“The Payoff”

“The Payoff”

By Pastor Mike Von Behren

Perhaps you are used to seeing this caveat on your mortgage, or other loan statement, “Outstanding Principle Balance (Not a Payoff Amount).” That’s what shows up on my mortgage statement. It would seem like the outstanding principle should be the pay off amount, that if I paid it back that should be it, but it’s not. There’s a feature of most debt which builds interest daily and the amortization of that continual increase means that by the time we receive a statement from the bank about what we owe, we already owe more!

I’ve been thinking of this lately as we celebrate the pay off of our Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF) loan for the new addition to our facility. We borrowed that money from our own church body, more specifically from members of Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregations all across this country who have deposited money in LCEF savings accounts just so it would be available for occasions like this to help churches grow. (If you are interested in learning more about how your money can support the growth of churches simply though a savings account go to www.lcef.org). As we drew nearer and nearer to the payoff being in reach, and anticipated that final payment, we could not just look at the last statement for the payoff amount. We had to call the day of and ask LCEF to calculate the payoff just so be sure we got it correct and there would not be extra interest hanging out there. By God’s grace we did! LCEF gave us the amount and we paid it off. That final check we sent was for $20,473.31.

That was the final step in repayment of $1.2 million of principle that God through your generosity over the last ten years paid off for us, which seems like an incredible amount. Yet even that pales in comparison to what God has paid off for us in Jesus. That pay off could not be measured in dollars, it could not be measured in even the finest silver or the purest gold. 1 Peter 1:18 says our ransom (our purchase price) was measured not in “perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.” It was an amount 1 Peter 1:19 goes on to say, which was, “foreknown before the foundation of the world.”  How could God have known, before the world was created what the extent of our debts would be? How could God have known already at that time what the cost of our sin would be? One way to answer that is simply to say God is omniscient; he’s all knowing. Yet, perhaps a better way to answer it is to say that God wasn’t interested in an exact pay off amount. He wasn’t attempting to calculate the cost of our sin to the nearest penny so as not to over pay, and he did not worry about underpaying. He paid enough to satisfy the debt of all sins of every person for all time.

That’s a good thing because otherwise we might have a little trepidation every time we sit down to reflect repentantly and pray for God’s forgiveness. Otherwise, we might wonder if there is enough left once God finishes calculating the interest from our last draw on his account of grace. In sending Christ Jesus God used the same measure to pay off our sin as he uses to measure out his love. “His steadfast love ever ends” resounds Psalm 136.

Occasionally, wowed by this the Psalmists also ask God if there is a pay off amount now for his mercy; Psalm 116:12 says, “what shall I repay the Lord for all his benefits to me?” There is an answer but it’s not in dollars, it’s not in cents, and like Jesus’ payment on our behalf it’s not exact either. The answer is “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord,” Psalm 116:13. Lifting the cup of salvation means to celebrate with others the good things God has done for us. To call upon the name of the Lord means to pray to him in worship and in praise. How often do we need to do this? How many times? It’s endless, just like his love for us. Our debt is ended, but his love and our celebration of it are never ending.

So this month we’re celebrating not only the payoff of our mortgage, but the eternal payoff we have in Christ. A cup of salvation to you! Cheers.

In Jesus,

Pastor Mike