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In the two world wars of the last century over 4m British and Commonwealth troops gave their lives or were wounded so that people could live in freedom from political tyranny. Recently more have given their lives so we can live in freedom from the tyranny of extreme fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. Yet that freedom hasn't always been used well. Jesus Christ willingly gave up his life on the cross so that we might be set free from the ultimate tyranny - the power of sin and death - through faith in him. But he also died to set us free to serve. Did you know that if you're trusting in Jesus Christ you've been called to freedom - why? - to lovingly serve others to his glory. Galatians 5:13:

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. (Galatians 5:13)

Some people have the misconception that being called by God is something only church leaders or missionaries experience. But the Bible says that all Christians are called to serve God by serving others. Now we're not saved by serving – the Bible says we're ‘saved only by grace through faith in Christ, not by works so that no-one can boast’ - but we are saved for serving in Christ's strength. And serious service requires serious sacrifice. Jesus said even he, “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Many of you will know John 3:16. But do you know 1 John 3:16?

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. (1 John 3:16)

Now it's been said that most people wish to serve God but in an advisory capacity only! No. We're called to serve together and the call to serve or to ministry is a call to lay down our lives in the service of God’s Kingdom. For example, we're to give our lives to the building up of this church for the glory of God.

Now this theme is highly appropriate for Remembrance Sunday, when we remember those who either joined up or who were called up to serve their country together and who laid down their lives in that service.

None of those who fought in WW1 are still with us. Harry Patch was the last surviving veteran until he died in 2009 aged 111. Before he died he was interviewed about his wartime experiences. He spoke of the importance of serving together, the laying down of so many lives and the futility, as he saw it, of so many lives lost for a war finished over a table. He said:

“I don’t think it’s possible to truly explain the bond that's forged between soldiers in the trenches. There you all are, no matter what your life in civvy street, covered in lice, desperately hungry. You relied on him and he on you. We were Lewis gunners. I was in charge of ammunition and the working parts of the gun. One member of the gunners said to me, ‘You’ve got to do your job thoroughly, our lives depend on it.’ One night when we were going back over open ground a shell burst among us and killed three of my mates. We were a team together, and those carrying the ammunition were blown to pieces. I reacted badly. It was like losing a part of my life. We'd only been together four months but with hell going on around us it seemed like a lifetime.”

Harry was 19. He’d been called up to serve as a lowly private. He wasn’t looking for glory. He even tried not to kill the enemy but rather shoot them in the legs so they’d go to hospital or to a POW camp and then home. But he also realised his shortcomings: his failure to serve and to lay down his life for his fellow soldiers. His natural instinct was for self-preservation. He recalled:

“All over the battlefield the wounded were lying there, English and German, all crying for help. But we weren’t like the Good Samaritan in the Bible, we were the robbers who passed by and left them.”

Humble service, the laying down of our lives for the sake of others, which is how the Bible defines true greatness, doesn't come naturally to us. Only when God radically changes us do we become ready and willing to give our lives unceasingly for the sake of others.

All of which brings us to Mark 10:35-45, where we’re first confronted with our natural selfishness, with what we’re really like, which is my first heading. So

First, WHAT WE’RE REALLY LIKE

Harry Patch witnessed much suffering. Jesus, the true Servant, has just been telling his disciples what kind of suffering and sacrificial death he's about to endure, v33-34:

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man [Jesus] will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.” (Mark 10.33-34)

Why? Jesus, the Servant King, had come from heaven to earth to defeat sin, death and the devil. He’d come to win the victory - how - by humbling himself, by laying down his life for us, and rising from the dead so that we could be free to serve him for eternity. He’d come to suffer and die to rescue us from what we’re really like: from our rebellion against God. He'd come to release us from the enemy's clutches. But there'd be no heroic death for the Messiah in doing so - far from it! Jesus is saying here that in the capital city, the nation’s leaders will condemn him to a shameful, humiliating and cruel public execution. He’s going to be mocked, he’s going to be spat upon, he’s going to be whipped, and then executed. “I’ll die like a criminal,” Jesus is saying, for you and for me.

So what are we really like? The selfish request of James and John illustrates it so well. Indeed if this hadn't been recorded we could have hardly believed that James and John could have come with such an ambitious and selfish request straight after what Jesus had just told them. Yet we know only too well what we're really like ourselves, so actually we can understand. V35-41:

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. (35-41)

James and John were only interested in their wants and in being served. They were selfish and self absorbed. They wanted Jesus to do for them whatever they asked (v35). Does that ring any bells with us? We can be like that in our prayer requests can't we? They wanted to sit at his left and right in glory (v37). They said they could drink the cup Jesus drinks but they didn't understand and if they’d known the true cost of high place in the Kingdom of God they wouldn't have asked in the first place. They desired position and power on a plate. Position and power at the expense of others.

