I will begin by giving you a look into why I chose this passage. When I began the process of choosing a text (which is always either a very easy task or a very difficult one), I had absolutely no idea what to preach. I went to the library, sat down with my Bible, and began to search the Scriptures. Texts popped into my head over and over, but none stuck. I began to be somewhat afraid that I would not have a text to preach, which, for a preacher, is like a being a race car driver without a car.

Fortunately, God is faithful, and He would not let me be a preacher without a text. Through the providence of God a book I had ordered was delivered to the Union library. This has never happened before: I do not normally get my mail from Union’s library. So, exasperated in my search for a text, I began to look at my book, which was a used copy of the Heidelberg Catechism, one of the main catechisms of the Reformation, and which has very extensive Scripture proofs. The very first question in the catechism is this:

Question: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
Answer: That I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

The first Scripture proof provided is 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. I was consumed by the text. The thought that we are not our own, but were bought with a price ensnared my thoughts: I knew that I had my text.

Before I begin my exposition proper, I want to say something about the context. The context of this passage has to do with sexual immorality, something which was a pressing issue for the Corinthian church. It could be said that I am taking the passage out of context, for it clearly grows out of Paul’s teaching on sexual immorality. I would contend that Paul is using a problem within the Corinthian church to teach them about the truth that we are not our own. He moves from a specific problem (sexual immorality) to a universal doctrine.

I want to share with you a few things that I have learned from this passage. I will take my outline from the text itself. First, we will examine what it means when Paul says that we are not our own. Second, I want us to look at how it is that we are not our own. Third, we will close by seeing what it is that we should do in light of this text.

That we are not our own means: we belong to and are kept under the lordship of God, whose desires we make our desires and whose will we make our will.

We must understand that we are not naturally in this state. The text does not say, “You are not your own, for God created you.” If that were the case, then there would be no distinction between the Christian and everyone else. Paul is here making a distinction between the Christian and the world. The Christian is the one whose entire being is marked by being the property of God. That makes us different, both in fact and in action.

We are different in fact because Paul does not mince his words here. He does not say, “When you do this or that, you are not you own.” Rather, he says, matter of factly, “You are not your own.” For the Christian, there is no option: we do not belong to ourselves, but to God. Now, we can either live this out well, showing forth to the world that we are not our own, but belong to our Creator and Redeemer, or we can do it badly, injuring the witness of both ourselves and the church as a whole. The fact of the Christian life is this: we belong to and are kept under the lordship of God.

Let us, therefore, be different in action, giving abundant evidence of the fact that we do not belong to ourselves, but bow willingly and joyfully to our Lord and Master. We do this in two ways that are very much related; in fact, the doing of the one cannot be done without the doing of the other. Though they are interrelated, we will look at them separately. The first thing is denial of self. Without denial of self, there can be no embracing of God. Without denial of self, there will be denial of God. So we first deny ourselves: what we will, what we desire, what we secretly and publicly long for should become no account to us. Our selfishness must become odious to us for us to put into action what we are in fact. One of Jesus’ more famous exhortations was, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). He goes on to say that “whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). Paul says to Titus “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11-12).

This is where the interrelatedness of the two things comes into play, for the second way in which live out the fact that we are not our own is to become obsessed with God, His will, His ways, His word. We must set our eyes, hearts, and souls upon God, delighting in who He is and what He has done. Once we have truly done this, self denial will be very easy. Once we have taken hold of the divine promises and the personality and character of God and known Him as our Father, Protector, and Redeemer, we will see how incredibly small we are in comparison. When the children of God are left with the option – me in all my smallness and sin, or God in all His greatness and perfection – by our new nature we will invariably deny ourselves and follow Him.

We do all of those things by reading His word, fellowshipping with His people, praying, fasting – all those things that a child of God has the duty and privilege to do. It is then that our consciences will be held captive by Him. It is then that we will be in action what we are in fact; that is, slaves of the Most High.

What does our living out in life what we are in fact look like? What does a church look like that is putting into action what they are in fact?

Because I believe that Paul means to draw a distinction between the Christian and the world, I think that when this truth is lived out the world notices that we are different. The Church should never be confused for the world: this is one way that we are shown to be different. The church that is living out this truth is a counter-cultural force: a counter-cultural force for the gospel. We should have marriages that are counter-cultural: that is, marriages that do not end in divorce. We should be a community wherein abortion is not ever an option. We should be a group of people that cares for the orphan, the widowed, and the poor. We should be community that exemplifies to the nth degree the love of Christ. We should be a community that leaves no doubt about who they worship and what they are about. We should be a community wherein there is no question as to who we belong to. We should be the Church who God is calling to Himself, the Church who is being sanctified in Christ Jesus, the Bride waits expectantly for her Groom. That is what a church looks like that lives out the fact that we are not our own.

