Kennystix's podcast
The Power to Risk in the Cause of Christ
The following resource is from desiringGod.org. What Corky meant when he said I was going to pursue the thought process is this, when I was finished thinking through what I said this morning, I thought well now if it takes and God does what I'm praying, namely that you would find the ability through gutsy guilt to overcome the obstacle of guilt and regret and remorse and unworthiness, you could overcome that by the gospel, you're going to hit a lot of other obstacles in your pursuit of obedience, and one of them is fear. So I want to talk about risk, that's what was in the folder, and mainly it's a very simple point, I'll try to make it mainly from the Bible, that God wants you to take risks with your lives, and I hope that you will be emboldened to do that by what I say. My experience now after 32 years in the ministry of the Word is that very little happens of any significance in an individual life or a church or a family or an organization, very little happens that does not involve taking risks. And so I want things to happen in your life, I want you to be able to accomplish things that you never dreamed for the cause of Christ, and I promise you, you don't have to be a big great person in order for God to use you to do extraordinary things for him, but you do need to take risks, so that's what we're going to talk about. So let's start by defining risk, risk is an action that exposes you to the possibility of injury or loss. Risk is an action that exposes you to the possibility, might be small, might be big, of injury or loss, and the loss could be money, could be face, you lose face, could be your life, could lose your life. There's a whole array of risks from the little teeny ones where you're just going to get some egg on your face to the big one where you could be killed, and you have to take those kinds of risks in order to, in order to, I think, move forward and make an impact for Christ. Now let me distinguish foolish risks from Christ-exalting risks. Both of them might cost you your life. One would be pleasing to God and the other would be unpleasing to God. Such risks are forbidden in the Bible, and we have illustrations of them. You have Paul taking risks, put himself right in harm's way over and over again, but you also have him escaping out of Damascus in a basket. You have him being whisked out of town in Thessalonica because a mob is forming. So you don't always throw yourself into the lion's mouth. Sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't. And it's a huge issue in the Christian life, well, when do you, and when don't you, when do I take the risk of my money, my face, my life, my family, and when don't I? The best book I have ever read on that issue was written by John Bunyan. Most of you have heard of Pilgrim's Progress. John Bunyan, Puritan, Baptist, pastor from 300 years ago, who spent 12 of his years in jail. We had a little blind daughter who needed him very much, wrote a book called "Councils to Sufferers." So if you buy the collected works of John Bunyan, which some of you might want to do, in one of those volumes is this 80-page double-column book called "Councils to Sufferers," and his whole effort is, "How did I decide to stay in jail when my wife had four kids at home and one of them was blind?" And I could have gotten out of jail any time I wanted by simply signing a statement I will not preach. How do you make that choice? We've got missionaries all over the world and here facing those decisions day after day after day. Stay or go. Stand and risk your life or flee, and both can be right. And I just want to make sure, while I don't have any formula for you to figure out, "When do you do that? When do you risk your life and when do you go for safety?" I want to make sure that you know the Bible blesses, ordains, and calls you to take risks. If I could just settle that and fix that in your heart, then I think the Holy Spirit will use all the necessary things in order to help you decide when to do one and when to do the other. So that's so much for the definition of risks, and distinguishing it from foolish risks. Maybe just a practical statement about foolish risks. I'll risk alienated people here who would like to do these kinds of things. I personally would probably, I mean, I shouldn't say it absolutely, but I probably will never skydive for fun. I'll probably never hang glide for fun, and I'll probably never bungee jump for fun. Now, the reason is that there are reasons I would risk my life jumping out of a plane or jumping with a rope tied to my foot or jumping off a cliff with plastic wings. There are reasons I would do that, but not for fun. That feels almost, let's see, here's where I'm going to lose you, that feels almost blasphemous to me. There you go, I'm created in the image of God for a significant reason on planet earth, and I'm going to risk my life for this surge. I don't think so. Well, you make that call yourself, but that's my call on what would be foolish risk for me, but to go to a country where they tell me you may not get out of there, that's worth it. If I'm going for Jesus. If you're hanging gliding for Jesus, if you're jumping out of planes for Jesus, you're hanging by the rope for Jesus, amen, but watch out that you not just do an evil, that's another generation. Here's a second or third observation, whichever one I'm on here. In order to clarify the nature of risk and how God relates to your risk, you need to know this loud and clear. God can take no risks, and the reason he can't is because