Down is the Way Up

Anyway, we are so glad that you are with us here. Welcome. Wonderful to be part of church on this balmy, balmy weekend. Man, if you missed like being able to go to Hawaii or something like that this year, here you go. Here's your chance. Right now, water's warm, so's the air, and it's a great day to be in church.

A couple of years ago, I invited a very special guest onto this stage. She's an expert in organizational leadership. What's so impressive about this particular guest is that she's part of a very large organization. They have groups all around the world, and yet they're able to organize themselves around a very specific principle, and every single person just gets it. From the very top of the organization all the way to the bottom, they all march in step.

And if you know anything about this kind of thing, this is impressive because one of the difficult things, especially with a very large organization, is to get everyone onto the same page, and yet they do this perfectly. And the reason for that is that my guest was a chicken, and chickens all follow a single principle called the pecking order. Anyone remember when I brought this live chicken onto stage? Some of you do. I was inspired by John Ortberg. I saw him do this. I thought it would work out swimmingly, and yet I don't know what it is, Santa Cruz.

Some of you, you didn't hear anything that I had to say. You were worried about the chicken the whole time. You thought that she might be suffering from stage fright or something, all the lights and people as if chickens would be thinking about that, or that perhaps she felt confined, wasn't able to be a free-range chicken during that time. And so you were concerned. My words, I could see it on your faces. It was like, "We don't care about what you're saying, Mark. We just are worried about that chicken." And then, of course, some of you went to Carpo's and had pasta and grilled chicken right after church, but no matter.

The point was the pecking order. Doesn't matter if you're an American chicken, African chicken, Asian chicken, every single chicken on the earth understands the pecking order, which means if you're a strong chicken, you're healthy, hey, life is good. You get first dibs on the food. You get the best place in the coop. You get to rule over others in the roost. However, if you're a weak chicken, life's not so great. You get picked on by other chickens. You are probably hungry, lonely, isolated. You likely suffer from low self-esteem if you're a weak chicken. And heaven forbid if you should become sick or injured, good luck because the other chickens, they may just peck you to death. That's how ruthless chickens are.

And in fact, because of this, human beings have tried to alter chicken behavior. A one company offers a product called Pick No More. It's this foul-tasting ointment that you put on the wounded chicken so that the other ones will be discouraged from pecking on them. They claim that it controls cannibalism because that's really what we're talking about here. Don't know how successful that product actually is. Another attempt to alter chicken behavior. I kid you not, a man in 1939 invented little spectacles, little individual spectacles. I kid you not, here's the brochure from this product rollout. Every little set of chicken eyeglasses had red lenses because his theory was that chickens are drawn to the sight of blood, so if they couldn't distinguish between blood and anything else then they would leave each other alone. He made thousands of these, pretty confident that the little chicken eyeglasses did not catch on however.

So the issue is, the pecking order is what it is. This is how chickens roll. However, it's not just chickens that operate by the pecking order, it's pretty much the way of the world. When it comes to greatness, maybe you are bestowed in some area of life with greatness. Maybe you're just lucky enough to be born you're great looking, or you're great at making money. You have a great talent, you have a great intellect, you are a great athlete. You achieve greatness in some category of life and you will be awarded with a high place on the pecking order. You will be awarded rank and status and you know this from your own experience, don't you?

In fact, if you need a reminder, next time you're in a group of people, ask yourself who gets to dominate the conversation? Who gets to interrupt whom? Who gets their way? I'll tell you who, it's the person at the top of the pecking order and it's been this way since the very beginning. It was very much this way at the time of Jesus because the Romans who controlled the world that Jesus grew up in, they were all about the pecking order. Rank and status meant everything. You couldn't even dress just however you felt like dressing. You had to dress according to your rank, your status. There was no fudging on that. They were very, very committed to this.

In fact, a very elite Roman, a man named Cicero, you might have heard of him. He wrote these words, "Rank must be preserved." Why wouldn't he feel that way? He was at the top of the coop. Pecking order worked out really, really good for him. And then Jesus Christ, the son of God, enters the scene with a completely different paradigm. The way the world measures and rewards greatness and the way Jesus measures and rewards greatness, they could not be more different. You're going to see that today.

What you're not going to see are the disciples having an aha moment over this. You will not see them go, "Oh, aha, we get it. That's the way we are going to roll from here." It's not going to happen in this story. In fact, it doesn't happen until after Jesus dies and rises from the grave and ascends to heaven. And when the Holy Spirit, it's not until the Holy Spirit illuminates their hearts and their minds that they finally get it.

