On the Cross, Jesus bought us at a price

[0:00] Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

[0:18] What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.

[0:39] Next we're going to be reading from Mark chapter 10 on page 1014 in the Red Child Bible. Mark chapter 10 verses 42 to 45.

[0:53] Jesus called them together and said, You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.

[1:05] Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be the first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for them.

[1:23] Well, there are some things that money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

[1:34] Has anyone heard that before? No? Priceless? I thought it was one of the most famous marketing campaigns ever, but apparently not. Some things that money can't buy.

[1:46] For everything else, there's MasterCard. Maybe you remember the ads from years ago. And the idea is that there's plenty of things in life that you can buy with money, but then there are these priceless moments, for example, with friends or family, that you just can't put a price on.

[2:03] That's why they're priceless. And there's an irony in those ads because usually they show people buying lots of things with their MasterCard until they get to the priceless moment.

[2:14] And so the dad has to buy the tickets and the popcorn and the drinks to have the priceless moment with the son at the game. That's beside the point, though.

[2:25] There's always a little story that goes along with the ad. Either the dad taking his son to the game. There was another one, people reuniting after COVID and how priceless that was.

[2:39] And so the idea is that there are things in our lives that we really treasure and that are priceless to us and that we want to hold on to. And rightly so.

[2:50] It's an interesting question to dwell on, not just kind of in a general sense, but even in this last few days, what are some of the things that you have thought of as priceless or invaluable to you?

[3:06] Maybe it's a friendship that you have treasured over the years and either you have seen it fade and that hurts, or maybe you have seen it flourish and that delights you.

[3:18] Maybe it's a piece of music that has been significant to you over the years and that has been there in particular moments of your life. Maybe the thing that you see as being invaluable or priceless is your health or your happiness.

[3:34] And these are good things, of course. But Jesus here is drawing our attention to this idea of something that is priceless, that is invaluable.

[3:45] And as he does that, he says in verse 37 of chapter 8, what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

[3:57] So what Jesus is doing is he's not getting us to think about particular things in our lives. He's getting us to think about our life itself.

[4:07] This word soul that he uses could easily be translated life. He wants us to realize no matter what we have in this life, that it is our life itself that is of most value to us, of course.

[4:24] And so we want to dwell for a little while on this thought about our life being invaluable to us. And we want to think about three aspects of this.

[4:38] First of all, we want to think about how we are greatly valued. We are greatly valued. So Jesus says in verse 36, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul or lose their soul?

[4:53] Or what can anyone give in exchange for his soul? So what's bubbling underneath the surface here of what Jesus is saying is that our souls are invaluable.

[5:06] Our souls are priceless. He's saying to us, you could have the whole world, and it wouldn't be sufficient to save your soul.

[5:19] There's nothing more valuable, in a sense, to us as human beings. We are of great value. And it's not just that our lives are valuable to ourselves.

[5:30] What Jesus wants us to know is that we are valuable before God. So what Jesus is saying here as he draws attention to the value of a human life or the value of a human soul, it sits perfectly in keeping with the Bible's teaching all the way through.

[5:47] From the beginning at creation, God made Adam and Eve, and as he creates the different pieces of this wonderful creation, he says it is good, it is good, it is good.

[6:00] And when he creates Adam and Eve, very good. So at creation, you see the value that God puts on humanity, on human life. So that, he says, God created mankind in his own image.

[6:16] In the image of God, he created the male and female. He created them so that all of creation has been leading up to this point of creating humanity.

[6:29] And we're familiar with that, perhaps, if we know our Bibles. But what is striking is how different that view is to so many other stories that we are told, or so many other myths that we are told.

[6:42] There is an ancient one about how the world was created. And in this ancient myth, one author says, humankind are very marginal.

[6:54] They are servants of the gods in the sense that they perform the labor involved in building their temples and feeding the gods. Genesis says, no.

[7:04] In fact, it is the Lord who has created a habitation for humankind. And it is the Lord who provides food for them. Humankind are the center of creation.

[7:17] Listen to this for a lovely phrase. They have no competitors for God's attention. He is present with them in what must be a desire to share the pleasures that are intrinsic to creation.

