Embracing Our Losses In Christ

EMBRACING OUR LOSSES IN CHRIST

INTRODUCTION: Every month I receive a statement of accounts concerning my retirement funds. Every year, I receive a year end statement of those same accounts that gives me the overall picture of how I have done financially for the past 12 months. I can see if I have progressed, or if I have fallen behind. Then, in response to that information, I then make decisions for the next year. One of the things I have learned is that there are some years that I sustain a loss. For whatever reason, things did not turn out roses. Now, I used to think that this was solely the result of unpredictables, but have now come to the conclusion that at times these losses are actually a restructuring in order to produce even greater gains. So, knowing this, that my momentary loss will produce greater gain, I embrace my losses. This is what we must do in our Christian Life – embrace our losses for greater gain.

Here at the start of a new year, it is important for us to set our convictions firmly with our life as a believer. I am not talking about resolutions. For resolutions, so often go by the wayside soon after they are made. I am talking about convictions – principles we should be willing to adopt, defend, and maintain as part of the very core of our being. And yes, the Christian should have those core convictions. Jesus died to give them to us, and we should live in obedience to them. Salvation brought us heaven as a gift, and stripped away personal ownership of our lives. Our core convictions are planted firmly in what happened when we lost ourselves in Christ

I EMBRACING THE LOSS OF OUR PERSON IN CHRIST

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV) 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

A God is looking for our personal standard

1 Normally, when we see the word “body”, we associate this with the “body of Christ”, the church.

2 This verse does not speak to the corporate body of Christ, but to the individual believer and their body, their person.

B God says that we are the individual temple of the holy Spirit

1 Each believer is a temple

2 Each believer has a standard to uphold

3 God is not looking for corporate achievement, but individual accountability

C We received the Spirit of God individually from God the Father

D We were each purchased individually by Christ.

1 The Blood of Christ is applied to each of us individually

2 Each one is judged individually

a We do not all get to heaven and then God says, “well, lets see how we did as a group.”

b God looks at us one at a time

1 Whether believer

a) Corinthians 3:11-15 (NIV) 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

b) 2 Corinthians 5:10 (NIV) 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

2 Or unbeliever

a) Revelation 20:15 (NIV) 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

E We belong to the Lord – this means that,

1 My rights are not most important

2 To be bought with a price means to be delivered by purchase

a Word comes from one that means to buy in the marketplace

1 Sin is a marketplace. Will try to sell us anything we need to keep us from God

2 The marketplace of sin will also sell us anything we need to keep us distant from God.

3 The marketplace of sin will offer us everything we need to confuse us about God’s work in our lives.

a) Kind of like hiring a maid and then cleaning up every time before she comes!

b Christ’s death on the cross was a ransom paid for my deliverance