Matthew chapter 13 and at some point in time. I'll ask you to go to Jeremiah 9 To finish out we'll start with Matthew 13 and Then we'll go to Jeremiah 9 in a little while I'm gonna preach about life's greatest treasure tonight. Are you interested to know what it is? I Now we say we think we, you probably think, well, I already know what it is, but David, I know what you're going to preach on. Well, you just stick with me. I'm sure you do. And I'm not going to deny that, but don't, don't count yourself out on this. As we look at life's greatest treasure, let's all stand one more time. Matthew 13, Matthew 13 verse 44, Matthew 13 verse 44 again, Jesus, of course, is speaking, "...the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field. The witch, when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy..." He hides the treasure, of course. "...he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth, and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." Again, the kingdom of heaven is likened to a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. You can be seated tonight. Life's greatest treasure. Two parables here, two short parables and three verses. The first one is the treasure hid in the field and a man finds the field and he says, I've got to have this. And the treasure is so great. Now this is not your ordinary treasure. Did you know there are things that are more valuable than others, right? And life is all about determining what is valuable. Is it not? We go through life, I've done it for an illustration before, I was tempted to do it tonight, but I've laid money out on the altar before and had little children come up here and have a whole bunch of pennies, maybe 15 pennies or something, and have a dollar bill, and I can say, you can have whichever one you want. And usually the child, under a certain age, will take all the pennies, feeling like that's more. But the time will come they will learn that the dollar bill is worth 100 pennies, okay? And maybe you've educated your kids better than that, I don't know. But life is about determining what is truly valuable. And hopefully we learn, amen? I'm afraid that some never learn. Some never learn the true valuables in life. But here is a man that finds a treasure in a field, and this thing is so valuable. This one treasure, this greatest treasure, I'm preaching about life's greatest treasure. It's so great. Listen, I think we fail to understand how great the treasure is. What does he sell? Everything. He says, this thing is more valuable than everything else he has. All of his cumulative possessions together cannot equal this, and so he is willing to part with every single thing he has. Everything. I mean all, the Bible says, he selleth all that he, with joy, he's excited to get rid of everything that he has, just so he can have this one thing. And for joy thereof goeth and selleth all, they can't wait to get rid of what he's got because of what he's found. With joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant man seeking goodly pearls. And when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought in. but he's found one that's so great, so wonderful, that all of the other pearls put together can't equal this one great pearl. And so he's willing to sell all that he has to have this one thing, my life's great treasure. I'm afraid today in these last days, 2 Timothy 3 verse 1, this know also the last days perilous time shall come. I'm afraid we just don't know true valuables. Now, you young people would probably know who said, give me liberty or give me death. Who said that? Who can tell me real quick? Patrick Henry. Very good. Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry said, give me liberty or give me death. Now, I'd say liberty is pretty important to Patrick Henry. Did you know, I've told you before, the survey went out and the majority, I forget the age was, I think it was like 21 and under, but the majority of young people would rather be dead than give up their cell phone. And so this country was founded by a man, how they said, give me liberty or give me death, and here we are today where they say, give me my cell phone or give me death. Somewhere we've got mixed up. Somewhere we've got mixed up in this thing. Life is about identifying what is truly valuable, the real treasures, learning what to keep. Proverbs 23, 23, the Bible says, buy the truth and sell it not. I mean, there's some things you just don't let go of. Some things are so valuable, you don't let them go at any reason or at any price. And there are other things that you've got to learn, you just let them go. Even things that are supposedly valuable. We read about two men. I know it's a parable there, but they have found something that's so valuable that everything else just has to go so they can have that one thing. Acts 27, 32, when Paul informed the soldiers that accept these, talking about the shipmen abiding the ship, you shall all likewise perish. And the Bible says they just slashed the ropes. And there's that lifeboat. I mean, this boat, their own, is going to crumble to pieces. And the only hope in their eyes is that lifeboat. They let her go. That's life, folks. You realize that sometimes things you just gotta let go of. Sometimes there's things you just gotta let go of. And how do you learn those things? We need to get to the place, if you can agree with me, that our culture doesn't know what to value. Can we agree on that tonight? Our culture values the wrong things. I'm gonna mention some of them tonight. There are some things that are so inflated as far as value that really aren't that valuable. And the things that are truly valuable seem to be deflated and nobody's interested. We need to learn what is valuable, what to cherish. You