🎖 Do You Realize How Valuable You Are? - Derek Prince

we're going to begin with a proclamation we always begin by proclaiming a scripture this one is taken from first John chapter 4 verse 16 we have known and believed the love that God has for us God is not and he lives in love abides in God and God in him now I think it would be good if you were all to say that phrase by phrase after us don't try to say it with us but say it after us because it's the most beautiful verse it says an exciting verse no we're going to say you said objects we have known and believed the love that God has for us God is life and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him now will transcend altogether we have known and believed the love that God has for us god is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him with something like a help Ruth down any minute now the title for my message this evening is a question do you realize how valuable you are and I suspect that most of you do not realize how valuable you are one of the prevailing weaknesses of Christians is a poor sense of self-esteem and it advertises itself in many ways some people when you talk to them they never look you fully in the face they always keep their head bound and their eyes never made contact or others advertise it by the way they dress you know that dress clothing carries a message the way you dress says something either positive or negative it's never neutral when I see a young girl in baggy loose clothing that leaves you know there's no way to know what her form is I say to myself a case of poor self-esteem and there are many other ways that it indicates itself I believe it's a very common religious problem sometimes we misinterpreted as humility but if you have a poor sense of self-worth you be humble as you've got nothing to be humble about it's altogether different to be humbled when you know your own value then you can be humble and so I want to give you the reasons why you should value yourself why you are valuable and I want to go back to God's original purpose in creating man as it's recorded in the opening chapters of Genesis but before I do that I want to remind you that the creation of Adam and Eve was somewhere down the program in God's creative works he had already created a glorious host of angelic beings Seraphim and cherubim Archangels and angels and many other glorious beings but there had been a rebellion headed up by one of the chief Archangels whose name originally was Lucifer but was changed to Satan Lucifer means the bright the brilliant the shining one Satan means the adversary the enemy and the reason why Lucifer fell was pride and let me say to you the far the most dangerous sin that ever threatens us is prime it is a disastrous sin and we are all vulnerable to it in one way or another those of us who are in ministry if we have any kind of success we easily get taken over by Prime and I've lived long enough to see ministries that were ruined by pride my personal prayer is Lord by whatever means is necessary keep me from becoming proud now the reason why Lucifer rebelled was that he was proud and he had a lot to be proud of in his equal chapter 28 a latter part of the chapter many of you are probably not familiar with this passage but Ezekiel 28 deals with two persons the first half deals with the Prince of Tyre the second half deals with the king of time the Prince of Tyre is a human ruler but the king of Tyre is an archangel the one who was a Lucifer and this is how he's described beginning in verse 12 thus says the Lord God you were the seal of perfection full of wisdom and perfect in beauty you weren't in Eden the garden of God every precious stone was your cover the sardius topaz and diamond barrel onyx and jasper sapphire turquoise and emerald with gold the workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created the most glorious being and he occupied a place of singular honor it says you were the anointed cherub who covers who covers the throne of God one cherub was set upon to stretch out his wings over the throne of God and that honor was given to Lucifer I don't know whether you've ever observed that all the pictures that we have of cherubs or cherubim later on in the tabernacle and in the temple there are two of them one facing the other and I think that was God's Way of saying just remember there's another one just as beautiful as you are don't ever get caught up with your own beauty but this is what it says about Lucifer you were the anointed cherub who covers I had stablished you you were on the holy mountain of God you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones that's no human being that that's addressed that's an angelic being you were perfect in your in your ways from the day you were created till iniquity was found in you so there was this glorious heavenly being of him inexpressible wisdom glory majesty and power with the singular privilege of covering the throne of God and yet iniquity was founded he became Prime and pride was his downfall and he was cast out from the heaven of God into a lower region then I just picture the three members of the Godhead the three persons of the Godhead taking counsel together and saying the problem was we made him too beautiful it was easy for him to become prom so let's do it a different way I mean this is just my imagination let's take something so humble and so insignificant that it can never become proud and so that was how Adam was created a remarkable creation and Adam was made of dust just common dust mingled with water and then molded by the hand of God and we have here the reason why God created him the chapter 1 of Genesis verse 28 26 and 27 then God said let us make man in our image you notice God is talking in the plural which he occurs several times in Scripture this is the mystery that God is one and yet more than