If you count yourself dead already, you will no longer be asking, what am I going to do with my life? The Christian is a person who is asking a new question, which is, what does Jesus Christ want me to do with my life and what is the single most useful thing that I can now do for him? What is the best that I can do for my God? Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, and Colin, that’s a very provocative question. You know, the message we’re hearing today is one that really came from a heavy burden on my heart to bring to the congregation I’m very privileged to serve here at the Orchard, a challenge and an ask. God is the God who asks for sacrifice, and he does it for the sake of our eternal joy. And leaders therefore ask, and so there’s an ask for Christian people to pray, there’s an ask to serve, there’s an ask for a generosity of spirit in giving. And that’s not just for the one congregation I serve, these are things that God asks of us. And whenever he asks for sacrifice from any of us, he is always doing it for the ultimate purpose of your greater joy. So keep that in mind as you hear this challenge, and as you try to respond to the question what is the best that I can do for my God? How can I best serve? How can I best pray? How can I be all that God is calling me to be in this short life that I have to offer to him now? This is a very powerful message, so I hope you can join us. Please, if you can, open your Bible to the first book of Kings, chapter 17. Today we’re looking mainly at verses 7 to 16. As we continue the message, why God asks for sacrifice, here’s Colin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, when Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die. And he’s taking that, of course, directly from the words of Jesus that we quoted. If anyone would come after me, Jesus says, he must take up his cross and follow me. What does taking up the cross mean? Taking up the cross means that you consider yourself already dead. That’s what it means. A guy who is carrying the cross is not simply carrying a heavy load, he is on the way to his execution. He’s got one hour left to live. He considers himself already dead. My friend, that is at the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. Colossians chapter 3, you died. That’s the starting point of being a Christian. And your life is now hidden with Christ in God. And if you count yourself dead already, truly, then all that you have has already been released because that’s what happens when a person dies. The owner died and all that you once owned is now in the hands of God and it has already passed from you and you live with that knowledge, it is not mine, I died. If you count yourself dead already, you will no longer be asking, what am I going to do with my life? A Christian is a person who has given that up already, I died. A Christian is a person who is asking a new question, which is, what does Jesus Christ want me to do with my life and what is the single most useful thing that I can now do for him? What is the best that I can do for my God? That is a totally different question and it will lead to a totally different life. What is the best that you can do for your God? God may allow you to earn twice, three times, four times the amount that other people in this congregation earn and then to give half, three quarters or more than that away for the advance of the gospel. That would be the best you could do, that would be fantastic. And think what could be accomplished through that in ten years of ministry. God may call others of you to live on half of what you were living before and to show what it means to be content and to love Christ in a simpler lifestyle. And think of the power of that testimony in this suffocatingly materialistic culture. The best you can do for your God may be for some of us to move to Southeast Asia and for you to use your professional expertise as a teacher, as a medic, or as a business person to build a platform from which churches may be planted among 250 million Malay speaking Muslims, 250 million. Our team left just Friday to meet with Asian church leaders that are there today to identify what the Orchard can do to bring the gospel to communities of people among 250 million Malay speaking Muslims who desperately need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Asians must plant the church, but what we’ve been asked to do is to be able to send people with professional expertise who can build platforms from which the church will be built in a very hostile culture. And when they come back, we will be beginning to pray, to look for folks in this congregation who will go and will serve for a year, will serve for two years, will build these platforms so churches will be planted. And friends, this is not travel experiences for Christians. It could mean you becoming the Orchard’s first missionary martyr. But if you count yourself dead already, that will not deter you. Leaders ask. They ask for great sacrifices. Every father is placed by God in a position of leadership responsibility in his family. So what are you asking of your son, Dad? What are you calling him to? What is the vision of life you are modeling for him? What are the commitments you are asking of your daughter? The default pattern in our culture has so often become that we, as parents, ask our children what they want and then see that the definition of a good parent is to give them what they want, to give them what they ask. That’s completely the wrong way around. If your approach to parenting is to ask your children what they want, you are not leading. Leaders ask. They make the ask. So what are you asking of your son? What are you calling him to? What are you modeling for him? How are you showing him what a life that takes up the crosses looks like so that he will have something to admire and something to follow and say, I see something in Dad that arises so much from a love of Jesus that it’s real and I want something that’s real. Our kids are desperately looking for something that is real. And then what promise are you speaking into your son or your daughter’s life? Did you