Our text tonight very clearly begins Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. For the first time He will give very clear details of His death and resurrection and then He will teach, for the third time in the last two chapters the posture of greatness in the Kingdom of God. We see a very interesting connection between Mark 9 and Mark 10. N Mark 9:30-32, Jesus told the disciples “The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, He will rise the third day.” The response of the disciples to this statement was first fear, they didn’t understand but they were too afraid to ask Jesus what it meant. Their next response was what appears to be an odd one, they began arguing among themselves about which one of them would be the greatest in Jesus’ kingdom. Here in Mark 10 Jesus will give the most specific details about His death and the immediate response of two of Jesus’ most trusted disciples, James and John, was to ask Jesus to give them the most important seats of glory in His kingdom. Why it that the humility of Jesus’ character was what drew men to Him and yet most of those that followed Him had such a difficult time choosing that same humility for themselves? I believe there is often a fundamental thought process that we tend to share with the apostles: each time Jesus revealed His work of death and resurrection the apostles responded by concentrating on what they wanted Jesus to do in their lives rather than considering how their lives could become more like Jesus’. If we are not careful to keep Romans 8:29 “Those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son” then we see Jesus as for what He does for us rather than who we were meant to follow, to worship, and ultimately to be transformed into. Jesus didn’t merely come as a man, live a perfect life, die a sinners death and then rise from the dead so that He could serve us and answer our prayers, He came and did all those things so that we could become like Him. As II Corinthians 5:21 says God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” As we have shared many times, Jesus died our death so that we could live His life. We have to learn what the apostles learned, Jesus’ death and resurrection were not so that He could do our bidding, they were so that we could follow His example. Tonight we will see again that the only way to follow Jesus is to desire to become like Him in all of His character, humility, love and obedience. The work of Jesus was to make us like Him. It was true for James and John and must be true for you and I as well.