What Is Your Soul Worth?

Acts 2:36-41 February 3, 2019 Pastor Chris Oswald

Audio coming soon

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Thesis The soul is the most valuable thing you possess, worth more than the whole world, and wisdom in life consists of prizing and protecting your soul rather than trading it for temporal pleasures or successes.

Series

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Type

Expository

Tone

didacticpastoralprophetic

Method

grammatical-historicalapplicatorycanonical

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

11 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Doctrinal loci· 9 surfaced

Anthropology · 9 Sanctification · 3 Hamartiology · 2 Soteriology · 2 Spiritual Warfare · 2 Christology · 1 Eschatology · 1 Pneumatology · 1 Theology Proper · 1

Bible citations· 11

Illustrations· 4

Treating Power with Respect analogy · unit #6 — The pastor uses three analogies—dynamite, a million dollars, and opioid prescriptions—to illustrate the concept of treating something with respect not because it is morally good or bad, but because it is powerful and valuable. These analogies clarify what it means to 'love your soul' as wise stewardship of an immensely valuable asset.
Walking Targets in the Marketplace analogy · unit #8 — The pastor uses two connected analogies—older siblings tricking younger siblings in trades, and lottery winners going broke—to illustrate how people who don't understand value become easy marks for exploitation. He maps this onto the spiritual reality that humans are born with souls of infinite value but without the wisdom to protect them, making us 'walking targets in a market' where the world constantly offers bad trades.
The Fresh-Faced Sucker personal story · unit #9 — The pastor narrates his experience of being repeatedly pickpocketed in Zambia, positioning himself as a 'fresh-faced sucker' with valuable goods he didn't know how to protect. He maps this onto the spiritual reality that Christians possess souls of infinite value but often fail to protect them. He brings in Mark 8:36 to establish that trading your soul for the whole world would be the worst deal ever, then references the blues crossroads legend to illustrate how we routinely make even worse trades. The unit concludes by introducing 1 Peter 2:11, shifting from the marketplace metaphor to the warfare metaphor.
The Reality of Living Under Threat personal story · unit #10 — The pastor continues his Zambia narrative, this time wearing pink jelly flip-flops that made him an even more obvious target, then pivots to a second story about a friend returning from Afghanistan who saw combat threats everywhere due to PTSD. Both stories illustrate the reality of living in a dangerous environment and the psychological toll of constant threat—a metaphor for the spiritual warfare believers face.

Theological claims· 3

The soul is the most valuable thing in the world except for God himself, and wisdom consists of discerning the value of things and acting accordingly. unit #3
The Puritan concept of 'loving your soul' provides the biblical alternative to the self-esteem movement—you treat yourself with respect not because you are good, but because you possess something extraordinarily valuable and eternal. unit #5
We must love our souls by prizing them, especially because the soul is eternal and will be somewhere forever. unit #7

Quotations· 11

"So shun the darkness if you love your soul and you want a future." — Richard Baxter (unit #4)

"And so is the case with fleshly lusts. If your bodily tempter is addicted to something, as you love your soul, keep sufficient distance from the bait." — Richard Baxter (unit #4)

"Children, take heed as you love your souls, lest either a proud heart make you murmur and say, 'this work is too low and base for me.'" — Richard Baxter (unit #4)

"Lastly, do not try God's patience any longer if you love your souls." — John Flavel (unit #4)

"As you love your souls, take heed of all sinful tendencies of either head, heart, or life." — Richard Baxter (unit #4)

"Use the world, but love your soul. Beware of breaking a trade for your soul." — another Puritan (unit #4)

"Oh friends, let fools talk what they will in their sleep and frenzy, but as you love your souls, do not think any care or cost or pains too great for your salvation." — Richard Baxter (unit #4)

"As you love your souls, then, look to your thoughts and keep them under the government of the Lord." — Richard Baxter (unit #4)

"Therefore, as you love your souls, you must abstain from fleshly lusts which war against them." — Richard Baxter (unit #4)