hear that in Adeniron Judson’s letter to his future father-in-law? Can you consent to see her no more in this world? That is an amazing sacrifice. But did you hear the promise? But next time you see her, to see her with a crown of glory on her head, can you consent to that? Leaders call for great sacrifice for the sake of greater joy. Guys, that shows I’ve been in America 16 years, I’m sorry. Sixteen years ago, you asked me to come halfway around the world in order to give leadership to this congregation. And it continues to be my great privilege to be entrusted with that calling by you. But if you ask someone to lead, you have to expect them to ask. To lead you means that I must, if I am a leader worthy of the name at all, ask you for great sacrifices, lead by example in making them myself, and hold before you great promises of infinitely greater joy. Let me make three asks of you today. The first is an ask to serve. You say you do not want the church to be like a consumerist mall. God save us from that. You want it to be a functioning body. What will you do? How are you going to serve? I ask you to serve. And I ask you to serve in the way that will be the best possible thing, the largest possible thing, the greatest possible contribution that you could make to the life of the body of Christ and the advance of the gospel here and around the world. And for someone that may mean Southeast Asia. For someone it’s a Sunday school class. But for everyone, it’s something. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, Why God Asks for Sacrifice. And we’ve started to look at the ways God can ask us to make sacrifice. It’s an ask to serve, and we’ll look at two more ways in a moment. Remember if you ever miss one of our broadcasts or you want to go back and listen again, you can always do that by going online to openthebible.org.uk. You can download a message as an MP3 or just go back and listen to it online. Back to the message now. Here’s Colin. Second, I want to ask you to give. Many in our congregation have established a regular pattern of giving as a defining mark of obedience to Christ. What about you? Have you done that? Elijah’s words, by the way, to the widow, hold the key to faithful giving. Notice it in verse 13, very important to grasp this, very practical. Do not fear. That’s where it begins. You’ve got to have faith in order to give. You’ve got to have faith. So do not fear. Go and do as you have said, but first make me a little cake and bring it to me and afterwards make something for yourself and for your son. And friends, very simply, the only way to give when things are tight is to give what God is asking of you first. In other words, set aside what you will give first. Then work out what it will take for you to live on the rest. I am urging you to have a plan for giving and to set what that percentage is going to be for this year and for a husband and a wife to sit down and to say, oh God, this is what you’re giving to us. What are we going to commit to releasing right from the beginning, off the top? So when we came to this country and found out what we would be living on, we said, okay, there’s our giving off the top. The second thing is we made a commitment we would go back to England and see our families. So that’s going to cost quite a lot of money with four airfares. And so here’s number one, here’s number two, now here’s what we live off. Because these things were commitments in that order. And so what can we afford to do living off this? You will never establish a regular pattern of obedience to God unless you start with the principle of Elijah here in 1 Kings in chapter 17 and verse 13, but first make me a cake. And the woman’s going to be saying, how can I possibly do that? If you try to give out of what is left at the end of the month or have a look at what’s happened at the end of the year and so forth and so on, you will never do what God is calling you to do. And faithfulness in giving, folks, is going to mean some very tough questions. Does what we give reflect a life commitment of our family to make the gospel run here and around the world, really? You know, you say to your kids, God first, does what we give as a family, does what we give as a couple, does what I give as an individual, whichever that is for you, does it reflect a life commitment to make the gospel run here and around the world? Because if that is not the first commitment of your life, what is? Can you really say that your first financial commitment in good times and in bad is to give to God a significant portion of what he has given to you to be used in his great purpose of the advance of the gospel around the world? Until the day when you’re there in heaven with the crown of glory and you say, that was the very best thing I did in all of my life, was what I contributed to the advance of the gospel and how I engaged in the advance of the gospel. Friends, this is not difficult for a person to do if you have taken up the cross and counted yourself dead already. This is certainly not difficult to do for a person who has heard the promise that losing your life is the way to keep it. And then I urge you with this, because perhaps many of us have got into a position where we are so straightened financially because of decisions that we make that we have lost so much of the liberty that God intended us to have. Every time you make a financial commitment, ask yourself, what would this mean for my giving to God? Ask yourself that question. If I make this financial commitment, what would it mean for my giving to God? If buying a new house would make it impossible for you to give 10% of your income, why would you buy that house? If your daughter going to a particular college would make it impossible for you to honor God in tithing your income, why would your daughter want to go to that college if she knew that that was what it meant? If an investment that you could make could not be released were it that God himself were to move you to do so, why would you put yourself in that position? If honoring God with your money means, friend, selling your house and moving to something