You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For. You hear that said often enough, and it’s usually meant as a warning against getting ripped off. The implication is that you’ll probably pay too much, and get too little in return. But it doesn’t work that way when it comes to salvation. That’s because, when it comes to matters of damnation and salvation—when it comes to what we deserve and what we get—not getting what we’ve paid for is a good thing. Thank God You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For!

And what have we offered God? Certainly not holiness! On the contrary, we have filled our laundry baskets with foul smelling sins. We ignore God. We mistreat not only our enemies but even the ones we love. We are prideful, arrogant, and lazy when it comes to hearing what God has to say to us. Do the math! How does this stack up to the purchase price of salvation? Thank God You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For!

But not everybody’s looking to buy what God offers. For many the most important thing is education. For others it is wealth and luxury. Still others want nothing more than fame or a life of ease. People search for happiness in every irresponsible way and every worthless place. But in the end, they’ll never find it. Like the mythical creature Sisyphus, whose torture was to be chained up just inches from being able to reach what he wanted, people who want to purchase happiness apart from God’s salvation are doomed to a life of always searching and never really getting. Some time ago, a magazine carried an article about the success of actor Kevin Costner, in which he simply said "Don’t envy me." He got rich and he got famous, and he got divorced and miserable, unable to spend every day anymore with his children that he values so highly.

And yet, as our text points out, God offers us the one thing that can fill all our needs and all our desires. This is what we ought to buy. "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

What God offers to us is precisely what Adam and Eve bartered away for the price of a piece of fruit. Were they happy with their purchase? They were scared and ran. Instead of joy they were filled with sorrow. Instead of fulfillment they were filled with emptiness. Instead of security they were filled with anxiety. Instead of perfect children, one was dead and one was a fugitive murderer. Since then, every one of us has had to suffer heartache and longing for the life and the place that they left behind. But God offers it to us again! Poncedeleon searched in vain in Florida for the Fountain of Youth, but God offers us today a drink from the fountain of eternal life. Drink from that fountain and you will not only live forever, but your sick and aching heart will be cured, your longing will be stilled, your emptiness will be filled. Instead of the fear that gripped the hearts of Adam and Eve as they ran away from God and tried to hide beneath the trees, we will have the ultimate peace of being confidants and companions of the God who made us.

When we sin, God offers us forgiveness. When we are sad, God offers us joy. When we worry about life today and tomorrow, God offers us promises and hope. When we are lost God offers us direction. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

And what is the cost for all this? Nothing. Zip. Zero. It is free—free to us, that is. If we got what we paid for, we would be locked out forever, because these priceless gifts of God cost more than we could dream of. They cost the innocent life of his Son, sacrificed for us on the cross. For our deeds we deserve eternal punishment and hell. But "He has purchased and won me, not with gold or silver but with his holy precious blood and his innocent suffering and death."

How does God give us these things? Through Christ by his Word. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples. (vv.3-4) God once made a temporary covenant with his Old Testament people Israel through Moses, but God has now made an eternal covenant with us through faith in Christ. Under the Old Covenant sacrifices were made for the people of Israel. In Christ, God has made an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. God made his covenant with you when you were baptized. How fitting, that you were first given the water of life, when living water was poured on you with all the power of God’s Word at the font. What you could never buy was given you that day. Today again you are drinking the water of life as you hear God’s living, life-giving word. You have come to the fountain of youth today. What a discovery! Thank God You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For! We have paid nothing, and we have received everything.

What you have found, God wants everyone to have—all the lost children of Adam and Eve wherever they may be—from the palaces in Europe to the jungles of the dark continent, from the deserts of Arabia to the streets and alleys of Benton Harbor, all have the same need, the same foul works that deserve death, the same hapless striving after worthless and fleeting goals. "There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Benton Harbor needs the water of life—the pure water of life. Don’t ever suppose that this fountain of life called St. Matthew’s is not really needed here. Think of all the unbaptized children who came to our Vacation Bible School last month. How many of them didn’t even know who Jesus was.

Sure there are 245 churches in Benton Harbor, but how many of them are offering the wonderful free feast of Jesus? How many of them offer the forgiveness of Jesus without the demands of the law? How many of them leave politics to the politicians and keep busy with the task that Jesus gave the Church, that of offering thirsty souls the water of life? How many of them place the authority of God’s Word above the visions and politics of some Biblically unqualified preacher. Benton Harbor needs the pure water, the free water, the untainted water of life. People are starving for the feast of salvation, the wine and milk and meat that Jesus wants to give away without labor and without cost, and instead they’re thrown a stale and moldy crust of bread that can never nourish and fill the soul. If someone ever asks you why we’re still here and haven’t just let all the sectarian churches have the city…that’s why! God wants to offer the pure water to people here as much as anywhere.

And God uses us to make that fantastic offer—like through our Vacation Bible School, through our Day Care, through our preschool and Lutheran elementary school. And every Sunday our bell peals out an invitation to come and hear God’s pure word—that rare feast in a city filled with stale crumbs.

What a privilege, that God has given us the feast, and asked us to join him in inviting in those who live on our highways and byways. But let’s never sit on our laurels, or just say, "Well, we’ve got a sign out front, people know when the services are, they can come, we’ve done enough." No, we never want to adopt that attitude. We can’t, if we truly believe in how wonderful the feast really is. We can’t, if we see how desperate the need in our neighborhoods is. Sure, it’s frustrating. There are lots of people who don’t know what’s good for them. There’s such lousy education, that often it’s hard to even explain the basics. There’s such a breakdown in family life that children are often too undisciplined to sit still and listen during an hour and 45 minutes of VBS. Satan has sown such deep racist hatred in some that it prevents them from even giving a hearing to the pure message of the Gospel.

But that just means we have to be all the bolder, state the message all the more clearly and simply and forthrightly. Satan’s a powerful enemy, but God’s simple Word is still more powerful, isn’t it? That’s why we want to strive to be like the Apostle Paul who was ready to jump through hoops or whatever it took to get into contact with people and share the pure gospel.

But in the mean time—no guilt trips. We’ve got that marvelous banquet spread before us that tells us all our sins are forgiven, all failed or abortive or half-hearted attempts to share the Gospel in the past—whatever—it’s all forgiven. That’s what makes Jesus’ feast so great. We are free from our sins. With that freed and freeing conscience, we forge ahead to share the feast of salvation. You don’t always get what you pay for. Thank God! We get so much more and so much better than we deserve! So much, we can’t help but invite people to share it with us!