And so in this story, you're going to be astounded. You're going to be amazed, in fact, by two disciples in particular because their pecking order mentality is going to have a head-on collision with the way of Jesus when it comes to what it means to be truly great. I invite you to open up your Bibles if you have them to Mark 10. If you don't have a Bible, you can use one of those in the pew racks in front of you. You can look it up on your phone, follow in the notes or on screen. No shortage of ways to follow along. Please do as I start reading from verse 32.

They were on their way up to Jerusalem with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished while those who followed were afraid. They were astonished and afraid because for some time now, Jesus has been telling them that if they want to enter the kingdom of God, they have to become like a child. In fact, when some parents bring their kids to Jesus, they want Him to touch them and bless them. The disciples, you know the story probably, they shush all the kids away like, "Get away. He doesn't have time for you." And they do this not because people didn't love their kids back then. They loved them as much as we do, but children didn't have any status. They had no rank. They were insignificant.

And so when the disciples respond the way that they do, Mark says that Jesus becomes indignant. And he says, "Let the children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." In fact, it's like the kids come around Him and He's saying to His disciples, "Hey guys, you need to become like these children." Basically meaning, you need to recognize that status is of no importance to me. You need to become dependent. In fact, you need to be simply willing to receive what's provided to you completely out of love, which is what children do.

And when Jesus uses this, you know, it's a brilliant object lesson right there, when He does this, it just goes whoosh, right over the head. No light bulbs go on. Right about in the same time, this young man comes up to Jesus and he's well dressed. He's rich. He's got authority. He's ultra religious. I mean, this guy has impeccable credentials and the disciples are thinking, "Man, we got to get this guy on our board. He is perfect. Man, this guy's got it going on. Sign him up. He's a great guy. And what does Jesus do? Jesus tells him, "Go, sell everything you have, give all the proceeds to the poor and then come follow me." And the disciples are like, "Are you serious? That's like the best prospect we've seen in months. Do we really need another jobless, penniless member of this organization, Jesus? Seriously."

And yet what that young man needed is to have the thing that he depended on removed so that he would depend on Jesus. In other words, so that he would become like a child. And again, when there's this beautiful object lesson playing out right in front of him, it just goes whoosh, right over their heads. And bear in mind, some lights are coming on for the disciples. They are understanding that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah so they have to be thinking, "Well surely some of his power, some of his glory is going to spill over onto us, right?" They get, "Hey, I'm going to be somebody in this world." Jesus keeps saying, "Actually, you need to become a nobody." And so it's no wonder that they're astonished, even a little bit afraid because Jesus is completely rattling their cages.

Well it says, continuing in verse 32, "Again, he took the twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. 'We are going up to Jerusalem,' he said, '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 and will hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.'" This is the third time that Mark records Jesus predicting how and where and when he will die and then he will rise from the dead. And this is the most graphic, this is the most detailed because Jesus is making this as clear as he possibly can and when he does you think, "How would they respond to that?"

Well it tells us, "Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. 'Teacher,' they said, 'we want you to do for us whatever we ask.'" Well that was a very sensitive thing to say, don't you think? Is that stunning? I'm going to go, I'm going to be crucified, I'm going to be tortured. Yeah, well that's all fine and well Jesus, but we want you to do for us whatever we ask. Ever pour out your heart to someone, you really, you know, just kind of drop this major grief in their lap and the response, it's so tone deaf. It's so unsympathetic that you're like, "Why did I even open my mouth?" In fact, it can be, you want to throttle them, right?

It's amazing how consumed with selfish ambition James and John are in this moment. But you know what's equally amazing? How patient Jesus is with them because he doesn't throttle them, he doesn't even rebuke them. He just says, "What do you want me to do for you?" Okay, what do you want me to do? Now watch this, this is awesome. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in glory." Oh, is that all? You know, we just want seats next to you in heaven Jesus, that's all, not asking much, really?

You know, this is where the Bible just rings so true because, think about this, if you were writing an account of the life and message and significance of Jesus and it involved his first followers and in fact those were going to be the very people that it was all entrusted to. They were going to carry forward this amazing endeavor. If you were going to do that, would you write stories like this that make them look so bad? Would you write a story about two of his disciples that are so full of their own selfishness, so full of their own ego? They're like, "Yeah, well, whatever, you're going to die, but give us what we want." And go, "Yeah, those guys, follow them." You would never, ever do that, but you got to love the honesty of Scripture here.

