We are not our own. God purchased us for Himself. The Blood of Christ cries from Heaven. We are His and His desire is toward us. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 1 Peter 1:18-19; Song of Solomon 7:10)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon 12079
6:30 PM on 4/18/2021

P. Steve –

We heard great things this morning about reconciliation. There’s a big word we throw around sometimes. It’s
called depravity. It has an adjective. It’s called total. It means completely worthless without
hope. This is really like a doctrine that people can look at it and see hopelessness if they don’t
look up and see the Lord. I thought of some things when Pastor was preaching those messages
this morning about the way – he was talking about the plumbline that would make a house
square, and the fact that whoever put up the telephone lines hadn’t obviously used a plumbline.
Or maybe they were straight at first and they started tilting as the earth gave way. That’s a
possibility. So let’s believe the best about them, okay. We don’t want to think about telephone
poles crashing into our houses or cars. I thought of it. There is a way of thinking we have to
have. If we are, understand that there is something in us that is crooked.

There is a flaw in us. There is a crack in us. Everybody. It’s because of our nature. It’s because we come from Adam
and Eve and they messed up the first instruction and we’re all cracked with that. It’s there. You
can’t really see it sometimes. Some people do a really good job of covering it up but the truth is
is that we’re all broken in some way and we need the help of the Lord. The plumbline is
important because you drop the plumbline from this and gravity tells you whether something is
straight or not. That’s important. A checklist is another thing. The Pharisees that Jesus was
arguing with were about checklists. Do you do this on the Sabbath? You do? Off with your, you
know. Out of the building! That kind of thing. A checklist is I measure myself according to what’s
on the list and now the list changes. The list changes with the culture. And if you are this, this
and this, you are not a very nice person anymore.

Actually, I never really was a nice person. I understand that completely. Tell me something that I don’t know. I do know that I am depraved. I am cracked, that I am broken. I don’t need a checklist. I’m thinking about I need a plumbline.
When the plumbline is dropped, look! I’m crooked. You can see the flaw right there. It’s obvious.
It can be obvious but the good news is we are reconciled by the blood of Christ that we heard.
The reconciliation makes us righteous even when I was crooked. God gave his Son for us. In
Genesis, a group of people got to together. Actually, all the people on the planet got together
and decided we’re going to build something. Let’s erect a tower. That’s another form of the
checklist. Let’s build a better society. Let’s do it with all the human goodness that we have. See
where that gets you because soon or later, someone doesn’t want to be good anymore. You
know, the depravity comes out like the lion.

The lion claws for the meat as we heard this morning. Lion don’t eat wheat. It will. I think that’s the prophesy, right? Yeah. The lamb will lay with the lion one day and they’ll eat like the ox will. That’s for the future. That’s amazing. But
towers aren’t there. What does God do? Jacob got a ladder lowered to him. That ladder was
lowered from heaven to earth and angels ascending and descending. It’s like I don’t have to
build a tower. I don’t have to have a checklist. The plumbline tells me that I’m crooked but the
good news is God lowers a ladder. The ladder is the thing. On that ladder, angels come; angels
go. Jesus came; Jesus went. Jesus is coming again. That’s amazing! It’s the ladder. The Body
of Christ shows me where the ladder is. That’s what a church is for. Come on in. We’ll show you
the ladder. You don’t have to climb it. We used to sing that song in another church that I was in.
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder. Higher, higher. Hmm, that’s about the checklist. Don’t sing that
song anymore. Don’t try singing that song guys.

Don’t look it up but the truth is, God lowered the ladder in a dream while Jacob was sleeping on a stone. It’s a great story. Read it. The Bible is full of great stories. The best stories in the world. Just read those stories and that’s awesome.
Now, get ahold of your pocket books and your wallets and let’s pray for the offering and have a
good time with that. It’s a joyful time right now. Joyful givers. All of us laugh hilariously as you
give your money. That will be a great thing. We’ll laugh so loud they hear it on the internet.
We’re not showing so much on the internet but that’s awesome. Okay. Let’s pray for the offering.

