It was way early last semester, really, that the Lord began intriguing me and bombarding my heart and mind with thoughts about a particular word and the curiosity of checking how that word appeared and how many times and where and so on throughout the Scripture. And as I began to look up all the references that use that English word, I came especially to a passage in Deuteronomy, where I want you to turn for us to begin with this morning. Deuteronomy chapter 33. Deuteronomy 33, and we begin reading in verse number 13. Deuteronomy 33, verse 13, And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, for the precious things of the lasting hills, And for the precious things of the earth, and the fullness thereof, and for the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush, the blessing came upon the head of Joseph, upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren." Now, three or four times in these few verses, the word precious appears. And that was the word that the Lord was impressing upon me. To just study out, I had no idea that there were so many occurrences of the word precious in Scripture. We think especially, and we'll come to that in the conclusion this morning, that the Bible says the Lord Jesus Christ is precious to us who believe in 1 Peter 2.7. And we'll be focusing and coming back to there, aiming at the whole message this morning. But the phrase here, the precious things of heaven, It caught my eye as I looked up this particular reference that day. And I began to think about the other kinds of things and the things the Bible refers to and describes as precious. And so I've taken that phrase, the precious things of heaven, as a title for the message this morning. There are eight other references in the Old Testament that use that same phrase, precious things. And there are at least 32 separate, specific things that are called literally or referred to specifically and described as precious in the Bible. I mentioned 1 Peter 2.7 which says, Unto you therefore which believe, He, referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, is precious. And that's the ultimate. We're not saying He's just a thing at all. But he is the capstone of the precious things that the Scripture talks about. Charles Spurgeon, in one of his, I don't know, writings, I guess, comments, it wasn't a comment except talking about the verse, 1 Peter 2, 7, but not a commentary, says, this text calls to my mind the opening of my ministry. As a lad of 16, I stood up for the first time in my life to preach the gospel in a cottage to a handful of poor people who had come together for worship. I felt my own inability to preach, but I ventured to take this text, unto you therefore which believe he is precious. I don't think I could have said anything upon any other text. Christ was so precious to my soul, and I was in the flesh of my youthful love that I could not be silent when a precious Jesus was the subject." Now, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story is this. That morning, Spurgeon and a friend were walking to this college. in a village there in England. And Spurgeon told the friend that he was praying that God would bless the friend's sermon. Both of the boys discovered quickly that each assumed the other would be the preacher that morning. Neither had delivered a sermon ever before or felt qualified to do so. But when the time came, Spurgeon reluctantly stepped forward and thus began the ministry of the Prince of Preachers. with this passage. I'll say a few things just to give us some background, focus our attention about thoughts of precious. First, think of man's descriptions of things that are precious. If you were like me, you probably grew up, I don't say the same thing now, but when I was much younger, I would often hear, usually ladies, mothers and daughters or grandmothers and aunts and saying, they'd see a picture of a baby or they'd see a new dress and say, oh, isn't that precious? Oh, that's so precious. And I used to kind of laugh and make fun of that inside. Now I'm a grandparent. And now I say, look at that, oh, isn't she precious? Isn't that a precious outfit? We refer to sweet family times. in our scheme of things as precious times. Or we refer to people, a precious friend, times of fellowship. We say, oh, that was a sweet time we had Sunday night. It was a precious time of fellowship after the service, something like that. We refer to memories. We think of memories as precious. In fact, there's that song. As I travel on life's pathway, know not what the years may hold. As I ponder, hope grows fonder. Precious memories flood my soul. Precious memories, how they linger. How they ever fled my soul in the stillness of the midnight. Precious, sacred scenes unfold. I dare say we wouldn't have to take much of a survey this morning to find those who have precious memories. Things that are precious to you, that you remember. We talk about treasured possessions being precious to us. Some things more precious than others, others we care less about. I have a new precious possession. This tie that has purple, gray, and maybe squares in it is new. It was presented to me as part of an award speech by one of my speech students, all of whom are precious to me. And so now because of that link, that memory, this tie, is