Values of the Kingdom
What Jesus Taught in His Last Days on Earth
Sunday, March 13, 2005; Wayside Community Church; Grove City, PA
Growing up in the circles of Evangelical Christianity, we never observed the season right before Easter known in Orthodox circles as Lent. We had family and friends who did, however, and we watched in curiosity as they gave up various bad habits or food items. I didn’t really see the point. After Easter, they went right back to those same habits and foods that they had said before was bad for them.
But recently, in my own exploration of church history and experience, I have been thinking about Lent and its value to us today and it got me thinking about several other things. Primarily, this question and how it relates to Jesus’ last days on this earth…
If you knew that you were going to die in 2 weeks, what would you want to tell your children? Yea, I know, they can be morbid thoughts. But let’s say that you, like Jesus, could see into the future, and you knew that you were going to be killed, come back to life 3 days later, and things would never be the same. However, you really don’t even have 2 weeks, because in a little over a week and a half, you would be arrested and placed in custody until your death. What would you like your loved ones, your friends, to know? What lessons would you teach your children?
Those thoughts were bouncing around in my head this week as I considered what Jesus was teaching and doing the last few days before they arrived in Jerusalem for the last time. Next Sunday, we will find Jesus riding triumphantly into Jerusalem, people all around shouting, dancing, and singing, “Hosanna!” And after that day, the last week of Jesus’ life gets very hectic. Lots of things going down. Scenes flashing by at a rapid pace. It is a Feast, the Jewish Passover, and the city is filled with families reuniting, children racing around the houses, cousins and friends getting reacquainted.
It reminds me of a recent trip back home to Oklahoma. In the 22 years of our marriage, we have never been to Grandma and Grandpa’s house without someone else in the family coming into town to see us as well. Some cousin, or Uncle, or friend comes in to see the wayfaring pilgrims! So it’s always lots of people, not enough time to see all your friends and family, and meals together every day. On this particular trip, Mom, as usual, had a big list of things that needed doing. (Moms just like to see their boys workin’!) So Dad and I put in a Pergo “hardwood” floor in the family room, we repaired the back porch, we worked outside around the pond, we changed the oil in the car, and in between all that, we took time out to eat meals, go to church, see family, take pictures, etc, etc. As usual, it was on the way back home before I thought much about my children. I had heard them, fed them, corrected them all weekend, but in the middle of all the festivities, hadn’t been able to spend any productive time with them. I sincerely doubt I taught them much at all that week.
Jesus’ last week was like that, so I got to thinking about what he taught his disciples as they were making their way to Jerusalem. As they started out for Jerusalem, Jesus taught them some powerful lessons. You’ll find passages about this in Matthew chapter 20, Mark chapter 10, and Luke chapter 19. Today, I’m going to read from both Mark and Luke passages.
Now there are several parables, stories and accounts in these chapters, and there may be more than one application from most of these. But I want to draw your attention to several things as we focus in on the trip to Jerusalem. Particularly, we need to look at earthly values versus values of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus recognized that his disciples still had priorities and values in their lives that did not line up with Kingdom values and priorities. In Mark 10:17-31, we find an account of a rich, young ruler coming to Jesus in search of some answers.
1. We value Wealth, but God values Sacrifice
The disciples listened in on this conversation Jesus had with the rich ruler. And they were amazed to hear Jesus saying, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.” The prevailing philosophy of that day was the idea that if you were favored by God, you would be blessed financially. So there was great value on wealth, and anyone wealthy must be in very good favor with God. Thus, their question, “Who then can be saved?” They were incredulous. Peter followed that up, still with amazement and a touch of disbelief at what he’d just heard and said, “We have left everything to follow you!”
They had missed the point, they had it backwards. They had focused on the wealth – Jesus focused on the sacrifice.
The same philosophy is still prevalent today. In my internet research this week, I came across a website titled, “Everyday Wealth: Personal Wealth without Sacrifice.” Jesus was coming out strong against that very belief. He declared that there was no true wealth without sacrifice. God does not honor people today, nor did he show his favor then, by bestowing wealth on people just because he liked them! The only wealth he bestows is on those who give up everything for the sake of the Gospel, and then the wealth he speaks of is primarily in the area of relationships and includes persecution!