But it's also true that it's easy to look at the mistakes of others, but think about the things that you most often ask Jesus for. Just at the top of your prayer list, if you're like me, the answer is, well, me, often. In fact, I was at Mount Hermon earlier this summer with a guy named Brian Lareitz and he challenged the guests there to think about this and he was talking about prayer and he said, "I want you to imagine something. I want you to imagine that if you were to go back the past 12 months, every single thing that you ask Jesus for, he says yes to. For a whole year, Lord, would you please do this? You got it. Lord, could you bring this into my life? You got it. Lord, could I be absolute? Yes, yes, yes, yes." Now, here's the question. If that were to happen, would that change the world or just your world?

You know what I'm saying? Jesus says yes to everything I ask him. Does that change the world or just my world? No mistake. There's nothing wrong with bringing our personal needs and wants and concerns to Jesus. We're invited to do that, but one of the points of this passage, in fact, one of the points that you see throughout Scripture is it's not just about you. It's not just about me. There's a bigger picture involved, but again, James and John, they're just like, "Yeah, we just kind of like our own thrones, please. You know, one on your left and right. That's okay with you."

And then look what Jesus says in response, verse 38. He says, "You don't know what you are asking." I mean, they're so blinded by their own agenda, Jesus says, "Guys, you don't get it. You don't even know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" The cup is an Old Testament symbol of God's judgment. Jesus says, "I'm about to actually drain the cup of God's wrath on the wickedness in this world and in the process I will be immersed, I will be baptized in suffering." It's going to be intense, guys. Do you really know what you're asking?

And you want them to say, "Well, you know what? Come to think of it. Maybe we should get back to you on that. Maybe we should just take a few minutes and really think about what we're asking for." Do they do that? No, they do not even bat an eye and they say, "We can. We can. We got this." Because selfishness, it doesn't just drive us. Selfishness blinds us. These guys are so self-assured like, "Yeah, you know, we got it, Jesus. Bring on the cup. Bring on the baptism." People especially pastors like to point out how Peter, the disciple Peter, often is known for putting his foot in his mouth, right? Well, I think that maybe James and John may have just one-upped him in this story. They might just take the prize right here.

They remind me, I mentioned at the beginning I talked about chickens. Well, I grew up around chickens. My dad had them. My whole life still does. From time to time he'd also have turkeys. You would spend any amount of time around turkeys. You should do this because the Tom turkeys especially, every day, all day, all they do is they just puff up and they go, "Pfft." They do this for each other. They just kind of once look, "Pfft." The other one's like, "Oh, yeah?" You walk towards their coop, they're like, "Pfft." The funny thing, they can actually bring in a lot of air, but they've got nostrils about the size of like a pinhole. It kind of leaks out with this little kind of snort. They'll be like, "Pfft." "Pfft." They would come at us all puffed up and we would help them expel that air a little bit with the point of our foot, but I won't go into that. It's terrible. I know it's terrible. It's terrible.

We would do it, they'd go, "Pfft." We cannot get it out fast enough. The fact that the Greek for proud, one of the Greek words for proud is puffed up, literally. If you know the King James for 1 Corinthians 13, it says, "Love is not puffed up." Same idea. And here's James and John, you know, like two Tom turkeys. They're like, "Pfft." "Yeah, Jesus. We can. We got this. It's time to separate the men from the boys. Bring it." And you're like, "Are you serious?" But they're just blinded by their own selfishness, their own self-interest.

And Jesus says to them something heavy. He says, "You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. 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." That's a heavy statement. You know, according to church tradition, James was the very first of the disciples to be martyred. John was essentially the last. He was exiled to the island of Patmos where he was basically doomed to a slow death of deprivation. In between them, Jesus is not going to punish them for asking this because all of the disciples according to tradition were martyred in one way or another.

But it does make you stop for a moment and go, "You know, you might want to be careful what you ask for because you just might get it." But also, before we move on, it's important to note that when Jesus says, "It's whoever sits on my left or my right is not for me to grant," He's not in any way denying His equality with the Father. He is simply affirming as He always does His submission and service to the Father's will. But when Jesus submits and serves, He is in no way diminished, and neither are you. When you're willing to submit and serve others, you are in no way diminished. In fact, that's where true greatness is found. More on that in a moment, but let's just get back to James and John here because here they are trying to essentially lock in the two best seats in heaven. Yeah, we just want the best seats in heaven. That's all. You could swing that for us.