P. Schaller –

Turn in your Bible please to 1 Pet. 1. I’d like to speak tonight on you are not your
own. This starts in 1 Peter 1:18. Right after service we have a worship tonight with P. Mark and
P. Matt who do such a good job in leading us in worship. That will be for an hour or so after
service. They will give you direction on that at the end of the meeting. vs. 18. Now this word
redemption is important. It has a historical context. We could think of the American slavery
institution back in the 19thcentury, 18th centuries in the United States, in the 18th century in
Europe also. There would be slave market. In the Roman times and the Greek times they had slaves. Sometimes a general would go out, conquer an area, take away women and children,
bring them back to Rome and there would be a procession. And the general and the army would
come in and then the slaves would come in after. If you were looking at the group of captive
slaves, you might pick somebody out and want to buy them. You could actually buy them and
you would own them.

To think of owning a person and they would be your servant boy or your
worker in your farm or plantation and this is historically what happened. The same word is used
for us. We were also slaves. We were not our own. We actually sinned and we lost our rights as
people in our freedom and became slaves, very much like the Jews were in Egypt. They were
slaves to Pharoah. They build the pyramids and cities and they were slaves without any rights.
They had to work and they fed them and they lived like dogs maybe you could say. No right to
vote, no property, no money, no rights. Families could be torn apart. A horrible institution. But
nevertheless used to describe something for our learning because we were slaves to sin. Every
felt like sometimes as a sinner I don’t have many options? I’m a sinner. I turn this way, my sin
increases. I turn this way and try to manage my life but I have a depression. I turn this way and
that person doesn’t like me. I turn this way and I don’t have much hope. I am caught in my own
self. When we lost our way, we lost God.

We lost our way and we became slaves to our own
selves. We fall under the gravity and weight of our own bad decisions and our own unbelief. We
are in this slave market of sin. vs. 18. In the Roman times they could buy a slave with money,
gold, or silver. But we were also redeemed but not with corruptible gold or silver because those
metals are from the earth. Anything from the earth is corruptible. Gold and silver is corruptible.
Grass and wheat and barley and sweat and work and so on. It’s all coming from the earth. vs.
18. Redeemed by gold or silver, by a religion, by a way of life, by tradition, by your fathers. Your
fathers could not redeem anybody. They could not redeem us from our sin. There was no
religion on the earth. There is nothing. Hinduism or Buddhism or Judaism or any way that a man
could be changed because it’s like the level of man that a man cannot take a man out of sin
unless that man is higher than the sin.

Must be something more than man or the earth. There
must be some power to redeem, to buy us. There is a Greek word for purchasing us and it is a
purchase and it can never be repurchased. I read that today. I don’t have it in my memory but
believe me if you can! vs. 18. The tradition of your fathers cannot redeem you. vs. 19. Blood of
Christ. Let’s think about blood for a moment. Blood is interesting stuff. You can read about it in
the world of science. When you go to the doctor and they test your blood, they can find out piles
of information about your body from looking at the blood. If you have any kind of abnormal
enzymes or do you have abnormal levels of white blood cells, red blood cells. Do you have your
body secreting something, an evidence of a cancer. Your blood can tell the story of your body.
Blood. But this blood is precious. This blood is powerful. Like the Jews in Egypt, when they put
the blood on the doorposts and the death angel passed by because when they saw the blood,
the angel would pass over.

Why? Because the blood is a message from God that I own you. I buy you. I possess you. Owning us? J.D. McClendon who passed away. He’s owned by God? No, J.D. evolved. He’s a phenomenon that came from nature, his mother and father. There is no other reality. He came as an animal into the world and he returns to the dust and that’s the end.
That’s how people think. Nobody owns me. I’m my own man. I live my own life. There is no God.
There is no heaven. There is no future. Nobody owns me. I am a man. I’m a woman. I got my
own life. I live my life and die and that’s the end. But the Bible says that when Jesus Christ
came into the world and there’s three G’s in the history of the passion. There’s Gethsemane.
There’s Golgotha. That was the pavement where the soldiers were and Pilate was. There’s
Gethsemane where he shed blood. Golgotha where they whipped him to nearly dying and the
lashes and the blood that was on Golgotha’s pavement. And then they led his to crucifixion and
pierced his body and his blood was shed because this was not the blood of men. It was the
blood of God. I want you to meditate on it, absorb it and think about it.

