Sermon Transcript
Well, we’re gonna start a new series today. It’s gonna be our summer series focused on the stories that Jesus told. If you wanna follow along in this series, one of the best ways to do that is to pick up in the lobby the workbook that we have out there, the scripture workbook, and then you can study in advance. We give you the section of scripture that we’ll be focused on, and today we’re in Matthew chapter 13, verses 44 to 46. As we kind of kick this series off.
And as we kick this series off, we’re really going to set in contrast the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of man. And really, when you do that, then you start at that— you focus on that whole matter of values, of values. So we are people that make value judgments all day long, and hopefully we live out the values of the kingdom. If you’re a Christ follower, that would be God’s desire is that we live according to his value system and the kingdom is of supreme importance in our life and therefore it gets focus in how we use our time and our talents and our treasures. Now you can figure out a person’s value system just by looking at how they use their time, their talents, and their treasures.
So for instance, when this painting— we’ll put it up here for you— was purchased here just a few weeks ago, it was actually purchased by a Chinese-born individual that’s living in Japan right now named Yusaku Maezawa. And Yusaku, when he purchased this painting, he was making a value statement obviously to a large tune because he purchased this for $110.5 million. All right, $110.5 million. Now some of you would say, I wish I had that kind of money so I could just, you know, choose to purchase paintings like that for that amount of money. And some of you look at this and say, you got to be kidding.
You know, what I see there is, you know, a reject in my art class or something. I have no idea what you see there, but You know, to him, he was making a value statement. He made a value judgment. He knew it was going on sale. He didn’t even come to New York to purchase it.
He made the purchase over the phone. And for him, this was a treasure that he had to have. And, you know, he’s enjoying the treasure now. Now, this summer, I don’t think any one of us is probably going to be in a position to purchase a painting like that, at least for $110.5 million, but we are going to use our time and our talents and our treasures in a variety of ways over the summer. So if you have vacation time and you actually take the vacation time, you’re saying, I value vacation.
I value just getting away, getting some rest. If you’re going to be in school this summer, you’re saying something about how you value school or Your parents value school and you don’t have a choice, but you know, there’s a value statement that’s made there. If you decide this summer that you’re going to grow your hair long, it’s because you value for some reason having long hair this summer. Somebody came up to me after the first service and said, I cut my hair short, told me the whole story. It’s because the person is valuing right now short hair in light of the summer.
If you go on vacation this summer and you spend your whole time reading books and eating and watching television and that sort of thing, that’s kind of a value statement of what’s important to you on vacation. If you go on vacation and there are other people around but you hide from the people when you’re on vacation, that’s a value statement too, right? You know, you just leave me alone, I don’t want to be around you, I have to be around you all the time, whatever it is. So we’re constantly making value statements. Some of you students are gonna go a week from now to Hume Lake, and the reason you’re choosing to go to Hume Lake is because you value Hume Lake.
You value the experience you’re going to have there. Even though it’s gonna cost a lot of money to get you there, it’s worth it to you, or maybe it’s worth it to your parents, you know, and they’re sending you away. I don’t know, you know, where the value thing is working itself out. But you’ve carved out some time and you believe that this is gonna be good for you. It’s gonna be good in your relationship with God.
It’s gonna be good in your relationship with others. So you value that, therefore you’re gonna get away to Hume Lake a week from now. I have a friendship with somebody who’s executing a person’s estate. It sounds odd when you say it that way, doesn’t it? This person is about ready to die.
They’re on hospice care. This individual is asked to be the executor of the estate, which means they’re responsible to make sure that the wishes that are in the will and all the rest of that are done according to the person’s desires. And so I asked this person about what the money is going to go for, and this individual who’s dying right now is worth millions, millions and millions of dollars. And I asked the executor, so where’s the money going? And the person said, well, actually, it’s all gonna go to Cal Berkeley and their engineering department.
So when this individual dies, all these millions of dollars are gonna go to the engineering department at Berkeley. And some of you are saying, that’s amazing. I said to this person who’s gonna be responsible for making sure the monies go to the right places, I said, so is this person that’s dying somebody of spiritual beliefs? Would you say they have any spiritual beliefs? And she said, yes, this person has spiritual beliefs.