essential to the meaning of risk is ignorance. You have to be ignorant in order to take risks. If you know you'll lose your life, when you do this, it's not a risk, it's a sacrifice. Risk assumes ignorance about what's coming. God cannot take a risk because he has no ignorance about what's coming. And if you've been influenced by open theism, which is a, I hope, passing fad of a theology that says God doesn't know the future and therefore does take risks, I hope I can uninfluence you now because God does know the future and therefore he cannot take risks. When he sends his son into the world, it is no risk for Jesus. He's going to die, period. God negotiates with the son in heaven and he sends the son to die. It was the will of the Lord to bruise him. It didn't sneak up on Jesus. I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, declaring my purpose will stand, I will accomplish all my good pleasure. God knows and runs the future and therefore makes no risks but makes huge sacrifices. He knew his son would die. That's why he sent him and so with the creation of the world. One of the key texts that make me hate open theism is John 13, 19. Is Jesus at the last hour of his life predicting that Judas would betray him? This is going to happen. Judas will betray me and then John writes, he said this so that, well this is Jesus talking, I say this to you before it happens so that when it takes place you may believe that and then would that everybody knew Greek. In English it always says that you might know that I am he, there is no he, there is no he in the Greek. I'm telling you that Judas is going to betray me that you may know when it happens my having told you that I am, which as you know is taken from Exodus chapter 3 verse 14 when they asked the name of God what name should be spoken in Egypt, God said tell them I am sent you, which means that Jesus predictions about the future prove in his mind he is God. So for somebody to say it doesn't matter whether he knows the future or not is a major attack I think on the deity of Christ. So let's close that for instance on open theism. I don't want you to go there I hope you steer clear around those people who are so hip and be cool today they think they have discovered a new theology about how God doesn't know the future and therefore it solves all kinds of problems with evil and suffering. It doesn't, it doesn't pastorally I deal with suffering all the time every day especially children in my church it solves no problems pastorally. What gives people strength is the goodness and the sovereignty of God unshakably undivitable. What is God? God is good. I don't understand why I got this pain or this cancer or my parents are getting divorced or my little brother got hit by a car. I don't understand it but God is good and God is God. God runs the world and God is good I will see someday what he is up to in all of this. That helps pastorally. So God can take no risks and the reason I belabor that point is because he can't, you can, now come back to that at the end, the ground, the power of your being able to take a risk on a campus or an unreached people group or individually in some way is because your God knows exactly what's coming and he works it all and controls it all so that you can take the risk because he doesn't, he doesn't, period. God intends for us to be ignorant about the future. Remember the passage in James 4, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow, we will go up to such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain." Come now, you say that? We're going to go to Dallas tomorrow? You know your life, rather you ought to say if the Lord wills we will live and do this or that. So here what the point of that text is, that's James 4, 15 following, that text is saying when you plan your future, when you think about tomorrow, don't think you know. You don't know about tomorrow. If the Lord wills, you get to Dallas or Minneapolis, you don't know. So you risk. And I hope that I can disabuse you, free you from the illusion of security that most people live for in this world. It is an illusion, it's a myth of safety, an enchantment. You live in an enchantment of security, constantly padding their locks and putting big airbags in their car and operating as though life could be made secure and it can't. And it shouldn't be and God is summoning you now to wake up to that and now not to risk for your own private pleasures but to risk for Christ. So let me walk with you through biblical examples of risk. At least what happens to me when I see these is that I get inspired to do it. Some of them are tailor made for women and some of them are tailor made for men. They both work both ways. Let's start with one of my favorites. You don't need to look these up if you don't want to but I'll point you to where they are in the Bible. In Samuel chapter 10, here's the situation. Nehash is the king of the Ammonites. He died. David loved Nehash so the king of Israel admired and loved the king of the Ammonites. Interesting relationship. His son is named Heynon. So David sends a delegation to Heynon to pay respects to his father. These young whippersnapper counselors around Heynon say to him, "You don't trust David do you." These are spies. They're not coming to pay respect to your father. They're coming to spy. They didn't believe them, cut off their clothes right here, cut off half their beards right here, shamed them out of their words and sent them out into public to go home. David was furious. Well when a king gets furious, it's not a personal thing, it's a global