Gospel Talk: Selling Your Soul to Gamestation

Room65 – Selling Your Soul to Gamestation

David J. Nixon (August 2010)

Thinking about spiritual realities properly and how Jesus has REDEEMED your sold soul as we all have sold out to sin!

Creation:
My name’s David, I’ve just graduated from Edinburgh University with a degree in law. Over the last four years I’ve learnt how important it is to always read the small print. However, most people don’t and to highlight this potential danger High-street retailer GameStation recently slipped into their contracts with gamers that they sold their immaterial and eternal souls to the company. 7500 people without reading the terms and conditions sold their souls – the good news is that the retailer has sent them all a letter revoking any claim they have over their souls.

This fun story tells us a bit about the dangers of not reading the small print, but on a more serious level it makes me wonder if people would care about selling their souls if they knew that term was in the contract. We live in a world where so many people think and care so little about their souls that they would see getting something at the cost of their soul as being a real bargain – as the transaction doesn’t cost them anything materially.

Talking about the “soul” goes against how we often think today, because we are more worried about physical/material things, than we are about spiritual things concerning our souls.

Yet, no matter where you go in the world you will find that people instinctively do care about spiritual things. If you were to go deep into the jungle you would struggle to find people groups and tribes who are atheists like many people here in the West. There seems to be an inherent desire in mankind to reach out to something spiritual, something that is beyond ourselves – even though people are VERY CONFUSED as to what it is! Maybe you don’t think you’re spiritual…but do you not have questions about: what is the purpose of your life, what your destiny is, what lies after death? You see we all have this inherent desire to know our spiritual or metaphysical place in the universe, both in this life and the next.

One writer and thinker, C.S. Lewis, put it this way: we are hungry with a desire for food, because in reality there is a thing called food which can satisfy that desire. And we have a spiritual desire for our souls, because there is a spiritual reality to our existence and there is a God who can satisfy that desire.

Christ:
As Christians (followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God), we believe that our souls’ desire for God is one of the most important things in this life. Jesus knew people had physical needs which He ministered to: He healed the sick of their incurable diseases, He caused the lame to walk, He fed the hungry, He even raised the dead. But what He emphasised as of the greatest importance were peoples’ spiritual needs saying that if we are to lose our souls then that is the worst possible thing: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:23)

First of all, what is the soul that makes it so important? I have an acronym that doesn’t take a degree in philosophy or metaphysics to understand:
THE SOUL – acronym
THE
Self (with an)
Opportunity (for)
Unending
Life

Our soul is the part of our existence (our “SELF”) that can survive the death of our physical bodies and has the potential for everlasting life. When I speak to older people, they tell me to treasure my youth because life is short – they’re right this life is short, and is incomparably short when measured against the vast, endless span of eternity after this life. Jesus says that if we sell out our souls in this life, then we will have lost them for all eternity! Whatever riches, pleasures you have in this life are not worth the eternal destruction of your unending soul. THE STAKES ARE HIGH IN THIS BUSINESS OF SELLING YOUR SOUL

Selling out your soul for temporary things is something Jesus calls SIN. The Bible describes how all of mankind has decided to turn away from the spring of life found in having relationship with the living God, and instead invested in broken tanks of their own making which cannot hold any water. So we all face the fact that our soul’s spiritual desires are left unsatisfied, and our very lives are leaking away as we face death, both physically in this life and for all eternity. The Soul can only have unending life if it knows the living God but we have sold out and bought death. This is a terrible problem, but Jesus has a solution.

Choice:
Jesus has REDEEMED (bought back) your sold out soul!
Redemption means to buy back something that has been lost – we all have lost of our souls because of our sin. But we can find the true satisfaction for our souls in this life and in the next by coming back to Jesus and receiving a free gift: the redemption of our sold-out souls. All we need to do is come to Jesus and ask for it!

Will you sell out your soul (your Self with an Opportunity for Unending Life)? Or will you take seriously that inner desire you have to know your place in the universe, what is the meaning of life and that desire to reach beyond yourself to know God…if so you need to come to Jesus.

*ask the Room65 team member at your table: ‘What has Jesus done to buy back my soul’