The movie, Pearl Harbor, tells the story of two friends, Rafe and Danny, who survive the attack on Pearl Harbor and enter World War II as fighter pilots.
In training before the war, Rafe McCawley is one of America's top fighter pilots. When America initially holds back from entering the war, Rafe volunteers to help the British in their fight against the Germans.
When Rafe first arrives at the English airfield, he walks by British airmen (Spitfire fighters) shot up from the previous day's battle and is greeted by the commander of the British squadron (start movie clip). As the commander shows him the plane he will fly, a messenger announces to the commander that two more British planes have just been shot down.
The commander turns to Rafe and asks, “Are all Yanks as anxious as you to get themselves killed, Pilot Officer?”
Rafe does not hesitate: “I'm not anxious to die, sir,” he says. “I'm anxious to matter.” (Pearl Harbor, Touchstone Pictures, 2001, rated PG-13, written by Randall Wallace, directed by Michael Bay, 00:31:05 to 00:32:20, DVD: Track 9; www.PreachingToday.com)
I suppose that’s what most of us want with our lives. We want a life that matters. We want a life that means something. We want a life that makes a difference. The question is, “How?” How do we live a life that matters? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Mark 10, Mark 10, where Jesus shows us how.
Mark 10:32a They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. (NIV)
They were afraid, because Jesus was walking into a city where people hated Him and wanted Him dead.
Mark 10:32b-34 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 betrayed to the chief priests and 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.” (NIV)
Jesus knew about the pain and the suffering that awaited him in Jerusalem, but He did not shrink back in fear. On the contrary, he led the way through the pain into victory. Jesus was going to Jerusalem to sacrifice Himself for us, and He invites his fearful followers to come along.
About 20 years ago, Scott Behnke, Howard’s brother, visited our church in Ellsworth. He was a Vietnam veteran, and his cousin, Ed, had invited him to try out this new church. Well, that Sunday afternoon I got a call from Scott who expressed to me, “Pastor, I believe you’re a real sky pilot.”
I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but I soon came to learn that a “sky pilot” is a military officer who not only tells his men what to do, he gets right in there and does it with them. In fact, a “sky pilot” leads the way into battle. He leads the way into the hardships of war. He leads the way through the pain into the victory ahead.
Well, that’s what Jesus is doing here. He is leading the way! He was going to make the ultimate sacrifice, and He invites us to go with Him. For you see, if we want to live a life that matters, then like Jesus we must be willing to die. We must be willing to…
SACRIFICE OUR OWN LIVES.
We must be willing to give up our own comforts. We must be willing to forfeit our own agendas for things that really matter.
Pat Tillman was one such man. He loved football, but he loved his freedom as an American more.
When Pat arrived at Arizona State as a freshman in 1994, he received the school's last remaining football scholarship that year. Initially that meant a spot on the end of the bench, but by the time Pat graduated summa cum laude from ASU, he was no bench-sitter. Tillman was named the Pac-10's Conference Defensive Player of the Year and chosen by the Arizona Cardinals in the 1998 NFL draft.
It didn’t bother Pat that he was the 226th pick out of 241 to be drafted. Five months later, in spite of his undersized 5’11”, 200 pound frame, he became Arizona's starting strong safety. In his third season, Pat set a franchise record with 224 tackles. In 2001, the then Super Bowl Champion St. Louis Rams offered him a $9 million, five-year contract, but Pat declined out of loyalty to the team that had drafted him.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the 25-year old superstar began to evaluate his priorities. In the spring of 2002, after returning from his honeymoon, Pat announced his decision to leave the team after only four seasons even though it meant turning down a three-year, $3.6 million contract. Tillman felt called to lay aside his privileged life in order to defend the country that had allowed it. So in May 2002, Pat enlisted in the U.S. Army as a Ranger and following basic training was deployed in the Persian Gulf. He went from earning millions a year to an annual salary of $18,000. Then on April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman died in Afghanistan after a firefight with anti-coalition militia forces.