I said, are they connected to any church at all? She said, yes, they’re connected to a church. She told me the church. It’s not this church, okay? So, you know, anyway, so I’m not, you know, making this public statement right now because I’m really upset about, you know, the Cal Berkeley deal and all the rest of that.
This would be a weird place to make that connection, wouldn’t it? But anyway, so I said, so do they go to a church? Yes, they go to a church. Told me the name of the church and all that sort of stuff. And I said, so are they giving anything, anything at all to their church?
Answer, no, not one cent, which means they value what’s happening at Cal Berkeley and the engineering department, and in this case, the endowment that’s going to be set up in their name. So they want their name to be a part of this whole thing, right? They value that more than they value the work that’s being done in their church. Now what you have in all of those simple stories this morning, and that last one’s not all that simple, nor was the first one about purchasing a painting for $110.5 million, what you have is a statement of people’s values. Because how we use our time and our talents and our treasures are always a statement of our values, and essentially it shows whether or not we’re living for our kingdom or for God’s kingdom, whether we’re living for the kingdom on earth or we’re living for the kingdom of heaven.
And these stories that we’re gonna be focused on this summer, many of them focus on the difference between living for our own empire or God’s empire, building God’s empire. In fact, Jesus said it this way. You remember he taught his disciples to pray? He says, so when you pray, pray this way. What— do you remember the prayer?
Our Father who art in heaven, art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom, thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. So even in Jesus’ prayer that he taught his disciples, he was teaching them to get the kingdom matters straightened out And what we want is that God’s kingdom would ultimately come on earth as it has already come in heaven. And Jesus is gonna teach us through these stories that he teaches about what’s important then in our lives for that to happen. What’s it gonna take for us to value God’s kingdom above our kingdom?
So today, Matthew chapter 13, verses 44 to 46, we just start talking about that. And I think what we’re gonna talk about is gonna be really helpful, And it will get all of us to think about how we use our time, how we use our treasure, how we use our talents, and hopefully what it’s gonna do is actually give us a greater desire to live for the kingdom of heaven above all else. And may I just say, as we look at this wonderful passage, this is a very simple passage to understand. It’s just 2 stories, 2 very short stories, but yet 2 stories that talk about treasure. Treasure that God wants everybody to experience.
So first there’s the story of the hidden treasure, and Jesus told the story this way. He said, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy he went and sold all he had and he bought that field. Not hard to understand. And then there’s a second story that’s closely related, the story of the costly pearl.
Again, verse 45, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and he sold everything he had and he bought it. So we got 2 stories. Jesus uses 2 stories to illustrate the value of the kingdom so that we might be people who live according to the treasure that is found in the kingdom. You could retell the stories in your own words.
You could think of a variety of ways to tell the stories to illustrate this very simple truth or these truths that are found here. First story, there was this ordinary Joe who was walking through a field, and when all of a sudden as he was walking through a field he stumbled, he stumbled across some hidden treasure. This is kind of like the dream of every kid, right? I don’t know if you ever thought about this, you know, especially as you’re growing up, just stumbling across some money. I mean, even a buck would be great, but just stumbling across something that you weren’t anticipating, but all of a sudden there it was.
It’s actually the dream of an adult too. I’d just like to come into a treasure chest, you know, type of thing. But knowing the value of what this individual stumbled on, he decided to rehide the treasure, and then he went off and he had an estate sale. And he decided that he was going to sell everything so that he could ultimately purchase the field and therefore have the treasure. So he sold his golf clubs, he sold his refrigerator, He sold his Tesla, he sold his laptop computer, he sold his cat, he sold his dog, he sold his iPhone, he sold everything.
He sold it all off and then Joe went back and he bought the field because the field was where the treasure was and if he had the field then he would have the treasure and that would be worth more than everything else he already owned. And then Jesus told the story about this jewel merchant. This jewel merchant named— let’s call him Joel. Joel the jewel merchant. All right, so Joel the jewel merchant was an owner and he was also a seller of fine jewelry who intentionally traveled the world looking for flawless, great value, great worth pearls.