And when the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Mark uses the word "indignant" all of two times in his entire gospel. The first one I referenced earlier, when the disciples tried to shush the kids away, Jesus became indignant. It says, "Don't get between me and the kids." The second time is right here with the other ten becoming indignant with James and John. And here's the thing about indignation. Indignation always reveals what you value. The thing that gets your goat, the thing that gets a rise out of you, that's something you value. So with Jesus, can children be any more important to Jesus? You get in the way, you will be met with indignation. Jesus values children.

And yes, I will resist the temptation to plug our new children's center, but I guess I just did. But He values them. What do the disciples value? Their place in the pecking order. "Don't mess with my place, man. That's me. That's mine." And the problem is that apart from the power of the gospel in our lives, we will be a slave to our own selfishness. And you'll know what you value. You know essentially what you serve by what gets a rise out of you. And every once in a while, again, through God's grace, and I wouldn't say every once in a while, I think it should be something that's more than just a rare thing. You see this in God's people where they're able to transcend that. They're able to become about things that are actually of value.

I was thinking this week about a man who was a fixture in this church my entire time growing up here, Sid Hughes. And if I'm not mistaken, Sid passed away five years ago this fall. But at his memorial service, his grandson Tyler was telling a beautiful story about his granddad, Sid. Tyler was surfing one day, and he surfed all the way to sunset. And he gets out onto the beach. There's hardly anyone there. He finds someone with a cell phone, calls his mom, Karen, and says, "Hey, I need you to pick me up." Well, at that moment, Karen is working at their place of business, and she's certifying payroll. And payroll is not something that when you're certifying, you can just walk away from.

And so Tyler says he hears his grandfather, Sid, in the background saying, "Don't worry about it. I'll go and pick up Tyler." Tyler's thinking it's probably going to be like 20 minutes before he gets here. Sid shows up in five. He pulls up in his brand new black Cadillac Escalade. He rolls down the window and he says, "Tyler, get in. I've been cranking the heater the whole time." Tyler's not getting in. Tyler's trying to get the sand off his legs and off his feet and off his surfboard. And Sid sees this. He gets out of the car. He picks up two... Big-handed guy. Picks up two handfuls of sand. He throws them in his brand new Escalade, and he says to Tyler, he says, "Tyler, when did you ever get the idea that I love this car more than I love you? Get in." Tyler said at that memorial service, he spent the whole time dripping on the leather upholstery, thinking about how much his grandfather loved and valued him.

Now if that were me, I'd be like, "Come on. Get in my new car. We can strap you to the roof." But when God starts to change our hearts, the things that we're passionate about, the things that register on our radar, they change. And in fact, they're better. But here's the thing. If all we operate by is our own selfish interests, if it really just boils down to my rights, my wants, my way, me, mine. If that's how we operate, look out because it's really just dog-eat-dog at that point. We're in keeping with our analogy, chicken-eat-chicken. It's the pecking order.

Now there's this major dust-up about to happen between the leadership of the early church, the first followers. They're indignant at James and John. So Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise or flaunt authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Man, you want to live a life of true greatness? Celebrate being a servant. Celebrate. Make it your goal not to be the one, you know, sitting at the head of the table with all the prestige. Make it your goal. Jesus says a greater goal is to be the one serving the table. Other intuitive. But that's what Jesus says is truly great. In fact, our word deacon, in most cases deacon in the original means table server. Table server. Is that your picture of greatness? It is for Jesus. That's what he calls great. And you know, he is God. He is God incarnate. And yet he says, "Even I didn't come here to be served. I came to serve and to give my life a ransom for many, including all of us." That's the gospel right there.

That's the incredible news that God would do this for us. And when this sinks in, when you realize this, he gives you new lenses. You don't have to grab and scratch and peck for what's yours. Everything you really need has been given to you. You have eternal life. You have purpose. You have forgiveness. My goodness. You know, in a nutshell, this story comes down to, you know, the greatest thing that I could ever ask of Jesus has already been given to me. He's already been done for me. In fact, that's worth writing down. Take your fan and find the place. Write that down on your notes. The greatest thing I could ever ask of Jesus has already been done for me.

And in keeping with that, the greatest thing that Jesus will ever ask of me is what I can do for others. It will be what I can do for others. It's not going to be, you know, hey, make sure that you climb the Everest in your organization. Make sure that everybody knows your name. Make sure that you have more accomplishments, more rewards, more trophies than the next guy, the next guy. No, the greatest thing you could ever do for me, church, will be what you can do for others. And that is so liberating because I don't have to spend my energy trying to prop myself up. My job is to prop other people up. It's as simple as that. And that's where true greatness is founded.

