[00:00:00] Well, good morning everyone and welcome! This my first time in the pulpit this year so happy new year to every one of you. All right. Hey I also want to say welcome to those of you who are on any of our other campuses. Great to have you with us. I want to welcome those of you who are experiencing this online, and if you are online, Uh, we understand we get that. [00:00:21] We just simply want you to know that a lot of people are here and that we miss you and we would love to see you come back. Okay. So here's the deal. I am not able to start this message until I talk about what happened this week. All right. Now here's what you need to understand. I chose not to write about this because I chose rather to talk about it with you. [00:00:43] All right. So, first thing you need to understand the second thing I need you to understand. Is that any preacher who, uh, wants to be popular cannot be faithful to the word of God. And I am not, I don't think I don't need that. I just need you to understand. I need to be faithful to the [00:01:00] word of God, and this is not going to be popular, what I'm going to say. [00:01:03] And, and I, but I feel led to say it. Uh, like you. I'm sure. Like you, I was both shocked and sickened by what I saw this past week. I saw things in this country. I have never imagined I'd ever see, as you did, it broke my heart. Like it broke your heart. I'm sure you have that. I want to be crystal clear with you unless you misunderstand. [00:01:26] I love America. I love the fact that I was born here. I was raised here that I live here. I love this place and I have zero desire to live anywhere else. And I'm very grateful to God. I also want to say this, um, America is not a utopia. Okay. This is not, everything's perfect. You know, everything's great. You know that, and I know that, but, um, all things considered, I love this

place. [00:01:53] I applaud the efforts that have been made in our country to make it a better place for all people. And, uh, I'm behind [00:02:00] that. And I put my little 2 cents in to support that. But what I saw this week, um, uh. People have commented Cal, you look like you've lost weight. Okay. Let me tell you why I've lost weight. [00:02:13] All right. I've lost weight because I saw a picture of myself in which I was absolutely fat. You hear me? Okay. When I saw myself in a picture, all of a sudden I saw myself in a mirror differently than I had seen myself before I saw the picture, the pictures of what we saw this week should cause us to wake up and realize what we have become. [00:02:36] And we should do something about it. Uh, this is a shocking, uh, it's tragic now of all the things that made me sad about this past Wednesday. Nothing made me more sad than seeing the name of Jesus drug through that mud. I saw Jesus' name on flags. I saw crosses across. I [00:03:00] saw people interviewed. I want to, I want to say this. [00:03:03] I'm going to say this very, very clearly. What happened on Wednesday, had nothing to do with Jesus and Jesus had nothing to do with what happened on Wednesday. I need to say that as a pastor. I need you to understand that that this has gone way beyond where it should have gone. Uh, again, it's going to be unpopular what I'm about to say, but I'm going to, I'm going to say it. [00:03:27] We have a false religion. This brewing in America is called nationalism. It's idolatry. Nationalism is when you place your love for the country above any other love that you have when you become more passionate about your politics and you are passionate about God. It's one thing for the country to be that way. [00:03:48] And I understand why the country is because that's really all they have, but we have something so much more. If we would become half as passionate about Jesus, we are passionate about our politics. We would transform this [00:04:00] world. Nationalism is an idolatry. It is a false religion and has made its way into the church. [00:04:10] It's, when you believe that America has more right to God and has more God than any other country, you hear it in the phrase, America first. And folks, I want to explain something to you. If you are a Christ follower, you should never let the words America first cross

your lips. That's crossing the line, you're saying America is more important to you than the kingdom of God? [00:04:37] And that you're going to take your values from your politics, from the ideology of your politics. Then you're going to take it from the word of God. I'm calling us up church. It's gone too far. And to think about this being in the name of Jesus, just again, to conscript Jesus into that and say, this is what he's all [00:05:00] about. [00:05:01] You know why this breaks my heart is many people now, when they think of Jesus, they think of, of what happened on Wednesday. [00:05:13] If you want to know Jesus, alright, listen to me. Do not watch the news to discover who Jesus is and what he's about. Open your Bible, discover the Jesus of your Bible. And I want to tell you something church. I need to say this strongly, you're going to discover a different Jesus in your Bible. You're going to