A little more than 100 years ago, a man was born who would
become one of history’s most influential persons. He energized his entire
nation and brought it from poverty to economic strength, from being a
second-rate nation to becoming a world power, a nation that was widely
respected for its great strength.
If leadership is measured by the
number of people who follow you, who support you, who are willing to risk their
lives for you, then this man was a great leader. In fact, in his language, he
was commonly called “The Leader” –
Der Führer.
This
man’s name was Adolf Hitler. Leader of millions. Able to energize an entire
nation through motivational speeches. He painted a vision of greatness for his
nation, and millions were eager to follow. Does that make him a great leader?
Let’s turn to another example in
history. This man was born to a poor family. His nation had been conquered and
colonized by a European nation and most of his people lived in poverty.
Everyone was looking for a leader who would help the nation achieve its
independence. And this man gathered a small group of followers. He went around
the nation giving speeches, energizing the crowds. Many people wondered, Could
this be the leader we have been looking for?
But the colonial power heard about
him and took action before things got out of control. They arrested him and
killed him. All his followers ran away.
Was he a great leader?
If leadership is measured by the
number of people who follow you, who support you, who are willing to risk their
lives to help you, then this man was a phenomenally great leader. His name is
Jesus Christ, and almost 1.5 billion people are now called Christians.
Adolf Hitler was a leader who got
many people to follow him into shame and infamy. Jesus Christ was a leader who
started so small that it seemed like failure, but he has led millions, even
billions, into better lives, and has made the world a better place.
Adolf Hitler is dead. Jesus Christ
was killed, but God raised him from the dead and he is now alive, leading
millions of people into good rather than evil. No one names their children
Adolf, but many people name their children after Jesus Christ.
What kind of leader do you want to
follow? One who offers national greatness through power and violence? One who
makes promises for quick success and power? One who promises to lift you up by
putting other people down? Or one who offers a more difficult path, one who
says that goodness is more important than power, a leader who says that we must
look to the next life for a true understanding of what it means to have real
success?
Do you want to follow a leader who
offers short-term power, or one who offers a better life that lasts forever? Do
you want to follow leader like Hitler into death, or do you want to follow a
leader like Christ into eternal life and joy?
What kind of leader do you want to
follow—and what kind of leader do you want to be? Everyone has a chance to be a
leader, a chance to influence others for good or for bad, so what kind of
leader do you want to be?
Let’s look together at what Jesus
Christ taught about leadership. The story begins in the Gospel of Mark, chapter
10. That’s in the New Testament, the second book, just after Matthew. Mark is
the shortest book that we have that tells the story of what Jesus did and what
he taught. We are going to look in Mark, chapter 10, near the last week of
Jesus’ life. Page 36.
Jesus had been thinking a lot about
what it means to be a leader. He was going to Jerusalem, and he knew that the
authorities there would kill him. But he went there anyway, because that was
part of his purpose in life. We’ll see that in a few minutes. But let’s start
the story by reading verse 35:
“James and John, the two sons of
Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us
whatever we ask of you.’” James and John were two of the disciples – they are
known today as Saint James and Saint John. But what they were doing here was
not very saintly. They were asking Jesus to do them a favor, and they wanted
him to say Yes even before they told
him what they were asking for. They wanted Jesus to do what they wanted.
It should have been the other way around, that they should have been willing to
do what Jesus wanted.
Many people are like that today. They
want Jesus to do them a favor. They will follow Jesus if he will do them a
favor – they will follow him if he is going in the same direction they already
wanted to go.
Now, it’s not wrong to ask a favor.
It’s not wrong to ask God for things that we want. But we have to remember that
Jesus has the wisdom to know what is best for us, and he loves us enough to
give us something that is going to end up hurting us. We don’t always get what
we want, because Jesus is not like a magical vending machine that if we push
the right buttons then we will get whatever it is that we want at the moment.
Let’s go back and see what it is that
James and John wanted.
Verse 36: “And Jesus said to them,
‘What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant that we may
sit in your glory, one on your right,
and one on your left.” (The story in Matthew 20:21 says “in your kingdom.”)
James and John were expecting Jesus
to be a great leader who would lead the Jewish nation in an independence
movement that would overthrow the Roman colonial masters and make Judea a great
nation. They were looking for national power and glory. They were looking for
Jesus to be a great king, who could do favors for the people who helped him
rise to power.
And so they said, When you become the
king, can we be your chief assistants? Can we be the prime minister, the
secretary of state, the commander of all the armed forces? Can we be somebody
great in your kingdom?
Some people are like that today. They
say, I will follow Jesus only if it makes me somebody important. I would rather
be an Eichmann or Goebbels helping Hitler kill people, than be a nobody
following Jesus. I would rather help Pol Pot kill millions of people in
Cambodia, than to speak out against him.
