1 Corinthians 6:20 “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

We live in a so-called “free” country. There are many things our government gives people the freedom to do, whether or not God approves of such behavior. Even Christians can begin to think that if the USA gives me the freedom, then I have the right to live my life and behave myself any way I want.

At the same time, God doesn’t force everyone to do his will at all times with an act of raw power. Thus it seems that people get away with many sins, including sexual immorality, with no divine intervention. They even become puffed up with a prideful sense of self-importance, defying God and and his commands like the author of the poem Invictus, “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”

Really? God does not give us an absolute right to do whatever we want, and thinking that way is still rebellion against him. We don’t belong to ourselves. We belong to him. We didn’t make ourselves. He made us. Even after we rebelled and ran away from our Creator to join the enemy side, he didn’t leave us there. He bought us back. He executed his own Son to lay his claim on us again, and to set us free.

“You are not your own. You were bought at a price” is a warning for us. It’s a warning not to challenge God’s right to determine how we live our lives, nor to despise the price he paid to make us his own again.

But these are especially words of promise and comfort. You were bought at a price. Guilt over our own sexual sins may make us feel worthless and undesirable. If our sins were the end of the story, that is what we would be.

But by his grace, our Lord has given us another value. The price which he placed on us is the life of his own Son Jesus Christ. God the Father has decided that you are worth as much as Jesus to him. That value defies any comparison, any illustration. There is nothing dearer to the Lord in all this world than just you yourself. You became infinitely valuable, and infinitely desirable, when Jesus gave his life to make you holy and forgive your sins.

Therefore, live like the priceless, holy child God now says you are. Honor God with your body.

1 Timothy 4:12″Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young.”

Having reached my fifties, I am well beyond the age at which I can find solace or encouragement for myself in the words quoted above. If someone looks down on me now, it is probably because I have done something genuinely foolish.

Young people are an important part of the Church’s life and ministry. When their presence or service is missing, the body suffers no less than in the absence of those more seasoned.

We sometimes mistakenly say, “The young people are the church’s future.” I have been guilty of saying this, too. I pray we still have the young people around in the future. But I know that they are here now. The youth are the Church’s present. Like the rest of us, they need to be growing and serving in grace today.

Are we tempted to overlook their gifts because they are in grade school, high school, or college? Is that biblical? The author of Ecclesiastes reminds us, “Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to take warning” (4:13).

Look at the way wise young people served the Lord in the Scriptures. How old was David when he was the only man in Israel with enough faith in God’s promises to go out and face the giant Goliath? Maybe 16? What does David say to Goliath as he marches out to meet him? “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head.…All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands” (1 Samuel 17:45-47). Did David lack the maturity to serve just because he was a teenager?

How old were Daniel, Hananiah (Shadrach), Mishael (Meshach), and Azariah (Abednego) when Nebuchadnezzar took them into his service? They were almost certainly still in their teens (70 years pass between Daniel 1:1 and Daniel 10:1). This pagan king recognized talent and utilized it when he saw it. And did these young men lack the spiritual maturity to make tough decisions or give a clear witness? They answered the king of the world’s threat to kill them for refusing to commit idolatry: “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18).

How old was Mary, the mother of Jesus, when God called her to bear the Savior of the World? 13? 15? Look up Luke 1:46-55 and read again Mary’s poetic response to her cousin Elizabeth’s greeting. These theological gems come from the mouth of a girl who would still be in junior high school today. She was well qualified for the task to which she was called: Bearing, raising, and teaching God’s own Son, the Savior of the World. Jesus may have been a first-grader before Mary was even out of her teens.

I am not proposing that we elect teenagers to our church council (though God has given some teens far greater responsibilities). But can we neglect to train and incorporate them into the regular life and mission of our congregations? I don’t know how much the youths listed above would have been interested in a trip to a water park or an all-night lock-in (not that there is anything wrong with those things). But it is apparent they were interested in studying God’s word, especially his saving promises. And they were not afraid to serve their Lord in a way that could mean great personal sacrifice–even death!

Sometimes old people say, “Energy is wasted on the youth.” Maybe that’s because we haven’t channeled it in God’s direction. The Lord will forgive us for poor stewardship of our children’s gifts. May he also open our eyes to better see their place in the Body of Christ.

