How Can I Be The Greatest In God's Kingdom? Series

We’re coming into the primary season that will lead up to a presidential election in about a year, and there was a debate recently, and many interviews on television, and Trump and tucker talking on Twitter, and Biden and RFK Jr. and various others on both sides of the political debate getting ready for runs to gain the office of the white house the most powerful seat of authority on planet Earth. You have Trump being indicted by various prosecutors in the country, and you have investigations into Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, and it’s all a big battle for power and authority, and control over the country and the direction of the country.

This is how our world battles for power and influence, through television, news, social media, debates, money, influence, and events. And many are ambitious to have great authority, to be great, and to be thought of by others as wise and impressive and strong and great.

That is how the world deals with “trying to be great.” And whether it’s a presidential run, or a basketball game, or teenager girls vying for power in the hallways at high school, or people trying to gain a promotion at work, so much of our lives have to do with power games, authority, and a desire to show the world: I’m special, I’m great, look at me! Look at how great I am!

It was great for me, a breath of fresh air in fact, to escape that rat race, and find myself in an entirely different system, a system called the kingdom of God.

Once you become a Christian, you receive new birth, and you start to understand how God’s economy works, you start to wonder: How can I be one of the greatest in God’s kingdom?

That human ambition takes over. We start to wonder: Alright, I see that it’s not about money, it’s about service, it’s about love, it’s about spreading the word. Now how can I be great in this new system?

We see the greatest according to the world system, Nobel prize winners, billionaires, government leaders, celebrities and musicians, but what about God’s kingdom?

How does it work?

We naturally want to give our all for God. We want to go all in.

We want to be great. We want to sit with Jesus on his throne.

The Lord Jesus is with his disciples, on the way to Jerusalem. They are on the way to the capital city. This will be the greatest moments of Jesus ministry. He will take on the pharisees and religious leaders in the great city.

I’m sure all his disciples are excited and amazed and are wondering what will happen next.

James and John, brothers, are very sure they want to be great. So they bring a special request to their master.

Mark 10:35-36, “Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.

In Matthew chapter 20 we know that their mother was also involved with this request they’re about to bring before Jesus.

They request that Jesus do for them whatever they ask, but instead when we make requests of the Lord in prayer, we should often also say, “but Lord your will be done, not mine.”

The Lord responds by asking them, what do you want me to do for you?

Here is their request from verse 37:

37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

James and John want to be great. They want to sit on thrones to the left and right of Jesus Christ the King in the after-life, after Christ has entered glory.

Quite an outrageous request, don’t you think? Has anyone else anywhere in the gospels asked the Lord such an outrageous question? Usually the request is to learn to pray, or to be healed, or to learn more about the kingdom of God. But James and John want power, authority, and influence. They want to be great in God’s kingdom.

The Lord Jesus points them immediately toward the great cost of it means for Jesus to be enthroned as king of the universe. In verses 38-39:

38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

39 “We can,” they answered.

Jesus tells them you don’t really understand what it means for me to be enthroned as king. You don’t understand the cost. So he asks them two questions: Can you drink my cup? Can you be baptized with my baptism?

And they answer confidently, “yes.”