discover a Jesus in your Bible, that decried violence. [00:05:37] You're going to discover a Jesus that refused to take up arms. You're going to discover a Jesus. That would not be conscripted into leading an insurrection against the government. You're going to understand that many people expected that of him. They were disappointed in him and they quit following him because their values were not his values and they didn't want to make [00:06:00] his values, their values. [00:06:03] The only one we're to follow and model our life after is Jesus. Jesus is the one who said, love your enemies. Jesus is the one who said, pray for those who persecute you. Jesus is the one who taught us that those who contend for peace will be the blessed ones. He's the one who taught us that our only hope and focus should be on God, not on government and certainly not on political leaders. [00:06:37] As a result of all of this, of course, he was called the Prince of Peace. And that's who Jesus is. If any of this reminds you of what you saw on Wednesday, something's wrong. Because the Jesus of the Bible wasn't involved in that. Now I'm going to say this. Wednesday wasn't an accident folks. I have stood in this pulpit [00:07:00] many times and said, if we stay on the course, we're on [00:07:03] it's going to destroy us. A house divided cannot stand. It has been cultivated. It has been bred. It has been brewing. It has been watered and it just, the chickens came home to roost. We have so embraced hatred in our culture. And so embraced vitriol, we have made our neighbor, our enemy because they think different than we do, and they vote different than we do. [00:07:29] And we've justified it in the name of Jesus. The one who said, love your neighbor. [00:07:42] Well, I think Satan, has had a hayday. I do want to say there's four things. I think we ought to learn from Wednesday. Number one, words matter. Words matter. Words motivate. They embolden. They [00:08:00] define. Words have consequences. When you say that word, it has consequences. Second thing I think is, uh, ideas matter. Ideas motivate. Ideas embolden. Ideas define. [00:08:17] I think leaders matter. I think leaders matter and leaders take their ideas in their words, and then they transfer them to an audience that listens. And I think leaders ought to be accountable for the words and the ideas that they espouse. And folks, I think character matters and we've moved so far away from character mattering in our culture. Character is what you are, it's why you are it's who you are. [00:08:52] Our character is always revealed in our actions. Oh, let me finish this moment by just saying this. [00:09:00] Again, if you want to know who Jesus is, if you wanna know who Jesus really is, let him be himself as he's revealed himself to us. And the way you get there is from the word of God, let's be in the word of God. [00:09:16] Now I am of the opinion, and I realized that what I just said, this will be some of your last Sunday with us. I know this. But it's just time. Enough's enough. It's just time. I hope that's not true. I hope that you'll stick with us. The kingdom of God is far more important than the country in which we live. [00:09:37] The values of God need to be our driving passion. Let's become as vocal on behalf of God, as people have been over their politics. But here's what I think we need to do all of us. I think we need to, I think we need to repent. And I'm not saying you did anything. I'm not saying I'm not charging you. I'm not accusing you, but we've been [00:10:00] okay with this. [00:10:02] I need to repent because I have not been louder and more vocally opposed to it. And we need to lament what we have become. Look at us now, what have we grown into? [00:10:18] And let's talk to God and ask him for forgiveness. I'm going to do that right now. I invite you to join me if your heart is there, come with me into prayer and, um, then we'll get to the message. So father, thank you for this church. Uh, this church in all its aspects, those who are on other campuses right now, those who are. [00:10:39] In other places locally and across the state, across the United States. And now across the world, God, whoever we are, obviously, this is very much about this country and this moment, but God, this breaks my heart of what the price you've paid that we brought you into and what I do pray that you guide us and lead us and, um, [00:11:00] father forgive me for not being more vocal and do not allow me [00:11:07] to not be vocal now. And Lord, I pray that we would, um, get this right, make whatever we, we need to change our life style. Just like when you need to lose weight. You gotta do things different. We gotta, we gotta become, I'm far more concerned about you and far less concerned about other things. Lord help us to that and father, I pray in Jesus name. [00:11:30] Amen. All right. Thank you for that. Um, I want to, so I had a dilemma this week. I had a pretty big dilemma because I have been so excited for what January 9th was going to bring, because as I was, you know, we pray about, we don't get our messages off the internet. If you didn't know