What's It Worth?
Foundation Statement: So often your honor for a thing (how much you value it) is
seen in the price you are willing to pay and what you are willing to do to have
it, to be apart of it – What are willing to pay for it? What are you
willing to do for it? That reveals your honor for it, that
reveals how much you value it and how important it is to you-Matthew 13:44-48
I.
Matthew 13:44-46-The
Kingdom of God (God and His things) are so precious and so valuable
A. This first of reveals the
value of God and His things; In these verses we are talking about something
very precious; God and his things and getting to be a part of them is precious (Treasure-Place or thing where
what you value most is stored or kept, Pearl
of great price-Very valuable)
B. God and His things, to
get to experience and be a part of, according to this verse is worth everything
a man has
1.
If you get a chance to be
apart of the kingdom of Heaven (God and His things) you should give everything
you have to do so
2.
What price should you be willing to be to get to be apart of and experience God
and His things?
Everything – What should you be willing to do? Anything – Where should you be
willing to go? Anywhere – When should you be willing to do it? Anytime
II.
Matthew 13:44-46-We see
your honor for a thing in the price you are willing to pay for it, what you are
willing to do for it
A. One of the main ways we
see a lack of honor for God and for His things is in the price a person is
unwilling to pay for them; If you are not willing to give much for them, to do
much for them, to sacrifice much for them, to be inconvenienced much for them then
that reveals that God and His things don’t carry much value your life
1.
Matt13:44-He paid a price for this precious item and he paid the
highest price he could be because he sold all that he had; you can’t pay a
higher price then giving all you got for it and this reveals to us just how important
this treasure in this field was to him
a. How do we know how much
he honored this treasure? We see
his honor for it in the price he was willing to pay for it
2.
Matthew
13:46-He found a pearl that was so precious to him that he willingly went and
sold all that he had and bought that one pearl; he couldn’t have paid a higher
price and his honor for it was seen
in the price he was willing to pay for it
B. Why would you be willing
to sell how that you have and pay such a great price? B/C it means something to
you, it’s precious to you
1.
How
much does the first guy value that treasure in that field? How much does the
second guy value that pearl? We see how much they valued it, honored it, in the
price they were willing to pay for it
2.
Paying a “great” price
reveals great honor and when you are willing to pay a great price it reveals
great honor
3.
Unwillingness to pay a
price reveals dishonor
C. *One way in which people
are failing in this area of honor is they don’t value God and His things
enough; it’s just not precious to some; The problem with that is when you don’t
value a thing you won’t be willing to give much for it, do much for it,
sacrifice much for it because it’s not worth it to you
III.
Matthew 13:44-Buys that
field; so there was some cost involved, a price he had to pay and this is what
the kingdom of God is like
A. Is there cost involved in
the Kingdom of God? Is there a price you have to pay?
1.
Luke
14:33-There is cost involved when it comes to God honoring you and getting to
experience and be a part of the precious things of God and the question is how
much does God honoring you mean to you, how much does being apart of the
precious things of God mean to you
2.
Luke
14:16-He’s talking about the dinner and to come it was going to cost some time
with their land and their cattle and their wife and to them that dinner wasn’t
worth it and they weren’t willing to pay the price; it wasn’t worth the cost of
inconvenience
3.
There
was a cost involved in being at that dinner and the cost was come right now and
they weren’t willing to pay it and because they wouldn’t pay the price they
didn’t get to experience these precious things
B. When you are talking
about paying a price, you’re talking about it costing you something; When you
are talking about something costing you something you’re talking about you giving
something in exchange for something else that you deem to be worth it (or worth
the price you paid)
1.
These
two guys are giving something in exchange for something else that they deemed
worthy of what they gave up
2.
What you are or are not
willing to pay or give for a thing reveals your honor or lack thereof for that
thing because with what you are or are not willing to pay you are saying that
it either is or is not worth it (worthy of the price)
3.
What is Jesus worth to
you? What is God worth to you? What is following Jesus worth to you? What is
pleasing Him worth to you? What is experiencing God and His precious things
worth to you? What is being used of Him worth to you? What is His anointing
worth to you? What is fulfilling His plan for your life worth to you? What
price would you be willing to pay for Jesus, to follow
Him, to please Him, to experience Him, to be used of Him, to fulfill His plan?
C. The problem with people
his they immediately spout out of their mouth, “He’s worth everything,” and yes
he is, but if you are not willing to do anything
for him, then He is not worth everything
TO YOU; and that a lack of honor
1.
Honor
is seen, more than it’s heard-Matthew 15:8
2.
Some
aren’t willing to do much for him and if so then what they are saying is he is
not worth paying that price
3.
What
would you be willing to pay? What would you be willing to do? How much does it
mean to you? – These questions are not answered with words, they are
answered by the price you actually
pay
4.
EX:
If I ask a guy what he’d be willing to pay for this new phone and he says he’d
be willing to pay $500 for it and I said so you’d pay $500 for it and he says
absolutely yes, it is worth that to me.
Then two hours later somebody shows up with that phone available to him
to buy and he says, “Well I’m not sure,” then what we just found out is that
it’s not worth $500 to him because he wouldn’t pay the price and even though he
said it was worth that, it turned out to not be true.
5.
If you’re not willing to
do much, to pay much, to be inconvenienced much then the simple reality is that
even though it may be a precious and valuable thing generally speaking, the
reality is that it does not mean much to you
D. As we discover what it’s
worth to you, the price you’d be willing to pay, we will discover just how much
you honor God and his things
IV.
Matthew 13:47-48-If it is
not worth it to you, then you are not worthy of it because you don’t honor it, value
it
A. What would make somebody
worthy and somebody else worthless? It’s not good or bad behavior – The
person who is not willing to give everything they have for it doesn’t not value
it and therefore they are unfit to have it, handle it, experience it; The
person who is willing to give everything for it does value it and therefore
they are worthy, suitable, fit to have it, handle it, experience it
1.
Good-Useful, suitable,
approved, honorable, precious
2.
Bad-Unfit for use, worthless
3.
Something
as precious as His kingdom has no business being in the hands of someone who
doesn’t value it
B. 48-The worthless ones are
the ones to whom the Kingdom of God was not worth it