You may not know the name Robert Craig Knievel, but you may have heard the name that he went by for most of his life: Evel Knievel.

Mr. Knievel got famous for being a stuntman who would jump his motorcycle over snakes, mountain lions, cars, buses, basically anything that sounded dangerous. And at this point, I wanted to show a video of him successfully jumping some cars or a canyon, but apparently they’re really hard to find, because he crashed…a lot.

Because of his great number of failed attempts, the Guinness Book of World Records lists him as the survivor of the most bones broken in a lifetime, having had 433 bone fractures, although some people say this number was exaggerated.

Regardless, Evel Knievel was often asked why he would do such dangerous stunts when they often ended badly, and he would say:

“Bones heal, chicks dig scars, pain is temporary, [but] glory is forever.”

Well, his glory faded after he was convicted of assault, went to prison, and went bankrupt. Like we all tend to do, he lost his glory due to his sin.

I share all of this this morning to contrast man’s glory with God’s glory. 1 Peter says it like this, quoting Isaiah:

For All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like a flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever. (1 Peter 1:24-25a)

You see, God never sins, so His glory never fades. God’s glory means that He is absolutely beautiful in all of His attributes, so that the sum of them radiate from His presence into all that He has created. The Gospel Coalition defines God’s glory like this:

God’s glory is the magnificence, worth, loveliness, and grandeur of his many perfections.

And I think that’s exactly right, because the Bible says in 1 Chronicles 16:24:

Declare his glory among the nations, his wondrous works among all peoples. (1 Chronicles 16:24)

So John Piper defines God’s glory like this:

The glory of God is the manifest beauty of his holiness. It is the going-public of his holiness. It is the way he puts his holiness on display for people to apprehend. So, the glory of God is the holiness of God made manifest. -John Piper

And gotquestions.org simply says that:

The glory of God is the beauty of His spirit.

God is glorious because of who He is and because of all the awesome works He’s done. He made all things, sustains all things, and blesses us all every day in ways that we completely take for granted. God is Most Glorious.

And all of this talk about glory ought to make us so much more in awe of what Jesus did for us.

Sing with me the second verse to Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, which addresses Jesus’s glory:

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Risen with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the new-born king”

Of course, songs aren’t inspired like Scripture is inspired, and yet I think there’s a lot of truth in this song. We just sang:

Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die

When Jesus was born, in humility, He laid His glory aside. The Bible says that because of God’s glory, we cannot look at Him and live. And yet, when God came down from heaven in the form of a man, we not only saw Him, but John says that we observed His glory in the form of His grace and truth. Rather than destroying us with His glory, He sacrificed Himself in His glory, so that we could have eternal life.

“Born that man no more may die.” And yet, in order for that to happen, Jesus had to die. Jesus was born for a purpose: to humble Himself and die for us, that we might live in Him.

Mark 10:35-45.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him and said, “Teacher, we want you to do whatever we ask you.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked them. They answered him, “Allow us to sit at your right and at your left in your glory.” Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup I drink or to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” “We are able,” they told him. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink, and you will be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. But to sit at my right or left is not mine to give; instead, it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” When the ten disciples heard this, they began to be indignant with James and John. Jesus called them over and said to them, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. But it is not so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:35-45)

Father, help us this Christmas season to think less about us, and more about You. Help us to truly be Christ’s disciples, not because of what we think we can get out of it, but for Your glory. Direct our hearts and minds to rest and rejoice in Jesus. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

How do you treat God? Do you think of yourself as His servant, or do you treat God as your servant? Maybe you recognize God as being omnipotent, having phenomenal cosmic powers, and you know that you ought to serve Him, but in your everyday life, you treat Him as your genie in a bottle.

Our passage of Scripture in Mark this morning probably doesn’t sound much like a typical Christmas passage of Scripture. That’s because last week we started talking about how Mark doesn’t tell the story of Jesus’s birth, and yet he does tell the story of Jesus’s life and the reason for Jesus’s birth. And the cool thing about the birth of Jesus is that because Jesus came into our darkness, shining His light, we can find Jesus everywhere, whether in a manger as a child, or even on the cross as a servant.

But oftentimes, instead of seeing Jesus everywhere, we get focused on ourselves, and therefore we see Jesus nowhere. That’s what James and John did in our passage today. Instead of focusing on Jesus, who was right in front of them, they were focused on themselves, on their own glory, and on what they wanted Jesus to do for them. They said to Jesus in verse 37:

“Allow us to sit at your right and at your left in your glory.” (Mark 10:37)

In other words, they wanted the greatest positions of honor and authority out of all of Jesus’s followers. They had ambition, and a bit of an ego, thinking that they could be exalted above all others.

Abby used to say to our kids all the time, “You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.”

But James and John said to Jesus, “We want you to do whatever we ask of you.”