And on one of his trips, he came to the French Polynesian Islands, and while he was there, he found this pearl, this pearl of exquisite beauty, a highly prized, extremely rare, drop-dead gorgeous pearl of his dreams. And it was so valuable, and he knew it, that he had the seller put the pearl away on the layaway plan so that he could go off and he could sell everything that he had and be able to come back and purchase that pearl. So that’s what he did. He went off and he put everything that he owned on on Craigslist. He put on the list his Lamborghini.
He put his oceanfront mansion. He put his Ray-Ban sunglasses. He put everything on the list, and then he sold them all, cashed it in, brought the money back to the Polynesian Islands, and he purchased the pearl of great worth. Now, can you identify with either one of those stories? You might be able to.
You might be able to identify with how you were just living and just doing your own thing, and all of a sudden you stumbled across something valuable, and you saw it and you said, I gotta have this. And you went to your parents and said, I gotta have this, and you asked them to purchase it for you or whatever, or you found a way to purchase it. Maybe you had to sell something to get that thing that you had to have that, you know, before that moment you didn’t even know anything about it, but there it was and you knew the value of it. Or maybe you went out intentionally looking for something of value. You went out intentionally shopping.
You were looking for a good deal and you came across this good deal and you knew this thing was really worth something and so you said, I gotta buy this, but you didn’t have enough money so you went and sold a bunch of stuff and you came back and you made the best of that opportunity. It was too good of a deal to miss. I think about Bernice and I, how we got a call many years ago from a real estate agent, a friend of ours, and he said, hey, a house just came on the market. It’s a really good deal, and it’s actually underpriced, and, you know, if there’s any way that you guys could buy this, you just gotta buy it. This is the time to get into the market.
You’ve been renting all these years. If you could just somehow get some money together and get this house, it would be really worth it for you. And so Bernice and I talked about it, we looked at the house, we said, yes, we gotta find a way to do this, and we started cashing in everything that we had that we could cash in, our car, we cashed in our insurance policies, we sold stuff, we did whatever we could so that we could get into that house, and we were able finally to get a down payment together, we were able to get into the house, and we stayed in the house for 20 years. It was a great house for us. Well, what Jesus is saying here is the kingdom of heaven is worth more because residence in the kingdom of heaven is something that’s gonna go on not just for 20 years, but this is going to go on for all eternity.
And so he says, here’s what you need to know about the kingdom. You need to know that the kingdom is valuable. The kingdom of heaven is valuable. You notice in verse 44 he calls it treasure, and in verse 45 46, he calls it that of great value, which in contrast is found here with that which we already have and that which we could have. All that we have right now does not in any way compare to the value of the kingdom.
That’s why he says these guys went off and they took all that they had and they sold it. Why would they sell it? Because there was greater value. In the treasure than there was in the treasures that they already had. And Jesus is saying in the same way, there is greater value than what you have found in the kingdom of heaven, in citizenship in the kingdom.
And you can look at this value in a variety of ways. The value is connected to the owner of the kingdom. Who’s that? That’s God. And God gives us the privilege of becoming members of his kingdom, of his family, citizens of the kingdom of heaven.
And the location— this is heaven, people. We’re talking about that which is priceless and that which is perfect. And the lifestyle there— I mean, we try to figure out, you know, how to put it together here, but it doesn’t even compare with what the lifestyle is going to be like in the kingdom of heaven. And the people in the kingdom of heaven. They are just going to be loving people.
No more people that hate people. No more terrorists in the kingdom. And the beauty of the kingdom makes it valuable. And the perks of the kingdom, I mean, if nothing else, just walking down streets of gold. How does that sound?
And the job security. No longer are you going to be out of work and, you know, be looking for a job again. All of that and more. In fact, Jesus tried to get the value of the kingdom across to a guy we know as the rich young ruler. Remember that story?
