2018 Weekly Devotional - Week 17
Week 17
Matthew 20:20-28 “Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. 21 And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” 22 Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” 23 He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” 24 And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,[c] 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,[d] 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
I grew up a Dallas Cowboys fan. Watching the game on a black and white Zenith TV with ‘rabbit ears’ was the highlight of our week. We would come home from church and eat as fast as we could so we could get to the living room and watch the game. When we weren’t watching on Sundays my brother and I would take our money to Gibson’s and buy bubble gum that had football trading cards in them. We each had a shoebox full of them! The most prized of them all were the Dallas Cowboys greats; Roger Staubach, Lee Roy Jordan, Bob Lilly, Cliff Harris, Charlie Waters, Drew Pearson, and Ed “Too Tall” Jones just to name a few. You cannot imagine how excited we were when my dad told us the Cowboys were coming to town to play in a fund-raising basketball game. Dad was selected to play in the game and so afterwards we were escorted into the locker room and there my brother and I met our heroes! We took a football with us and had all of the Cowboys sign it. We had great players like Staubach, Waters, Harris, Jordan, Lilly, etc. on our ball! We put that ball in my dad’s office at the house and there it sat for years. One particularly humid morning my brother and I wanted to play catch in the yard and could not find our regular football so we grabbed the one in dad’s office and headed to the yard. My brother threw the ball to me, (He claims I just missed it, but I KNOW it was a bad throw!) and it sailed by, a beautiful spiral spinning through the wet Bermuda grass. All those great football players’ signatures were simply wiped clean. All-pro, conference champs, and Super bowl winners, all gone! The greatest football player’s signatures of my childhood were gone in a second.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that what our world calls greatness and what God’s word calls greatness are often polar opposites. Our world tends to focus on power and influence as an indicator of greatness. Jesus teaches that greatness is found in dying to self and serving others. In our passage of the day some of Jesus’ disciples were discussing position in Jesus’ coming kingdom. The two brothers wanted what they thought would be great positions. Jesus really put them on their heels when he told them that true greatness was found not in being boss over people but rather in serving people. He called them to live counter-culturally and not seek positions of power as a means to dominate people. Instead they should model their lives after him who gave away his life. Are you seeking greatness in this world? If so, in time, you may reach your goal. But at the return of Jesus when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess Christ’s Lordship; your name will be as easily removed from notoriety as signatures on a wet football. May I exhort you to serve like Jesus? Greatness in God’s eternal Kingdom comes through servant hood and not through climbing the ladder of success.
In Christ,
John