Wednesday, September 18, 2024 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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See everybody today. I invite you to open your Bibles up to 1 Peter chapter 2.

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This will be our main passage for tonight. We'll be going to a couple more as we go through our lesson tonight.

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But this will be our main text. 1 Peter chapter 2 beginning in verse 7.

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This is God's Word. Therefore, to you who believe,

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He is precious. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for tonight.

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We thank you Lord that in your providence you have led us all, directed our paths to this place tonight.

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To gather together to fellowship in the name of Christ. Because of His love for us.

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Lord, we thank you for your beloved Son. In whom you are well pleased. We thank you

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Lord for this opportunity to open your Word. To read more about Christ and to consider

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Him. We thank you and give you praise for tonight.

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And it's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. I have a couple of questions for you to start out.

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What about Christ is most precious to you? What glorious aspects of the

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Savior first come to your mind when you think about Him? When you meditate on the Savior.

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Do you count Him as the most valuable treasure that you have right now? Is He precious to you tonight?

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Our text tells us that Jesus is precious to those who believe. That is to the people of God.

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To those who have trusted in Jesus to save them. Who have submitted to Him as Lord.

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He is now the boss of their entire life. To those born of God who have believed in their heart that Jesus is the

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Christ. The Son of God. Those who believe in Jesus count Him as personally precious.

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Each of the sheep of the chief shepherd. Estimate Him as the most valuable in their life and in their death.

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We count Him as very much worthy and very much glorious. In fact, the most glorious.

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The most worthy of all. We consider Him our greatest joy and our greatest good.

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We know Him and we love Him above all else. Compared to simply knowing

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Christ. To being intimately acquainted with Him. Nothing else compares.

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Nothing. No other joy. No other person. No other treasure is more worthy, more precious to God's people than Jesus Himself.

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Jesus is our supreme treasure. Worthy of all praise we could ever give and so much more.

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We count Him as precious above all. To the extreme that we are willing to lay aside all else to know

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Him. And to be found in Him. Our Lord said in Matthew 13.

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Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. Which a man found and hid.

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And for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has. And buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls.

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Who, when he had found one pearl of great price. Went and sold all that he had and bought it.

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Amen and Amen. To enter into the kingdom. To gain it personally.

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To become a part of it. Is to know the King. And to know the

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King is worth everything. Those being saved are willing to lay aside all else to know

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Jesus. Who they see as precious above all. Nothing else compares to knowing

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Him. Where are your heart's affections tonight?

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How is your heart orientated? In what direction? Is it orientated heavenward?

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To the right hand of God? Or to the things of this world? Where are your heart's affections tonight?

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What does your heart count privately? As precious and worthy of pursuing at the cost of all else.

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Our Lord says again in Matthew chapter 6. For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.

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Oh that our hearts might burn for passion for Christ. And for Him alone. That it might be set on fire for our

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Savior. May He be our supreme treasure. And may our hearts be in heaven.

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Not on things of this world. Not on the things of this life. But may our desires and affections be directed to the right hand of the

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Father. Where there are pleasures forevermore. For there is the risen Savior.

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There is Jesus Christ. There is the one who suffered and died for you.

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There is the one who set His love upon you while you were yet a sinner. And He came to seek and to save you.

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He did not leave you lost but He came. And with divine authority He called you. Follow me.

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And He gives you that glorious divine promise. I will make you fishers of men.

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Change for the believer is not just a possibility. Change for the believer is a promise.

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A promise made by Jesus Christ. I appreciate the preaching ministry of Kosti Hinn.

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And earlier this year he preached the sermon where he said, Affection is where change begins.

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Affection is where change begins. And it's well said. For whatever our desires of the heart,

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Those desires will form and fashion us according to those desires. We can think of the

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Old Testament Israelites who oftentimes set their affections on the neighboring gods of the land.

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And those gods promised prosperity, wealth, good blessing to the people. But ultimately what was the result?

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Separation from God, sin, loss, sorrow, and judgment.

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False idols of the heart only lead away from the one true God and into sin and judgment.

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So it is with every idol of the heart. It comes to you with a promise. Something to gain by worshiping this idol.

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But in the end, what does it give you but pain and misery? When man's heart's affections are ultimately set upon something other than God, only disaster follows.

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Let those who are being saved say with the

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Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 3, But what things were gained to me, these

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I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my

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Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain

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Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if by any means

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I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Compared to knowing

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Christ and being found in him, Paul counted everything else that gave him some sort of promise, his ethnic status, his religious standing, he counted all of that loss to gain

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Christ and to be found in him, so that he might know

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Jesus and receive a righteousness that is perfect, complete, the very righteousness of God in Christ.

