The Kingdom Road to Success

You want to see a success? Here's a success. This week's Time Magazine could be almost any week's Time Magazine, but we'll take this week. His name is Bill Gates.

He's 28 years old. He lives in a $750,000 house. He's taken 15 vacation days in the last 6 years.

He's the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of a computer software company. And he doesn't like to explain things to his employees more than once. Bill Gates is a success.

And how about us? Every one of us here is a failure. In fact, deep in the inner regions of our hearts, most of us feel like failures. That's how we feel.

Failure. Well, then there was this chap who was only 5 years older than Bill Gates. And he also was on his way to the cover of Time Magazine.

Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road and others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest. And when he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred. Who is this? And the crowd said, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.

And Peter the Apostle says to himself, Well, the smartest move I ever made was when I left my fishing boat and signed up with this man. Why, this is the biggest thing to hit this town in centuries. And I'm in on the ground floor.

Matthew stroked his beard and smiled. When I closed my tax office to join this team, I never dreamed it would be this good. Yes, it looks like Jesus is really heading for something big.

It all depends on what he does now. How he plays his cards. He's got the crowd eating out of his hand.

What he needs to do now is manifest a little bit of political savagery. What he needs to do is when he gets down into the city, He needs to get off that donkey and knock on the door of the high priest. The high priest opens the door and Jesus says, There they are, look at this crowd.

I got the people, you got the connections. I'll take you in with me, we'll form a coalition and we'll start running this country the way it ought to be run. And he could have pulled it off.

Even if the high priest wasn't too happy about doing it, He would have had to do it to get on the bandwagon. But Jesus had a very, very, very different idea of success. So, instead of taking advantage of the momentum he had going here, This crowd called him the son of David, that means the Messiah.

And using this to ram his way into the structures of Jerusalem and establish himself in a place of power, Jesus gets into the city, jumps off the donkey, and begins to offend everyone in town. Reading the very next verses in Matthew 21. And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple.

And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers. And now he's starting to get in real trouble.

He's been in trouble all along, but it's getting hot now. But he doesn't quit. He keeps running and going.

The blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. But when the chief priest and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, And the children crying in the temple, and notice this, You know, it's the blind and the lame who can't do them any good, And the children who have no power that he takes his time with and deals with and relates to. And the big shots, the chief priest and the scribes, he doesn't give the time of day and they're getting angry.

And so they say, Do you hear what these are saying? Calling you the son of David? And Jesus says, Yes. Have you never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast brought perfect praise? So Jesus, if you read in Matthew 21 and chapter 22 and chapter 23, Makes very clear that he does not live by the principles of Dale Carnegie. Makes no attempt to win friends and influence people.

He offends and offends and offends and offends. And he is able to speak with such prophetic power, power that chills the bones of every hypocrite in town. Because he, Jesus, knows as nobody else does, where the real road to success lies.

And he knows he's on that road. And he knows that nobody is going to get him off that road. And what is the real road to success? From Mark chapter 10, verse 42.

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles, lord it over them. And their great men, exercise authority over them. But it shall not be 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 the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.

And to give his life as a ransom for men. The road to success. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.

And never complain about when he's not being served. And to give his life a ransom. And by Friday afternoon of that week, Jesus arrived at his goal.

And it was not the throne in Herod's palace. And it was not the cover of Time Magazine. It was a bloody cross.

They beat the man almost to a pulp. Stripped off his clothes. Nailed him up on that thing to die.

And now Peter, he's no longer so sure of himself. He's not so sure it was the smartest thing he ever did to leave his fishing boat. And Matthew, he ain't stroking his beard anymore.

Just before he dies, he gasps. It is finished. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

And he dies. The earth begins to shake. Over in the temple, the veil that separates the holy of holies from the holy place tears apart from top to bottom.

Graves begin to show signs of cracking over there in the cemetery. The New Age has begun. The curse has been lifted.

And nobody even knows it but Jesus, the Father, the angels, and suddenly, to his great chagrin, Satan, the son of man, came not to be served but to serve. And to give his life as a ransom for many. Now the reason why we feel like such failures so much of the time is because we are still taking our idea of success from Time Magazine down in our vain little hearts.

We're still hoping that sometime before we die, they'll take our picture and shake our hand and say to us, congratulations, you're a success. And American Christendom especially is crawling with people who are scrambling over themselves to get that kind of success and we're among them. Now we're more subtle.

We're not going to look like we're going for that phony stuff. But in the secrecy of our hearts, we also are waiting on chance. Feeling greatly disappointed that nobody seems to realize what wonderful saints we are, what a tremendous job we're doing.

And then we begin to wonder whether we really are doing such a tremendous job. Whether perhaps we aren't after all truly failures. By this time, every one of us in here ought to know that there's a much, much better road to success, the only real road there is, in all the world.

And we ought to be able to get our feet on that road today and never ever again think of ourselves as failures. We ought to be able to put our feet on the road to success today and know that we're on that road, that we are a success. Don't have to prove it anymore.

