The Ambitious Request of James and John

Driving home: What they really want is that before they make their specific request known, that they'll get a promise from God that whatever it may be, He'll give it to them. They want a signed check with nothing written into the spac…

James and John's request for Jesus to do 'whatsoever we shall ask' is compared to asking for a signed blank check, illustrating their presumption and desire for an unconditional promise.

Now that was a most bold but cheeky statement. What they really want is that before they make their specific request known, that they'll get a promise from God that whatever it may be, He'll give it to them. They want a signed check with nothing written into the spaces that indicate the amount. That's what they're asking the Lord for.

13:49 - 14:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: What they really want is that before they make their specific request known, that they'll get a promise from God that whatever it may be, He'll give it to them. They want a signed check with nothing written into the spac…

A teenager asking wealthy parents for a blank check to buy a sports car and clothes illustrates the audacity and self-serving nature of James and John's request to Jesus.

It's like a teenager who's got his eye on a favorite sports car. He's also got his eye on a set of threads that'll really set him out. I mean, he'll be the coolest dude on the block if he can get those. He's got his mind full of a whole bunch of things he wants to get.

14:20 - 14:35 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But in his drinking of the cup and in his being baptized with the outpoured fury of God, our salvation is procured.

The 'cup' imagery, rooted in Old Testament passages about God's wrath, is explained as Christ's voluntary suffering and drinking the dregs of God's wrath against sin, illustrating the nature of his atoning work.

And all of the agony of Gethsemane focuses upon the cup, the cup full of the wrath of God against the sins of God, against all of his people. And Jesus says, I will voluntarily drink that cup, not my will, but thine be done. And if the cup is your will for me, Father, I will to drink it. So he says, are you able to undergo those voluntary sufferings which I, even I, am now undergoing and which are pressing me to Jerusalem with such determination that just a few moments or hours or days ago you were filled with amazement and fear because you saw written in all of my being a commitment to Jerusa...

31:59 - 33:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But in his drinking of the cup and in his being baptized with the outpoured fury of God, our salvation is procured.

The 'baptism' imagery is explained as being overwhelmed by waves of divine wrath and suffering inflicted from without, illustrating the passive aspect of Christ's suffering.

Taking the imagery of being overwhelmed by waves of divine wrath, our Lord points here to messianic suffering that is inflicted from without that comes like waves and breaks upon a man until it drowns him. There's the picture. And that imagery is clearly embedded in the Old Testament in such passages as Psalms 69, 1 and 2. And our Lord had earlier, as recorded in Luke 12, 49 said, I have a baptism to be baptized with and how I am compressed until it is accomplished.

33:04 - 33:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't be disillusioned or allow the devil's whisperings when God calls you to drink bitter things or when waves of opposition break upon you, remembering it's part of fellowship with Christ on the way to glory.

The phrase 'God seems to dump you on the deck and let you bounce' is used to describe the experience of suffering and trials, encouraging believers not to be disillusioned but to see it as part of fellowship with Christ.

Child of God, don't be disillusioned when God seems to dump you on the deck and let you bounce. Don't be allowing the deck to bounce. Don't be allowing the deck to bounce. Don't be allowing the devil to come with his fiendish whisperings in your ear, when there's some bitter things that the will of God calls upon you to drink, and when some waves of a baptism of opposition and of misunderstanding break upon you.

60:40 - 61:05 Read in full sermon