would be an interregnum, there would be an interval of delay, followed by a future arrival. And it was also on this final journey that Jesus promised that those disciples would even share in the rule of His coming Kingdom. We read about this in Matthew 19:28, "'Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me in the regeneration,'" referring to the millennial kingdom, '"when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'"

But, Christ's ministry in preparation for the interregnum also included ethical instructions regarding how they were to function, how they were to behave, how they were to live for His glory until he returned, especially emphasizing the need for this self-denial and servanthood. Matthew 16:24 He said, "'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.'" And Mark chapter nine, verse 35, we read, Sitting down, he called the twelve, and said to them, 'If anyone wants to be first he shall be last of all, and servant of all.'" And then we see in Mark chapter 10, with Jesus encounter with the rich young ruler consumed with self-worship. There we see a living illustration of this very thing; a man who used his wealth to somehow promote himself, to empower himself, to gratify his flesh. A man who refused to embrace the true cost of discipleship and the self-surrender it involved. However, even with all of these instructions, all of these parables, all of these warnings and even though they were amazed, the text says, as he's walking ahead of them towards Jerusalem, even though they were afraid, as they witnessed him resolutely doing his father's will, going to his death, they could not free themselves from their self-serving pride. And Jesus knew it. And in his great love, he is going to do something about it, as he continues to do in my life, and in yours. As we look at this text, I wish to draw your attention to three overlapping principles of pride that will serve as a vivid contrast to the selfless humility that the Lord requires. Because it is through selfless humility that we become great in the eyes of God. Not in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God.

Now notice again, what happens, verse 35, of Mark 10, "James and John, the two sons of Zebedee," and they come, "up to Jesus saying, '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 that we may sit, one on Your right hand and one on Your left in Your glory.' But Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?' They said to Him, 'We are able.' And Jesus said to them, 'The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized.'"

The first principle that we see, dear friends, is number one: pride is always fueled by selective hearing. Jesus had repeatedly warned them about the need for self- denial and cross-bearing. Anyone who wishes to follow after me needs to step down off of the throne of his life. And follow me as the sovereign of his or her life; renounce your former self, break away from your former way of life that's dishonoring to God, surrender your plans and ambitions and your will and submit yourself wholly to my plan and my purposes, all of which I am revealing to you through my spirit and through His Word. If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last and servant of all. And think about this. He has just told them about his betrayal, his arrest, his trial, his crucifixion, his death, and His resurrection. And you can almost hear Jesus say, "and you're obsessed about your own personal status in the kingdom? Are you kidding me?" That's a paraphrase, by the way. No, dear friends, pride only hears what it wants to hear. How many times do you all sit in this audience and you hear things you don't want to hear? And so you no longer hear it? How many times have we been warned and instructed about spiritual realities, about God's plan of salvation, about God's sovereignty and salvation?....I don't want to hear that. God's principles for male and female role relationships....I don't want to hear that. How to enjoy the fullness of God's blessing in your life, the things that we need to avoid, the things we need to do, the things we need to put off and put on? But no, we only hear what we want to hear. We only believe what we want to believe. And there is this pervasive attitude in each of our hearts that basically says, "Don't confuse me with the facts, my way or the highway."

Paul warned about this in Second Timothy four beginning in verse three. And this certainly summarizes what we see in apostate evangelicalism today. He says, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves, teachers in accordance to their own desires. And they will turn away their ears from the truth and they will turn aside unto myths." You see, all the disciples could hear was this, "Jesus is the Messiah, and he's going to bring in the kingdom." And that's all they could hear. Therefore, I better put my name in the hat so I can be selected. So I can have a high place in the kingdom. That's what was driving them. Remember, Peter, James and John had witnessed the manifestation of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, something that would, would have been exhilarating, beyond words to have a little glimpse of the Shekinah glory of the living God. But almost immediately thereafter, we read this in Mark 9:31, "He was teaching His disciples and telling them, 'The Son of Man has to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.'" And then we have this remarkable statement, "But they did not understand the statement, and they were afraid to ask Him." You see, we tend to suppress those things we fear. We tend to suppress those things we don't want to hear. As we read in Romans one and verse 18, how sinners "suppress the truth of God, in unrighteousness." A dying Messiah would dash all of their hopes and all of their dreams, they didn't want to hear that.

