Abuses of Power

NOTE: This sermon includes sensitive content referring to dynamics in abusive relationships that may be triggering for some. If you or someone you love needs help, you can reach out to us at the links below.

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1. Read Mark 10:42-45. What have you considered nonnegotiable aspects of leadership in the past? Have you considered the fact that it means leading in service?
2. What do you think of the idea that leadership and selflessness have to do with "Power Under" rather than "Power Over"––using your power, authority, influence, to elevate others around you? How does that look in your life?
3. How does your heart towards serving others change when you are not coerced to serve but compelled by the freedom you've been given? How does Jesus leading in laying down his life encourage the ways you serve?
4. Discuss the four power dynamics of relating with people. Where do you land most of the time? In what ways might you realize you lord your authority over people? How can you drive deeper in service to others?
5. Discuss the dynamics of abuse and see if anyone in the group is willing to share a past experience of abuse to help someone else recognize destructive patterns. Look at the diagnostic questions near the end to help uncover patterns.

Practice: Have a conversation this week with those closest to you about ways you can serve them. Get creative and spend time coming up with new ideas for how you can lead in humility and service to others.

Getting ready for a sermon called on holy and unholy ambitions, I was struck this week by the drama playing out over in Russia. Putin’s authority is suddenly being undermined by this very public revolt from the Wagner group, a private militia that he normally sends out as his attack dog. And even though it was short-lived, everything you read right now is about this power struggle. Putin’s authority was undermined and now he is trying to restore an image of power, so he goes and launches missiles into a pizza shop in Ukraine to try and show some sort of strength and regain an image of being in control. It is the unholiest of ambitions.

I was reading about a man who, years ago, visited the KGB headquarters when the KGB was still in power. And he talked about the difference being at their headquarters before and after the KGB fell. Before, it was this international powerhouse of espionage, with this enormous statue of the KGB’s founder. When he visited after it collapsed, he noticed the statue was gone and, in its place, hung a huge wooden cross with an inscription underneath, painted in red, that said, “This is where real power is found.”

But if we were there at that time, looking at that inscription and really believing that the cross is where real power is found, it is still very easy to miss the point of the cross. We might be tempted to use it for our own unholy ambitions––carry it around like a rabbit’s foot, a good luck charm, your unwashed game-day socks, to give you success and help you be the best and most successful version of yourself. You might miss the fact that real power in the cross is found in the way God used it as a tool to set us free––not just for our own sake but ransomed and enlisted in service to others.

For Jesus, holy ambition, true greatness is found in making yourself the lowest for the sake of lifting up others around you. It’s radical. You can have a holy ambition. Jesus doesn’t throw out all ideas of becoming great, he just turns them on their head and goes about it in a completely different way.

What does it mean to lead, to be great, to make a real difference in the world?

For Jesus, it means leading in service. Outdoing each other in servitude. Not to gain salvation or any advantage, but because the advantage has already been given.

In Christ, you were saved, you were ransomed. And in the kingdom, leadership is synonymous with service. It’s the very essence of who God is, giving himself away.

We’re going to look at this verse over the next two weeks, because it’s a hinge verse between two stories in Mark that relate what it really means to follow Jesus. It’s the theme verse of Mark. And it is absolutely the most insane idea Christianity offers. The God who created the universe and holds it together did not come near us to be served but to serve us. It’s the very essence of his nature. He doesn’t use all his infinite, cosmic power to just dominate us, he uses it to lift the lowly and oppressed; to ransom us and set us free to then go and serve others in the same fashion.

This verse connects two distinct stories of discipleship––what it truly means to follow Jesus. The story we’ll look at today with James and John is a failure of discipleship, so we’ll look more at what it means to hold onto unholy ambition and worldly notions of greatness. Then the story of Bartimaeus next week is a model for what it means to follow Jesus with a holy ambition.

In both stories, Jesus asks these men the exact same question:

I wonder how we would answer Jesus. What do you want me to do for you? What do you most deeply want from me? What is your greatest ambition and desire for your life? Do you even want to know the answer to those questions?

So, looking at these two stories, we’ll pull out Jesus’ themes of greatness, power, and ambition––all of which we’ll see are actually good when aimed correctly but devastating when corrupted.

This week we’ll see how Jesus calls us to radical service in our relationships, using our power or influence to lift others around us rather than to power over them like James and John try to do. Next week we’ll look at the positive side of holy ambition and what that means for our vocation and calling.

In Mark 10, Jesus is building on this teaching of what it means to be truly great––that to follow him means denying ourselves and taking up our cross; that to try to save your life is to lose it, but to lose it for the sake of Jesus and others means finding it; that if you want to be first, you must be last and servant of all. And right before this story, he’s told his disciples that the first will be last, and the last first.