thing. So the Ammonites see that David is enraged and they send to the Syrians and hire the Syrian army to protect them against David's rage. And David sends his army with Joab Efellid and his brother Abishai at his side. I've got four sons and I love to think about things like this. It gets chills up into my back when I think of this kind of camaraderie in conflict. So here's Joab. Here's Abishai. Here's the army of Israel and they are surrounded. You've got Ammonites on one side and Syrians on the other and they're coming as pincers against Israel, Joab and Abishai. And it's the words. It's the words that come out of Joab's mouth that make my spine tingle and I'll read them to you. He says to Abishai, his brother, "If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall come and help me. And if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage and let us play the man for our people and for the cities of our God and may God do what seems good to him." What's that? That is pure risk. You might have expected him to say, "And God will give us the victory." He didn't say that. You stand against that enemy, I'll stand against this enemy. If I'm starting to lose, you come help me. If you start to lose, I'm coming to help you. That's the strategy, Abishai. Stand for the cities of our God and may God do what seems good to him. We're going against the Ammonites. That's just pure risk. He didn't know if he would win or not. There are going to be places in your life where that's exactly what it looks like. I've got an enemy here, I've got an enemy here, I've got a few comrades. What should we do? We can flee, we can run, that'd be safe. We know we'd save our next and we'd be there for our kids. And you look at each other and you say, "No, we're moving forward." You take that one, you take that one, we'll do the best we can. And God do what seems good to him. So let that ring in your ears. May the Lord do what seems good to him. We're going forward and risking our lives for the cities of our God. That's example number one. Here's Esther, this is especially for the women. Esther, there's a movie about Esther, you know, recently. But what happened was remarkable, so here's the situation. You know this, but I'll rehearse it anyway, briefly. In the exile, after the Jews went into exile, there was a man named Mordecai, he had a younger cousin named Esther. Esther was an orphan. I don't know what happened to her parents, maybe killed in the siege of Jerusalem. And so Mordecai adopts Esther and she grows up to be beautiful beyond words. And the king, Hagerius, the king of Babylon, he gets out of sorts with his queen Vashti and says, "You're out of here." And in order to get a new queen, he has kind of a beauty contest. And Esther is chosen. She doesn't have a choice in this. And there she is, the queen of the empire as a Jew. He doesn't know she's a Jew. Haman is wicked and hates Jews with all his might, especially Mordecai, because Mordecai being a good Jew doesn't bow down to anybody except God. And so Haman designs a strategy by which he will kill all the Jews in the kingdom and thus Mordecai. And so he gets a day on which they'll all be destroyed and Mordecai finds out about it and says, "Our only hope is Esther." And so he sends word to Esther. You have to go to the king, you have to tell him who you are and you have to get a hearing with him and plead for your people. And she sends word back, "Don't you know, uncle, that if you walk into the presence of the king, unbidden you die, unless he lifts the golden scepter." And Mordecai sends word back. If you aren't used to raise up salvation for us, God will use somebody else. You better do this. And she writes back, or I guess it's a note, I'm not sure how they did it, but she sends this message. Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, this is Esther chapter 4 verse 15, "Go gather all the Jews to be found in sousa and hold a fast on my behalf and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day, and I and my maids will also fast as you do. And then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish." I love Esther, I hope there are thousands of Esther's out there. You stare right into the possibility of being executed, it's not pretty, it's not romantic, it's ugly, it's gross, it's shameful, and you say, "If I perish, I perish, I will obey the call of love here." That's exactly the same as, "May the Lord do what seems good to him coming out of Joab's mouth, if I perish, I perish coming out of Esther's mouth." These are stories that are in the Bible to cause men and women in this room today to go home resolving, "I will take godly risks for my king." Three number three, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, you know the story, the king builds a 90-foot-tall idol, he says, "Everybody has to bow down and worship the idol. Everybody goes on their face except Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego." They get brought before the king, he says, "Don't you know I can throw you into that furnace there and burn you to a cinder?" And they respond with these words, "Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego," answered the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O King, but if not, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up. If not, if God will not save us, we're not bound in anyway. May the Lord do what seems good to him. If I perish, I perish, whether we live or whether we die, we're not bound down to your image. So God, whatever you want to do with us, we are yours. The most famous risk taker