ALL IN!
The life you were created to experience is not for the timid or faint of heart.
Jesus challenges you to go ALL IN with Him everyday!

ALL IN for the Sacrifice that Can’t Be Lost!

(Music - Kenny Rogers, "The Gambler", 1:12-1:36)

All month long we’ve been talking about going ALL IN with Christ.

Here’s our theme verse:

"God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, love and self-discipline." – II Timothy 1:7

I think that’s the kind of life you want. You desire a life of love and power and self-discipline because God created you to want that. God made you to live in such a way that to those who don’t know Him, it looks like you’re a risk-taker and a gambler.

What those outside the church need to see when they look at the body of Christ, the church, is a community of people who live dangerously and wonderfully. A little radical and against the culture. A mixture of tenderness and toughness that is strangely attractive to those outside the faith.

You see, going ALL IN is radical. When you invest all you have and give all of yourself to something, normally the possibility exists that you might lose and end up with nothing.

That’s why I say to those who don’t know God, it can look like Christ-followers are risk-takers and gamblers.

What happens if you give your time to serving and encouraging others, and then someone in the church hurts you or lets you down?

What happens if you faithfully give your money in a regular offering to support the church’s mission and ministry, and then you don’t have enough to go on that big vacation or you can’t buy the next house or you can’t retire comfortably?

What happens if you are consistent in worship and Bible study and prayers, and then a loved one dies unexpectedly or you lose your business or someone gets sick and you can’t do all the things you’d always planned?

That’s the risk, isn’t it? You could roll the dice on God and get – snake eyes!

I think that’s the way you could look at faith if you don’t have any. And to be honest with you, even those who have faith, those of us who are growing in faith, those of us who are trying to follow Christ – even we can wonder sometimes, is all this worth it?
That question can give us pause. It can make us hesitate. And if we’re not sure we can answer the question, then we might try to just put one foot in when following Jesus.

One foot in His world, and one foot in this world. Just give me enough religion and spirituality to feel safe and comfortable and peaceful.

But one problem with that is when you try to have a safe and peaceful Christianity, you don’t really have peace at all.

Instead you get this sense that you’re missing out, and you know there’s more to it, and you’re constantly conflicted about whether you should take the plunge and go ALL IN or just fold and walk away.

So let’s address the question. Can you lose with Christ? Can you give your life wholeheartedly to God and end up with nothing to show for it?

I’ve mentioned before that the Jesus’ disciples were concerned with this very issue. The Gospels record that when Jesus challenged a rich man to give away all his wealth to the poor if the man truly wanted to follow Jesus, that the man declined and walked away. And then Jesus said that it was very hard for the rich person to enter the kingdom of God, because they valued their wealth and possessions more than Him.

And that’s when you have this exchange between Jesus and Peter:
"Peter said to Him (Jesus), ‘We have left all we have to follow You! ’ (Matthew’s Gospel records that Peter even asks, what then will there be for us?)

‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus said to them, ‘no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.’" – Luke 18:28-30

Now let’s be clear what Jesus isn’t saying here. He’s not saying that if you give up something for Him, you will become richer in material things.

Every time you give $100 in offering, you’re not guaranteed that God will give you $10,000 later. That would be a hundred-fold increase, and if that investment strategy worked, every church and Christian would be insanely wealthy. And that probably would not be a good thing. You can imagine all the issues that would cause.

What Jesus means in part is that if you are deprived of your earthly family in the service of Christ because you had to leave them or they abandoned you, that loss will be made up a hundredfold in your spiritual family – the church. But that’s only part of what Jesus is saying, because there are situations where people are called to follow Jesus into lonely places. Every believer is not always surrounded and encouraged by hundreds of brothers and sisters and parents and children in the faith.

So another part of what Jesus means is that He Himself makes up for the loss.

If you give up a mother’s nearby affection and concern, you get back one hundred times the affection and concern from the ever-present Christ. If you give up the warm companionship of a brother, you get back one hundred times the warm and camaraderie from Christ.

If in following Jesus you give up the sense of at-homeness you had in your house or in your hometown, you get back one hundred times the comfort and security of knowing that your Lord owns every house and land and stream and tree on earth, so you will be at home with Him everywhere you go.

What Jesus is saying to you is this: I promise to work for you and be for you so much that you will not be able to speak of having sacrificed anything in this life. And in eternity, the next age, you will even receive more blessing and reward. Nothing will be lost.

Eight days ago was David Livingstone’s birthday. He was born March 19 ^th in 1813. David Livingstone was a Scottish doctor who left a comfortable life in England to explore and evangelize the continent of Africa. Here is what he said to students at Cambridge about leaving the benefits of England behind:

"For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice." – Dr. David Livingstone

Livingstone eventually died in Africa. So some might say he sacrificed his life for Christ and the kingdom of God, even as many others have done through the centuries. But Jesus has something to say about that, as well.

"Everyone who lives because of faith in Me will never really die." – the words of Jesus recorded in John 11:26, CEV

You see, for the one who goes ALL IN with Christ, even death is gain, for as the Apostle Paul says, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Death is not separation, it is a change of location and a promotion, and it gets people of faith closer to the ultimate reunion of all who know Christ.

You can’t sacrifice your life, because Jesus says if you lose your life for His sake, you gain it.

You can’t sacrifice your money by giving it to God’s work, because God is the owner of all things, and He has promised to bless those who honor Him in investing their resources in His kingdom. The kingdom that is promised to you has streets made of gold.

You can’t sacrifice your time in serving Christ, because eternity with God and His goodness awaits. You’ll always have the right amount of time you need to do His will.

I want you to understand that nothing can be lost with Christ. It isn’t a gamble or a risk to follow Jesus.

In my own life, God asked me to give up going to law school and the promise of comfort and prestige that life held in order to make an eternal impact for His kingdom.

God asked me to faithfully give of my financial resources and give up some of the material blessings and the financial safety net that is so appealing in this world in order that I might test and strengthen my faith in the God who always provides.

God asked our family to leave the relative security of an established church here in my hometown and to risk that people I cared for and served with would misunderstand and criticize my actions in order that more people in our community might have the opportunity to connect with God and experience His love and power through faith in Christ at the Revolution.

Now I must say, as David Livingstone and others have, I have never made a sacrifice. I have lost nothing.

Here’s how the Apostle Paul puts it:

"I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him." – the apostle Paul writing in Philippians 3:7-9

This is the life you are called to live, you were created to live. A life that seems to some to be risky and radical and dangerous.

You can serve others without considering what you will get out of it.

You can give to God’s work without calculating the money and things that you will not be able to possess.

You can commit your time and your talents and your efforts without worrying that you’re wasting your life.

You can go ALL IN and Sacrifice, because you know with Christ, you will never lose what you’re giving up.

(Respond Video)