July 2, 2023 | Mark 10:1-52 | Pastor Chris Baker
Open your Bibles to Mark 10. We're covering 52 verses this morning, but our initial reading is shorter. We'll read Mark 10:32-45. This is the highpoint of the passage, and it's the gravitational center of Mark's gospel. Everything we've studied so far is building up to this moment.
After we unpack that section, we'll see how the Pharisees, disciples, a young wealthy man, Peter, James, John, and the rest of the disciples all misapply the truth of Mark 10:32-45. And we'll close by seeing how one man gets it right.
Let's read together from Mark 10:32 and following
Read Mark 10:32-45
Pray
Dr. Jones was in a high-stress environment. He had been on an exhausting and dangerous journey. His father was dying. Men behind him threatened his life, and he stood in the entrance to a place where many men had already died.
Dr. Indiana Jones was seeking the Holy Grail. He had used his father's journal as a guidebook to get this far, despite resistance and betrayal from various bad guys. The bad guys actually found the temple first, but the booby traps at the entrance had already claimed the lives of several. To motivate Indy to enter the temple himself, the villain shot his father in the stomach. They believed that if he retrieved the Holy Grail, its healing power would save his dad.
In this high-tension moment, those of you who have seen the movie might remember the line Indy was uttering to himself over and over. The clue to defeat the first booby trap said, "Only the penitent man will pass." As Indy enters the temple, he repeats that line a dozen times.
"Penitent" means repentant. In the last possible moment, Indy mutters to himself something to the effect of "a penitent man kneels before God." He kneels down, the saw blade swings past, he defeats the other booby traps, saves the day, and goes on 20 years later to make another terrible sequel that ruins the originals for everyone. I made the depressing discovery that this week marked the 34th anniversary of that movie's debut. That has nothing to do with the sermon, but if I have to feel really old, I want you to join me.
"The penitent man will pass," though, is a line that, for some reason, has always stuck with me. Only the penitent man could enter the temple. Only the penitent man will pass.
It's related to a question addressed in Mark 10. What kind of person belongs to the Kingdom of God?
There are some likely suspects. The Pharisees are the most outwardly religious people in Israel. If anyone deserves to be in the Kingdom, surely it's them. But Jesus rejects their hard hearts. There's a rich young man who seemed to have it all together. He had the life so many of us secretly want. But Jesus rejects his hard hands that refused to let go of his stuff. The disciples are in. But they're not yet living lives that fully reflect that reality. Jesus rejects their hard heads.
What kind of person belongs in the Kingdom of God?
Here's how we'll approach this text. We started in the middle because that's where the true answer is found. Verses 32-45 give us the truth.
What does someone who belongs to the Kingdom of God look like? And I need to say this up front. I'll say it again in the end, too, because it's crucial you understand this. What we're talking about today, primarily, is not how you enter the Kingdom. These are how someone who belongs to the Kingdom lives. We're talking about characteristics of Kingdom people. Characteristics of those who belong to Jesus.
Living this way doesn't save you. Everyone in this room was born separated from God. We inherit a sin nature that reveals itself in our sinful attitudes and actions in such a way that we earn hell for ourselves. We earn God's wrath, we earn eternal separation from everything good, and we earn punishment. Yet, instead of giving us what we earn—God offers grace.
He offers grace in sending His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him might have eternal life.
2 Corinthians 5:21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The Jesus Christ about whom Mark wrote this gospel account is fully God and fully man. He had no sin, so He earned no death. Yet, He died as a substitute sacrifice for all those who will ever call on His name for salvation. If we repent of our sins, that means turn away from them, and place our trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, the Bible says we will be saved. You can—and should—do that today if you haven't.
That is how you enter the Kingdom, but we don't go from the entrance of the Kingdom directly to heaven. We live as refugees. Ambassadors is how the Bible refers to us. We live in this Kingdom, even though our permanent home is elsewhere. So while we live here, how do we behave? How do we relate to God, other people, ourselves, and the rest of creation?
Jesus tells us here in verses 32-45. The rest of the chapter applies the Kingdom ethic we learn here to how we relate to other people and how we relate to material possessions. Our people and our stuff. That's pretty all-encompassing, isn't it? Most of your problems are tied to people or stuff or some combination of both. And Jesus makes clear that your status as a resident of His Kingdom dictates how you see yourself in relation to both.
Let's dive in.
The Kingdom Ethic: Greatness Means Servanthood (10:32-45)
The big picture truth of the first verses we read, and the big picture truth of Mark's gospel, is that greatness means servanthood.
Verse 32 opens with Jesus leading His disciples up to Jerusalem. That's not insignificant. The first nine chapters of Mark cover over 30 years of Jesus's life. The last seven focus on just a handful of days. Time dilates over these last few chapters, but the action doesn't stop.
Jesus moving toward Jerusalem is Jesus moving toward His death. He did so willingly. He led the way, and He knew what was coming. The disciples knew it, too. Or at least they knew it was dangerous. The Pharisees have been plotting to kill Him for a long time now.