precious and you just have to put up with it today. We think sometimes of words of comfort being precious to us. People that in times of bereavement or times of sorrow or things that we're going through, somebody speaks a word in season to him that is weary and that becomes precious to us. We all, of course, in the world of economy, business, we talk about Stock market talks about precious metals or precious gems, jewels and gold and silver and those kind of things, even without spiritual connotations. Man describes all of these things as precious. Let us think secondly of the main definitions that we can find, first in Scripture, this word. There are eight different Hebrew words, three of which occur a total of 62 times by themselves. that are translated precious. They mean things like preciousness, grace, favor, good, dear. Remember when I saw that word, not your generation, but my, like my parents' generation, my grandparents' generation would come home from the store and they would say the tomatoes were really dear today, meaning they were outrageous in price. It's a little different than the idea of being dear, sweet, that kind of thing. But that's one of the meanings. Costly refers to precious fruits in one passage as being delicious and the treasure things that were in the king's house. There are seven different Greek words that are translated precious. They're almost all from the same basic root, which has the idea of having value. It's rendered precious, costly, dear. Very expensive with certain prefixes on them. Very costly. Having great value. So it's no surprise that if we look up precious in an English dictionary or thesaurus, we find that it's rendered as costly and valuable and priceless and expensive and treasured and cherished and all kinds of words like that. I'll give you a couple of model demonstrations of this precious things as used in Scripture. 2 Kings 20 and verse 13 tells us that Hezekiah showed some visiting dignitaries all of his precious things. And then the Bible goes on to define those particular precious things as the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious ointment, all that was found in his treasures. 2 Chronicles 21.3 tells us that Jehoshaphat gave gifts to his sons of gold and of precious things. You're familiar with the reference in Matthew 13, verse 46, where it talks about the man who went out and sold all that he had in order to purchase that pearl of great price. And that great price is the same word of inestimable value. Matthew 6 talks about the importance of laying up treasure in heaven, not counting on the things of earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and thieves break through and steal. but things that will last for eternity. There are some modern disillusionments that I believe would fit at this point in thinking about things that we consider precious, wealth and riches and gems and jewels. Gold and silver. Those things don't satisfy the hearts of men. The searching and the longing for something that is worthwhile in life. That's of course why Jesus said in Mark 8, verse 36 and 37, What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What could a man give in exchange for his soul? And yet people move heaven and earth almost, no pun intended, to hang on to their wealth, to their gold and their silver. pile it up and to have security systems and vaults and banks and all of these things that are worthless and would burn up in eternity. Let me give you, before we get into the main structure outline, some minor designation. Notice these double alliterations. Some minor designations. By minor, I don't mean things that are less important, but things that are maybe just referred to by one time or one reference in Scripture. Lumping some precious things together. And all of this really is not outside of the narrowing of the focus down finally to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible speaks of some precious substances. For instance, in Proverbs 1.13, the Scripture says, We shall find all precious substance. We shall fill our houses with spoil. That's what many are trying to do today, isn't it? To fill their houses with the spoils of this world. Included in the list of treasures and valuable things, one of the substances is gold. automatically think of gold as a precious metal. You know, I discovered in studying the passages that the word gold is never, the metal gold is never called precious by itself. It's always references that say something is more precious than gold or of more value than gold. So it's held up as a standard, but it's not called precious. It's just included in the lists of the silver and the possessions, that kind of thing. Silver also is listed in these various collections of valuable things. And a lot of times it's listed first before gold. The Ezra 8-7 copper is called precious. Revelation 18, 12, wood is referred to as precious. Today, we might think of some of the imported woods, the mahogany or ebony or cherry wood, things that carpenters work with sometimes that homeowners that are building ritzy houses want. It's very expensive wood. It would be precious in that sense of the word. Obviously, the Bible would have, secondly, things to say about precious stones. 