smaller, do it, and tell your children why you are doing it. Son, we’ve got to honor God first, and we’ve been living beyond our means. You will teach your child more in that move to trade the American dream for a life of serving Jesus Christ than in all your talk. Christ says whoever saves his life will lose it, and as long as you pursue the American dream, you are losing your life. It is slipping away. It’s like sand going through your fingers. And already you may be in a position where there were things that you could have done, and you can’t do them now. Now you’re in a position where God is speaking into your life. A few years from now, you may not be able to do what you can do now. Don’t drift through life, my friend, and slide into old age, a lukewarm Christian. That’s losing your life. Laskas today is simply an ask to pray, and it comes from a heart that is increasingly burdened and increasingly desiring of a greater joy and a fuller walk with Christ for all of us. You know, the great missionary William Carey used to say, expect great things from God and attempt great things for God. What a terrible thing it would be for an individual or for a church to stand in the presence of God on the last day and have James 4.2 quoted to us. You have not because you ask not. You do not have because you do not ask. And I will tell you what is keeping me awake at night. I love this church, as I hope you do, and I’m asking the question, what will it take for this church to leverage its full potential for the advance of the gospel around the world? That’s the question. What will it take for this church to leverage its full potential for the advance of the gospel here and around the world? And my answer begins here. It will take a movement of the Holy Spirit to raise the spiritual temperature in all of our lives. That’s what it will take. And I ask you to join me in praying for that. Risky prayer. The Bible tells us that a church can be hot, that a church can be cold, and that a church can be somewhere in between, lukewarm. There is such a thing as spiritual temperature. How do you measure it out? It is a reflection of the commitment, the sacrifice, the faith, the prayer, the vision, the passion of God’s people in that community. That’s spiritual temperature. Great things have happened in this last year, my friends. So much has been accomplished for the advance of the gospel, but so much more is still to be done. And I am asking God to lay it on the heart of every member of this church who is not yet given a significant portion of their income to begin honoring Christ by doing so this year. Will you pray for that with me? My last word is this. Put yourself in the shoes of the widow of Zarephath. She hears the call to sacrifice. She hears the great promise of God’s provision. The challenge is simple. Does she believe the promise of God or not? She looks at the jar and the jug. She looks at the promise of God, jar and the jug, the promise of God, jar and the jug, promise of God. Which is she going to trust? She stakes everything on the promise of God. The jar of flour does not fail and the jug of oil does not run dry. What a tragedy if this woman had said to Elijah, you know, I’d really like to help you but I just can’t. Nobody dies wishing they had given Christ less. Nobody. I end with this, if you wonder what happened after Adonai Aron Judson’s letter. Well Anne Hasseltine’s father must have said yes because she became his wife. And Anne must have said yes. When I read the letter to the father-in-law, I wonder what his proposal to Anne was like. Can you imagine? And they went together, newly married couple, off to Burma. Judson himself was imprisoned. He was tortured. He was marched barefoot across the country. He was suspended for periods upside down by his ankles. And through his ministry, the church was established in Burma and flourishes today. Anne had her own remarkable ministry. Her own life story is compelling reading. A woman of extraordinary courage. She did become ill and she died after just 14 years of marriage. That was 186 years ago. And she has been wearing the crown of glory ever since. Really a challenging message today. Why God asks for sacrifice and it’s so much more than finance. We’ve been reminded today that God asks us to serve and to pray. If you want to go back and listen again or if you ever miss a programme, you can always catch up online. Go to openthebible.org.uk. Or you can now hear any of Pastor Colin Smith’s messages as a podcast. Just go to your favourite podcasting site, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe. You’ll be reminded when there’s a new message available. Open the Bible Daily is a series of short two to three minute reflections written by Pastor Colin Smith and read by Sue MacLeish. Sue was in the studio recently and I asked what people were saying to her about Open the Bible Daily. Well, it’s early days, but several comments I’ve received are encouraging. One came from a young mother who’d recently given birth to her second child. She’d been worried that she wasn’t finding time for her normal Bible reading and study. But Open the Bible Daily had proved to be just the right length and content for her at this time. Oh yes, and then I received an email a few weeks back from a much older person who’d started listening regularly to Open the Bible Daily and had already recommended it to several of her friends. So, David, how can people find the podcast? Well, Sue, you can find the podcast on any of the regular podcasting sites. Just search for Open the Bible UK and look for the purple banner. You can subscribe to the podcast and you’ll receive Open the Bible Daily every day on your device. We’ll be continuing with our series, The Surprising Influence of a Godly Life, on our next broadcast. For Open the Bible and for Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll be able to join us then. You say that you believe that God exists. That’s good. Now, are you willing to trust his promises enough to obey him? That’s where every journey of faith begins. Find out how to take this important step next time on Open the Bible.