This year at Calvary, we’re learning to…
“Live The Cross-Shaped Life” – Cruciformity is learning to embody the self-sacrificial love of King Jesus, which God always deserves and honors.
God doesn’t always make things easy for His people, but He always makes it worth it. The living, breathing proof of this is Jesus. Everything about Jesus is humble self-sacrifice from birth to death, but God brought Him back to life and crowned Him King of kings. That’s cruciformity, and we’re learning His cross-shaped story as we preach through the Gospel according to Matthew.
We’re also learning cruciformity in the beatitudes, the cross-shaped attitudes of God’s kingdom people. We’re memorizing all eight beatitudes this year; here’s the sixth one:
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God. (Matthew 5:8 NIV)
Over the past few weeks in Matthew, we’ve heard teaching from Jesus that has confronted and purified the sinful ways we normally think. He’s purified our sinful views of marriage, divorce, singleness, and money and reoriented them according to His self-sacrificial love. Then He told a parable about an employer who decided to pay all employees the exact same wage even though they worked very different amounts of hours. This parable purifies our hearts of any sinful entitlement we might feel toward God because of things we have given up for Him. Thus, Jesus keeps purifying those He has already purified. A life following Jesus is just one gigantic learning process. And the learning process continues in Matthew 20…
1) A Prediction for Jesus: His Cruciform Path (20:17-19)
(MAP) Jesus will continue his journey from Capernaum, where His early ministry was centered, to Jerusalem passing through Jericho and the surrounding region as well see by the end of thai passage. It’s important to see that He is committed to going to Jerusalem, even though He has twice prophesied that He would be killed there. Here’s Jesus’ third prediction:
17 Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, 18 “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death 19 and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
Jesus’ third and final prediction of His death and resurrection includes a few new, important details. This is the first time He mentions that the Jewish leaders will turn Him in to the Gentile authorities–the Romans–for execution by crucifixion.
Why do the Gospels include Jesus’ three predictions? First, the predictions serve as a reminder for disciples then and now, that when it happens, it’s all part of God’s plan. In Isaiah, for example, God declares His actions ahead of time to demonstrate His sovereign power over all things. So, when we read these predictions in the Gospels, we should grow in our confidence that God is in control over all things…cancer, unemployment, disaster, death, and the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.
Second, these predictions are not simply a divine “flex.” They also reveal the self-sacrificial path Jesus will walk to obey God and to save sinners, the cross-shaped nature of the Messiah. So, when reading these predictions, we should be humbled by God’s great love for us in Christ and commit to following His example with self-sacrificial love. But that’s a hard pill to swallow given this next prediction Jesus makes…
2) A Prediction for James and John: Their Cruciform Path (20:20-23)
20 Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him. 21 “What is it you want?” he asked. She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
Zebedee’s sons are James and John, two of Jesus’ disciples. Their mother Salome was probably sister to Mary, Jesus’ mother, thus making her Jesus’ aunt and her sons Jesus’ cousins. So, Aunt Salome and cousins James and John are together making a request of Jesus. And Jesus said, “What do you want?” He’ll ask that question later in the next story too.
In Matthew 19, Jesus had already promised His twelve disciples that, because they had left everything to follow Him even while most rejected Him, they would rule over Israel one day. So Salome and James and John are asking for even greater honor in addition to the honor Jesus had already promised. I guess being one of the Twelve to rule one day was not enough. They wanted to rank first and second among the Twelve, but here’s Jesus’ answer:
22 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” “We can,” they answered. 23 Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father.”
Jesus predicts that they would suffer. The cup that Jesus refers to refers to suffering. It’s a metaphor from the Old Testament…the cup of God’s wrath. Jesus would willingly “drink God’s wrath” on the cross, and He predicted that James and John would share in His suffering.
One theologian (D.A. Carson) said that to ask to reign with Jesus is to ask to suffer with Him. To ask God for worldly wealth and honor, you’re also asking for temptation, stress, disappointment, and strife. To ask God for great kingdom usefulness is to ask for great personal suffering. Another theologian commenting on this text said, “We know not what we ask, when we ask for the glory of wearing a crown but ask not for the strength to bear the cross on our way to it.” (Matthew Henry) James was the first of the Twelve to die a martyr’s death (beheaded by Herod (Acts 12:2)). John would be the last of the Twelve to die, according to church tradition, after years of persecution and exile. What about you? What are you suffering, what will you suffer, as you follow Jesus? Given our relative freedom and prosperity today, most of us most likely will not suffer like James or John or Jesus. But we must not shy away from the sacrifices required to meet the needs of others, such as “widows and orphans.” And we must not shy away from the sacrifices required to remain unpolluted by the world, both of which we read about in James in our New Testament plan this morning.
Here’s the thing: ultimately, exaltation would not be up to Jesus. That was up to God the Father. Jesus Himself would be exalted by the Father, so His followers would too.
3) A Lesson for Disciples: Those who serve others are the greats in God’s eyes. (20:24-26)
24 When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. 25 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant…”
In the Greco-Roman world, a servant (Gr. diakonos; it’s where we get the words deacon and deaconess from) is simply someone who performs work for someone else. They might be free. They might have some rights. They might have some property. But they must obey the orders of the one they serve. So Jesus is flipping the whole idea of leadership on its head. His followers will not lead like ones giving out orders; they will lead like servants! They will exist not to take care of themselves and boss people around. Jesus’ followers will exist to put others before themselves and meet their needs.
