Mark 10:45

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

The greatest Giver gave His Son in love—and that gift should reshape how we give of our time, talents, and treasure.

Remembering in the Sacrament of Communion

This morning, as we do regularly here at Cross Connection, we are going to partake of communion together—a little out of order, since we normally observe it at the end of the service. Communion is a Christian sacrament, a ceremony that celebrates what Jesus did for us. We observe two sacraments at our church: baptism and communion. When we take the two elements, the bread and the cup, we remember that His body was broken for us and His blood was shed for us.

The ceremony was given to us so that we would always keep these things in mind. None of us were there 2,000 years ago to see His death, burial, and resurrection. We look back on those events with trust and faith, but they remain rather intangible to us. When we partake of communion, that which is intangible becomes tangible. We are able to touch, see, and taste, and be brought back into remembrance of what the Lord has done.

On the night He instituted this, recorded in Luke 22:19, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said:

This is My body which is given for you.

Then in the very next verse, likewise He took the cup after supper, saying:

This is the cup of the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.

Twice in those two verses we key on those words: this is for you. It is for us to remember what He did for us.

The Purpose of His Coming

This was the purpose of His coming—to lay down His life for us. As we celebrate Christmas in a couple of weeks, we remember His birth, His coming into the world. But His coming was for a very specific purpose: He came to die for us. The theme verse, the key verse of the whole book of Mark, is found in Mark 10:45—Jesus came to give His life a ransom for many. He came to give. He came to give it all.

This was always the plan. Even 700 years before Jesus came, the prophet Isaiah predicted His coming for this purpose, especially in Isaiah 53. Written 700 years before He would be crucified, this passage beautifully pictures the transaction that took place on the cross:

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth... He was led as a lamb to the slaughter... For the transgressions of My people He was stricken... He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him.

He is the one laid down as an offering for our sin. In the New Testament, Paul writes one of my favorite verses—that He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might receive God's righteousness.

Why Would God Do This?

No one would disagree that we live in a broken world. Sometimes that brokenness impacts us personally; often we see it at a distance—in the news, in co-workers' lives. That brokenness is in the world because of sin. In Genesis 1 and 2, everything God created was good and perfect. But in Genesis 3, man rebelled against God, and through that rebellion sin and death entered the world and spread to all humanity.

To deal with that, Jesus came. He came to bear our sin and our griefs, to be an offering for sin. But when you look at the gospel account, you begin to ask: why? We rebelled against Him. Shouldn't it be us trying to work our way back to Him? That is what religion does and says. Instead, He came and paid it all. He dealt with the penalty and power of sin by taking it upon Himself.

When we ask why, our minds go to the most famous and most translated verse of the Bible, John 3:16—"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Love is what compelled this great gift.

Point One: Love Compels the Giver to Give

Love compels the giver to give. Paul speaks to this in Romans 5: "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." The demonstration of God's love is found in the death of Jesus Christ.

Love is intangible until it becomes tangibly real, made known in a gift or a service. In our culture we throw the word love around quite frequently—to the point that we may devalue the concept. But you don't really know that someone loves you until that intangible word is presented in a hard, concrete reality. Jesus said in John 15, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man would lay down his life for his friends." And yet God's love is a magnitude greater, because He did not lay down His life for His friends—while we were yet sinners, while we were His enemies, Christ died for us.

Many people who don't memorize Scripture have heard John 3:16. But a very similar verse is found in 1 John 3:16: "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us." So that we would never forget this awesome gift, the Lord gave us the sacrament of communion—something we can hold in our hands and taste, because we are prone to forget more and more as time goes on.

Partaking Together

As recorded in 1 Corinthians 11:23, Paul writes that the Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, broke it, blessed it, and said, "This is My body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me." In the same manner He took the cup, saying, "This is the blood of the new covenant. Do this in remembrance of Me."

Father, we thank You that we have a reminder in these things, simple as they may be, of Your body given for us and Your blood shed for us. In eating this bread and drinking this cup, we proclaim Your death until You come—we proclaim that You are not still dead, but alive. The reality of Your death, burial, and resurrection ought to impact us. Speak to us about how this should affect us. We praise You, Jesus. Amen.

Point Two: His Gift Compels Me to Give as He Gave

How does this reminder apply to us today? The first part of 1 John 3:16 says, "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us." But that is not the whole verse. It continues: "And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."

So His gift compels me to give as He gave. Does this mean I must physically die for others? There is a yes and a no. No—only His life, the life of the sinless sacrifice, the Lamb of God, has the power to atone for sin. If I laid down my life, it would be insufficient, for I am a sinner just like you. It is like having a massive credit card debt and only ever paying the minimum—you will never pay it off. The debt of our sin is so massive that only Jesus could deal with it.

