The Value of a Soul

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's a privilege to be back with you again. Last time I was here, we were out in the lawn and I remember watching the storm clouds there to the, that'd be the east maybe or the west, I forget. But thankful to be inside and be able to worship our Savior together.

Our text for this morning's message comes from Matthew chapter 16. Matthew in the New Testament there, Matthew chapter 16. We're gonna look really just at one verse, but we'll read Matthew 16 verses 24 through 28. And in the context here, Jesus is teaching his disciples the cost of discipleship. And what does it look like to follow Jesus? And as we'll see today also, what is the value of a soul? We have here today perhaps the clearest evaluation or appraisal that our Savior gives to a human soul. So we'll look just at one verse today, but let's read starting in verse 24. Listen now to the reading of God's Word. Then Jesus told His disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each one according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Thus ends the reading of God's word. We pray that he would write it on our hearts today and forever.

The value of a soul is our subject for today. And in today's world, with inflation, rising costs of fuel, rising costs of goods and services, supply chain issues, these things have all of us reconsidering the value of the goods and services that we consume, do they not? And if you think about it, hardly a day goes by that we don't engage in analysis of the value of the things that we consume. And we ask, what are we willing to pay for this? But what, or when rather, is the last time that you paused to consider what is the value of a human soul. One single human soul. What dollar amount would you put on a soul? It was up to you today. What dollar amount would you put on a soul?

In this world of rising prices of the goods and services that we consume, it's tragic that the value of a soul is frankly plummeting. To evaluate the value of a soul, we need an expert. We need to call in a professional appraiser. Who else should we listen to but the very creator of the souls? The one who knows the cost of the souls. We don't need to go to the Antique Roadshow or this TV show American Pickers to learn the value of a soul. We can turn to Jesus himself. And we're gonna see three truths that Jesus teaches us about the value of a soul. Before we look at those three truths, we first need to kind of give ourselves a working definition, an understanding of what is a soul.

And quite simply, the soul of a person is that immaterial part of the person. We are body and soul, two parts. There's a physical and a non-physical. And the soul is what makes you, you. I don't know if it was done intentionally, it certainly was by God, but in the bolts in there you have the catechism and the larger and shorter catechism and the confession of faith. And it says this in the larger catechism, that God formed the body of man of the dust of the ground and the woman of the rib of the man and do them with living reasonable and immortal souls made after his own image. Your soul is what makes you, you. Yes, you are but dust in the material sense as we already sang about in Psalm 103. You're just but dust. Your body is made up of the stuff of this world. but who you really are is found in your soul. Think about the times that you've attended a funeral. You're going to weep and to grieve with those who have lost their loved one or friend, but in a real sense, you know that that person is no longer there.

This is why Paul speaks about himself being away from this earth or away from his body and being at home with the Lord. or Jesus, speaking to the thief on the cross. He says, today you will be with me in paradise. That body was not yet resurrected and going to be with Christ in heaven. That person, the thief on the cross, was going to be with Christ.

So what I'm getting at is that the substance of a person is found in their soul. It's that immaterial part. And so with that working definition of a soul, let's jump into our teaching here. These three truths, Jesus, he gives us rhetorical questions. Two rhetorical questions. A rhetorical question, something that is asked. Of course, there is an answer. But Jesus is asking the question not to get information for himself, he knows the answer. He wants his disciples to think. And he wants you and me to think today about the answer to the questions that he puts to us.

First Point

And through these questions, he teaches us this first truth, and that is that soul bearers have immeasurable, incredible, even incalculable value. Souls bear incredible, incalculable value. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Jesus, using hyperbole here, we understand, is saying, imagine that you had access to everything in the world. Just think about it. If you had access to everything in the world, everything imaginable, all the money, all the gold, all the technology, all the power, all of it was yours. If that were possible for you to get a hold of that, The food, the comfort, the pleasure, if you owned it, if you gained it, if you earned it, if you had all that but it cost you your soul, you would profit nothing. You would not just be getting a bad deal, Jesus is teaching us, you would be getting the worst deal possible wherein You give all, but you lose your soul. Why is this such a great loss?

