[MUSIC] We are following Jesus in his disciples as they turn south from the region of Galilee toward Jerusalem. Each step of the way, Jesus reveals himself through his words and work, bringing his followers even closer to understanding his identity and his mission. How will the disciples respond? How about you and I? Will we allow his story to become our story? Let's pick up where we left off in this story. >> Well, hi everybody. Almost 20 years ago, Dan Allen wrote a book called Leading with a Limp. And during the reprints of the book since then, there have been a couple of iterations of the subtitle. The original subtitle said, turning your struggles into strengths. I like the most recent subtitle best though. It says, take full advantage of your most powerful weaknesses. So this is a book about how we all have weaknesses. And instead of just seeing these things as impediments, that we can actually view them as something that God might use to really help others. It's a leadership book that he wrote, but the lessons are broad and wide. And I want to share a great quote with you that I think perfectly sums up our passage today. Allender says, leaders are called not merely to be humble and self-effacing, but to be desperate and honest. It's not enough to be self-revealing, authentic, and transparent. Our calling goes far beyond that. We are called to be reluctant, limping, chief, sinner, leaders, and even more to be stories. The word that Paul uses is that a leader is to be an example. But what that implies is more than a figure on a flannel board. He calls us to be a living portrayal of the very gospel we beseech others to believe. And that requires a leader to see himself as being equally prone to deceive, as he is to tell the truth, to manipulate, as he is to bless, to cower, as he is to be bold. A leader is both a hero and a fool, a saint, and a felon. I just think it's such an honest take and our need for great humility in every endeavor of our lives. And so we're going to see some parallels in our passage and mark today. My big idea is this. It says, as your awareness of Christ's ransom increases, so does your humility. And so we pick up our journey through Mark in chapter 10 today. We've been noticing some themes as we go. And you can find these themes over at our website at whoisgrace.com. slash mark. One of the themes that comes into focus today is called discipleship failure. And this is where the disciples are continuing to kind of fall short and not get it. We've seen them shrieking in a storm and we've seen them unable to do miracles and arguing about who will be the greatest. We even seen Jesus asking them, why are you so dull? So they were leading with a limp long before Dan Allender wrote a book about it. And it's as if Mark is shouting to us through the pages of this gospel. Come to grips with your failure. What you need is Jesus and man, that the cross and the result and sending of the Holy Spirit would transform these disciples, even in their failures, into people almost unrecognizable of their former selves. Those who had been tentative would become bold. Those who had shrunk back would stand up. And this transformation still happens today. It's still available to the likes of you and me. In fact, our discipleship question that goes with this theme asks, "What is holding me back from looking more like Jesus?" That would be a great one to wrestle with this week in your chair. Now, let's look at Mark chapter 10 starting in verse 32. It says, "And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed and those who followed were afraid." So as our passage begins here, Jesus has turned his eyes to Jerusalem. He's turning his attention to the cross. He'd been gradually revealing to the disciples what was going to happen to him when they got there. Now, I want you to notice that Jesus is walking ahead of them. He was leading them. And this is no small detail. It's actually a reference to the Messianic victory procession that happened in the writings of Isaiah in the Old Testament with an ironic twist. What was prophesied in Isaiah was this apocalyptic march of the divine warrior and his ultimate victory into Jerusalem. And what we see here is a fearful trek of the befuddled, kind of bedraggled little band of disciples, not marching in triumph of a military campaign, but marching along to die. And soon again, Jesus will predict his death. These are called passion predictions. This would be Jesus' third prediction. We've already looked at two of them, but this one offers more details. But one thing remains constant. The disciples don't get it. And in fact, it's worse than that. Every time Jesus predicts his death to them, the disciples do something really stupid. This is no exception today. It's the discipleship failure theme rearing its head again. So let's look at this third passion prediction starting in verse 32. This is in taking the 12 again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, "See, we are going to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and to the scribes and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles and they will mock him and they will spit on him and flog him and kill him. And after three days, he will rise." All right. So Jesus is going now into some pretty specific