Godly Gains

By trusting Him and making Him Lord of your life, you may declare a profit.


Scripture: Mark 8:35-38, Romans 5, Matthew 10

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? I’ve just been praying that God would give me something special for you today. I trust that somebody who’s in real need of a touch from God may receive it as His Word is passed along to you and by yours truly. I believe in what we call, the miracle of the ministry, where God talks through a human throat in answer to prayer, and I’m praying and believing God today that His blessed Holy Spirit may speak a word of blessing and help and inspiration and comfort and guidance to someone who needs it.

Well, you and I are talking about Mark chapter 8 and the passages verses 35 through 38, where really following the Lord Jesus involves your goals in life, your value system in life, and your loyalties in life. I was just reviewing that with you the less time we got together. We talked about the area profit, “What shall it profit”? Profit is not in things, it starts inside His own soul.

The old-timer Methodist class leaders, have you ever been to Methodist class meeting, any of you old-timers, where they go around the circle in this little group, and inquire as to the spiritual condition of each one, and oftentimes the class leader would say, “How is it with your soul, my brother”? I adopted that phrase many years ago, when I was in the pastorate. I was full-time in the pastorate for 18 years so, pastors I know some of things that you’re experiencing, day by day, and as I greeted people I would say, “Well how is it with your soul?”, and sometimes they would get angry. I remember one young fella said, “None of your business, preacher?”, well that’s the area, beloved, of showing a profit or loss in the business of living. Your life is a business. If you want to show a profit you have to start with the area of fixed costs. It costs you something to neglect God, it costs you something to be selfish, it costs you something to be thoughtless, it costs you something to walk in the world. The fixed costs, you better look at them to see whether or not you’re running yourself out of business, and then you want to think in terms of the investment of your talents, so that they really pay out. God has given you some abilities that nobody else has in the same way. Did you know that? Every human being is unique. There’s no one else just quite like you. I said that one time and somebody looked at me and said, “Well in your case, it’s a good thing”. Well alright anyhow, you are unique. There is nobody else just quite like you and you have abilities and you have as well then you have opportunities to use those abilities, that nobody else quite has. You want to think in terms, of how am I using, how am I investing the talent that God has given me?

Life is a business. You want to declare profit? Start inside, start with your soul, start with the fixed costs, start with the product. What kind of a product are you producing? What kind of a product are you producing in your business of living, and then start thinking in terms of how well are you investing the capital that God has given you. Good idea? You businessman of course, you’re way ahead of me on these things and you could think of half a dozen more items that I might’ve mentioned, I know that, but then I only have 14 minutes every day so I can’t go too far.

Now He says, “Or having lost it, what shall a man give in exchange for his soul”? This is the other side of it. Not only is there the necessity of declaring a profit in the business of living, but if you go broke, spiritually that is to say, having lost her soul, how can you but it back? There isn’t anything in all the world that would do it. Maybe you’re a multimillionaire and you’re aware of your spiritual, poverty-stricken condition and aware the fact that you’re not in touch with God and that you’re on your way to a sinners eternity, without God, without hope in the world, this world or the next, and you say, “Here’s $10 million”, that isn’t going to do it. You can’t buy it back with the possessions and the money that this world affords. Once having lost it, what will he give in exchange for it?

So, it’s like the person who was playing with the beautiful gem as he was on the deck of the ocean liner. Remember that old story? On the deck of an ocean liner and that this man was a professional juggler and so he was delighting the audience with his skill and now he takes out of his pocket this beautiful gem, very, very, very valuable and he tosses it high in the air and it flashes as the sunlight catches its various facets, it flashes light in every direction, and it comes down, he catches it and once again he throws an even higher, comes down, he catches it. Now, he throws it the third time, much higher up into the air and the sunlight catches it, flashing those various facets of that beautiful, expensive gem, but as it’s coming down the boat, responding to the motion of the waves, is rocking, and the boat rocks just far enough, so that the man, even though he reaches way out over the rail, is not able to catch that gem and plunges into the depths of the ocean. How’s he going to get it back? It’s gone. You may be playing with life, beloved. You may be playing with your own personal qualities that God has given you. You may be wasting them, or at least risking them in thoughtless ways of life, and like some little boy caught in a childish prank, you’re apt to say, “Oh, I didn’t think”. Jesus is reminding us, beloved.Somebody needs this, who is it? Jesus is reminding us that if you’re playing with your precious life, spiritual, never dying life that is to say, your soul, if you are neglecting your soul and risking the loss of it, He says, once you lose your soul, you can never buy it back. There isn’t anything in all the universe valuable enough to buy it back. Well thank God, the Lord Jesus paid the price. Aren’t you glad?