1 Kings 10, verses 2 and 10 and 11 talk about how the queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, and Hiram's navy came a little bit later. And it says, they came to Jerusalem with spices and very much gold and precious stones. Onyx is specifically called precious in Job 28.10. Rubies are referred to in Proverbs 3.15 and a couple of other verses. points up a little more significantly maybe why the verse that introduces the passage on the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 says, her price is far, her value, her worth is far above rubies. Of course, the pearl we mentioned in Matthew 13.46, the pearl of great price. 1 Chronicles 29.2 speaks of marble as being precious. In Ezekiel 28, which is a description of Satan, the covering cherub, and the music tie-in, all that, that you learn in hymnology, there are ten named varieties of precious stones. There are twelve precious stones named in Revelation 21, talking about the gates and the walls of the New Jerusalem. We're familiar with those diamonds and pearls and onyx Chalcedony? Chalcedony? Whichever way you say that. Another precious thing that's mentioned is, I just lumped together it with the word salve. Ointment. There's the apothecary ointment. 2 Kings 20 and verse 13 calls it precious ointment. Ecclesiastes 7.1 says, A good name is better to be chosen than precious ointment. Ecclesiastes 10.1 reminds us that dead flies caused the ointment of the apothecary to stink. Most evangelists have a message on that verse or a variation of that. Because of the little sins that get in our life and cause our testimony to stink. That ointment was a precious thing. In Psalm 133-2, the Bible says that the unity among brethren is like the anointing oil, the precious ointment that was placed upon the head of Aaron and ran down his beard, and so on. Similar, but a specific word that the Bible uses. Number four, spikenard. It's presented as being very expensive In Scripture, you know the stories. In Mary came Matthew 26. He brought an alabaster box of very precious, and that's a particular Greek word with a prefix in front of it. I'm left and right. That means specifically extra or very precious. The disciples, especially Judas, confirmed that when he said, why wasn't it sold for so much? In other words, it was costly. It was worth a lot of money. Mark 14, the account there, calls it ointment of spikenard, very precious, could be sold for more than 300 pence. And John 12, in that account, says Mary brought a pound of spikenard, and then our English word changes it to very costly, and sold worth 300 pence. So it was an expensive gift, but it was also, second, an expressive or a gift of love. John 11-2 identifies Mary as that one which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair. Willing to give up a year's wages worth of that ointment in order to show that act of love. Number five, the Bible describes thoughts, or I've called them sentiments, as precious. Psalm 139-17 It says, "...how precious are thy thoughts unto Me, O God! How great is the sum of them!" Oh, and we love Jeremiah 29.11, where God Himself is speaking. He says, "...I know the thoughts that I think toward you." Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end. Do you ever stop and think about the fact that God is thinking about you? God pays attention to you? In fact, Malachi tells us he writes down the things that we say to each other in a book so he can remember. Not that he can't remember without the book, but he puts them in a book of remembrance. Most of the times if we go to a Christian memorial service or funeral, sooner or later we'll hear the verse in Psalm 116, verse 15 that says, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. So let's call number six, sleep. It's referred to as precious in the Scripture. Because Jesus Himself and others so often used that idea of sleep as a euphemism for death. Lazarus is not dead, he sleepeth. The damsel that He raised from the dead, He told the parents, was just sleeping. Them which sleep in Jesus shall God raise with Him. So we're familiar with that. That's precious to God. 1 Peter 3, 4 says, to let the woman's adorning be the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is precious. So, number seven, the Bible says a spirit is precious. And number eight, I'll just use the word surety. Things that we can trust. comes to mind immediately. 2 Peter 1.4, "...whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious..." What? Promises! Things that we can be sure of. In fact, we can be so sure because 1 Kings 8.56b, some of my students know it's one of my favorite verses, says, "...there hath not failed one word of all His good promises." God has never broken a promise and He never will. You can count on His Word. You can put that anchor that Hebrews 6 talks about. It's impossible for God to lie. His immutability guarantees His Word. Alright, that's all those minor distinctions. Now let's talk about just a few of the precious things from heaven. Things the Scripture calls precious. And the first of those is the Scriptures. 