“Jesus Paid it All”, “Living a life that’s worth it”

Date:

March 30th, 2025

Scripture:

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Page 1777-1778 of the pew Bible

Sermon Title:

“Jesus Paid it All”, “Living a life that’s worth it”

Hymn Suggestions:

Opening Hymn- 63 All Creatures of Our God and King

2nd Hymn- 597 Take My Life And Let It Be

3rd Hymn- 688 Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead us

Closing Hymn- 305 Jesus Paid it All

Sermon:

Good morning, Church family, It is great being here with you all today. I hope everyone had a wonderful week.

Last week before Worship Service, Brother Ernie pulled me aside and informed me that I was being talked about during Sunday School hour.

He said that during Sunday School, they were studying the book of Revelation, and part of their discussion surrounded the idea of when we are spending eternity with Jesus, we will never get tired of worshiping.

Brother Ernie said, when we are forever praising our Savior, we won’t ever feel like the preacher talk to long, to which my wife Teresa replied, our 3 kids always tell Chris he talks too much.

In fact, if I am being honest with you…

Sarah tells me every week that my prayers are more like mini sermons… That they are entirely too long.

She has even gone as far as timing them and showing me that some of them has gone almost 8 minutes.

When I asked her if she minded if I share this story with our church family, she said…

Dad, it’s no secret. Everyone has to sit through your prayers, and everyone knows they go on forever.

As most of you know, today is the 3rd sermon in our sermon series titled,

Reflecting On The Hymns of Easter.

The hymn we are going to reflect on today is Jesus Paid it All.

Surprisingly enough, the story behind the hymn Jesus paid it all, shares a very similar story to the one I shared with you regarding my long prayers.

So, the story goes, it was a Sunday Morning in 1865 at the Monument Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland where 45-year-old widowed Elvina M. Hall was attending Church service as usual.

On this particular Sunday morning, the pastor had an extremely long pastoral prayer, and an unusually long sermon,

During this long prayer and sermon, Mrs. Hall's thoughts began to wander as she was sitting up in the choir loft.

With a wondering mind, Mrs. Hall started writing a poem on a blank flyleaf of her hymnal.

After the very long sermon was over, she felt compelled to take the handwritten poem that she had written and give it to her pastor, Rev. George W. Schreck.

Unbeknown to Mrs. Hall, that very same week the church organist, John Grape gave the same pastor a copy of some new music that he written, entitled "All To Christ I Owe,"

As the Pastor looked at both pieces, he undoability saw that this was something special, and that God used these two people and a long prayer to do His work.

He couldn’t help but notice how well the two pieces went together.

In the coming weeks, Mrs. Hall and Mr. Grape worked together to finish the hymn together.

After the hymn was completed, the pastor urged them to send their song to

Professor Theodore Perkins, the publisher of the Sabbath Carols periodical, where it received its first publication.

The hymn appeared in The Baptist Hymn and Praise Book of 1904 and has been in every Baptist Hymnal since.

Ever since then, this song, Jesus paid it all has been a favorite by Christians and is noted as a favorite Easter hymn by many people.

And this should be a lesson to my children, on how we don’t know how God will work amid my long prayers and sermons.

Jesus paid it all is based is based on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 and it can be found on pages 1777-1778 of the pew Bible if you would like to follow along.

Starting with verse 12:

6:12 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.

6:13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

6:14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

6:16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

6:17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.

6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.

6:20 you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.

Brothers and Sisters, what this morning’s passage of scripture is really laying out is a case against the indulgence of the human body.

It’s probably fair to say that nothing in this world is more abused than that of the human body.

Just think about it for a minute.

Think about how much money is spent annually on warfare.

implements of destruction,

Tools and implements intended to create havoc, tools intended for destruction in hopes to destroy the human body.

According to the Peter G Peterson Foundation, the United States spent an estimated 820 Billion dollars of warfare in 2023 alone.

Some reports show that globally military spending reached a record $2.4 trillion dollars.

Now, I’m sure with like most reports there is a margin of error, but what if those numbers are close to be accurate?

Think about if that money was used for medical research to preserve human life as opposed to destroying it.

Think about if even a portion of that money was spent to spread the good news of the Gospel, where lost souls would be saved.

Yes, I’m sure most of us can agree that the human body is the most abused thing on the face of the earth.

Perhaps when we think of abuse to the human body, we often think of…

the human trafficking crisis that is so prominent in the world we live in today.

The physical, verbal, and mental abuse that is committed by the people that is supposed to love us the most.

We can look and see evidence of abuse in how we treat our own body, without even taking into consideration the violence and disrespect we show to others.

This can be seen by the types of food that we put in our bodies.

The way we form addictions to alcohol, tobacco, and drugs,

And the sad truth regarding self-harm and suicide.

according to the institute of health matrix and evaluations there are about 740,000 suicides that are reported annually: that's one death on average every 43 seconds,

As we navigate this morning’s passage, we will discover 5 truths.

The first truth that we are going to see is here in verse 12.