I am not my own. That’s what we want to speak about tonight. vs. 19. Precious, unique. You know the meaning of the
word “precious” right? It’s incomparable, cannot be replaced, very unique, very different. Like an
antique that some famous person owned like Mozart’s piano or a coin in a collector’s collection.
A unique, precious coin. There’s no where you could ever find it. It’s gone. So this blood is
precious. This blood purchases us, redeems us. vs. 19. Cain shed is blood and his blood cried
out from the earth. Did that blood that was from Abel. I’m sorry. Cain killed Abel. Abel’s blood
spoke from the earth. Did that blood go all the way to heaven? It cried out for justice, cried out
for revenge. But this blood speaks better things than that of Abel. This blood is crying from

heaven down to us. Mercy! I own you. I bought you. You are free. You are not in the slave
market anymore. You’re like the Jews when they came out of Egypt they danced around the
Seder with their fur hat on and their clothes like this and they do it in their history and they say,
what’s the word in Hebrew. What is it? Die die what? Die die dayenu. Die die dayenu. What
does it mean? It is enough. They made it out of Egypt and they are dancing and celebrating.
They got out of Egypt. It is enough. It is enough. I can’t help but think that the blood of Jesus is
enough for every single person on the earth. That he has redeemed us by his blood from death.
Let’s finish. 1 Cor. 6, this is amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever preached on this the way I’m feeling
it in my heart. I want to catch it with you. I’ve been thinking about it for some weeks and I want
to share it with you. Look at chapter 6:19. This is about a man living with a prostitute or sleeping
with a prostitute and Paul is saying flee fornication. vs.18.

Your body is not your own. Get out of there. That’s not your life. You don’t belong to that woman. That woman does not belong to you. You have been bought with a price. vs. 19. Possessive pronouns are very major theme in our
Bible. My, mine. Let’s see. I own this. He owns me. We are personally possessed by God. He
paid a price for us. I am not my own. I want to read it from Song of Solomon. It’s beautiful. Wow!
How should we pray Jesus? Our Father, who art in heaven. Songs of Solomon 2:16, let’s take God out of the
earth. Let’s take God away for a few minutes, and how do people think? They have a child. The
mom and dad have a child. They don’t have God. They just say mom and dad we have this
child. We own this child. Little Eddie, who is your parent? You are my mommy and daddy. And
that’s the way it is. There is a relationship of possessing. They possess the child. The child has
mommy and daddy and that’s all that it is. The child grows up and has a wife, has a job. They
have a car. They have a future. They have a career.

What are they possessing? All of it is of the earth. Mom and dad is of the earth. The job is of the earth. My little diplomas on the way are from the earth. They are all from the earth. That’s all that they have. They are not belonging to
anybody. They are not belonging to anybody of any real consequence. They are not belonging
to God. They are not belonging to eternity. They are orphans. They have no real father and
mother. They have an earthly father and mother who is coming and going. That’s the limit. They
grow up and say this is my life. My life. This is my way. This is my way of living. This is mine.
This is mine. God says you can have it but I came so that I would own you. I paid a price. My
Son shed drops of blood. My Son shed his blood. My Son was crucified on a cross so that I
could own you. You are not your own. Another person would say, I evolved. Like Darwinism and
the theory of evolution. I just came here. I’m here by an accident and that’s all that it is. Nothing
more. I’m just an accident. That’s all that I got. That’s all that I am.