details with his disciples. Don't you think someone would get a little curious about this? Don't you think at least one of the disciples would say, "Hey, Jesus, can we circle back to that flogging part or that mocking part or that condemning to death deal that you were just talking about? Are you saying that this stuff is about to happen to you? But not only don't they get curious about Jesus' future well-being, James and John that are lovingly referred to in other places as the sons of thunder think pro wrestling circuit, if there had been one, the sons of thunder make what I'd like to call the audacious request." Look at verse 35. It says, "And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, 'Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.'" And he said to them, "What do you want me to do for you?" And they said to him, "Grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left hand in your glory." And Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" And they said to him, "We are able." And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink and with the baptism with which I'm baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." And when the 10 heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. Now remember where this conversation began. Jesus said, "Hey guys, we're headed to Jerusalem. I'm going to be taken into custody and I'm going to be tortured and I'm going to be murdered." And the sons of thunder decide that this would be the best time for a follow-up remark. And so they say, "We want you to do for us whatever we ask." That's like, "Guys, are you serious?" In Matthew's account of this story, it's even worse. Their mother is the one doing the talking. I like to call her mama thunder. And so they said, "Do whatever we ask." And so Jesus is like, "Okay, so what do you want?" And they said, "Well, we want to be prime minister and chief of staff when you take power." And there are a couple of problems with their requests. First, they're still misunderstanding the true nature of his kingdom, that they're looking for a worldly kingdom with pork barrel politics and lobbyists and insider privileges. They see themselves as the new ruling elite when Jesus takes his throne. And he's about to set them straight. It actually reminds me of one of my little nieces, the first time she ever skied. Our families were up at the ski slopes together and she couldn't have been more than three or four. She went very, very carefully up this little magic carpet thing that goes up the bunny hill. She turned and came slowly and cautiously down the hill, just like they taught her. Pizza, french fries, pizza, french fries, all the way down the hill. And she was so excited when she got to the bottom. She screamed, "I'm a professional." We all admired her enthusiasm, but she had no idea just how far from a professional skier. She really was in that moment. And I think the same thing's happening here. James and John had picked up a few baskets of leftover loaves and fishes and they scream at Jesus, "We're princes in your kingdom. We're professionals." And Jesus must have been thinking, "You have no idea how amateur you are compared to the big leagues that are to come." But the second problem with their request is that it revealed that they were still following Jesus as a means to a selfish end. What might following Jesus get for us? And listen, a lot of people today are doing the same thing. They're trying to use Jesus to get what they want. If I do this spiritual thing, surely God will bless me. If I do that, surely God will give me what I want. I have so many conversations with people who say some version of, "You know, I go to church faithfully and I give and I'm a good person and I pray before meals." Therefore, God owes me this success or that acclaim. John's thought has a great quote. He says, "The church is full of James's and John's. Go getters and status seekers. Hungry for honor and prestige. Measuring life by achievements and everlastingly dreaming of success." Yes, it's true. The kingdom of God is going to be glorious and yes, God's kingdom will have no limits. But Jesus says, "It's going to be populated by cross-bearing Christians of every nation who become the servants of the world." The irony is that even for Jesus, the king, the moment that represents his greatest glory, his greatest achievement will involve a cross. But Jesus responds to their ill-timed selfish request with his usual grace. And he just says, "You have no idea what you're asking for, guys." Mainly because you still don't understand the kind of kingdom that I'm ushering in. And so he asked two questions. Are you able to drink the cup? Are you able to be baptized with my baptism? And here he's referring to suffering and the calamity that was coming for them when they got to Jerusalem. Remember the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, "Let this cup pass from me." The cup was the cup of God's wrath that Jesus knew he would have to endure on his path to glory. And the baptism was a baptism by fire. He was saying, "If you want the reward, guys, you're going to have to endure the suffering." And this also is just a little foreshadowing of the two practices that we call ordinances. Some call them sacraments. We have two, baptism