1 Samuel 3, verse 1 tells us, "...the Word of the Lord was precious, in those days. Now, in all fairness, that word as used at that time, that particular Hebrew word, meant more of the idea of rare than of valuable in that sense. But we use it that way too, don't we? Talk about rare coins or rare stamps or something. The fact that they're scarce makes them valuable. And people didn't have Bibles. How many is it, Pastor Cummins? Thirty-eight? Bibles on their shelf? They didn't have copies of the Bible all over the place. It was rare. It was very valuable because it was hard to come by in those days. Psalm 19.10, of course, tells us that the words and the commandments and the law and the judgments are more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold. The hymn in our hymn book, It says, Holy Bible, book divine, precious treasure, thou art mine. I was amazed as I just thought through the months, first semester, about these precious things, how many times the Lord would bring to mind some phrase out of a hymn. A lot of our hymns have that word precious somewhere in the verses, and we'll see more of those as we talk about the Lord Jesus in a moment. I love the poem that's entitled My Old Bible. It was a lot more appropriate to use it before I got my new recovered purple Bible. My old one, in the last couple of years, the cover was torn about from there down. The pages were coming out. The binding was coming loose. And so it was easier to hold that up and use it as an illustration. But we'll just use the purple one. I love the way this expression, though the cover is worn and some pages are torn, though places bear traces of tears, Yet more precious than gold is this book, worn and old, that can scatter and shatter my fears. This old book is my guide. It is a friend by my side. It will lighten and brighten my way. And each promise I find soothes and gladdens my mind as I read it and heed it each day. To this book I will cling. Of its worth I will sing. Though great losses and crosses be mine, For I cannot despair, though surrounded by care, while possessing this blessing divine. Number two, the Bible uses precious to describe the seed. And these are akin. The seed is still the Word of God, but the Word itself appears in Psalm 126, 6. He that goeth forth weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing. In case we are unclear about what that seed is, Jesus tells us Himself in Luke 8, 11. The parable is this. The seed is the Word of God. God refers to His own Word as precious. Number three, the Bible speaks of the soul. or of man. Not the soul, the inner part of man, but also man when, like God uses the word, man became a living soul or there were so many souls present at such and such a time. He's referring to people. There's a recognition of that preciousness in passages like 2 Kings 1.13. Remember Elijah sitting up on the hill. The captain comes and 50 men come. They're supposed to bring him back to the king. And they tell him to come down. He doesn't come down. God sends out fire and destroys them all. So another guy comes. He's got 50 guys with him. Same thing happens. Third captain of 50 comes. And he comes humbly. Kneels before Elijah. And he says, the captain of the third 50 said, O man of God, let my life and the life of these servants be precious in thy sight. God says in Isaiah 13-12, I will make a man more precious than gold. Reminds us of Psalm 8, doesn't it? I consider the heavens, the moon, the stars, the work of thy hand. What is man that thou art mindful of him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, but thou hast crowned him with glory and honor. Every one of us is worth everything to God. We so often hear and we reiterate and it doesn't get old Any one of us were the only one that was ever here. Jesus would have still come and died because we are of infinite worth to Him as a soul, as a man, as a person. There's a recognition of the preciousness of the soul in Scripture. The Bible also speaks much of the redemption by payment of the soul. Psalm 49, verses 7 and 8 and 15 are an interesting passage. He said, none can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of their soul is precious. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave. Psalm 72, verse 14 says, He shall redeem their soul, and precious shall their blood be in His sight. The hymn writer said, Love found a way to redeem my soul. Love found a way that could make me whole. Love sent my Lord to a cross of shame. Love found a way. Oh, praise His holy name. That leads us, actually there, the blood to redeem the soul. Chilean family, our Spanish friends, in order to preserve this alliteration. Number four, I call sangre. S-A-N-G-R-E. That means blood in Spanish. Out in Colorado, we have the Sangre de Cristo, blood of Christ mountains. You know, First Peter 1. 18 and 19, we're not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold, things that came from vain conversation, tradition from our fathers, but instead we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as it will lay Him without blemish and without spot. Ephesians 1.7, in whom we have redemption through His blood, according to the riches of His grace. It's tied to the preciousness. The blood. You know that Him, nor silver nor gold, hath obtained my redemption. No riches of earth could have saved my poor soul. The blood of the cross is my only foundation. The death of my Savior now maketh me whole. I am redeemed, but not with silver. I am bought, but not with gold. Bought with a price. The blood of Jesus. Precious price of love untold. Number five, the Bible shows us that our salvation is precious. 