You Are Not Your Own

You Are Not Your Own (February 25, 2007)

“You are not your own; you were bought with a price.” 1 Corinthians 6:19b-20a.

First of a series of five sermons on the Christian Life, as taught by John Calvin.

Today I begin a series for Lent on “The Christian Life”, as taught by the great reformer John Calvin in the 16th century in Geneva, Switzerland, and as discussed in a little book by the same name by the late John Leith, a Presbyterian theologian of great influence and scholarship. Dr. Leith wrote that Calvin lived with a vivid awareness that the essential business of human life is having to do with the living God, and that the chief end of life is not to save your own soul but to glorify God and serve God in the world.

Calvin’s great work is called the Institutes of the Christian Religion and it explores his understanding of God, Christ, the Scriptures, sin, and many other topics. It is amazingly clear because Calvin was not interested in theology for the sake of anything other than Christian practice. Some of you remember Robert Rivera, who is now studying theology at Harvard. The first Sunday he came to our church he told me he read Calvin when he was at a Pentecostal college in Tennessee and now wanted to be a Presbyterian.

This is a very good subject for Lent. The focus is never far from Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death for our sakes, and his glorious resurrection.

In our gospel reading this morning Jesus is confronted by the devil in the wilderness and undergoes three temptations. Jesus answers the temptations by quoting the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus was eating nothing and his first temptation from the devil was to turn stones into bread. It was a temptation to meet his physical needs. Jesus replied, “Man does not live by bread alone.”

The second temptation was the temptation to power. The devil would give him all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would worship him. Jesus replied, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him.” As Peter Gomes of Harvard says, the devil was appealing to the human need for a sense of power and territory, but Jesus’ power was made perfect, as the Bible says, through weakness.

The third temptation was to prove who he was by casting himself down from a mountain. No one likes to have his identity threatened. This was the subtlest temptation of all. But again Jesus wouldn’t yield to the temptation. “You shall not tempt the Lord your God,” he replied.

“Man does not live by bread alone.” “Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.” “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” By these three quotations from Deuteronomy Jesus put spiritual needs and the worship of God first, even before his own physical and emotional and psychological needs.

In this period we call Lent we look ahead to Calvary where, as scripture says, “God showed his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” When someone does something marvelous for you it is common to feel you are in that person’s debt. If, for instance, you are drowning and you are saved by a lifeguard, you are in that lifeguard’s debt. New Yorkers feel a debt to the rescue workers who gave their lives for others’ sakes. Regardless of one’s views on the Iraq war, we feel a debt to those who have served there, which is why their poor treatment at Walter Reed hospital in Washington reported this week is so unacceptable and scandalous. No one believes these debts can ever be repaid.

The same is true for the cross of Christ. This is a debt which cannot be repaid. Nor is it meant to be, except to live out our lives showing in word and deed that we are grateful. And that begins with an understanding of what was the cost to God of our redemption, and as a result, as St. Paul wrote, “we are not our own.” That is, our life is ours only to give to God, because we were, as the apostle says, “bought with a price.”

This year I have Joshua Brewer and Christopher Yeh in the Confirmation class. This means a lot to me because 13 years ago I baptized them. In the Confirmation class we are studying the catechism. There are 106 questions and the first is: What is God’s purpose for your life? Answer: That I should live by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.” These are words which we hear at the end of practically every service of worship. And the second question is: how do I live by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ? The answer: “I am not my own. I have been bought with a price. The Lord Jesus Christ loved me and gave himself for me. I entrust myself completely to his care, giving thanks each day for his wonderful goodness.”

In the 17th century the Reformers in England wrote the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. The first question became famous and was memorized by generations and generations: what is the chief end of Man? The chief end of Man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. This is totally different from the way many people would answer that question. If Aristotle answered that question his answer would probably have been to pursue happiness. Aristotle wrote much about happiness. It’s a good bet that far more people would give that answer today than “glorifying God”. But the Bible’s view is that happiness of itself is at best an illusive and too subjective goal and better attained as a by-product of pursuing the real goal: glorifying God. Look at the Beatitudes, for instance, or the first psalm.

This answer also beats the option to think of life as gratifying our physical needs. Of course, we need to eat, and Jesus knew that and fed the hungry multitudes. But he taught them clearly that life was more than that. We need a sense of territory and independence, -- our “space” as they say -- and Jesus spoke out against all forms of oppression and dominance and used the Isaiah text on freeing the captives and recovery of sight to the blind for his “inaugural” sermon, but life is more than that, too. And we need a sense of personal identity, but there is no higher and more ennobling sense of personal identity than to know in your heart who you are – a child of God who is so much the object of God’s affection that he sent his only Son to die for us that we might live no longer to ourselves alone but for Him who gave his life for us.

Here’s how Calvin himself said it (and we understand when he says “man” he means everyone):

“We are not our own; let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own; let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own; in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours.

“Conversely,” he said, “we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal….Let this therefore be the first step, that a man,” he wrote, “depart from himself in order that he may apply the whole force of his ability in the service of the Lord….”

One final point needs to be made. You don’t have to be a professional religious person, a minister, say, to do this. The Protestant Reformation made it crystal clear that there was no difference between lay people and clergy. Luther called it the “priesthood of all believers”. He and Calvin were particularly fond of the verse: “whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all to the glory of God.” Any work or profession, Luther said, which is honest and is honestly performed can be just as much a giving glory to God as work in the church. The laity were not to be second class citizens in the church, and ministers could marry and have families just like lay people. The point is to seek first and foremost the will of God for your life, knowing that your life is only yours to be given away to the purposes of God and God’s glory.

“You are not your own. You were bought with a price.”