in the Bible, in fact I think the person who probably more than anybody, including Jesus, lived a life of risk, was the apostle Paul. I love the apostle Paul very, very much. I have lived with him a long time and would like very much to at least walk in some of his shoes. He bound himself in Acts 21 to go to Jerusalem. He had been collecting money for the poor saints in Jerusalem, just like you've been collecting money for lots of things here. And he knew that it would be trouble in Jerusalem. Thus says the Holy Spirit, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this girdle and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. Now that much is secure prophetically. You're going to get arrested, but it's going to be into the hands of the Gentiles and what they will do with you. We do not tell you, it's just going to be bleak in Jerusalem. And they plead with him, the saints plead with Paul, don't go to Jerusalem. Don't go to Jerusalem. And Paul says, what are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I'm ready not only to be imprisoned, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And then it says, and when they would not be persuaded, when he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, the will of the Lord be done. May God do it seems good to him. If I perish, I perish, whether we live or die, we're not bound down to your image. The will of the Lord be done. We don't know what it's going to be, but Paul's intent on going to Jerusalem to keep his word about the poor saints there and the money he's been collecting. Paul's whole life, now this is hard. Some of you have and will face periodic risks. Paul's whole life was risk. I mean, when you read the passages in 2 Corinthians, just listen to this. Let the force of this lay on you. There are only a few in this room that are going to be called to live this way. Maybe you'll know even as I read it. Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews, this is 2 Corinthians 11, 24 following. Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews, 40 lashes, less one. Now I'm going to pause there and try to help you feel what I feel when I read that. Five times I received 40 minus one lashes. That's 39 lashes at five times in his life. Now you also the movie The Passion, that was more than 39 lashes, but by the time you get up to 39, your back is pretty well shredded. So you've got long leather strips, maybe they're little shells in them or little studs, maybe not. But if you've got a good executioner, then 39, that's a lot of times on the same back. But the time it's done, your back is slayed, and they say, "Okay, you've done your part now. Throw him out." He falls on the ground and dirt gets in the wounds and he gets infected and he's got a fever for a week and they wonder if he's going to survive. And then a few months later it's gradually healed. They don't know anything about stitches, they don't know anything about bacteria. They don't know anything, just kind of wash it off to get the dirt out. Then it heals all crooked once, twice, three times, four times, five times, same back. Wouldn't you along about the third time say, "God, this is not a good deal? This is not what I signed up for." In fact it is what he signed up for. It says, "So plainly in Acts 9 I will show him how many things he must suffer for me." Five times they shredded Paul's back with 39 lashes. This man wrote the greatest book that was ever written in the book of Romans. Let me keep reading. Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes, less won. Three times I have been beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked, a night and a day I have been adrift at sea. On frequent journeys, now here's the list that makes me say he lived a life of risk, not just experienced a risk here and a risk there. He lived a life of risk. He says, "In danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren, in toil and hardship through many sleepless nights in hunger and thirst, without food, in cold and exposure. And apart from all these other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Paul never knew where the next blow was coming from. It's like it would be like ministering in a dark room filled with about 10 people that he lists here who as soon as they feel you hit you and it comes out of the blue, you don't know what. I thought they were brothers. The river, we're trying to get close to the river and it's swollen and on and on and on. God called Paul to an unbelievable life of suffering, but he never knew where he was coming from and so it was risk. Can you imagine, here's Silas or Timothy or Titus and they're traveling and there on the horizon is Philippi or Thessalonica or Berea and they pause on the outskirts of the city and they pray, what must those prayer meetings have been like? Every city, it's trouble, every city is pain. He's beaten with rods in Philippi, he's thrown into jail in Philippi, his feet are put in stocks in Philippi. And he knows that happens over and over again, he bows and he says, "God, there are people in there that you have chosen for yourself and you have designed that they come to you through the gospel and I would like to plant a little church, maybe there'd be a Lydia, maybe there's kind of a business woman type and maybe there'd be a demon possessed girl who could be liberated and then maybe there would be a jailer, an employee of the city and the three of them would make a good little church start. So if you would use me, you would use me to find them, I would be most pleased and willing. And then he risked