This rich young ruler came to Jesus and he asked Jesus what he must do to get eternal life, and Jesus talked to him about a few things, but then he ultimately said, you know what you need to do? You need to go sell all that you have and give it to the poor. And you remember what this guy did? He went and he decided he wasn’t gonna do that, and the reason he wasn’t gonna do that is because he saw his kingdom as more valuable than God’s kingdom. So he said no to God’s kingdom in order to hold on to his kingdom.
He didn’t see its value. And quite frankly, wouldn’t you agree with me, this is a big hurdle here even in Silicon Valley. We’re a place of affluence, and there are so many people of affluence here that think they found the treasure, that it’s all about, you know, what I can build and all that I can gather and all the rest of this. And the affluence in this community, in many people’s lives, is standing in the way of them ultimately having citizenship in the kingdom. They think that what they’ve got is greater treasure than the treasure that’s found in Jesus Christ.
And not only can that happen so that we don’t even get into the kingdom, but it can continue to be a challenge in anybody’s life where we can end up taking that which is the kingdom and that which we should be focusing on and we make it second or third or fourth or last place in the list, or it doesn’t even get on the important list. And we spend our time instead doing other things, other lesser things, and maybe it’s that hobby and maybe it’s that sport, and maybe it’s that degree or whatever it is, but it becomes more important than God and a relationship with him. And in a sense, what can happen is we can end up taking a vacation from God, but it becomes a permanent vacation from God. Sometimes I will have families that will come back to me and years after we got acquainted, and I’ve seen this more than one time, where they’ve come back and they’ve told me about their family and they’ve told me how their family, their kids now are not walking with God. They have no relationship with God, no relationship with God at all.
You know where that comes from? Oftentimes that comes from a lack of value in the home of the kingdom. And all of a sudden it’s just supposed to change? It’s supposed to just change? Are you kidding?
That’s how you raised your children. And I’m not saying that it always turns out this way, but I can see many times people are valuing everything else but a relationship with God.
And worship becomes one of those things that’s like really low on the totem pole, and whether or not we’re not away on that weekend or whatever it is, it’s just so many times in our affluent culture with all the options that we have, everything else gets the value.
Jesus is saying, no, you’re missing it. Even if you were to sell everything that you have right now, Everything that you have right now, it would not have the same value that you could have if you were connected to the kingdom of heaven. Kingdom of heaven is valuable. Do you believe that? Do you believe it’s more valuable than anything else that you own or will ever own in life?
Anything. It’s more valuable. And secondly, Jesus says, and it’s beneficial, Talks about joy here. You know, some people, they look at the kingdom as a joy taker. Are you kidding?
This is not a joy taker. This is a joy maker. This is a joy filler. And so this first individual that’s talked about here in verse 44, he runs off because of the joy of the whole thing. He realizes that he stumbled upon some treasure, and it’s because of the joy Because of the joy that’s connected to this kingdom, that he’s gotta have it, ’cause connected to this treasure, he’s got to have it.
And so he goes off to make it possible to then experience this joy. People are looking for joy, aren’t they? I don’t know if you saw the pregame talk. There was this little clip of the pregame talk that Steve Kerr, Steve Kerr is the coach of the Warriors, Did you know they’re playing in a basketball tournament right now? They’re like, you know, it’s the finals and you try to win the best out of 7, and they’ve already won 3 games, and the last game was the 4th game, and so they could have put the whole thing to rest.
I mean, they could have won the whole championship this week. And so just before the game, Steve Kerr, the coach of the Warriors, you with me? He’s talking to his players, and you know what he says to them? He says, hey guys, let’s just enjoy this experience. He’s focused.
This is a time of joy, guys. Don’t miss that. Let’s have fun. We got here. Let’s enjoy this.
Well, you know, when he was talking about joy, he’s really talking about one of the values of the kingdom. That joy is something that the Lord wants for his children to experience. In this life, and this joy ultimately is connected to the kingdom of God. In fact, joy’s gonna be a constant for those who are in the kingdom of God. We’re told in Isaiah chapter 35 that there’s a day coming, verse 10, where the ransomed of the Lord will return.