Jesus takes off in Mark 10:32 in a heroic march to his own impending death. It says they were on the road going up to Jerusalem (Jesus has already predicted twice that he would die there) and he is resolutely moving on ahead of them. It says Jesus is out in the lead here. He’s leading in suffering and sacrifice. The greatest human being ever to walk the earth has determined to be the lowest and use his power to lift humanity out of our own grave we dug.

We talk a lot as a church staff about what it means to lead. And there’s not a shortage of definitions on leadership, but the definition we use most is that you are literally “in the lead.” To lead means you’re out at the front of the line bringing people along the journey with rather than commanding or coercing people from behind to walk where you’re unwilling to go. That’s what we see Jesus doing here. And it says that people were amazed and those who followed were fearful because they knew what was coming on this road to Jerusalem. He had already told them twice.

Then he takes the twelve aside and gives his third and final passion prediction. He says in vv. 33-34, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.”

That’s a heavy thing to hear from your leader who is supposed to be the revolutionary king you’ve been waiting for. He’s just said the words mocking, spitting, scourging, killing––but what do James and John hear? Oh, there’s going to be a resurrection, which means a kingdom, which means positions of power and authority. Do they set their agenda aside? Nah. They listen to him discuss the most agonizing thing anyone has ever experienced––not only being crucified but drinking down the dregs of the wrath of God poured out for all mankind, for every person who has ever lived. Here’s what they say:

You should feel awkward for these guys right now. This is like trying to explain global suffering to children and they stare back at you and say, “Cool. Can we go get ice cream?”

John Stott writes, “They speak a different language, breathe a different spirit and express a different ambition. James and John want to sit on thrones in power and glory; Jesus knows that he must hang on a cross in weakness and shame. The antithesis is total.”

They miss it. But how does our Lord respond to their presumption? The same question he’ll ask Bartimaeus. Looking at them with patient and loving eyes, he asks, "What do you want me to do for you?"

It’s the same question for us today: What do you want me to do for you?

How and why is God asking me that question?

But they ask for the best seats in the house. To sit on the right and the left of Jesus would be the preeminent places of authority in the kingdom––second and third in command behind the king. Not only that, but they’re also cutting Peter out. Peter always shows up with James and John. They’re Jesus’ inner circle. They’re the three who saw him on the mount of transfiguration. And Peter is the rock that Jesus said he would build the church on. Peter is looking like the clear frontrunner for Jesus’ #2. So, they take this horribly timed opportunity to surpass him and get the advantage.

The cup here represents the wrath of God poured out in this act of suffering, and the baptism represents Jesus’ total immersion into this agony. But they say, “Oh yeah, I can do that for sure.”

Jesus assures them, they will end up drinking the cup, meaning they will join with him in his sufferings eventually. But they had no idea what they were asking for when Jesus asked what they wanted.

Now, the rest of the disciples are furious. They’re just as worried about power and greatness. One commentator says, “They would rather bear a grudge than a cross.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. First, we must ask, what does it mean to lord over people and to exercise authority over them? What does it mean to be “lordy”?

There is a bit of a difference between these words. There’s one Greek word for “lord over” (katakyrieúō) and one for “exercise authority over” (katexousiázō). The first translated “lord over” really conveys the sense of ruling for your own advantage. It’s putting yourself and your interests first. It’s competitive and selfish. The second, translated “exercise authority over,” is similar but carries implications of ruling with compulsion or oppression. The second Greek word is a bit more intense.

So, even though these words may just be used here synonymously, there is a distinction in scale and its one we can see practically. Let’s use marriage as an example here.

There’s a great book called When Home Hurts, that helps churches identify the differences between your run-of-the-mill marriage problems caused by selfishness and the more sinister issues of abuse or oppression. For our sake in this passage, let’s call it “Levels of Lording.”

Most marriages and friendships operate in the first category when “lording over” each other. It falls more into the category of being competitive and putting yourself first. It’s selfishly meeting your own needs before someone else, either on purpose or because you didn’t even stop to consider their needs. It’s very simply “Me Before You.” It’s ruling to your own advantage.

But the second category is an abusive/oppressive dynamic. It’s either predatory, where the “lordy” person is preying on the weaker person; or else it is parasitic, like a leach that’s more quietly sucking the life out. In both cases, this is no longer an issue of “Me Before You,” but “Me Over You.” This is when there is an imbalance of power in place and the person uses their authority in a way that dominates the other to gain power and control.

Both categories are sinful. For one of them, however, the consequences are more far-reaching.

