Christianity comes with a cost. This is a message that so few hear today. Let me make this crystal clear: this message will drive many away from the faith. I, personally, would rather chase someone away from the faith, having them knowing what it comes with, than welcome them into a faith that is superfluous and based on false pretexts. The Western church today has nearly all but lost the point or purpose of what it means to be a Christian because we have embraced pragmatic methods instead of God’s way of doing things. Instead of proclaiming God’s message as God gave it, with the focus being on worshiping God and holiness, they focused on “getting people into the church.” So as a result, the premise became to make people as comfortable as possible and don’t dare speak against their sins, and especially don’t make it personal. In all this, a key aspect of Christianity that is all but missing is that to claim the name of Christ and to live accordingly comes with a cost, and that cost is steep.
“But… I thought the gift of God was free.” “Isn’t our salvation by grace, not works?” “Does that cost mean I have to earn my salvation?” These are valid objections, but if we are going to be followers of Jesus, let’s let Jesus Himself describe what it means to be His followers.
To be a Christian, Jesus is to be your very life and source for sustenance. This is the whole message of John 6. Jesus fed the 5000, He crossed the lake, and the crowds followed Him, expecting more food. Jesus didn’t give them another bite and instead declared that to follow Him, you need to eat His flesh and drink His blood. There is a big debate as to whether Jesus was talking literal cannibalism or not, but we need to understand the culture. Drinking blood was completely taboo, and one reason is because Leviticus declares that the life is in the blood. Jesus is saying that the only true life is found in His blood, which would be shed at the crucifixion and would be something we do on a regular basis at the Lord’s Supper. The point I’ll emphasize here is that to be a Christian, Jesus Himself must be our sustenance, not even physical food or water. Jesus Himself said this. Do we believe Him?
To be a Christian means to give up your previous life. Jesus even said that our previous life was to be given a criminal’s death and we are to give it up as such: “Take up your cross daily and follow me.” Paul followed suit when he said, “I am crucified with Christ. Not I but Christ who lives within me.” Crucifixion was a Roman invention for the execution of the worst of criminals. It was so bad that they said they would not carry it out on Roman citizens. This is why Paul never was crucified but rather beheaded; Paul was a Roman citizen by birth.
This teaching about giving up your life is a key one that I find lost today, and don’t think I’m being all pious here. This is something every believer struggles with. A man I admire is Paul Washer, and he admitted that he regularly lives for self and not for the purposes and glory of Christ. It’s not something to be proud of. I do not condemn those who know this truth and so weakly attempt to carry it out, but I am challenging those who make excuses for their discrepancy and use the grace of God as a cover for it. Jesus did indeed die for these shortcomings because we’ll never make it on our own. But He died so we would no longer make that our lifestyle. Jesus asked, “Why do you call me Lord if you do not do as I say?” If Jesus is not acting as Lord over your life, then He is not your Savior either. Or rather, if you are not submitted to Jesus being Lord over your life (because He is Lord whether we acknowledge it or not), then why should He acknowledge you when you call upon His name to get into heaven?
What we have lost is a result of being “church raised.” I am a product of being raised in the church, so I can speak of the dangers involved in being church raised. It is so easy to be a false convert when being raised in the church. There are great blessings to being church raised, but there are grave dangers to it, too. In the 1st century, there were no people raised in the church. When you became a Christian, your life changed. You ceased your former lifestyles, running with the old crowds, going to the old businesses, etc. It was such a thing in Ephesus that the business owners who made their lifestyle on the idolatry of the city were running out of customers and their income went to nothing. That’s why they instigated the riot against Paul. It came with a cost to be a Christian because you were then seen as the troublemaker. Guess what? In every generation since Christ, the ones who preached the true Gospel and where the Gospel transformed society were all seen as troublemakers because they disrupted the sinful status quo. It came with a cost – it would cost them jobs, family members would turn against them, mobs would drive them out of the city if not “lynch” them as they did Paul at Lystra by stoning him, and the list goes on.
But we don’t live in a culture where true persecution happens and people are literally losing their lives for their faith yet. Even in this setting, to be a true Christian and to preach a true message comes with a cost. Ray Comfort is a very zealous evangelist, and he has made some grave blunders in his ministry career which resulted in him becoming known as the Banana Man. He is among the most ridiculed evangelists by the atheist community, and he greatly struggled with it. Yet as a result of that high level of stigma, he got to witness to atheists and high-level professors like Lawrence Krauss and Penn Jillette, just so they could have the privilege of having to talk with the very man they’ve ridiculed for so long. Comfort has gotten to witness to so many people who wouldn’t hear the Gospel from anyone, because he paid the price of his reputation among unbelievers and even other believers.
Paul Washer and Leonard Ravenhill have paid the price for preaching unpopular messages. Ravenhill was often scathing in his sermons, and Washer became known as American’s “blast the church” pastor after his Shocking Youth Message. Both often only got to preach one time at places because the church would not want them back. Many churches want these celebrity preachers to come support them, and they would not give a blessing message but rather a lashing message that the church needed.
Finally for this post, David Wilkerson had to pay the price, too. He had a burden for the gangs of New York City after seeing an article about seven gang members severely wounding a disabled teen. In his desire to help these criminals, he approached the judge during the trial and the media branded him as a Bible-thumping preacher. He was given a black eye for that, but when the street kids recognized him, they thought he was cool, because they both had the police and “proper citizens” against them. Before Wilkerson could gain the respect of the gangs, he had to be viewed as someone who was not prim and proper by media and police, and he did so without sinning himself. Revival took place among the gangs as a result. Wilkerson paid the price so he could fulfill God’s calling on his life.
Christianity comes with a cost. Your life will not be as it was. Jesus is not an accessory that you add to your life to “complete” it. Christianity is not a set of doctrines that you believe, and you can still go about thinking and living as you would if you didn’t have Christ. If you are going to follow Christ, your life is no longer your own, and you no longer have the freedom to simply do what you want to do. You are freed from sin and your rebellion against God, but you are freed also to servitude to Christ. True conversion simply exchanges one master (the indulgence of self) for another Master (the perfect God-man Christ Jesus).
If your faith doesn’t cost you anything, is it real? A faith that costs nothing is worth nothing. We can tell how real your faith is when the cost comes, and it will come. Your faith will be proved by whether you stand by it no matter the cost, or whether you cave to the pressure to give it up. Most do the latter; few do the former. Jesus warned us of the types of costs we will pay to be a believer. Very few of us have any clue what that means until it happens. Have you counted the cost?
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1 comments:
This is so good, Charlie. I'm going to share with my teenage son. Thank you.
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