We have in the New Testament, the word redemption and it says, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins”. The Lord Jesus Christ went into the slave market of sin and bought us with His precious blood. “For as much”, Peter says, “as you know that you were not redeemed with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without spot or without blemish, who verily was foreordained and offered for you in these last days”. Jesus our blessed Lord has paid the price of His life. See it’s a matter of life, not property, and He gave His life for you and for me. “God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners”, Paul says in Romans 5, “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, in our place’. The answer to this question, “Once having lost and what shall he give in exchange for his soul?”, is this; my friend if you’re conscious today of being apart from God and you’re searching, you’re lonely, you may be even bitter because of what life has done to you, remember this, Jesus already paid the price. It was an eternally valuable price, His life given instead of yours, and you have been bought in the marketplace of sin and you can be set free, free to serve God, because the price is been paid. Hallelujah for that. Value systems, start inside. Start inside, start with your soul, not with things.

Make sure that you have the right relationship with God. Make sure that you’re producing the right product. Your life is a business, it has to declare profit. Make sure that you have the right product, godliness. It says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain”. You want to declare a profit? Start with godliness, that’s the product. Watch your fixed costs. The things that cost you and don’t payout. There are some things that are legitimate that don’t payout, will you remember that, and you have to watch and see what it is that really pays.

The attitude I’m talking about was displayed by a young evangelist was in my office at the college, three or four years ago. He had been scheduled for a series of meetings and this was now his first meeting coming up, a chapel service. He arrived well enough early so that we could have some fellowship together, and so the brother who brought him in his car and he himself, the young evangelist and I, were sitting together in my office, and we talked of this and that as preachers will, and suddenly this young evangelist said, “We can’t waste time any longer. We’ve got a spiritual battle ahead of us. We better get to praying”, and immediately the tone of our conversation changed and we got down before God and prayed for the Lord’s working in our midst and He did indeed answer prayer. We haven’t any more time to waste. We have to get down. We got a battle here. We have to get to praying. That, my friend, is declaring a profit out of your life. It’s good to have conversation. We weren’t doing anything wrong in talking with each other, but the thing that really counts is to get in touch with God. You see the difference?
Declare a profit in your life. “What shall it profit”? Remember, if I’m talking to somebody who’s says, “Well I’m already lost”, the Bible says, “You are already lost if you’re not already saved”. Remember Jesus paid the price. Hallelujah! By trusting Him and making Him Lord of your life, you may declare a profit as well.

Now the next time we get together we’ll just start it now because there’s only a few seconds left, but the next time we get together we’ll talk about this matter of loyalties. “Your goals in life”, verse 35 of Mark chapter 8, “Your values in life”, verses 36 and 37 of Mark chapter 8, now, “Your loyalties in life”, Mark 38. “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of His father with the holy angels”. This is a correlate passenger of course for Matthew 10 where He said, “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before my father which is in heaven, but whoso shall deny Me for before men, him will I also deny before my father which is in heaven”. Jesus wants you to be proud of Him and so you have both of these passages, and as you look at them and think about them, you’ll begin to see that the basic loyalty, is loyalty to Jesus Christ as Lord. We’ll talk about that the next time we get together.

Dear Father today, may we declare an eternal profit from lives that are invested for our Lord Jesus Christ, I ask in His name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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