one let us make man in our image according to our likeness now those are two words image and likeness the Hebrew word for image recurs in a different form in modern Hebrew in the phrase to take a photograph it describes the outward likeness then the likeness is the inner nature the triune God created a triune man spirit soul and body but there was that in the outward appearance of man which in a way represented government some people find that hard to accept but let me suggest you this it was appropriate that when God was manifested in the flesh it was in the form of a male human being not in the form of an ox or a beetle or a bird there was something about the outward appearance of man that could receive the inward form of God and then God goes on to say let them have dominion over the fish of the sea over the birds of the air and over the cattle over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth so God created man in his own image notice we come to the singular here his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them that's very important that's a lot of controversy on that particular theme at the moment in the papers but God created two kinds of persons male and female they're quite distinct and there's nothing in between and God created them to rule over all the earth they were God's vise regions years ago when I was born in India there was a Viceroy over India he was the vice regent of India representing the monarch here in Britain and that was the position that God planned for man he would be the Viceroy the vice regent the one who reigned on behalf of God himself so that was God's plan and God's program and then we read the description of how he was made and there's one verse Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 contains such a wealth of riches that we could display she ate on it for a long time this is how it came about genesis 2:7 the Lord God formed man molded man the Hebrew says of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul living being does not adequately represented the union of spirit from God and clay from the earth produced a soul the soul is the unique individual the thing that has the capacity to say I will or I will not the thing that makes decisions the thing that determines the course of a life it came into being through a created act of God when the Spirit of God the in breeze breath of God came into the clay and man became a unique individual and living so I always have I'm so glad to have Yunker here because I think like an African in many ways having spent a good part of her life in Africa and we Europeans were sort of rather a long way behind in some ways we don't see these things so vividly but I like to picture this you see God said the problem with Lucifer was he was too glorious he was too beautiful he was too powerful he was too wise so we'll start the opposite end saying we've just take some dust just all that's dust mix it with a little water make some clay and mold it into a body and there it was the body formed by God a more beautiful piece of sculpture or statuary or whatever you want to call it then even anything that Michelangelo ever produced perfect body but it was just clay and then it says the Lord breathed into his nostrils the breath of life Hebrew is a very vivid language the song the words is related to the thing that they describe and where it says he breathed in Hebrew it says by a pop you pop phonetically the P sound is called a plosive it's an explosion and then there's a head which no ordinary English person can say but the Scots consent law it's a missing sound in our English vocabulary and that's a long breeze out some an outgoing long drawn-out song yet pop and that contains such a sense of dynamic God didn't just breathe languidly into that body of clay he breathed himself into he imparted himself through that breath to dawn came in and that piece of clay was marvelously transformed miraculously transformed into a living human body into a living human burst person with all the faculties that you and I enjoy they came out of play through the in breathe breath of God man became a living soul that's our origin that's why we came from we're not insignificant were very humble in our origin but we have a divine destiny we were formed and molded by the hand of God we were in breathed by the Spirit of God the breath become you know I believe that because of them we have an eternal destiny that life in us cannot die it's the life of God and it's a very solemn form for all of us because we will never cease to exist we only have two alternatives we can exist in the presence of God or we can exist in eternal banishment from the presence of God but one or other of those each one of us here tonight is going to experience there is no such thing as extinction of humor so it's eatin for better or for worse so that's how we came into being we are divine workmanship we've mistreated it we've failed to appreciate it we've squandered God's riches in unrighteous living in foolish enjoyments and sinful pleasures but we're still in the likeness of God I observed that in the Covenant that God made with Noah after the flood he said every man every person that kills a human being will answer for it with his life because man was created in the image of God you see murder it's not just killing a person it's destroying the image of God in a human being and that's why the abandoning of the death penalty is one of the many steps backward that this nation and other nations have taken one day God is going to require that the nation is answer for what they've done now Ruth will be speaking to you one of these mornings on being a woman of God and she will doubtless I've really stolen this line from her but she'll forgive me he says in the whole record of creation there was nothing that was not good until man discovered he had no mate