Christian Life

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

Thankful for His Ownership

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 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? – 1 Corinthians 6:19

A vessel is drifting on the Atlantic hither and thither, and its end no man knoweth. It is derelict, deserted by all its crew; it is the property of no man; it is the prey of every storm, and the sport of every wind: rocks, quicksands, and shoals wait to destroy it: the ocean yearns to engulf it. It drifts onward to no man’s land, and no man will mourn its shipwreck. But mark well yonder barque in the Thames which its owner surveys with pleasure. In its attempt to reach the sea, it may run ashore, or come into collision with other vessels; or in a thousand ways suffer damage; but there is no fear, it will pass through the floating forest of “the Pool;” it will thread the winding channel, and reach the Nore because its owner will secure it pilotage, skillful and apt. How thankful you and I should be that we are not derelict today! We are not our own, not left on the wild waste of chance to be tossed to and fro by fortuitous circumstances; but there is a hand upon our helm; we have on board a pilot who owns us and will surely steer us into the Fair Havens of eternal rest…He that is his own master, has a fool and a tyrant to be his lord. No man ever yet governed himself after the will of the flesh but what he by degrees found the yoke heavy and the burden crushing…Today, when the Christian confesses that he is not his own, he does not wish that he were. He is married to the Savior; he has given himself up, body, soul, and spirit, to the blessed Bridegroom of his heart; it was the marriage-day of his true life when he became a Christian, and he looks back to it with joy and transport. Oh, it is a blissful thing not to be our own, so I shall not want arguments to prove that to which every gracious spirit gives a blissful consent. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

The Passion of Our Lord

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 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. – 1Corinthians 6:19-20

There in the midnight hour, amidst the olives of Gethsemane, kneels Immanuel the Son of God; He groans, He pleads in prayer, He wrestles; see the beady drops stand on His brow, drops of sweat, but not of such sweat as pours from men when they earn the bread of life, but the sweat of Him who is procuring life itself for us. It is blood, it is crimson blood; great gouts of it are falling to the ground. O soul, thy Savior speaks to thee from out Gethsemane at this hour, and He says: “Here and thus I bought thee with a price.” Come, stand and view Him in the agony of the olive garden, and understand at what a cost He procured thy deliverance. Track Him in all His path of shame and sorrow till you see Him on the Pavement; mark how they bind His hands and fasten Him to the whipping-post; see, they bring the scourges and the cruel Roman whips; they tear His flesh; the ploughers make deep furrows on His blessed body, and the blood gushes forth in streams, while rivulets from His temples, where the crown of thorns has pierced them, join to swell the purple stream. From beneath the scourges, He speaks to you with accents soft and low, and He says, “My child, it is here and thus I bought thee with a price.” But see Him on the cross itself when the consummation of all has come; His hands and feet are fountains of blood, His soul is full of anguish even to heartbreak; and there, ere the soldier pierces with a spear His side, bowing down He whispers to thee and to me, “It was here and thus, I bought thee with a price.” O by Gethsemane, by Gabbatha, by Golgotha, by every sacred name collected with the passion of our Lord, by sponge and vinegar, and nail and spear, and everything that helped the pang and increased the anguish of His death, I conjure you, my beloved brethren, to remember that ye were “bought with a price,” and “are not your own.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

The Theme of Heaven

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

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

And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation… – Revelation 5:9

What say they in heaven when they sing? They would naturally select the noblest topic and that which most engrosses their minds, and yet in the whole range of their memory they find no theme so absorbing as this: “Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood.” Redeeming love is the theme of heaven. When you reach the upper realms your most important memory will not be that you were wealthy or poor in this life, nor the fact that you sickened and died, but that you were “bought with a price.” We do not know all that may occur in this world before the close of its history, but certainly it will be burnt up with fire, and you in yonder clouds with Christ may witness the awful conflagration. You will never forget it. There will be new heavens and new earth, and you with Christ may see the new-born heavens, and earth, laughing in the bright sunlight of God’s good pleasure; you will never forget that joyous day. And you will be caught up to dwell with Jesus for ever and ever; and there will come a time when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father and God shall be all in all. You will never forget the time of which the poet sings—

Then the end, beneath His rod
Man’s last enemy shall fall.
Hallelujah, Christ in God,
God in Christ is all in all.

What then, beloved? Shall it not have the chief place with you now? It has been the fact of your life hitherto, it will be the fact of your entire eternal existence: let it saturate your soul, let it penetrate your spirit, let it subdue your faculties, let it take the reins of all your powers and guide you whither it will. Let the Redeemer, He whose hands were pierced for you, sway the scepter of your spirit and rule over you this day, and world without end. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Saints Redeemed by Blood

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation 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

It is inevitable that if you be “bought with a price,” you have ceased to be your own property, and belong to Him who bought you. Holiness, therefore, is necessary to all the redeemed. If you cast off your responsibility to be holy, you at the same time cast away the benefit of redemption. Will you do this? As I am sure you could not renounce your salvation, and cast away your only hope, so I charge you by the living God be not so inconsistent as to say: “I am redeemed, and yet I will live as I list.” As redeemed men, let the inevitable consequences follow from the fact, and be ye evidently the servants of the Lord Jesus…That you were redeemed “with a price” is the greatest event in your biography. Even your birth, what was it unless a second birth had been yours! Might you not say: “Let the day perish wherein I was born and the night in which it was said, there is a man child conceived”? Would it not have been to you the direst calamity to be born into the world if you had not been rescued from the wrath of which you were the heir? You left your father’s house, and it was an important step in life; perhaps you crossed the great and wide sea; it may be you aspired to high office in the state and you obtained it; it is possible you have been sore sick, or it may be you have sunk from affluence to poverty. Such events leave their impress upon the memory; men cannot forget these great changes in their lives; but they all shrivel into less than nothing compared with this fact that you were “bought with a price.” Your connection with Calvary is the most important thing about you. Oh, I do beseech you then, if it be so, prove it; and remember the just and righteous proof is by your not being your own, but consecrated unto God. If it be the most important thing in the world to you, that you were “bought with a price,” let it exercise the most prominent influence over your entire career. Be a man, be an Englishman, but be most of all Christ’s man… a saint redeemed by blood. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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