Because one soul is worth more than the totality of the world. Appreciate that. Think about that. Just work that out in an equation or whatever it is that you need in your mind to hear what Jesus is saying today. The whole world, multiple galaxies, are worth nothing. compared to one soul. You fool, Christ said to the rich man who was building bigger barns to store up the stuff of this world, to make provision for the things of this world, but he had made no provision for his soul. Jesus said this very night is your soul required of you. Let's just under this point work out a few more evidences or proofs that show the high value of a human soul. Are there scriptures that teach this?

And the first is that men and women are created as the unique handiwork of God. The human soul is the masterpiece of the creation of our God. And unlike the rest of creation, which was created by the word of God's power, We see there in the text the divine council coming together, deliberating, taking the full effort and contribution of the Trinity when they say, let us make man in our image, raising our expectations for what wonderful masterpiece this is gonna be when God creates man and woman. Secondly, Men and women among all of the other creation uniquely bear the image of God. And we understand that the image of God is not found in the physical body. Children's Catechism, I believe it says, God does not have a body like man. God is a spirit. So the image of God is found and resides in the souls of men and women.

And this also shows the value of a soul. Thirdly, the story of redemption throughout scripture and the great lengths that God goes to to save souls teaches us about the value of a soul. It shows us. And the cost that God took upon himself to save souls clearly teaches. that God values souls. It's what Christ is speaking to us in our text exactly today. Well fourth, I'll just, one thing that we'll add here to build this point that Christ values souls in other scriptures truths. This fourth evidence is that the soul is created immortal.

The soul is created immortal. You might think about your life sort of as a a blip on the radar, or a line segment. And in one sense, your life is short, it's but a vapor, referring to the physical life that you have on this earth. But really, if you think about it, a soul is not just a line segment on this long line that stretches into eternity. Once created, your soul continues on forever. without end, never ceasing to exist. Your soul is immortal. You will live in one of two places.

Well, we could give a lot more illustrations or examples or proofs of the value of a soul, but we ought to be content when the creator of the soul tells us that a soul is worth more than the world. And so we learn, Jesus is telling us today, that the soul just has incalculable, invaluable value. The second truth that Jesus is teaching us here today is that souls can be lost.

Souls can be lost. They are of great value. They are precious. but they can be lost. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits or loses his soul? Now being lost in this sense is not like losing your keys or losing your wallet as some have experienced this week. It's not like a toy that you've lost. Losing your soul here means to be separated from God. God, who is all that is good, to be separated from Him. To be cut off from God. To be forced out of the presence of the goodness of God. To lose your soul means to be cast into the lake of fire.

That place where the smoke of your torment will go up forever and ever and ever. That place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The most lonely and awful of places imaginable. Remember that Christ is the one who paints in most stark realities the awfulness and the wretchedness of hell. And remember that signs and symbols and pictures and word descriptions always pale in comparison to actual realities. To be lost means to be cast forever into that place. That place where souls are tormented day after day after day. Week after week. Year after year. And when a soul has spent 1,000 years in that place, will be no closer to the end than when that soul was first cast into that place. This is what it means to be lost. To forfeit your soul. And at that time, when you are cast into hell, Christ, who is the way to the Father, will be cut off. The door will be closed. The drawbridge will be raised.

Like Lazarus and the rich man, who in this life were vastly different. The rich man having many, many things in this world. The poor man having nothing. But then cast into hell, the rich man there looks up and sees Lazarus, the side of Abraham. And he realizes that the chasm, it is fixed. There is no bridging the gap between heaven and hell, and there in hell he has nothing. And he cries out, just give me a drop of water to cool my tongue.

It is an irreparable loss. Money cannot get you out of that place. To be lost is a serious and weighty matter. All will be lost. A Puritan named Thomas Brooks wrote this, might the damned after millions of ages in hell regain what they have lost, it would be some ground of hope. But the prize is gone and never can be recovered. Friends, outside of Christ, there is no hope. Once you have died, your soul will be lost forever. Even if you possess everything in this world, everything, there is nothing for you after you've died.

Job 27, verse eight. For what is the hope of the godless when God cuts him off? when God takes away his life? Will God hear his cry when distress comes upon him? Implication and answer, no. Brothers and sisters, heed this warning from our text today as Christ teaches us the value of the soul and the reality that your soul can be lost if you are not abiding in Christ. Listen to Christ himself who knows the awful wrath and the weight of God's judgment.

So often, we don't understand or appreciate the value of a thing until it is lost, right? Children, maybe you've had a toy or a gift, something that was, you really liked it, and then when you lost it, then you understood how precious that thing was.