know, I got to look at that word cherish and the Bible is really used three times and covers four things. According to the Bible, the Bible. You see, if you don't know what a used vehicle's worth, you get a Kelley Blue Book. or something that's copy of the Kelley Blue Book. Some of you know that. And then I found out that if you've got old coins and you want to sell your coins or find out what your coins are worth, then you get a, I've got the name written down here, give me just a second, the Official Red Book. Used cars, it's the Blue Book, Kelley Blue Book. But used coins or old coins, it's the Official Red Book tells you the value of old coins. True value. They asked a college student, they said, are there any books that have helped you out a lot in life? He said, yeah. He said, mama's cookbook and daddy's checkbook. There is a book. There is a book that tells us what to value. There's a book that tells us what's worth something and what's worthless. Worthless. We've got it, church. We got it. We got the book right here. Got the book. It tells us right here. The Bible. Imagine selling a treasure because you didn't know it was worth something. Tricia and I were out of town. Actually, it was last year on our anniversary. And we watched, in this place we were staying, we watched, for the first time, Antique Roadshow. Y'all ever watched Antique Roadshow? I like it, I like it. And these people come in on Antique Roadshow. Some of y'all need to go home and watch Antique Roadshow, okay? Somebody comes in and they say, what have you got there? Well, I bought this at Goodwill, or I got this at a yard sale, or a rummage sale, or a state sale. What'd you give for it? Well, I gave six bucks for it. And they just kind of him haul around a little bit. Well, what you've got here? They just kind of start working their way into that thing. And then it turns out that thing's worth $25,000, $30,000. Oh, what you've got is a Rembrandt painting. You gave five bucks for it. Can you imagine? And you kind of watch that show and you get excited for those people. But imagine being the guy that sold it for $5. I mean, you get excited for that guy, but that old gal brings that vase in there and she says, I gave a dollar for this. And they say it's worth 10,000. You're excited for it, but what about the dummy that sold the thing? Don't your heart break for him? Why do people sell treasures for so far less than they're worth? Because they're ignorant. They're not stupid. There's a difference between stupid and ignorance. Stupid is unable to know. But ignorance is you just fail to learn. You fail to know. We've got a book that tells us what is valuable and what is not valuable. That's why we've got to read our Bibles regularly. In fact, daily. And we need to go to church. And we need to go to prayer. Because our culture values the wrong things. Our culture values the wrong things. And thank God we've got a different culture here at Quebec Baptist Church. It's not all it ought to be. But thank God we are learning and hopefully have learned that our world doesn't value the right things, but we've got to learn from God's word how to value the right things. I'm going to give you the three most overrated items in our culture. Okay. The three most over, this is my opinion. Number one's money. Money's overrated. What do you mean money's overrated? Well, I can tell you this, he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver. Nor he that loveth abundance with increase. That means it will never satisfy you. Never satisfy you, never. You know, if you're thirsty, here's a bottle of water. There's two bottles of water sitting right here. If I was thirsty, I guarantee you, this would do me tonight. This would do me. And if I was really thirsty, I might give $10 for one of these, if I was really, really thirsty. But why would I give anything for something that will never satisfy? You know, we read about the rich young ruler and when Jesus said to him, you like one thing yet? And he told him, he said, go sell all you have and give it to the poor and come and follow me. And the Bible says that he went away what? Sorrowful because he had great possessions. Can you grab a hold to that? He's got great possessions, but he's going away sorrowful because they cannot satisfy him and he's still not willing to let go of them. Jesus said, take heed and beware of covetousness for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. The Lord is trying to tell us, the Bible's trying to tell us that money's overrated. Money's overrated. Our culture values money too much. It's way overrated. 1 Timothy 6, verse 6, But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be there with contentment. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and are snared into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which, while some covet it after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. I'm just telling you, money's over. Listen, folks, I understand we gotta have money, but it's just overrated in our culture. Let me tell you young people something. Find what God wants you to do in life and do it. Don't worry about what it pays. Just do what God wants you to do. God'll take care of you. Money's overrated. I'm going to read it anyways, but I read something not too long ago, and I've read it and I've quoted it two or three times to other preachers and read it to my family. It was written by Billy Graham's wife, and I can't even remember her name, but her parents were missionaries in China, and it's a story about an oil company that is trying to find somebody to run its operation in China. This is back in the 1930s. They're trying to find somebody that will run their operation in China. And they say, he's got to be a certain age. He's got to