That truth, that the body is created with the intention to be governed by the principals of Christan Liberty’s, not physical desires.

Let’s take a moment and lean into that

Verse 12 says:

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.

We all know what it feels like to have urges of the human body.

For example, I have been trying really hard to watch what I am eating in hopes to lose some weight.

For 6 weeks now, I have not had one candy bar and hadn’t even thought that much about candy bars until I walked into a co-worker’s office the other day, and she had a big bowl of payday candy bars sitting on her desk.

Now, Paydays are one of my favorite candy bars.

I can tell you, that I genuinely felt the strong urge of the human body, and I continued to feel that urge all the way up to the point to when I ate that candy bar.

But when we think of more serious ways of people cave into the desires of the body we can see the reality of all the ways humanity has a way of validating our desires and putting labels on them like:

Thinking or saying,

These desires are normal feelings that everyone has, Natural desires that don’t pose a problem,

We live in a society where people think their desires need to be fulfilled just because they experience them.

We can use the example of the payday candy bar if we want,

One could say, this desire that I was experiencing was coming from hunger,

I could reason it by saying or thinking, everyone gets hungry,

I could justify eating that candy bar by saying It’s natural to eat when your hungry,

And then when I caved into my desire, I would do so the believing the lies that I convinced myself,  

Thinking therefore, since I am feeling this way, I need to eat so my desire is satisfied.

Now you may be thinking, Pastor Chris, come on…

It’s only a small Payday candy bar. It’s not that big of a deal.

Brothers and Sisters, realize this…

It’s not what the desire is… it’s the way we convince ourselves to cave into them.

Church family,

this may come as a surprise to some of you, but we as Christians we are not forced to do anything.

The Lord is not a dictator.

We aren’t forced to be here today; Jesus didn’t come into your bedroom this morning and drag us out of bed like our mother did when we were a child.

The Bible totally supports an individual’s liberties and freedoms,

One of my favorite verses in the Bible:

Joshua 24:15: listen to the language used here…

But ifserving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choosefor yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

We have free will, but friends we are expected to exercise Christian liberties, and resist physical desires that go against Christian values and ethics.

Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should do it.

And it’s when we start getting this concept threw our heads, we can start to see how this comes together, and how we should be living a life that pleases the Lord, through the decisions we make.

Continuing with our scripture, Verse 13 – 14 says:

6:13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

6:14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

This is where we find our second truth:

The body is not designed for selfish desires and urges.

Church Family, with this truth, Paul is urging his readers, and Gods Word is urging us today, to ask ourselves one question…

What really matters.

Let’s take a moment and ponder this?

When the Corinthians would have read those words,

“All things are permissible to me”

what would have gone through their mind?

Now, ask ourselves this…

What comes to our mind?

I’m sure for most of us, the indulgences that we submit to against our better judgment are far greater than the simple payday candy bar that I spoke of a few minutes ago.

In his letter Paul goes right to the heart of the problem,

He says:

You say…

“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

You know in life we have many slogans or sayings, don’t we?

Sayings like…

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side…

This is a saying to imply that something isn’t always as good as you think it’s going to be once you get it, right?

How about…

you get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit… Meaning, be happy with what you received, and don’t get mad about it.

One of my best friends is much younger than me, and he is of

El Salvadorian heritage. His name is Rene,

And as you all know, I have a way of making words up and I have some saying’s that I use,

Like… I will bet you a dollar to a doughnut hole.

Or my favorite.

You could have bought him for a nickel and sold him for a dollar, that’s what I say when I surprise someone.

My young friend Rene looked at me when I said that for the first time and told me…

Chris, I have no idea what that means…

He said, you know the English language is hard enough to understand without you saying things that make no since.

I said, well now you know what my church family has to listen to every week.

Well, the Corinthians, they too had sayings that helped them reason everyday life.

And one of the saying’s they would say is:

Food for the stomach and the stomach for food.

This was a saying that they used to help justify their immorality.

Remember, we talked about this a few minutes ago.

They reasoned that “food” was both pleasurable and necessary.

In other words,

When their stomachs felt hunger, food was necessary to be taken to satisfy them,

but the problem is they let this reasoning influence other areas of their life, like sexual desires.

Their argument was like with the food, sex was pleasurable and necessary, and when their bodies felt sexual desire, they needed to be satisfied, regardless of the appropriateness of it.

But like Barney Fife would say… Paul Nips it in the Bud! Theres another one of those saying’s, Nip it in the bud.

My friend Rene is probably home watching thinking, what in the world does that mean.

Paul draws a distinction between the body…

our body, in terms of our physical frame, and our body as a hole…

our flesh, and our spirit as one, a member of the Body of Christ.

The point Paul is making is that the body has been made to be eternal.

That our body’s aren’t designed for sexual immortality, or anything in fact that draws a blemish on it because we were designed to be one with Christ and not one with our desires. 

Verses 15 – 18 says:

6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

6:16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

6:17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.

The third truth:

The body is designed to be a member of Christ.