this. Okay. We, we, we don't, we, we go to God and we go, God, tell us what, what is it that we should be talking about? [00:11:56] And we just keep our minds open. We keep our hearts open. We keep our hands open. We [00:12:00] go, God, just lead us. I feel so led about the series that we're entering into and was planned to start today. And then this thing happened Wednesday and I had to make a decision. Am I going to derail everything I felt like God led me to get ready to because something happened in our country. [00:12:13] Or am I going to say, no, I'm not changing course. I'm staying on the agenda. So folks, here's what I decide. I'm staying on the agenda. We're going to start the series we intended to start today. And I cannot believe how excited I am. I'm not sure I've ever been more excited to start a series. And I don't think there's been a series of maybe we'll better define our church in the days ahead than this series. [00:12:32] It's a series we're calling priceless. We're calling priceless. Now, listen, everybody here understands what the word priceless means. You understand the concept of priceless. Priceless is something that you can't put a value on or upon. In all honesty, very, very few things in the world we live are priceless. Yet many things around us are undervalued. [00:12:55] You can look at a lot of things to go they're, they're undervalued. They're not maybe priceless, but they're [00:13:00] undervalued. We understand undervalued undervalued is what's behind American. What is it called? Help me, American roadshow, something like that. Antique roadshow. Antique roadshow antique roadshow is, is the premise that you have something that's been laying around. [00:13:14] You got it somewhere. It's been there forever. You had no idea what it was worth. And you discovered, so let me give you a couple of examples. All right. So there's this lady who picked up a ring in, in a, kind of a junk sale in London. She paid $13 for it. Thought it was costume jewelry, sat on her dresser for several decades. [00:13:35] And she went down and had it appraised on a whim and they came back and they said, do you know what you have? This is a 26 carat diamond that was cut in the 1800's. And she sold it at a Sotheby's auction for [00:14:00] $455,000. Now bad on a $13 investment. Another guy was going to a bargain hunter at a junk sale. [00:14:07] He bought a porcelain teapot. He bought this teapot for $20 and he thought, yeah, it's just cool. I'll just have it for whatever reason he had it appraised. And it was discovered that this teapot was one of the very first pieces of porcelain ever made in America. It was by a certain designer. It was very, very valuable. [00:14:29] This is the picture of the tea pot. Looks pretty common. Except that sucker sold at auction for $806,000. No, these are things you pick up, but it's other stuff you might have around that. There was a guy in the Philippines. He didn't get it at a bargain store. It's just always been under his bed. There was a rock under his bed. [00:14:48] He kept this rocket under his bed for good luck, not under his mattress, but under his bed. And he just says, here's my good luck rock. And he goes, I don't know. It's ugly. Well, one day somebody noticed [00:15:00] it and said, you know what that might be? And he said, no, he took it in and had it checked out. What he discovered is it was the largest Pearl ever found on the, on the planet. [00:15:12] This will show a picture of it here, two feet long. Okay. Weighed 75 pounds. You know what? That pearls worth $100 million. Good luck charm under his bed. All right. How do you know the value of anything that's under explain value. Value is not what you say something's worth value is what somebody else says something's worth. [00:15:39] You can see, you can tell me your house is worth so much, but your house isn't worth anything until somebody is willing to pay you that amount. That's what makes the value of your house. And that's what you have to get your house appraised because you think it's worth this and a, bank's not going to loan you money on what you think it's worth. [00:15:53] Someone's going to come in, who's qualified and has some skills and goes, no, no, no. Here's what you value. Okay. If you want, if you're going to borrow somebody's money that somebody [00:16:00] else has to verify it, it takes another outside party to determine what it's worth. And here's what I need you to understand. [00:16:08] This will be the bedrock of this series right here. This verse, Luke 16:15, and I want you to stare at this verse. I want you to take this verse in. This will rock your world when you understand what it's saying. Okay. Luke 16:15 says this, what people value highly is detestable in God's sight. He got a soak in that one. [00:16:32] What people value highly is detestable in God's sight. If you read that same passage and the paraphrase, the message, what society season calls monumental God sees through and calls monstrous. Now there's two, there's two concepts here. We got to wrestle with what is highly valued mean? When the message says monumental, what is monumental? [00:16:55] Highly valued. Monumental is worth celebrating. It's [00:17:00] worth esteeming. Technically the word means that which is lofty or upstanding to the world. What is lofty or upstanding to the world is detestable or monstrous to God. What's monstrous. What, what is the detestable mean? You ready for this? The word means [00:17:19] it's an abomination to God. It's an abomination. An object of disgust. It's repulsive. It's