[7:33] We are greatly valued because we have been made by God. We have been made in God's image so that in a small but very significant way, we reflect the God who has made us in our bodies, in our mind, in our soul, in our strength.

[7:51] And, of course, you know this from the people that you have met in your life. You know this. It's that people are capable of acts of great beauty, great wisdom, great strength, great courage.

[8:06] And the reason is because people are image bearers. They bear God's image. They reflect God's image even if they don't realize it. I remember years ago I was in a hospital setting and I was with a man that I hadn't met before.

[8:23] And he asked me if I would mind just coming out to keep him company while he had a cigarette. And so I did. I went out. I didn't smoke, but he had a cigarette. And as he was rolling it, he started to sing, which for an Irish guy, this was a little bit awkward.

[8:41] I mean, what is he doing? Singing, just the two of us there. But as he opened his mouth to sing, it just put hair standing on the back of my neck. And I was thinking in that moment, wow, such beauty, such incredible gift that this man has from God.

[9:00] And you want to know the end of the story, he finished his cigarette. We walked awkwardly inside again and just went about whatever we were doing in the hospital. But you've seen that, haven't you?

[9:11] In the people that you've met over the years, how we are made in the image of God, made to reflect his beauty, his majesty, his glory even.

[9:21] And it's not just at creation, but it is at your creation. You think of how the psalmist says that we have been knit together in our mother's wombs.

[9:37] And so whatever secondary reasons there are, or secondary factors there are in how we were formed in our mother's wombs, the primary factor, the primary reason is because God himself was hands-on involved in knitting you together in your mother's womb.

[9:55] Such is the value that he puts on each human soul, on each human life. And Jesus continues with this teaching, doesn't he?

[10:08] He says, So, don't be afraid.

[10:25] You are of more worth than many sparrows. And some will want to say, how many sparrows, Jesus? Many sparrows.

[10:36] You are greatly valued. Humanity is greatly valued by God, made in his image, made for him. We were valued such that he knit us together in our mother's wombs.

[10:48] And throughout our life, God watches over us. He says, look at these little sparrows. Nobody pays any attention to them. They're essentially worthless.

[11:01] Isn't it funny? You see people going out, picking up the bottles and the cans to bring them back for recycling so that they get the little voucher to cash in in the supermarket, which is understandable.

[11:13] But you don't see anyone going around collecting sparrows to sell on the street corners. As one website puts it, trying to make money by catching and selling sparrows would be like picking and trying to sell dandelions from a public park.

[11:28] Or attempting to sell common pebbles on a beach. You could try, but you'll find no real demand, high effort, legal problems, that's my favorite one, and tiny or zero profits.

[11:43] Humanly speaking, sparrows are of no value. And yet God watches over them with great care because he has made them. And Jesus wants us to realize we are of more worth to God than many sparrows.

[12:02] It is because it is the Father, the Creator, who looks on us with care. That's what gives us value. And so we want to ask a question.

[12:18] What story have we been telling ourselves this week about what gives us value? Where is it that we have been finding value or worth for ourselves this week?

[12:32] Or what story have we been believing about others in terms of their value or their worth? Very often our value or our worth or our sense of that is tied up with work.

[12:50] It's bound up with parenting. It's tied up with family or friendships or exam results. That's where we tend to find our value or our worth.

[13:03] Or what we have done in life or what we are going to do in life. But Jesus says we set our sights too low. Jesus says we have been made in God's image by him, for him, knit together in our mother's wombs, and watched over every moment of our lives by him.

[13:22] This is what gives us value. And we want to start here as we think about ourselves and as we think about other lives, other souls that we interact with.

[13:35] As one author puts it, we begin our message where the Bible begins with the dignity and high calling of all human beings because they are created in the image of God.

[13:46] And so we are greatly valued. That is bubbling under the surface in what Jesus says. But that's not all that's true of us.

[13:59] Because Jesus says we were greatly trapped. We were greatly trapped. As Jesus says this in verse 37, what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

[14:13] It's clear that something has gone wrong. Why would I need to give something in exchange for my soul? What is it that Jesus has in mind here? Well, back in verse 34, he says to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me, for whoever wants to save their life will lose it.