2 Peter 1.1 says, to them that have obtained like precious faith through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. So the fact of the faith that once delivered to the saints, the faith that we accept, that we believe in, that sum total of the Gospel teaching, that brings about our salvation, God says, is precious. Dr. Wiest, in his commentary on 2 Peter, said the faith that is described here as like precious faith with us, the word precious is a compound word made up of the prefix isos, meaning equal in quantity or quality, and timios, meaning held at a great price. So the compound words means either alike in honor or alike in value. How priceless is this gift of faith which admits us to the salvation which God has provided through the death and resurrection of his son. And what an honor is conferred upon those who are the recipients of this gift of grace. There's also number six, Something that I've called the sanction, or the approval of God, the Bible says is precious. It comes from 1 Peter 1.7. It's a verse that says, the trial of your faith, the testing of your faith, being much more precious than gold which perisheth, though it be tried, tested by fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Weest on this verse says that Peter is telling us the approval of our faith is much more precious than the approval of gold, even though the gold was tested by fire and came out pure. The words of gold are an excellent rendering for a literal word-for-word translation, but the words the approval of are necessarily supplied to make clear the Apostle's thought. It's not the approval of our faith that is compared to gold, but to the approval of our faith is compared to the approval of the gold. The gold has passed the test, and our faith passes the test. It's approved by God. The picture here is of an ancient goldsmith who puts his crude gold ore in the crucible, subjects it to an intense heat which liquefies the massive gold. The impurities rise to the surface and are skimmed off. And when the metal worker is able to see the reflection of his face clearly mirrored in the surface of the liquid, he takes it out of the fire because then he knows that the contents are pure gold. It has been approved. So it is with God and His child. Sometimes He puts us in the crucible, the pot over the fire, if you will, of Christian suffering. And in the process, sin is gradually put out of and purged from our lives. And our faith is purified from the slag of unbelief that somehow mingles with it so often. The result is the reflection of the face of Jesus Christ in the character of the Christian. This, above all, God the Father desires to see. Christlikeness is God's ideal for His child. Now, the last category, number seven, is the Savior Himself. And turn with me, if you would, to 1 Peter 2. The passage really begins, as part of it, in verse 4, the part we want. to whom, referring back to the Lord of verse 3, coming to the Lord, to whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. Ye also, as lively or living stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious. And he that believeth on him shall not be confounded or ashamed. Unto you, therefore, which believe, he is precious. Unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner." Spurgeon said on that same page about 1 Peter 2.7 that we quoted earlier, said, this is a text which I think I could preach in my sleep. I believe that if I were dying and were graciously led into the old track, I could, with my last breath, pour out a heart full of utterance on this delightful verse. I'm sure it contains the marrow of what I have always taught in the pulpit. Think with me just quickly about the preciousness of Christ in homily. It's a sermon outline now, or at least the skeleton of it. Notice, first in verses 4 and 6, Christ is spoken of as being a chosen stone. Matthew 12, 17 and 18, which is quoting Isaiah 42. God is speaking and He says, Behold My servant whom I have chosen. My beloved. in whom my soul is well pleased." And we know the case is often at the baptism of Christ and the transfiguration and so on where God came down in His own voice again and said, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. I've chosen Him. Second, the passage tells us that He is a conscious stone or a living stone. In verse 4 and verse 5, one writer said, this is a daring metaphor because stones do not live. And yet Christ applied this to Himself. And that shows us the superiority to the Old Testament temple which was made of dead stones. Christ supersedes that. Superior to it. Verse 4 and 6, number 3, He was a costly or precious stone. Verses 6 and 7 tell us that He is the cornerstone. Isaiah 28, 16 says, Behold, I lay in Sinai for a cornerstone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. If you take the time as I did, and we don't have any time at all go into the detail. If you look up in ISBI or a Bible dictionary, a resource like that, Cornerstone, you find some fascinating pages of information. And there's a dual application. There's the foundation cornerstone. It comes from words that mean to join together at an edge. Well, that's the corner of the building where they put the name on it, you know, and they bury the time capsule and stuff. In fact, they said that they, archaeologists have found all kinds of urns with babies and bodies buried inside as a kind of a pagan sacrifice when they laid the foundation stone to a building. But it also has to do with the, we'll come to this in a minute, the headstone, the capstone at the top of the tower, those buildings. 