God would say, is that what you think? That’s all that I think. God would say I have good news for you. You’re too important. J.D. McClendon, I made you to be eternal. I made you so I could own you. I made you so I
could dwell in you. I made you so that you would be the temple of God. I made you so I could
dwell in you and possess you and I would be your Father. That’s why I made you. Psalm 100.
God said you are the sheep of my pasture. We are not made ourselves but God has made us.
God made us. Get used to saying that. God made me. You know I have high blood pressure.
God made me. A fingernail fell off. God made me. I went to see the dentist. God made me. You
know, my dentist, I don’t know if he is here tonight but he came here. I met him at the door and I
go, do I know you? He goes, no, you don’t know me. I go, what’s your name? He told me. I go,
you’re my dentist! I have a dentist so my teeth – what is this life? It says, let’s read it. vs. 19.
You are not your own.

I love that. You are not your own. You are not your own. I don’t want to
be my own. I don’t want to be my own. I want the Lord to own me. I don’t want to be my own. I
want the Lord to own me. Do you feel it? Do you know what I’m saying? I want Jesus to own
me. If Jesus owns me, he made me. I want Jesus to be in charge of me. I want Jesus to be my
God. I want Jesus to be my father. I want Jesus to be the one that governs my life. I want Jesus
who bought me with his blood to be the one who leads and carries me through my life. I want
Jesus to own – he owns me. Therefore, can he lose me? No man can pluck you out of my hand.
No man can pluck you out of my Father’s hand. I’ll never leave you or forsake you. I made you
in my image. I dwell in you. I am yours and he is mine, Songs of Solomon 6:3. I am my beloved’s. This
ownership thing is strong in Song of Solomon. When I got married, I was able to say, that is my
wife. This is my wife. That was a big thing. I can’t believe that I can say that this woman is my
wife. I own her. She could say this is my husband.

This is an ownership thing. We can say that about – a marriage as beautiful and sacred as it is there could be nothing greater than for God to say you are mine, Malachi 3:17. You are my jewels. You know how ladies have their jewel box and all their good stuff in it. God is saying I got you as my jewels. I bought you. I paid a price so
you are bought with a price. I am my beloved’s. Songs Solomon 6:2-3. Do you feel that way about God?
When we turn to dust, before we turn to dust and we are on our death bed, what can we say?
Best of all, he owns me. Best of all, he’s going to raise me. Best of all, my life is not in vain. Best
of all, I’m called by his name. Best of all, his Spirit will not forsake me. Best of all, I am owned by
God. Look at 1 Corinthians 6:20. He bought you. Wow! I wonder what it means. I think we will be in
heaven walking around just realizing it. The only reason I am here is because he bought me.
There is no way I could ever be here except God bought me. Bought me with this precious
blood. There is no way I could have ever made it here but he bought me.

He put his eye upon me. He called me. He bought me with his precious blood. You are bought with a price. Why
would you be sleeping around with a harlot? He that is joined to a harlot is one flesh, but he that
is joined to the Lord is one spirit. We are bought with a price, indwelt by him, and he owns us,
doesn’t he? vs. 20. Sing about it. Jump up and down about it. Glorify God in your body and in
your spirit which are God’s. Your body belongs to God. You got high blood pressure? God owns
your body. Your teeth? God’s got your feet covered. He’s got everything about you. He owns
you. Your body and your spirit glorifies God and that’s what I want to say tonight. One last, Songs of Solomon
7:10, “I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me.” There’s three verses similar sounding.
He is mine but by the end of Song of Solomon, it’s all about him. I am belonging to him and his
desire is towards me. He will deliver you from your bad habits. He will help you think with him.
He will give you grace. He will teach you faith.

You’ll walk in prayer and love. You learn how to walk and to live. And as the day approaches for our departure out of this life, we just say, I’m not an accident. He bought me with a price. As we go on in our life and in our purpose and our
mission in this world, we can say we are here to glorify God in our body and listen, in our spirit.
That’s the thing the world doesn’t have. They have strange spirits. They have confusion. They
are slaves. They don’t have the spirit of God. We glorify God in our body and in our spirit. We
have a spirit of praise, a spirit of worship. We have a spirit that the devil cannot control it. We
have a spirit of God that dwells in us. We have a spirit of a mission. A spirit in the Gospel. A
spirit of prayer. A spirit of exhortation. We have a spirit of kindness. We have a spirit of God in
our family and in our way of life, in our peace and even in our deepest trouble. Okay.

Amen.