He took the twelve aside—remember, this half of Mark's gospel really focuses on what Jesus tells His inner circle. The crowd is still there, but they're held at arm's length.
He told the twelve for the third time what was about to happen. See, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death. Then they will hand him over to the Gentiles, and they will mock him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him, and he will rise after three days.
How do they respond? It's maddening, isn't it? Every time Jesus predicts His humble death, the disciples focus on their own greatness.
"Jesus, we're sorry you're going to die and all. But, while you're still here, can you do us a favor? You see, me and John, we'd like to sit at your right hand and your left hand in your glory. In addition to sacrificing yourself as an offering to cover the sins of your people, if you could just reserve a couple of seats for us, that'd be great."
Jesus had already told them that if they want to be like Him, they had to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him. Dietrich Bonhoeffer summed it up well, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die" (The Cost of Discipleship, p. 99).
There will be men at Jesus's right hand and His left hand in Mark 15. The two thieves. That's not what James and John had in mind. But let's not judge them too harshly, church.
They're not that far off in their thinking. Jesus will raise His people up to glory, won't He?
1 Cor. 4:14 God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
Ephesians 2:6 He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
Those who belong to Jesus will be raised up to glory. That's a biblical promise. James and John just got the order wrong. They wanted the glorification of the resurrection without the sanctification of life in the Kingdom.
Jesus explains it to them. If you want to be elevated like Me, you have to suffer like me. They said they were prepared to do it. Eventually, most of the 12 did. They were martyred for their faith, just like Jesus.
Here, though, is how they missed it. And it's the heart of our passage. The key to greatness in this kingdom is being served. The key to greatness in His Kingdom is learning to serve.
10:42b "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. 45 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."
James and John want to be great. They know greatness in this kingdom is measured by status, wealth, and power. Jesus makes it clear greatness in His kingdom means the opposite. The ruler, those who lord their power over their underlings, aren't great in God's Kingdom. The servants are. If you want to be first, be a slave to all according to the text.
That's the Kingdom ethic. It's present in every scene in this chapter, but it's only caught by one person.
We're going to call the application of Jesus's words in Mark 10:43 Kingdom Servanthood. We see it applied to people and possessions. Belonging to Jesus's Kingdom changes everything about us. Because that's true, it changes the way we interact with each other and with our stuff.
Let's look at it in Mark 10:1-16, where we see Kingdom Servanthood in the family.
Kingdom Servanthood in the Family (10:1-16)
Ok, church, there are so many sermons here that we could camp out for weeks. Sometime we'll spend a whole sermon series on dating, marriage, divorce, and remarriage, and we'll be back in this text. An expository sermon on this passage would take us much deeper into the marriage and divorce issue, but the truth we need to understand today in light of where Jesus anchors us later in the passage is to think about marriage and family as servants.
What the Pharisees were doing was 100 percent self-serving. Both the question and their cheapening of marriage were evil.
They only asked to try to trip Jesus up, as they had done over and over again. They think they know Moses's Law pretty well. Jesus knew it better. It wasn't Moses's Law to start with, after all. It was God's Law. I remember there were a couple of times in college that I took a class where the professor wrote the textbook. That was going to be a tough class. The teacher knew his stuff.
Jesus knows His stuff. They never trip Him up, but they keep trying. Here, they're wanting Jesus to affirm their evil position on divorce.
Here's what the Jewish leaders in Jesus's day had done. They took one verse in Deuteronomy 24 that talks about laws for divorce when some kind of immorality was involved, and they played very fast and loose with the definition of that word, so much so that a rabbi named Hillel taught you could divorce a woman for something as simple as burning your food.
The Pharisees taught you could divorce for any reason. That, church, is serving yourself. Jesus responds by making it clear that marriage isn't just a covenant between a man and a woman. It's a covenant two people enter into with God. And God is serious about marriage staying together. The book of Malachi reminds us that God hates to see divorce. He's passionate about His glory, and God is glorified when two people commit to serve one another in a loving, committed, lifelong marriage. The same God who hates divorce would not condone divorce for the grave offense of burning dinner.
I do believe that the Bible gives us two grounds for divorce. In Matthew 5, Jesus points out an exception for adultery, and in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul writes about abandonment by an unbelieving spouse. I believe those are the two biblical grounds for divorce. Not everyone agrees, and that's ok.
The big picture point remains: in marriage, trying to get out when we are unhappy is selfish. And, church, isn't that how our culture treats it? Marriages are disposable, but it's not so in the sight of God, and it can't be so in the sight of His people.
Do you want your marriage to get better? Serve your spouse. You might do a great job at that, but you can probably do better. I do marriage counseling regularly. I've spent time in a counseling setting with several couples in this room, and I've yet to have a wife come to me and say, "this guy just serves me too much."
Our Sunday school class just finished a book titled "Sacred Marriage" written by Gary Thomas. I recommend it to anyone who is married or wants to be married. The premise is a simple question: What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? That's an amazing question. If you think the other person is there to make you happy, to serve you, you're going to have a miserable marriage. But if you think daily about how you can glorify God in your marriage by serving your spouse, you are going to be blessed.
