TPC Connections

Sermon Notes

What About Your Soul?
11/1/26
Matt 16:24-27 “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.'”
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Illus: There is an old story you may have heard about called Faust.
It’s about a brilliant but dissatisfied scholar named Dr. Faustus, who becomes bored with the monotony of life and longs for more.
One night while in his study the devil appears to him and offers him unlimited knowledge, magical powers, and worldly pleasures for a period of 24 years.
When the 24 years were up he had to give his soul to the devil.
Faust agrees and signs a contract!
This has since been called the Faustian bargain—the willingness to trade your eternal soul for money, fame, and/or pleasure.
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Isn’t it interesting that Jesus said you can actually do this!
His two questions tell us so!
“What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul.”
And, “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
You can literally exchange your soul, trade your soul for something else.
Now look closely at our text:
Jesus says “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life (by not following me) will lose it, but whoever loses his life (by living for me and following after me)…will find it.”
So every human being on earth has a choice to follow Christ, or not.
And in that choice your soul hangs in the balance!
The Faustian bargain comes to us all!
The choice to not follow Christ will lead you to hell, the choice to follow Him, no matter how difficult, leads to eternal life.
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The Bible reveals that Satan even dared to offer the Faustian bargain to Jesus!
We read in Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness that:
“…the devil took him (Jesus) up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me me.'”–Matt 4:8-9
Whether or not he could actually have given these things to the Lord is debatable.
But the idea that he can and does tempt us to choose the world over Jesus and in so doing lose our own soul, is real!
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The devil places before your mind’s eye all the glory, attractiveness and allure,
all the glitz and glamor,
the adventures to be had,
riches to be gained,
pleasure to be experienced,
All that the world offers and says,
“This will be yours if you bow your will to me!”
The Apostle John wrote that the devil skillfully uses:
the lust of the eyes,
the lust of the flesh,
and pride in our achievements and possessions to draw us away from following Jesus (1 John 2:16).
And if he didn’t hesitate to offer the Faustian bargain to Jesus, he won’t hesitate to offer one to you!
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Now, before going further let’s define what a SOUL is.
The word “soul” is in the Bible 458 times, so it must be important to God!
Simply stated, the human soul is the part of a person that is not physical—it is immaterial, invisible, and eternal.
ILLUS: A doctor can name and locate any part of your human body, but he cannot locate your soul.
It is in the body, but not of the body.
It is that part of us that Jesus came to save because it is eternal.
When the body dies the soul departs.
Sometimes in the Bible the word ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ are interchangeable.
When Jesus raised a little girl from the dead, it says that when he commanded her to get up, “Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up” (Lk 8:55).
When Jesus was dying on the Cross, he looked up toward heaven and said to the Heavenly Father, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Lk 23:46).
Genesis 35:18 describes the death of Rachel, Jacob’s wife, saying she named her son “as her soul was departing.”
So clearly, the spirit or soul of a person lives on after the body dies!
Jesus said that nothing can compare to its value.
It is far more valuable than the body in which it dwells.
The Lord warned:
Matt 10:28 “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
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The soul dwells in our body!
The human body was created by God from the dust of the ground in the Garden of Eden.
It has 206 bones that make up a frame called the skeleton.
It can weigh anywhere from 2 pounds at birth to hundreds of pounds when fully grown.
It contains various organs to sustain its life like the kidney, liver, and so on.
It is powered by the heart—a fist sized pump that forces blood through around 60,000 miles of arteries and veins.
And your body has a self contained electrical system called the nervous system.
But most of all, you have one more thing deep inside—a LIVING SOUL!
Genesis 2:7 says that God formed man from dust and then “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” making him a living soul.”
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And your soul was created by God to live forever after everything else has turned to dust.
When the sun and stars have burned out, your soul will still exist.
—Your soul is worth more than all the houses, property, stocks, bonds, diamonds, silver, and gold in the entire world.
Jesus said that you can gain the whole world, but if you lose your soul in the process it was a foolish trade!
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Sometime we read about people in the entertainment business that made a deal with the devil that, if he would give them wealth and fame, they would swap their souls.
In fact, recently on social media I read of 18 People who allegedly sold their souls to the devil.
But the truth is it’s not just 18 who have done this… it is millions!
And they have traded their eternal soul for things that aren’t remotely worth it!
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—JUDAS sold his soul for thirty pieces of silver.
The thirty pieces of silver at today’s prices would be worth around $264.
Can you imagine what a fool Judas must feel like in hell today?
He will spend eternity in hell for $264!
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—DEMAS sold his soul for the love of this world.
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—BALAAM sold his soul for a paycheck from a pagan king.
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—PILATE sold his soul for political popularity.
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—There are some listening to me right now that will not come to Christ because you’ve traded salvation for cheap and fleeting pleasures!
Before doing so, consider how valuable your soul is!
It’s valuable enough that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, died on the Cross to save it!
—See Jesus hanging on that Cross between two criminals and you have the story of mankind.
• We see one thief—Guilty as can be—dying “in” his sin.
• We see the second thief—Guilty as can be—dying “to” his sin.
• And then we see Jesus—Innocent as can be—dying “for” all our sins!
And there you have a snapshot of the human race.
Jesus dying to SAVE your soul and mine.
—one man LOSES his soul,
—the other man experiences the SALVATION of his soul.
And in each case it was all about their soul!
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Now, this could easily be an evangelistic, soul-winning message for those that don’t know Christ.
But here’s the deal——While Satan may have lost the battle over your eternal soul, he still offers the Faustian bargain to the saved!
The temptation:
—To trade heavenly blessings for earthly comforts.
—To exchange true discipleship for lukewarm, fast-food Christianity that doesn’t cost much and requires no time.
Or the temptation:
—To switch a deep, daily walk with God for Sunday morning, once-a-weeker Christianity.
All of these are Faustian bargains offered to the saved on a routine basis.
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Does your soul have a price tag attached?
I’m inviting all of us to commit to doing what Jesus did in response to his Faustian bargain.
He said, “Get behind me, Satan!”