We’re going to spend a little time identifying the differences, but first I want to give you two more categories on the positive side.

Referring to “lording over” other people and exercising authority over them, Jesus said…

Isn’t it interesting that Jesus doesn’t say, “It shouldn’t be this way among you”? Instead, he says, “it is not this way among you.” It’s not a future tense or a command, but a present tense. Some Scribes even thought that must be a mistake and tried to change it to future tense. We can see very obviously that this is the way the disciples are currently operating here. But Jesus is saying it in the present tense, because it’s not an admonition to act a certain way, but a statement of the way things are in the kingdom. When you act selfishly, you are operating against the natural flow of the now-present kingdom, that of giving and putting others first. When you put yourself first or try to control others, you are standing outside of the way things are in Jesus’ kingdom reality.

But Jesus doesn’t do away with all ambition or any notion of greatness. He just approaches them in a completely different way. If you want to be great, you must serve. If you want to be first, you must be last, slave of all, behind everyone else. Here again, we see a spectrum, but on the positive side now. There’s a difference between being a great person among other great people and actually being first. And there’s a difference in lowliness between a servant and a slave. If we had “levels of lording” before, these are levels of loving others––giving yourself away for their sake. Using your strength, power, energy, creativity to lift up the people around you. Let’s put these together and we’ll see four different power dynamics in how we relate.

The top two are our levels of lording, and the bottom two are levels of loving. I took the term “Power Over” from Chris Moles’ work on domestic abuse.

“Power Over” means you are exercising authority over someone, using your power, position, influence to gain power and control in a way that is predatory or parasitic. This is the “Me over you” category and it’s the most insidious.

On the other extreme, what Jesus is calling us to is “Power under,” using that same power, influence or authority to elevate the people around you for their good.

Illustration: Think of it like the immense power of the ocean. We’ve seen the headlines for how cruel the ocean can be lately, from submarines imploding to the migrant cruise ship sinking. The ocean can literally crush people under its weight. That’s the idea of power over. On the other hand, the tide could rise, and the immense power of the ocean can raise up everyone around it. That’s the difference between power over and power under.

Then in the middle we have the less extreme, or more competitive nature of selfishness vs. selflessness. Selfish people may not always be looking for power and control, but they constantly put themselves first, sometimes without even thinking about it because they don’t give a lot of thought to others.

Selfless people, however, give that preferential treatment to others. The reason it’s not as deep on this scale as “Power Under” is because it’s possible to be a servant in really easy ways that don’t cost much. You may let someone else have the best seat, or you might fill up their drink when you get up to get yours or let them pick the restaurant or the movie. These are small ways to serve others that are wonderful, but don’t really require a lot out of us.

But when you consider coming up under people and using your power, authority, influence, and creativity to elevate them, that’s a different level of love. It’s what Jesus did for us. It’s what he's modeling on this march towards his death in Jerusalem.

Here’s a great diagnostic question to just how selfless you are towards others. Tim Keller asks, “Did I meet the needs of other people with all the joy, with all the speed, with all the energy, and with all the creativity with which I would meet my own needs?”

We’re GREAT at coming up with new ways to meet our own needs.

• When you serve someone sacrificially, is it begrudging or can you do it with joy?
• Are you quick to meet the needs of others, or do you put it off until you can get to it?
• Do you trudge through acting all tired and worn out and making sure people know you’re serving or do you muster up every last drop of energy you have?
• Do you only meet needs that are immediately apparent, or do you creatively look for ways to serve?

See, the world moves up on this scale to achieve greatness––climbing the ladder. There’s this idea of self-preservation and needing to take your life into your own hands. We think we’re the only ones who are going to look out for us, so somebody has to do it.

But Jesus has other ideas. What does Philippians 2 say? Jesus didn’t think he had to grasp and hang onto his equality with God. Instead, he emptied himself and became like a what? A slave! Just like he says here in Mark that to be first, in the place of preeminence, you must be slave to all. So, Philippians 2 says, “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

The one who made himself slave to all was giving the greatest name that is above all names.

We’re not just talking about serving generally. We’re talking about radically giving yourself away for the sake of others. And we can only do that because we have been ransomed. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” We were bought with a price. In Christ, we are free from the law of sin and death. And we are set free to serve others, because we don’t have to earn our salvation or build our own identity. It has been secured for us.

Martin Luther King Jr. said that anyone can be great, because anyone can serve. He said, “You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know Plato and Aristotle. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

Has God regenerated your soul in love?

This is what it means to lead and to be great. It means to be “in the lead” in service to others. This is the beginning of holy ambition. How can I use whatever I’ve been given join into the work God has right in front of me for the good of others?