In Luke nine, beginning of verse 44, Luke puts it this way, "'Let these words sink into your ears,'" this is Jesus speaking now, '"For the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.' But they did not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them, so that they would not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about the statement." I mean, what's going on there? Well, I believe it is this, out of our Lord's great love, Jesus withheld from them the full meaning and implications of this revelation. Although his death was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, Jesus knew they couldn't handle it, because of their pride. He knew their sinful proclivity to hear only what they wanted to hear. He understood the self-serving, self-seeking power of pride in their hearts that would soon be manifested in their jealousy towards one another, as they enter into a competition to see who's going to be first in the kingdom. So he would need to soften the blow of his coming departure, by "concealing," the word is; concealing the full impact of it from them all at once. You know, as I was thinking about this, I am so thankful that the Lord doesn't reveal all of my sin at one time, aren't you? I couldn't handle it. But rather he patiently and gently exposes it, in his own timing and in his own way.

But as we see in our text, the self-serving pride of the disciples was still too strong to fully embrace the truth of Jesus death, and the self-denying, cross-bearing sacrifices that that would require of them. You know, many people come to the gospel, they come to Jesus with the same type of attitude. They don't count the cost of discipleship, all they hear is a get out of hell free card, right? That's all they want. Man, where do I sign up for this deal? And yet Jesus said in Luke 14 beginning of verse 28, "'which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?'" verse 31, he says, "'Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?'" You see, the disciples believe the road to self-fulfillment was through self-advancement, and not self-sacrifice.

So first of all, we see that pride is fueled by selective hearing. Secondly, pride ignores the needs of others. Jesus has just told him that he must suffer and die. Again, in verse 33, he predicts is betrayal, his arrest, the phony trials that would come, the crucifixion, his death, his resurrection; they're afraid, they're amazed. But rather than showing sympathy to the Lord, rather than trying to comfort and encourage him, they're preoccupied with their own self-interest. "Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You." Yeah, yeah, I know, you're, you're going to Jerusalem, you're going to be tortured and killed, we don't want to deal with that...we want you to hear us and do something for us. Are we not the same way at times? When we approach the Lord? "Grant that we may sit, one on Your right hand and one on Your left, in Your glory." Why on earth would they possibly say that? Here's why. Because the priority of pride is always personal ambition, and self-fulfillment. The needs of others simply get in the way. Serving Christ is an unwelcomed intrusion. We see this all the time, in our culture, men and women who are so preoccupied, for example, with their careers that they have no time, for their marriage, for their family. I had a conversation with a doctor friend of mine and an attorney friend of mine, both at the same time. And we were chatting about some of the difficulties of their careers and other careers. And the one attorney says, I don't know an attorney that hasn't been divorced at least once. I'm not saying that is true, by the way, but the point is, the enormous amount of hours that many people put into things that are eternally inconsequential eventually destroys marriages and families.

Think of how pride can even work in our own heart, where we just don't see the needs of others in the church. The husband who never offers to help his wife, the mother who never has time to really sit down and instruct her children. Those that will never stay to help clean up after meals. Let somebody else do it. Those who won't volunteer to come and help when the church needs cleaning or work. Those who will never help others to move or bring meals. Yeah, we're too busy. No, you're not, you're too proud. You're too lazy. You're too selfish. You're too self-absorbed. Because the priority of pride is always personal ambition and self-fulfillment, the opposite of humility, the key to greatness in the eyes of God. Beloved, humility is a virtue that God honors and God blesses. And it's so hard for us, I admit it's easier for me to preach it than to live it.