I love that picture, the ransomed of the Lord, those who are saved by the Lord, and they’re gonna return, talking about a return to earth. There’s gonna be a kingdom of heaven on earth. There’s a day coming, a day promised, and they will enter Zion and with singing everlasting joy will crown their heads. Everlasting, how’s that sound? Everlasting joy.
Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. I mean, if you’ve ever been connected to a death, I’ve been connected to 3 deaths in the last 3 weeks, you know how grievous that can be at a time of death, the death of a loved one. Dealing with everything, the agony, the tears, the pain, the suffering, the separation, all the rest of it. It’s just a difficult time. And this is saying that in this day when we’re experiencing this kingdom with God on earth, there’s gonna be no more sorrow.
All of that is gonna be completely removed and we’re gonna be done with that. But we don’t have to wait for that day because joy is connected to his kingdom even now. Even now, you remember when the angel made the announcement about Jesus’ birth to the shepherds? Do you remember what he said? This is good news of what?
Of great joy for all the people. There it is, joy’s connected to the kingdom. Are you kidding? Some people think that if you give your life to God and have a relationship with him, what he’s gonna do is suck the joy outta ya. Anything but.
Anything but. Great joy is connected to God and his kingdom. And when Paul wrote the church at Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 6, he’s talking to them about how they became imitators of Paul and the others and of the Lord in spite of severe suffering. Okay, in spite of severe suffering, he said to them, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. Why could he talk about that?
Because joy is something that comes when you’re connected to the kingdom. Anybody who has life with God through Jesus Christ is going to experience joy because joy is a part of the kingdom. When you as students, some of you as students are gonna take this trip to Hume Lake, you know what you’re gonna do? You’re gonna have a fantastic experience there, your joy levels are going to increase, and you’re going to come back after the trip with more joy than you had before you took the trip. You are.
Why? Because you’re gonna connect with God that week in a special way. And when a person connects with God in a special way, it infuses them with joy. Is that not true? If right now you’re working on your iPhone, I’ll just look around here just for a minute.
If right now you’re like looking at your iPhone and you’re putting together your laundry list or you’re putting together your schedule for next week or something like that, like that, you know what’s happening for you? You are missing the opportunity to allow God to infuse you with greater joy in this worship experience. You’re missing that opportunity. You’ve just given a lesser value to the opportunity to worship with other people and allow God to just fill your heart with things that he wants you to experience right now, but you’re missing the opportunity because you’re allowing other value systems to drive what it is that you’re doing in the building right now. The good thing is, is I don’t see anybody doing that.
I don’t see anybody doing that. See, what’s the deal here? This is a joy infuser. Do you believe that? That’s one of the reasons why the kingdom of heaven is so valuable, but does it get that kind of value in our lives and in our schedules?
So Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is valuable, the kingdom of heaven is beneficial, and he just points to this one matter connected to joy. And then there’s a third thought here: the kingdom of heaven is available. It’s available. The opportunity to benefit from this treasure and this opportunity to benefit from this pearl is there for anybody to take right now. Now, there’s an expiration date.
There’s ultimately going to be a day where nobody’s going to be able to choose at that time. It’s going to be too late. But it’s not too late right now. Anybody can reach out and receive the benefit of the treasure. Anybody right now can reach, reach out and receive the benefit of the pearl.
And you notice that these guys, the picture that’s painted here of these 2 individuals, they recognize the value. They recognize the benefit, and so what do they do? They act immediately. They don’t wait. They don’t think, well, you know, I’ll get around to a garage sale here in about 2 years.
Are you kidding? While the, you know, the moment is there, they were on it. They were, yes, I’ve got to have this before the opportunity is lost. And of course, the reason why the opportunity is there is because Jesus Christ purchased the field for us. He purchased the treasure for us, and he purchased the pearl for us so that we could have citizenship in the kingdom, so that we can own the field, so to speak, so that we could enjoy the benefits of life in the kingdom.
