Christian Life

Loved, Washed, and Made Kings

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

“Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.”- Revelation 1:5-7.

It is a wonderful doxology which John has given us— “Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” “Unto Him that loved us and washed us.” Loved us and washed us—carry those two words home with you—let them lie upon your tongue to sweeten your breath for prayer and praise. “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us, be glory and dominion forever and ever.”

Then John tells of the dignity which the Lord has put upon us in making us kings and priests. And from this he ascribes royalty and dominion unto the Lord, Himself. John had been extolling the Great King, whom he calls, “The Prince of the kings of the earth.” Such, indeed, He was and is and is to be! When John had touched upon that royalty which is natural to our Divine Lord and that dominion which has come to Him by conquest—and by the gift of the Father as the reward of all His travail—he then went on to note that He has “made us kings.” Our Lord’s royalty He diffuses among His redeemed! We praise Him because He is, in Himself, a King and next, because He is a king‐maker, the fountain of honor and majesty! He has not only enough of royalty for Himself, but He hands a measure of His dignity to His people. He makes kings out of such common stuff as He finds in us poor sinners! Shall we not adore Him for this? Shall we not cast our crowns at His feet? He gave our crowns to us—shall we not give them to Him? “To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” King by Your Divine Nature! King by filial right! King‐maker, lifting up the beggar from the dunghill to set him among princes! King of kings by the unanimous love of all Your crowned ones! You are He whom Your brethren shall praise! Reign forever and ever! Unto You be hosannas of welcome and hallelujahs of praise! Lord of the earth and Heaven, let all things that are, or ever shall be, render unto You all glory in the highest degree! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1989.cfm

For God’s Honor

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:19,20

Let us remember that by men who profess to be “bought with a price,” the name of Christ is compromised if their behavior is unseemly. If we are not holy and gracious, ungodly men are sure to say, “That is one of your believers in God; that is one of your Christians.” Do not let it be so. Every soldier in a regiment ought to feel that the renown of the whole army depends upon him, and he must fight as if the winning of the battle rested upon himself. This will cause every man to be a hero. Oh, that every Christian felt as if the honour of God and the church rested upon him, for in a measure it certainly does!

May we so seek God, that when we come to die, we may feel that we have lived for something; that although our hope has rested alone in what Jesus did, yet we have not made that an excuse for doing nothing ourselves. Though we shall have no good works in which to glory, yet may we bring forth fruit that shall be for the glory of our Lord. I feel I so desire to glorify God, body, soul, and spirit, while I breathe, that I would even do so on earth after I am dead. I would still urge my brethren on in our Lord’s cause…Let us so live that when we die, we live on, like Abel, who being dead yet speaketh. The only way to do this is to live in the power of the Immortal God, under the influence of His Holy Spirit: then out of our graves we shall speak to future generations. When Doctor Payson died, he desired that his body should be placed in a coffin, and that his hearers should be invited to come and see it. Across his breast was placed a paper bearing these words, “Remember the words which I spake unto you, being yet present with you.” May our lives be such that even if we are not public speakers, yet others may remember our example and so may hear what our lives spake while we were yet on earth. Your bodies and your spirits are God’s: oh, live to God, and glorify Him in the power of His Spirit as long as you have any breath. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm

Because You Are God’s

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:20

Beloved Christian friends…because you are God’s, you will be looked at more than others, therefore, glorify Him. You know it is not always the thing itself, but the ownership that causes curiosity. If you were to go to a cattle-show and it were said “such and such a bullock belongs to Her Majesty,” it may be it is no better than another, but it would be of interest to thousands as belonging to royalty. See here, then, such and such a man belongs to God; what manner of person ought he to be? If there be any one in this world who will not be criticised, depend upon it, Christian, it is not the Christian; sharp eyes will be upon him, and worldly men will find faults in him which they would not see if he were not a professor. For my part I am very glad of the lynx eyes of the worldlings. Let them watch if they will…I am glad the world observes us. It has a right to do so. If a man says, “I am God’s,” he sets himself up for public observation. Ye are lights in the world, and what are lights intended for but to be looked at? A city set on a hill cannot be hid.