In Micah chapter six, beginning in verse eight, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Now as a footnote, James and John's mother was, Solome, the sister of Mary, Jesus mother. Therefore, James, and John are Jesus first cousins. Jesus named them Sons of Thunder, probably because of their intense fiery personalities. And I find it interesting as you think about it, Mark, who's writing this was not there to see these things. But we know that Peter was discipling him. And Peter knew these things full well. And so he's helping by the power of the Spirit to instruct John to write what we are studying. And later on, we know that both of these dear brothers in Christ, learned the lessons of humility the hard way. We know for example, that James was the first apostle to die. He was beheaded by Herod Agrippa, around 44 AD in Palestine, not far from where he was a local missionary to the Jewish people in Judea. And John later on became the author of five books, the Gospel of John for second, third John and the book of Revelation. And what's interesting is when you read his accounts, he always referred to himself in the third person and described himself as the one, "the disciple whom Jesus loved." We also know of his humility that came later on while on the cross. We know that Jesus entrusted John with the care of his mother. And historians believe that Mary eventually died in Ephesus, under the direct care of John and after suffering on the Isle of Patmos, John would be the last of the apostles to die, the only one to die, we believe, of natural causes. We believe that happened at Ephesus, sometime around AD 98, during the reign of Trajan.

But prior to the humbling trials, in their sanctification, both James and John and others, were ruled by pride, by selfish ambition, self-fulfillment, they had not yet learned what the Apostle Paul would describe later on and Ephesians chapter four, you're familiar with the passage beginning in verse one. He says, "I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love." And he said, In Philippians, two, beginning in verse three, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another is more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard a quality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." There is the humbling.

But then notice the exaltation. He goes on to say, “For this reason, also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Dear Christian, the pathway to greatness, in the eyes of God, will always be a steep, a narrow, a windy, a treacherous trail of self-sacrifice and servanthood. But at the summit, there will be eternal glory beyond your wildest imagination. This is what we long for. You want to ask yourself, Is this the path that I have chosen? Is this the trail that I pursue? Or am I a legend in my own mind?

Pride is fueled by selective hearing. Pride ignores the needs of others and then thirdly, pride uses God for self-advancement. Notice again, verse 35, James and John. They come "up to Jesus saying, 'Teacher, we want You to do for us, whatever we ask of You." That's one of the most arrogant statements in all of Scripture. Notice the demanding nature that is inherent in the request. But is this not also the way we are prone to use God for our own ends? As if Jesus is somehow our servant, the means to accomplish our good pleasure; that somehow God exists for me? Is this not at the very heart of evangelical pragmatism, that essentially is a man centered theology, that somehow God is there to orbit around my needs. And certainly, this is at the heart of the heretical social justice gospel, prosperity gospel as well. The gospel is all about man and his needs, rather than God and his glory. Jesus becomes nothing more for many people, than a genie in a bottle, that you can somehow rub and he'll pop out and do whatever you want him to do. Or a Santa Claus that you can manipulate in certain ways, so that he will hand out the goodies. Or a divine social justice warrior that wants to redeem the planet, from white, patriarchal, Christian men and produce some preconceived utopia. Dear friends, please hear me. God will never use you or bless you, if you use him to somehow accomplish your own ends. That's just not how it works, even though our flesh would say otherwise.

So indeed, out of pride, they use God to advance themselves, "Teacher, we want You to do for us, whatever we ask of You." Rather than saying, "Teacher we want to do for you, whatever you ask, for our good and your glory." Bit of a difference, right? But is this not a deep-seated propensity in each of our hearts? Is this not the manipulative theme very often in our prayers? It's interesting, according to Matthew's account, the mother of James and John was with them when they approached Jesus. So there was somehow a little collaborative effort going on, they were probably playing the family card, you know how that would work. You know, the self-serving arrogance of parental pride is often manifested in the brazen attempts parents will go to, to exalt their children. All you have to do is go to these youth games and see how parents act and see that. I remember when our kids were little and we took them to the youth basketball teams, you'd watch parents make fools out of themselves. It was so bad that, I'm not making this up, they literally had sheriff's deputies escort the refs out of the games at the end of the game to protect them from the parents. This was the power of pride.