For a lot of us in here, we vacillate between these three categories of selfishness, selflessness, and power under. And if that’s where you are, you need to be encouraged to lean into the grace that Jesus secured and find ways to pour that grace back out to others. Pursue greatness by loving God and loving others in active service. Find a way to serve that meets the other person’s needs, not so that you’ll get something back.

In Dynamic Marriage, you would hear about this love bank model. The idea was that you make deposits into your marriage, and that’s a great principle. But it can get skewed really fast if you think you’re making deposits in the same way you would into a bank account just so you can make withdraws whenever you want. That’s not service, it’s manipulation.

Or consider the five love languages. These are great as a guideline to learn to love someone in ways that are outside your comfort zone and that uniquely serve the other person. But Jonathan Holmes says, “I’ve also seen some couples weaponize the love languages, misusing them to legitimize selfish snobbiness about the kind of love they want to receive. They drill down on one particular “language” and say that the only way their spouse’s love is good enough is if it is expressed in exactly the way they want to be loved, according to their self-perceived needs and standards. That is not biblical love.” He says, “Awareness of one another’s love languages does not excuse us from the mandate to elevate the other’s needs above our own.”

You see how we can take good tools and skew them to our own desires? Meet the needs of the other without expecting anything in return.

These are just a few basic relational dynamics, but we need to address the more insidious ambition in this first category of powering over others to gain power and control in destructive, oppressive, and abusive ways. Hear me, normal marriage advice can actually be harmful for abusive marriages, because it can be used to gain even more power and control over the victim.

And I have to address this, because this is a dynamic that is far too prevalent, even in the church. If you’re a victim of this type of person, it’s hard to apply general marriage principles about service, because you may get in your head that if you just serve more then maybe he won’t treat you like that, or that you just need to quietly endure as an act of sacrificial love.

Please hear me, if you are a victim of domestic abuse, it is never your fault. You are never the cause of someone else’s abusive behavior, no matter what they may tell you.

So, we need to take a minute to speak to this dynamic, because it affects far more people in this room than you would imagine. I’m only going to skim the surface, because there is so much to say about it and it can be triggering for a lot of people. About 30% of women, almost one in three, will have been slapped, pushed, or shoved by an intimate partner at some point in their lives.

If we’re talking severe physical violence, the number is still nearly 1 in 4 women, or 24.3%. And those numbers are virtually unchanged inside the walls of the church. That means it’s very likely that 1 in 4 women in this room have likely experienced severe physical violence at some point in their lives. That number climbs when you consider other forms of abuse, including emotional, verbal, psychological, and others. Abuse is a spectrum that always comes back to patterns of power and control.

It’s an attempt to be great at the expense of someone else.

These figures are staggering. Especially when Jesus said, “It is not this way among you.”

Anyone who is actively involved in oppressing someone else is not just failing to live up to an ideal of sacrificial service but is standing outside of the present kingdom reality. “It is not this way among you.”

And many victims would not self-identify as abuse victims. Abusers are skilled at manipulating and gaslighting in ways that make you feel crazy and often make you think their actions are your fault.

When the relationship has become physically abusive, for example, if it’s only happened once you may feel like it was a fluke. Or you think, He only calls me fat/lazy/ugly/stupid when I get out of line. Domestic abuse is so hard to uncover because it’s a spectrum and has to do with patterns of destructive behavior. In domestic abuse work, we often refer to it as patterns or constellations. Thinking of a constellation, you look up at the sky and any one dot doesn’t really seem like much, but when you connect the dots it makes a pattern, a constellation of behaviors that reveal underlying issues of power and control.

Most marriages operate in the annoyances and pet peeves part of the pyramid. Occasionally that can rise to some controlling behavior, but it’s more of the competitive “Me Before You” dynamic. Up top you have the more verbal/emotional abuse and physical violence.

But even if something at the top seemed like a fluke, an abusive relationship doesn’t have to stay in these upper levels for the abuser to maintain power and control. Maybe you think he only shoved you or put the hole in the wall next to you that one time or he only calls me those names when it gets really heated. But a relationship that has elevated to these higher levels of abuse brings the full weight of that abuse down into other interactions.

Cabinet example: There was one couple I heard about where the husband would always leave the cabinets open, which was a pet peeve of the wife. One day, they got into an argument about it, and it continued to escalate to the point where it got physical, and he actually ended up strangling her. It was the only time anything physical had ever happened, because he felt like he lost control and that was how he regained it. That fight escalated all the way to the top of this pyramid. But that pet peeve of opening the cabinets? All the husband had to do anytime he wanted to gain control after that incident was to leave the cabinets cracked, which communicated “You know what will happen if you undermine me.” What was an annoyance of leaving cabinets open now carried with it all the weight of the abuse that had gone before.

