Investing in the Mission...

So you've decided to Live the Mission! Great! Now what? Where do we start?
At the start of any journey, you have to make sure you're prepared. You have to collect what it's going to take to begin and also finish the journey. Some ventures are more costly than others. The one we are embarking on is especially costly. But I'm not just talking finances here. Let's look at two situations where people were getting ready to follow Christ and see what it costs them.

Read Mark 10:17-22, 28-31
AND Mark 1:16-18

What is the cost of living the mission? What is the cost of following Christ wholly, without reservation? Is it always selling all your possessions and moving away from everyone you know and love?
Being part of a mission is costly. Whether that mission is going as a soldier to fight for your country or as a missionary to preach the gospel, the mission is going to cost you something. If you're taking on a mission, you're showing everyone what is most important to you.

Let's look at the rich young ruler in Mark 10. He was desperate to see Jesus, to follow Him. When he sees Jesus, he runs up to him and falls on his knees in front of him. This guy was SERIOUS about eternal life! He knew what he wanted and he knew that Jesus was the Source. He knew the law, he knew what he was supposed to do. He told Jesus that he had followed the law since he was a child. However, the entrance fee for heaven isn't the law. This man was missing the point. The commandments aren't about the law, they are about love. When Jesus sums up the law in the two commandments he gives us, the first word in both of them is love. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength" and "love your neighbor as yourself". But Jesus knew where this man's heart was. He knew what the rich young ruler really loved and held onto. Yet in spite of that, verse 21 says "Jesus looked at him and LOVED him." He already knew before he posed the question what the rich young ruler's response would be, but Jesus loved him anyway. Knowing full well where this man's heart was Jesus tells him in verse 21 "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Verse 22 tells us the rich young ruler's response. "At this the man's face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth." He was sad because he didn't value following Jesus as much as his earthly possessions. We don't know for sure what became of the rich young ruler, but we assume that he went back to his life as it was.

Now let's look at the disciples response to Jesus in Mark 1. Verse 18 says that "At once, they left their nets and followed him (Jesus)". What is the difference between these two situations? The rich young ruler invested his time and effort into his wealth and possessions, even though he thought he was passionate about the Kingdom of God. Instead, when push came to shove, he chose riches over Christ. The disciples, on the other hand, left everything they owned to follow Christ.

Now, since most of you reading this probably still live at home, I'm going to assume that God hasn't called you to drop everything you know and go be a missionary somewhere completely foreign to you. Some of you might get a calling like that later in life, or maybe not. You might be called to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, CEOs or garbage truck drivers and in all of those professions you can be a missionary. But I don't want to talk about that part of your life. I'm talking about here and now. Living the mission doesn't start when you go to college or when you graduate or get married. Living the mission is about today and everyday.

What does it cost to live the mission? Mark 12: 30 lays it out plainly. It's gonna take all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind. It's going to take you putting others ahead of yourself.

With that said, let's make it personal. What is the price you are currently paying for Christ? Think about it for a minute. If the price you're currently paying is only the extra sleep you would be getting on Sunday morning, than it's not enough. If it's only the 10% of your pay check or allowance that you grudgingly set aside for a tithe, than maybe it's time for a change in perspective.

Let's look back at Mark 12:29. "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied, 'no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields-and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.'" Did you catch that? The interest rate for investing in the Kingdom of God is a hundred fold!

OK, let's plug in real numbers. Say this week you got paid $100 dollars.
$100 (Yay I'm rich!)
What if I told you that if you gave me $10 dollars from your allowance that I would give you $1000 in two weeks? Pretty sweet deal huh? In fact, I bet you wouldn't even think about it being a sacrifice. In fact, you'd probably offer me the whole $100! Because...
$100 x 100 fold=$10,000 (Yay, I'm really rich!)
Now that's an investment worth selling everything I have for! Read Matthew 13:44-46.
Now, I'm not saying that if you tithe you're going to be a multi-millionaire. But if you're faithful with tithing and giving generously to the Lord, then you're going to be blessed. That's not my promise. That's the Lord's.
But what if we had this attitude of giving? What if we wanted to give the Lord that whole hundred, not just because we knew what we would get out of it, but because we knew the Lord would bless it? What if we loved him enough to offer it to him, just because we wanted to honor him? It would totally change the way we give. We wouldn't call it sacrifice, we would call it investment.

Whether you know it or not, you are always making investments. The continual investment is love, shown by your time and the priorities in your life. God's commandment is that we invest love in Him and His Kingdom by loving those around us. If we're not investing in those things, we're investing love in other things: ourselves, money, our reputation, our X-box, among other things.

In his book, "The Four Loves", C.S. Lewis writes this about investing love. "There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."
Love is an investment and it is dangerous. But put it in the right place, and it will be totally worth it; a hundred fold what you paid for it!

DISCLAIMER: You can't make an investment in the stock market if you're living pay check to pay check. Unless you are taking care of your financial present, you can't take care of your financial future. It's the same in God's economy. If you haven't first accepted Christ, it won't do you any good to good good deals. First, make a choice to accept the Lord into your heart. If you haven't done that, pray this prayer:
Father God, I know that I am a sinner, and that I can't save myself.
I believe that You sent your Son to die on the cross for my sins.
Please come into my heart and be my Savior. Thank you for your
sacrifice and for loving me unconditionally. Help me to live like You.
In the Precious Name of Jesus, Amen