be between, he's got to be young, got to be fluent in Chinese, got to be fluent in English, got to be hardworking, self-motivated. And they said, we can't find anybody. And somebody on the board says, I know somebody. And he's already in China. And they said, get him. He said, well, he's a missionary. I said, don't matter, get him. And so they contacted him and said, and they gave him, they offered him an enormous salary and said, will you go to work for us? He said, no. And so the guy that's over there, he contacts headquarters of the oil company here in the United States. He says, no. He said, double it. We gotta have him. He doubled it. He said, will you take the job now? He said, no. He said, is that not enough money? He said, no, the money's unbelievable. He said, the job's just too little. God called me to be a missionary. Think about that. Said the money's big enough, but the job's too little. Money's overrated. Our culture overrates money. Well, I'm putting number two on my list, beauty. You see, the book, God's white book, I'll call it, Talked about the red book that tells coin values and the blue book that tells car values. Well, God's white book tells about the values of life. And it says that favor is deceitful and beauty is vain. That's what it says. But boy, isn't beauty overrated in our culture. Man, and I think I'm right. I read the statistic not too long ago when I was talking about let not nine heart Go after the strange woman that a large percentage of the women in America would take a year off their life to achieve their beauty goals Goodness If I could help him achieve him I'd take the year I Beauty's overrated. If you don't believe me, ask Samson. I thought about Jacob in the scripture, who said to Laban, I'll serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. And he worked those seven years, and then Laban said, well, it's going to end up taking you 14. If you were to compare, you know, the Bible says of Leah that she was tender-eyed. But Rachel was beautiful and well-favored. But you know what? In the dark, Jacob couldn't tell the difference. Beauty's overrated. Entertainment's overrated. I looked it up, I had no idea. I can remember, I'm old enough, wow. I'm old enough to tell you a lot of stuff. I can remember, I don't remember who it was, but I remember hearing for the first time that a professional athlete was gonna be paid more than a million dollars a year. And I remember thinking, oh my goodness. Well now, I looked it up, there's a quarterback, I forget who he plays for, $60 million a year. $60 million a year. And you wonder why tickets cost so much. Well, it's because entertainment and sports and those things are way overrated, way overrated in our culture. Now, I'm fixing to go to Jeremiah 9, so you can be getting ready to go over there. You see, our tendency Our nature, our inclination is to misvalue things. To overvalue things that aren't worth anything and to undervalue things that are really valuable. That's our tendency, folks. We can see it in our culture. We can see it in our culture. If a company wants to sell something, they get a beautiful young lady who doesn't have enough clothes on and she advertised them for him. But they don't take a mama that's changing diapers and feeding babies and cooking and cleaning the house and try to get her to sell something because we don't know value. We don't appreciate the right things. Our tendency Our nature is to misvalue, appreciate the wrong things, and underappreciate the right things. And sometimes it takes a tragedy to balance it out. And sometimes a tragedy won't even work. So let's get it right, what do you say? Jeremiah 9, verse number 23. Jeremiah 9, 23. Here's our phrase that we've been looking at in Jeremiah 9, 23. Thus saith the Lord, let not, here we go, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let's stop right there for a minute. Thus saith the Lord, let not, now why is let not there? Because that's what you're gonna do. That's what you're gonna do. Don't let this happen. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Now, I'm all for education, but don't glory in education. Don't glory in education. You may have a degree from, you may have multiple degrees. Well, you don't. I know y'all. But, there are people that have multiple degrees, and they brag about the school they got them from. Listen, I'm not against education. It's got a good place. It's needful. I talk about ignorance is a bad thing. But don't glory. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Boy, isn't it amazing how much emphasis we put on it? Isn't it amazing how much emphasis we put on education? Everybody runs for office says we need more money for our schools. We're already spending more money anywhere else in the world. But our test scores keep going lower. What I'm trying to tell you is, everybody thinks education, education, education, education. Well, don't glory in education. Education's good. It's got a place. But let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Neither let the mighty man glory in his might. I'm amazed. Now, I don't think like the world thinks, and I'm not bragging about it, but I'm thankful for it. But I remember when Planet Fitness opened up in McMillan. And I thought, man, McNeville? I passed by there tonight, parking lot full. Parking lot full. Now, I'm not saying it's wrong to go to the gym. I'm just saying that stuff is way overrated. I came in from, I don't know when it was, maybe Saturday. I came in the house, and I'd been busting wood. And I plopped down, and Trisha said, what are you doing? I said, I just came in from the gym. And I told her, I said, you know what? People would, our culture would say, why are you, why are you busting firewood? You got, you got a sense of right now? Well, I don't right now. That's another story for another time. Why are you busting, why are you going and paying to work out at the gym? You're gonna get in shape by you push more. And an axe. See, see, even y'all are carried away with this stuff. I didn't say it's wrong to go to the gym. But let not the mighty man, let not, let me get it right, let not Neither let the mighty man glory in his might." National championships, Super Bowl championship, winning record, whatever, that's not anything to glory in. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. The next line says this, let not the rich man glory in his riches. Well, the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 10, 19, money answereth all things. And this world says that's the bottom line, that's what it's all about, making money. But no, it's not. Let not the rich man glory in his riches. And then the next verse, verse 24, here we go. The greatest treasure, here it is, but let him that gloryeth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me. that I am the Lord, which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, saith the Lord." The greatest treasure is understanding and knowing the Lord. The greatest treasure is understanding and knowing the Lord. Well, you say, Brother David, I'm glad I know that. Do you? Is your life a testimony to that? Does it show up in your Bible reading? Does it show up in your prayer life that you are a person that glories in understanding and knowing God? Can people look at your life and say, My, they've got the greatest treasure. Look how they understand and know the Lord. And then the Lord tells us a little about Him. You see the Lord, He's got a gym too. He exercises. That's what this verse says. That I am the Lord of which exercise. What does He exercise? Well, I requested 2.13 tonight because it starts off with that word right there, lovingkindness. In lovingkindness. In lovingkindness. That's one of those words, I got to think about that word lovingkindness. It is so good that loving's not good enough. And kindness is not good enough. You're gonna have to put them together, and then you might get close. In loving kindness, Jesus came, my soul in mercy to reclaim. I am the Lord. He exercises this. God's working out with loving kindness. Well, we ought to try God's exercise program. Maybe we need to exercise loving kindness. He exercises judgment. He exercises righteousness in the earth. Do you understand and know this? The Lord says, let him that gloryeth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me. Now this is not knowing about him, it's first hand knowledge. That word understand, that is a neat word. It's another compound word, loving kindness, it's understand. And I tried to read a little bit about it. It's got, even language experts are kind of baffled at how understand came to mean what it means. But when you're, here's the way I see it. Under, stand. Under, stand. Under, you get to the bottom of it, and then you stand on it. Understand. Do you understand the Lord? Now, I understand this. You're not gonna ever fully understand the Lord. The wisdom of God, or the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God. The Bible says over in Romans chapter 11 and verse number 33, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Now you're never going to completely understand the Lord in this world. But I tell you, you can get enough to know that it's the greatest treasure, it's the greatest treasure, understanding him. knowing Him, firsthand knowledge. I'll tell you what, we can understand that He greatly loves us, can't we? We may not understand why He does or how He does, but we can understand that He does. We can know that. We can understand how that He loves right and hates wrong. We may not understand everything about Him, but let Him that glorieth glory in this, that He knoweth and understandeth me. That's what we need to get excited about, church. That's life's greatest treasure, is to know and understand God. That would be worth selling everything else for to get this, to know and understand God. Get excited about that. You know, the disciples in Luke chapter 10, they come back and they tell the Lord, even the devils are subject to us through your name. And Jesus said, whoa, He said, don't even rejoice about that. He said, here's what you need to rejoice about, that your names are written in heaven. Life's greatest treasure is knowing and understanding the Lord. You get excited about a ball game? That's not nothing to get excited about. A promotion, a new car, a new truck, a new house, a vacation. Imagine getting excited about politics. Let him that gloryeth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me." He will never disappoint you. Money will disappoint you. Money disappointed me today, big time. Tricia had to help her mom out with some things, and I was in town working on some things, and we rode together, and then it took longer for her with her mom at the doctor, and so I told her, I said, as soon as you get through, let me know, and I'll buy some lunch, and we'll take it home and eat it. I'm telling you what, I go through the drive-thru and get two salads and Karen wanted a chicken sandwich. It was $30. I fell over. Now don't look at me like that. I'm telling you, I remember when, nevermind. Back in the old days, back in the black and white days, Get excited about this. Money will disappoint you. Yeah. You ever get all hopped up for a vacation, then get disappointed on the vacation? Yeah. Or get all hopped up about something. Jesus will never disappoint you. Let him that gloryeth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me. That's the greatest treasure, church. That's the greatest treasure. Get excited about that. Amen.