his life over and over again. So you can see why perhaps I have a strong affection for Paul. That's enough illustrations of risk from the Bible. Let me ask this question now. What happens if you don't risk? What happens if you say, "Okay, I'm just not going to go there. I'm going to do what I've played with you this morning not to do. I'm going to go back to school, I'm going to get a real practical education, I'm going to get a good job, I'm going to get a nice house with lots of locks on the doors far away from the inner city and I'm going to get old and be happy and have lots of sensual pleasures and have wrinkles and uselessness in my rocking chair by the lakeside until I drop, leaving my middle-aged children of fat inheritance to confirm them in their wilderness. That's what you choose. No risk, you think. Now I'm pleading with you not to go there, but rather to embrace the cost. What happens if you go there? There's a story in the Bible about that, more than one, but you know this one. The 12 spies are sent into the promised land, including Caleb and Joshua. There they go to check it out. Is it worth going in there for? And can we do it because there are giants in there? Forty-five cities like Jericho with walls and they come back and ten of them say we're not taking that risk. And two of them say we can do this with God, we can do this. How many churches, I wonder if you belong to some of these, how many churches have walked right up to the edge of some new calling? And the non-risk takers stood up in the business meeting and killed him. We must have the furnace fixed before we can add the staff member. This is good stewardship. You can't add staff because we don't know if we can pay them and we got a $6,000 furnace bill and that may or may not come in in this new year and so pastor, we're not going to add the staff until we're sure we can pay for the furnace repair. That mindset is murderous in the church. No, may God grant you, as you both vocational ministers and lay people filtering out into your churches, not be that kind of person, that you stand up right after that person and say I think God wants us to take a risk and tell them a story about Esther or something. Oh, that there would be churches that would not do what Israel did here. They walked right up to the promised land, sent a few conservative in and two radical believers in and the ten held sway. Now here's the cost of 40 years of aimlessness. You live in the middle of that curse on a church, don't let it happen to your life. You walk right up to the edge of a dream and then some counselors come to you and they say, I think maybe you're cut out for this, it's safer and everything in you is crying out, I want to do this for Christ and his kingdom. And you throw it away and enter 40 years of wandering in middle-class, prosperous, happy vain success. There are perhaps some of you tucked away in little corners of this room that are 60 years old and you're right at the end of 40 year wandering, good. It can end, it can end at 20, 10, 15, 2, it can end. That's why you're here, I think, to walk out of that 40 years of waste, that's sad. That's really sad. Well, let me, we're going to move toward a Q and A time in just a few minutes. We'll be thinking, what do you want to ask this guy, because there are microphones out there somewhere and we're going to take time to do it, but here's a few more things. Okay, so far I have tried to define risk and I've tried to say God can't risk and I've tried to summon you to the biblical rightness of taking risks and I've warned you against the folly of wasted 40 years, if you won't risk and now finally risk like what? What are some examples that you might face or that I have faced that might put some meat on this skeleton? I'll give you a couple of examples, relational money, witness, ministry ventures, just an example or so for these relationships. If you love anybody, care about anybody, you're into risk and you're into pain. I just wrote, my wife and I have been married 38 years and we went on our 38th anniversary on the 21st of December to Redway, Minnesota and we have a tradition on our bed and breakfast outings once a year and the tradition is to choose a chapter or a short book in the Bible. We like going through Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians, can't remember. We just chose 1 Corinthians 13 this year and we pray through it, read a little bit, pray, read a little bit, pray, just sit on the couch, I read, I read, pray, read, pray, read about our lives, our marriage and our kids. You never stop being a parent even when they're married. And we read verses 4 to 7 of 1 Corinthians 13 and it walloped us, goes like this, love is patient and kind, it does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never ends. And we stood back from that and we tried to pray our way through it. And what hit us is that of those 15 things that are said about love there, all but two of them it seems fit in two categories that we did not expect. The first category is endurance, the old King James says love suffers long, bears all things and doers all things and it just clobbered us. If you love, you suffer. If you have a relationship with anybody, parent, brother, sister, friend, fiancé, wife, husband, if you have a relationship, you suffer. Love suffers mom, love bears all things, love endures all things, to enter relationship is to enter pain and love is all over that. Love doesn't cop out, love doesn't run away, love doesn't throw in the towel, love doesn't return evil for evil, love endures and bears and