According to former Cardinals head coach Dave McGinnis, “Pat Tillman represented all that was good in sports. He knew his purpose in life and proudly walked away from a career in football to a greater calling.” (AOL News, 4-23-04, and NFL Insider, 3-20-03; Greg Asimakoupoulos, www.PreachingToday.com)
In a sense, that’s what Jesus invites us to do if we want to live a life that matters. Jesus invites us to live our lives with purpose and pursue the greater calling of giving our lives in service for Him. Sure, there will be some sacrifices. We may have to give up our own comforts and agendas, and some of us may even have to give up our lives, but that’s the only way to live a life that makes any real difference. If we want to live a life that matters, 1st we must sacrifice. Then 2nd, we must…
SUFFER FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.
We must drink His cup of pain. We must endure the kind of agony He experienced on the cross. At least, that’s what Jesus told James & John.
Mark 10:35-37 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” (NIV)
They wanted the top two spots in Jesus’ Kingdom – positions of real influence and power. In other words, they wanted their lives to matter. So Jesus tells them how. Notice, He doesn’t reprimand them for their ambition. He just asks them to consider the cost.
Mark 10:38 “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?” (NIV)
Now, in the Old Testament, “the cup” was a common metaphor for divine judgment (Psalm 75:7-8; Isaiah 51:17-23; Jeremiah 25:15-28; 49:12; 51:7; Ezekiel 23:31-34; Habakkuk 2:16; Zechariah 12:2). You see, Jesus is about to bear the wrath of God’s judgment for my sin and yours on the cross. That’s why He uses this metaphor.
But He also talks about being under water, about being “baptized” or more literally being immersed, and that too was an Old Testament picture of overwhelming calamity and suffering. The psalmist and other Old Testament writers often described their sufferings as coming “into deep waters” and having “a flood overwhelm” them (Psalm 69:2,15; Job 22:11; Isaiah 43:21).
Jesus is telling James and John, “I’m about to go through a time of extreme suffering and pain. Are you able to suffer too?”
Mark 10:39 “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with.” (NIV)
Jesus tells them, “You will indeed suffer, because that’s the price of greatness. That’s the cost of living a life that matters. That’s the only way to have power and influence in My Kingdom.” And Jesus would say the same thing to us. If we want to live a life that really matters, then there is a cost. We too must suffer as He asked His original disciples to.
Psychologist Jonathon Haidt talks about the value of suffering purely from a human growth point of view. He says, “Imagine that you have a child, and for five minutes you're given a script of what will be that child's life. You get an eraser. You can edit it. You can take out whatever you want.
“You read that your child will have a learning disability in grade school. Reading, which comes easily for some kids, will be laborious for yours.
“In high school, your kid will make a great circle of friends; then one of them will die of cancer.
“After high school, this child will actually get into the college her or she wants to attend, but a terrible car crash will put her through a difficult time of recovery and depression.
“A few years later, your child will get a great job – then lose that job in an economic downturn.
“You get this script for your child's life and have five minutes to edit it.” Dr. Haidt asks, “What would you erase? Wouldn't you want to take out all the stuff that would cause them pain?”
Then he continues, “I am part of a generation of adults called ‘helicopter parents,’ because we're constantly trying to swoop into our kid's educational life, relational life, sports life, etc., to make sure no one is mistreating them, no one is disappointing them. We want them to experience one unobstructed success after another.
“One Halloween,” Dr. Haidt says, “a mom came to our door to trick or treat. Why didn't she send in her kid? Well, the weather's a little bad, she said; she was driving so he didn't have to walk in the mist. But why not send him to the door? He had fallen asleep in the car, she said, so she didn't want him to have to wake up.”
Dr. Haidt comments, “I felt like saying, ‘Why don't you eat all his candy and get his stomach ache for him, too – then he can be completely protected!’”