And that we're on the way to success all the time. We ought to be able to look at this motley congregation and see it as a success. And see ourselves traveling together.

Together we're moving, we're getting somewhere. We found a way. Nobody can stop us.

We can't fail. And what is this road to success? It's so simple. Let's look at it again.

To be in that road of success, we don't have to be geniuses, business tycoons, beauty queens, or any such thing. The road to success. The son of man came not to be served, but to serve.

And to give his life a ransom for many. And anybody who follows the son of man comes not to be served, but to serve. And to give his life, her life, as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

If we're on that road, we're a success. We're on the way to success. We absolutely cannot fail.

I am here not to be served, but to serve. To give thy life as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the one who laid down his life for me. When I see that, what a liberty and freedom this gives me.

I don't have to prove anything to anybody anymore. Let them think what they want. I know what I'm doing then.

I'm fulfilling my purpose. I don't have to use anybody or anything as a stepping stone to anywhere, because I've got there. I've reached the ultimate.

I'm on the road. If I'm pouring out my life, if I'm spending myself, if I'm walking under that yoke with Jesus, seriously, I'm there. I'm a success.

I'm in heaven's hall of fame. I'm in the land of victory. I'm walking under the yoke with the king of kings.

And I've at last found unity with brothers and sisters. What more can I ever, ever want? But it's helpful to understand that the road to success has three stages. Stage number one, resurrection power.

Each stage, by the way, gets better than the one before it. It kind of includes the one before it. Stage number two, suffering.

And that's even better. Stage number three, a cross. That's still better.

Listen to the apostle Paul describe his transition from Time Magazine success to Kingdom success. In Philippians chapter 3, verse 7, But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse. King James is much more graphic. He says, Dominate.

In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Time Magazine success, garbage heap. In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.

Not having the righteousness of my own, which is based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. That I may know him in the power of his resurrection, in the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain to the resurrection out of the dead. So Paul is saying, when I finally turn my back on Time Magazine's success, Free Press, Detroit News' success, Channel 7's success, whatever, American Christendom's success, and begin to put my feet on the kingdom road of success, first of all, he begins to know Jesus in the power of his resurrection, and that's great.

As he travels on that road, he begins now also to experience suffering. And he gets to know Jesus in fellowship of his suffering. That's even better.

Finally, he begins to know Jesus by becoming like him in his death. That's the best of all. And it's just that way for us.

We need to understand that. Not get morbid about it, but to understand that's the way. Those are the facts.

When we put our feet on the road to success, that's the kingdom road to success, unmixed, uncompromised, we begin to know Jesus in the power of his resurrection, and in that power, we go out into the streets and lanes of the city, and we bring in the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. We go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come to the banquet table of God. We bring good news to the poor, sight to the blind, deliverance to the captives, freedom to the oppressed, with power.

As we do this faithfully, we begin, some of our relatives turn against us. Some of our friends reject us. And please understand, I'm not talking about the suffering we endure because of our own selfish, self-righteous, obnoxious ways, and then call that persecution.

That's not persecution. That's chastisement. I'm talking about the suffering that comes because we're faithful.

And that comes. And now people will turn their backs on us, and some of the people we think most highly of will look down upon us with pity. Whatever happened to you, they will say.

And sometimes we'll read it in their faces, they're afraid to tell us, but we know what they're thinking. And we feel like shriveling up and dying until we realize that the spirit of glory and of God now comes to rest upon us. And as we begin to experience suffering, we also begin to experience fellowship with Jesus on a level we never knew before.

And the power of his resurrection in our lives doubles. Twice as strong. We may feel weaker, but the power going forth from us is double.

As we proceed, we move into stage number three. We begin to learn to die. We learn to lay down our lives.

We learn to decrease that he may increase. We fast that somebody else can eat. We pray in secret.

We intercede that others may receive life. We willingly sink back into the shadows that somebody else may come up into the light. We allow the power of his death to work in us so that the power of his life may move into somebody else.

Now, the power of Jesus' resurrection in us triples. Three times as strong. Two rows open up before our feet this day.

Each of the two rows claims to be the one and only road to success. One is true, and one is false. False.

And we already know which is which. And yet, we have to admit that we, for years, have been flirting with the false road. You know, we profess to be going this way, but again and again our eyes roll off to this one over here, and we play with it.

And we flirt with it. We toy around with it. And so today, the Lord Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, calls us, and let's not get too, let's not be too sure that we're far ahead of our brother or sister.

Calls us to turn our backs on the false road and begin to follow him on the road that he leads us in. Follow him beyond the clamoring crowds to a temple that needs to be cleansed, to sick who need to be healed, to the poor who need to hear the gospel. Good news.

And on to Calvary, the Son of Man, came not to be served and to give his life as a ransom for many. And anyone who follows him, proceeds in the same path, comes not to be served but to serve and to give our lives as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to him who laid down his life for us. That road is open before us now, and if we'll put our feet on that road with an act of commitment before the Lord, we will never fail.