That’s why it can be so hard to identify. Victims will often think they’re making a big deal out of little things, but when you put the constellation together and connect the dots you see the overall pattern.

Unfortunately, many who are oppressive within the church use Scripture to justify their actions. Skewed ideas of male headship are one contributing factor. There are men that use male headship in the Bible as a license to dominate their wives and keep them in line.

But what does Ephesians 5 say about male headship?

Paul compares male headship with Christ’s headship and his relationship with the church. And what did Christ do? How have we seen that he leads? He makes himself lower! He gives up his life, gives his very self for the church! He came to serve! Not to be served!

Anyone who is using male headship to justify oppression, power, control, completely misses the heart of Christ. Like I said, I can only skim the surface today, but I want to give you a few diagnostic questions if you think you might be in an abusive or oppressive or destructive marriage.

Just because someone has done some of these doesn’t automatically make them abusive but it can help uncover patterns of abuse in ways they seek power and control.

Questions. Does your spouse ever… • Make you feel worthless? • Put you down or call you names? • Look at you or act in ways that scare you? • Hit, kick, shove, slap, choke, or otherwise hurt you, your children, or your pets? • Intimidate and threaten to hurt you or someone you love? • Threaten to hurt themselves because of you? • Isolate you by preventing or discouraging you from seeing your friends and family? • Control access to money? • Take your money, make you ask for money, or refuse to give you money? • Exclude you from giving input to decisions? • Act jealous or possessive, or constantly accuse you of being unfaithful? • Stalk you, including calling you constantly or monitoring your phone, texts, or email? • Impede or discourage you from going to work or school? • Blame you for their violent behavior or tell you that you deserve it? • Try to control how you spend money, where you go, what medicines you take, or what you wear? • Ignore you for prolonged periods of time? • Threaten you with violence or a weapon? • Use the Bible or doctrine to shame you? • Tell you that you are a bad parent? • Threaten to take away or hurt your children? • Act as if the abuse is no big deal or is your fault, or even deny doing it? • Make you feel afraid to disagree with them or express your opinions?

Or ask yourself this question: How would I feel if this were happening to my daughter, son, or sibling? Would I be ok if someone were treating him or her this way?

Not all these actions are inherently abusive, but they help to try and identify a pattern of power and control. The best way to uncover abuse is going to be by consulting people who are trained in understanding the tactics and dynamics of abuse.

And as a note for our leaders, if you know someone is being abused, this sounds counterintuitive, but don’t be quick to expose the abuse, because that could actually be more dangerous for the victim.

If you are a victim of domestic abuse, or think you may be, the biggest thing I want you to hear right now is that you did not do anything to deserve that behavior and God despises all forms of oppression. I want you to know that we have been working with people in oppressive marriages and helping them find freedom. We will keep it discreet as long as you need us to in order to feel safe. We have trained advocates to walk with you through the unique dynamics. You don’t have to live that way. If you’re not comfortable talking with anyone yet or are unsure if your marriage is abusive, a great book is The Emotionally Destructive Marriage by Leslie Vernick. I have a couple of extra copies if anyone needs it.

If you are a perpetrator of domestic abuse. We will in no way tolerate any form of oppression within this community. God is more than clear how he feels about it. But we also believe the gospel transforms and that there is hope. If you find yourself in this category and are truly repentant and willing to work and have accountability, we have a program called Men of Peace and we have been actively working with abusive men to let the power of the gospel transform their hearts and the way they relate.

This is not easy work, but Hillside, we are committed to partnering with God in freeing the oppressed in Jesus’ name and even working with abusers toward Christlikeness. As we’ve seen, that means no less than laying down your life for another.

So, what is holy ambition? What does it mean to be great in the kingdom? We saw two disciples fail at it miserably in this story. Next week we’ll see a great example of someone responding positively with holy ambition.

But the hinge verse for all of it is this:

In Christ, you have been ransomed and are free to serve others. If you haven’t accepted that free gift of salvation, we have people in the prayer corners who would love to walk you through that. You can reach out and take it right now, because Jesus came to serve you and set you free to serve others.

We need discernment to know where to spend yourself in service. Some people aren’t doing anything except meeting their own needs and just need to start serving somewhere. Start in your own home and most intimate relationships. Some people have more serving opportunities than they know what to do with and you need to prioritize and ask God where he wants you to spend your efforts. That’s part of what next week is going to be. How should Jesus’ radical call to servant leadership affect your vocation or calling?