Redeemer Anglican Orthodox Church Mission

KNOW WHAT YOU’RE ASKING FOR

July 27, 2010 | 2 Comments

KNOW WHAT YOU’RE ASKING FOR
A Sermon for the Eighth Sunday After Trinity: Saint James the Apostle by David J. Miller, Vicar, Redeemer AOC, Loganville, Georgia. Preached at St. Peter’s Church,
Statesville, NC, 7/25/1020
Matthew 20:20-28  Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him.  21 And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.  22 But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.  23 And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.  24 And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren.  25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.  26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;  27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:  28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
INTRODUCTION
Izaak Pearlman, the great violinist, once told the (true) story of a woman who came to him with a tape of her son playing the violin, begging him to listen to it. He tried to brush her off, but because of her persistence, he finally relented and listened. He was astonished! “Why, he’s great; he sounds just like Horowitz!” The woman said, “Well, actually that is Horowitz, but my son sounds just like that!”
That’s a humorous story, and we might be tempted to think this account of James and John’s request of Jesus, mediated by their mother, is something like that: the doting Jewish mother, who thinks her sons are great and deserve the places of highest honor. But I think there’s a lot more here than simply a request for advancement on the part of a proud mom.
We want to look, FIRST, at the Request; SECOND, at the Answer of Jesus, and THIRD, we will look at the Teaching of Jesus on the Principle of Grace.
THE REQUEST
Why do you think she made this request? Did she recognize genuine leadership qualities in her sons? They were, after all, in Jesus’ inner circle (of Peter, James and John) – the three who witnessed both the raising of Jairus’s daughter and the Transfiguration. Perhaps she did see gifts, qualities and abilities in her sons that would qualify them for leadership in Christ’s coming kingdom. But she missed the deeper principle of grace (which Jesus had introduced in verses 17-19, and teaches about later).
James and John were nick-named by our Lord, “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17).
Mark 3:17   17 And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder.
They must have been strapping young men, to have earned that nick-name; accustomed to hard work as fishermen on the lake, they would have developed strong muscles and correspondingly strong personalities. There must have been a lot that would recommend them to prominent positions in the coming kingdom. Even the world’s value system would no doubt agree with this.
A Digression: Incidentally, there does seem to have been an organizational structure in the apostolic band. We’ve already seen that Peter, James and John were Jesus’ closest disciples, a kind of inner leadership circle corresponding to David’s “three mighty men,” who were his closest friends and comrades-in-arms (2 Samuel 23:16, 17).
 But there also seems to be a more extensive organization among all the Twelve: in all the lists of Jesus’ disciples, Saint Peter, the acknowledged leader is always first, and – not surprisingly – Judas the betrayer is always last, but in each of the three listings (Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19, and Luke 6:14-16), Peter is first, and he is always followed by the same three names in all three lists; Philip is always fifth, again followed by the same three, and James, son of Alphaeus is always ninth and always followed by the same three after his name. (The order of the three after each name varies, but they are always the same three).
This would lead us to the likely conclusion that the Twelve were divided into three permanent sub-groups of four-man prayer-teams (perhaps akin to the military’s fire teams). Just as the twelve tribes of Israel did not wander the wilderness as a formless mob, so the twelve disciples were an organized entity.
All this is to say that it may not have been that far-fetched for the Zebedee brothers’ mother to assume that their position in the group organization qualified them for the honor she requested.
But in the worldview of grace, looking at everything from the vantage point of the Cross, there is something that is far more important than status in the group.  Not that Jesus couldn’t use the natural gifts of men like these — He did indeed use those gifts, but there was a deeper foundation that had to be there first.
That indispensible foundation was well expressed by Robert Murray Mc Cheyne, a young Scottish preacher of the nineteenth century, as he spoke to his fellow ministers: “What your people need most from you is your personal holiness.”
Mc Cheyne died of a fever as a young man in 1843. He preached his last sermon on the text: Isaiah 60:1   Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
He received a letter responding to that last sermon, and it said in part:
“I heard you preach last Sabbath evening, and your sermon brought me to Christ. It was not anything you said, but it was what you were as you preached. For I saw in you a beauty of holiness that I had never seen before. You were speaking about the glory of God resting on the Savior and I saw the Savior’s glory rest on you.”
But how do you and I attain to such a Christ-likeness? Where do we get, in any practical sense, that holy, loving, Christ-like character? Such personal holiness goes beyond any natural talents and abilities; it underlies those qualities and empowers them. And it’s not something you or I can simply work up by discipline, or self-effort, or trying harder, or determination. With this question in mind, let’s look at our Lord’s response.
OUR LORD’S ANSWER
Matthew 20:22   But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?
Jesus’ response should have probably brought them up short: “You don’t know what you’re asking.” They no doubt thought they did; that immediate answer, “We are able,” indicates that they still didn’t realize the gravity of their request. 
We could define faith as trust based on knowledge (from Scripture), in spite of circumstances, feelings and appearances to the contrary. James and John certainly had faith by this definition. They trusted Jesus that He would have a kingdom, despite the fact that appearances at the time did not say so. But, their knowledge was mostly ignorance, because the reality of the Cross, and all that that means, was not part of their picture.
Martin Luther wrote, “The flesh ever seeks to be glorified before it is crucified.” It would seem that both the two brothers and their mother had forgotten (or perhaps they never really heard) what Jesus had just said about that metaphorical “cup” and “baptism:”
Matthew 20:17-19  And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them,  18 Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death,  19 And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.
We should not be too hard on them; Jesus wasn’t. His statement, “Ye know not what ye ask,” is a gentle rebuke, but it also is an invitation to think about what the real situation is.
What should we make of Jesus’ question, “Are ye able…?” We may be tempted to read it as a kind of “dare,” but that would be an error. J. C. Ryle commented, “They had asked to share in their Master’s reward, but they had not considered that they must first be partakers in their Master’s sufferings (1 Peter 4:13).”
Jesus’ next words reflect two truths: first, that the Kingdom of God faces opposition. Suffering is not just the generic result of sin’s entry into the world, but is also evidence of satanic hostility to the establishment of God’s kingdom. Second, His own deference to His Father begins the instruction that would lead them to an understanding of the Gospel of the Cross, of grace.
The Gospel is certainly a doctrine, a teaching, summarized in the great creeds and confessions of the Church. But it cannot stop there; many believe those doctrines and acknowledge their need of God’s grace, but fewer have actually and personally experienced God’s grace for themselves. That’s the element of trust, and that’s essential. But there’s more; and this is what Jesus is leading His disciples toward in this exchange: the Gospel is also a lens for looking at the world around us through God’s perspective.  In other words, the Gospel is not only a doctrine and an experience, but it’s also a worldview.
Have you ever noticed just how much of Scripture is concerned with this last point? Dr. James Montgomery Boice used to say often that the Gospel calls us, “to think and act Biblically.” In other words, to view the world from God’s perspective and act according to what would please Him. We are called to follow Him as our Lord, not on our terms, but on His. This is the place Jesus is leading these two disciples and their brethren as well, for we’re told that the rest of the Twelve were angry with James and John.
 But their anger manifested the same spirit of ambition as that of the Zebedee brothers. They all needed this instruction (as do we!). Their prideful attitudes are actually opposed to God’s grace.
As we go to the next point, let’s pray in our hearts that we will be open to our Lord’s gentle teaching on this important matter.