So what does "laying down our lives" mean? In 2 Corinthians 5:14–15, Paul writes, "For the love of Christ compels us... that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again." Notice two key words: ought (in 1 John) and should (in 2 Corinthians). These imply an ethical response—the right thing to do in response to what Jesus has done. As we have received His gift by trusting in Him, how shall we then live?

Romans 12:1 answers: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." Your reasonable service is your right response. There is a sacrifice—but we remain alive. We are not laying down our lives physically; this is the spiritual side. It is our worship to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.

Point Three: To Give as He Gave Requires a Sacrificial Loss

There is an old saying: you can never out-give God. That is true. When you consider the extent of His sacrifice—His body broken, His blood shed, His death—there is no way we could ever give to that degree. So what can we offer as sacrificial worship in response to what the Bible calls this indescribable gift?

This gift is so awesome it breaks the back of words. Ephesians 2:7 says it will take all of eternity for God to show the manifold riches of His grace. For all of eternity we will be comprehending what we received in His Son. So what can I sacrificially give to express my praise and gratitude?

Three things have come to my mind: our energy, our assets, and our time. Like you, I use my energy and time to produce assets that I live on. But when you read from Genesis to Revelation, you realize all of it comes from God. "Every good and perfect gift comes from Him," says James. He is the source. So if I am going to give as He gave, I need to sacrificially offer my energy, assets, and time as worship.

Point Four: Give of My Time, Talents, and Treasure

My response to His sacrifice is to give of my time, talents, and treasure. God has given these things to me and to you. The time you have is a gift; He knows your days. The talents and abilities you have are from Him. Whatever treasure you have is from Him. In response to what He has done, these things are to be used for His glory.

Here is the important key: we do not give these things to God to get something from Him. We have already received the gift by grace through faith. This is a response of worship. Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:10, "As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." Every one of us has received gifts—spiritual gifts, talents, abilities, even the fact that we were born in this country, the station of life and the job we have. All of it is a gift to be stewarded.

Peter continues in verse 11: "If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do so as with the ability which God supplies—that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." In 1 Corinthians 12:7, Paul says the gift revealed in your life by the Spirit is "given to each one for the profit of all." And in Romans 12:6, "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them." God has given each of us gifts, and they are to be used for His glory—not hoarded in a miserly way.

Don't Be a Scrooge

When we talk about hoarding like a miser at Christmas, a name comes to mind: Scrooge. Charles Dickens's Ebenezer Scrooge had vast resources and was a miser, visited by three ghosts before Christmas. If you've become a hoarding miser of the things God has given you, you might need to be visited by the Holy Ghost to challenge you.

You may remember the seagulls in Finding Nemo—"Mine, mine, mine." Sometimes that's us. Who runs around saying "mine, mine, mine"? Two-year-olds. It's a sign of immaturity. It's a sign of not understanding the weight of the gift we've received if we are unwilling to give of our time, talents, and treasure. In our day and place, it is often more costly to give of our time and energy than of our goods.

Jesus made clear there will come a day of accounting for how we steward what God has given us—the parable of the talents. A master gave one servant five talents, another two, and another one. The servant with five returned ten; the master said, "Well done, good and faithful servant... enter into the joy of your Lord." The servant with two returned four and heard the same. But the one with one hoarded it, hid it away, and was judged for his lack of good stewardship. There is an accounting of how we use these things.

A Word of Encouragement

I want to commend you as a church, because Cross Connection is a very giving church. Just yesterday a crew went down to Mexico with over 300 boxes you put together to bring Christmas to children whose parents couldn't provide the same. It's an awesome display of using your time, talents, and treasure. We see it in your service—at the Ronald McDonald House, cleaning the street out on Seven Oaks, serving in the ministries here. I encourage you to press on in response to the great gift the Lord has given.

When we steward these things well, 1 Peter 4:11 says the outcome is that "in all things God may be glorified." When people see you using your time, talents, and treasure as stewards—not owners—it is a great witness, because in our natural state we are all misers, every one of us. How we use these things is an indication of where our heart is, for "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." So my response to His sacrifice is to give—and Lord, by Your Holy Spirit, help me to be less miserly, less Scroogey.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I confess that in myself, in my natural, sinful state, I am a miser. Without Your grace, that is all I would ever be. But I thank You, Lord, that You have given to me and to us the grace of salvation. As we comprehend the greatness of that gift, I pray it would affect the way we live—that Your love demonstrated would move us to demonstrate Your love to others. May we not be misers hoarding, but those with an open hand giving, because You give to those who have an open hand through which You can give to others. Lord, make us conduits of Your grace and goodness to others, especially as we celebrate Your coming into the world this Christmas. Help us to give as You gave. Amen.