“What’s It Cost?”

What’s this whole “Christian thing” worth to you?

I challenge anyone to show me anything more suited to us and our wants and needs, than the Gospel of Christ.  It is better than philosophy.  Philosophy can only disclose, only describe and classify. It cannot heal or cure.  It is like a physician who recognizes the disease but has no remedy.  The Gospel, by its own reckoning, prescribes an infallible and universal cure.

It is better than education. Education can only call out and develop what is already in us fallen creatures.  The Good News recreates the human heart and nature and lifts the person up to “the fullness of the stature of Christ.”  It penetrates straightway to the center of human necessities.

Christianity is better than morality. Morality is conformity to the law. When perfect, it is a star rolling along on its God-appointed course.  But we are broken, and His law we have disobeyed it.  Morality cannot bring it back and keep it on its course. The forgiveness of Mt. Calvary can! It brings sinners back to God, makes them one with Him, gives them a new start, and keeps them safe on their heavenward course.

The pardon of Jesus is better than philanthropy, which is the love of men for their fellow man but far greater yet is the love of God for all.  One would better our condition here and now, the other – the Gospel – would better our condition presently and forever!  One would lift us out of whatever hole we’ve fallen into here.  The “ministry of reconciliation” would lift us – to God and to heaven. (F. A Noble)

O wandering child, what’s the Gospel worth to you?

Today’s parables offer us a twist if you desire; a new and comforting perspective if we’ll see it.  Jesus’ delightful spiritual stories lift us from earth to heaven and they require that we think, as we are led by His Spirit, if we ever are to see and understand, hear and comprehend.  There is a point of invaluable worth to be found by any who will have their minds directed by the teachings of Jesus.

The question is put to you, for your serious consideration; O disobedient rebel, what would you sacrifice to be in possession of eternal life?

It is assumed from the start that this is something that you would prize, even, above anything else.  So, if you were aware of a great – yet hidden – treasure and you had the opportunity to make it your very own, at what price would you purchase it?  What would you be willing to do to guarantee that it would be unquestionably yours?

Simply put (as Jesus is known to do in his storytelling) if you came across a bounty what would you do?  So, how would this happen?  You’re fishing in a creek in a mountainous valley and a shiny yellow nugget catches your eye, and then another and several more. 

Or you’re hiking through the woods in a pathless grove of trees when you come across an ancient strong box half-buried in the ground with some shiny coins strewn about and a fancy necklace made up of precious metal and stones hanging from a fracture in its side. Cracking open the lock and pulling back the lid you find an obvious assortment of left-behind wealth long forgotten and abandoned by its former owner. 

In both instances you would stake a claim so that no one could question your ownership and then you’d enjoy the benefits of your new-found riches.  In both of these instances you’d make sure that what you found would become undeniably yours.

Dear lost one, what personal price are you willing to pay to guarantee a place living with your Savior?

For earthly treasure, nothing would get in the way of your acquiring it.  If we had the means, all would be given up in order to possess it.  But is that the way it is with your personal attraction, attachment, and affection for “the faith delivered once and for all time to the saints of God,” with all its attendant, yet presently and mostly hidden, benefits?

Furthermore, when it comes to the details of daily living, when haven’t we been willing to sell out God and godliness for gold, silver, status, or perceived credibility in the eyes of the world? This we have done way too often for momentary pleasure or peace when there really is none.  Way too often we wouldn’t recognize real long-lasting treasure if it fell into our laps.

Nevertheless, the Scriptures – and Jesus in particular – declare blessed beyond all expectations is the man, woman, or child, who sacrifices all in order to remain on the narrow and straight highway to heaven.  Blessed are those who prefer spiritual treasures to the earthly sort assailable to rust, thief, or moth!  My flesh, perhaps yours too, is more tightly connected to the earthly. Still we Christians sing: …life, goods, fame, child, and wife, though these all be gone, the victory has been won – the kingdom ours remaineth! 

 The second parable addresses the exact same issue with a pearl.  Are you willing to give up everything should a priceless gem fall into your hand?  And the same answer is that in heavenly matters we would barely recognize its value and, hungry, we’d be too quick to exchange our inheritance for a bowl of stew.

Still the point is that if we recognize the worth of a prize and we have the resources to make it our own, shouldn’t we?

In the third parable, the distinction in being caught (even as our faith is not a matter of our own reason or strength) is whether we are good or bad?  Are we made up of sweet meat or inedible?  In Minnesota, it made quite a difference between fresh and open water fishing and going for the bottom feeders.  Walleye is the delicacy not carp or catfish.

