It is said that William Booth the founder of the Salvation Army had very few sermons. One of his favorites was a sermon entitled, “Who Cares?”  And in this sermon he told of a dream he had had. It is more of a nightmare really – a nightmare of a stormy sea and a violent sky.

He said, “As I looked upon this and saw the tossing waves and the raging wind to my horror I perceived in the violence of the storm and darkness of the sky, human beings shrieking, plunging down, crying out, pleading for help and for rescue."

And as he saw these thousands of people crying out in this storm suddenly emerging from the middle of their pain there came a great white rock and around it was this broad ledge. And he said that in his dream he saw people emerging out of the sea and finding safety on the rock. As he looked further he saw those same people reaching down and pulling loved ones out and contriving by rope ladders and by any means possible to bring other people out of the raging sea. He even witnessed those people who had been saved jumping back into the sea in order to bring others to safety.

But then as the dream went on William Booth witnessed something that really puzzled him. He said that he saw the number of people on the rock grow and grow so that now there was a substantial number of people safe from the storm and the raging sea. "And what puzzled me most," said Booth, “was that as soon as there was a substantial number of people safe from the storm and even though all had been rescued at one time or another from the ocean nearly everyone seemed to have forgotten about those who remained in the sea and they no longer seemed to care."

It is good to hear such stories from time to time because sometimes those of us who are safe on the Rock of Jesus Christ forget that all those who are not on the Rock are in the sea drowning. We need to hear about such dreams and visions, because sometimes we in the church – well, our focus is a bit fuzzy. And we forget the purpose of the church.

We sometimes get to thinking that the purpose of the church is to sustain the church – you know, making sure minutes are kept, budgets met, buildings and programs maintained. And the Holy Spirit has to break in us sometimes by means of dreams and visions to remind us that the church exists for those who are not in the church. Those things, maintaining the church, are good and have their place but it’s not what we are about. That’s not the goal. The purpose of the church to go to the lonely and sick and outcast and share the good news of God’s love for them in Jesus Christ.

Now I know you know that I’m preaching to the converted. You have a passion for those who do not know the love of Jesus Christ. You have demonstrated that passion again and again. You really want your neighbors and friends and relatives to know the love of Christ. You are praying for those who do not know Christ and so many of you are involved with the Alpha program and we all are praying that it be will be an effective outreach through which God will bring many people to living relationship with Him.

But I just want to make sure that you are aware of the cost. I mean if you are really serious about reaching out to our community and sharing the love of God with others, are you willing to pay the cost. Two weeks ago we all rejoiced to hear Eddie’s testimony and saw him baptized and that was wonderful! And there was a feeling in some of you that we really should have more baptisms. We really should have more people confessing their love for Christ and testifying to how He has transformed them. Wouldn’t it be great if we had more baptisms? But you do know that that will cost. And if you are not willing to pay the cost then all the passion for the lost, all the good feelings of wanting to share the gospel, of seeing more people baptized won’t result in anything.

Of course our supreme example in this is Jesus Christ. You know how Jesus died for you and paid the cost on the cross for you to have eternal life. But even before then – as great a sacrifice that was – even before the cross Jesus paid a cost for you to know the love of God. He paid the cost of becoming one of us. Make no mistake, that cost the Son of God – He gave up all the beauties of heaven, all the wonder of majesty and sovereignty and He became one of us.

Open your Bibles to John 1 and there we read at the beginning of the chapter that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And down in verse 14 we read, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” That means that Jesus Christ came and experienced human life. He entered into our experience. If you ever thought God lived in a secluded mansion in the sky attended to by angels looking only at beauty and glory and driving a Jaguar far removed from all that we experience and know life to be. Well this blows that idea right out of the water. In order for you to know His love, God left all the beauties of heaven and entered into life in the person of Jesus Christ. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Understand the wonder of those words – that God came here? He lived here when He could have lived in heaven? J.B. Philips paraphrases that verse saying that, God “pitched His tent in our midst”.

I recently heard a more modern translation of that verse “He parked his R.V. in our park.” It might be a little over the top, but you get the idea, don’t you? In order for you to know the love of God it cost Jesus Christ – He gave up everything He had power, praise, comfort, all that was His in heaven to live among us.

To bring the love of Christ to others it cost. Are you willing to pay the cost? We have to ask ourselves are we willing to give up that which we find comfortable, and good, maybe even helpful in order that some may be saved.

I have often spoken to you about one of my heroes of the faith, Hudson Taylor. He was a very Christ-like man who had a passion for sharing the message of Jesus Christ with everyone he met but particularly with the people of China. But he not only had a passion to share the love of God he had a willingness to pay the cost. Of course he paid the cost of going to China and living there, but more than this Hudson Taylor died to self.

Let me explain. When Hudson went to China he soon discovered that missionaries were not only bringing the message of Jesus Christ to the Chinese, but they were also bringing their western style of dress, they were bringing their western worship traditions, they were bringing their western architecture. So that when the Chinese were confronted with conversion they believed that conversion meant that they had to wear suit tie and bowler hat. That they had to sing praises to God in rhythmic metres that were unfamiliar and worship in structures that looked anything but Chinese.

And Hudson Taylor discovered that this foreign air connected with the message of Jesus Christ was actually hindering the work among the people. He had a vision of Christian Chinese, true Christians but also true Chinese. With Chinese Christians worshipping with Chinese pastors, in Chinese dress in Chinese style, in Chinese language.