“Sacrifice isn’t a very popular notion in this culture of getting and spending and having and holding onto what we believe we need to make ourselves successful and happy. ‘Sacrifice’ is a word that conjures up those Incan mummies recently discovered in the Andes, children drugged and killed for the gods centuries ago, or those goats and bulls burnt on altars in Biblical stories. Sacrifice suggests lives ended violently for what we consider false gods; or in the secular world, doing without something we want in order to get something we want more, like sacrificing vacation for college tuition. But the meaning of ‘sacrifice’ is not, it turns out, determined by acts performed. Its real meaning comes from the Latin words ‘sacer’ (holy) and ‘facere’ (to make or do). When we sacrifice a thing, we literally make it holy.” “Giving In: Reflections Before Lent” The Reverend Karen Lewis Foley, February 22, 2004
There are 3 things I want you to write down regarding sacrifice. When we sacrifice (fast, deny ourselves, give up, give away, sell out) from our wealth:
1. We show a desire to go beyond the rules.
2. We make deposits into a heavenly account.
3. We indicate that we cannot save ourselves.
You see, he was trying to teach them that the First shall be last, and the last shall be first. God honors and values sacrifice, but so many times, we place more emphasis on gaining and getting, on wealth, rather than on giving up and giving away, on sacrifice.
Immediately on the heels of this story, Jesus takes his disciples aside, and tries to tell them that he will be arrested, beaten, and crucified. But he will rise again on the 3rd day. Again - they missed it completely. And we find another earthly value coming in direct opposition to the kingdom of God.
Read Mark 10: 32-45
2. We value Position, but God values Servanthood
Another prevailing belief, especially among Jesus’ own disciples, was that Jesus, being the Messiah, the Promised One, was going to set up a physical, earthly kingdom and bring them out from under the rule of the Romans. So, James, and John, hearing Jesus talk about what was going to happen in Jerusalem, and assuming he meant that he was going to set it all up in the next few days, decided they would take the opportunity to ask a favor.
Jesus, seeing another teaching moment, tells them that if they want to be truly great, if they want to be rulers, then they must learn to be servants. This was the opposite of how the rulers of then known world ruled. They “lorded it over their subjects.”
“Not so with you,” Jesus said, “For the Son of Man come not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Behind a church in the small town of Flint Hill, Virginia, you will find the grave of a young seminary student named Albert Gallatin Willis who died on October 14, 1864. Albert Willis’ story is unusual. Albert Willis served with the famed command of Mosby’s Raiders during the Civil War. Because of Mosby’s harassment of Federal supply trains, wagons, and stores, General Phil Sheridan ordered that Mosby and any of his men be hung on capture. In October 1864, Willis and an unnamed comrade were captured by the 2nd U. S. Cavalry and sentenced to die by hanging. However, Willis was offered a Chaplain’s exemption as a ministerial student. But because his companion was married, young Willis offered himself as a substitute for the comrade and died in his place so that the other might go free. Willis professed his “Christian Readiness To Die,” prayed for his executioners, and was hanged.
This young man understood what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples that day on the road to Jerusalem. Once again, the disciples had missed the point, they had it backwards. The goal is not to gain a position where others wait on you, look up to you, fan you, and feed you grapes! The goal is to place yourself in service to others, where people look down on you; to do the things that no one wants to do, and to give your life for someone else, if that is required of you.
A disciple who came into the fold a little later, the Apostle Paul, understood this concept, and his “…call [in Corinthians] is to ‘preach ourselves as servants.’ Imagine standing before any body of Christ and proclaiming with all the declarative authority of every other doctrine you have ever preached the following: ‘I am your number one foot-washing, toilet-plunging, trash-cleaning, floor-scrubbing, diaper-changing spiritual janitor.’ ” “Draped in a Servant’s Towel Rather Than a Master’s Robes”, by Joseph V. Noveson
Richard Moore tells about Anne Lamott, who kept a diary when her first son was born. She was a single mother, had very little money, and was new in her faith, living from blessing to lack to blessing. She wrote:
“Last night… something truly amazing happened. A man from church showed up at our front door, smiling and waving to me and Sam, and I went to let him in. He is a white man named Gordon, fiftyish, married to our associate pastor, and after exchanging pleasantries he said, "Margaret and I wanted to do something for you and the baby. So what I want to ask is, What if a fairy appeared on your doorstep and said that he or she would do any favor for you at all, anything you wanted around the house that you felt too exhausted to do by yourself and too ashamed to ask anyone else to help you with?"
“I can’t even say,” I said, “It’s too horrible.”
But he finally convinced me to tell him and I said it would be to clean the bathroom, and he ended up spending an hour scrubbing the bathtub and toilet and sink with Ajax and lots of hot water. I sat on the couch while he worked, watching TV, feeling vaguely guilty and nursing Sam to sleep. But it made me feel sure of Christ again, of that kind of love. This, a man scrubbing a new mother’s bathtub, is what Jesus means to me. The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, July 23, 2000, “A PROPER DWELLING” by Richard Moore
There are 5 things I want you to write down about being a servant. If we were to consider ourselves as servants, then we would find that:
1. A servant has no time of his own. Always, his time is his Master’s
2. A servant has no choice but obedience. He cannot say, "But Sir, that’s not my line of work!"
3. A servant owns nothing.
4. A servant has no right to compare his work with any other servant. If another slave’s work is harder or lighter than his own, that is not his concern.