and communion. The cup and the baptism that Jesus refers to. Two very unique traditions that carry with them images of both rapturous celebration, but also a grim reminder of the sufferings of Jesus. And we must never go on autopilot when we approach these observances as a church. So about 12 times every year we will enjoy communion together on the second Sunday of each month with a few exceptions. And about four times a year we participate in baptisms. And I would just encourage it, like we have to come to these things expectantly every time. The spirit of Christ is present in a very special way during these practices. In fact, in the early church, these were not casual observances. They were public acts that would put a bullseye on the backs of Christians. That the church carried them out knowing that it would mean that they would also carry a stigma with them. Participants would certainly be expelled from the synagogue that they grew up in. And sometimes they would lose their jobs. Sometimes they'd be excommunicated from their families and the villages. In some cases they would go to prison. Sometimes they would even lose their lives. It was costly to receive the body and blood of Jesus in communion. It was costly to enter the waters of baptism. So Jesus says to James and John, "If you want the crowns, it's going to involve the cross." And they glibly respond, "Yeah, I think we can do that." And Jesus affirms that they would share in his sufferings. "You will drink my comp. You will enter my baptism." And interestingly, James would be martyred in X-12. And church history tells us that John was also exiled to Pat Mosin. He was boiled to death in oil as a martyr for his faith. They did drink from the cup of suffering. But then Jesus humbly says that the father is not placed in charge of the seeding arrangements in his kingdom. And this section ends with the other disciples. The other 10 just furious at these two for this audacious request. But Jesus is ready to move on. And so let's do that as well. Look at verse 42. He says, "And Jesus called them to him and said to them, 'You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles, lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all, for even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." And so Jesus rejects any practice of wielding power through fear or intimidation or coercion. And so if you want to see an outright rejection of what politics in America has become, read this statement. Jesus was contrasting his kingdom with the one that was in power. Everyone knew that the Roman overlords were known for their brutality and their tyranny. And there were plenty of negative examples to go around for all of them and for us, by the way. But Jesus lays out this vision for his coming kingdom. He says this powerful phrase, "It shall not be so among you." And then he goes on to redefine what true greatness and what true power looks like in his kingdom. I want to show you from this text two ways I believe Jesus upends our definitions of power. Here's the first. Jesus teaches that radical servanthood is a power move. So remember this passage began with James and John making a bold request and Jesus responding with a question, "What do you want me to do for you?" So just imagine Jesus asking you that question. It's trickier than it seems. It's a question that lays bare our motivations and priorities. Jesus could have asked it another way that kind of pierces a little bit more to the heart. He could have just said, "Who's glory are you after?" Because that's basically the question. Jesus says to James and John and to all of us, "You may want achievement and ambition, but I tell you true power comes through towels and not titles." He's ushering in a new upside down kingdom. Another thing to notice is that Jesus doesn't scold them for their desire for greatness. In fact, he affirms it. He just gives them a new way to achieve it. Look at his language. He says, "Whoever would be great among you must be your servants and whoever would be first among you must be a slave of all." He doesn't say, "Guys, don't try to be great." He doesn't say, "Guys, don't aspire to be first." He says, "In your quest for greatness, here's the way to get there." I've had some people ask why we're calling our new discipleship roles dream disciples. Isn't it kind of arrogant, they say, to say something like that? And I would point back to a passage like this where Jesus is going right along with the idea that following him should be aspirational. We should aspire to greatness. He's just showing a counter-intuitive way to achieve that. And so, yes, it's the ultimate power move in God's kingdom to be a servant. On the other hand, the world's path to greatness of abuse and power and corruption must never be the model for Christians. I would suggest that at no place do the ethics of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world clash so much than in matters of power and servanthood. It's why I get so jittery when I see Christians and whole churches kind of banging their fists over political power during this election. Christians on the right and Christians on the left thinking that getting their candidate in office is one of the keys to the advancement of God's kingdom. It's just not true. In