Last week, I was with a friend who is not a Christian, and we were discussing the prices of properties in Ealing. He asked me, “What is your church worth?” I was slightly shocked by the question and didn’t know how to answer. I knew he was asking about the value of the building, but it is a wonderful question: “How much is your church worth?”
It turns out that last Sunday I was preaching on Acts 20, where Paul instructs the Ephesian elders, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28, emphasis added). The word “obtained” here means literally “to gain for oneself, to purchase, to buy, to acquire.”
In asking the question of how much something is worth, the obvious answer is, “How much did you pay for it?” How much is the church worth? It was bought by the blood of God. Acts 20:28 is the only place in Scripture that speaks of the blood of God. God is a Spirit and does not have blood, so Paul is clearly referring to the blood of Jesus Christ in His death on Calvary. We can say as individuals, “The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me,” (see Gal. 2:20), but we also must say corporately, “He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us” (see Titus 2:14).
Paul expresses the same truth to the believers in Corinth: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:19–20). It speaks of us in trading terms, dealing with redemption. Twice in the New Testament we are told that the church is “his own treasured possession” (Titus 2:14; see also 1 Peter 2:9). A price has been paid, a cost has been met, and payment has been delivered. The church has been obtained and now belongs to God.
We are living in economically uncertain times; each month we have figures that come out regarding inflation. Does our money buy as much as it used to? Are interest rates going to go up or come down, affecting what we can purchase? The blood of Jesus Christ that bought the church does not go up or down in value. It never depreciates; inflation has no impact upon it; it is not affected by government economic policy or even international tariffs; its purchasing power does not change. The hymn “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” reminds us:
He breaks the power of reigning sin,
He sets the pris’ner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.
When our church was in the midst of a building project, our architect tried to explain to me that beauty costs. We see that in the world of art, and even in the clothes we wear. People are willing to pay more for quality. You get what you pay for, and there is an intrinsic value to items that are beautiful. It is hard for you and me to comprehend the beauty of the church. We can so easily see its faults and failures and frustrations. We know our sin, the schism, the chronic tendency to see the problems. It is difficult for us to believe how much we are valued by God, how much we are loved and desired. The church has been loved by God so much that we’ve been bought by Jesus Christ. God sent His Son to shed His blood for the church—that is how precious we are to Him.
Scripture tells us that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Ps. 50:10). The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof (Ps. 24:1). He owns everything in this universe, and yet we’re told that He paid the most precious thing that could ever be paid. It took the life and death of His only Son to buy us. He could not have given more. The answer to my friend who asked how much our church is worth is this: The church cannot be bought. It is too expensive for you. It is priceless, and it is not for sale.
When we realize how much God loves the church, we are stopped in our tracks and convicted because of how we have spoken of the church for which Jesus shed His blood. Those silly, petty things that I have said about people for whom God has sent His Son to die should break my heart.
It also puts value into what we are doing. Church life matters to God. When you find yourself moaning and complaining, just think about how important the church is to God. It matters to Him, and so however you serve on a Sunday—welcoming people, running the AV, serving refreshments, showing hospitality, playing music, setting up and putting away chairs—with all the frustrations and joys of those things, remind yourself that the people you are serving have been bought by God with the blood of His Son.
Joel Beeke notes: “The church is owned by God the Father, bought with the blood of God the Son, and personally superintended by God the Holy Spirit. Nothing on earth can compare to the church.” The church is precious.