So I just want to close today by celebrating true greatness. True greatness. And there's so many examples that I could cite that's in this room and in our community as an expression of this church and other churches, but the one that I want to put the spotlight on as we close has to do with a couple in this church, Clark and Betty Masters and their daughter Mary Masters. Nineteen years ago, they founded the Bridge of Hope Foundation, their mission to create a bridge between people in need and people who care. The people in need are residents of skilled nursing facilities. In our community, the people who care are the volunteers that visit them and put on activities for them and take them on outings and bring them to church, to this service every single week of the year.

And earlier this year, Mary, who's taken a leadership role now with Bridge of Hope, Mary was awarded a Jefferson Award for her outstanding community service. We mentioned it, but today I want to celebrate that. I want you to see the tribute that KSBW News put together to honor Mary and this award. Watch the screen.

It's a special day at Hearts and Hands, a nursing home and rehab center in Santa Cruz. Today, many of the residents here are going out, thanks to a woman some consider their angel, Mary Masters. Mary organized this trip to Round Table Pizza. Three busloads of residents are coming. Sarah Silva has seen firsthand how this simple trip touches lives. To many of us, a trip out for pizza is no big deal. But to these people, it's something they look forward to for weeks. And the residents, it just means so much to them to just get out and feel like they're a part of the world. And we take so much for granted. We can go out any time we want, get something to eat, but if you can imagine what it's like to be living in a place where you have no choice at all of what you're going to be eating, so that's something we really take for granted. And we want to give them the opportunity to get out in the community as much as possible.

We created the Bridge of Hope Foundation, got financial support, and it all grew from there. More nursing homes, touching more lives. Now with generous donors and 38 volunteers, they do these pizza outings three times a year. And there is a whole lot more they do. In addition to going out to the Wharf, that's another favorite place to go. We also go on shopping trips with the residents. She just has a one-to-one friendship with them and she advocates for them. She has advocated for power wheelchairs for some of the residents who need a little extra help. Oh, Todd Simmons! Where did Mr. Todd Simmons go? Oh, Todd Simmons! Christmas gifts may be a pen pal to share with. A comforting hand. Mary Masters does it all out of love and compassion. She considers herself the real beneficiary. It's a joy to be here and we feel so blessed. We have so many friends. We spend quality time so that we truly get to know them. And it continues to grow. All because of the giving heart of someone all of these residents call a very special friend.

That is greatness. Mary, Clark, any of you here? Masters? No? People that are part of Bridge of Hope are here this morning and thank you for all of you who make this possible. And we just want to celebrate greatness in terms that Jesus says are great today. And by the way, if you want to get more information about bridgeofhopefoundation.org, it's on the URL is on the screen right there, you can go to their website bridgeofhopefoundation.org. If you're interested in just encouraging them, you can just send an email or if you're interested in being a part of this wonderful, wonderful endeavor, I know that they could use more volunteers and so I encourage you to check out their website and follow up from there.

But let's just make this a day where we celebrate greatness. There are great people. When you go and pick up your kids, if you've got kids over in our youth programs or our children's programs, I want you to go in there and I want you to thank those people for being great. Just say thank you for being great today or when there's people at the information desk that you need help from. Thank them for being great. If all you do is go up to the people who hand you a root beer float and you just say thank you for being great today. I told Saturday night, last night, and I checked on them. Many of them did not do it. They were too hot. I'm trusting you guys to do better, okay? Go there, thank them.

Whatever you do, however you serve, thank you. Some of you serve in this church, in our community, in your place of work. Many of you serve in your home. You serve other members of your family. You serve a neighbor. You serve a friend. However, wherever, whomever. And we are serving other people. We are serving Jesus Christ and there is nothing greater than that. Amen? Let's pray that He would make us great today.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for Your goodness and Your grace allowing us to be here today. Some of us are here because of the service of others. We thank You. We just want to praise the good works that they're doing. And Lord, none of us can ever will ourselves into having a heart for other people. It's just not how we are wired. We want to serve ourselves. But Lord, through the power of Your Holy Spirit, just like Your Holy Spirit descended on those otherwise self-absorbed disciples and they changed the world after that. Lord, I pray that Your same Holy Spirit would so empower us, so enliven us, so expand our hearts that Lord, we would seek to be great in God's kingdom as we serve and love and care for those around us. I ask this, Lord, in the name of the greatest servant of all, the one who came and died and rose so that we could be a part of Your family, we could be Your friends. We want to serve You in love however You call us and enable us to do to this day. I pray this in the name of Jesus. All God's people said, Amen.