James and John wanted power, but they
were not very concerned about how that power was acquired, or how it was used.
They wanted to be a king that was more powerful than Caesar.
You know, Jesus is a king – but he is not the sort of king James and John were
looking for. Jesus is not the sort of king that the Jewish people wanted him to
be – but he was a king, and he still is a king. Jesus is Lord, and Caesar is
not. Jesus is alive, and Caesar is not.
The disciples had something to learn
about what it means to be a king, and what it means to follow a king like
Jesus. What kind of glory does he have, and how can we share in that glory?
That’s something we need to learn today, too.
Let’s see what Jesus told James and
John in verse 38: But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking
for.” You do not know what kind of glory or kingdom I will have. And so he asks
them, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the
baptism with which I am baptized?” Are you able to do what I am going to do?
And they said, verse 39, Oh, yes.
But of course they had no idea what
Jesus was talking about. Jesus had already told them that he was going to be
crucified in Jerusalem, but they didn’t understand what he was talking about. A
king who gets killed didn’t make any sense to them. A leader who lets the
Romans kill him didn’t sound like much of a leader to them. So they did not
understand what Jesus said, and here in verse 39, they still didn’t understand.
Jesus was going to drink the cup of
suffering, and baptized into death. James and John said yes, but they did not
know what they were agreeing to – just like they were asking Jesus to do them a
favor before Jesus even knew what they wanted. Oh, yes, they said, we can do
whatever you do – we can follow you all the way.
And in verse 39 Jesus said, “Well,
you are right. The cup that I drink you will drink, and you will be baptized
with the same baptism as what I have.” Jesus knew that the disciples did not
understand just yet, but they would eventually understand a lot more. They were
not ready to follow him into suffering and death just yet, but eventually they
would be ready, and they would do it. They
would soon turn from disciples who wanted favors, into disciples who were
willing to do favors. They would do
what Jesus wanted, instead of expecting him to do what they wanted. And they
would turn from followers, into leaders in their own right.
So Jesus says, Yes, you will follow
me. But now about your request – verse 40: “But to sit on my right or my left,
that is not mine to give; it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
Jesus, the great leader, does not
have total control over his kingdom. He can’t decide who will be his chief
assistants. That has already been decided, by God. Jesus is a great leader,
precisely because he is a great follower. He is following God, doing what God
wants, and if you do
that right, you are going to be a
great leader. Jesus is a great king because
he does what God tells him to do.
So Jesus answers their request with
Sorry, but I can’t do that for you.
Now Jesus uses this opportunity to
say something more about leadership. Verse 41: And hearing this, the ten [other
disciples] began to feel indignant with James and John – probably because those
two had the nerve to ask Jesus to be more important than everyone else. They all
want to be important, and here James and John had the arrogance to ask first.
So Jesus used the situation to give
then an important lesson. Verse 42, he called them all together for a little
discussion, and he said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as
rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise
authority over them.”
The rulers of the nations like to
boss other people around; the so-called great leaders have power over the people.
They are the Alexander the Great, the Julius Caesars of this world. They are
great conquerors, the kings who live in beautiful mansions and have thousands
of servans waiting to do whatever they want. They reign in majesty, and glory,
and violence – and then they die.
The leaders of this world can get
people to do what they want. Is that your definition of leadership? They can
get everyone to bow down before them. They can raise the taxes, live in glory,
and kill anyone who fights against them. They are the leaders who go down in
history as “the Great.” Alexander the Great, Sulieman the Great, the Great Khan
or the Great Shogun. Or in Russia there is Ivan the Terrible, and Atilla the
Hun, Stalin the powerful and Der Führer Adolf Hitler – the destroyers of this
world.
If you are a military genius you will
go down in history as “the Great.” But if you lose the war, you are “the
terrible.”
Both kinds of leaders use the same
methods, but they have a different result. The great ones and the terrible ones
use the same methods, and it’s often hard to tell the difference. Alexander the
Great could easily be called Alexander the Terrible, because he killed so many
people just to get himself more glory. Or Julius Caesar was a great leader who
killed a million people in Gaul for no other reason than to have a bigger
empire.
These are the rulers of the nations
who lord it over others, who order people around, who want to be great, who
want authority over people to make them obey. They want everyone to obey
them.
That sounds a lot like what James and
John wanted. Jesus knew that they wanted positions of glory and authority. They
wanted people to obey them. They wanted Jesus to be a king, like Caesar, and
they wanted to be top generals in Caesar’s army. They wanted mansions of their
own, and thousands of servants for themselves.
But Jesus was not that kind of king.