5. A servant has no worries, “because questions of food, clothing, shelter and protection are the Master’s concerns, not his. The slave lives on his Master’s bounty, and all his Master’s resources are in his hands.”
You see, Jesus was trying to tell his followers that there was a far higher position in the kingdom of God than being seated at the right hand of God. That position is on your knees as a servant, loving our fellow man thru acts of kindness and unselfishness. He values servanthood, not positions of authority.
Now, if we follow Jesus’ through the rest of Mark chapter 10, and then go over to Luke chapter 19, we find a couple more stories that give us another earthly value versus kingdom value.
There is the story of the blind man sitting on the ground, who calls out to Jesus as the crowd presses on by. In spite of severe reprimands from Jesus’ followers, the blind man continues to call out until Jesus stops. The blind man is healed, and Jesus and the crowd go on into Jericho, where Jesus finds Zaccheaus in a tree, and Zaccheaus finds Jesus in his house.
Read Luke 19: 1-10
Here we see clearly a third conflict of earthly values coming up hard against kingdom values.
3. We value Reputation, but God values Relationship
In both of these accounts we find people around Jesus who didn’t like what was happening. They didn’t want to stop and care for the beggar beside the road, and they didn’t want Jesus to go to the chief tax collectors house.
All the people started talking, “He has gone to eat in the house of a sinner. Don’t you know, Jesus, that he can’t be trusted? Don’t you know that he has swindled and defrauded many people out of their hard-earned money?” None of them would have hesitated one second in letting Zacchaeus know how much of a scum they thought he was, how much they distrusted him, how worthless he was. Zaccheaus meant “Righteous One” in Hebrew, but he was anything but! He was a Chief Tax Collector.
Now, some people might think of Zacchaeus like Freddy. There was a booth, I’m told, at the county fair. A strong man stood in the booth and offered $1000 to anyone who could squeeze a drop of juice out of a lemon he had squeezed first.
No one succeeded. The booth owner was making money hand over fist. Then little, skinny, pasty white Freddy showed up. The strong man does the usual - grabs the lemon and squeezes it till every drop of juice is wrung from the pulp. He handed the rind to Freddy, who took off his coke bottle glasses, raised the lemon and squeeeeeeezzzzed till his face turned purple and the veins stood out on his neck. Then, the crowd which had gathered gasped as, glistening in the August sun, a drop of juice appeared, hanging from the bottom of the lemon. Handing over ten one hundred dollar bills, the booth guy asked, “Who are you? Where are you from?”
“Oh,” says Freddy, “I work at the Internal Revenue Service.”
Yes, Zacchaeus was one of those people we love to hate. He was a tax collector, and a very good one at that. The church society of that day was strong in the belief that a good, righteous person did not enter the house of a sinner at any time. Period. You just didn’t do that. And to sit down and eat with them was an unheard of insult against their “religion.”
Jesus didn’t worry about what the people said. He didn’t worry about the accusations, (the same accusations have been made about many preachers, me included), and he just let that sinner know that he loved him. He didn’t have to worry about his reputation with the church people, or with his disciples. Paul tells us in Phillipians chapter 2:7, “he made himself a man of no reputation, taking on the very nature of a servant.”
Jesus cared for Zaccheaus, and wanted a relationship with him so much that he went to where he was and looked him in the eye, and said, “I care about you and your life.” And by going to his house, and by eating with him, Zaccheaus was changed! Here was someone who cared about him.
Jesus, after Zaccheaus made his declaration of restitution, said that salvation had come to this house, “Because the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
There are 4 things I want you to write down about relationships versus reputation. When we take the kingdom value of Relationship over our own Reputation, we can expect several things to happen in our life:
1. We will be slandered and lose favor with the crowd.
2. We will gain favor with God.
3. We will see amazing changes in the life of the unbeliever. (A fourfold restitution plan is really amazing!)
4. We will see unbelievers come into a relationship with Christ.
Jesus, in his last few days, took time out to teach his followers a very important lesson. And he would illustrate that lesson by giving up his own life so that they [we] could have a relationship with a loving, living God.
What was it that Jesus tried to teach in the last days before he was crucified? Sacrifice. Servanthood. Relationship. Those are the things that really matter.
If you really want to do something for Lent that will last beyond Easter, then take a journal, and write down some things for your children or grandchildren. Write down how sacrifice has changed your life. Write about how being a servant has gotten you more than position. Write about the relationships that God has used to change you. And if you don’t have anything to write about, then you will need to pray. I invite you to pray about those things right now.