[14:35] And so Jesus is saying to people that if we deny him and pursue something else, we will ultimately lose our souls, lose our lives.

[14:47] So the kind of image that comes to mind is somebody standing before God. And they've had this incredibly successful life. They've gained the whole world.

[14:59] And what Jesus has in mind there is not so much money. It's not a financial cost. It's the whole world. It's power, influence, fame, recognition, pleasure, comfort.

[15:12] They have pursued this at the cost of pursuing Jesus. So they haven't followed him. And as they've followed that path, as they've followed that desire, they've realized that they've become trapped by the very thing that they thought would give them life.

[15:29] They've literally given their life to something that could never give life to them. They have pursued something that they thought would give them a sense of value, a sense of worth, a full life, a happy life.

[15:49] And the things that they pursued may have been good things. And yet they have come to be trapped by them, imprisoned by them.

[16:02] And perhaps you've known this in your own life or seen this in those around you, where we will pursue a sense of value or worth in a relationship or in our career or in our identity or in our sexual identity.

[16:19] And the things that our value is tied up with literally tie us up so that we cannot undo the knots, so that we are trapped by them.

[16:33] And Jesus says these things that people pursue that they think will give them life and value ultimately take that life from them as they stand before God.

[16:47] One author puts it like this, humans have eternally entangled themselves in themselves. And in self-seeking, and only those who have a superficial acquaintance with people or with themselves can deny this.

[17:07] And you know this, don't you? I've done this. You've done this, where we have entangled ourselves, giving ourselves to something that we think will give us value, we think will give us life, and it doesn't.

[17:20] It traps us. And what Jesus wants us to see is that not only are we imprisoned by these things, but it's actually imprisoned on death row. He says whoever wants to save their life in verse 35 will lose it.

[17:37] Whoever pursues life in this way will lose it. And so for some, it will be a frightening moment where their life has gone spectacularly well. They have everything that the world values.

[17:49] relationships and success, prosperity, and they will stand before God, and they will say, look at how valuable I am to the company.

[18:01] Look at how valuable I am to this group of friends. And ultimately what God will say is, how valuable has Jesus been to you? How much have you treasured Jesus?

[18:15] Of what worth is Jesus to you? And in that moment, it will be a shock to the system. It'll be like being plunged into icy cold waters, the realization that they have forfeit their soul for the sake of these things that could never give them life.

[18:34] And so Jesus paints an extreme picture, and the reason he paints this extreme picture is because he wants to warn us away from it. Many of you know that here.

[18:45] Many of you know that freedom is only found in Christ. But if you are still trapped by pursuing things other than Jesus for a sense of value, or worth, or dignity, Jesus wants you to hear, these things can't give you life.

[19:02] He wants you to hear that you are greatly valued by God, made in his image, knit together in your mother's womb, watched over each day of your life.

[19:18] But you are also greatly trapped, and it is only Jesus that can free you from that. greatly broken. We've been doing a little bit of digging in the garden, and we've found pieces of pottery, so pieces of cups and things like that, and there's a couple of theories as to why people have put broken cups in the soil in many of the gardens.

[19:44] Some people think it was for drainage, some people think it is just to kind of build up the soil. But when you find a piece of broken cup in the ground, you realize this was actually something beautiful, once upon a time.

[19:58] And you can see some of the design that the craftsman has put into it. You can realize what it was made for. It was made to drink tea from. And if you were desperate, you could even scoop up some tea with one of these broken shards of pottery and drink some from it if you wanted to.

[20:16] So they're not totally purposeless. There's still great beauty in them, and yet they're clearly trapped in the ground and broken.

[20:29] And that's the reality for human beings. Great beauty made in God's image and yet broken. You can still see the dignity and the value and the courage in many, and yet there's this sense of brokenness, this sense of being trapped.

[20:49] One author writes, there are no ordinary people. You've never talked to a mere mortal, but it's immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.

[21:04] Immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. Immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. And what he's picking up on there is this reality that we are both made in God's image and have fallen short of the image of God.