How is it, though, that we are not our own? Is not the mark of the Christian life the freedom that we enjoy? How, then, are we slaves of God, if we are truly set free? For the answer to that, we must examine what Paul means when he says, “You were bought with a price.”

That we were bought with a price means: that by His death, resurrection, and ascension, Christ purchased us, wholly and completely, making us His bondservants.

Paul announces in Galatians 5:1: “For freedom Christ has set us free.” In v. 13 of that same chapter he says that the Christian is “called to freedom.” The Bible speaks elsewhere concerning the great freedom of the Christian, and we thank God that, through the death of Christ, we have been made free.

But our text says that we belong to God, even that we were purchased by Him. We may ask again: how is it that we, whose freedom is a blessed fact, are slaves?

Let me first put an illustration into our minds: many of us have heard of Ferrari sports cars. They are incredibly fast and expensive. They are made for racing. The engines put in those cars are made to go 200 mph, and when people buy them and drive them around town, they break down. They are not made to be driven to the store: they are made to be raced on a track.

Let us now think of human beings. For what end were we created? The Scriptures tell us that we were created to give glory to God. Psalm 29:2 exhorts us to “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name.” And Isaiah 43:7 speaks of the people of God as those who God created for His glory. But, in our unsaved state, we are both unable and unwilling to do this. We loathe the Lord God and will not give Him one ounce of glory, much less that which He is due.

When we are converted, when God gives us a new heart that beats for Him and Him alone, we are made able and willing to give God the glory He is due. We long to give Him glory, and seek new and better ways to do so. We are set free to do that which we were created to do. This is made clearer when we look closely at what is said about our freedom. Paul says repeatedly in Romans 6 that we have been “freed from sin.” In the passage I quoted earlier (Galatians 5:1), the remainder of that verse illuminates our understanding very much, for it says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery,” (emphasis added) speaking, of course, of the yoke of slavery that sin places upon us: thus, the “stand firm therefore.” We have been freed from sin into a bondage to God that will result in an undying, eternal affection for our Lord.

As Christians, we are compelled to give God the glory He is due, not because we have to, but because we delight in doing so. We are enslaved to God, but not in a compulsory manner: we take our greatest joy in our slavery to God. We are bound by our redemption purchased by Christ, but it is a bondage of freedom and joy. Humanity finds its greatest freedom in its bondage to God, for that is what we were created for and what our hearts find their deepest satisfaction in.

I want to now look at the price that was paid for us. Paul says that we were “bought with a price.” What was that price? You can learn a lot about how much someone values something by seeing how much they would pay for it. How much did God pay when He purchased His people?

The price was this: God the Son came down out of heaven; put on mortality, coming to know our very struggles, temptations, and weaknesses; yet He also lived a perfectly sinless life; gave Himself up willingly to be beaten and killed on a cross, one of the more excruciating ways to die; died the death of a criminal; took on all the sins of God’s people (do not let that slip by – He who knew no sin, neither from eternity past nor on earth, became sin for us); became separated from His Father, whom He had known from eternity past and from whom He had never been separated; was resurrected; and ascended into heaven, where He makes continual intercession for His saints. This was no small amount, nor was it something that did not affect God. It was the death of God on the cross. I encourage you to go through the gospels and read the passion narratives with this in mind: whenever it says Jesus or has a pronoun that refers to Him, remind yourself that that is God. When it says in Matthew 27 that the soldiers “mocked him…spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head,” have in mind that the “him” is the one through whom and for whom all things were made, the only begotten Son of God. That is the price that God paid for us, to purchase us as His own.

Lest you be puffed up with pride for the high price paid for the people of God, let us consider two things:

1. God paid the price He did for us because it was the price He Himself demanded. God, being a holy, righteous God, could not bring unto Himself a people without dealing with their sin. Therefore, God paid this high price because He is a holy God who cannot stand to be in the presence of filthy sinners. Intrinsically, we did not command such a high price. Our worth comes from God and none other. Our worth comes from the fact that we were purchased by the Most High, not because we were born worthy of the death of Christ.
2. Let us consider what we were saved to do: we were saved into bondage to God. God saved us to serve. That is the essence of Paul’s command: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your bodies.” We do not belong to ourselves, but to God; therefore, we owe it to Him to give Him glory in service.

What, then, should we do in light of all of this? We have seen that we belong to God as His bondservants and that we were bought at a great price: what, now, should we do?

What we should do in light of this is: we should offer our lives – both physical and spiritual – to the discretion of God, for it is to Him that we belong.

