Asking the Tough Questions

What are you attracted to? What is it that moves you in this life? There's something that gets you up off the couch. What is it? Gold or God? You choose. But where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Which one is the greater appeal to your soul? Which one's driving you? Which one gets you up in the morning? Which one lifts you off the couch? Which one will cause you to risk life and live? Gold or God? Do you really trust him? Do you believe that his word is in fact the word of God and wholly backed by the integrity of the Almighty? He promises to back those who believe and he cannot lie. So are you willing to lay it on the line in this generation to prove your God faithful? Or are you one of the humbugs? I pray thee, have me excused. You're busy.

And so though we have a dying world out there and some of them right down the street, I pray thee, have me excused. And I'm not one that can really accomplish that. Well, C.T. Studd was 52 years old on death's doorstep.

He said, God, don't pass me over. You see, there's a discrepancy between us and C.T. Studd. We need what he had.

Do we have a C.T. Studd in our midst that's willing to say, I don't care what it comes with. There are lost. There are those needful of Jesus Christ.

God, send me. Would you rather that someone else go instead? Oh, God, thanks for bringing that up. I think in this situation, it probably would be good that someone else went instead of me.

I mean, I think, could you give me a few other options? Because that option really just doesn't resonate with me. If you have like a longer list and I can just sort of pick which job description I would like, are you gonna let someone else get the job description that God designed specifically for you? Do you have a limit to your obedience? It's like, I will follow God to this point. Anything beyond this point is extreme.

Who came up with that? Doesn't God own you? Don't you realize that he purchased your body? You belong to Jesus Christ. You've submitted your life to him. He can do with you what he wishes.

So who are you to give your life to Jesus Christ and then define the terms of how he will use your life? Do you have a limit to your obedience? Because if you have a limit to your obedience, something's wrong with your Christianity. Am I willing to serve forgotten and without applause? We really like to be known and we really like the applause. Let's just admit it and then let's answer the question.

Are we willing to forgo that? Am I willing to forgo the comforts of life? If any of you are Americans in here, you know the value we put on the comforts of life. God wouldn't actually ask me to forgo those, would he? That's not right. Are you willing is the question.

It doesn't mean he will ask you to just be miserable. The question is, are you willing to go where there aren't comforts? You know, there's other places in this world. If you haven't traveled much, you'll find it out that aren't like America.

You know, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia. You know, there's some rough places out there. Liberia doesn't even have electricity, paved roads.

And they need Jesus Christ. Are you willing to give up the comforts of life for your king? By the way, life on earth is very short. Are you willing to give up the short season of your existence to serve your king well, no matter what the cost? Am I willing to go anywhere, no matter the danger or darkness? Anywhere.

Anywhere is the question. Not just to the easy spots. Anywhere for king and kingdom.

Because if you say no, who do you expect in this generation to say yes? Am I willing to let go my reputation? You know, when you serve Jesus Christ, you become the misunderstood. It doesn't happen always immediately, but sometimes it does. Where people start looking at you like, what in the world's wrong with you? They start passing little rumors about you too.

All sorts of little tales can begin to float through the air or over the internet. You stand for something and you're immediately misunderstood, despised. Sometimes hated would be a good word to describe it.

Jesus was described as a worm and no man in Psalm 22. Are you willing to be a worm and no man in this generation? Am I willing to die young for the sake of Christ? Am I willing to live lonely among the heathen? Am I willing to suffer in my body? Am I willing to be an et cetera, an insignificant, a nobody for the glory of Jesus Christ? Do you require notoriety? Are you willing to serve unnoticed? Well, I'd go to interior Africa. They don't really have the news cameras that can capture all my good deeds down there.

I need to be noticed. Doesn't God want us to be famous so that he can make a name for himself? If I increase, maybe he can increase that way. No, actually the pattern for him increasing is you decreasing.

That's the great secret for increase in the kingdom of heaven. We get out of the way. Are you willing to be one of Christ's et ceteras or must you be one of Christ's somebodies? Is this for your reputation or for his? I want you to realize what we're defining here isn't extreme Christianity.

It's Christianity. It's the way it's always been. Gold or God? Which one lifts you off the couch? Which one will cause you to risk life and live? Gold or God? Which one would you gamble to get more of? Because men and women all throughout history have gambled to get gold.

But which of us is willing to gamble our lives and put it all on the line to get more God? Gold or God? You choose.