"Therefore, as you love your souls, beware of the love of the world, and set not your affections on things below, but on things above." — Richard Baxter (unit #4)

"Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping." — Jordan Peterson (unit #5)

Read it

Full transcript

18,767 characters 11 units ~21 min reading time

0 · The pastor reads the primary text from Acts 2:36-41, Peter's conclusion to his Pentecost sermon and the response it generated

We'll dismiss our kids to children's ministry, and if you'll open your Bibles to the book of Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 36. Peter is finishing his sermon to those gathered at Pentecost, and he says in verse 36, let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ— this Jesus whom you crucified.' Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?' And Peter said to them, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.' For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.' And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation.' So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.

1 · The pastor unpacks the significance of the word 'souls' in Acts 2:41, exploring its historical usage in maritime and aviation contexts

That end phrase, 'There were added that day about 3,000 souls,' will be the focus of our time together this morning. There's a kind of a nautical or marine kind of feel to that. When ships are calling in SOS or when they write on their roster—this is hundreds of years old—they'll say, 'We had 300 souls on board,' or '200 souls on board.' That's transferred into the aviation industry. They report the same as they report their passengers. They say we have 150 souls on board. But pilots being snarky and self-congratulatory, they've shortened it from souls on board to SOBs. And so that's how they— well, they'll report we've got 40 SOBs on board. I couldn't find— there isn't a clear explanation for why they use that phrase. There's no clear origin to that phrase. Why did we start saying souls on board instead of people on board? No clear explanation. The closest seems to be that souls on board communicates the costliness, the importance, the value of a human life in a way that saying we have 200 people on board doesn't.

2 · The pastor frames the sermon's purpose and structure

And really, this question of what a soul is and what a soul is worth really puts all the weight into this passage. You don't really get this passage unless you get the value and weight of the soul. This is the— we're going to talk about this next week. This is the wedding. These are wedding photos. So verse 41 through 48 are wedding photos— Christ and the church, right? This is when we all looked our best. Well, when the church looked its best. But there's this sense of the story has reached this climax where the hero has slayed the dragon and he's won the girl. This is Jesus' triumph. This is his victory. And what does he win? Well, he wins salvation for people who killed him. And so understanding the weight of what he won, what is a soul, the value and the weight and the specialness of a soul, is key to understanding the importance of the whole gospel. So what I want to do today is really just talk a lot about the value of the soul. I want to— I just want a simple objective as you leave. I want you to say, well, I know that a soul is really, really important. I know that my soul is really, really important.

3 · The pastor establishes a theological foundation connecting wisdom to value discernment, then asserts the central claim that the soul is the most valuable thing in existence apart from God

You know, wisdom is probably the most useful gift you could ever be given. It helps you navigate just any circumstance in life. And wisdom really does come down to discerning the value of things and acting appropriately according to the value of things. So if you need to get wisdom, what wisdom really is, is just kind of sensing, understanding, knowing the value of something and acting accordingly. By the way, this is what helps you when you have fear of missing out or fear of saying no and so on and so forth. This will help you navigate like actual life if you know what things are worth and what things aren't worth. And there's really nothing worth more, except for God himself, than the soul. The soul is really, honestly, the most valuable thing in the world. A single soul, the Bible says, is worth more than the whole world.

4 · The pastor introduces the Puritan concept of 'loving your soul' through an extended string of quotations from Richard Baxter, John Flavel, and others

