Imagine a door.

Maybe it’s a front door to a house. You walk up to that door, and maybe even you admire that door. It’s beautiful. Maybe it’s painted red and you’ve always loved red doors. Or maybe it’s a screen door and you think that your house would be more comfortable if you had a screen door to let the fall breeze in. Or maybe it has glass in it so that it’s very stylish and hip and cool right now. But though you admire it, you don’t simply stand there and look at the door. You didn’t come for the door. You came for what’s inside. That’s where you want to sit and eat and dwell. The door, though it may be very beautiful, is ultimately only the means you will use to get into the house. What’s inside is what you’re really after.

You used the door. It was a means to an end. And perhaps we do the same thing many times with Jesus.

That’s what James and John did. They knew this Jesus was going places, and they wanted to be along for the side. So in Mark 10, right after Jesus gives one of clearest, most straight forward descriptions of His death anywhere in the gospels, James and John’s ambition comes bubbling to the surface. You would think they might ask something like, “Why?” or “Tell us more about you dying and rising from the dead. What’s that about?” But instead we find this:

“Teacher, we want You to do something for us if 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 is but a door – an entrance point into something else that has truly captured their hearts. But before we judge these two disciples too harshly, let’s look inwardly for a second. What are we really going for? What is our true value and treasure? What are we using Jesus to get into?

Perhaps it’s a better life. We think that Jesus offers a pathway to a better life, and that’s what we really want – a life without hangups and with good relationships and a healthy marriage and we know that you can pass through Jesus to get there.

Or maybe it’s prosperity. That somehow we’ve gotten the idea that those who believe in Jesus are bound for financial windfalls, so we are looking to Jesus to pass through in order to get there.

Or maybe this – maybe it’s heaven. That’s what we really are after. We want to go to heaven, and we know that Jesus is the way we have to go through to get there, so we pass through him.

When we do this, we are really worship ourselves. We, like James and John, become our own idols. They were walking and talking with the Son of God, but down deep in their hearts, they weren’t loving Him. They weren’t valuing or treasuring Him. They were treasuring and valuing and loving themselves. And Jesus? He was just a means to an end. They were using Him, hopefully for positions of great power and influence.

Jesus isn’t looking for users. He’s looking for followers. And followers are very different than users. Followers aren’t looking to use Jesus in order to get to something else. But here is the most ironic part of all:

Jesus is the end, but He’s also the means.

Jesus is the greatest treasure in the universe. In Him there is fullness of joy and great satisfaction. In Him can only really be found ultimate happiness and pleasure. And even in the case of heaven, the only reason heaven is heaven isn’t because of the streets of gold, the lack of Kleenexes, and the elimination of chemotherapy. Heaven is heaven because that’s where we will see and know Jesus completely – absolutely unhindered.

But the incredible news about the gospel is that in Jesus, we not only find the greatest treasure, but we also find the only means by which we can know and live in that treasure. The gospel tells us not only that Jesus is the end, but that He is the only means to that end. If we are seeking through any other means to find ultimate satisfaction we will fall short.

James and John got half of it right. They saw Jesus as the means, but they were missing seeing Jesus as the end, too. He’s the way, the truth and the life. He’s the door but He’s also the inside of the house. He’s the pathway but He’s also the destination. He’s the means to the end of Himself.