fact, the two things that couldn't be more antithetical. Every single example through history of the church getting wrapped up, getting in bed with the power of the state has gone desperately and corruptibly wrong. But this caution isn't just for the church. This is also deeply personal. And so I would ask you, whose playbook are you modeling your life after, prestige and achievement, or self-giving service? And it's tough because we all live in this kind of duality. And so I can say to you, okay, here's me. Here's Derek. Here's Derek's side. I'm loyal. I'm faithful. I'm generally kind. I work really hard. I have a pretty good track record of wise decisions. I love Jesus. I care about my family deeply. I take risks. So that's true. But here's also me. I take too much credit for stuff. I over talk when I'm trying to sound smart. I get controlling when things I care about start to go off the rails. I isolate when things get hard. I avoid conflict. I find ways to discourage honest feedback when my ego is struggling already. Does anybody relate to this duality? I think there are at least three insecurities that cause you to choose the world's playbook on power, that the first is the desire to please people. The second is the need to impress people. And the third is the urge to protect self. And all three of these insecurities have something in common. At the center of all of them is me. It's a radical focus on me, on my desires, on my reputation, on my needs, my wants, my preferences, my position, my advancement, me, me, me, me, me. And Jesus says true power is just the opposite. True power comes not with a radical focus on me, but with radical servanthood, which requires radical humility. Crawford Laurets defines it this way. He says humility is the intentional recognition that God is everything to you and that you're nothing without him. It's the acknowledgement that life is not about you and that the needs of others are more important than your own. Another definition I've always appreciated comes from John Dixon who says humility is the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources or use your influence for the good of others before yourself. And Jesus says, if you live your life as a servant, it's where the true power lies. There's an added bonus that's in, there's a lot of scientific research these days that I can't really get into the details of right now, but it shows that people who live selflessly are much happier than people who live selfishly, tons of secular data around this phenomenon. And it's always fun to see this new groundbreaking research finally catching up with what Jesus already declared to be true thousands of years ago. So can I just issue a challenge around this idea of servanthood? Can I invite some of you just to do a little experiment to take the great gamble? What if, over the next few weeks, you were to give yourself away in humility and servanthood in alarming ways, open doors for others every time, play the game with your kids in the evening when you're too exhausted to take out the garbage, volunteer to stack chairs after a meeting, pick up people's dirty dishes when they're done, take the arm of an elderly person negotiating the stairs, volunteer with surveyory, volunteer at a food pantry or a homeless shelter, get involved in a ministry. And at the end of those few weeks, will you ask the question, is my life gaining or losing? You could also try it the other way. I don't recommend it. You could try. Every chance you have, put yourself in the center. Be demanding. Ask the world to revolve around you. Push your way to the front of the line. Disappear when it's time for the dirty work. Bow low every morning in front of a full length mirror at your own reflection. And then step back and just honestly assess, is life better? Am I becoming closer to God and to the people around me? Or am I becoming more isolated? Is your life fuller or emptier? See, self-giving service is the way of Christianity. And Jesus says it's the pathway to greatness and to true power. And sometimes some extra happiness is thrown in as the icing on the cake. But there's a second way Jesus upends our definition of power. And it's this, that Jesus is our example of power in humility and He's our source of true life. So not only did Jesus provide this profound teaching on true power, that the last will be first, and that the great ones will be servants and the first ones will be slaves. But then He turns us from His words to His actual life. In verse 45, He says this. He says, "For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many." This is the heart of our faith. This is the heart of Christianity. This is what distinguishes our faith from all the other major religions of the world. Our God does not need our service, nor is He glorified by His recruits clamoring to help Him out. He's not pining for sworn allegiance. Our God is so complete. He is so self-sufficient. He is so overflowing in power and in life and in joy that He is glorified by serving us. It's mind-blowing. The Buddhist eightfold path, the Hindu doctrine of karma, the Jewish obedience to the covenant, the Muslim code of law. All of these offer a way to work your way to God's favor, to earn your way to God's approval. That if you slave enough, if you