So today I want to get you to the point where, first of all, you love your soul. You love your soul. That's a phrase, 'love your soul,' that comes up time and time again in Puritan writings. I want to read a few of these just because they're too good not to read. They're just little short quips. But Richard Baxter often used this phrase, 'love your souls.' He speaks to children, he speaks to children, 'Children, take heed as you love your souls, lest either a proud heart make you murmur and say, "this work is too low and base for me."' He's saying to kids, if you love your souls, obey your parents. And don't say that what they're asking you to do is too small and too little and too dumb or whatever. He says in another place, 'So shun the darkness if you love your soul and you want a future.' This phrase 'love your soul' I think is really powerful. I'm going to try to show you some of what's going on there today. He says elsewhere, 'Oh friends, let fools talk what they will in their sleep and frenzy, but as you love your souls, do not think any care or cost or pains too great for your salvation.' John Flavel, also a Puritan, said, 'Lastly, do not try God's patience any longer if you love your souls.' For this reason, because men grow bold and encourage themselves in sin. Baxter again: And so is the case with fleshly lusts. If your bodily tempter is addicted to something, as you love your soul, keep sufficient distance from the bait. As you love your souls, then, look to your thoughts and keep them under the government of the Lord. As you love your souls, take heed of all sinful tendencies of either head, heart, or life. Therefore, as you love your souls, beware of the love of the world, and set not your affections on things below, but on things above. Therefore, as you love your souls, you must abstain from fleshly lusts which war against them. Use the world— someone else, another Puritan, says, use the world, but love your soul. Beware of breaking a trade for your soul.

5 · The pastor critiques the self-esteem movement as both dishonest (we carry guilt before God) and fatal (it encourages self-focus), then proposes the Puritan concept of 'loving your soul' as the biblical alternative

So I've always been a critic of the self-esteem movement, and part of that is I've seen all the damage that it's caused, encouraging people that somehow they're going to find fulfillment by thinking high thoughts of themselves. So you're asking them to do something that is dishonest because we all carry a sense of guilt before God, and we know it. And you're also asking them to do something even more fatal than being dishonest, and that is to focus on themselves. And that's just a fatal thing, man, to focus on yourself. But my criticism of the self-esteem movement has always felt incomplete. It's always felt like that classic mistake where you can say, 'Don't do that,' but you don't offer a a viable alternative, right? Don't do that, don't do that. Like, that's Parenting 101. Parenting 102 is do this instead. And getting to that in regards to this question of self-love, self-esteem, has been a process. I would not have expected to find what I believe is the solution to the self-esteem movement in the writings of the Puritans. But what you see in their writings is this consistent call for you to love your soul. That's an interesting idea, for you to love your soul. Now, no one's talking— this is one of the differences here— no one's talking about you loving your soul because it's good. We're talking about loving your soul because it's extraordinarily valuable. It's extraordinarily eternal. There's a guy you might have heard of, he's kind of the the intellect du jour in the world today. His name's Jordan Peterson. He wrote a book called '12 Rules for Living,' and he's not a believer, but he takes the Bible very seriously. His book has a lot of wisdom in it because of the fact that he does take the Bible seriously. And in one of his chapters in his book, he says this: 'Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping.' Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping. They've done these studies that demonstrate that people are more likely to give their pets prescription medications faithfully than to take them themselves. People just don't necessarily think about taking care of themselves. The compliance rate of prescription meds is actually relatively low. I think it might be something like 30% of people who receive a prescription take it as directed. But the compliance rates for pets, it's like 80%. People are more concerned about their pets than they are themselves. And so he's making the argument not to try to stir up some sort of admiration for yourself, because that would be dishonest. You're not necessarily admirable. In fact, the Bible says that you're not admirable. But he says to treat yourself with a sense of self-respect. Because there is incredible value or potential power for good or for bad inside of yourself. And as we talk about that, that's— we're getting close to this idea of what it means to love your soul.

6 · The pastor uses three analogies—dynamite, a million dollars, and opioid prescriptions—to illustrate the concept of treating something with respect not because it is morally good or bad, but because it is powerful and valuable

So for instance, dynamite isn't good or bad, but you treat it with respect, right? You treat it with a sense of awe. If someone handed you a million dollars, it may be good for you, it may be bad for you, Hopefully you treat it with a sense of awe. And an opioid prescription from your doctor, it's not good or bad, but hopefully you understand it's powerful and it has great potential one way or the other. So the Puritan idea of loving your soul is this sense of understanding this incredible thing that you have and being a wise steward of this most valuable asset. That you were given and that you will always have and that will define your happiness for eternity.