Luke 6:45 “Out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks.”

Jesus’ word here is a statement of spiritual truth, but it also reflects a principle we see active in everyday life.

Listen to the conversation of your friends for a while. What do they believe is life-changing? Are they overwhelmed by the possibilities of some new high tech gadgetry? Were they deeply moved by the latest best-seller or box office smash? How do you know? What they believe in their hearts and minds eventually finds its way to their mouths. They just have to tell you.

Some companies rely on it for survival. Almost 30 years ago my wife worked for Electrolux Corporation for one year. At the time you never saw a commercial for the company’s products. They depended on customers to recommend their vacuum cleaners to friends and family. You haven’t seen commercials for Krispy Kreme donuts, Rolls-Royce cars, Jiffy muffin mix, or Costco stores. They are all examples of the few companies so confident of their product’s ability to impress that they rely entirely on word of mouth advertising to sell their product.

Don’t we believers all share a common product of infinitely greater importance? The gospel of Jesus Christ–the good news that God forgives sins, and even suffered death for us to make such forgiveness possible–is more than a reliable product, a moving message, a life-changing tool. It is the one and only source of eternal life. It is our only escape from hell and our only admission to heaven. It is the only way to be sure that God loves you.

Faith that this is true opens our mouths. Speaking about this doesn’t make us half-crazy religious fanatics any more than talking up the gas-mileage and safety features of our new vehicles somehow makes us driving fanatics. We seek converts without shame.

But potential converts are not the only people to whom our faith drives us to speak. Consider Aquila and Priscilla. After Paul had converted these two devout Jews to faith in Jesus, they in turn helped him in sharing the message with others.

One of the others whom they met was Apollos. Now Apollos was no stranger to Scripture, nor to God’s promises of a Savior. He already believed all of this. He was even familiar with the baptism of John the Baptist. In fact, Apollos’s faith had already moved him to speak openly about what he believed. That is how Aquila and Priscilla came to know him.

After hearing Apollos confess his faith, Aquila and Priscilla couldn’t restrain themselves from filling Apollos in on the rest of the story. In Acts 18 we read, “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.”

Apollos may not have been required to come to a formal set of classes. The only class room seems to have been the humble home of this Christian husband and wife. There was simply someone who needed to hear more of God’s word, and someone in possession of that word willing to teach it to him.

Not all of us may become missionaries and evangelists. Not all of us are called to be pastors or teachers. But if we have faith, and if we have God’s word (and we do), then we have all we need to speak the truth to others, whether they are hearing it for the first time, or the fiftieth. Let your heart and mouth overflow!

Daniel 12:2 “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”

Death is a topic with which we don’t feel comfortable by nature. Death forces us to live with painful separation from people we love. Even when we know that God will raise us again, the prospect of our own death can fill us with frightful uncertainties: Will the experience hurt? Will those we leave behind be taken care of? Death is still the wages of sin.

But death also has a way of sobering us up and restoring a proper perspective on what is important. Samuel Johnson once said, “I know of no thought that so wonderfully clarifies the mind as the thought that I shall hang tomorrow morning.” When we come face to face with our own mortality,  wisdom comes flooding in. We stop filling our consciousness with trivia from TV. Suddenly tiny things like economics, and technology, and politics don’t loom so large. Enormous things like God and religion don’t seem so thin and far away. Nothing impresses the need for God on us like the fact that we are sinners who are going to die.

More importantly, death is the getaway car God uses to speed our souls away from this world to everlasting life. Daniel says that the multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake. Death isn’t the end of all things. It is a transition. Those of us who believe Jesus has made us holy in God’s eyes by his life and death, and promised us life by his resurrection, will wake up to a new morning of eternal life.

This is what we will escape to: eternal life. Do you find that hard to appreciate? We carry the symptoms of death around with us at all times– physical illness, unhappy relationships, broken dreams. These things make it hard to look forward to a life that goes on forever. Sometimes we want nothing more than an end to it all.

