“Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A: That I am not my own but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.”
A husband belongs to his wife. A wife belongs to her husband. If you ignore this belonging, you will find out why belonging matters. If you pursue a married woman as if she were single, you will find out why belonging matters. As Proverbs says, “jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge. He will not accept any compensation; he will refuse a bribe, however great it is.”
A wife belongs to her husband. A husband belongs to his wife. There was a time before a husband and wife belonged to each other. If you are a husband, you don’t enjoy thinking about young men who your wife dated before she met you, but you don’t consider those dates sin. She didn’t belong to you yet. You weren’t married.
Now if your wife and her high school boyfriend start dating again, you would rightly be angry; “jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge.” That’s the difference belonging makes.
A wedding ceremony declares that a husband belongs to his wife. The blood shed on the cross declares that you belong to Jesus. Jesus takes that very seriously. He calls you take it very seriously. There is a reason that God calls Himself a jealous God. He is jealous like a husband. He takes belonging seriously. “I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood…”
If you belong to Jesus, you belong because of the blood. That’s the claim of this sermon: if you belong to Jesus, you belong because of the blood.
We will see this in two points. First: bought by the blood. Second: belonging by the blood. First, we will consider how we are bought by the blood of Jesus. Then we will consider what it means to belong by the blood.
First: bought by the blood.We’ve seen in this series that belonging to Jesus is the only substantial comfort possible in this often sad life. We’ve seen that belonging to Jesus provides the only comfort when it comes your time to die. We’ve seen that both your body and soul must belong to him to have this comfort. Now, if you have this comfort, you certainly know that you didn’t earn it or develop it. You received it as a gift from God; you know that gift had a price and that price was the blood of Jesus. You belong to Jesus because of the blood.
Whether you are a Christian or are just curious about Christianity, you might be wondering why blood is necessary for belonging. Why can’t God forgive sins without bloodshed? After, all He is God. He can do anything.
With proper reverence, we must say that there are some things that not even God can do. We must say that because that’s what God tells us about Himself. For example, His word tells us that He can’t lie; “it is impossible for God to lie.” Lying is something God cannot do. It’s untrue to say that God can do anything.
God’s can’t overlook sin and still be just. What would you think about an organization in which there was rampant sexual harassment, but the boss, who is aware of it, does nothing about it? God can’t be like that boss. He must hold sin accountable.
What is the proper accountability for sin? To answer that question, you must determine what sin is. If you don’t know the offense, you can’t know the proper accountability. Sin is rebellion against God. As Scripture says, “everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.” Sin is the refusal to live God’s way.
What is the proper accountability for a man who refuses to live God’s way? This is God’s world and if a man won’t live God’s way in God’s world then that man must no longer live in God’s world. That’s what is called death. That’s why God told Adam, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
If this offends you, I want you to consider why it offends you. Does it offend you because you think that God has no right to hold sin accountable? Why do you think that? You are betting an awful lot on the fact that God won’t hold sin accountable. What reason do you have for assuming He won’t?
Perhaps you agree that God has the right to hold sin accountable, but you find death to be an extreme form of accountability. You might wonder why a man can’t just apologize from his heart, receive God’s forgiveness, and then stop sinning. That’s a good question. Part of the answer is found in the fact that man won’t stop sinning.
The proof is the Old Testament. God saved a people group from slavery. He gave them commandments outlining how to live His way in His world. He gave them priests to teach His way of life. He gave them prophets to correct when they went astray. He gave them kings to structure society around His law. If ever humanity were to live God’s way it would have happened in Israel. Instead, Israel is a public demonstration that we humans cannot stop sinning. A sensitive reader of the Old Testament will see humanity’s failure all over the place.
A cursory examination of your own life should teach you that you can’t and won’t stop sinning. If you don’t believe me, try. Every day, all day this week love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength and your neighbor as yourself. Not only won’t you do that, you can’t do that. You will say with Paul, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
Here’s the situation in which you find yourself: since God must hold sin accountable, He must hold your sin accountable. You can’t and won’t stop sinning. Therefore, the logical outcome is that you cannot continue to live because you won’t live God’s way in God’s world. That’s why, “The wages of sin is death.” That’s the situation in which you find yourself.
Here’s the situation in which God finds Himself. He will hold you responsible for your sin. How could He not? He can’t be like that boss overlooking sin. He can’t have you perpetually refusing to live His way in His world. He will hold you responsible, but just like you don’t want to die, God doesn’t want you to die. That’s why He told Ezekiel, “I take no pleasure in the death of anyone.”
God requires your death for your sin and God wants you to live. God wants both. How can God get both?
