The Cost

October 18, 2016

This morning I was listening to InTouch with Dr. Charles Stanley. He has been doing a series on convictions. Today’s message was called “Your Convictions about the Crucifixion.” I have the habit of listening to these sermons as I get ready in the morning. Today as I was listening he said something that really struck me. He was talking about Romans 3:23 and how the cross was all about sin. God hates sin and then he said “God doesn’t ignore your sin. Your sin cost God, the Father His son Jesus.” That statement hit me hard. 

I began to think about my own life. Our human nature tells us that we are not that bad. At least we are not like this person or that person. We have never killed anybody and so we fail to see the wickedness of sins like lying, sex before marriage (fornication), idolatry (putting anything before God ie. money, pride, etc.) and jealousy (coveting something your neighbor has). If the only thing we are guilty of is lying every now and then and its not even really lying it is exaggerating some details then God is not going to care about that. WRONG! Sin is sin. He hates all forms of sin. It is our sin that cost Jesus Christ His life.

John 3:16 is an often quoted scripture “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” You see this verse displayed on signs, bumper stickers, facebook pages, etc. It is a beautiful scripture that reminds us of the price that was paid, but does it? In other words when you hear or read this scripture what do you think about? What part of it stands out to you? Is it that God loves everybody in the world? Is it that Jesus died for our sins? Is it that if you believe in Jesus you get to go to heaven? Do we read this scripture and think about the depth of the sacrifice? Do we think about what it cost God?
I wonder how we would feel if you donated part of your liver to save the life of someone else. You would be grieved at what you lost, but happy that your sacrifice saved another life. Now imagine how you would feel if you saw the person who received part of your liver choosing to continually live an unhealthy lifestyle of heavy drinking that could lead them to liver failure. They are nice and friendly, they are not hurting anybody, but they are not taking care of the liver that they have been given. How would you feel? Their new chance at life cost you something so what they do matters to you.

Now think about sin. We are human and we live in a fallen world. We are not perfect so we will experience moments where we give in to sin. Its what we do in those moments that matter. When we accepted Christ as our savior we accepted what He did for us at the cross. We exchanged our sins and our sinful nature for His righteousness. He created us as a new creature in Him. That is why we are “born again.” We are born of the spirit with the power of Christ in us to walk in righteousness. Sin has no hold on us. What that means is that we may mess up and sin, but it doesn’t have a hold on us. It can’t trap us and cause us to be caught up in repeating it. When we commit the same sin over and over we are choosing to do that. We are choosing to try and work it out through our own power instead of the power of Christ within us. Each time we do that we are ignoring what our sin cost God the Father. We are like the person who has part of our liver, but still chooses to make bad decisions with the new life they have been given.

So the next time you think that your sin is so small that it doesn’t matter, it is not hurting anything, it is barely a sin remember that it cost God His son Jesus Christ.