that was the first thing that God said is not good a man that he should be alone everything God had created was good up to that point so woman has a special place without woman a man is not what he should be and we read then in Genesis 2 verse 20 out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them and whatever Adam called each living creature that was its name so Adam gave names to all cattle to the birds of the air to the beasts of the field but for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him I prefer to say a helper to complete him I believe that well that's what a wife does to a man is completed certainly it's true in my experience and the Lord card cause of the deep sleep to fall in Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place then the rib which the Lord had take God had taken from the man he made but the Hebrew says he built into a woman and he brought her to the man how many of your men would agree that women on a mystery I mean how could anybody build a rig into a woman there's no explanation given a lot of things are explained but at this point the Bible is silent we just had to bow before the inscrutable wisdom of God and so the Lord brought the woman to the man and then and said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she should be called woman in Hebrew man is each and woman is a shot so there's a direct relationship between the two words because she was taken out of man therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh so that is the original creation of the human race and you see we are divine workmanship very humble material but divine workmanship and if we don't realize that we will never find the fulfillment that we need in life we do not realize how in expressively valuable we are if we have a low sense of our own value we can never become or God intends us to because right so it is very important for all of us and each of us to come face to this face with this thing now the image of God in US has been defiled and desecrated but it is still there and that's why God said if if you murder a man you will pay for it with your life because the image of God is in that man and when we abort babies we're aborting the image of God I don't want to get into that subject enough has been said on that I'm sure so Adam and Eve were created for one supreme purpose to have fellowship with God and the record makes it clear that God came each evening into the garden it says in the in the wind of the day when the cool breeze sprung up in the evening then God came to have fellowship with Adam and Eve but you know about the serpent and this is something I want to speak about more fully later but God gave Adam a job the job was to be the keeper of the God he was there to keep the god to protect it to watch over it and he failed to do so you see the first failing of the human race was in a man the first one actually recorded was in the woman but the man was delinquent in his duty he failed to be where he should have been and you see that's the problem of our contemporary culture its delinquent males it's men who have abdicated from their responsibilities and almost inevitably women have moved in to fill up the vacuum but it's never God's plan God has one plan and it works so let's read the temptation that was confronted Eve but you have to remember that it was Adams fault that Eve was there without his protection and the serpent got into the garden was Adam should have been protecting the god and it says in Genesis chapter 3 now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said to the woman has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden he didn't immediately deny the Word of God he questioned but when Eve entertained his question she was defeated and the moment we permit ourselves to question the Word of God we're on the way to defeat if we look back at the history of the last hundred years or so toward the end of the nineteenth century there was a movement of theologians originally I believe in Germany that questioned whether the Bible was really inspired Word of God or whether it was combination of documents and so on and then movement spread to other countries to Norway to Britain and finally to America but the consequences of entertaining unbelief concerning the Word of God are so disastrous that we each of us need to consider this original question was raised in German German theologian and out of Germany have come to men who have probably caused more human suffering and almost any other man in human history the first was Karl Marx the second was Adolf Hitler and in my opinion they were the direct product of questioning the scripture when we entertained thus the question we have opened the way for the power of Satan so the woman said to the serpent the serpent had said has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the gun the woman said to the serpent we made of the fruit of the trees of the gun she didn't want to acknowledge that there were any limits you see but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God has said you shall not eat it nor shall you touch it lest you die and the serpent said to the woman you shall not surely die for God knows that in the day you eat it your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil you see there are three downward steps in English language each of them begins with the letter D in regard to the word of them to doubt it to disbelieve it and the third step is to disobey and when you begin to doubt you will begin to disbelieve and when you disbelieve in due course you will disobey we cannot afford to entertain Satan's questions or the scripture it sounds very intellectual it sounds very what when I say honest we have to admit we don't know but it's a way to disaster and so probably all of us are familiar with the tragic scene the father Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and