He gets both by the blood of Jesus. Paul explained it to the Romans saying, “We know that our old self was crucified with [Jesus] so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”
The blood bought Christian has died to himself. His right to himself has died. He belongs to Jesus. That’s why Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Jesus bought your life with his blood. That’s why Peter told the church, “you know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.” That’s why Paul called us, “the church of God, which [Jesus] bought with his own blood.” That’s why the elders in glory praise Jesus saying, “you are worthy… because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
Take that purchase seriously. Take that belonging seriously. Jesus does. He thinks that you belong to him because he died as your substitute. He shed the blood that you should have shed. That’s the logic behind the substitution we see in the sacrificial system. Leviticus tells us, “the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”
The clear message of the sacrificial system is that sin demanded death. The wages of sin is death. God’s people saw that whenever they saw a sacrifice slaughtered. It was a very visual system. ‘That is what your sin deserves.’ Now, people knew that the death of that bull wasn’t enough for their sin. They knew something more was needed. As Hebrews tells us, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”
Jesus blood can. “Surely, he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Jesus’ blood is sufficient. “He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood.” You can either belong to yourself and die in sin or you can be bought by Jesus’ blood and belong to him. The idea that you can claim Christ’s blood as sufficient for your sin without now belonging to him body and soul in life and in death is a mockery of the cross of Christ and of salvation itself.
That’s why Jesus said, “whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” That’s why Jesus said, “you must be born again.” You need to die and be born again. You need your heart of stone taken out and to die before your heart of flesh can be put in, in the words of Ezekiel.
Have you lost your life, or have you just tried to lose your sin? The blood doesn’t just pay for sin. The blood buys you. “I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood…”
If you have been bought by the blood, you now belong to Jesus. What does that mean? That’s our second point: belonging by the blood.
What does it mean to belong by the blood? If you belong by the blood, you are no longer your own; you are forgiven. Belonging by the blood means that you are forgiven. As Paul told the Ephesians, “in [Jesus], we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Blood purchased people are forgiven people.
Do you know that you are forgiven? If so, how? Is it because you feel it? Feelings change. You need something outside yourself to prove that you that you are forgiven. The blood proves that you are forgiven.
You have confidence to approach God not because of your feelings but because of the blood. Hebrews doesn’t say, “we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place because we feel good about ourselves”; it says, “we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.”
If you don’t feel forgiven, stop looking at yourself. Look at the blood. “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” If you belong by the blood, you are no longer your own; you are forgiven.
If you belong by the blood, you are forgiven. You also will be holy. Blood bought people will be holy people. As Hebrews says, “Jesus… suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.” I don’t know your life goals for yourself before you belonged to Jesus. I do know Jesus’ life goal for you now that you belong to him. He plans on making you holy. The blood will make you holy. You see the end result in Revelation, “they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
The Bible goes so far as to say that you are a saint if you’ve been bought by the blood. “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus…” Don’t think for a second that saints are canonized by the church. Saints are bought by the blood.
The blood makes you holy and the blood requires holiness. As John told the church, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”
You can’t claim the blood and live in unholiness. ‘You have died to sin; how can you live in it any longer?’ Paul asks. “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
If you are living in private sin or some sort of public sin, doesn’t the blood tell you to stop? You have been bought. You don’t belong to yourself anymore. That is the cost of forgiveness. You must die to sin. You’ve been bought for holiness.
If you belong by the blood you are forgiven. If you belong by the blood, you will be holy. If you belong by the blood, you have the right to a clean conscience. The blood cleanses consciences.
That is sorely needed today. How many people try to quiet their conscience with alcohol or drugs? How many people try to numb their conscience with hours of entertainment or needless spending. You wouldn’t want that for your children. The heavenly Father doesn’t want that for His children. Do you have a clean conscience? The blood can give you a clean conscience.
If you belong by the blood, but don’t have a clean conscience, what are you saying about the blood? You aren’t honoring God by dishonoring the blood.
If you belong by the blood and you think that feeling guilty for repented sins somehow makes you more spiritual, you are wrong. Jesus didn’t bleed so that you could act like his blood was insufficient. He bled so that you could serve the living God. “How much more… will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”
The blood is not psychological in the sense that you need to think it for it to be true. The blood is a historical event. Jesus cried out, “it is finished” whether you happen to have thought about that today or not.
That and that alone is the only reason for a clean conscience whether you have been in church your whole life or whether you just wandered in this morning for the first time. Clean consciences aren’t earned by us. They are purchased by Jesus. He purchased them with his blood. Do you have one? “Oh! precious is the flow that makes me white as snow; no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
Are you trusting in something other than the blood? Are you trusting in your attempts to be a good person? Stop acting like you belong to yourself. Are you trusting in Jesus plus your attempts to be a good person? Stop acting like you belong to yourself. You belong to Jesus. He bled so you could belong. Amen
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We are going to share in this blood this morning. When the juice comes around, remember what Jesus said, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” Remember the blood—to forgiveness, to holiness, to a clean conscience.