This is the manuscript version of a lesson I taught to the adult Sunday School class at the Bible Church of Buena Park in April of 2002..
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This morning, I want to begin by posing a question for each of you to consider in your own head. The question is, “What is faith?" or more specifically, "What is saving faith?" If you had to describe to someone what a saving faith in Jesus Christ looks like, what you say? Think about it for a minute.

Here’s another question. When you worship God, let’s say in singing, are you giving, or are you getting? Is worship a service of sacrifice to God or a response to the overwhelming blessings from God?

I want to talk this morning about faith and sacrifice by suggesting that if you are coming to God to give to God rather than to receive from God, something is very, very wrong and your faith may not survive.

As I sat in my apartment on Friday night, trying to finalize my lesson, this is the phrase that came to me so brace yourselves. The call to be a Christian is the call to never sacrifice. I’ll say it again. The call to be a Christian is the call to never sacrifice. Now that just sounds all wrong so I better quality that before I’m asked to sit down. The call to be a Christian is the call to never sacrifice the unfathomable wealth of the kingdom of God for the two-bit, low yield, here today gone tomorrow pleasures of this world.

Let me ask you, is it a sacrifice to give up the lesser, to receive the greater? Is it a sacrifice to give up your blindness so you can receive sight? Is it a sacrifice, as C.S. Lewis puts it, to give up your mud hole in the slum so you can have a holiday at the sea? Is it a sacrifice to give up hell so you can gain heaven? It is no sacrifice to give up seventy or so years of indulging the flesh so as to receive an eternity of perfect and lasting fulfillment.

Everything we give up as a Christian should be for the joy, so that we count even our greatest acts of human sacrifices as insignificant in light of what we gain. And measured in eternity, the Christian life is not a sacrifice. If you treat it as such you dishonor God.

Let me illustrate. Tomorrow is my wife's birthday, and I’m taking off work so I can be with her. Now let’s say a friend calls me and says that he just won free tickets to tomorrow's cast only screening of the new Star Wars movie. Can I come? Of course I am going to decline his invitation to be with my wife, but the motivation behind that decision will speak volumes about my love for her. Am I treating our day together as sacrifice or joy? Let’s say Carrie asks me if I wouldn’t rather be at the movie, to which I reply, “Of course I’d rather be at the movie, but I’ve sacrificed to be with you so that I can honor my duty as a husband.” Does that kind of thinking honor Carrie?

What would honor Carrie would be for her to say, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the movie?” to which I reply, “The movie?! Are you kidding? There is no place I’d rather be than with you.” If I count time spent with my wife as sacrifice, I belittle her. If I count time spent with my wife as reward, I exalt her. Such is the case with God. If we count it mere sacrifice to fellowship with God, we are essentially saying, “I’d rather be fellowshipping somewhere else.”

Well, I’ve gone long enough without interjecting any scripture so let me start with Hebrews 11:6. Whatever else you remember from this morning, remember this verse. Hebrews 11:6 states that without faith it is impossible to please God. So here we are back at faith. Now think back a few moments to the first question I asked and see how your answer matches up. The Bible marks two components of the faith which pleases God. 1) Believe that God is (and by implication it is a correct understanding of who God is). That’s good, but there are a lot of unsaved people whose theology of God is perfectly sound. The demons are certainly orthodox enough. What separates saving faith from dead faith or demon faith is the second component and that is the requirement that we believe that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Stop and feel the weight of that text. If you don’t come to God for reward then you can never please Him. Is that not amazing?

If we continue in Hebrews 11 we will eventually come to verse 24 which describes the life of Moses. It reads:

By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin...

Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of Israel, a despised people, rather than be a prince and an heir to the most powerful kingdom of his day. He gave up a life of royalty for a life of toil. Why did he do that? That seems like a tremendous sacrifice. What could motivate such a faith? Let’s read on:

By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.