1 Corinthians 3.11, of course, tells us that other foundation can no man lay. And that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. It was no accident that He was called and referred to Himself as the cornerstone, the foundation stone. But Peter adds an adjective here. It says He's the chief cornerstone in verse 6. Ephesians 2.20, Paul said, Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief. Cornerstone. There's a sad part in the passage as well. Verse four and again in verse seven. He's a cast off stone, a disallowed, a rejected stone. There's some tradition involved here referred to or laid the foundation for in first Kings five. Verse 17 and 18, where the Bible says, "...the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and huge stones to lay the foundation of the house. And Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did hew them, and the stone squarers, and so they prepared the stones for the house." In Christology, we use a textbook by J. Oswald Sanders entitled, The Incomparable Christ. He, in this book, in talking about the passage, this passage in First Kings. And I found also a number of commentaries here, the same story that's a reference in the scriptures to the Jewish tradition that one of the shaped stones that they cut away from the from the temple site down in the quarry was of an odd design and size and it didn't seem to fit in anywhere. And so the Masons discarded it and pushed it over into the Valley of Kidron. But as the temple neared completion, it was found that the chief cornerstone was missing. A message was dispatched to the quarries to bring it up, and back came the answer, we brought that up long ago. A diligent church search proved unavailing until one of the masons remembered that the stone that had been rejected is useless. With much effort, it was drawn up from the valley and found to fit exactly into place. Jesus Himself made the tie-in to that. He said in Mark 12.10, Have ye not read this scripture? The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. Quoting Psalm 118.22. That phrase then, the word head, the last thought here is that He is the capstone as well as the cornerstone. The top or crowning or final stone put on the building. Look at Acts 4. And verse 10. Peter's giving an answer about the healing of the lame man. It says in verse 10, to whom they all gave... I'm sorry, that was chapter 8. No wonder it didn't work. Be it known unto you all And to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him did this man stand before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men." whereby you must be saved. Directly tied to that prophecy, those verses. Let me just breeze through the preciousness of Christ in hymnody. I don't have time, out of time, to give you the outline, the alliterated outline of these. I will if you come and ask later. Think about The word precious is used in hymns. The precious name of Jesus. It's the sweetest name I know. The other songwriter, precious name. Oh, how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. It makes my joys full and complete. The precious name of Jesus. Blessed Redeemer. Precious Redeemer. Seems now I see Him on Calvary's tree. is so sweet to trust in Jesus. Precious Jesus. Savior. Friend. Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ. Precious. More precious than gold. When He comes to make up His jewels, little children, precious children, are the jewels that make up His crown. Under His wings, what precious enjoyment. Precious hiding place He is. His presence Precious Lord, take my hand. Lead me on. Help me stand. I think the hymn that stood out the most, and the factor about Christ that stood out the most, is of course His Person. The hymn says, He is so precious to me. So precious is Jesus, my Savior and King. For Him all the day long, my rapture I sing. Is He precious? So precious to you that you think of Him, that you sing of Him all the day long? St. Augustine, among things that we may not agree with as much, but I like this, said, Christ is not valued at all unless He's valued above all. Spurgeon said, if you can't say, Jesus is precious to me, then I don't care what church you belong to or what creed you're ready to die for. You do not know the truth of God unless the person of Christ is dear to you. I ask you this morning, just how much is Jesus worth to you? How much of what you have today would you sell, if you had to, in order to obtain that pearl of grace price? Now, we're so thankful that salvation is free. We don't have to buy it. We don't have to work for it. But if you did, how much would you pay? How precious is Jesus Christ to you today? If that song is not on your lips, maybe you just need to renew that first love, that love of the spouses today. Maybe you just need to tell Him again you love Him. We pray, we say at the beginning of our prayers, at the end of our prayers, we love you Jesus. Just how precious is that love making? Valid question for us today.