Isn’t that what starts quarrels and fights and even wars? Certainly the desires of James and John almost start a quarrel with the other ten disciples (v41). The ten were angry with them and no doubt wanted those places for themselves. They were no better than James and John. The Bible says this in James 4:1-3:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (James 4:1-3)

So what's the answer to what we’re really like, to our sin problem, which cuts us off from God and which causes fights and quarrels, breakdown in human relations and in international relations and the suffering of many? Well James goes on to say this in v6-10:

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4.6-10)

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be opposed by God. I want to know his grace. And if you do you must humble yourself before him, admit your unwillingness to serve and your desire to change, and go his way, willing to take up your cross, trusting in Christ and he will lift you up.

You see the best news ever, which is the meaning of the word gospel, rather like the news that war is over, is that Jesus came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. ‘Ransom’ means the buying back of people from the slavery and prison of sin and death by paying a price. And the price was to be the death of Jesus. He drank the cup of divine punishment for sin instead of you, so that you might be free from the power of sin and death, not free to live for yourselves but for him and others.

Jesus laid down his life to save you from the tyranny of your sins and their consequences: eternal death in hell, which is far worse even than the horror of living under Hitler would have been. And Jesus laid down his life for us while we were his enemies. Isn’t that amazing grace and astounding greatness? If we come to him he gives us new life, a new nature and turns our worldly values upside down. He calls us to a life of service, of ministry. Yes serving Christ and others in ministry will be costly. Jesus says so in v39. James and John would drink the cup Jesus drank. And if we follow Christ we will experience suffering too. But there are also blessings. When Jesus had finished washing his disciples feet, in an extraordinary act of humble service, he said this, John 13:17:

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. (John 13:17)

The risen Christ beckons you and me to the ministry of the towel. So why not begin each day by praying this prayer, Lord Jesus please would you bring me someone today whom I can serve.

During WW2, England needed to increase its production of coal. Winston Churchill called together labour leaders to enlist their support. At the end of his presentation he asked them to picture in their minds a parade which he knew would be held in Piccadilly Circus after the war.

First would come the sailors who'd kept the vital sea lanes open. Then would come the soldiers who'd come home from Dunkirk and then gone on to victory in Africa. Then would come the pilots who had driven the danger from the sky.
Last of all, he said, would come a long line of sweat-stained, soot-streaked men in miner's caps. Someone would cry from the crowd, 'And where were you during the critical days of our struggle?' And from ten thousand throats would come the answer, 'We were deep in the earth with our faces to the coal.'"
Not all ministries in a church are prominent. But often its the people with their "faces to the coal" who help the church accomplish its mission. So

Secondly, WHAT’S TRUE GREATNESS REALLY LIKE?

Well as we’ve just seen true greatness is laying down our lives for the sake of others. Perhaps we’re still finding that difficult to grasp. Jesus’ disciples certainly were. So again Jesus is patient with them, just as he so often has to be with us. He called them together and explained the totally different pattern of God’s Kingdom, where true greatness is humble and loving service.V42-45:

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (42-45)

So often we see rule and authority being lorded over people. We might see it or experience it at work. We might even find ourselves doing it. It's the way of the world. In World War 1 some accused General Haig of doing so, when he kept sending so many young men to the slaughter. Recently 300 graves have been identified of those who were accused of deserting and who were then shot by firing squad. One was just 17. He ran, after hearing his elder brother had been killed. He just wanted to go home. Some were suffering from shell shock. Discipline and order had to be kept – but how?

Jesus says, ‘Not so with you.’ The values of God’s Kingdom are not those of the world. ‘Instead’, Jesus goes on, ‘whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.’ The life of discipleship and ministry is to be characterised by humble and loving service. We do well to remember, before we consign the concept of Christian leadership, to the arena of the superstar that we serve a God who invaded this planet as a small fragile baby.

‘And whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.’ Leadership in God’s Kingdom is servant leadership. And note, Jesus says, ‘whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.’ Not just of some in the church, but of all. So when the phone rings or a text pings or an e mail beeps from someone in need at an inconvenient time - not therefore PPI or Scottish Power - what do you do? Ignore it? Answer it? Our example is the Servant, Jesus Christ, who did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

But we’re not called to serve on our own. We're called to serve Christ together. There's a spiritual war on. Ephesians 6 makes it plain that we are to serve together in the spiritual battle we face in the power of the Spirit. Paul addresses the whole church at Ephesus as an army. And we're to stand firm in Christ together against the devil’s schemes in the full armour of God, using his weapons – the Word of God and prayer. In Christ the victory we share is for all eternity. The cost is worth it. There's no greater cause than the Kingdom of God. What can possibly hold us back from responding to God’s call to serve together and enlisting today? Let’s aim for true greatness by giving our lives in the service of Christ who laid down his life for us. No complaining. No giving up of time with the wrong attitude. But rather follow the willing example of Christ, whether here now or at St Joseph's in the future.