Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Pastor James speaks of God's preparation process. The place that we end up as children of God is always a place that God prepares us for as we're there. Think about that. Everything that you're doing right now, everything that you're dealing with, every situation that you're going through right now, as it may feel regrettable to you, as it may be something that you're bothered with, something that you're hating going through, maybe it's something that you despise, maybe it's something that just bothers you.

I don't know why I'm going through this right now, Lord. God is saying this: I'm preparing you for the place that you're going to end up being. So what you might be despising right now in this moment, what you might be hating in this place will be the very thing that God is going to use to give you the success and to give you the bounty and to give you the victory that you're going to need when you get to your destination.

When we're suffering, it's easy to grow discouraged and wonder why God would allow it. Today on Light on the Hill, we'll see that God uses it to prepare us for what's ahead to our benefit and His glory. We shouldn't despise it but instead embrace it. Pastor James Kaddis begins now in Mark chapter 10.

James Kaddis: Here's what's happening. They're caught up in the moment of the ascension. They're caught up in the moment of the joy and the anticipation that comes with going to Jerusalem, thinking and realizing and believing in their hearts that Christ is the Messiah, which He is, and the one who will deliver them, which He is.

But they don't know what it takes to get to that point and they certainly don't understand what that deliverance really looks like. And that's a problem for all of us. I think many of us go through our lives without counting the cost, without understanding what it takes to go from one place to another, or without even realizing what's involved in all of it.

So look at Jesus' response to them. It's pretty heavy. So they said, "Yeah, we're ready. Everything, we got this. It's all good." And Jesus responds this way: "You shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of, and with the baptism I am baptized withal shall you be baptized." Okay, let's talk about what that means. Jesus when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, what did he say? He said, "Let this cup pass. I don't want to drink of this cup. Let this cup pass. But, Lord, let it be your will, not mine."

Imagine if the creator of the universe in human form is saying, "I don't want to drink of this cup," and then you have people who have no idea what that even looks like say we're ready to drink of the cup. Can you imagine what that's going to end up looking like for them? Can you imagine? Christ is the pioneer here, okay? Christ is what you would call the trendsetter. Christ is going to be the one who's the flagship.

He's going to be one, the one that first drinks that cup. He's going to be the one that actually first is baptized with that baptism, and then the disciples will eventually follow. But what they don't realize at the time but will soon find out is that drinking of the same cup and being baptized by the same baptism means that they are going to be prepared for and eventually go through immense suffering, incredible hardship.

What does Jesus tell them? "I can't guarantee that you'll be on my right or left hand. But what I can tell you is that you will drink of the same cup, and you'll go through the same baptism." What does that mean? Well, we know what happened to these guys. These disciples were executed.

The only one that we know of that was not executed, the only one that we know of that wasn't killed was John the Apostle. And by the way, John the Apostle didn't survive just because they didn't try to kill him. They did. Matter of fact, the last attempt that was made on his life, they tried to boil him in oil. Literally, they tried to just boil him. They couldn't fry him to death.

So what do they end up doing? They stick him out in the island of Patmos where he was exiled in his 90s, no longer to make contact with anybody else. What they didn't realize was that would be the most meaningful and remarkable time of John's life in that that would be the time when he would write the book of Revelation, which by the way, happens to be one of the most deeply consequential books in the Bible.

One of the most insightful books because what Revelation does is Revelation acts as the bookend to everything, and it in essence takes the culmination of all that we read in the Old Testament and reveals to us what it's going to end up looking like in the future. That's a pretty consequential thing to think through. But every single one of these men went through that. Do we know what's going to happen to these two guys in the future? Certainly not.

But look at what Jesus goes on to say. "But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared." That's heavy, right? This is so interesting to think of consequentially looking at the big picture. Because where this ends up going is this ends up drawing a picture for each and every single one of us that we don't necessarily discuss when we go through passages like this, and that's this.

The place that we end up as children of God is always a place that God prepares us for as we're there. Think about that. Everything that you're doing right now, everything that you're dealing with, every situation that you're going through right now, as it may feel regrettable to you, as it may be something that you're bothered with, something that you're hating going through, maybe it's something that you despise, maybe it's something that just bothers you.

"I don't know why I'm going through this right now, Lord." God is saying this: "I'm preparing you for the place that you're going to end up being." So what you might be despising right now in this moment, what you might be hating in this place will be the very thing that God is going to use to give you the success and to give you the bounty and to give you the victory that you're going to need when you get to your destination.