abhorrent to God. So you've got to take this verse in and you've got to resonate with what this is saying. So what the world we live in says is so valuable, God goes that's trash. And what the world says is trash. God goes, wow. [00:17:42] So you got a place, you got to grasp this. Okay. You gotta, you gotta God places value on what the world doesn't. The world, places value on what God doesn't. And here's the heart of the issue. So where do you get your values? Where do [00:18:00] you get your values? Where does, where do they come from? You, you, you live in a world that values things that God says worthless. [00:18:10] And God goes, Hmm. You see what people would pay for something in the world, God would never pay anything. What God would pay everything for people in this world wouldn't touch. So, so this is the priceless series that we're going to wrestle with. How do the things that the world values compared to what God values and what is that was God value so highly, but the world goes, yeah, not interested in that. [00:18:31] See, at the end of this thing, what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to decide for yourself, you'll care more about what the world's hazard. You care about, what God says. And folks, just an acid test in the heart of every one of us. I can't decide for you. And you can decide for me, but I can tell you this. [00:18:45] If we're going to be Christ followers and be sincere about it, we have to place more value on what he says is more valuable and less value on what he says was less valuable. We have to do that. So we're going to spend four weeks. And again, I want to have a little bit of time left. [00:19:00] Uh, today. I wish I didn't, but I do only have a little time, but I'm going to talk to you about the first thing I think you need to understand is priceless and that's you. [00:19:09] And so over to spend the last few moments I got, I went to get, I'm gonna explain to you from scripture, why you are, so you are priceless to God. The next week I'm going to talk about everyone who's not you. Everyone who's different than you, everyone who's. Other than you, they also are priceless to God. [00:19:23] And the week after that, I'm going to talk about the unborn. I'm going to explain why they are priceless to God. And the last week I'm going to talk about the family and the community. Okay. Uh, if you follow what I just did, it goes us of them, those, Oh, excuse me. You, them, those, us. Because you know what God finds valuable people, people. [00:19:50] What does the world find worthless? So many people. But let's spend a few moments. I'm going to talk about you. I just want to talk about you. [00:20:00] I want you to understand

in God's eyes you are priceless. How do I know that your priceless because creation tells you you're priceless. Let, let me, let me explain. I love this, this Psalm. [00:20:09] Psalm 139. I'm going to read just two verses out. It's not going to come back to this several times because I think in understanding people's value, this Psalm is very important. Psalm 139:13 and 14 says this for you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made your works are wonderful. [00:20:31] I know that full well, you know what I can tell you about you? You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You know, you are, you are fine. You are fine. You look at the person next to you to go. You are fine. Somebody's been wanting to do that all morning. Even thinking about the person Debbie you do with some attitude. [00:20:49] Woo. You are fine. Cause that's what you are. You are, you are fearfully and wonderfully made you are, are you're, all that [00:21:00] man. You know what? Those two words are crucial to understanding fearfully. I need you to understand you are fearful. And what does that mean? Well, that's not even about you. That's about your maker, you're fearfully made. [00:21:14] That was stay with me, stay with it. What it means is you are made by one who is highly respected. You are made by one who is highly revered. You are fearfully because he is worthy of that kind of respect. You see if I had a violin up here? Oh gosh, you won't believe this. You will not believe this. This is an original Stradivarius. [00:21:34] Did you see the name Stradivarius on that thing that makes that thing incredibly valuable because of who made it. You were made by a master craftsman and it's all over you, man. It's all about him because who he is, he's fearfully made you, we revere the maker. Oh. And by the way, you're also wonderfully made. [00:21:59] Now [00:22:00] that's about you. The fearful is about the maker. Wonderful is about you. What is the word wonderful mean in this context? It means you are marvelous. You