she gave to her husband and they both ate and their eyes were opened and when they got knowledge you know the first thing they knew they knew they were naked that's the first knowledge that came through eating and they were expelled from the garden but God in His infinite mercy did not give up on the human race he had a plan and he was determined to fulfill it I want to turn to a scripture in James chapter 4 verse 5 now there are as many different ways of translating this verse in verse as there are translations but I will give you one I believe that there would be the right way and it happens to come from a version called the new American Standard and it makes sense James chapter 4 verse 5 or do you think that the scripture says in vain he jealously desires the spirit that he has caused to dwell in us God jealously desires the spirit that he has caused to dwell in us when he breathed himself into God in demand he established a love relationship that he has never been willing to cancel horrible and in spite of all the evil and we have done in spite of all the tragedies and disasters that sin has brought upon us God jealously desires the spirit that he caused to dwell in some people don't like the phrase that God is a jealous God but to me it's an amazing example of God's condescension that he's willing to be jealous of people like you and me that he wants our love so much that he's jealous if we love in a way that's contrary to that and so in due time over the centuries God worked out a plan to reconcile man to himself the plan was Jesus and I loved the story Zacchaeus how many of you know the story of Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19 this is the out working of God's redemptive plan Luke 19 says Jesus entered and passed through Jericho now well there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and he was rich he was also hated because the Jewish people hated those who collected taxes from them on behalf of the Romans they were also usually dishonest they made illegitimate gains for themselves however he had heard that Jesus was passing that way so he wanted to see him but he could not because he was a because of the crowd for he was a short stature he couldn't see over the heads of the crowd so he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him for he was going to pass that way if you go on a tour in Israel the guides will probably take you to them they'll take you to these sycamore tree which of course is not D but what they will point out to you which is very interesting that a sycamore tree has a very smooth bark and its branches the game rather high up is the stem so to climb a sycamore tree is not easy there are no little low branches and the bark is slippery so I don't know once a kiss did maybe he jumped up caught hold with his arms and pulled himself up but it meant a lot of effort furthermore he was a wealthy man and it was rather undignified was to be seen climbing a tree but he was there and he just wanted one glimpse of Jesus that's all he expected to get that as Jesus passed by he will be able to look at him above the heads of the crowd but something happened he had never anticipated when Jesus got to the place he stopped he looked up and he said Zacchaeus hurry up and come down I'm going to stay at your house tonight I noticed that Jesus never had to be introduced to anybody nobody said that's the kiyose the tax collector Jesus knew him immediately and I don't know that sir kids could understand what was being said I want to stop at your house tonight so he climbed down and came with Jesus to the house and all the people were criticizing he's gone to be guest for the tax collector a man who takes unfair taxes Zacchaeus stood and said Lord half my property I give to the poor and if I have taken anything from anybody before sex nation I'm paying them back for phone and jesus said today salvation has come to their sons one thing I noticed about salvation is it affects what you do with your money if you claim to be saved and he's never changed the way you handle your money I doubt whether you're saved because the moment salvation came to Zacchaeus his way of handling money was totally different and then when they all criticized he said this verse 10 of Luke 19 for the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost so God never gave up on that breath that he breathed into that body of clay and ultimately he sent Jesus to bring it back to himself he came to seek and to save that which was lost and cut over that was why Jesus came he came for the descendants of handin his favorite title which occurs more than 40 times in the New Testament is the son of Adam he was the son of David he was the son of Abraham but he called himself the son of Adam the representative of the Adamic race he came to save us that's how valuable we are in the sight of God there's a passage in 1st Corinthians 15 which is very exciting to me first Corinthians 15 versus 45 months pondering okay and so it is written the first man the first Adam and you know Adam in Hebrew is directly connected with the word for Earth which is Adam are so his name indicated he was taken from the earth the first man Adam became a living soul the last Adam that's Jesus became a life-giving spirit the first man was of the earth earthy the second man is the Lord from heaven so Jesus has two titles and it's very important to get them in the right order first of all he was the last Adam he was the end of the holiday meek inherit us all the sin and the rebellion the evil was cut off at his death when he died it died when he was buried it was Mary and when he rose again he rose thus the second man a new kind of man a new race the Immanuel race the god man race the race in which God a man a United in one nature and that is what we are born into through faith if we believe in