He's preparing you for the call that he's already placed upon your life. This is the part that becomes really consequential to us because if you think about it, if God is preparing all of us for a place that he will eventually place us in, then that means everything that happens to us we must embrace with the understanding of the fact that God is going to use it for our benefit and for his glory.

That's a hard thing to understand, isn't it? But I want you to go back and focus on what Jesus just told them. Okay, focus on this last phrase. He says, "It's not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared." That means we can safely gather that every single one of us will be put in a position in which we were prepared to be put in. Funny how that works.

Because the greatest part about preparation for the position that we're about to be put in is that we don't understand what we're being prepared for. And the most dangerous place that we can be in not understanding what we've been prepared for is that we can despise that preparation and disqualify ourselves from the very thing we're being prepared for because we chose to walk in bitterness, anger, and resentment as a result of the process.

I would venture to say that many of us are wasting that process. I would venture to say that many of us are prolonging that process. I would venture to say that the more resistance we put into the process that God is taking us through, the more delay we bring ourselves to getting to the place that he wants us to be put. It's a tough thing for all of us I think to understand, but the picture is being divinely drawn for us here in this passage.

We can see it. Not easy to understand for a lot of us. But this is where we go to the Lord and we say, "Lord, I'm going to put my faith and trust in you knowing that the purpose that you intend for me is being accomplished through the preparation in the moments that I'm experiencing day by day."

Now, I think that it's really hard for us to deal with this sometimes because we don't understand why it would appear as though the people around us are being given things so quickly and we seem to be just stuck. Look, as a pastor I deal with this sometimes. We've been begging the Lord to open up doors for a new building that will facilitate our needs and it just doesn't seem to be coming together.

I mean every place we go to, it just seems to be more depressing by the moment. And it's easy to resent. It's easy to say, "Why does this look so easy for everybody else but for us it doesn't seem to be right?" I'll tell you why. Because God's preparing us for something that we have no idea the level at which God desires to bring it to.

There were moments of time in my ministry where I was very resentful towards people who in my mind were being promoted faster than me even though in my mind I was more qualified than them. When we were at church early on on staff, just doing things, we oftentimes would look at people that would come onto these staff positions in pastoral ministry and think, "How the heck did that happen? They don't know the Bible. They can't teach worth a dime. They are an absolute mess. They're definitely not going to last a long time."

And in some cases we were right about that, in other cases we were dead wrong, right? But you look at this stuff and you think, "Why is it that we are the—look, there was a point in time where Dale and I would just look at each other and just laugh and think, "You realize that we are probably the only people amongst this group of guys in ministry that are actually college educated in the Bible. We're the only ones that actually have a degree. Like literally."

And we would just laugh at that idea. And then I would think in my mind, "Yeah, why haven't I been promoted to this or why didn't I get that position or why did this take so long?" I can look back in the current moment that I'm in and I can tell you thank God that God did it the way he did it.

I can look back in the current place in which I reside right now in this current moment and I can say thank you Lord Jesus that you did not allow it to happen the way I thought it would happen because if God allowed it to happen the way I thought it would happen—forgive me for saying this, I don't want to sound rude or derogatory, I don't want to sound disrespectful—but I would have fallen into the category of being mediocre.

I would have become nominal. That's exactly what would have happened. I would have become literally useless for the kingdom. If you had told me that the day would come that I would be able to do what I'm doing today and be a part of what I'm a part of and be able to experience the things I've experienced and literally get to do all of the wonderful things that I do from day to day, I would tell you no way, that's impossible.

Even at the time where we first started in the ministry, we did not think it was physically possible to do some of the things that we get to do today. I remember a time when we first started in ministry where we thought that if you could reach 1,000 people—1,000 people—that they could listen to one message, it was like the unimaginable thing. Like it would be something that we could never even conceive, like, wow, 1,000 people listening to us.

We release a video today, and if 1,000 people don't listen to it within the first half hour, we know that the video's a disaster. If it's not listened to, this is no joke, within the first literally 15 minutes by 1,000 people, it's a disaster. It's a terrible, terrible thing. I'm not exaggerating. But you know what? I guarantee you we wouldn't be here in the place that we are today had it not been God allowing us to go through the things that we never thought we would go through in order to prepare us for the moment that we're in.

