TITLE:  All Things are Loss
TEXT:  Philippians 3:7-11
PROPOSITION:  Being a Christian will cost you something.
QUESTION:  What?
KEY WORD:  Things
SCRIPTURE READING:  Same

 INTRODUCTION:

1. Many preachers try to make Christianity as painless, easy, as possible.
2. A book title – Easy Believeism
3. Jesus taught – Christianity costs!

READ: Luke 14:25-33

 You decide to follow at all costs (26)

1. woman baptized – husband kicks her out of the house
2. Student in college – converted, parents took away car, money, tuition
3. Young boy – drunk parents, “Go to church, just don’t come home.”
4. Matthew 10:34-37

 Carry your cross (27)

1. NOT: on a building, jewelry around your neck, plank to drag across USA
2. IS: Crucifixion, don’t baptize people until they have died
   1. Many have been buried alive – Romans 6:3-4
   2. Galatians 2:20 – I am crucified with Christ
   3. 2 Corinthians 15:31 – I die daily
3. Many need a lethal dose of religion
   1. Some have just enough religion to be miserable
   2. They have just enough of the world to be depressed

 Count the cost (28-32)

1. Build a tower – get some estimates
2. Enter a war – know the size and strength of the enemy
3. What will it cost you to become a Christian?
   1. Sins to stop, friends to drop, places to quit
   2. Habits to break, vocabulary to eliminate

 Forsake all (33)

1. What did you give up to become a Christian?
2. We must “Surrender All” to the purposes of Jesus
3. Letter from a communist to his girlfriend (see below)

 Conclusion:

1. We do not need a “shot” of religion
2. We need a lethal dose of Christianity
3. Explain digestion:
   1. Eat a cow (beef steak, hamburger) – it becomes ME
   2. It the steak refuses to become ME – it comes up

Letter from Communist to girlfriend

 An American College student who had been converted to communism in Mexico wrote the following letter. The purpose of the letter was to explain to his fiancée why he must break off their engagement.

 We Communists have a high casualty rate. We’re the ones who get shot and hung and lynched and tarred and feathered and jailed and slandered, and ridiculed and fired from our jobs, and in every other way made as uncomfortable as possible. A certain percentage of us get killed or imprisoned. We live in virtual poverty. We turn back to the party every penny we make above what is absolutely necessary to keep us alive. We Communists don’t have the time or money for many movies, or concerts, or T-bone steaks, or decent homes and new cars. We’ve been described as fanatics. We are fanatics. Our lives are dominated by one great overshadowing factor. The struggle for world Communism.

 We communists have a philosophy of life that no amount of money could buy. We have a cause to fight for, a definite purpose in life. We subordinate our petty, personal selves into a great movement of humanity, and if our personal lives seem hard or our egos suffer through subordination to the party, then we are adequately compensated by the thought that each of us in his small way is contributing to something new and true and better for mankind.

 There is one thing in which I am in dead earnest and that is the Communist cause. It is my life, my business, my religion, my sweetheart, my wife and mistress, my bread and meat. I work at it in the daytime and dream of it at night. Its hold on me grows, not lessens as time goes on. Therefore, I cannot carry on a friendship, a love affair, or even a conversation without relating it to this force which both drives and guides my life. I evaluate people, books, ideas and actions according to how they affect the Communist cause and by their attitude toward it. I’ve already been in jail because of my ideas and if necessary, I’m ready to go before a firing squad.

NOTE: If Communists can be as dedicated as this for their cause, how much more should Christians pour themselves out in loving, glad devotion to Jesus Christ. The Savior is not looking for men and women who will give their spare evenings to Him – or their weekends – or their years of retirement. Rather He seeks those who will give Him first place in their lives.