He says in verse 43, “But it shall not
be so among you.” You are not to think of leadership in terms of getting
other people to do what you want.
“Whoever wants to be great among
you,” he says in verse 43, “shall be your servant, and whoever wants to be
first among you shall be slave of all.” So, we should not think in terms of
bossing other people around – think instead of helping other people. Take care
of their needs – don’t expect them to
take care of everything you want.
You see, there are two fundamentally
different approaches to leadership and greatness here. There are two
fundamentally different approaches to life.
There is the way of personal self-aggrandizement, to get as much glory as
you can for yourself. That is the way of power, and eventually violence, and
then killing – and it is exactly what the Jews wanted to be rescued from.
But it would not do them much good to get rid of a Roman dictator and replace
him with a Jewish dictator. Many developing countries have found out that a
home-grown dictator is no better than a foreign one.
This approach to power – based on
selfishness – is not good. It is the way of Alexander and Caesar and Hitler.
When one person’s glory and wealth comes at the expense of another person’s
subjugation, it is the way of violence and death. When one person’s sense of
self-importance comes by putting other people down, it may be a little less
violent, but it’s the same basic approach to life.
So Jesus tells his disciples, It
shall not be so among you. Don’t do it that way! You do not need to be rescued
from the power of Rome – you need to be rescued from power itself – at least
the kind of power that forces other people to do what you want.
There is something worse than Rome –
a lot worse than Rome – and it is found inside of the Jewish people, not just
in other people. Evil is not just
“out there” – it is also “in here” – in humanity – and that is what Jesus came to take care of. He conquered something far
more important than Rome. Rome would eventually go away, and Judea would be
ruled by somebody else instead. But that would not solve the problem – it would
just continue the cycle of selfishness.
There are two different kinds of
government, two different approaches to life and leadership being described
here – a government in which leaders try to improve themselves, and a government in which leaders try to help the
people. What’s the main concern – trying to get power, trying to stay in power, or trying to do the most
good for other people?
Well, wait a minute, people might
say. If I don’t try to stay in power, how can I help anyone else? Doesn’t one
go with the other?
Oh, yes, that’s a good excuse. Even
Hitler said he was trying to help the German people. Caesar wanted to help the
Roman people, and Atilla the Hun wanted to help his people. Sure, that’s what they said. But their methods were flawed, and the people who
achieve power by violence will eventually be taken over by violence.
Jesus just says it as a fact: the
leaders of the nations want to order other people around, to use their
authority to enrich themselves. That’s their number one priority, and they help
others only if they think that they’ll get some benefit out of it.
Leadership can be good, or it can be
bad. If being a leader is our highest priority, then we won’t care about the
methods we use. But there is something much more important than leadership, and
that it is direction that we are leading, just what it is that we are leading
people to, and the methods we use to get there. Because our example is also a form of leadership,
and if we lead by dishonest methods, then we are going to perpetuate the
problem instead of doing something to eliminate it. Our goal should be helping
others, not getting them to do what we want.
But wait a minute, you might say. If
I don’t look after myself, someone is going to walk all over me, and take what
little I have. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and if I turn into a bunny rabbit,
then I’m going to get eaten for sure.
Yea, Jesus knows that. He uses
himself as an example in verse 45: “For even the Son of Man [that’s Jesus] did
not come to be served, but to give his life as a ransom for many.”
He says, My kingdom is not like the
kingdoms or empires of this world, he says. I am a king, but I am not like the kings of this world. They try to
enrich themselves, to get themselves more fame or glory, but I have come to
serve, to help others, even if it costs me my life.
Even if they kill me, he says, I have
come to serve. My approach to leadership is completely different than theirs,
and they will kill me for it, and I will willingly let them do it, because it is that important. I have not come to
seize power by the methods of this world. I have not come in order to stay in power, not if it requires using
the methods of power. I will have far more power in the long run, if I am
willing to give up power in the short term.
There are two ways to lead. One is to
beat people up, to intimidate others, to force
them to do what you want, to manipulate them so they do it for you. In that
kind of kingdom, people get hurt and they die, and there is an endless cycle of
death. Selfishness leads to violence. It may have some quick results, but the
end result is just part of the same old cycle of one person getting benefits by
taking something away from other people.
There is another way, said Jesus. It might involve death, too, but it
also promises a resurrection – it promises eternal life. And if you want to be
a leader for a long time, it sure helps to have eternal life.
Jesus was willing to give his life doing the right thing because he knew
that God would bring him back to life. James and John eventually became willing
to give their lives, too, because they learned that they had a guarantee of
living forever – and in the world to come, they would have more glory and joy
and every good thing they ever hoped for. They were thinking short-term, but
Jesus was thinking about the long-range
plan.