All of you are dealing with things right now. Some of you are dealing with physical challenges. Some of you are dealing with emotional challenges. Some of you are dealing with spiritual challenges. Some of you are dealing with a combination of them all. I don't know exactly what all of you are dealing with, but I can tell you this. I can tell you that God would have you to embrace it.

And the reason why God would have you to embrace—unless it's sin induced, okay? Let me just say that right now. Don't embrace your sin and allow your circumstance to tell you, "Oh, everything is okay because God's preparing me." No, he's not preparing you through something that you're doing as a result of rebelling against him. There's no preparation in that other than being prepared for judgment, okay? I just want everyone to know that.

But if you're following the Lord, you're trusting in him, you're walking according to his word, and you're facing these things right now, just go to him and say, "Lord, thank you because I know that you are setting me up for something extraordinary, setting me up for something valuable, setting me up for something useful and remarkable and powerful." That's what's going on here. I want everybody to understand that.

But look what it goes on to say. This is where it gets even more interesting because man, it is something else. This is a great passage, by the way. There's so much here that I just absolutely love. So when the 10 heard it—you ready?—so when the 10 heard it, they began to be much displeased with James and John. They're angry.

Okay, look, my guess is this. They're angry with James and John because they're thinking, "I should have asked Jesus first." That's probably what's going through their minds because they're all jockeying for position. I can picture the disciples being upset, you know?

And you know the funny thing is? I bet you anything if we could hear their conversations, they were probably saying something like, "Jesus is talking about death and how dare you ask him about what your position is going to be one day." You know, there's probably that kind of thinking going on, right?

But the reality of it is they're probably really upset that they did not get the position, you know, or did not put themselves in that place to maybe get that position. Maybe they thought Jesus' response was a concession to their will or their desire to be in that position. I don't know.

But this is what happens because it's interesting. We kind of get an idea, by the way, I'll just say this, we kind of know what it was that they were upset with based on Jesus' response. Look what happens. But Jesus called them to him and saith unto them, "Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them."

So imagine these guys are all mad at each other. And they're mad because John and James want to be the bigwigs. They want to be the powerful people. You don't remember, being on the right hand and on the left hand of Christ was a symbol of great authority, and that would mean something because Old Testament passages would speak about being on the right hand of the Messiah.

So they're very intent on wanting to be in this position, and we know that the disciples are arguing over their position. And Jesus says, "You do realize that the idea behind you guys striving for that level of authority is really in essence what the pagans do. It's what the Gentiles do. They determine their value based on this positioning to rule over one another."

But look what he says. "But so shall it not be amongst you. But whosoever will be great among you shall be your minister," literally your servant. "And whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be servant of all." Okay, this is very powerful. I'm tempted to stop here and explain this to you, but let me just read the next verse so that we can establish the context a little bit more clearly.

Look what it says in verse 45. "For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." Why would he use the phrase "but even the Son of man"? Because everybody knew that the Son of man was associated with power and authority and kingship. Everybody knew that the Son of man was in reference to God himself.

Interesting what Jesus says. The place that the average person will gravitate to when they read this passage is the actual symbolic nature of it or the action that's oftentimes associated with it. And that is, "Well, I want to be first in the kingdom of God, so I'm going to be the one that's last in the line. Or I can make myself more spiritual, so I will do more serving than anybody else."

That's the thought process that most people have. Most people in the church think that way. "Well, I'm not going to put myself in the very front and promote myself because that means I'll be last." That's how it's taught by so many. But let me give you some insight as to what Jesus is really saying here.

And we get insight as to what he's really saying based on what he says at the very beginning when he talks about the fact that the scribes are going to come and destroy him, the Pharisees, the chief priests are going to come after him, they're going to condemn him to death and he'll be delivered to the Gentiles, when he talks about the fact that they're going to mock him and scourge him, they're going to spit on him, they're going to kill him, and on the third day he's going to rise.

So much of what he is saying is in perfect line with what he says at the end when he rebukes these men. Because look, the message that Jesus is giving here is not "if you want to be first, then go back to the line." Okay?

Anybody who thinks that the message "if you want to be first, then go back to the line, go to the back of the line" or "the first is the last and the last is the first," you're mistaken in understanding not only the context of the passage that's being communicated here, you don't understand Jesus and you don't understand his examples and you don't understand his words.