I had a watch that my, have a watch that my wife gifted to me. And I really valued that watch. And I foolishly lost that watch. I misplaced it. It was gone for about two years and every time I thought about that watch that she had given me, I just had this aching feeling in my stomach. What foolishness for me to have lost something so valuable.

Don't wait until it's too late to recognize the value of your own soul and the value of the souls of those around you. Christ is warning us. When the bridegroom comes, it will be too late to go out and buy oil. Listen to the words of Christ. Don't seek the things of this world, but seek to save your soul, to gain your soul, to profit your soul.

Another Puritan, Thomas Manton, wrote, it is a sorry bargain to lose eternity for the enjoyment of all this world. To give up eternity for things is fleeting as a bowl of soup. like Esau. Or you can think of many others. Judas for 30 pieces of silver. Think of Solomon, or Saul rather, the things that he lost. Think of Absalom. Think of others who gave up their souls because they desired the stuff and the things of this world.

The things that are fleeting. The things that are pleasurable in this world. and they are pleasurable. The things of this world do give us delight in a temporal sense. We're not saying and don't hear me to say that the things of this world are not enjoyable or that they don't bring you some level of comfort. They do. And that's why we need to heed the warning because they are fleeting.

Joseph, He did not pursue the fleeting pleasures of this life. Rather, he chose to invest in heaven. He chose to pursue the pleasure and the joy and the delight that is found in Christ, as we sang about already in Psalm 16. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Don't look to the pleasure of this world, though it is real in a sense, it's temporary. If you pursue those things, your soul will be lost.

Third Point

This brings us to our third truth that Christ is teaching us today. And he's teaching us here about the cost of a soul. He's teaching us about the cost of a soul. In the second question, he builds what he's already been teaching when he asks, for what shall a man give in return for his soul?

It's always good to answer Scripture with Scripture, to understand the less clear with the more clear passages. Psalm 49 says this, Psalm 49 verses seven through eight, we'll sing it later, but it says, truly no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life. For the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit. We learn that the ransom of a life is costly, but still that no man can give the cost of his own life.

So what can a man give in return for his soul? Let's use a little sanctified imagination. Let's turn the question this way. What would God give in return for a soul? What would God give in return for the soul? This starts to clarify in our minds I think already some of the cost of a human soul.

John 3.16, for God so loved the world, that is the whole of humanity, that He gave His only begotten Son. Or recall what was heard from Isaiah chapter 53, there where we learned about the suffering servant. We learned some of the cost of a human soul.

But He was pierced, that is Jesus, for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. And upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with His wounds we are healed. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him. He has put Him to grief when His soul makes an offering for guilt. Therefore, I will divide with him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong. Because he, again that is Jesus, poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

That is what it costs to redeem a single soul. Nothing in this world can buy your soul. No riches, no amount of human intellect, no power, no amount of good deeds, as other religions would teach you, can earn you eternity. As 1 Peter Chapter 1, verses 18 and 19 testify.

You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with imperishable things, or rather, not with perishable things, such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. It cost the precious blood of Christ for you to be saved. So that your soul would not be damned in hell, Jesus gave his life. And so, in light of these truths that Jesus is teaching us today, what application ought we make to our lives?

I believe there are many But we'll look at two today. We want to draw two applications. And the first is this. Labor for the profit of your own soul. Labor for the profit of your own soul. Seek to gain for your soul. How much time this week have you spent in the care of your own soul? How much time? You had to clock in and clock out what would the total be that would come up before the maker of your soul. Have you not instead spent more time concerned with the things of this world?

I know we're all guilty of this. You and I are guilty of being more concerned even this very day with the things of our own bodies. The stuff of this world has occupied our thoughts and our actions more than the care of our own souls. We're quick to love our bodies and all too fast to neglect our souls. Is not the person who lives in the house of more value than the house itself? is not your soul of more value than your body which contains your soul. Your body is a tent, as Paul calls it. And certainly we are called to steward our bodies, to take care of our bodies. We are not to neglect our bodies. That's not a good testimony. But we need to keep the proportions right. for the outer self is wasting away.

But by God's grace, our inner man is being renewed day by day by day. Consider if a master commits two things to the oversight of his servant. He commits a child, and of course that child is wearing clothes, And then after some time, the master returns and the servant brings the clothes and says, here master are the clothes that you entrusted to me. They are neatly folded and pressed. But the body, the child, was lost. What a wicked servant that would be, who only cared for the outward trappings, the clothing of that child. For the child is the one that bears eternal value. Your soul bears eternal value.