When we select leaders in our church, the first question we ask is not how educated, skillful, or experienced they are. We look for Christlike servant hearts. Are they humbly following Jesus? Are they humbly serving others? Obviously we need elders who can teach the Bible, finance team members who are good at math, and facilities team members who can swing a hammer. But those are not the most important qualifications. Christlikeness is. In fact, we try to get in the habit of calling church leaders “servant leaders” because service to God and others should characterize their lives.
By the way, Jesus is not being anti-authority; He’s redefining authority. Authority is about self-sacrificial service! This is what cruciformity looks like for disciples of Jesus who would take on the mantle of leadership at home, at church, at work, at school, in the community, nationally or globally. It’s a call to embody the self-sacrificial love for King Jesus, which is where He goes next.
4) A Lesson about Jesus: He is the Lowliest and the Greatest as the sacrifice for sinners. (20:27-28)
27 “…and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
To further drive home the point, Jesus hints at just how low He goes. He, who is the First, is not merely a servant but a slave (Gr. doulos). In the Greco-Roman world, a slave is a servant that is totally owned by another person. They have no rights, they have no property. They have become property. The object lesson of the child from previous chapters lines up here with the object lesson of a slave and perhaps more so. It was unthinkable for a doulos to be first! But that’s Jesus. Was Jesus ever a literal slave? No. It’s a metaphor. The closest thing we can imagine to Jesus, who is God, becoming a human and then going all the way to the cross, is becoming a slave ourselves.
When Jesus went to the cross, He paid the price to forgive sin. He offered Himself as a substitute, the ransom payment, so that those who believe in Him and ask for mercy might be forgiven. Accept Him! Ask for His mercy, like in this next story. You see, Jesus’ humility not only shows up at the cross but on the way to it. Check out what happens next.
5) An Example in Jesus: He has time for the lowly. (20:29-34)
29 As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. 30 Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” 31 The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”
Nobody was willing to stop and listen to these blind men. Jesus was leading a large crowd to Jerusalem! It’s revolution time! It would be like a politician leading one of those million man marches in Washington D.C. and a homeless person follows the crowd asking the leader for help. Any one of us would be like, “Shut up! There’s no time for you!” But Jesus had time for Salome, and He has time for these blind men…
32 Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. 33 “Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.” 34 Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.
Think of all that’s going on: Jesus has a huge and mistaken crowd trying to get Him to Jerusalem to be king, when He’s actually on His way to Jerusalem to be betrayed and rejected and tortured and crucified. And yet Jesus has time for these poor, blind men. “What do you want me to do for you?” They’ve begged for His mercy, and now they’ll get it. As only Jesus can do, He healed them on the spot at will, and they followed Him.
What has Jesus done for you? Most of us aren’t physically blind, but we are all born spiritually blind. We’re not as bad as we can be, but we’re nowhere good enough for God, and we don’t even realize it! What we need is to be cured of our spiritual blindness so that we can ask for God’s mercy, be forgiven because of the ransom Jesus paid on the cross, and begin the lifelong process of becoming like Jesus. If we call out to God, He will take time for us if we call out to Him.
The words of the blind men are great words to memorize and to pray every day. “Lord, have mercy on me…a sinner.” This is a humbling prayer, and it’s one we need to pray every day. Let me invite you right now to pray that prayer with me right now. Let’s think of all the ways we’ve sinned against God, the ways we’ve put other things before Him, the ways we’ve put ourselves before others, and let’s ask for His mercy. Don’t pray it if you don’t mean it but if you do, pray “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner” out loud with me: “Lord…have mercy on me…a sinner.” If that’s the first time you’ve ever prayed a prayer like that and meant it…welcome to the kingdom of heaven. Keep following Him with us.
And when our hearts get to the spot where we’re humbly asking for God’s mercy, we are becoming one of the poor-in-spirit who inherit the kingdom of heaven, you’re becoming one of the lowly of this world who are the greatest in God’s! As we grow in Christ, we grow not only in our dedication to God but also in our concern for others. We become more like Jesus.
- We make time for our family members, for that friend, that classmate, that co-worker, that stranger, that lost or hurting person. We make time to share all this good news about who Jesus is and what He’s done. We make time to meet their needs.
- I’m so grateful for our missional partners who, in becoming more like Jesus, make time for the lost and the hurting, the persecuted and the unreached. In fact, they not only make time for them but have dedicated their lives to going after them! Some of us need to go and the rest of us can send them with prayer and funding.
- If you have questions, need help, need prayer, I urge you to reach out to us if we haven’t already been reaching out to you. Know that between all of us in the body of Christ, we have time for you. At least we better, because Jesus had time for us.
Questions for Reflection and/or Discussion
- Jesus understood the price He’d have to pay. James and John did not. What will you need to sacrifice as you follow Jesus?
- What is Jesus’ definition of leadership? How does that differ from worldly definitions?
- Remember that Jesus “came to serve and give His life as a ransom for many” and take some time to praise and thank Him for that right now.
- Considering that He’s bought you with His own blood, how can you follow His servant-hearted example today?
Calvary | Muskegon 