his atoning death and his triumphant resurrection we become part of the second man a new kind of being that had never existed before in which God and man are united in one person that's the destiny of us as Christian it says in 1st Timothy 2:5 there is one mediator between man and on the man Christ Jesus that was many years after the death and resurrection of Jesus so there is a man on the throne of God the man Christ Jesus that's a breathtaking thought if we can absorb it for just a little while there is a representative of our race at the highest place in the universe a man Christ Jesus on the throne of God see God takes the lowest and raises it to the height he started with dust but his destiny is to end on the throne of God from the lowest to the highest now I want to take two parables Matthew chapter 13 have you have pondered on this chapter it's the chapter of the seven parables it's a rich and exciting chapter but I want to take two of the shortest one is one verse and the other is two verses in verse 44 my Bible heads this the parable of the hidden treasure Jesus speaking again the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and hid and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field if you think yourself into the history of the Middle East how did that treasure get hidden in the field well probably there was an invading army that came at some time and a man was afraid of losing his possessions and so he quickly went to a field and buried his treasure in the field but who knows what what happened war swept that way he never got back and so the treasure lay buried in the field and then another man comes along and he discovers the treasure and he's very I would say crafty he doesn't tell everybody about it he hides it he covered it up and he goes and binds the field as though it was just their ordinary field maybe he pays a little except excessive price people marvel why would he buy that fear there's nothing in that field it's not worth what he paid for him but once he's owned the field he digs up the treasure you see and then people understand why he bought the feet and I want to say that man is Jesus I know there are different ways of interpreting parables but I want to interpret it this way that man is Jesus the field the parables tell us is the world Jesus died for the whole world he paid the price for the whole world but it isn't the world he wants it's the treasure in the field what is the treasure God's people so he was willing to pay the price for a parent lis worthless field in order to get the treasure which is you and me that's how much he cares for you and me that's how much he thinks of us that's how much he we mean to him we are not unimportant we're not insignificant were not worthless we're extremely valuable so valuable that Jesus gave His life to purchase us never again from tonight onwards talk about yourself as if you were insignificant or unimportant or worthless just discard all that thinking it's not scriptural I'm not telling you to be proud but I'm telling you to realize your true value because you gain nothing by this attitude of poor me I don't mean amount c'mon I'm just a little something or other that's not these into go you're a son or a daughter to God God has no second-class children you are important you are very very valuable you're special begin to understand that here tonight drop that cringing attitude drop that sense of worthlessness you don't have to apologize for being you it's you that God wanted he wanted you the way you are but he won't leave you that way you're not glorifying God by being so humble because it's not humility it's an act is unbelief you are a child of God tonight if you receive Jesus by faith you're part of the treasure I think the Ministry of the gospel is digging the treasure out Jesus bought the field he leaves it to us to dig the treasure up and when treasure has been under the earth for a long while it's often corrupted and tarnished and then that part of the ministry to is to polish it up and clean it up I think that's the ministry that God has given me to polish up the treasure that's been so long under the ground God has given me a sense of the value of God's people when I was a very new Christian about two years old in the Lord the British Army I was in the Medical Corps posted me to the Sudan and the Sudan believe me is a tough country it matter of fact it's even tougher now it's it's the most persecuting of all countries of Christians at this time but I will rigidly wented Hatem which is the capital then the army posted me to a little sort of railway station town called Pat Barra when I got there at Barra I was put in charge of what's called in the medical language of the army a reception station and it was like it was like having a palace I had two rooms two beds nobody in them I had a night dress for the first time with two or three years I'd slept in my underwear but now I can have a nitrous I had no patience in the reception station so I put on one of the night dresses and slept in one of the beds and then somewhere in the middle of the night I got this tremendous supernatural burden of prayer for the people of the Sudan and I tell you they're not easy to learn they're pretty fierce and they're not gracious so easy to get it connection with but I got up I'm a so burdened with prayer that I was pacing to and fro in that little room in my white flannel night dress and as I was praying I was praying for the souls of the people of the Sudan and I looked down at my nitrous and I have to tell you it was it was lured luminous there was such a sense of the glory of God that my nitrous was actually shine and God gave me a little glimpse of how he values intercession and then I was moved to another station on the Red Sea for debate there I was put in charge I was only a corporal I couldn't be anything more because