But the phrase “eternal life” does not stress only duration–life that goes on forever. It also stresses quality–this is life beyond death with all of its symptoms. This is life truly worthy of the name. From our side of eternity it is easiest to say what eternal life is not. It knows no pain or sadness. It is never spoiled by boredom or monotony. It excludes all worry or anxiety. It never sees frustration or anger. It suffers neither danger nor injury, failure nor fatigue.

Why should the owners of mansions consume themselves with thinking about how to decorate the hotel room they will check out of tomorrow? Why should citizens of heaven be consumed with their temporary accommodations on earth? God promises to wake us from our long night’s sleep in the grave. Better things are waiting for us in eternity’s new day.

“What do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14).

Up until the 20^th Century, the Russian language had no word for the concept of “compromise.” The idea of two sides each giving in a little and coming together in the middle never occurred to them. Instead, there was a winner and there was a loser. Today the Russian language has simply borrowed the English word for its own. But the absence of the idea in Russian language and culture for so long helps to explain why it was so difficult to deal with the Soviet Union back in the days of the Cold War. Arms races, communist expansion, individual liberties—progress on these issues was difficult in a large part because of Soviet unwillingness to compromise.

Compromise is important for many areas of life, especially politics. Doing the most good for the most people depends on two sides being willing to give a little away to get what they need. Without compromise much of business and government would grind to a halt.

But we also recognize there are times and issues for which compromise is the wrong path. Compromise with Hitler prior to World War II only strengthened his position and made him bold to invade more countries. We generally don’t compromise with terrorists or hostage takers lest we encourage them to more acts of violence.

God’s people recognize that compromise is inappropriate on issues settled by God’s Word. We can give in on matters of personal taste. Certain cultural practices are open for change. But compromise on faith or morals only gets God’s people into trouble. It is not enough to follow most of what God wants. We see it in the Bible again and again: it is the one thing in which someone departs from God’s way that leads to disaster.

In 1 Samuel 13, God commands Saul to wait for Samuel to come and offer a sacrifice before he goes to war against the Philistines. When Samuel was late in coming, Saul offered the sacrifice himself and went to battle. It wasn’t exactly what God said, but it hardly seems like serious contradiction of the whole faith. It’s just a little matter of who and when. How did the Lord respond? “Now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command” (1 Sam. 13:14).

The Christians in Galatia believed that Jesus had died to save them from their sins. But they were also beginning to accept the idea that they needed to be circumcised in addition to Jesus’ work to be saved. They weren’t denying that Jesus’ work was important, even necessary. No one was saying, “Jesus did not die for your sins.” There was a departure from the full truth of the gospel, but much of the gospel still appeared to be there. What did Paul tell them? “Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all….You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace” (Galatians 5:2,4).

On the other hand, refusal to compromise often wins us the disapproval of the world around us. John the Baptist was not willing to compromise his faith and let King Herod’s adulterous relationship with his brother’s wife go on without public comment. What did he get? “When John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison” (Luke 3:20).

As we celebrate the 500^th Anniversary of the Reformation of the Church, we appreciate Martin Luther’s uncompromising stand on the truth. “They tell us that one is not to quarrel so violently over one article and disrupt Christian love because of it. Nor should we consign one another to the devil because of it. But, they say, one might well yield and surrender a bit and keep up fraternal and Christian unity and fellowship with those who err in an unimportant point—as long as one agrees with them otherwise. No, my good man, for me none of that peace and unity one gains by the loss of God’s Word! For in that case eternal life and everything else would already be lost. In this matter we dare not budge or concede anything to please you or any man; but all things must yield to the Word, be they friendly or hostile.”

It takes courage and integrity to refuse to compromise God’s Word in a world that believes the only truth is that there is no absolute truth. More than anything else, it requires a sincere love for the gospel. May God preserve the preaching of that gospel, without compromise, among us.

1 Timothy 3:14-15 “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you have learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

People who are new to the idea of celebrating the Reformation have sometimes gotten the idea that it is “Lutherans are better than everybody else” Sunday. No doubt we have been guilty of giving that impression. But the Reformation is not for patting ourselves on the back. Members of our church will be saved by grace alone, just like everybody else.