The redemption that Christ secured was not a redemption of our souls only, but a redemption of our whole self, body and soul. The redemption with which we were redeemed extends to all that we are. Therefore, if we are bound by our redemption, then we are bound in all that we are. There is not one area of our lives that the dominion of God does not extend. There is no place in which we may stand and say to God, “You have no authority here. This is mine.” All belongs to the Lord, for He purchased it all.

In a culture that tells us that our bodies our own temples, to do with as we please, we especially need this teaching, for our bodies are not our own: they are the temple of the Holy Spirit. So often I hear the human body spoken of as a temple. The only person who can say that with any bit of truth behind it is the Christian, for we are so blessed as to have the Holy Spirit Himself within us.

This has two implications that I would like to point out:

1. God has honored our bodies by choosing to place His Spirit within them. We are not to be concerned with the soul only, for not only do our souls belong to God but so do our physical bodies. While it is true that this body is decaying and will one day be replaced by an imperishable one, it is nonetheless true that God, by choosing to place His Spirit in us, has involved the body in the redemptive process. We should therefore take care of our bodies while we have them.

2. If God has honored the body, involving it in the redemptive process, then that means, as ministers of reconciliation, we are to care for the physical needs of those to whom we minister. It is good and right to be excited about saving souls, but we are not ministering correctly to people if we tell them the gospel yet allow them to go hungry. God cares for and honors our physical needs: let us therefore do the same as we seek to be His ministers in a fallen world.

I want to close with two final exhortations.

Work to be, both individually and as a church, people who are marked by their enslavement to God.

Though there are a number of steps and issues involvement in doing this, I would like to point out three that I believe will at least give you a good start.

1. Know your Master. If we are at the discretion of God, meaning that what we do is dependent upon what He wants us to do, then we must know what pleases Him. A servant who does not know his master well is not a good servant. A good and faithful servant knows His master: he knows His likes, dislikes, what He wants from the servant, what He does not want from the servant. So, know God, who is your Master. This means reading the word, searching its contents for insight into the Master you serve. One of the first things you will see in this search is that your Master is holy and above even the slightest reproach. Therefore, He is not to be served lightly. We must take our service to God seriously. Joshua reproaches the Israelites, who said that they would serve the Lord: “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God.” They were rushing into an oath of service; Joshua was reminding them of the gravity of their oath. Do not take service to the Lord lightly. We are engaged in a holy business: let us conduct ourselves in a worthy manner. Another thing that you will see very quickly in your study of what your Master is like is that He is a gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness. Therefore, when we fail in our service (and we will), when we are horrible servants (and we will be), He does not forsake us. Rather, because we are His, because He has bought us with a terrible price, He will never leave us or forsake us. Thus, our text is also a note of assurance: if you have been bought with a price, you will never be sold. Who could pay the ransom? Our bondage to God assures us that we will spend a blessed eternity with Him.
2. The second way in which we can work to be people who are marked by their enslavement to God is by knowing ourselves. If we know ourselves, then we know our weaknesses and strengths. If we know ourselves as we truly are, then we know what we must rely upon the strength which God supplies. If we serve our Master, it is in His strength that we do so. Such is the grace of God: He calls us to Himself to be His servants, but does He leave us to our own devices to do so? No, He gives us His Spirit to be our strength and comfort in our service to Him. We learn from Him what it means to glorify God in our bodies and be servants of the Lord.
3. The final way in which we can work to be people who are marked by their enslavement to God is by knowing our brothers and sisters. The only way in which the church is going to be those who live out the truth that we are not our own is by working at it as the church. If a bunch of individuals work at becoming a better servant of God, then all we will have is a bunch of individuals who are good servants of God: we will not have a church that is a good servant. We will only get there together. Even individually, we cannot get there without the church, for the prayers and petitions of our brothers and sisters are effective in moving us toward our goal.

My final exhortation grows out of this last point:

Be a church that is counter-cultural.

I spoke of this earlier, but it bears repeating. Seek to be a church that cannot be defined as cultural. Be counter-cultural. Again, do not be different for the sake of being different. Be different because you serve a different Master than the world does. We all serve a heavenly Master: let our lives show forth that we are the property of the Creator of the universe, the Most Holy God. The Church should never be confused for the world. No one should ever say of a church, “I like them just fine, but they are no different than any other social club.” We should seek to be a church that shows forth the fact that we are not our own. We should seek to be a church that shows forth the glory and holiness of the Master we serve.

I exhort you, then, as individuals and as a church: do not serve the lord of this world, serve the One who Redeemed you, the One who is worthy of all service and praise and glory. Show in action, in life, what you are in fact: You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. That you may be able to answer the question “What is only comfort in life and in death?” as they did centuries ago:

That I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

THE BONDAGE OF THE CHRISTIAN