sacrifice enough, if you serve enough, maybe, yes, maybe, you'll get to His blessing. But now you look at Jesus and He had every right to be served. He deserved it. But instead, He says, "I didn't come to be served. I came to serve." This is the craziest statement of anyone claiming to be God that has ever been made. But it doesn't stop there. In fact, that's not even the main point. This passage is not primarily about Jesus' example of humility for us to follow. It's primarily about our most basic need from Him to do what He did for us so that we could have life through His death. A life of servanthood isn't even possible except for the last part of verse 45, unless we've been ransomed. Remember the passion predictions Jesus had told His disciples many times that He must die. But now He takes them a little deeper. He tells them why He must die. In just a few words, He gives this clear teaching on the purpose and the meaning of His death. The word He uses here is the word ransom. It means the price paid to secure the freedom of someone from captivity. And because the captivity of sin that Jesus is dealing with is a cosmic kind initiated by a cosmic evil, He had to make a cosmic payment, the willing sacrifice of His own life. No price less than His death would have been sufficient. He Himself would be the ransom. See, this idea of a ransom is not incredibly familiar to us. Outside a few, you know, Liam Neeson movies. He remembers conversation with that kidnapper demanding a ransom. I have a very particular set of skill. But to help us understand the depth of what Jesus did, I want to look at three elements of a ransom. So the first element of a ransom is the peril. Like there's always a dangerous life-threatening captivity at play when there's a ransom involved. So here's our captivity. You and I are in slavery to sin, condemned to death. The Bible explains sin in many ways, but one of the ways is it explains it as a debt that we owe to God. Many of you have experienced being in financial debt. You know the stress and the strain and the worry and the pressure of having that hanging over your head all the time. Credit cards, car payments, house payments, school loans. In the same way, we also have a spiritual debt that we owe to God that is far greater and more cumbersome and eternal and altogether worse. And by the way, it should be more frightening than any financial debt that we have. But because we don't get a statement from God each month saying, you know, that was 2,371 sins this month, payment is due on the 30th or whatever, because we don't get that scary statement every month, we tend to focus on things like financial debt and ignore things like spiritual debt. I turned 53 years old this year. I know I'm a sinner and I've got a big debt I owe to God. I've got a big pile of sin, thoughts, words, deeds, attitudes, sins of omission, sins of commission. And hypothetically, if beginning today, I decided, you know what, I'm never going to sin again. That's not going to happen by the way, but hypothetically, I'll never have a bad thought, a bad word, a bad deed going for it. I'll do everything perfectly from this point forward. If I did that, I still have 53 years of debt that I've accumulated. So I'm not paying off my debt. I'm just not accruing any additional debt. It's like you're already $10 million in the hole and you're like from today, I'm living on a budget. Well, that's great, but it doesn't address the huge hole that you're already in. That's where I'm at with God. That's where you're at with God. We have a huge debt that we can't pay back. Now, some of you've tried. You've tried to carry the debt of sin yourself and it has led to great despair because it's not long before you realize I can't straighten out everything that I've made crooked. I can't fix everything that I've broken. I can't heal every relationship that I've heard. I can't take back every lie. You can't. I'll still never forget one of the regrets of my early life. I was in high school watching someone I considered to be a friend, getting made fun of by other people I considered to be friends. And all it would have taken was for me to step up and to tell them to knock it off. You know what I did? Nothing. And I went back and I tried to make it right with that one person later, but it couldn't ever be set perfectly straight again. And I've got a million of those things in my life. And so do you. And so we come up with these little payoff plans. You know, if I go to church more, if I give 50 bucks for Thanksgiving baskets for the homeless, or if I say some prayers for my neighbors, that'll make up for it. But it doesn't. And so this debt of sin to God is enormous. And we can't fix it. And we can't pay it back. We can't undo it. It's too late. It's our peril. What we need is for a ransom to be paid because we ourselves can't afford to pay back the mountain of debt that we owe. There's a second element to a ransom. And it's the price. Now, the strange thing about a ransom is that it forces someone to place an actual dollar value on a human life. It's weird to think about that. What if somebody kidnapped you? What price would would they place on your life? How much to get you back? What value or worth would be attached to you? Now, in general terms, you can