[21:22] That there is great beauty in human beings. There is great value and worth in human beings like you and I. And yet there is this great brokenness as well.

[21:33] Having been trapped by the sin that we thought would give us life. Greatly valued and yet greatly trapped. And so you know what we need.

[21:47] If we are greatly valued and greatly trapped, what we need is a great ransom. We need somebody to rescue us from the trap that we have intentionally given ourselves to.

[22:01] What can someone give in exchange for their soul? Jesus asks. And if you'll turn over the page to chapter 10, Jesus answers the very question that he has posed to his followers.

[22:16] Over in chapter 10 in verse 45, Jesus says, Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life, to give his soul.

[22:32] It's the same word as a ransom for many. What can a man give in exchange for his soul? Jesus has already said there is nothing that we can give in exchange for the soul, the life that we have forfeited, that we have lost.

[22:49] We could have the whole world and it would be insufficient. Such is the value of a soul. Such is the value of a life before God.

[22:59] What can we possibly give? Well, nothing. But what Jesus does is he gives something that is of more value than the whole world.

[23:14] What could be of more value than creation? Only the creator himself. All things have been made through him, through Jesus, Jesus. And it is this Jesus who has stepped down into our world not to be served, but to serve and to give his life, to give his soul as a ransom for many.

[23:38] And as he uses the word ransom, you realize that the idea here is the idea of a price, a price that has to be paid, that there is such value in our souls, in our lives, that something has to be paid in exchange for them.

[23:57] And Jesus makes it clear that it is his own soul, his own life, that he gives as a ransom. He also makes it clear that it is for many.

[24:09] And when he says for, it means that it is in exchange for. So he gives his life, his soul, in exchange for the life, the soul that we had forfeit.

[24:26] Jesus lived an amazing life. Jesus lived a perfect life. You think of how Jesus has said that some will, or many will, try and gain the whole world and they end up forfeiting their soul.

[24:41] And you think of what happens at the outset of Jesus' ministry. The devil comes to Jesus. Satan comes to Jesus. And what does he tempt Jesus with?

[24:53] He says, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world if you will bow down and worship me. There's the temptation for Jesus. Have the crown, Jesus, without the cross.

[25:06] And Jesus doesn't give in to the temptation that we give in to. We want the crown without the cross. Jesus says, no.

[25:19] It is to the cross that I must go because I came to give my perfect life as a ransom for many. We realize our souls are of great value and yet how much more valuable is the life of the Son of God, this perfect one, fully God and fully man.

[25:47] And he came to ransom us from the power of sin and the power of death and the power of Satan. And we need to be careful.

[26:00] It's not that he needed to pay Satan so that we might be rescued. That's pushing the imagery too far. But he has set us free from the power of Satan.

[26:14] He has set us free from the power of sin. He has set us free from the power of death so that once we were not able not to sin, but now we are able to not sin.

[26:28] Once we were not able not to sin, now we are able to not sin. We can say no to sin and we should say no to sin. Jesus has given his life as a ransom so that we might be ransomed from the power of sin.

[26:46] He has set us free. And on that day when we stand before God and we wonder, what could I possibly give to save my soul?

[27:07] will say to God, well, Jesus paid it all. Jesus paid it all. He has ransomed me. He has ransomed my soul through his precious blood.

[27:21] And not only has Jesus ransomed us from the power of death and the penalty of death and the power of sin and the penalty of sin, he's not only ransomed us from these things, he's ransomed us for himself.

[27:39] And this is where it gets really good. It's not just that Jesus paid it all. It's Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe.

[27:52] We are his now. We were under the power of death and sin. Now we are under the power and authority of Jesus. He is not only our savior, but he is our Lord.

[28:05] And that's why he calls on his followers to take up our cross. In other words, to die to ourselves and follow him. And the paradox is, the mind-blowing thing is that the things that we thought would give us life would only have led to death.

[28:21] The thing that we think is our own death is actually going to give us life. As we take up our cross, it's not a burden that we carry, but it is a way of execution.

[28:32] It is dying. But when we die to ourselves and follow Christ, what do we find? We find true freedom. We find true life. Paul the apostle, when he's writing to one of the churches in the first century, he says, do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?

