A Risk Worth Taking

We’re a culture of risk takers. In fact, this country was built by men and women who took risks.

They sailed across an ocean some thought would lead to falling off the face of the earth. They fled England to start a country built on freedom. And they ventured west to expand the nation.

Today’s risk takers, however, are far less to be celebrated. Men and women are taking risks with multiple sex partners. They’re taking risks with prescription medication. They’re taking risks by watching pornography or having adulterous affairs.

There are some risk takers in our world who have it right. They are preaching the name of Jesus Christ and risking quite a lot. In some countries, Christians are being killed for spreading the gospel. It’s that important to them.

What about us? What are we risking to share the gospel? In this country, you’re not really risking your life. Perhaps your job, maybe some friends you shouldn’t be hanging out with anyways. But the big risk in our day? Our pride. We don’t want to look or feel stupid.

I’ll be the first one to stand up and say, ‘That’s me." I’m afraid of being rejected, being seen as not credible, and being laughed off.

Of all the sins I have committed, it’s failing to share the gospel that bothers me most. Why am I so afraid? I can open the Bible to almost any point and see men and women risking their lives to tell others about God and Jesus and the redemptive blood that was shed on the cross so we could have eternal life.

The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:16, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.” I think he’s saying, if you have trusted the gospel and you know the gospel, and it’s changed your life, why wouldn’t you want to share it?

There are real risk takers all throughout scripture. There was Ester, who said, “If I perish, then I perish.”

Then you had Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who would not bow down to a graven image as commanded by Nebuchadnezzar. The king threatened them and said that if they did not worship the image, they would be thrown into the fiery furnace.

Their answer: “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up,” (Daniel 3:16-18).

Author and pastor John Piper writes in “Don’t Waste Your Life” that this was sheer risk. They believed God would deliver them, but even if God chose not to, they weren’t bowing down to an idol.

In 2 Samuel 10: 12, it says, “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the LORD do what seems good to him.”

Take note of the second part, “May the Lord do what seems good to him.”

Remember, it’s all about his glory not ours.

Paul recognized that truth and wrote about it the book of Acts. In Acts 20:23, he writes that the Holy Spirit “testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me."

He recounts in 2 Corinthians what he endured to share the good news of Jesus: “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

And you and I are afraid of being embarrassed? Are you kidding me?

Piper said Paul had two choices: waste his life or live with risk. And he answered this choice clearly: "But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God," (Acts 20:24).

I want to remind you that Jesus warned us of being persecuted in his name. In Luke 21:16, Jesus says, “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death.” And, in John 15:20, Jesus says, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

To become a Christian some 2,000 years ago, by believing that Jesus was the messiah, died on the cross and was resurrected from the dead by God was to put your life at risk.

We can, in the United States, make this life-saving decision without such threat. So let’s not waste our lives.

God, help us not be ashamed of the gospel, so much so that we want to share it with our friends and family and co-workers and the woman taking our order at the drive-thru.

Take away our fear and anxiety and mostly our pride. Help us see that our time here is short and that today could be our only chance to share how Jesus has changed our lives.

I pray we do this for your glory and in Jesus’ name. Amen.