Moreover, the world has a right to expect more from a Christian than from anybody else. He says he is “bought with a price,” he says he is God’s, he therefore claims more than others, and he ought to render more…So when I hear men say, “Here is a body of Christians”, What! those Christians? Those cowardly people, who hardly dare speak a word for Jesus! Those covetous people who give a few cheese-parings to His cause! Those inconsistent people whom you would not know to be Christian professors if they did not label themselves! What! such beings followers of a crucified Savior? The world sneers at such pretensions; and well it may. With such a leader let us follow bravely; and bought with such a price, and being owned by such a Master, let us glorify Him who condescends to call such poor creatures as we are His portion, whom He hath set apart for Himself. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm

Glorify God in Your Body

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

… therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:20

The Christian man’s body should glorify God by its chastity. Pure as the lily should we be from every taint of uncleanness. The body should glorify God by temperance also; in all things, in eating drinking, sleeping in everything that has to do with the flesh. “Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,” or as the apostle puts it elsewhere, “whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.” The Christian man can make every meal a sacrament, and his ordinary avocations the exercise of his spiritual priesthood. The body ought to glorify God by its industry. A lazy servant is a bad Christian. A working man who is always looking for Saturday night, a man who never spends a drop of sweat except when the master is looking on, does not glorify God in his body. The best Christian is the man who is not afraid of hard work when it is due, who works not as an eye-servant or man pleaser, but in singleness of heart seeks to glorify God. Our bodies used to work hard enough for the devil; now they belong to God, and we will make them work for Him. Your legs used to carry you to the theater; be not too lazy to come out on a Thursday night to the house of God. Your eyes have been often open upon iniquity, keep them open during the sermon: do not drop asleep! Your ears have been sharp enough to catch the word of a lascivious song let them be quick to observe the word of God. Those hands have often squandered your earnings in sinfulness, let them give freely to the cause of Christ. Your body was a willing horse when it was in the service of the devil, let it not be a sluggish hack now that it draws the chariot of Christ. Make the tongue speak His praises, make the mouth sing of His glory, make the whole man bow in willing subservience to the will of Him who bought it. As for your spirit, let that glorify God too. Let your private meditations magnify God; let your songs be to Him when no one hears you but Himself, and let your public zeal, let the purity of your conversation, let the earnestness of your life, let the universal holiness of your character, glorify God with your body and with your spirit. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm

Our High Honor

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:20

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. – John 11:25

Our body and our spirit are God’s and, Christian, this is certainly a very high honor to you. Your body will rise again from the dead at the first resurrection, because it is not an ordinary body, it belongs to God: your spirit is distinguished from the souls of other men; it is God’s Spirit, and He has set His mark upon it, and honored you in so doing. You are God’s, because a price has been paid for you. According to some, the allusion price here is to the dowry that was paid by a husband for his wife in ancient days. According to the Rabbis there were three ways by which a woman became the wife of a man, and one of these was by the payment of a dowry. This was always held good in Jewish law; the woman was not her own from the moment when the husband had paid to her father or natural guardian the stipulated price for her. Now, at this day, you and I rejoice that Jesus Christ has espoused us unto Himself in righteousness or ever the earth was; we rejoice in that language which He uses by the prophet Hosea, “I will betroth thee unto Me for ever;” but here is our comfort, the dowry money has been paid, Christ has redeemed us unto Himself, and Christ’s we are, Christ’s for ever and ever.

