By E. L. Thornton
SERMON 4
Job 28:15-19
15 It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
16 It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire.
17 The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.
18 No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies.
19 The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
We are living in an age and time of fading values.
Nothing, it seems, is worth what it use to be. There was a time when you could go to the grocery store with $40.00 and come home with a weeks supply of groceries.
There was a time when an automobile may have been worth the asking price, but not now. The only thing that makes that new car worth what they are asking is a person’s desire for it. Is it worth it? That depends on how much you want it.
Things of life have lost their value. The other day I heard a song and in that song was the phrase “a dollar bill ain’t worth one thin dime,” and I can readily agree with that phrase. Our money does not buy as much as it use to.
Things in life have lost their value, but not so with an experience with God, never has my experience with God lost it’s value.
Columnist L. M. Boyd recently described the amazing good fortune of a man named Jack Wurm. In 1949, Mr. Wurm was broke and out of a job. One day he was walking along a San Francisco beach when he cams across a bottle with a piece of paper in it. As he read the note, he discovered that it was the last will and testament of Daisy Singer Alexander, heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. The note read, “To avoid confusion, I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle and to my attorney, Barry
Cohen, share and share alike.” According to Boyd, the courts accepted the theory that the heiress had written the note 12 years earlier, and had thrown it into the Thames River in London, from where it had drifted across the oceans to the feet of a penniless and jobless Jack Wurm. His chance discovery netted him over 6 million in cash and Singer stock. How would you like to have been making Mr. Wurm’s footprints on that San Francisco beach? What a find! And yet 6 million dollars doesn’t even begin to compare with our
spiritual inheritance.
Yes an experience with God is priceless. I still feel that my experience with God is worth any price I would have to pay, any trial I have to experience, any trouble I have to endure, any heartache I have to bear, or any disappointment I have to suffer. I still feel that my experience is………
I. WORTH THE CHANGE:
For when we came to God we were changed.
God promised to make a change in his people. Ezek 11:19-20 “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
Listening to Jesus one gets the idea that change is important to the indwelling spitit. Matt 9:16-17 “No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.”
When you see the glory of God you should change into what you see. 2 Cor 3:18 “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Paul goes on to say, 2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
Paul also declared that there was only one thing that mattered to God. Gal 6:15 “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.”
Paul explains the old and new man. Eph 4:22-24 “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
II. IS IT WORTH THE BATTLE:
We are in a battle. It’s more that the Americans against the Russians, It’s more than the PLO against Israel, it’s more than the government against the drugs lords, it’s more than medicine against disease. The battle that I’m talking about is righteous against unrighteous, holiness against unholiness. It has always been, that those that serve God will have battles.
Leaving a job site one day I was facing the north. The wind was blowing very strong. I had to fight for every step. God impressed me, that if I was to please him in these last days, that I would be ” walking against the win.” From, which thought, I wrote my first song.
The old Indian Chief said he had two dogs inside him that was fighting. When asked which one would win the fight, his reply was, “the one I feed the most.”
My experience is worth the fight.
III IS IT WORTH THE REWARDS:
I believe in rewards in this life. Deut 28:2-13 “And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.
3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.
4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.
5 Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.
6 Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.
7 The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.
8 The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
9 The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways.
10 And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee.
11 And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee.
12 The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.
13 And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them:
A city dweller moved to a farm and bought a cow. Shortly after he did, the cow went dry. When he reported this fact to a neighbor farmer, the neighbor expressed surprise. the city man said he was surprised too. “I
can’t understand it either, for if ever a person was considerate of an animal, I was of that cow. If I didn’t need any milk, I didn’t milk her. If I only needed a quart, I only took a quart.” The neighbor tried to explain that the only way to keep milk flowing is not to take as little as possible from the cow, but to take as much as possible.
When you take from God there is just more, and more, and more.
I believe in rewards in the here after.
My experience is worth the rewards.