In the angelic gathering of the kingdom of heaven, are we righteous or evil?  Which designation do we deserve on account of our thoughts, words, and deeds, and what would we desire to be?  The Gospel reveals how we are recognized by our Father as His children and how we would stand rejected.  The difference (and the only difference) would be in connection with Jesus and His sacrifice for sinners.  We stand on Judgment Day as righteous if only we, by grace through faith, are covered in the robe of redemption washed clean in the blood of Jesus.  “For as many as call on His name will be saved!”  “There is salvation in no other name whereby we must be saved.” And “not by works of righteousness which we have done but by His mercy He saves us, by the washing of new birth and renewal of the Holy Spirit!”  “This is the work of God that you believe on Him whom He has sent.”

We need the assurance, NOW, through the revealed promises of God, that we possess what He treasures!  Rather that we are His possession!  So to that end, let us look again at the first two parables from a heavenly and grace-filled perspective.  This is bringing, out of the storeroom, a new treasure to enlighten us of the value of the ancient and ageless and divine.

The traditional understanding of these parables is true and good and applicable to our times and ourselves… but as they stand they are harsh and condemning law as knowing the good, and desiring it, we find in our bodies death and destruction.  Able to acknowledge it, still, we are unable to do the good to which we are called.  Any good we do falls so far below the standard of perfection which is the bar God has set for all who would be saved by doing.

Our focus needs to change from inside to outside.  My eyes cannot abide the raging wind and the waves around me, so my sight needs to be set on the Rock and Refuge who is my Savior.

Certainly, we wouldn’t pay premium prices for shoddy merchandise.  All human endeavors fall short!  As well as all our efforts to raise ourselves up from death and the grave.  We are in need of something far more substantial than what we can conjure from our strength and righteousness.

Secondly, we need to be shown and convinced that what we prize is real treasure and not fool’s gold.  We need an expert eye and appraisal.  Think of how what was garbage in the 1930s, on the “Antique Roadshow,” is worth thousands, in the eye of the expert.  Which of us on our own, finding a diamond in the rough, would be able to know its true worth once it’s processed.  A violin is just a fiddle until the name “Stradivarius” is found in its body.

St. Lawrence is said to have been required to bring to the magistrate the riches of the church that the ruler might take possession of them.  Lawrence brought the poor and indigent and had them stand before him as the church’s wealth.  This angered the man, who considered Lawrence to be playing a joke on him, and he had Lawrence tortured and killed.

Now, we are (at face value) unrighteous sinners deserving of God’s condemnation and not His acceptance. What would you pay to make the unjust, just; the unrighteous, righteous; the bad, good?  Originally, we were God’s craftsmanship!  We, to Him, were that “diamond in the rough,” a “treasure” – lost and abandoned, that elusive “pearl.”  And that we might be His fully once more, the Son of Man, gave all of Himself – His throne, His life, His blood – to “purchase us to be His very own and to live with Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.” 

My dear Christian friends, we are that treasure hidden in a field, that pearl of great price, whose value remains unknown until we observe the lengths to which God’s love through Christ Jesus would go to make us His again.  To bring us into adoption as sons and daughters of the King, He must ransom us, He must clothe us, He would house us in His own palace, and He would place His name on us.  He has made an undeniable claim that not the world, the devil, nor we can question. And He who made a beginning will bring it to completion so that we are racked up in His storehouse as the riches of the church!

Your true worth is revealed in the cost paid to free you from your slavery to the devil and return you to the Lord God, our creator and Father.  The Son of God left His throne on high to bring you into royalty and place you on a throne next to His!  He took on human flesh and nature to redeem us through His perfect obedience and through the undeserved punishment He suffered on our behalf!  Instead of life in a palace, He was born in poverty, that we might become rich in heavenly treasures!  He willingly laid down His life for His friends and took it up again to free us from the prison of the grave!  Heaven had been closed to the disobedient sons of Adam and now to the brothers of Christ the gate is wide open by simply trusting that all that Jesus did was meant for you and for your eternal welfare!

“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, the Righteous One for the unrighteous!”  “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God!”

O sinner, now saint – viewed as such in His divine eyes, you are a child of God, once because He created you and again because He purchased you by the blood of His Son!  That little bit of news, that truth, what is it worth to you??… to know that our God loves you so very, very much!  He spared no expense for your salvation!  Look at how much you are worth to Him!

Amen.