The Cost of Loss
What is the cost of walking away from God? Count the cost were are told of any endeavor we involve ourselves in. Tonight I want us to consider several costs to the person who does not know, or walks away from their commitment to Christ. These are not in any order, but all combine to a state of separation.
1. The cost of unanswered prayer. James 1:5-7 states, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord." When we go through the trials of life, the Bible says we can ask God for His help, and not only will He bring joy into the pain, but He will bring wisdom in handling the situation. But James warns, if you doubt God, then do not expect to receive anything from Him.
This person is also referred to as being double-minded. This is a person who will say something one minute and contradict it the next. Do you know people like this? James says to pray in faith believing, this means coming to God and knowing that whatever He reveals, you are going to do it. God is not answering prayers of people who are not going to do what He says so that is why you need to be willing to say, not my will God, but Yours be done.
Some people think when God answers prayer it is a suggestion they can either take or leave, but God answers prayers of people who will obey, otherwise they will receive nothing from Him.
What would you think of a man who says I am not sure if I want my wife or this other woman, but until I decide, I want my wife to stay with me, do the cooking and cleaning for me. To be understanding of me, serving me and being faithful to me while I decide which of the two women I want. Would you expect the wife to stay with a man who has these thoughts and wants her to wait out his decision? Of course not. But don’t we do the same with God? People who have backsliden and are trying to go through the motions without the emotions, desire and obedience to God might just as well forget praying because God has no obligation to them.
2. Backsliden people lose the assurance of their salvation. 2 Peter 1:8, 9 "If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true lack of knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins."
These are people who have hung out with the world crowd so much they forget whose child they are, they are not growing and maturing, opening themselves up to all kinds of doubts which will swallow them up. They have lost the comfort, the joy, the peace that goes with the certainty of being saved. And they may wallow in this state to long and lose the hope of their true calling.
3. A third cost is physical death. 1 Corinthians 10:1-5 (READ)
Follow this, the Israelites enjoyed all the benefits of God’s provisions, they were under the cloud, they had God’s guidance. They passed through the sea--they had God’s deliverance. They were baptized into Moses--they had God’s leader. They ate and drank spiritual food which is a picture of Christ--they had God’s provision. Yet they had crossed the line, it says they were laid low in the wilderness which means six feet under. How did they get to this state? It was their lack of faith, gross sin, disobedience to God. They crossed the line and paid with their lives.
How does this happen to the backslider? How many of you have ever been tired and driving down the road, dose off, then all the sudden, you sense danger, you are jerked back into an awareness of your perilous situation, coming to your senses, you avert an accident of either hitting another vehicle or driving off the road into a potentially deadly situation? What caused that alert? The Holy Spirit or a guardian angel send from God to alert you to the danger? How does a message of emanate danger reach someone who is far off the beaten track with God, who has found themselves deep in the far country from Jesus Christ? Your guardian angel could become your destroyer, it says in 1 Corinthians 10:9, 10: "Not let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer."
Some will walk so far away their death will bring them before the throne of judgment in a very unpleasant situation. We need to look at the high cost of leaving God in the light of eternity. I want to look ahead in our lives as in the last half of this message to what the future will hold to all, believers and non-believers when we pass from this life to the next and weigh our lives in the cost of living, the price we pay at death. Some thing the high life today will continue to roll, and depending on whom that high life is based will determine if the celebration is a prelude or the benediction of ones life.
It says in 2 Corinthians 5:9-11 "Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men."
Everyone is going to appear before the judgment seat, everyone will be rewarded for their deeds, good or bad.
At Corinth, they held the Isthmian games, much like the Olympics. A podium was built in the marketplace, called the bema where the judges would come and sit on the bema to judge the events of the games, handing out penalties and rewards. When an athlete won he was escorted to the judgment seat to be awarded his medal, garland on their head and other rewards. Major contest winners would no longer have to pay taxes as part of their reward.
But the bema or judgment seat was not only for awards, other athletes came before the judge thinking they had won the race only to find out they had been disqualified because they had broken some rule. That is why Paul said, "I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly...I myself should be disqualified." 1 Corinthians 9:27.
As we stand before the judgment seat, Christ will determine whether we won the race or disqualified ourselves from victory. And on that day, many who thought they were winners will find out they are truly losers for it is at the judgment seat where the real story is told.
What then is the basis for our judgment. 2 Corinthians 5:10 spells it out plainly, "We will be judged for the deeds done in the body. Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 gives us a good understanding. (READ)
The fire here is not hell because Paul is speaking of Christians. When we read fire concerning a non-Christian, the Bible is speaking of hell, but in reference to the Christian, it means God’s judgment or discipline in time and also in eternity.