determine the value of something something simply as what would somebody pay for that item? So have you ever seen Antiques Roadshow on PBS? Now I'm demonstrating that I am in fact 53. This is the show where people bring stuff out of their attics or wherever they find it. And they ask expert appraisers what the value is. Well, somebody, you know, they bought a random elephant tusk at a garage sale, you know, for a dollar. And they bring it. And the appraiser says that if that were to go to auction right now, you know, I would value it at $500,000. And the person weeps with joy. And that appraiser may say, well, you know, two years ago, it would have gone for $200,000. But today they would pay $500,000 for it. So the value of a thing, here's my point, is whatever someone would pay for that thing right now. So what about a human life? Well, Psalm 49, seven, eight says, no one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them. The ransom for a life is costly. No payment is ever enough. And so this Psalm says that a human life, a human soul is priceless. Some of you don't feel that way. You wouldn't value yourself as priceless, but God does. And I'll prove it to you. You were kidnapped by sin and death and Satan. There was a ransom put on your head. There was no dollar amount that would ever get you back. In fact, it would cost God everything he had to get you back. And do you know what? Praise God. He paid the ransom. And so what does that reveal? It reveals a lot about him, but it reveals that you are worth everything to him. That if you've ever questioned your value in this world, don't. The God of the universe paid the ultimate price to get you back. It leaves you speechless when you really think about it. The price for your life was the life and the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so Paul says it this way in 1 Corinthians 6, he says, you are not your own. You have been bought with a price and therefore glorify God in your body. But here's the key. The most important part of a ransom. You have the peril and you have the price, but the most critical is number three. It's the person. Somebody has to be willing to pay. We said this was a cosmic offense, that garnered a cosmic price. And so the payment required a substitutionary sacrifice. Paul again says it this way in 1 Timothy 2, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom. There's that word again, which means Jesus looks at you and he says, I give you my life for yours. Derek, put your name in there as a ransom. I will pay your debt. I will be your mediator. I will work out the deal between you and God. I will be your redeemer. I will foot the tab. I will shed blood from my own body and I will trade my own suffering and my own humiliation for you, for you, sin and rebellion and disobedience and all, all of you I give this for. This is why we love Jesus. This is why we love Jesus. There's nobody like Jesus. And your great hope and my great hope is not in your betterment. It's not that you look within and try to find your true self. Your great hope is in the perfection of Jesus. His ransom is the only shot we have to be set free from captivity of sin and self. And some of you are here today and you're disillusioned, you're discouraged, you're disheartened, and you can't even put a finger on why. But it's because of the unspoken peril that you feel. You've been kidnapped by sin. And if that's you, he is calling your name. He is addressing your situation. He knows the heartbreak you're facing. He knows who let you down. He knows your circumstances stink. He knows that that pride you're clinging to. He wants to save you from your sin and from yourself and move you on to the life that he has planned for you. I'm talking to those of you today who have never truly stepped across the line of faith. And maybe you grew up with a stale experience of religion or church. You found no life in it. But that's because you were pursuing traditions or you were going through the motions. You never knew Jesus. I believe that there are men and women. I believe that there are college students and high school students. I believe there are Democrats and Republicans, gay and straight, rich and poor, those at the top of a mountain, those at the bottom of a valley who know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God is calling you today, that he's wooing you, that he's beckoning you. He's inviting you into his forgiveness and into a life of purpose. You know, we've been talking a lot lately about discipleship. But discipleship is impossible without first being ransomed. We've been talking a lot about calling. Finding your calling in life is not possible without first being ransomed. He's offered himself to you. Will you receive him? Some of you have sensed his prompting for a while now. And it's time, frankly, it's time. It's time to get on with the true purpose of your life. Some of you need to step forward today and just say, you know, I place my faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. I place my faith in the grace and forgiveness that is offered through his act of ransom. Some of you need to nail it down today. If you're in one of our rooms, I'm going to ask your host to come now and just walk us through a time of response. And I love you guys.