And so Hudson Taylor became a pioneer in the history of missions saying, “Let us in everything unsinful become Chinese, that by all means we may save some.” So he shaved his head and grew the traditional Chinese ponytail. He adopted the cumbersome Chinese dress. Knives and forks gave place to chopsticks. Cups and saucers gave way to basins. Roast Beef was traded for rice. The bed was traded for a mat on the floor. Chinese was traded for English.

Hudson Taylor had a passion for sharing the love of Christ and he was willing to pay the cost. Adopting the Chinese way of life was difficult, it was uncomfortable. His fellow missionaries mocked him saying that he was degrading the gospel. But I can tell you that today’s Church in China owes its existence to Hudson Taylor and his willingness to die to everything unsinful so that by all means he may save some.

Of course Hudson Taylor was not the first to do this - he was following the example of our Lord and the words of Scripture in I Corinthians 9. He was living the passage in verse 22, “He was becoming all things to all people that I might by all means save some.”

You know this passage comes at the end of a discussion Paul is having with the Corinthians about rights. Paul said that in Christ he had all sorts of rights and freedoms. In chapter 8 he says that he has the freedom to eat meat offered to idols. Some people at the time thought it was bad thing to do, it wasn’t what Christians should do they thought because the meat had had been offered to idols and certainly Christians don’t want anything to do with idol worship.

And Paul says, “I’m able to eat that meat because I know that idols aren’t real, that there are is only one God in the world and idols are really nothing.”

I’m free to do that. But I won’t do it, I won’t eat meat offered to idols if it causes another person for whom Christ died to stumble, to fail to see the love of Christ.

And He goes on in chapter 9 to talk about all the rights that are his, but he will not claim them. In particular he says I had the right to be paid for my services among you. And he proves it logically in verses 6 and 7 and then he proves it Biblically in verse 8 through 10. Wrapping up the comment in verse 11 and 12 saying, “If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we still more?”

Paul had lived with them for 18 months proclaiming the gospel and organizing the church and he didn’t receive one penny from the church in Corinth. It was his right – he could have. But instead he died to self.

And then we have these marvelous words in the last part of verse 12, “Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.”

Every church should have that verse emblazoned across the entrance telling every person that they are welcome and at every exit reminding the people of God that the purpose of the church is for those outside the church. “We endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.”

But instead we have thousands of churches in North America who say, "Yes, we have a passion for souls but don’t let them come wearing long hair and earrings in their nose. And if their children and teens come to our midweek programs don’t let them mess up our washrooms. And if they come to worship make sure they worship our way, speaking like us, looking like us, singing songs we like, and hearing the word in a way we like. "

But it is our right to worship the way we do, and speak the way we do, and to have things the way we like them! Yes of course it is your right, but if you are going to obey the command of our Lord Jesus Christ to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ it cost and sometimes it cost us our rights.

This is what the word of God clearly says –

Verse 19: "For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.”

My friends we cannot have it both ways. We cannot have a passion for people to know the love of Jesus Christ but be unwilling to pay the cost. It cost to share the love of Christ. We must be willing to die to our rights. Can we in everything unsinful become like the culture around us that by all means we may save some?

I recently heard of a church Cincinnati that asked, "who in our area is no one reaching with the gospel?" and they realized that no one had an outreach to smokers. Smokers have become the new lepers in our society. So they developed a strategy to reach cigarette smokers for Jesus. Here’s what they did. They had 100,000 match books printed with the name of their church, their location and the times of their services. And they went to every sales point except vending machines for cigarettes in the greater Cincinnati area and gave them away so that everyone who bought a carton or a pack of cigarettes got an invitation to church. And people came by the hundreds.

Now just imagine the cost of that. I don’t mean the financial cost, but think of the cost of having hundreds of smokers descend on your church. Think of the cigarette butts by the front door. Think of the social cost what would people as they drove by the church and saw all these folks outside lighting up just before worship. The pastor said that you couldn’t’ even see the front entrance of the building – I can tell you it wasn’t the cloud that guided the Israelites through the promised land.

I heard of another church that wants to increase its ministry to the youth of its town. They are ideally situated right across from a high school and they are hoping to intensify an already popular ministry. Presently they serve pizza to the kids during the lunch hour, they have done this for a number of years and now they are looking to take it a step further by intentionally introducing the love of Christ to the kids in ways that are culturally understood.

And make no mistake it will cost. Sure it will cost financially, but more it may cost our traditions, our building, time, our way of doing things. It may cost our comfort.

Will it be worth it? Of course. Listen to what Paul says in verse 23, “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”

Isn’t that a strange thing to say? Paul is saying he does this so that he can share in its blessings. If I wrote that I would have said, I do it all for the sake of the gospel so that others may share in its blessings. But he doesn’t say that. He says that he may share in it’s blessings.

Of course others are blessed when we die to self and share the gospel in a way that is understandable and acceptable to them. Paul says as much in verse 12. But here it says, "so that I might share in its blessings."

As scary and as difficult it may be to die to self for the sake of others, God is no one's debtor. And as we die to self, our God pays us back and blesses us – how? Think of it, to see lives transformed, to see God at work, to lift us from the mundane tasks of keeping minutes, and making budget and maintaining the building and lifting us from all of that and so that we see the power of God and the wisdom of God at work in the people’s lives – there is no greater blessing.

Do you have a passion for people to know the love of Christ? Thank God for it. But it will cost you, it will cost us, may we be willing to pay the cost. For the sake of the gospel, so that we can share in its blessings.