[28:58] You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies. Paul there is arguing against the sexual immorality that he sees in the church.

[29:13] And the basis of his argument is this. You're not your own. Jesus has bought you at a price. So it's not only that we have been ransomed from the power of death, we have been ransomed to the power and authority of Jesus.

[29:30] that it is only in his will that we are free. That it is only as we follow him that we find life.

[29:42] And here's the breathtaking thing. Jesus says a little later on in the Gospels to his followers who are counting the cost. Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the Gospel who will not receive a hundredfold.

[30:06] Now, in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, yes, and in the age to come, eternal life.

[30:20] Jesus is saying to his followers, you take up your cross and follow me. You give your life to me because I have given my life for you and what you find in him is far greater than what you left behind.

[30:36] What you find in him is far more abundant than what you were clinging on to before you knew him. And you know, it goes on and on throughout our lives, doesn't it?

[30:48] We need to be convinced again and again and again it is worth it. it is worth it following Jesus. It is worth it dying to self.

[30:58] It is worth it because the things that we value are things that we value that we don't want to let go off. And then we hear his word to us and he gently prizes our fingers off those things that have a hold on us and we realize again he is far more beautiful, far better, far more satisfying than anything that this world can offer.

[31:26] And it is in following him that we can enjoy all the good gifts that he gives us. That we have the self-control to enjoy his good gifts without being controlled by them.

[31:41] And so, I don't know what story you've been telling yourself this week about who you are but here is the true story that Jesus tells us about who we are. We are greatly valued.

[31:53] Made in God's image, knit together in our mother's wombs, watched over every moment of our lives by our loving Heavenly Father. Greatly valued and yet greatly broken. But Jesus has ransomed us.

[32:07] He has rescued us from sin. He has rescued us for himself. This is the story we need to hear over and over and over again because it is true.

[32:18] So there's those pieces of pottery that we've found as we've been digging up the back garden and you know there's this Japanese art form called kintsugi.

[32:36] So kintsugi, what would somebody who is into the art of kintsugi do? They would take those pieces of pottery and they would wash the mud off them and they would glue them back together to form the cup that once was.

[32:53] But here's the thing about kintsugi. They don't use your Tesco value PVA glue to glue the cup back together. They use a special glue that has gold in the glue.

[33:07] And so when they have finished gluing the cup back together what you end up with is a piece that is the same cup in some ways.

[33:19] You can still see that it is the same cup but now there are these threads of gold running through the cup so that it is actually more beautiful, more valuable, having been broken and now having been restored, more wonderful.

[33:36] people. And you know this is what Jesus is doing with his people. He looks at us and he sees the value of us because of who we are made by God and he sees the brokenness in our lives but he doesn't throw us out, he doesn't cast us aside, he pieces us back together one piece at a time with this beautiful gold so that by the time he will be finished with us we will be still ourselves in one sense and yet we will be of more beauty, of more value than we could ever imagine now.

[34:18] and the amazing thing is that this saviour that we have in Jesus we wonder how he can be so great to bring about good out of our sin, to bring about good out of our brokenness so that even the brokenness of our lives is used to bring about restoration and rescue.

[34:49] This is what he's doing in his people, this is what he's doing in you if you're following him, this is the story we need to keep in mind, that we are greatly valued, that we were greatly broken, but that Jesus is putting us back together and he is going to create something in you that is of more beauty and even more value than when he started.

[35:19] And so tell yourself that story this week. It's a better one to hear than some of the ones that we listen to. Let's pray and ask God to help us with that. Lord, we want to praise you for your word to us because, Lord, where we find value and worth for ourselves or for others is so small at times.

[35:45] It's so shallow at times. It's so short of what you would have for us. Father, we rejoice in our Savior's word to us this morning and we pray that you'd bring it home to our hearts by the power of your Holy Spirit, that we would see ourselves and each other as you see us.

[36:05] We would see, yes, that we are broken and yet that our Savior has ransomed us and is doing a great work in us, even through the brokenness to restore us to something of even more value, of more beauty than when he began.

[36:23] We praise you for that, Lord, in Jesus' name, Amen.