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.

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.

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