No, the Reformation grew out of a much more important concern. We remember the Reformation to make sure that we never give up that concern. Do you believe that Jesus loves you? Are you sure he loves you? Martin Luther grew up unable to answer with an unqualified “yes” from what he had learned in his church. He learned to answer with a resounding “yes” from the words of Holy Scripture.

Paul’s young friend Timothy shared this same conviction gained from the same place. Paul points out that Timothy did not merely learn the Scriptures. To him this book and what it teaches were more than answers for a test, or information about people from a faraway time and place.

Timothy had become convinced of these things. He had certainty. He knew that there is such a thing as objective truth, that this truth can be known, and that this truth was known to Timothy himself.

This was not because Timothy was arrogant. Some today believe that all certainty is proud presumption. With all the competing ideas about what is true, no one can be sure of anything. Because we don’t want to be thought of as proud or arrogant, we may be tempted to believe it would be better if we were not too sure of what we believe, either.

But what comfort can a person find in something that has no certainty? What peace can be had from what is unclear or unknown? Aren’t we often filled with more fear by the things which are unknown? Isn’t it true, at least very often, that people would rather know that they have a disease than live in uncertainty about what is wrong with them? How much more necessary it is to be certain when it comes to our salvation and eternal life! “Faith,” the author of Hebrews tells us, “is being sure of what we hope for…” Doubt and uncertainty are the opposite of faith. If, like Timothy, we are going to continue in our Bible-based beliefs, we need to be convinced they are true.

Those Scriptures do the convincing through the saving promises they make. “…how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Holy Scriptures make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. They assure me Jesus can be trusted. They tell me not only that someone has to die to pay for my sins. They tell me that in Jesus God died to pay for them. They tell me not only that I cannot save myself with all my good works, sincere intentions, or tear-filled prayers. They tell me Jesus lived the sincere life of good works which does. They promise that God connects me with Jesus life and death in Baptism. They assure me Jesus still shares and distributes the benefits of his saving work in his Holy Supper.

These are not just doctrines I am told I must fight to defend. They are beautiful truths, life-giving truths, comforting truths, empowering truths I want to believe. They assure me that, yes, Jesus loves me. And in doing so they fill me with saving faith. I am convinced, because the Bible tells me so.

Galatians 2:17-20 “If while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a law-breaker. For through the law I died to the law that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

If God freely forgives our sins, if he justifies us without requiring us to keep the law as a condition of saving us, doesn’t that promote sin?

The same question occurred to Paul. But just because Jesus has forgiven us and God has said we are not guilty doesn’t make them responsible if we go out and sin again. We are the ones rebuilding sin in our lives. We are the lawbreakers. In practice, forgiveness has the opposite effect upon us. It is not only the answer for sins committed. It is the answer for not committing sins. “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.”

Using God’s law alone to stop committing sin is an exercise in frustration. Some Christians believe you can use it like I use my daily planner. Every day I make a list of the things I hope to accomplish and check them off as I do them. When they are all checked off, I know I have accomplished my goal.

You can’t do that with the law of God. He requires more than the external acts. When you know the Ten Commandments well, you know they are just as concerned about your attitudes and motivations as behavior. The more I know the commandments, the more ways I can see that I am falling short. My check list keeps growing longer. So does the list of personal failures I can see. The Law shows me what to do. It never gives me the power to do it.

That is why Paul can say “through the law I died to the law.” The law does do something. But that something is not giving me faith, or life, or the power to stop sinning.

The law does me the favor of showing me how useless it is to prevent me from sinning. It makes me ever more aware how much I need my Lord, not just for sins I have committed, but also to stop committing sins. Only when I have died to the law can I live for God.

You see, God justifies us by faith. That means he takes our sins, forgives them, and so declares us his perfect, not-guilty children as a gift. That impacts our future as well as resolving our past. Paul continues, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” I have been crucified with Christ. Jesus death on the cross is my death. When Jesus died there, God counted that death for me. My sins are gone. My Father sees me only as his holy perfect child.

But he doesn’t leave me hanging on that cross, so to speak. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. When Jesus takes away my sins, he also puts to death my old, sinful self and makes my heart his own home. He lives his life in each one of us. Any life that Jesus is living looks exactly the way God says we are: not guilty, free from sin.