You are called to use and to labor in your body. You are called to labor and use your body for the sake of your soul. Just as God has given you lungs, to help your physical body. God has given us means to strengthen our souls. He has given us the word. He has given us prayer. He has given us the public worship. He has given us the sacraments. He has given us fellowship with other believers to strengthen our souls.

And how foolish would we be to neglect those things? and to see our souls wither and become weak. We are even called to battle in our bodies against our souls, or rather our souls to battle against our bodies as our flesh wages war against our soul. The passions of the flesh fighting against the inner man. As 1 Peter 2 verse 11 says, we ought to use our bodies in service to our souls.

We are even called to protect our souls at the expense of our bodies, are we not? To sacrifice the lesser for the greater. We understand this intuitively, do we not, in our physical bodies. If I come at you with a bat and I swing towards your head, you instinctively raise an arm to protect your head because you are protecting the greater and you're sacrificing your arm for the sake of the head. How much more so ought we be willing to sacrifice our bodies for the good of our souls? To give up the desires of the flesh to benefit our souls.

Our forefathers in the faith, they understood this quite well as they would be taken up the steps to be hanged, to give their life for the sake of the gospel. They were willing at all costs to protect their own souls, even if it meant being burned, being tortured. That was nothing because they understood a little bit of the value of their souls. They refused to give up their souls to protect that which is wasting away, that which is dust.

One modern-day martyr, he put it this way. I'm sure you've heard this before, a missionary. He is no fool who gives what he cannot gain, or rather what he, yeah, what he cannot gain. Let me start again. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Second Application

We are called to work and to labor for the profit of our own souls. The second application is this. Labor for the profit of others' souls. Labor for the profit of others' souls. Every day, thousands and thousands of souls are stepping through the doors of eternity, from this life into the next. Some are prepared, but many are not. For the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many. Matthew chapter 7 verse 13.

This is why we are called to share the gospel with our friends and neighbors. For the gospel is the only way for our friends and neighbors to be saved from being lost. We must not be content with the sound of heathen footsteps walking straight to hell. We ought to be compelled to share with them the good news of the gospel.

We ought to be compelled to talk with our family, with our loved ones, with those who are at the grocery store, with those who are at the gas station, because their soul, according to what Christ is telling us today, is of more value than the entire world. How else will they be saved but through Christ? Plead with your family.

And it does not matter the color of their skin. It does not matter where they live in this world. It does not matter race, creed, or color. Christ would say they all hold more value than this entire world. Think about the value of souls. Even now, I encourage you to think about your own soul. If you hear the voice of the Savior calling out to you today, do not harden your hearts. Seek the Lord while He may be found. For tomorrow, even tonight, it may be too late. There will come a time when for the last time you have heard the call of the Gospel. There will come a time when you hear the irresistible call of eternity where your soul is required of you. And you will stand before the judgment seat of the Creator and the King of this world.

Today, what good reason do you have to resist? Why? Why give up your soul for the stuff, for the dust and the dirt of this world? Christ gave His blood to save the souls of sinners. Sinners like you and me. He died on the cross. He endured the wrath and the curse so that He could offer to you today salvation. Christ says, come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. Return to the Creator of your soul. Trust in Him. Repent from your pursuits of the things of this world. Repent of living for that which is utterly worthless and foolishness. Why spend your money for that which does not satisfy?

Today, Christ offers himself to you in the gospel. Will you not come to him? He offers to you eternal life. He says, why would you give up your soul? for the things of this world. Come to Christ. Hear what Christ is teaching us today about the value of a soul. Trust in Him. Commit your souls to Him. Escape punishment from hell. Enjoy the hope that is in the gospel. Let us pray.

Father, we thank you. Lord, we thank you from the depths of our souls for sending Christ, who was subjected to utter anguish, who bore eternal wrath in his temporal body, absorbed in eternal punishment that was due for us there on the cross. He knows the pain of eternal torment for he bore it in his body there on the tree. Father, thank you. Thank you for giving us a teaching. Thank you for showing us the value of your creation.

Image bearers, of the God of this world. Lord, make us diligent in the pursuit of caring for our souls for your glory. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.