LET’S GET SERIOUS
Why have these things happened to the good old USA? The God fearing country that God favors over all others? Why did 9/11 happen to such good people? Why did people leave the church in droves after seeking guidance from the church after 9/11?
Can I tell you why?
In eagerness to defend one truth of the gospel, we have compromised another. In order to defend the freeness of the gospel, we compromised, or underplayed the cost of salvation to believers as well as to Christ. Only Christ’s payment purchasessalvation, but the true believer will also be willing to pay whatever cost salvation involves. Apart from the willingness to yield all he has, a person’s profession of faith is hollow and worthless.
The rich young ruler of Matthew 19:16-22 is the classic example of one who saw the value of eternal life but refused to submit all he was and had to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We have preached a gospel that centers on ‘ME, ‘ “What’s in it for me?” instead of God and His Sovereignty.
Several other men who declared their intention to follow Jesus made various excuses for not doing so, proving their insincerity by their unwillingness to do what Jesus required. Of one man He demanded the sacrifice of comfort by joining “the Son of Man [who] has nowhere to lay His head” (Matt. 8:20); and of another He demanded the sacrifice of an inheritance the man wanted to receive when his father died (v. 21). Of another He demanded the sacrifice of family ties (Luke 9:61-62), and of still another He demanded surrender of wealth already possessed (Luke 18:22).
Surrender of possessions, whether great or small, present or future, cannot buy salvation. They have no spiritual merit and are of no value to God. Surrender is necessary, not because it can buy anything, but because it is inevitable when salvation is truly sought. Salvation that is not desired above everything else is not truly desired. Salvation costs nothing in the sense of payment but everything in the sense of surrender. “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me,” Jesus said, “and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it” (Matt. 10:37-39).
On another occasion the Lord said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). To take up the cross is to forfeit everything, including physical life. To take up the cross never meant to carry one around your neck or pinned to your lapel: it means you are willing to DIE for the cause of Christ!
Think about it. When Jesus said this He had not yet died upon the cross. What meaning did it have for those to whom He spoke? What image did it conjure up in the minds of those who heard? While the Appian Way was lined with Jews on crosses, Jesus says, “Take up the cross!”
Speaking of coming to Him for salvation, Jesus said, “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks terms of peace. So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. (Luke 14:28-33)
Jesus could not have made clearer the truth that the person who will not surrender his old life will never have the new.
Most people who consider receiving Christ as Savior and Lord do not consciously inventory all their material, social, and other possessions to see if He is worth sacrificing those things for. When they discover the infinite value of salvation, they simply yield to Christ. Their focus is not on what they give up but on what they receive. But if their redemption is genuine, their lives will evidence a willingness to surrender whatever stands between them and faithfulness to their Lord.
Some of men’s most cherished possessions are their sins; and these must certainly be surrendered, because it is from sin that Christ saves us. No one can come to Christ by stopping his stealing, cursing, immorality, lying, or a dozen such sins. But the one who truly belongs to Him will long to give up those sins and every other. This is the attitude taught by Jesus in the Beatitudes, poverty of spirit that recognizes the bankruptcy of all human resources, mourning over sin, meekness in the presence of God, and hunger and thirst for righteousness in exchange for sin and guilt. God’s sovereign, saving work incorporates that response.
In his letter to the church at Philippi, Paul recounts his many personal advantages and achievements before he was saved. I was “circumcised the eighth day,” he says, “of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law found blameless. But whatever things were gain to me,” he continues to explain, “I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ” (Phil. 3:5-7). No New Testament writer more staunchly defends the freeness of salvation than does Paul. Yet he testifies that, in coming to Christ, he counted as loss, that is, he willingly surrendered as worthless everything he was and had.
That is my longing for our day. I pray that God would raise up thousands of broken-hearted, Bible-saturated preachers who are dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and the holiness of God, revealed in the gospel of Christ crucified, risen and reigning with absolute authority over every nation, every army, every false religion, every terrorist, every tsunami, every hurricane, every terrorist act, every rebellious deed, every cancer cell, and every galaxy in the universe.