Christians who live faithful, not perfect, lives, who make the pursuit of their lives God, will receive a reward because they built with gold, silver and precious stones. These are things fire cannot destroy, it just purifies them. But those building with wood, hay and straw will go unrewarded because their efforts will go up in smoke.
So what will be the basis of judgment?
1. Our deeds. Hebrews 4:12-13 (READ)
God is going to evaluate us on two criteria.
a. Did we do what He said?
b. Did we do it for the right reasons?
Some will stand and say, "But, Lord I thought..." and Christ is going to say, "No, I said." In other words, He is going to judge as to whether your actions coincided with His word. Now , He is also going to judge us on the motives of what we did. You do realize that you can go through the motions without a heart for God, without a commitment to Christ, without a desire to bring the glory to God, just sort of play acting? That is why God is going to lay bare the intentions of the heart.
2. The second thing God is going to judge is our dependability. 1 Corinthians 4:2 says we must be faithful. Revelation 2:10 says we must be faithful to death.
This is why those people who are happy doing the one big thing for God each year, Christmas or Easter, are in trouble. God will not evaluate us on our annual pilgrimage, but on our entire life. Everyday.
3. The third area of evaluation is our declarations, our words. Matthew 12:36 states that every careless word comes under scrutiny. Some people will say, Lord, I don’t remember gossiping." Ding...there it is in the heavenly computer, "Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light." Luke 12:3
So what is the result of judgment. A slap on the wrist and a heavenly mansion? We know the story of the man who went on the journey and let the care of varying sums of money to his three servants in Matthew 25. The one slave did what many Christians do, hide the gifts, abilities and money that God has given them, never using them for God, gaining no profit for His kingdom. God will not buy our excuses just as He did not buy into the slaves. When we stand before the throne, there will be for some
a. Stinging rebuke (Matthew 25:26-27 READ). When you stand before Christ, when he shows you the price He paid so you could enjoy heaven, and when you see what you could have had, this will be an uncomfortable time.
b. For some, kingdom disinheritance (vs. 28-29). Christ will show you what you could have had and been and what he could have done with you in His millennial kingdom. His thousand year reign that follows immediately after His judgment seat.
c. A third judgment (vs. 30) will be exclusion from Christ’s kingdom wedding feast because of unfaithfulness.
In as much as Matthew 11:21-24 teaches there are degrees of punishment in hell, these passages we have looked at today point to different degrees of blessings in heaven, some will be refined in the fire of judgment others burned up.
Now I hope you are like me. I want my efforts to count for something, not to be turned to ash. Galatians 6:7 states, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows this he will also reap." Let these words soak in for a moment (REPEAT)
One way to measure a person’s maturity is to the degree to which he is able to connect present reality with future consequences, and the degree to which he lives his life today with tomorrow in mind. The essence of maturity is that you live now in light of the future consequences. That is, you weigh the costs of proposed actions and determine what you will do now based on the price tag you will have to pay later.
It amazes me the number of people who want to plant unrighteousness yet reap God’s blessings. They want to plant bad yet reap good. They want to sow wrong seeds, but gather a harvest of right. But this is not how God’s system works. You need to understand this, what you sow will grow naturally. What you sow will one day push up through the ground. It is a built in process.
I wish I had the time to get into the process of sowing and reaping tonight. 2 Corinthians 9:6 states, He who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully." If you invest a little in spiritual things, you will reap a little from the Lord. If you invest a lot in spiritual things, you will real a lot. In this passage and the one in Galatians we read earlier, what you sow, is up to you.
I want to close with this illustration. In 1988 at the Summer Olympics, Ben Johnson of Canada exploded from the starting blocks in the Olympic 100 meter setting a record like it had never been set before. He was truly the world’s fastest human. Do you remember that day, do you remember that race?
The crowd went wild. The other runners congratulated him and Johnson ran a victory lap waving the Canadian flag. But when he came to the judgment seat, the truth was revealed. They had found steroids in his blood and the word came, Ben Johnson, surrender your gold medal. And the medal was snatched from Johnson and awarded to the American sprinter Carl Lewis, Johnson returned to Canada in disgrace.
Now the crowd did not know this when they saw Johnson running. He darted out of the blocks and the people went wild. When he ran the victory lap, he looked like the winner. But the judges went inside Ben Johnson’s body and a blood test revealed what was really there. That day it was revealed what sort of work Ben Johnson was, wood hay, stubble.
At the judgment seat of Christ, some of us are going to be like Ben Johnson. We will see the gold medal we thought we had won handed to someone else because we did not run according to the rules.
On the other hand, many of us will take a victory lap and hear over the speakers, well done, thou good and faithful servant, you are indeed a winner.
The question tonight as I close is this, which one will you be?
