High Cost of Saving Faith 

Meditation on the parables of the Hidden Treasure and a Pearl of Great Price [Matt 13:44-46]

Dear Brethren,

Are you paying a high cost for your saving faith? Well, I am not talking about working for your own eternal salvation. We can’t do anything that would merit our acceptance before God! The New Testament (NT) Scriptures are emphatic that Salvation is a Gift of God solely because of the Grace of God and we are to receive it through Faith. Faith is a means of receiving Salvation which results in our doing good works that are acceptable to God (Eph 2:8-10). Well, you may ask, “If you are not talking about Salvation by Works, then what are you talking about the high cost that is attached to Saving faith?” 

          You see, the NT scriptures contain many injunctions of Christ that seem to exact a high price for those who would follow him. I think of the example of the rich young ruler who wanted to have eternal life but turned away because he treasured his earthly riches more than Christ (Matt 19:22). We can also think of Christ’s injunction to love Him more than one’s earthly parents (Matt 10:36-39) as well as to forsake all in order to be Christ’s disciples (Luke 14:33). To be sure, Christ is not asking His would-be disciples to enter the monastery or the nunnery! From the context, it is clear that in order to follow Christ as his disciples, we would need first to reject ourselves as the owner of our own life and put Christ as the Lord of our life and be willing even to lay down our life for the Gospel because we certainly believe that it is true (Matt 16:24). Although this does not obviate the need to honour our parents or not to turn up for work on Monday morning, it certainly implies that one has to pay the high price of dethroning oneself and even be willing to die for the Gospel in order to follow Christ. It seems that the Scriptures are also clear that those who exercise true faith in Christ are more than willing to do so without coercion. This teaching is as clear as the noon day sun in the parables of the Treasure and One Pearl of Great Price (Matt. 13: 44-46). The parables teach that those who have the Kingdom of God would behave like the both the incidental founder of the treasure and the goodly-pearl seeking merchant; both cannot but sell all they have in exchange for the hidden treasure and the one Pearl of Great Price. 

           Well, I suppose, you can follow what I am trying to tell you, can’t you? Those who have true faith in Christ would be willing to pay the great price of denying themselves and follow Jesus as the Lord of their life. This means a life of seeking God’s Kingdom above all (Matt. 6:33). The grand question this Lord’s day morning is this, does your faith in Christ cost a lot to you? If your so-called faith doesn’t cost you anything, then perhaps your faith is spurious. To be sure, saving faith is not a mental accent to the truth of the Scriptures or about Christ. It is not raising your hand or walking to the front in an altar call. Saving faith consists of two significant components. It consists of heart-felt rejection of all other means by which we think we can be accepted before God on one hand, and on the other, surrendering of ourselves to the person and the work of our Lord Jesus! Christ cannot be our Saviour if he is not also our Lord. Those who have saving faith would be willing to pay the high cost associated with it. There is no dichotomy; they are both sides of the same coin!

           We are thankful to God as we witness the profession of faith this Lord’s Day morning. We certainly trust that those making profession of faith by confession and baptism this morning are willing and are paying the high cost of Saving faith!

           So, do you have true faith or not? Does your life to-date speak aloud that you are paying and are more than willing to pay the high cost of Saving faith or are you secretly a laughing stock to non-Christian friends around you? Amen.

[Published in FERC (www.ferc.org.sg) Pastoral Voice Column in Church Weekly Bulletin, dated 30^th April 2017]