Living In A Material World

Deciding What’s Really Important

Matthew 16:26-27

Oprah Winfrey is rich beyond our imagination yet she believes that there are many paths to God.

Ted Turner believes that what we really need is a one world religion. He made that statement after his wife at the time, Jane Fonda became a Christian

Bill Gates may be one of the richest men in America and give more than anyone else when it comes to charity but there are no indications that I find that he will go to Heaven.

A person who I consider a friend and is also a Christian often talks about money and his desire to do whatever it takes to get his hands on some.

Let’s face it friends; we live in a world that bases your success on how much stuff you’ve got.

And Jesus on the other hand, told us that our success won’t be based on money.

Matthew 6:24 (NKJV)

24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

So I guess what we really need to be asking ourselves this morning is “what’s really important to us”

Are we more concerned with our bank account than the account we have with Christ.

Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:10

10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

And it isn’t always money. For a lot of us, we put the stuff that money can buy ahead of our relationship with the Lord.

And for a lot of us, it comes down to not so much how much we’ve got but what we do to hang on to what we’ve got.

For some of us, even if we don’t have much, we put aside our relationship with the Lord for the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

We live in a material world that shoves it down our throats of having the latest and greatest.

We want more, more, more!!!

Yet we fail to hear the Lord’s words of wisdom when it comes to how we handle our stuff.

Listen to what He says.

Matthew 16:26a

26 "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

What we need to remember is that this particular sentence was spoken after Christ encouraged us to deny ourselves of worldly pleasures, take up our crosses and follow Him.

He was asking us what would it matter if we had everything of earthly value in our possession ; what if we had everything we ever wanted?

What if we never wanted for anything because we already had everything there was to have?

And we still were locked out of Heaven.

If we could have it all and do nothing but seek the pleasures of this world, we would still be found wanting in the end.

Because if our soul was lost, we couldn’t and wouldn’t find anything to replace it.

You lose it, it’s gone forever!

You lose it to Hell it is lost forever!!!!!

Even so, we as the Body of Christ seem to not see the importance of a person’s soul.

Yet Jesus wanted us to understand that we gain nothing from the world if we turn our backs on God.

1st point

I. You can’t put a price on a soul

If you die with the most toys, you still die

You can have everything money can buy

You can hold all kinds of powerful positions

And your portfolio will never stack up to the condition of your soul.

The human soul will either go Heaven or Hell

It will either be saved or lost

There is no middle ground, no exchanges and no do-overs once we close our eyes for the last time

Your family can’t buy your way out of Hell

You can’t bargain your way out either.

You may be sitting here today wondering why I am preaching on a subject like our souls.

You may be sitting there thinking “I’m saved, what difference does it make?”

What about those that you know who haven’t made that decision?

How about the people who if they died today would go straight to Hell?

I wonder if any of you give two rips about the lost people that you know.

DOES HELL EVEN KNOW THAT YOU EXIST?

I remember the story from Acts about the demon possessed man who told some Christian wannabes

Jesus I know, Paul I’ve heard of. Who are you?

When you fail to tell them about the life changing and life saving power of Jesus Christ, you’re basically telling them that it’s okay that they go to Hell!