look marvelous. You, you are, you are set apart. You are distinct. You ready? You ready? You ready? You are a one off creation of a master craftsman. [00:22:22] That's how I know you're so valuable. That's how I know you're priceless. You are an absolute original work of art and you know what God did when he created you. He him, he just embedded all kinds of dignity within you. You are, you are so full of dignity. Now. It doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter how intelligent you are. [00:22:44] It doesn't even matter what religion you are. It doesn't matter your sex. It doesn't matter. Your skin color doesn't matter. Your wealth, your status, your parents, no matter any of that, regardless of any of that, do you, by the fact that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, you are incredible in God's eyes. [00:23:00] [00:23:00] And God didn't mess it up. If you, if you keep, if you keep kind of following this, let me take you back to Genesis chapter one in the creation story. First chapter of the Bible. Let me just remind you of what it says. All right. Genesis 1:26 and 27 says this. Then God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness so that we may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky over the livestock and all the wild animals. [00:23:26] And over all the creatures that move on the, on the ground. So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female. He created them. Now you understand what you just heard? You, you are not a little above the animals because you, you, the, the world says you are, you, you are higher than the animals because God created you to have dominion over the animals. [00:23:55] Th th that is your place in creation. No animal was ever [00:24:00] created in the image of God. You were. And by the way, the image of God, we call this, I'm going to go very faster, but this is a very important listen closely. And we call it the Imago Dei, the Imago Dei, the image of God, what does that mean? It means that when God went to design you, he took characteristics of himself traits of himself. [00:24:16] And he used that as the pattern to create you. It doesn't make you God. It doesn't mean you're suddenly going to become God. But, but when God was trying to figure out how to make you, he took his own characteristics and he, and he saw I'm going to put this, not all of his characteristics. So when we talk about the Imago Dei, you got to understand, there are two kinds of traits, what are called incommunicable and communicable. [00:24:36] I know those are weird words. Incommunicable traits are the things that God has that you don't. And let me just give you a couple of, just to think about God is omnipotent. Okay. I'm the omnipotents of God. What does that mean? God is all powerful. You're not. So when God said I could make up that way, he goes, Nope. Not gonna do that. [00:24:53] Okay. So you didn't get that . Omnipresent. What does that mean? God's everywhere. God, God's everywhere. You're [00:25:00] not you're here right here right now. Okay. Wherever you are. You're here. You don't have that. God's omniscient. What does that mean? He's all knowing. He's all knowing you're not all knowing. [00:25:10] You might think you're all knowing, but you didn't get that. Okay. It was like the, the guy that was reading an ad in red, he said, look for sale complete 32 volume encyclopedia Britannica, almost new, barely used. And then, um, the, the reason for selling it selling, because my husband knows everything. You might think, you know everything, but you don't okay. [00:25:37] I can keep going immutable. Okay. God's immutable. That was a guy doesn't change same yesterday, today and tomorrow. You're not you, you get older. You like me. You get fatter. Okay. It's what happens. Now, those are incommunicable. God didn't use his pattern to put it in you, but then there's all these other things that God goes, you know what I want that let's put that, put that in him, like, like God is love. [00:26:00] [00:25:59] Yeah. I want a lot of that. Put that in the pattern of when we create that, God is just, you were amazing. You knew when you were a kid, what was fair and what was unfair. Yeah. Because God put that in you to know you're God's merciful. He expects you to be, God is pure. I could go on and on and on with these. [00:26:17] Communicable things that God said I want you to have. And so that's who you are. And here's what it ought to mean. Folks. We gotta be able to look at one another and go, I, I, I see God in you. I should God in you. The tragedy is we don't see God in many anymore. What's happening to us. I got something else I need to tell you. [00:26:40] You need to understand, okay, you got to get don't miss this. All right. You know, when God created you, the very last thing he did, what does that mean? It means when God got to you a that's all good. He created man and woman. That's really very good. [00:27:00] Now, listen, don't miss this. Okay. I'm going to say this on purpose. [00:27:03] It's bad grammar. I got it. Don't don't email me. I got it. You were the last created and you were the goodest thing