7 · The pastor establishes the first major point of application: love your soul by prizing it

So I want to talk a little bit about, well, how do you love your soul? The first one I've already hinted at is just that you love your soul by prizing it. You love your soul by prizing it. The Bible teaches very clearly that your soul is the central piece of you. It's the most you part of you. It's certainly the centerpiece of your whole identity. So that would suggest that it's pretty important. The Bible also says that it's the place where you and God dwell together. God dwells with you there. And most— I think maybe not most importantly, but most significantly for me as I think through this, is that this is why the soul is so important, and this is why you should prize it: it lasts forever. Like it lasts forever. You're going to have your soul forever. I was thinking this week that there are about 2 million souls in the Kansas City metro. 2 million souls in the Kansas City metro. And for each one of those souls, 2 million years will be nothing. Get your mind around that for a minute. Get your mind around it. I mean, you know, remember when you were 12 and like, you know, it's a big deal to turn 12 because you haven't had many birthdays. And it's like, hey, I'm 12. And then when you turn 40, it's like, I don't want to talk about it anymore. And part of that is it's just not a big deal anymore. I've had plenty of these. Can you imagine what it will be like to live forever? Can you imagine having a sense of indifference to being alive for 2 million years? How does your brain even get there? One of the reasons why we must prize our souls is that our souls will be us forever. Forever, forever. So we love our souls by prizing them especially with this concept of the fact that our soul is eternal and it will be somewhere for all of eternity. The second thing we've got to do to love our souls is to protect it. We've got to love our soul by protecting it.

8 · The pastor uses two connected analogies—older siblings tricking younger siblings in trades, and lottery winners going broke—to illustrate how people who don't understand value become easy marks for exploitation

You know, the marketplace— and here I use just a general term— I just want you to picture, you know, maybe an oriental marketplace or something like that. It's a dangerous place for dummies. Any of you, when you were kids, have an older sibling successfully trick you out of a dime for a bigger nickel? That ever happen to any of you? Like, I mean, I'm sure there have been some terrible deals brokered in the back rooms and siblings' conversations, you know, where the older sibling tricks the younger one to give up something far more valuable for something far less valuable, and then mom or dad steps in and says, nope, The contract is no good. You can't— we're not going to do that. You can't get away with that. Friends, the world is this marketplace that is constantly offering you things in exchange for your soul. And the less you value your soul, the more of a dupe you're likely to be. When some sly, dishonest, deceitful trader comes to you and says, 'Hey, this is better. This is better. Trade your soul for this.' I was thinking this week about how many lottery winners wind up broke. I think that number is also somewhere like 80% of all lottery winners end up broke. There's of course a proverb that predicts that, Proverbs 13:11, It says that money that comes easily disappears easily. That's the Chris version of that. I can't remember the exact phrase. It's pretty close. Pretty close. Well, the problem— why does that happen? Why do lottery winners— you know, why does it happen where they go broke so quickly? I mean, well, the problem is that lottery winners had no time to build up the character and the skills necessary to manage a large fortune. They just get handed the money, but they haven't acquired any of the character necessary to manage that money. So they are duped, right? People come in with great investment offers, freeloaders. You suddenly realize you need an entourage when you didn't think you needed an entourage before, and so on and so forth. People that don't know the value of money because it's just handed to them I'm just kind of easily tricked into giving it all up. Well, I've got some bad news. We were born with this thing that is the most valuable thing ever, and we don't have the character to value it. We don't have the wisdom to see its importance. So it's like we are walking targets in a market.