Somebody caught me after the first service and they said, I just, this kind of still bothers me, especially that first story that Jesus told here about how this guy found this treasure, you know, and then he went and he bought the field. And that just seems wrong. That just seems wrong. Don’t you think that’s wrong? I said, well, actually, it’s an interesting thing if you study this because what you find is in that culture, actually, there was this thing called Finders keepers, losers weepers.
It wasn’t in so many words, but that was the concept. You actually find this in historical documents where the finder was the finder. But I said, but in this particular case, isn’t it interesting, however, that Jesus even brought this sense of fairness to this whole thing? Because even though the guy having found the treasure could have just taken the treasure, he didn’t. He went away And he sold everything that he had so that he might be able to purchase the treasure.
He did the right thing. And God has done the right thing for us. He has purchased us. He has purchased us. What makes something valuable?
Well, probably a lot of things you could point at that would make something valuable. One would be intrinsic worth, right? Why is that person next to you valuable? Because of intrinsic worth. They’re made in the image of God.
They’re a person that God loves deeply. Intrinsic worth. What else makes something valuable? The purchased price.
The purchased price makes something valuable. How valuable? How much did you have to pay for the purchase?
Why are we valuable? Because we have intrinsic worth and because of what God has done to purchase us, that we might have a relationship with him, that we might value that which he values, that we might value that which is most valuable. I don’t know if you like to watch news. You know, most of us don’t. You get to a point where you’re like, I can’t take this anymore.
But it’s always a statement of values, isn’t it? I don’t know if you’ve watched the news the last couple of weeks here, because especially in the golf world, and I pay attention to golf news, I know some of you understand that that’s something I follow, but it’s been fascinating. Even the Wall Street Journal picked up this whole issue that’s been floating around. And what it had to do this last couple of weeks, and it’s still prominent in the news, is that Phil Mickelson has made a decision not to play in the US Open this week. The US Open professional golf tournament is one of the 4 major tournaments that professional golfers play in every year.
I mean, it means a ton to these guys, so you get the best people out playing, competing for these different events. And so Phil has made a decision not to play in the event. At least it’s kind of a pretty much I’m not gonna play kind of decision. Would he like to play in the event? Absolutely.
He’s been playing the event since 1993. He’s been trying to win the event. He has won the other 3 majors and he would like to win this 4th major. That would put him in the company of an elite group of people. There have been only 5 people in the history of golf who have won all 4 tournaments.
And so Phil would love to play in this event, and he would love to win this event. He almost won this event back in 1999. He was looking like he was going to win the event, but there at the very end, Payne Stewart came through and he won the event. And so Phil finished second. Well, after that happened, Payne Stewart cupped his face— just, this is the picture actually from the event.
And Payne Stewart said this to Phil Mickelson. He said, good luck with the baby. There’s nothing like being a father. Good luck with the baby. There’s nothing like being a father.
Well, what was behind that was simply this. Payne Stewart— excuse me, Phil Mickelson was playing in this US Open aware of the fact that his wife might have their first baby at any moment of time, any moment during the tournament. And so Phil, if he got beeped, because he had a beeper back then, remember those? If he got beeped, he was going to just walk off the course, get on his little private jet, and get back as quickly as he could to be a part of the delivery of his first baby. But it didn’t happen, and at this moment what Payne is doing is reminding him— and I don’t know how Phil felt about it at that moment— but he’s reminding him the greater value here is not you winning the tournament, the greater value is you having a baby.
And actually his wife had the baby the next day, so he got back, they had the baby. The baby’s name was Amanda. Well, this week Amanda on Thursday, June 15th, is going to graduate from high school, and she is the president of her high school class, and she is going to give the valedictorian speech this Thursday. And the reason why there’s been so much press about it is because Phil has made a decision that he’s going to be at the high school graduation to hear his daughter give the valedictorian speech. I was watching another broadcast here last week where the commentator Jim Nantz was talking about this with Jack Nicklaus and with Nick Faldo.