created. There's no one gooder. You're the goodliest. Isn't that awesome? God got done with you. And he said, Whoa, I'm tired and I'm done. And I can't do any better. You're the apex of his creation. [00:27:26] Don't miss this. Psalm 8. The Psalmist goes out and looks at the stars. You ought to do the shout, take Psalm 8 with a flashlight. Go out, look at the stars. I can't read the whole chapter, but let me just read a couple of verses. He said this. He said, when I consider your heavens the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what does mankind that you're mindful of them human beings, that you care for them. [00:27:53] You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them [00:28:00] rulers over the works of your hands and you put everything under their feet. God goes, look, I'm going to put men just beneath the angels. And that's what you are. It's incredible. So I can tell you you're incredibly priceless because of creation, but I can also tell you because of the price that was paid for you, what's something worth what somebody else would pay for it. [00:28:22] You know what you, you were the reason that Jesus went to the cross. Now, listen to me, please. Wherever you are. Listen to me. I believe this with all of my heart. If you were the only person on the planet, Jesus would have died for you. It it's it's. It's absolutely. Mind-blowing he bled and he died for you. [00:28:51] And so what was the price? Well, how do you put a price on, on that? Well, here's what it says in first Peter one, but for, you know, that it [00:29:00] was not with perishable, these cheap chintzy things like silver or gold that you were redeemed from your former. No, no, no. You, you, you were bought with precious blood, blood of an unblemished. [00:29:13] Perfect lamb. Oh, you are so valuable. Whew. I'm glad you came to church. Feeling kind of bad about myself. Not feel good about myself. I hope you feel good about yourself because you should feel good about yourself because you are the priceless creation of a master craftsman. You are his handiwork you. You're fine. [00:29:33] But here's the problem. You live in a world that tells you none of that is true. Drip by drip, you get hit with the opposite message every single day of your life. You know what some of you, if you're just being honest, let's just be real. You feel worthless. You're sitting in here right now, wherever you are, you feel, you feel worthless to the core. [00:29:55] You feel like you are trash, they'll be thrown away. You didn't get that from [00:30:00] God. You got that from the culture in which we now live in. You got that from the world. And the world has come along and drip by drip undermine the world says there is no God, there is no such thing as crate. It's all able, there's no creation, no creator, no purpose, no design. [00:30:15] There's nothing unique or special about humans. You're just at the top of the wrong primates. That's all you are. And if that, let me just read, I only read just a handful of quotes from some preeminent atheist. You got to hear what they have to say. Yeah. Like, like for instance, Richard Dawkins, he said, all right. [00:30:39] So imagine you have a problem and you're really hurting and you go, Richard, can I talk to you? You look across the table and he says, you need to understand this universe has precisely the properties we should expect. If there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless, indifference. [00:30:58] Hope you feel better. [00:31:03] [00:31:00] The world we live in. No, God, no creator, no purpose. Uh, the late Stephen, Jay Gould said human life is a momentary cosmic accident. Yes, you were just like a mess up. That's all. You are just, things went wrong, man. It was just a freak accident. Lawrence Krauss, who was an atheist, uh, physicist and cosmologist said this. [00:31:30] He said the laws of physics allow the universe to begin from nothing. You don't need a deity. Zero total energy and quantum fluctuations can produce a universe. I just got to say, so he says, I want to go do it, go do it, go make it happen. And yet he can't make it happen. He can just say, no, that's all it that's all that happened. [00:31:54] You know what else? He said, listen to this. He said, I can't prove that God doesn't exist, but I'd [00:32:00] much rather live in a universe without one. Well, no kidding you say things like that to people. But that's the world you live in. You see according to these, uh, atheistic, uh, believers in their atheism? You're just a complex organism, programmed by selfish genes to a selfish in that's all you are. [00:32:25] Um, some have gone so far as to say this, you are simply, listen, you, you know what you are, you are pollution in the universe. You are refused and trash and the world and the universe would be better off if you weren't here, you ought to disappear. You're so screwing everything up. Hmm. Did I mention in this message that ideas have consequences? That come out anywhere? [00:32:51] Because I want you to understand if you believe what these people are telling you, it's going to lead you somewhere. It's going to create [00:33:00] values in you that destroy your esteem, and God's going, why are you listening to them? Why are you not listening to me. Understand this. We live in a world in which very few people will ever tell you, you know who you are. [00:33:19] You are a creation of a master craftsman designed to be just a little less than angels in heaven. Instead you live in a world who says, you know what, on your best day, you might be a little bit better than an ape. Wow. So I'm going to close with a big idea and a couple of thoughts. Here's the big idea. [00:33:43] All right. And, and honestly, I wish you'd write this down and think about it. When we lose sight of God, we lose sight of ourselves. Take your eyes off God. You're going to get all messed up on who you are. We take our eyes [00:34:00] off God. We're going to take our eyes off. We're going to lose perspective of ourselves. [00:34:05] So in closing, let me explain it this way. See God desires that you have a certain life. He calls it abundant life. I don't have time to go into a Paul called it the life that is truly see God has this incredibly blessed life. He wants to give every one of us, but you're going to have to make a choice to go with him rather than the salesman of the world's philosophy. [00:34:25] You're going to have to choose a worldview that you're going to align your values according to, and again, there'll be consequences to what you do. The world that rejection will never understand what I've just said today. I get it. I get it. I I'm good. And you can gain everything this world has. And can I tell you what Jesus said? [00:34:43] The Jesus of the Bible can tell you what he said. In fact, let me show you Matthew 16:26. What good will it be for when to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul, or what can anyone give in exchange for a [00:35:00] soul? Folks. That's a loaded question. What's the value of your soul? Well, it depends. Who's after it, the world says your junk trash refuse. [00:35:15] God goes, Oh no, no, you are priceless. So last thing I'm gonna do. I'm going to reach into my wallet. I put, I put a $50 bill in my wallet before he came to church today. Okay. I need you to understand that I don't normally carry $50 bills in my wallet, just in case you were thinking of mugging me. It's really rare. [00:35:37] Honest. Okay. So it wouldn't be worth your effort. Okay. But I put this in here too, to make a point. And the point is, if I asked anyone in this room or in where you are anywhere in the world, Hey, I got $50. You don't want to want my $50 bill. If you thought it was sincere, you'd raise your hand. You go. I do, I do. [00:35:54] And I go, well wait, but before I give it to you though, I'm going to do something to it. I'm going to just hang on. I'm just going to take this $50. Let me [00:36:00] just, I'm going to, I'm going to bend and spindle it and mutilate it. Okay. So just hang on. So crump, uh, do all this. Okay. So I put in a little, okay. There now, do you still want it? [00:36:12] Everybody would understand. Well, I know the value of a $50 bill. Yeah, it's still there. It's a weird form, but I still want it. Oh, okay. But I'm not going to do it that way. Well, what if I do this? What if I do this? Okay. What if I take this thing and what if I, I crumple it all up. Okay. Not crumpled it all up. If anybody still wants a $50 bill, she knew, I knew the value of that. [00:36:30] Didn't matter. It's all crumpled up. Okay. Okay. What about incomplete? You spit in it now. Do you want it? You, he is a little gross, but I wash it. Yeah. I still want it. Okay. Well, what if I folded spindle, mutilated, complet, spin on it and then throw it down on the ground. I stump on it and I grind it under my foot. [00:36:53] Now you still want it? Yeah. I still want, I don't care. [00:37:00] It's everything that ever was. It was, everything was designed to be listen to me. Every one of you, the world may have folded you. And crumpled you and spit on you and ground you under it's foot. That does not remove the value of who you were created to be the question is whose value are you trusting? [00:37:29] God knows you're worth everything. You are worth. Everything. You're priceless to me. I die for you again and again and again. I love you so much. Now that which the world highly esteems is detestable in God's eyes. That, which is the detestable in the world's eyes is priceless in God's eyes. Who do you want to trust with your life? [00:37:55] Let me pray. Heal father. Um, [00:38:00] Help help us. Cause this is one thing that happened in your head. It's another thing when you wake up and you look at yourself in a mirror and you don't like what you see and you remember what you did and you don't like what you did and feel horrible about your life and what you've become, but God help us understand that no matter what happened to us along the way. [00:38:21] Didn't remove the value of what we were created to be so help us in this series to understand and value that what you value with the value with which you place upon it. And I pray for this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you guys very much.