What do I want from Jesus?

My two oldest kids, Anna who just turned 12 and Isaac who is 9, are pretty good athletes.  Anna is a fantastic soccer player and leverages her height, speed and strength to be one of the best players in her division.  Isaac is really good at all the sports he plays.  He's a ridiculously good linebacker in football, a very good and natural talent in baseball, and a very good basketball player.  I love to watch my kids compete and use their God-given talents in sports.  They're also great teammates and leaders on the field of play.  And the youngest, Andrew who is almost 3, seems to be following in his brother's footsteps athletically. 

As a parent of two good athletes, I really find that I'm disgusted with myself with how hard I push them to excel at sports sometimes.  I'll admit, when I watch them play sports, sometimes I see $$$$ in my head.  Not that I think they're so exceptional that they'll play professional sports, but I do think that they're good enough that someday they might get a free or reduced college education for their athletic talent.  That would certainly help my wife and I out tremendously!  I also help to coach their teams, and there are times when I let my emotions and competitive nature override my responsibility to young athletes to encourage and equip them to do their best and have fun. 

Sports are fun, but they're also opportunities for my kids to learn important lessons about life - the value of setting goals and working hard to achieve them; learning to work with others - some who are less talented and some who are more talented - to achieve those goals; learning personal responsibility as a part of a team; and giving your best effort in everything that you do.  These are lessons and skills that they can carry with them for their entire lives in whatever they do.  

When I'm motivated as a parent and coach to help my kids and the kids I coach to focus on these things, I'm serving out of proper motivations.  When I'm motivated by the desire to help them win at all costs and to dominate the competition, I'm serving out of selfish and impure motives.  

I say all this to say that checking our motivations in life, and especially in the life of faith, is vital for all of us.  I think that one of the most important things we can do as disciples of Jesus is to check our motivations in life.  We're all motivated by different things at different times in life.  And really, we've got to ask ourselves, "What do I want from Jesus?"

In today's reading from Mark 11, we see an important event in the life of Jesus that addresses our personal motivations.   Mark 11 opens with what we commonly call The Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  It's Passover week, and this is just days before Jesus will be arrested and crucified on the cross.  Jerusalem is jam packed with visitors - some scholars estimate that over 2 million people would have been there at this time.  

As Jesus enters Jerusalem on the colt, a large crowd gathers around him.  Probably thousands or tens of thousands of cheering and excited Jews.  They know about the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah.  They have great hope and expectation, and as he comes into Jerusalem, they cry out, "Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!"  Hosanna is a word that means, "Save us!"  And that is why Jesus came - as our Savior.

But what we often fail to realize is that a disproportionately large percentage of this crowd had the wrong idea about Jesus.  You see, the expectation of the Messiah at this time was that he would come in power and might and violence to overthrow the oppressive Roman government.  Their cries of "Hosanna," weren't a plea for salvation from their sins.  Their cries of "Hosanna," were a plea to overthrow the Roman government.

How do we know this?  Good question, I'm glad you asked!  Just a few days later, as Jesus was on trial before Pilate, this was the same crowd that demanded his crucifixion and demanded that Barabbas be handed over for release instead of Jesus.  This was the same crowd that was responsible for the death of Jesus.  They didn't really want this kind of Messiah.  

And we see as the story unfolds that motivation is such an important part of the life of faith.  It's easy to be motivated to shout to Jesus to save us when we think about all the things we want him to do for us.  The blog post by Kevin DeYoung that I linked earlier this morning on here gets to the heart of this.  

He nails it when he says that we'd like for Jesus to make our lives neat, clean and easy.  This is what the crowd was hoping for on this day.  He says, "We'll ladle up a little bit of Jesus as long as he fulfills our plans."

But following Jesus, worshipping Jesus and being a disciple of Jesus isn't about God fulfilling our plans.  The life of discipleship is about surrender to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  It's about learning to mortify and crucify our desires and our plans to live for the glory of God in all that we do.  

DeYoung says this, "The walk of genuine faith is the walk of Calvary. It carries a cross, and it takes a lifetime. When we have “faith” . . . we come to Christ to make our dreams come true. When we come to Christ with saving faith we come to him to call him Lord. We come as nobodies eager to worship a Somebody. That’s the heart of the matter. God’s glory or ours?"

What do you want from Jesus?