So even though we don’t have the power to do what the law says, Jesus does. When Jesus makes our own hearts his home that means more than thinking of him a lot or loving him. It means that Jesus has a genuine presence in my heart and soul. And his life gives us power to stop committing sins and live a life of love.

It isn’t dangerous for God to forgive our sins so freely. It is the only way he can make it less common in our lives.

Deuteronomy 5:15 “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”

Why keep the Sabbath? The children of Israel had been wandering in the wilderness for forty years when Moses reviewed the 10 commandments with them in Deuteronomy chapter 5. There were any number of events the Lord could have commanded them to remember to drive his point about Sabbath-keeping home.  He could have told them to remember how he had sent poisonous snakes to punish them when they grumbled. “So keep my command about the Sabbath now, or else.” He could have reminded them how they had made him so angry at Mt. Sinai when they worshiped the golden calf that he was ready to destroy them all. “See what happens when you mess with my worship.”

Instead, the Lord asked them to remember that they had once been slaves in Egypt. They had no rest, no relief from their work there. But the Lord delivered them.  He set them free. He gave them rest. They were helpless to do anything about their slavery in Egypt, so the Lord stepped in, drove Pharaoh to his knees, and delivered them. On the Sabbath day they could set their worries aside, and their minds could be at ease, because they remembered that they had a God who cared. A God who did this much for them must be a God who loves them, a God they could trust, a God who would take care of their needs.

That is what the Lord still wants for us with the third commandment. Which day is not important. He knows what life is like for us. He knows how often we break his laws. He knows many times others hurt us. He knows how we hurt the people we know. He understands the slavery we live in, because we sin and suffer from a sinful world. His prescription? It’s the same one it’s always been: Get plenty of rest. Off load your guilt on Jesus. Come to church and be assured that Jesus has set us free. Remember the cross. Remember that Jesus did everything to win forgiveness and heaven for us. There is nothing left for us to do. And be assured that such a God who loves us this much is with us every step of the way. He stands beside us through good times and bad, holding us up, keeping us going, moving us on. This is the rest that we find each Sunday at church, in Bible class, or in our Bibles at home.

This is the reason the words “Remember the Sabbath day” still have meaning for us. God still wants us to gather around his word, where he still gives us rest for our souls.

Proverbs 30:5 “Every word of God is flawless.”

There is a picture behind the promise here. If you look at the inside rim of my wedding ring, there is tiny little print that says, among other things, “14 K.” “Fourteen karat gold” means that it is fourteen parts gold and 10 parts other metals. If it were “twenty-four karat gold,” then it would be pure gold, at least as pure as is humanly possible.

Before they could add the other metals to the gold in my wedding ring, they had to get the impurities out of it. It had to be refined in order to remove the other minerals in and around it. Chemicals and super-heated furnaces were used to purify the gold.

This is the picture behind the word “flawless.” God’s word is 24 karat pure truth. There are no impurities or additives. Do you see why this is important for you to know? I haven’t read all the other “holy” books of other religions, but from what I have read I know that the Bible is particularly careful to make this claim. God was anticipating the false criticism that was going to be leveled at his word. “The Bible is just a book written by men.” In other words, it is possible that it contains mistakes and errors just like any other human book. In fact, you wouldn’t make a statement like that if you didn’t think you already had found some there.

What does that do to our trust in the promises our Lord records for us here? Now it is up to us to figure out which promises we can trust and which ones are nothing but an illusion. And what is the standard by which we will judge–our own feelings? Our own opinions? Our limited experience? The findings of science and research? Only people who are grotesquely ignorant of the history of scientific investigation can believe that so-called “science” has given us consistently accurate explanations for why things are the way they are (not that they have gotten everything wrong). But each generation has to throw out large portions of the science of the generation before it and start over with new ideas about how to explain our world.

God hasn’t put us on such shaky ground with his promises. They are 24 karat gold for certainty. There is an empty tomb in Jerusalem to prove it. There are thousands of years of prophecies fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to make us sure. There is the power the gospel has had on our own hearts and faith that convinces us, “These words aren’t just a collection of nice thoughts about God,” but the real history of how he has intervened in our world, the real description of who he is and what he is like. Trust his promises, and you will know that every word is golden.