Back to the text, Jesus says to them, "'What do you want Me to do?'" And they said, "Grant that we may set on Your right and one on Your left in Your glory." See, again beloved, this is the deceptive power of self-advancement in the human heart, even among those who love Christ. These men weren't some pagan nut jobs. I mean, these people love Christ, they're trying to follow Christ. In other words, we want you to glorify us because somehow we believe we deserve it. I mean, that's literally what they're saying. Our glory is ultimately the end of our aspirations. And we want you to help us accomplish that. Rather than realizing, as they did later, that nothing about them deserved his grace. Nothing deserved his mercy. Beloved, we must remember that God is under no obligation to make us great, but rather, God rewards those who can sincerely sing, as we often do, in this worship center, "Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Naked, come I to thee for dress, bless helpless look to the for grace. Foul, eye to the fountain fly, wash me Savior, or I die." We must understand that God's purpose in saving us is not to somehow make us happy, although that is a byproduct of it. And certainly we will be happy beyond our wildest imagination in glory. But his primary purpose in saving us, is to bring glory to himself. We are only incidental to his plan to bring glory to himself. We are not the center of God's universe. Christ was our example with this. John 17 says he's praying to the Father before he goes to the cross. In the garden, he says in verse four, "'I have glorified You on the earth, I have finished the work which You have given me to do.'" That's what drove him, that was at the heart of all that he did, to do the will of his Father. The apostle Paul speaks of this as well in First Corinthians 10, verse 31. "Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." You see, the great purpose in our sanctification is to conform us into the likeness of Christ, not somehow satisfy our every desire here on Earth. In Second Corinthians three, verse 18, the Spirit of God speaks to us through the Apostle Paul and says that "We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed." There's a metamorphosis that's going on here, as a work of the Spirit of God, as we behold the glory of the Lord. We're being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. And this process of sanctification is indeed a very painful process because it includes the ratification of that self-serving pride that deceives us into believing that we're worthy of some kind of special treatment from the Lord our God, and therefore we demand it, and we learn how to manipulate it. And then we forfeit blessing in our life.

Now, notwithstanding the solemn truths, James and John, beseech Jesus; Jesus says to them, "'You do not know,'" verse 38, "'what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?'" In this context, by the way, that is an Old Testament idiom, referring to the experiencing God's judgment. In other words, are you able to experience God's judgment as I'm about to do? He goes on to say, "'or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?'" The term here has nothing to do with water baptism, but rather the immersion into his sufferings. Are you willing to do that? Can you handle that? Humility would say, "No way." But pride says "we're able." Two empty naive ignorant words, right? We're able, we can handle it. Yeah, what happened when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus in the garden? They all ran like scalded dogs right? Oh, how hollow the boast of an overconfident fool. But of course, pride only hears what it wants to hear. It only believes what it wants to believe. Because the priority of pride is always personal ambition and self-fulfillment.

"Jesus said to them, 'The cup that I drink, you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized.'" And we know, as we've already discussed, their lives were a mixture of joy and sorrow, all for the glory of Christ. Then he says in verse 40, "'But to sit on My right or on My left, this is not Mine to give, but it is for those whom it has been prepared.'" In other words, these matters belong to the secret counsel and purposes of God the Father. And in his incarnation, Jesus was totally submissive to His Father's will.

