Introduction

I’ve coached in two very different contexts. One time I coached for Upward, which was a church-sponsored sports program. My goal coaching here was to allow everyone to learn the game and for everyone to have equal play time. I also coached for the private highschool where I taught. Our goal was to build honor—to do so best by winning games. I coached 5th-8th grade boys. I had some 5th grade boys who were really good and started for me. And I had one 8th grade boy who was clumsy and sat the bench for a lot of games.

And every coach knows this tension.

Do you reward the ones who deserve to play— the skilled, the strong, the ones who help you win?

Or do you make room for the ones who can’t offer much in return?

Because deep down, we all understand how the world usually works:

You earn your place. You prove your value. You deserve your spot.

And if you don’t… you sit on the bench.

We want to be in the game. In our hearts, we want the honor, we want the glory. And quite frankly, we often get to the point were we think we deserve to be in the game and not sit on the bench.

Whatever that “game” may be:

Maybe that game is our vocation where we think we deserve to be respected for our accomplishments

Or home where we think we deserve to relax and have our way

Or church where we think we deserve to be uplifted

Or our relationships where we think we deserve to be valued.

Or with God where we think we deserve to be blessed.

Sin twists our hearts so much that we think the only bench we should be warming is a throne—a throne from which we command everyone and everything else to do our bidding.

The disciples think they deserve a throne too. But Jesus addresses that deserving attitude and reveals the kingdom attitude that should take its place. A kingdom attitude that he exemplified by giving his life.

Matt. 20:17-34

THRUST:

In the kingdom of God, willingness to suffer and sacrifice to serve others is valuable; whereas ambition to gain honor and authority is to be rejected.

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Matthew 20:17–19 ESV

¹⁷ And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, ¹⁸ “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death ¹⁹ and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

Revelation

In v. 17 you see Jesus going up to Jerusalem. This “going up” has to do with elevation because Jerusalem is at a higher elevation. He takes his disciples aside. Aside from what? Well, they are in great crowds who are all making a pilgrimage from Galilee to Jerusalem for Passover.

Jesus begins his aside to his disciples, it must seem serious being taken away from the crowds. And he beings, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem.” This statement should be one that’s full of hope. They are making a spiritual pilgrimage. They are going to the temple, the very place where God dwells. They are going to celebrate one of the most sacred times: Passover—with God’s people. While normally such a phrase “we are going up to Jerusalem” would be a cause for jubilee, Jesus is preparing his disciples for a darker hour.

This is the third time that Jesus tells them about his death. And this time, he gets more specific. He opens up with the Son of Man being delivered over to the chief priests and scribes. This was probably shocking to the disciples. The previous passage, Jesus connects this Son of Man figure with being on a throne. The Son of Man figure in Dan. 7 is only known being presented to the Ancient of Days and being a ruler. But now, Jesus is saying this figure who is supposed to be presented before God himself to be exalted is instead going to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes to be killed.

But the Son of Man who is exalted in Dan. 7 is also the Anointed One who “will be cut off and have nothing” in Dan. 9:26. Though the chief priests and scribes condemn Jesus to death, they do not have the authority to carry out that sentence; and so, he must be, “delivered over to the Gentiles”—that is, the governing Roman authorities. There Jesus spells out precisely what will happen: mocked, flogged, and crucified.

Each stage is important. First, Jesus would be mocked. It’s easy for us to think of mockery as if it were nothing. We don’t care of the opinions of others.

MatthewExegesis

But Jesus lived in an “honor and shame” culture, in which many would rather die than lose their honor, and the shame of public humiliation was a fate far worse than death

Flogging was the brutal whipping that would take place before the crucifixion. Some victims did not even survive the whipping.

Jesus specifies that crucifixion is the specific form of death. No one could survive crucifixion, and Jesus does not intend on surviving it. He plainly says that he will die and tells exactly how he will die.

But he also tells when he will specifically rise from the dead it is predicted “on the third day.”

Matthew6. Jesus Predicts His Crucifixion and Resurrection (20:17–19)

Τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ is dat. of point in time: “on the third day.” Since the ancients calculated time inclusively, this referred to any part of a first day, an entire day, and any part of a 3rd day

A figure known only so far for exaltation will be humiliated * key

Relevance

Will the Son of Man be exalted? Yes. He will rise from the dead. However, is he exalting himself? No. He is willingly laying his life down and entrusting himself to God. One of the most striking details in what Jesus says to his disciples is that the very figure known for his exaltation, his throne, here’s Daniel 7:14 “14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

This exalted figure—Jesus himself—is willingly laying his very life down.

What’s valued in the kingdom? We might here Jesus trying to get across to his disciples. What’s valuable in the kingdom is not self-exaltation, but self-sacrifice.

We instinctively admire self-sacrifice. When someone lays down comfort, reputation, even life itself for the good of others, something in us says, That is right. That is beautiful. That is noble. Yet if this world is only matter, survival, and personal preference—if there is no God, no real good beyond what we choose—then self-sacrifice is not noble at all. It is irrational. Why give your life away if survival is the highest value? Why suffer for others if pleasure is the only good? As C. S. Lewis argued in The Abolition of Man, once you remove objective moral reality, you remove the very foundation that makes courage, honor, and sacrifice meaningful. But we do not live in a meaningless world. We live in God’s world. And because this is God’s world, self-giving love is not foolish—it is the deepest truth in the universe. Which means when Jesus walks toward suffering instead of away from it, He is not losing. He is revealing what is truly valuable in the kingdom of God.

Bridge

Luke’s account tells us the disciples had no clue what Jesus was talking about. Matthew narrates that fact with a story and gets to the heart of the matter. Because while Jesus would like to have this attitude of self-sacrifice in his followers; his followers have a major hurtle to overcome: the attitude of deserving the throne.

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Matthew 20:20–28 ESV

²⁰ Then the mother of the son...