Audio recording  Sermon manuscript: Marketers are always trying to get people to buy their products. Perhaps you remember a couple often used phrases by the inventor Ron Popeil. With his kitchen gadgets he would say, “Set it and forget it.” And when he was working on his pitch he would say, “But wait, there’s more!” Consumers want things that will make their life easier. They want to get as much as they possibly can for their money. Marketers try to make the consumer believe that their life will be better by buying their product. They’ll be happier, have more time, and save money. Church membership is something that can be marketed. A person can make a pitch that belonging to this church or that church will make a person happier. The folks of Ron Popeil’s generation seemed to understand this. That was the generation that tried to make church feel like movie theaters, sound like soft rock concerts. They added coffee bars and book stores. Coming to church was supposed to feel like going to the mall—a place that many people would rather go to than to a church. But the marketing doesn’t have to be so intense and expensive. The marketing can be that the people are really friendly, and a person can make friends there. 100 years or so ago, being a member of a church and coming to a church was a way to make business connections and get customers. That made it beneficial to be the big church in town with the prominent, rich members. This kind of stuff works in a sense. If a marketer is perceptive enough and clever enough then the church can turn into the hot new thing. But you always need to have that clever marketer. Where is Shopko? Where is Sears & Roebuck? At one time these places were on the cutting edge. Now they don’t exist. They didn’t keep up with the times. So if a church decides that it wants to play that game, it better be ready to constantly reinvent itself. But these sorts of things are really like those people who were selling merchandise in the Temple. Jesus drove them out with a whip, overturning their tables. He said, “It is written, ‘My house is to be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it into a den of robbers.” The Temple itself saved no one. The merchandise saved no one. What was important about the Temple was that it was a place to have fellowship with God. So also, church membership at this place or that place saves no one. Church membership at this congregation does not save you. There is only One who can save you. The Scriptures say, “There is no other name given under heaven by which we may be saved than Jesus.” So churches are not supposed to exist for their own sake. If churches exist for their own sake—to get bigger, to get famous, etc.—then they have lost sight of the reason why they exist. Christian congregations exist so that the saving truth may be made known, so that people may believe that truth, and through faith in that truth be saved. What belongs in our congregations is truth and nothing but the truth. If people believe that truth, then God be praised. If people do not believe that truth, then so be it. Altering the truth so as to make people believe it might be good marketing. It might make the congregation grow. But no earthly congregation exists forever. What will exist forever are the people whom we are called to serve with the truth. All those people will either live forever in heaven with Jesus, or they will be thrown into the lake of fire—which is where we all deserve to go, but Jesus has saved us from that fate. What is important is that we be a place of truth, not a place that caters to whatever a person might want to hear. So let’s hear the truths that our Scriptures have to teach us this morning. In our Old Testament reading we are told that God is compassionate. His mercies are new every morning. And yet we will bear a yoke. Our face may be thrust down into the dust. We may be filled with disgrace. But even though the Lord brings grief, he will show compassion on the basis