GOSPEL GRACE AS A WORLD-VIEW
Here, our Lord teaches two things: first, that the perspective of grace is the precise opposite to that of the world, and second, that it means following the profound example of Jesus Himself.
Our Lord starts with the world’s example:
25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.  26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;  27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:  28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:25-28)
The perspective of grace is opposed to that of the world. We see this taught throughout Scripture.  Why do you suppose God chose Abel and not Cain? Jacob, not Esau? David, not any of his older brothers?  Working class fishermen, tax collectors and other “sinners,” instead of educated Pharisees and chief priests? Not that people of the ruling class were never chosen, but the pattern is pervasive so that you and I might get the point that God does the work, and we simply receive it by faith, “apart from works.”
Time doesn’t allow us to explore all the Biblical examples of this, but the Apostle Paul has summarized it well:
1 Corinthians 1:20-25  Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?  21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.  22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:  23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;  24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.  25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 
The Cross of Jesus is the supreme example of this principle of grace. “but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;  27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:  28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
It was said of Charles Spurgeon, that no matter where he began preaching, he would always find his way back to the Cross. That’s the highest praise one could give to any preacher! Saint Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 2:2   2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
I used the word, “example,” just now. But the Cross is far more than a mere example; it is that, but it’s more than that. The Cross is the means by which God has saved sinners, all who trust Him by faith.  It’s the very embodiment of God’s perspective on the world, and as such, it must control our thinking, our relationships, our attitudes and our actions. To the extent that it does, to that extent we will be enabled to live lives of consistent discipleship, following and obeying our gracious Lord. May the glorious Gospel of our Lord’s Cross be the controlling lens through which you look at and understand all of life!
All who have been saved by grace have no place to “exercise dominion,” or “lord it over” anyone else (incidentally, what an indictment these words are of much of Church history!). Instead, redeemed sinners manifest greatness by being one another’s servants.
The Reformers said that the preaching of the Gospel has two aspects: Law and Gospel. The law condemns and reveals our sin, and the Gospel reveals God’s remedy. If only law is emphasized, you end up with despair; if only Gospel, license. But when they are kept together, you have the fullness of God’s grace.
Elizabeth C. Celephane wrote one of the great old hymns, Beneath the Cross of Jesus, in 1872. In it, she expresses our Lord’s teaching in a heart-felt response of faith. The second and third lines say this:
 Upon the cross of Jesus Mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of One Who suffered there for me:
And from my smitten heart with tears Two wonders I confess, –
The wonders of redeeming love And my own worthlessness.
I take, O cross, thy shadow For my abiding place:
I ask no other sunshine than The sunshine of his face;
Content to let the world go by, To know no gain or loss;
My sinful self my only shame, My glory, all the cross.
Did you notice those “two wonders” she refers to, (“redeeming love” and “my own worthlessness”) are also echoed in the last line as, “my sinful self my only shame,” and “My glory, all the cross?” Both are summed up in a formula I heard many years ago:
“Cheer up; you’re a much worse sinner than you think you are; But Christ is a far greater Savior than you could ever dare imagine!”  AMEN.

David J. Miller, Vicar, Redeemer AOC, Loganville, GA. 7/25/2010

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