comes back with kindness. And so we just embraced that because there have been some hard things in our marriage and our family recently and we said we're going to embrace that, we're not going to get ugly about this, we're not going to get mean about this, we're not going to be a bit heard, we're not going to come hard towards anybody which is going to say this is what love does. So in relationships, a lot of you come out of such broken homes, you're scared of death of marriage. God doesn't call everybody to marry, Paul wasn't married, Jesus wasn't married, John Stott wasn't married, but he calls most people to marry, the way the world gets populated legally. And so there you are. Everybody I know has gotten divorced you might say, I don't, I don't want to do this and you don't want to do it and you don't want to do it and may God give you grace. He is able, he's able to keep two very different people married, exhibit A. The other category besides endurance was before I tell you, if I did a little survey here and said what's the opposite of love? I think most people would say, hey, that'd be true, that's not at all what Paul says. If you just took those words that I gave you from 1 Corinthians 13, 4 to 7 and said, what's the opposite of love? Almost everybody examining those words would say pride. Love doesn't boast, love's not puffed up, love doesn't seek its own way, it's all about pride. And Noel and I looked at each other, we said, okay, that's our major problem, isn't it? It's everybody's major problem, but let's be honest, I like my own way. And you like your own way and that's why we don't get along. And so we're going to work on this pride thing and you pray it into reality. All that by way of just illustrating one whole sphere of risk taking is relationships. I give you a very concrete example of a risk that we took as a couple. A phone call came probably 23 years ago from a national magazine, what was it called? I think it was called Partners at that time. Every magazine, with Christian magazine, every magazine had a smiley-faced Christian couple on the front, usually in ministry, more or less well known. And there they are. And then an article, somebody came and did an interview and wrote the article about him. Okay, so this phone call comes in, would you and your wife be willing to have us come as a team from CTI and do an interview and put you on the front and exhibit your marriage to the world? We're not talking to each other. They want to come interview. They want to come interview us about our marriage. Can I get back to you? Okay, so I hang up and we talk it over and we said, no, look, this is a phase. We're going to come out of this. Divorce is not an option. So we could fake it. We could fake it. And let them come. Tell them all the good times and smile. Or we could tell them, you know, right now things are just perfectly awful and you don't want to come here. But if we say that, you know the word is going to get out on their CTI. John Piper has a problem marriage. They're on their way to get divorced. Now, that's a risky phone call. But we said, that's what we're going to do. So I'll call him back up. I said, look, you don't want to interview us right now because things are really hard in our house and we wouldn't be smiling on the front of your magazine. So thank you anyway and please handle this information with all due appropriate regard. Thank you anyway. Goodbye. They never called back. It was 23 years ago. That's the kind of risk you face. I mean, the risk of just being honest, people can turn your word against you real quick. The more enemies you have, the more people think you're off base. More quickly, they'll take your words and turn it. So that's the relationship cluster. Another cluster is money. Oh my, there's more in more in Jesus teaching about money than sex. Way more. Money's a killer. Money ruins more lives than sex. If we had another big session, maybe I'll talk about money instead of sex because that's a killer. So I'm pleading with you now to take risks with your money, meaning live on less than you think you can and give more than you think you can. Here's a little story from Jesus to help you do that. Jesus looked up and he saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury and he saw a poor widow put in two copper coins. He said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them and they all contributed for they all contributed out of their abundance. But she out of her poverty put in all the living that she had." Now, there is a word for that that certain church leaders in your church might use. She was imprudent. What about your rent? Groceries? I mean, this is amazing to me. She put in all that she had and Jesus doesn't get on her imprudent case. He celebrates her. That's weird. A lot of people would mainly get on your case if you did something imprudent with your money. Oh, how many things Jesus has to say. Sell your possessions, give alms, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where no moth and rust destroy and thieves can't break in and steal. Your heavenly Father loves to give the kingdom to those who ask him. So, take risks with your money. I would plead with you that as you get your education and begin to rise in your vocation, whatever it is, simple, complex, high powered, low powered. As you begin to rise, if you're competent, you get paid more. What are you going to do? Bigger barns every year, bigger car every year, longer vacation every year. If you have it, spend it, it's yours. Every ad tells you to have the accoutrements of wealth about