Just suppose that you could live
forever – what sort of world would you want to live in – a world in which
everyone is trying to lord it over others, a world in which leaders enrich
themselves at others’ expense, a world in which everyone is looking out for
themselves even if it means taking something from other people? A world in
which you always have to watch your back, a world in which you can never trust
anybody else, but always had to use
threat or force to get what you want? See, if this world lasted forever, you could
never relax or let your guard down – there would always be someone eager to use
an opportunity to take something you had.
Or would you rather live in a world
in which everyone was trying to be helpful, a world in which people who have
power always use it to help others? That would be heavenly, I think, and it is
the sort of kingdom that Jesus is offering us, because it is the sort of king
that he is. The Lord’s prayer says that we want God’s will to be done – we want
that because it’s the better way to live – and it’s better now, not just later.
If we want a life of perpetual
competition, of struggle against one another, then… we don’t have to do
anything. That’s the world we already have. But if we want a world of
cooperation, of kindness and love, if we
really want that, then that is the way we ought to live right now. We vote
by the way we live. We choose each day what kind of world we want to live in.
We can choose to live by the methods of this
world, or by the methods of Jesus.
The way of Jesus is not easy, but then neither is competition
and dog-eat-dog. The way of Jesus might be difficult,
and it might sometimes involve pain and suffering for us, just as it did for Jesus.
It might even involve death – but all of us are going to die
anyway, aren’t we? The way of Jesus comes with the good news that we will live again – we will have eternal
life in that world of cooperation, kindness, and love, and there will be no
more pain and no more sorrow. The good news is that such a world will come, and
right behavior will prevail, and the good news is that Jesus has qualified us
to be in that kingdom of kindness.
We are not there yet, but that’s what
Jesus is offering us, and he is saying that if that’s the kind of life we want
forever and ever, then that’s the way we ought to be living right now. If we
really want it, we will be willing to live it. We have something wonderful to
look forward to, and we have something wonderful to live for even now.
This is not easy. In fact, it’s not
possible. We cannot do it on our own, because it requires a lot of strength,
and we are too weak to do it. Even a man with a lot of muscle cannot do it,
because it’s a different kind of strength. We naturally tend to be afraid of
suffering and death. We are not strong enough to do all this on our own. But
the good news is that Jesus has done this
for us, and he is willing to give it to us as a gift.
We do not deserve to live in the
kingdom of kindness, but Christ gives it to us as a gift. The Bible says that
we are saved by his mercy, not by
anything we can do. No matter how many good things we do, we can’t buy our way into an eternal life of joy.
But the good news is that Jesus has
paid the price – a big enough price
for all of us put together. He has already done it, and he is giving it to us,
and it can transform the way we live, if we just trust him. If we know that we
will live forever in peace and joy and love, we will no longer be so afraid of
death. We can give our life for what Jesus wants, knowing that he will give us
far more in return.
If we really want life in a world of
kindness and joy, if we really want it, then we will want to live that way even now, and Jesus will help us do
it, because he has already done it, and he is willing to live in us and give us
strength, if we look to him for it, if we let
him live in us.
When Jesus comes in his kingdom of
glory, there won’t be anyone on his right or
his left – in his world, there is no comparison
that says, “I’m better than you, I’m more important than you.” There is only joy
and peace and cooperation – not competition. In the kingdom of heaven, everyone
is a winner. It’s all a gift from Jesus to you. He did it, he paid the price,
he can give the favors – and he is.
Remember
what he said in verse 45? He came to give his life as a ransom for many. You know what a ransom is – the bad guys take a
hostage and say, “We’re going to kill this person unless you pay us lots of
money.” And if you give them the money, then they just have reason to do it
again, to get more money. It’s the way of the world, the struggle for power
using the methods of this world.
But Jesus says, I have paid that
price, I have paid that ransom. I have rescued the people from the captivity
they were in. They were held captive by sin, they were slaves of sin, and I
have paid the ransom to rescue them from captivity. The power of sin, the power
that holds people in its grip, is far stronger and far more important than the
power of Rome. The reason that Roman dictators are bad, the reason that German
dictators are bad, the reason that Asian dictators are bad, is not because of
their ethnicity – where they are from – it is because of sin. Sin is the real
problem, and that is what Jesus
rescues us from.
And not only that – Jesus has broken
the power of death. No one can be held hostage by death anymore – forever.
Jesus gives us the gift of a world of
love and kindness, instead of selfishness and “power that lords it over other
people.” He wants to give you that kind of world. It will be great. If you want
to be great, then be there. Do you want it? Do you want that kind of greatness? Do you want to be that kind of leader? Are you willing to live that way
now?
It’s a gift, if we really want it. He
will live in you and do it for you, if you let him.