The death of the Son of God and the damnation of unrepentant human beings are the very evidence that God is infinitely holy, sin is infinitely offensive, wrath is infinitely just, grace is infinitely precious, and our brief life; and the life of every person in your church and in your community and mine, leads to everlasting joy or everlasting suffering. If my preaching, and yours, does not convey the eternal importance of these things to our people, what will? Veggie Tales? Radio? Television? Discussion groups? New Age groups, Yoga, healers and prosperity preachers of every stripe?
God planned for his Son to be crucified (Revelation 13:8; 2 Timothy 1:9) and for hell to be terrible (Matthew 25:41) so that we would have the clearest witnesses possible to what is at stake when we preach. What gives preaching its seriousness is that the mantle of the preacher is soaked in the blood of Jesus and singed with fire of hell. That’s the mantle that turns mere talkers into preachers. Yet tragically, some of the most prominent evangelical voices today, diminish the horror of the cross and the horror of hell; the one stripped of its power to bear our punishment, and the other demythologized into self-dehumanization and the social miseries of this world.
Sorry to say, the world is not overrun with seriousness about God. There is no surplus in the church of a sense of God’s glory. There is no excess of earnestness in the church about heaven and hell and sin and salvation. And therefore the joy, the peace, and the experience of many Christians is paper thin. By the millions people are amusing themselves to death with DVDs, 110-inch TV screens, games on their cell phones, and ‘me, me’ worship, while the spokesmen of a massive world religion writes letters to the West in major publications saying, “The first thing we are calling you to is Islam . . . It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme.” “We will conquer the world.” “Islam will be the world religion.” And then these spokesmen publicly bless suicide bombers who blow up children in front of Falafel shops and call it the way to paradise.
This is the world in which we live and preach.
And yet, in this Christ-diminishing, soul-destroying age, books, seminars, divinity schools and church growth specialists are bent on saying to young pastors, “Lighten up.” “Get funny.” “Do something amusing.” “Get with it, tell them of the love of Jesus.” “Make room, keep it relevant, keep it modern.” To this I ask, “Where is the spirit of Jesus?”
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25).
“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29).
“Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple”(Luke 14:33).
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
“Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22).
“Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44).
“Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).
“Some of you they will put to death . . . But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:16-19).
Would the church growth advocates counsel to Jesus be, “Keep it modern, Jesus. Tell them how much you love them.” And to the young pastor: “Whatever you do, young pastor, don’t say anything to offend, to hurt, or to turn people off.” From my perspective, which cannot help but feel very close to the Lord’s judgment, that message to pastors sounds increasingly insane.
From Genesis to Revelation, nothing in the Word of God is of more importance in the mind and heart of God than the glory of God; the beauty of God, the radiance of his manifold perfections. At every point God makes plain the ultimate goal of His actions, it is always the same: to uphold and display his glory.
- He predestined us for his glory (Ephesians 1:6).
- He created us for his glory (Isaiah 43:7).
- He elected Israel for his glory (Jeremiah 13:11).
- He saved his people from Egypt for his glory (Psalm 106:8).
- He rescued them from exile for his glory (Isaiah 48:9-11).
- He sent Christ into the world so that Gentiles would praise God for his glory (Romans 15:9).
- He commands his people, whether they eat or drink, to do all things for his glory (1 Corinthians 10:31).
- He will send Jesus a second time so that all the redeemed will marvel at his glory (2 Thessalonians 1:9-10).
Therefore the mission of the church is: “Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all peoples” (Psalm 96:3).
These and a hundred more places drive us back up into the ultimate allegiance of God. Nothing affects preaching more deeply than to be struck almost speechless, “almost” by the passion of God for the glory of God. What is clear from Biblical revelation is that God’s ultimate allegiance is to know Himself perfectly, and to love Himself infinitely, and to share this experience, as much as it can be, with his people. Over every act of God flies the banner: “For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 48:11; cf. 42:8).