you, the right watch. Cool band here, huh? No. Set a cap. That's not easy to decide where that should be. Set your cap and everything else you're giving away. And someday you may make $800,000 a year and live on 70. God will like that very much. He will like that very much. I mean, 70 maybe too much, depends on where you live. We Americans stink in this regard. And Christians justify our lifestyles because we've just got it. It's just there. Why would you not buy it? You can afford it. And the reason is because of those eight things under the do something now category are eight out of 800,000 possibilities to bless the world. You know, got to stick this in here. I think it's of the Lord. I don't like the prosperity gospel, the health wealth and prosperity gospel. Here's the main reason. The world watching the Christian church is never drawn to Christ by our prosperity. Never. They may be drawn to the church that tells them they can prosper. That's not being drawn to Christ. What draws people to Christ is people who could have, and because they value Jesus more, don't keep. That's what draws people to Christ. They look at you and you say, "Hmm, so you could be driving that and living there and having that kind of security and that kind of comfort and that kind of notoriety." And you're choosing this. Hmm. So you must have your treasure somewhere else. I don't know of any other way that the world will be impressed with the church of Christ than by our suffering, our self-denial, our sacrifice, our big buildings, our fancy programs, our cool music is not going to draw people to Christ. What draws people to Christ is love and sacrificial love. Love that costs something. The world loves cool music. The world loves big buildings. The world loves successful programs. This is no big deal to try to imitate the world in our churches by having the biggest, flashiest, best, does not impress the world at all. They're way better than we are, even in entertainment. And so why in the world would we not want to make an impact for Christ and namely call our people over and over again to live simply wartime for the world. That's what we want to do. So that's money risking with your money. A third category would be our witness. Listen to these words. They will lay hands on you. This is Jesus talking now to his apostles. They will lay hands on you and persecute you delivering you up to the synagogues and the prisons. And you will be brought before kings and governors for my namesake. This will be a time for you to bear testimony. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends and some of you they will put to death. And I simply want to draw your attention to the word some. You live faithfully to Jesus in this world globally. Some of you in this room will be martyred. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. But not all of you. So since it's some of you and not all of you, there's risk. Am I the one? Maybe? That would be glorious, wouldn't it? Saddam Hussein thought it would be glorious in his cos. At least he said so. It wasn't glorious. But it might be for you. Remember that picture in Revelation 611 where the martyrs are under the altar in heaven, their souls, and they're crying out, "How long will the Lord until you vindicate our blood?" And Jesus says an amazing statement. He says, "Close them with robes." And he says, "Be quiet until the full number comes in of those who are to die for the sake of the name." He's got an appointed number in this room. We're going to die for Christ, explicitly because of martyrdom. But we don't know who they are. And we all risk with our witness. Maybe that's enough. I want to take 30 minutes, actually 26 minutes, for Q&A. I could go on with ministry ventures and just say again, "I'll close like this." And then you'll be thinking, "Okay, questions." And then there's some microphones out there somewhere. On what basis do you risk? Not it's romantic to take risks. Even unbelievers climb mountains and lose fingers to frostbite and stand on pinnacles and hold their ropes out like Jesus. No, that's not what's going on. I'm not calling you to be heroic. You're little children and you're frightened. And unless you turn to become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. You're little children. You're frightened. This guy's calling you to take some risk. Not to be a hero and not to be a romantic. Rather, how do you do it? You do it like this. What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword as it is written? We are being killed all day long. We are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The basis of your risk taking is the fact that you cannot ultimately take a risk for God. Every sacrifice you make, everything negative that comes to you, God takes it and makes you more than a conqueror in it. It doesn't just not defeat you. It becomes your servant to bring you home to glory. So when the martyrdom comes, you look the executioner in the face and you say, "Make my day." You dispatch me to paradise and I would love to take you with me. I would love to take you with me. Thank you for listening to this resource from desiringGod.org. If you found it helpful, we encourage you to enjoy and share from thousands of resources on our site, including books, sermons, articles, and more, available free of charge. DesiringGod.org exists to help you treasure Jesus more than anything else because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. [BLANK_AUDIO]
God calls us to risk for the cause of Christ. But a risk is never truly a risk when God holds you in his hand.