What Do you Value?

Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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Good morning. I am glad that we can be here together to worship God this morning. I want to start by having the kids to do me a favor for a minute. I have given you all a piece of paper and a pencil. I want you to do me a favor through out the time I am preaching.

I want you to write down, draw, or think of what do you value most?

What item, thing, person, or whatever it is that you think is really valuable and write it down.

Then I want you to think of one more thing.

Where would you hide it?

Now i know you might not want to share with me where you hide things you think are important but I promise You don’t have to share those unless you really want to. I want you to think about it though where would you hide something valuable.

Hiding your Valuables

Let’s be honest everyone this isn’t just something that children do. I know plenty of adults who hide valuables each and everyday. I am willing to bet we could find a home somewhere in the near vicinity that has hidden valuables somewhere on the property.

There are lots of good hiding places and there are a lot of bad hiding places.

Good Hiding places

Do I really want to give these up?

Disclaimer. This is not a how to on where to hide your money. I don’t want anyone in this room going out and saying their pastor said hide your money hear it will be safe.

That being said Here is what i found for suggestions on where to hide your money that I thought were actually decent.

A Safe

Now. When i say a safe we need to establish some guidelines here. This is not a safe that can be easily moved. They have to be secured and bolted. To give an example. I used to regularly moved safes that weighed upward of a 800lbs by myself. With the right equipment a Strong dolly they can be moved easily. A safe that is bolted and secured into the structure of a house becomes increasingly difficult to break into. Of course there are a lot of other factors that can make a safe more secure but for the sake of time a secured safe is a good deterrent.

A Diversion Safe

A diversion safe is a simple safe that is made to look like an everyday common household item. This could include a jar of peanut butter, a hairbrush, lint roller. There are a whole host of items that can be found on amazon that are diversion safes.

My personal favorite from these was a flowerpot that had a cactus planted in the top. I mean really who would want to try to remove the cactus to check to see if it had money under it or would be a safe.

Many of these safes seem like they would be perfect because if your home was broken into they would be items that would be commonly ignored.

Bad Hiding spots

I am going to be honest I don’t want to list these out. You can find a lot of examples simply by googling where people will hide things. The problem with hiding things in general in your home is if you aren’t careful you can accidently destroy, throw away, or forget where the item is. Even things like Diversions safe’s can be bad for this very reason.

My personal favorite that i wanted to share is one suggestion I found online for hiding money was in a roll of aluminum foil. Take the roll out and stuff money in there. Imagine for a moment. Your inlaws, or a friend comes over and borrows your foil. You don’t think anything of it till you remember whats in that roll. They use up the foil and throw it away. Gone. Vanished that money is history.

Then there is the person who is on the other side of losing the money. The person who finds it. That is the place that we all hope we can be.

That is where we look at this mornings passage and dig into what God is sharing with us this morning.

Matthew 13:44–46 NIV

44 “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 went and sold all he had and bought that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

Digging up the treasure

Imagine being this person. You are walking in a field and you notice something out of the corner of your eye. It is unusual and sticks out. You start searching and dig up the ground around this unusual object. Suddenly you discover a great treasure. Something that you know is so valuable you can’t ignore it. What do you do?

You do exactly what this passage says. You hide it again and you go make sure that you secure this field as yours.

Now I know that sounds incredibly deceptive. In fact many commentators talk about this fact that our modern sense of reading looks at this and can’t get past the deception.

This moves us to a position that we miss the most important part of this parable. It isn’t that we Deceive it is the fact that we will do anything to secure that valuable object. We have to have it. It is too unique.

Deception is wrong but the focus is on the joy of finding the unique item.

What do you value?

I asked the kids earlier this question and I wonder if any of you have thought about it. Now of course it is easy for us to list of some of the basics. Family, friends, faith, our homes, money, time, and the list goes on and on. Some things have a monetary value others have sentimental value. Some items have both. Some things we would consider priceless.

When we look at this parable and we hear this story I can’t help but ask the question again what do you value?

Are we only focused on the things of this earth?

Do we place a high value on our relationship with God?

Do we recognize that one day we will leave the “treasures” of this earth behind and will stand before God?

What would you do for the opportunity to be confident to stand before God that you lived a life in honor for him?

How does your life need to change so that you can do that?

What is he challenging you to do?

Are you asking him?

Are you seeking his guidance, or are you happy with just living with your treasures?

Again I ask what do you value?

The Hand of Faith

In September of 1980 Kevin Hillier of Wedderburn Australia got a new Metal detector. He took it out for a spin and wanted to see what he could find. Instead of finding a bottle cap or a paper clip or some other worthless piece of metal he discovered something even greater.

The Metal detector went off and he dug in the spot and found what he though was a gold nugget the size of a marble. That alone in its self would be worth a large amount of money. He kept digging. He quickly discovered that it wasn’t just the size of a marble it was the size of a man’s thumb. His day just got even better. He kept digging and the nugget grew larger and larger until he finally pulled out 875 troy ounce Nugget from the ground.

Picture of the Hand of faith Nugget

He was able to sell this famous nugget called the Hand of Faith to the Gold nugget casino for a million dollars. Interesting enough today that weight in gold is worth almost 1.8 million dollars. It still remains the largest gold nugget found with a metal detector.

It was in the ground only 12 inches below the surface.

One foot!

Think about how many people walked right over that area of ground each day and had no idea they walked right over a million dollars.

Finding the Nuggets

Put yourselves in his shoes for a minute. What would you sell to make sure you got that nugget?

People could easily look at what you are doing and think you are giving up so much. Why?

The sacrifice seems crazy but at the end it makes sense.

Let’s look at sacrifice from a different perspective.

Often when people come to faith we have expectations of giving things us. There are things that we are expected to change in our lives.

Lots of times people look at that and can’t imagine why we would give those things up or why anyone would give us the things of this world.

I want to believe in Jesus but i know that I can’t keep doing...

I want to follow him but I can’t do...

There once was someone who posed similar challenges with Jesus on their willingness to follow Jesus and his response is an interesting one.

Matthew 8:18–22 NIV

18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

The Cost of Following Jesus

The Cost is high. The Sacrifice is great. Jesus reminds these two that to follow after him will mean they may have no place to lay their head. Also, to help drive home how important and essential it is to follow Jesus that there isn’t even time to busy a dead love one.

It is a powerful thing to be called by Christ. To follow after him closely. It takes a lot. It is a great demand. I won’t lie that is the relationship we enter into with Christ.

Have you ever thought about that?

What are you sacrificing?

Sacrifice

i realized when writing this sermon I have a problem with this word when it comes to our faith. It isn’t the wrong word but the problem I have is it has a negative point of view. When we hear the word sacrifice we naturally think of negative things. We are drawn to thinking on it from a selfish point of view.

Woe is me I have lost out on… whatever it is that you might have to give up.

Is that really what it is when we follow Jesus?

The truth is that when we give up things as a follower of Christ it is not a burden. It should not be a burden. It is something we do out of love for God.

We don’t or shouldn’t see it as a a horrible experience or out of obligation but because we long to draw closer to God. To grow in our relationship and to love him more deeply.

Suddenly that sacrifice isn’t so hard. It is easier.

hear me when I say this doesn’t mean it is always easy to do. There are plenty of things in our lives that are incredibly hard to give up. However, it is in our heart of hearts that we know we need to and we are willing to do what is necessary to follow Christ.

This is where the people who found the treasure or the pearl were at. They knew that the kingdom of heaven was so valuable that they could not ignore it. They were willing. They would sacrifice to get it.