Kingdom servanthood in marriage looks like two people devoted to glorifying God by serving and loving each other, dying to themselves, bearing each other's burdens, and walking together toward Jesus.
Jesus points out the Kingdom Ethic to the Pharisees. But they don't see it.
Neither do the disciples. Parents are bringing children to Jesus to be blessed. Again, there's a ton we could unpack here, but we really just have time to be reminded that Kingdom Servanthood sacrifices self to love children.
The disciples had plans. They were trying to help Jesus move through a vast crowd. The kids were in the way, so they turned them away. Jesus was indignant, according to the text. Outside of turning over tables in the temple, this is the most severe word used to describe Jesus's anger in the Bible.
Jesus does, in fact, love the little children. And loving children, church, requires you to give yourself—amen, moms? You give up your comfort, time, money, sleep, and you do it all to serve your children. Why do we do it? We love our own children. We love the children of other families in the church, the children of our neighborhoods, because that's what Kingdom Servanthood does. We seek to serve, and we serve them best by pointing them to Jesus.
I love that these are the two examples—spouses and children. Those are the two groups of people that most of us will serve the most throughout our lifetime.
Kingdom servanthood means we hold people very tightly, and it means we hold our stuff very loosely.
Look at verse 17:
Kingdom Servanthood with Possessions (10:17-31)
Read 10:17-31
We get two incredible illustrations in this passage. First, this wealthy man. You might have heard him called the rich young ruler. When we stitch Matthew, Mark, and Luke's accounts together, those are the three things we learn about him. He had money, youth, and power.
Those are the three things our society, and truthfully every society, bends over backwards trying to grab hold of. He had it all, but he knew he was missing something. So he came up to the Man who had no earthly possessions and asked him for eternal life. Jesus told him to give away his stuff and follow, just like the disciples did.
Church, this man was confronted by Jesus Christ face-to-face, offered eternal salvation, and he walked away lost all because he didn't want to let go of his stuff.
He valued his stuff more than he valued his eternal life. This blew the disciples away. Jesus, we left everything we had and followed you.
And they're reminded that it's worth it. No one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, who will not receive a hundred times more, now at this time—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and eternal life in the age to come.
You give up stuff here in this life, and you store up treasure in the next one. Do you want to be great? Realize your stuff is a means to serve, not a symbol of your greatness.
We have nothing that God didn't give us, church. It's not our stuff. So when we give back to God, either by giving to the church or blessing someone else, we're not out anything. It's all His. He blesses us with things, and it's not wrong to enjoy those things, but church, we have to be constantly on guard to hold those things loosely and be ready to deploy them for God's Kingdom.
Kingdom Servanthood means holding our stuff loosely. Jesus tried to show that to this rich young man, but he didn't see it. He tried to show the Pharisees and the disciples how Kingdom Servanthood means loving people well. But they didn't see it.
However, church, there's one man in this chapter who saw it. Look at verse 46, and let's read about Bartimaeus.
Seeing Yourself Clearly in Light of the Kingdom (10:46-52)
Read 10:46-52
For Indiana Jones, only the penitent man would pass. In Mark chapter 10, there is only one man who is commended by Jesus: not the Pharisees or the disciples, not the rich young man, just blind Bartimaeus.
Of all the people we've encountered, he saw Jesus for who He is. And his heart exemplifies what it means to enter the Kingdom of God and live life there.
Do you want to be great? Do you want to be commended by Jesus? Come to Him empty-handed, begging for mercy. That's what Bartimaeus does.
Augustus Toplady wrote "Rock of Ages" way back in 1763, and he stated it well: "Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling."
That, church, is how we come into the Kingdom. We come to Jesus knowing that we need salvation but don't deserve it. We beg for His mercy. He receives us, we run to Him, He heals us, and enables us to follow Him.
Following Him means we serve the people around us by loving them well and by using all the gifts God gives us to live as servants. The blind man saw it. So many who could see didn't. What about you?
Questions for Further Reflection
Why did Jesus reject the Pharisees, the rich young man, and the disciples' understanding of what it means to belong to the Kingdom of God?
How do you feel challenged to apply the Kingdom Servanthood ethic in our own lives, particularly in our relationships with others and our possessions?
What does it mean to be a servant to all, according to Jesus' teachings?
How does this challenge our cultural understanding of status and power?
How did Jesus respond to the disciples' question about divorce? What can we learn from His response about the importance of marriage and commitment?
What did Jesu mean when He said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God?
Consider the interaction between James, John, and Jesus in Mark 10:35-45. What were the disciples requesting, and how did Jesus redirect their understanding of leadership and greatness?
How does Jesus' washing of His disciples' feet in John 13:1-17 exemplify the importance of humble service?
In Galatians 5:13, Paul urges believers to serve one another in love. How does love motivate serving others in the Kingdom?
Discuss Paul's teaching in Philippians 2:3-4 about considering others' interests above our own. How can this mindset transform our approach to serving?