Then he asks, “If you could wave a wand, if you could erase every failure, setback, suffering, and pain – are you sure it would be a good idea? Would it cause your child to grow up to be a better, stronger, more generous person? Is it possible that in some way people actually need adversity, setbacks, maybe even something like trauma to reach the fullest level of development and growth? (John Ortberg, The Good News amid the Bad News, Leader Journal.net, 3-9-09; www.PreachingToday.com)
A part of life is suffering, but God can use that suffering to make us better people if we come to Him with our pain. It is absolutely necessary if we want to live lives that matter. 1st we must sacrifice. 2nd we must suffer; and 3rd if we want to live lives that matter, we must…
SUBMIT TO GOD’S WILL.
We must accept the role God has given us to play. We must be faithful to carry out God’s assignment for us whether it’s great or small. That’s what Jesus says in verse 40.
Mark 10:40 “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.” (NIV)
God has prepared a place for each and every one of us believers – not only a physical place, but a role to fill in His Kingdom. And we don’t get to choose that place. On the contrary, God sovereignly chooses that place for us and asks us to faithfully serve in that place to the best of our ability.
Pastor Stephen Cole in Leadership journal writes about jogging in the forest near his house when a question popped into his mind: What about John Spurgeon?
He had been reading the autobiography of the famous 19th Century, British preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and was asking the Lord to bless his ministry like Charles Spurgeon’s. Then that question hit him, and he began thinking about John Spurgeon.
Ever hear of him? He was the father of Charles. He was himself a pastor and the son of a pastor. Yet if his son had not achieved such fame as a preacher, John Spurgeon would have served the Lord faithfully, gone to his grave, and we never would have heard of him.
Hundreds of pastors like him have walked with God, shepherded his flock for a lifetime, and gone to their reward without any notice in the sight of the world. “As I jogged,” Cole writes, “I thought, ‘Would I be willing to serve God faithfully and raise up my children to serve him, even if I never achieved any recognition? Even if no one but my own small congregation knew my name?’
The more Pastor Cole thought about it, the more he realized, “Yes! That's really what I want: to be faithful to the Lord in my personal walk, in my family, and in my shepherding of God's flock.”
The Lord never says, “Well done, good and famous servant”, but he does say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
If God makes me as famous as Charles Spurgeon, that's his business. My business is to be as faithful as John Spurgeon. (Steven J. Cole in Leadership, Vol. 7, no. 3; www.PreachingToday.com)
It’s the only way to live a life that matters. Don’t strive to be famous; strive to be faithful as a husband, as a father, as a wife, as a mother, as a grandparent, as a student, as a carpenter, as a teacher, as a businessman, or even as a preacher. Whatever role God has assigned to you, in His strength, carry out that role to the best of your ability. For if we want to live a life that matters, 1st we must sacrifice; 2nd we must suffer; 3rd we must submit; and finally, we must…
SERVE ONE ANOTHER.
We must wait on each other and put each other’s needs and interests above our own. That’s what Jesus said to the rest of his 12 disciples, who felt left out after James and John claimed the top two spots in His Kingdom.
Mark 10:41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John.
They were mad because they didn’t think of the idea first. They all wanted those top two spots. So…
Mark 10:42 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 authority over them. (NIV)
That’s the way the world operates. Its leaders dominate and control. They demand their rights and exploit people to get their way.
Nowhere is this more evident than on Donald Trump’s reality TV show, called The Apprentice. Bradford Cohen, a contestant on the show several years ago, turned down his exemption from getting dismissed at the end of the show that day. He did this as a gesture of support for his team leader, assuming his performance would protect him from hearing the dreaded words, “You're fired.” He was mistaken. Accused by Trump of making a stupid mistake in turning down the exemption, he sent Bradford packing.