I was being a conscientious objector and I was put in charge of the native labor the Sudan II labor in a hospital and I had to deal with the rice the head man of the labor his name was Ali and so we had to meet every morning in my office and planned the activities for the day and I couldn't see any way to relate to Ali he was distant from me and I was listening to him then one day I discovered that he believed in Satan so I said I believe in Satan - it's strange as it may seem that was the first connection between us we both believed in Satan well one day he was late in reporting to my office and he came in limping and he said I've been to the reception station because I have something on my foot which is hurting me now I had read in the Bible I don't think I never seen anybody they hand some people and pray for them if I hand I didn't remember but I knew it was in the Bible so I said would you like me to pray for you he said yes well I treated him like a bomb that was about to explode I stood at a careful distance put my hands on him and prayed a very simple prayer and that was all I could do about a week later he came in and showed me his foot it was completely healed so after that we had a connection we became friends then he wanted to teach me how to ride a camel and so I learned to ride a camel and believe me riding a camel is no joke I don't know what it is about a camel but when one part is going up another is going down you never have a stable ride I'm not talking about the camels that they turn loose at their parent pyramids in Egypt that's their natsu Danya camels so then I said would you like me to read to you from the Bible and he said yes he was getting very interested so I thought we were on a John's Gospel I read from the King James Version which is the only version that most people used in those days but all his English he had learned from soldiers there in any quick memory he couldn't read or write but he had a very accurate memory so I read the King James Version translating it into soldiers English all the way which was quite a challenge and then he said why don't we take a ride out on our camels and go out somewhere and so I said fine so I was in charge of the rations so we armed ourselves with things we needed to eat and we ran out rode out on our two camels and sat down at the bottom of a hill and those well don't scream a brackish water running down the hill now I'm not sure that I would do today what I did them but I'm not necessarily recommending it but he said now we Sudan is we drink this water but you white people you don't drink this water well I said since there's nothing else to drink I'll drink it so he said why would you do that when I said Jesus said if you drink any deadly thing it will not hurt you so I drank the water and he drank the water and we both did well so then I got to John chapter 3 in my simple Bible reading about being born again and that phrase lodged in his mind born again born again so when we were on the camels way back he said born again what's that when I said God will give you a new heart when he just laughed because in those days heart transplants didn't exist and he couldn't understand anything but a heart transplant when I said means you get the life of God so I said to him would you like to be born again and he said yes when I said listen this evening when the Sun sets you go to your hunt I'll go to Magdalene and you crave to be born again and I'll pray for you so he said all right next morning we met I looked at him I said did you pray he said yes I said did anything did you get anything he said no so I was disappointed but the Holy Spirit whispered in my ear remember he's a Muslim so I said did you pray in the name of Jesus he said no I said you have to pray on the name of Jesus if you want boom game are you winning to do that he said yes when I said this evening you go to your heart I go to my minute we pray when I next it when I met him next morning I looked at him and I said you got it he said yes I did and everybody in the hospital heard about them they came to me and said what happened to your friend Ali I said he got born again they said what's there I said let me tell you the commanding obviously the hospital sent for me he said what happened your friend Annie I said you got born again he was a Presbyterian good religious man but he didn't know anything about the new birth so as a result of that two of my fellow soldiers came to the Lord and I want to say that all came out of that night of intense intercession for the people of the Sudan and without travail there'll be no birth unless we travel in prayer we won't see anybody says as soon as I am traveled she brought forth her children as soon as the church travails she'll begin to bring forth children anyhow that was my example now I want to go to the next parable and this is my closing thought this is where it comes down to you so we go on in Matthew 13 de verses 45 46 this is the parable I love now I know there are lots of different ways of interpreting parables and I can say like a friend of mine how can I help it if I'm right I didn't see I always attribute that to a fellow-creature because wouldn't be humble for me to say that versus 45:46 their gang the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls and when he had found one pearl of great price he went and sold all that he had and bought it now there are different ways of applying this but I want to give you one application which can make a change in your life first of all I want to point out that he was a merchant he was not a tourist he was a man who spent all his life leading in pones and he knew the real value of her pearl and then he found this one pearl so wonderful and so precious that he sold all that he had to buy this is a vivid modern version of it but I can imagine him going home to his wife and say honey