And then what happens next is both sad and a bit comical. Verse41, "Hearing this, the ten began to feel indignant with James and John." So in other words, they're hearing this whole thing, and we see that they feel indignant. Now, this indignation was not because "Oh, our brothers are so ruled by self-serving pride, I can't believe they said that." No, they were indignant because they beat them to the punch. They were filled with the same selfish ambition. Just because you're his cousin's? Yeah, you can you can see how that works. You know, again, this has been an ongoing problem back in nine, Mark nine, verse 33, "They came to Capernaum; and when Jesus was in the house, He began to question them, 'What were you discussing on the way?' But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another, which of them was the greatest." And folks, this problem went all the way into the Last Supper, Luke 22, verse 24, "There arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest." But notice what Jesus does. Verse 42, I love this phrase, "Calling them to Himself." By implication, they're spread out; they're murmuring, they're grumbling, they're whining. Wherever there's jealousy in Scripture, we also see another word right next to it. It's called strife. So they're divided. They're huffing and puffing. And you can just see Jesus saying, Hey, guys, I want all of you to come here. I want you to gather round where you will come to me right now. "Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, 'You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them.'" Certainly, they knew that, we're all familiar with that. I mean, you give people political power, and they turn into, you know, Barney Fife. You know, they've got a bullet and a badge. Everybody's in jail. You know, they're throwing their weight around. They become control freaks, omniscient, domineering autocrats. When you look at some of our leaders today, I mean, we got barmaids drag queens, every kind of pervert imaginable, but they've all got the answers and we're all supposed to bow to them.

Verse 43, "'But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant.'" "Diakonos," in the original language, we got our word "deacon" from there. It literally referred to one who waits on tables. Guys, are you willing to be that kind of person. And by the way, you will remember Jesus put a apron on himself and washed their feet. He went on to say in verse 44, "and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be a slave of all.'" "Doulos." Not just a servant, but a slave. You see, true leadership, and true greatness in the eyes of God, is characterized by a humble willingness to not only serve, but catch this, to place yourself under the authority, as it were, of others, like a slave. There's no place for self-worship. There's no place for self-love. There's no place for self-promotion or self-fulfillment. Those are the marks of pride which God hates.

And then Jesus uses himself as the supreme example, verse 45, "'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 of course, washing his disciples feet in the upper room was an illustration of that. But the greatest illustration of all is when he offered his life as a ransom, for each one of us. You're ransomed, because somehow you're imprisoned. And you might say he's paying the bail for those who needs to be released from the bondage of their self-serving pride and all of the rest of the sins.

And the key to what Jesus is saying is summarized best by the two verbs that we see here, that he uses "to serve" and "to give." When we do this, we manifest the essence of God, and bring glory to the one who deserves our utmost. Folks, this is true greatness in the eyes of God; when we serve and we give. So I challenge you to examine your life under the great truths of God's righteous standard, be brutally honest with yourself. Beware, it's easy to tout your humility, which is pride. I've known many who project the image of perpetual sackcloth and ashes. But you get to know them and you see there's something else going on there. I've known many men, whose prayers drip with a sweet honey of self-abasement. But in private, they have no prayer life. Those who know them best, know that they are arrogant, demanding, demeaning men. May we all learn to humble ourselves for the glory of God to serve and to give and to know that the Lord will prosper us in time? The Lord will exalt us at the proper time. Because again, this is how we become great in the eyes of God, amen? Amen. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for the eternal truths of your word that so clearly expose the realities of our heart. I pray that you will help us all as we battled the flesh. And we know that we can only do this by walking by the Spirit, which means to surrender to the Spirit of God holy completely, as he has revealed himself in his Word. May we be that kind of person, that you may be honored in our life and that we might enjoy the fullness of all that is ours in Christ. And finally, Lord, if there'll be one here today that knows nothing of what it means to truly be in relationship with Christ, having been reconciled to God through faith in their Savior, the only hope of their salvation. I pray that you will bring such overwhelming conviction that today they will bow the knee to Christ and be saved. We ask this in Jesus name, and for His glory. Amen.