So, when Paul poses the question…

Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? It would be in our best interest to consider the factual truth contained in his words.

When someone has relations with a prostitute, several things happen.

1. There is an increased potential for disease and sickness that could lead to death,

2. When someone unites with a prostate, relationships are destroyed

3. Trust is violated and the pleasure and enjoyment that is experience is only temporary, and it’s only a short amount of time until the satisfaction goes away, and the person feels empty, looking once again to find fulfillment in the temporary pleasures that the world have to offer.

It’s because of these facts that Paul says,

Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

6:16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

6:17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Church family, what Paul is saying here is very simple, You can’t be a member of the Body of Christ and chase selfish desires of the flesh.

You can’t serve two masters.

For us today church family, we can’t look at today’s passage and just say it’s regarding sexual immorality, for its far greater than that.

In most of my Bibles, this passage of scripture is titled sexual immorality:

I don’t know if that’s how I would have titled it.

I think a more fitting title would have been “Your worth more than that”

Church family, You may be asking yourself right now, what in the world does this message have to do with Lent and Easter.

Well, I’m going to tell you, just stay with me…

Verse 19:

6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.

The next truth, The body is designed to be the temple of the Holy Spirit.

When we fall into selfish desires, when we sin with our bodies,

whether it’s with chemical substances, that lead to addiction, and sickness,

Weather it is what we chose to eat and consume, and the consequences are detrimental to our health.

Perhaps it’s desires to view or listen to explicit material.

The actions we take have a potetional of separating ourselves from Christ, but not only are we doing that, we are also grieving the Holy Spirit who resides in us.

Which leads us to our final truth… which is found in verse 20:

6:20 you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.

And it’s these 6 words at the beginning of verse 20, which makes this message a Lenton and Easter Message…

“You were bought at a price”

“You were bought at a price”

I was bought at a price.

I want you to say that with me…

I was bought at a price.

I once heard a pastor say… You were bought for a price, and Jesus wants what he paid for.

Church family,

the Grace of salvation and forgiveness and oneness with Christ that we experience is offered to everyone who will except it, but it was not free, never say that it was.

Church family, this isn’t one of those warm and fuzzy sermons today,

This message is one that is meant to make you think.

Brothers and Sisters,

There may be liberties that are available to us, but when we exercise bad decisions and grieve the Holy Spirit than we cheapen the cost of His blood.

We cheapen the cost of the Grace that was extended to us.

In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,

baptism without church discipline,

Communion without confession,

absolution without personal confession.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it, a man will go and sell all that he has.

It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods.

It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.

It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.

It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.

Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.

Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life but delivered him up for us.

Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

Church family, the cost that was paid for us was a flow of blood.

Blood shed for us,

When we are faced with caving into sinful, selfish desires, we must ask ourselves the question,

Would our actions be reflective of the costly price of the grace that has been lavished on us?

"Jesus' sacrifice gives life" and it wasn’t free.

Our closing hymn contains these words:

Jesus paid it all,

All to Him I owe.

Sin had left a crimson stain,

He washed it white as snow.

Church family, I did something new this week.

if you look in your bulletins, you will see a list of questions. Now don’t worry, I’m not giving a test,

and I’m not collecting them at the end of the service,

but I am asking that you do this:

I want you to take these questions home with you,

I want you to think about them,  

Church family,

Our desires are a powerful thing, and if we are truly looking to deepen our relationship with Christ Jesus, than we better start taking things more seriously,

Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

How are your desires, actions and words, receiving that gift that has been given to you?

Brothers and Sisters, we don’t have to go around like the Corinthians saying:

Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, trying to justify what we do.

You have a choice,

I have a choice,

We all have a choice,

we have a choice if we get up on Sunday morning and come to church, and when you leave, we have a choice on how God’s word and message dictates how we live.

In a few weeks we are having Love Feast,

You have a choice, if weather or not you want to come, If you want to worship, and serve with your church family,

In a few weeks, you will have a choice when we have our revival services, weather or not you want to come and revive your spirit.

We have a choice on what we say,

We have a choice on what we do,

We have a choice on how we respond to our selfish desires,

How we respond to our wants and ignore our spiritual needs.

Church family, as we draw to a close, let us reflect on God’s word and the words to this hymn, let us weigh the cost of our desires and let our actions be reflective of God’s love for us which was paid on the cross.

Amen.

Benediction:

As we leave here today,

Let us leave always weighing the cost.

Let us leave staying focused on not be mastered by anything

Let us leave knowing that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and that we are not our own.

Always remembering, That we were bought at a price, let’s live a life that worth it.

Amen

Questions:

What does it mean to honor God with your body?

How can understanding that 'we are not our own' impact our daily decisions?

How can understanding that we are temples of the Holy Spirit influence your choices in daily life?

What are some practical ways we can avoid being mastered by our desires?

What are some practical steps you can take to honor God with your body?

In what ways can you confront desires that conflict with your identity as a member of Christ?

How can you apply the message of 'Jesus Paid it All' to your life during Lent?