I've sold like hard you sold our car why did you do that well I found a pearl a pearl one pearl yeah well thank God at any rate we still have a roof over our head no I sold our house but you see he was a man who knew what things were worth he found one pearl that was worth more than everything he had in life and he sold it all and bought the pearl now I want you to think for a moment there are many different ways to interpret this but I want you to think of yourself tonight as that one pearl uniquely beautiful and valuable pearl you know that pearls are the result of suffering it's out of the suffering of an oyster that a pearl comes for so maybe you've been through suffering and you've begun to question whether God really loves you and you began to think well I'm really not worth much I'm not important to God there are other people are important but I'm not I want to tell you that it's not true you are importantly donors so important to God that He gave His Son Jesus to die on the cross for you you specifically youth Jesus sold all that he had he left all the riches and glory of heaven became a carpenter's son became a traveling preacher and when he died on the cross he literally owned nothing he was buried in a borrowed robe in a borrowed tomb you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ Paul says that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that you through his poverty might be rich Jesus sold all that he had he gave up everything for you I know he purchased the treasure in the field that's God's people as a company but he also purchased the one pearl of great price which is you you you in your weakness your failures your lack of understanding your frustrations your loan minute your fear Jesus died for you I really believe I've convinced myself of this that if no one else would ever have got saved Jesus would have died for me if there had never been anybody else thank God there are millions of others but I like to make his llama individual I like to make it personal I like to say for me he died for me he gave up his throne for me he lay down his life for me he suffered on the cross and he was buried and then for me he rose he ascended is that the furnace right now if you have a problem with self-worth if you have a low sense of self-esteem you don't really feel that you matter very much to God or maybe to people you may be lonely you may be wondering how you ever got here I want to tell you God brought you here you have an appointment with God tonight and I want you to think of yourself this way I think of that merchants having bought the pearl he's holding it in the palm of his hand and he's looking down at it and he's saying you're beautiful you're the most beautiful I ever saw you cost me everything I had but you were with you are so beautiful now I want you to think that you individually on that you yourself you're there in the arm of the law he's looking down at you and say you're so beautiful you cost me all I had I love I'm glad I died now I want to help you a little further because I I know from dealing with people how common this problem another sense of self-esteem I want to suggest that if you have a problem with believing that you're really valuable to God that you stand to your feet here and I'm going to lead you in a specific prayer you have a problem with self-esteem know don't be afraid don't be ashamed do you have that problem stand up that's right there are many that's right Yanko would you come up in the platform wherever you are Ruth would you come up with me now we're not in a hurry this is a very important solemn moment the devil did everything he could prevent me from getting here tonight Marty's a defeated enemy now I want you to think of yourself just now for a little while shut everything else out and see yourself as that one term in the palm of the hand of Jesus and remember that palm bears the scars of his sufferings and I want you to think Jesus is speaking to you and he's saying you're beautiful you cost me all I hair but you're worth it I'm glad I gave my life for you can you behave say these words with that picture in your mind say these words after me Lord Jesus I thank you that you died I mean that you gave yourself on the cross a death an agony and shame to purchase me and third I belong to you I'm yours forever I know you will never leave me you will never perceive you I'm graven on the palm of your hand I'm beautiful in your hands more beautiful than all the worlds you create because you set your lovin because you love me Lord I love you receive my love tonight I just give myself a fresh to you to know I thank you I'm not unwanted and not unworthy I'm not a cast-off I'm not rejecting I'm accepted in the beloved in You Lord Jesus I'm accepted thank you thank you thank you again and again thank you for that wonderful lon which you poured out on the cross thank you now those of you this means standing don't sit down to them I want you to find somebody near to you you may never have met them before but I want you to look them right in the face and say I'm not rejected I'm not unwanted I'm precious to them why would you do that just turn around verbalizing I'm not rejecting I'm not unwanted I'm precious to the law

Channel: Derek Prince

Views: 299,314

Rating: 4.8328185 out of 5

Keywords: how valuable are you to god, derek prince do you know how valuable you are, You are valuable in gods eyes, you are valuable to god sermon, sermon you are valuable, you are valuable to god, sermon you are valuable to god, bible study you are valuable, you are valuable to god scripture, bible study you are valuable to god, derek prince sermons, you are valuable bible verses, joseph prince church, bible study for women, Bible study on your value before god

Id: cZGh4_VY_jY

Length: 65min 54sec (3954 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2012