9 · The pastor narrates his experience of being repeatedly pickpocketed in Zambia, positioning himself as a 'fresh-faced sucker' with valuable goods he didn't know how to protect

I remember one time I was walking through Zambia, stood out a little bit, and I had my backpack on. Now, I'd been there quite a few times and kind of knew how to batten down the hatches and be aware of pickpockets and so on and so forth. But I remember walking down a street and no less than 4 times someone trying to pick my pocket. I reached my hand into my pocket one time and there was a hand in my pocket. And I was young and full of zeal and ire, and I had my little Bible, my little pocket Bible with me, and I chased this guy down. I'm like, 'Steal this! Steal this!' I'm like yelling at the guy. But you know, I'm walking down the street and I just look like an easy mark. I just look like a fresh-faced sucker ready to be stolen from. Friends, that's kind of us in the world with this incredible treasure that we have that we really don't even know how to value. So one of the things that I'm doing today is I'm just trying to remind you of what you've got so that you'll prize it and you'll protect it. Jesus says in Mark 8:36, what would it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lost his soul? I just want you to think about something for a minute. You, the most central part of you, you individually, you are worth more than all of the treasure and pleasure this world has to offer. Just little old you, you as an individual, are worth more than all of the world. So that if you traded you for every treasure and every pleasure this world had to offer, Jesus would say, 'There's a sucker born every minute.' Think about that. So when we talk about loving your soul, and I'm telling you that this is the thing we do instead of self-esteem, That's what I'm getting at. It's a sense of Jesus saying, just unreservedly, you would be an idiot to give your soul for everything. It would be the worst deal ever. We're born like lottery winners and we're just dupes. And honestly, the truth is that the way that we treat our souls makes all of the lottery winners and all the professional athletes who go broke, and all the rappers who go broke. Like, we make them look like Warren Buffett in comparison to the way that we so unfaithfully and foolishly value and discharge our souls. So there's this trade that's always being offered. The old blues song about the crossroads, the crossroads where he's offered the ability, the skill to play the guitar in exchange for his soul. When you really think about it, it just sounds so stupid. But man, we're all that stupid. We really are all that stupid. In fact, a lot of times we're not even offered a contract, right? We'll lend our soul out for the hope, for the off chance of something just as stupid as being able to play the guitar. So there's this constant marketplace where our souls are being undervalued. There's also a constant war where our souls are being attacked. 1 Peter 2:11: Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against your soul. So Are you starting to feel like you're in a dangerous kind of environment?

10 · The pastor continues his Zambia narrative, this time wearing pink jelly flip-flops that made him an even more obvious target, then pivots to a second story about a friend returning from Afghanistan who saw combat threats everywhere due to PTSD

Back to that same place where I was pickpocketed 4 times. On a second trip, I was with a friend. He's a cowboy from Wyoming. And my shoes got all torn up. Now, they don't have a lot of size 13s in Zambia. And I was looking and looking and looking for some shoes and couldn't find any shoes anywhere. But I finally found a pair of jelly flip-flops. Pink jelly flip-flops. So now picture me, same fresh-faced dupe, walking through the marketplace, but this time with pink jelly flip-flops on. This cowboy was so mad at me. He's like, you are going to get us killed. He's like, look at you, you look like a target. What are you doing? There was this sense of impending danger, like people really do, would hurt me if they had the chance. People really would attack me. Friends, I don't think we understand how many of the passions with which we struggle are constantly waging war against our soul. Have you ever seen someone after they've come home from war, not in a movie, but in real life. I had a friend that came home from Afghanistan, and he's a country guy, and he was stopping by to see us. He had to fly into St. Louis, and he was stopping by to see us. And he was— so he's really off the plane into St. Louis, his family meets him at the airport, and he's driving to see us. Now, we lived in a rough part of town. We lived right next to East St. Louis. And so this guy gets in his minivan with his family. Of course, he hadn't seen his family in a long time. And he's driving, the GPS takes him through just the worst possible place in town. And it's about 9 o'clock at night, it's dark out. And when he got to my house, he just looked like a ghost. And he told me quietly so that his wife and kids wouldn't hear, he's like, 'I swore I saw people with RPGs. And I thought I saw IEDs on the road.' And so on and so forth. The guy was just beaten up. He was just emotionally and mentally

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