Remember that our Lord has paid all the price for us; there is no mortgage or lien upon us; we have therefore no right to give a portion of ourselves to Satan. And He has bought us entirely from head to foot, every power, every passion, and every faculty, all our time, all our goods, all that we call our own, all that makes up ourselves in the largest sense of that term; we are altogether God’s. Ah! it is very easy for people to say this, but how very difficult it is to feel it true and to act as such!…A real redemption demands real holiness. A true price, most certainly paid, demands from us a practical surrendering of ourselves to the service of God. From this day forth even for ever, “ye are not your own,” ye are the Lord’s. ~ C. H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm

Thy Will Be Done in Me

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? – 1 Corinthians 6:19

The man who had a talent, and went and dug in the earth and hid it, had not he a right to do so? Yes, of course, if it was his own talent, and his own napkin. If any of you have money and do not put it out to interest, if it is all your own, nobody complains. But this talent belonged to the man’s master, it was only entrusted to him as a steward, and he ought not to have let it rust in the ground. So I have no right to let my faculties run to waste since they do not belong to me. If I am a Christian I have no right to be idle. I saw the other day men using picks in the road in laying down new gas-pipes; they had been resting, and just as I passed the clock struck one, and the foreman gave a signal. I think he said, “Blow up;” and straightway each man took his pick or his shovel, and they were all at it in earnest. Close to them stood a fellow with a pipe in his mouth, who did not join in the work, but stood in a free-and-easy posture. It did not make any difference to him whether it was one o’clock or six. Why not? Because he was his own: the other men were the master’s for the time being. He as an independent gentlemen might do as he liked, but those who were not their own fell to labor…A man who is his own may say, “I shall go whither I will, and do what I will;” but if I am not my own but belong to God who has bought me, then I must submit to His government; His will must be my will, and His directions must be my law. I desire to enter a certain garden, and I ask the gardener at the gate if I may come in. “You should be very welcome, sir, indeed,” says he, “if it were mine, but my master has told me not to admit strangers here, and therefore I must refuse you.” Sometimes the devil would come into the garden of our souls. We tell him that our flesh might consent, but the garden is not ours, and we cannot give him space. Worldly ambition, covetousness, and so forth, might claim to walk through our soul, but we say, “No, it is not our own; we cannot, therefore, do what our old will would do, but we desire to be obedient to the will of our Father who is in heaven.” Thy will be done, my God, in me, for so should it be done where all is Thine own by purchase. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm

Our Stewardship

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? – 1 Corinthians 6:18- 19

Now, if it be true that we are not our own, and I hope it is true to many here present, then the inference from it is, “I have no right to injure myself in any way.” My body is not my own, I have no right then, as a Christian man, to do anything with it that would defile it. The apostle is mainly arguing against sins of the flesh, and he says, “the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.” We have no right to commit uncleanness, because our bodies are the members of Christ and not our own. He would say the same of drunkenness, gluttony, idle sleep, and even of such excessive anxiety after wealth as injures health with carking care. We have no right to profane or injure the flesh and blood which are consecrated to God; every limb of our frame belongs to God; it is His property; He has bought it “with a price.” Any honest man will be more concerned about an injury done to another’s property placed under his care, than if it were his own. When the son of the prophet was hewing wood with Elisha, you remember how he said, when the axe head flew off into the water, “Alas! master, for it was borrowed.” It would be bad enough to lose my own axe, but it is not my own, therefore I doubly deplore the accident. I know this would not operate upon thievish minds. There are some who, if it was another man’s, and they had borrowed it, would have no further care about it: “Let the lender get it back, if he can.” But we speak to honest men, and with them it is always a strong, argument: Your body is another’s, do it no injury. As for our spirit too, that is God’s, and how careful we should be of it…So with my mind, intellect, and spirit; if it belonged to me I might or might not play tomfool with it, and go to hear Socinians, Ritualists, Universalists, and such like preach, but as it is not my own, I will preserve it from such fooleries, and the pure word shall not be mingled with the errors of men. Here is the drift of the apostle’s argument—I have no right to injure that which does not belong to me, and as I am not my own, I have no right to injure myself. ~ C. H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1004.cfm