Bought with a Price

What this episode covers

Old Testament Reading Our Old Testament reading, and this is also our sermon text, is Exodus chapter 30, verses 11 through 17, or 11 through 16. And this is the inerrant, infallible, inspired word of God. So let’s give our attention to God’s word. The Lord said to Moses, “When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary. The shekel is 20 gerahs. Half a shekel as an offering to the Lord. Everyone who is numbered in the census from 20 years old and upward shall give the Lord’s offering. The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than the half shekel when you give the Lord’s offering to make atonement for your lives. You shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel and shall give it for the service of the tent of meeting, that it may bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the Lord so as to make atonement for your lives.” New Testament Reading And now turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter—this is our New Testament reading, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh,’ but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Does God Care About Numbers? As Christians, we often tell ourselves when we’re thinking about a church—our church or another church—we often tell ourselves that the size of a congregation is not what is most important about a church. Rather, the most important thing for a church is that they are faithful to proclaim the gospel, faithful to worship God according to His word, faithful to serve the Lord as He would have us to serve. So whether a church is big or small, that’s the most important thing, is to be faithful. And so, with that in mind, we try to be somewhat indifferent about the numbers of the people in our congregation. And that’s all true. That should be our focus. We should be focused on being faithful to Christ, being faithful to the mission that Christ has given to the church, to make disciples of all nations, and to trust that the Lord, according to His perfect wisdom, according to His sovereign will, He will use a church, His people, a congregation, as He will, as He sees fit. However, we can also say that biblically God is concerned about numbers. We might even say God is very concerned about numbers. One of the great promises that we have in the scriptures about the salvation that God is bringing about through Christ is that it is his purpose not just to save a few people, not just to save even many people, but to save an incredibly huge amount of people. God’s promise to the patriarchs was that their descendants—and as Christians, we are all descendants of the patriarchs—but God’s promise to them was that their descendants would be as numerous as

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