What Jesus is saying, and I'm going to oversimplify this for you so that it's easiest to understand, okay? What Jesus is saying is he is basically saying that if you are given authority by God, if you are given a position of authority by God, the purpose of that authority being given to you is to serve the people, not to demand to be served.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill. What you just heard is one part of a study in Mark's Gospel from Pastor James Kaddis. You can hear it again at lightonthehillradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Pastor James, today you did a great job explaining that greatness in God's eyes is found in becoming a servant. That applies in the church, in the family, and in the workplace too. We hear a much different message in the world, don't we?

James Kaddis: Yeah, you are 100% right on that one. The world does not look at servanthood as a thing that is good. It actually views it as a positional issue that speaks to weakness when in reality we find great strength in learning how to serve people.

Some of the greatest business advice I've ever gotten is serve the people that you are looking to engage with and they will reward you for service. But I've got a bigger statement to that. Serve the God who created you and you will find fulfillment like you've never found it before. Service to God is critical. You learn to serve God first, you won't have a hard time serving your fellow man, and servanthood is where it's at. It's a beautiful way to live the life that God has called you to live.

Guest (Male): Well said. Not long ago, Pastor James released his new book on the first half of Revelation. It's entitled "The Last Book." He points out that Revelation isn't a book of fear but rather a book of hope. Pastor James will help you understand the world we live in and current events through a biblical lens, preparing your heart for what lies ahead.

Get a copy by going to lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon. We're so grateful for your support. Each donation that's sent in is an investment in what God is doing over the radio and internet. Lives are being impacted daily for the glory of God as a result.

If you'd like to stand with us through providing either a one-time donation or ongoing monthly support, please visit lightonthehillradio.com. While you're there, you can also send us an email. It would be great to hear from you and have you share the station you listen to as well. Just visit lightonthehillradio.com and then click on contact. Now Pastor James will summarize this passage in Mark chapter 10 for us.

James Kaddis: What God is saying is, "I give you authority to be able to have the flexibility to serve people in the most effective way possible." The Gentiles steal authority and obtain authority that they may use it for their own benefit. You don't do that.

You are to take the authority that I give you that I have bestowed upon you and you are to use it to accomplish the purposes that I've set aside for you. By the way, you might look at me and you say, "Well, I'm not a pastor so it doesn't apply to me," or you might look at me and say, "Well, I'm not this so it doesn't apply to me." Actually, this applies to every single one of us.

Because each and every single one of you have been given a position of expertise. You've been given a position of awareness and authority. Each and every single one of you have an area that maybe you excel in that the average person might not, and you can take that area and you can use it for your own benefit or you can take that area and you can use it for the glory of God.

When he talks about the first being last and the last being first, what God is saying is the greater level of authority and prominence that you obtain, that means the greater level of service you will be required to provide. Why?

Because the more unencumbered you become in what you do from day to day, the more required you will be to use that lack of encumbrance to glorify the Lord in all that you do. So he's not making a statement that says, "If you want to be first, then put yourself in the last place position."

He's saying that if you are granted the first place position, then your job will be to serve the last. Your job will be to use the tool that you've been given to go back to the people that need it the most and bless them in every way possible. I think that's where it all sits.

And that's what God is calling us to. He's calling us to a new way of thinking. He's calling us to understand that what Jesus was doing as these men were celebrating ascending into Jerusalem—follow me with this—what Jesus was doing as they were celebrating the ascension into Jerusalem is he was giving them perhaps what may be the most consequential and powerful picture in human history of what it means for the first to become the last and the last to become the first.

What he basically described is the kind of lengths that he would go through with the authority that was given to him to provide the lowest of the low a chance of salvation that they could never give to themselves. Why?

Because it's easier to go through the eye of a needle as a camel than it is to enter into the kingdom of God. Why? Because with man, it's impossible, but with God, all things are possible. All things are possible. That's what Jesus is talking about. And he's telling them, "Look, I've demonstrated it to you. I've shown you what I'm going to do. And I'm telling you how the Gentiles do it.

And you know what? It's not so with you. You will not do that." Look, the guys that I respect the most in the business world that I know and have relationships with, I love what they do because they model this principle in the business world.

The ones that do the best, the ones that are the greatest income earners, spend an overwhelming majority of their time obsessing how to serve the people that become the ones that they gain benefit from. The way that they view it, the wealthier they become, the greater the call is to provide value for the people that God used to put them in that position. I love that.

Guest (Male): More from the book of Mark coming up next time on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. This listener-supported program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.