They were talking about Phil’s decision to not play in the U.S. Open, something that he obviously would love to do. They were talking about his decision not to play in the US Open, and Jim Nantz asked these 2 guys, these 2 amazing golfers of the past, he asked them, you know, so how do you feel about that? Nick Faldo said, well, I think it’s a shame. I think it’s a shame that he’s not gonna be able to play in the tournament, but he’s gonna go to his daughter’s high school graduation. And Jack Nicklaus said, well, I think his motivation is correct.
I think his motivation is correct. Now what I want you to hear is just simply the 2 value systems, because both of those value systems showed up in their answers. Nick Fadell’s value system was representing the temporal, man-centered value system. Jack Nicklaus’ value system was representing the eternal God’s value system. And every day in our relationships with each other, we either represent God’s value system or we represent man’s value system.
And sometimes it’s just not that easy, but every time we choose to represent God’s value system, guess what? Heaven comes on earth, and it comes in our life. And that’s what God wants, isn’t it? There’s a second event that caught my eye here in the last couple of weeks in the news. It was the story about the 29 Christians in Egypt that lost their lives.
Did you hear about that? They were murdered by Islamic terrorists in Egypt. These Christians were on some buses and they were headed for a monastery in the desert. They were going to pray together. And along the way, some Islamic terrorists stopped and pulled everyone off of the buses and one by one interrogated them, interrogated them.
And basically what they asked these Christians was, is if they were a Christ follower, And then if they said yes, they were told that if they abandoned Christ and they converted to Islam, they would be allowed to live.
When each person refused to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ, they were shot and they were killed. 29 of them, including children. Why? Because they valued Jesus Christ more than they valued life on earth. They valued their faith more than they valued the cowardice connected to denying their Savior, Jesus Christ.
We probably will never face anything like that, right? Thank God. But every day we have the opportunity to demonstrate what we value most by whether or not we stand up for Jesus Christ, by whether or not we’re willing to go public with our faith, by whether or not we’re willing to talk to people about Jesus, by whether or not we’re willing to talk about the God that we love. I mean, do we? Do we love him?
Is he our prized treasure? Is he to us that which is most valuable?
So what’s the lesson this morning? This is a lesson of values, and our values are going to be demonstrated by what we do with our time, what we do with our treasures, what we do with our talents. Our values are going to be demonstrated in relationships that we share with each other, whether we see each other of eternal value and therefore the connections that we make with each other, the love that we share with one another. And our values are going to be expressed in our faith in God, vertically, in our faith in God. So here’s the hope.
The hope is is that this summer we will grow in valuing that which God values most. Wouldn’t that be great? Because as we grow in valuing that which God values most, our faith is gonna increase, we’re going to experience the kingdom in greater ways, and obviously at the end of all of that, well, we’re bringing more and more pleasure to God.
So let’s pray. Lord, thanks for helping us this morning look at this wonderful passage. It’s just a couple of short stories about some guys that you wanted us to think about who had a lot of stuff, but they realized that their stuff could in no way compare to the value of the treasures they found. And in the same way, we who have a lot of stuff need to come to understand that it’s not our stuff where treasure is, where our treasures are found, but our treasure is found in you and that which you value. And so may we make progress even today and even this summer in valuing that which is most valuable, beginning with a relationship with you.
And if even today there’s somebody here, or many, that don’t have relationship with you, everything else has been more valuable than you, may they just today get that straightened out. God, may they start in a relationship with you through Jesus Christ and receive the gift, the precious gift that Christ paid for So that they, that we might have a relationship with you now and forever. And God, if we’re already in your kingdom, then help us seek your kingdom above everything else, connecting with people and loving people and valuing people and loving you and expressing faith in you and publicly telling others about you and just representing you well in this world. May our lives and our values and how we use our time and our talents and treasures express that which you value. May we value it most.
For we pray this in Jesus’ name. Everybody said amen. Well, let’s have our worship team come back, and we’re going to again sing a song that’s just expressive of hopefully our desire and our commitment to live lives that show God the value that we place in him, his kingdom, his work, him above everything else. And so as we think about that one last time this morning, let’s just ask God to cement in our hearts what it is he wants us to take with us, and then let’s take that with us as we live our lives this summer.