At the time, Dr. Stacy Blake-Beard, of the Simmons School of Management, said the episode accurately reflected the highly competitive nature of the business world. “The message of The Apprentice is that to the extent that you look out for yourself above all else, you will be rewarded. In that sense, the show is a microcosm of the real world. Organizations talk about teamwork, but few of them promote it. They promote the star.” (Aiane Lewis, "The Sting of 'You're fired!' Management Specialists Decry Trump's Ways," Boston Globe, (10-3-04); www.Preaching Today.com)
It’s the way the secular world operates, but Jesus says…
Mark 10:43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant (NIV) – lit., your table-waiter.
Mark 10:44-45 And 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.” (NIV)
Jesus Himself showed us what true greatness is all about. It’s not about people waiting on me. It’s about me waiting on people. To His ambitious disciples, Jesus made it very clear: The way up is down. They way to lead is to serve. He didn’t squelch their ambition for greatness. He just showed them how best to realize it, and He would say the same thing to us, His disciples, today. If we want to live a life that matters, then we too must serve.
Ten years ago, Jerry Manuel was the fourth winningest manager the Chicago White Sox ever had. Only once in his six seasons with the club did his team finish lower than second place in the American League Central Division. In 2000, they won their division, and Jerry was named American League Manager of the Year. Three years later, on Sunday, September 28, 2003, the 49-year-old manager recorded his 500th victory with the club, but ironically, the next day, Jerry Manuel was fired for not guiding his team to post-season play.
Manuel, an outspoken follower of Jesus Christ, had been warned about his firing a few days before it was made public. In response to news of his dismissal, the soft-spoken manager spoke of doing more than just win baseball games. He said, “If you don't win, you like to make people better once you've left them, make people better players.” For Jerry Manuel that was his “greatest reward.”
“Obviously you want to win,” he said. “But if you can impact somebody's life and head it in the direction that they can be somewhat successful—whether it's the game or not—I think that's the biggest thing for me.”
His words reflect his motivation for coming to Chicago to lead the Chicago White Sox. “When I came here,” he said, “I came here to be a servant and not a celebrity. Obviously, that's changed. But that's still how I feel, and I don't have any regrets.” (Yahoo Sports, 9-24-03, and AP, 9-28-03; www.PreachingToday.com)
Do you want to live a life without regrets? Do you want to live a life that makes a positive difference in other people’s lives? Then with God’s help strive to be a servant and not a celebrity.
If we want to live a life that matters, then we must sacrifice; we must suffer; we must submit; and we must serve. Sacrifice, suffer, submit and serve: Those are four words we don’t like very much, because they seem like steps down to obscurity, but in God’s Kingdom they are steps up to true greatness.
In the movie Emperor's Club, Kevin Cline portrays an instructor of Western civilization in a prestigious private school. It is the first day of class, and about 30 high school boys, dressed in matching red jackets, settle into a room decorated with maps and busts of Caesar, Plato, and Socrates (start video clip).
The professor asks one student to read a plaque above the door. The student is clearly nervous as he leaves his seat and walks to the door. The plaque itself appears to be an ancient artifact.
The student delivers an uncertain reading of an inscription that makes little sense to him: “I am Shutruk Nahunte, King of Ashand and Susa, Sovereign of the Land of Elam. By the Command of Inshushinak, I destroyed Sippar, took the Stele of Nirah-Sin, and brought it back to Elam, where I erected it as an offering to my God, Inshushinak. Shutruk Nahunte, 1158 B.C.”
The teacher then asks the class, “Is anyone familiar with this fellow? Texts are permissible, but you won't find him there. Shutruk Nahunte. King. Sovereign of Elam. Destroyer of Sippar. But behold his accomplishments cannot be found in any history book. Why? Because great ambition and conquest without contribution are without significance.”
He ends by posing this question: “What will your contribution be? How will history remember you?” – STOP VIDEO CLIP!!! (Emperor's Club, Universal, 2002, directed by Michael Hoffman, written by Neil Tolkin, 00:07:39 to 00:09:00; www.PreachingToday.com)
I end by posing to you the same question: When your life is all said and done, what will your contribution be?