You know, a lot of our prayers sound a lot like James and John here. We could criticize them for their hubris, or we can recognize that we do the same thing. We often pray as if we know what’s best for us, or at least most desirable for us, and when we pray that way, we have an attitude toward God that says, “I don’t care what You want, just give me what I want.” When we pray more for our will to be done, rather than God’s will to be done, we exalt ourselves. And yet, if God really gave us what we wanted, we’d often find that it wasn’t really what we wanted, because God Himself knows what’s best for us.

Did you know that every Sunday, God only answers the prayers of half of America? Whenever there’s a football game on a Sunday afternoon, half of America is praying for one team to win, and the other half is praying for the other team to win. And if you think nobody actually prays for something as trivial as for their team to win, you’d be wrong.

A survey showed that at least 13% of Americans who pray have prayed for their team to win. Seven percent have prayed for a good parking space, 5% pray for a colleague to get fired, and 21% have prayed to win the lottery. Sometimes we ask God for very silly things.

So Jesus responded to James and John, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup I drink or to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with,” talking about the suffering He would endure, and the cross on which He would die, and James and John responded, “Yep!”

They had no idea. The pride, the ego, the arrogance. They thought they could be like Jesus, not in His suffering, but in His glory.

Now skip down to verse 43.

On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:43b-45)

We looked at the idea of Jesus being our ransom a few weeks back, and saw that it refers to the payment made to deliver us out of slavery. And yet, even as we’re redeemed from the slavery of our sin, we’re called to be servants of God, and slaves to all. We’re called to humble ourselves, just as Jesus humbled Himself, and not demand from others our rights, but rather serve others out of love, as Jesus did. Because instead of simply demanding our praise, Jesus gave His life as a ransom for many.

The Greek word polus, translated “many” here, refers not to any limited number of people who may not be ransomed by Jesus, but rather to the great multitude of people who are. And actually, the word in Greek is in the plural, indicating even more so that it’s referring to a great number. So, we could translate verse 45 this way:

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for multitudes. (Mark 10:45, my translation)

It’s not merely pointing out that God is going to save a few through Jesus; it’s praising God for how many He’s going to save, indicating that it’s a great number!

It’s kind of like an old grandpa who gathers all of family together for a reunion and family photo, sees all of his family gathered together in one place with smiles on their faces, and out of great emotion says, “I have so many beautiful family members! I am so blessed.”

Because Jesus died on the cross, there will be a great many, a multitude, in heaven with Him.

Now, you might be asking, what’s all this talk about the cross have to do with Christmas?

Now, you might be asking, what’s all this have to do with Christmas?

Matthew 1:20b-21.

An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20b-21)

And who are His people? Paul addressed this in Romans 9, which says:

As it also says in Hosea, I will call Not My People, My People, and she who is Unloved, Beloved. And it will be in the place where they were told, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God. (Romans 9:25-26)

By grace through faith in Jesus, God gives us the right to be called children of God.

You know, we often think about Christmas as being all about Jesus’s birth, and it is, but from the Christmas story itself, we learn that Christmas is ironically also all about Jesus’s death, and how Jesus save His people from their sins. Because even though Jesus is God, and God deserves all praise, He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

And if that’s what our God did for us, then we ought to do the same for others. Now, we can’t die for the sins of others, but we can serve them with humility. God calls us to serve one another, laying aside our need for glory, and simply loving our neighbor as ourself.

There’s a true story about a man named Benedict Jebakumar who has been picking up nails off the road every day for over five years.

It all started when he got a flat tire on a certain section of road, and noticed there were many tire shops on the road nearby. As he was getting his tire fixed, he noticed there were many other people who got nails in their tires from the same section of road, and as he watched this happen over time, he came to believe that the tire shops themselves were throwing the nails on the road in order to get more business.

He could never prove it, so the businesses never got into trouble, but Benedict still wanted to do something about it to help others avoid getting flat tires. So he modified a fishing rod that he had, put a magnet on it, and started picking up nails. On one day alone, March 21, 2016, he collected 1,654 nails off the road. He keeps them all, and at one point, he weighed them to find that he had picked up over 110 pounds of nails.

The funny thing, or sad thing depending on how you think of it, is that very few people even know that he does this. A reporter interviewed him once to see if anyone ever asked why he walked around all over the road every morning with a fishing pole. Benedict told the reporter:

It is such a fast-paced world that nobody has even observed that there is a man wandering about a busy main road in search of something. They have not even noticed that these nails are potential threats to their vehicles. -Benedict Jebakumar

So for many years, Benedict has been humbly serving the people of his city, saving them from those who sought to cause them harm.

Paul wrote in Philippians 2:

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death —even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow —in heaven and on earth and under the earth — and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

So even though Jesus certainly isn’t our genie in a bottle, He did make Himself small to serve us. He even came as a little baby, one of us, in order to live the perfect life that we fail to live, and then die in our place, as our substitute, so that His death would pay the price for our sins. And after rising from the grave, Jesus has been exalted by His Father, so that we will all see His glory and goodness, and all people in heaven and earth and even under the earth will confess Jesus as Savior and Lord.

Don’t put that off. This Christmas season, confess Jesus as your Savior today, rejoicing in Christ the Lord.