Cost of Discipleship: Living Beyond the Dash // Ryan Ferrer // Mark: The Cross-Shaped Life (Part 3)

SERIES: Mark — The Cross-Shaped Life
TEXT: Mark 9:30-37
MESSAGE: “Cost of Discipleship: Living Beyond the Dash”

Main Points: Kingdom Economy

1. Free Gift: Costly Grace [The Cost of Redemption] – Mark 9:30-31

Jesus’ second prediction of His suffering and resurrection (Mark 9:30-31).
The term “delivered” (paradidomi) indicates God’s sovereign plan (Acts 3:18, John 10:18).
Jonathan Edwards: “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
1 Peter 1:18-19, Romans 3:24-25: We were bought with the precious blood of Christ.
D. Bonhoeffer explains it this way “Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “you were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

2. High Price of Discipleship: Upside-Down Kingdom – Mark 9:32-36a

Misunderstanding: Crucified Messiah and Fear: crucified disciple
Greatness redefined: servant of all
Disordered loves: St. Augustine: “At the heart of sin is the disordering of loves and ordering it in a manner that God has not placed in His proper order. God wants us to love Him supremely. If we would love supremely another object besides God, then we’ve fallen into disordered love.”
Upside-Down Kingdom: Welcome children (lowest status) = Welcome Jesus = Welcome God
Jonathan Edwards aptly puts it this way, “A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble broken-hearted joy, and leaves the Christian poorer in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior.”

3. Eternal Reward: Unbalanced Ledger – Mark 9:36b-37

Eternal Reward: In Mark 10:29-30, Jesus assures his followers, “Truly I tell you, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – along with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Eternal Life: John 17:3 “Now this is eternal life: that they know YOU, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
A servant calling of being a disciple is the greatest dignity – be great in being the least.

Conclusion: How Will You Live Your Dash?

Reflect on your “Dash”: Will your dash be marked by gospel urgency like Jesus’? (Psalm 90:12)
Reorder your loves: Discipleship is costly, but it is fueled by grace.
Remember Grace: Look at Christ—His sacrifice, His call, and His love. (Matthew 11:28)
C.S. Lewis writes this to close us out, “the perfect life, the life of joy, will come when we see Him as He is and are made like Him. This is the ultimate end, the greatest reward. All that is a foretaste in this life points to that fulfillment. The reward for the Christian is not merely an eternity of bliss but the very presence of God Himself.”