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And Paul in the next few verses in Philippians 3, he presses on, he forgets what is behind him and he moves forward, with his eyes ever set on Christ, more of Christ and more of Christ, for all of this life and for the next.

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Paul said elsewhere in Acts chapter 20, he looked ahead in his ministry and he saw persecution ahead, he saw suffering, he saw trial, he saw chains in his ministry as he served the

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Lord, and this is what he said, But none of these things move me, nor do

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I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which

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I receive from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God, to know

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Christ, we are willing to lay aside all else in this life, to know him and to be found in him.

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In fact, this extreme is what Jesus himself calls each of his people to do. In Mark chapter 8, our

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Lord says, Jesus directs those who desire to come after him, who count him as precious above all else, to lose their life so that they might find it in him.

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To gain life in Christ is to die to self. You die to your old ways of living.

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You lay aside your sins, never to pick them up ever again. And to those good blessings that God has given you in his providence, family, friends, your work, you are to lay that down so that you can pick it back up in service to the

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King. No longer do we do our work my way. No longer do we lead our families my way.

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But we do our work as unto the Lord, to bring him glory. And we love our families and our friends as unto the

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Lord, to bring him glory and praise. To follow

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Christ is to count him as Lord, the boss of all of your life. What he says goes, and that's the end of it.

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To know and to follow Jesus is to have eternal life, a life that does not end, a life that is at peace with God the

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Father, where a creature experiences true shalom with the Creator, reconciled to the

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Father through the Son and through the Son alone. To not follow

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Jesus, to deny him completely and utterly, is to die.

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It's to remain in spiritual death, separated from God with hell to face after physical death.

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That is to experience the wrath of God forevermore, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

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To experience eternal condemnation. That's what it is to not follow after Christ, to choose your life, your way, instead of Christ.

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That is what you have to look forward to if you are not in Christ, if you do not know him. But to those who are being saved, to those who believe,

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Jesus is precious. He is the one who has saved us from hell.

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He is the one who has saved us from our own sins, our own personal sins.

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That was the glorious promise given by God to Joseph. His name shall be called

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Jesus. For he will, not he will try, not he will attempt, but he will save his people from their sins.

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He will. He has forgiven us of all our sins, removing them as far as the east is from the west.

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He has delivered us from darkness into his kingdom of light. He has brought us spiritual freedom from the vice of idols of the heart.

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And Jesus has crowned us with loving kindness and tender mercies. Indeed, we receive every spiritual blessing in him, and in him we have everything we need and so much more.

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But above all those blessings, above all those mercies that we receive in Christ, the greatest mercy and the greatest blessing is

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Jesus. To know him and to be found in him, to be intimately acquainted and familiar with the

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Savior, to walk with him in this life and to talk with him, to have relationship and fellowship with him, to enjoy him forever.

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Jesus is precious. A good question to ask at this point, why is

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Jesus precious to us? We who once were alienated from God, separated from the

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Father in our sin because of our own choices, how is it that we who once loved darkness rather than light, now love and adore the

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Son of God? The rest of our passage explains that. Read with me chapter 2, verses 7 through 10 of 1

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Peter. A royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

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What makes the difference for us and to those who are disobedient, to those who do not believe, to those who count the cross as foolishness?

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What makes the difference between them who do not believe and us who believe? Bottom line, it is the mercy of God.

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We were once not a people, but now we are his chosen people, chosen by the

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King. Earlier this year I heard a good brother preach a sermon where he said, you don't vote for the

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King, the King votes for you. We are chosen and elected by God.

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We once were not a people, but now we are his people. He has established us.

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He has set us apart. And we had once not received mercy, but now we have received mercy.

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The Spirit comes into our hearts by the grace of God, by his mercy, and washes our heart and changes it, so that now we have a new heart and a new spirit with new desires that count

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Jesus as precious. The Spirit gives us ears to hear, so that when the

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Great Shepherd calls and says, follow me with authority, we hear.

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And we say, that is my Jesus, and I must follow him, even if it costs me everything in this life, even if it costs me my very life to know him, it's worth it.

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Jesus is worth it. We love God, because he first loved us.

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And it is God who sets our wills free, so that we believe with our hearts that God raised

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Christ from the dead, and we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus. Oh, what glorious and wonderful news this is, that salvation belongs to God and to God alone.

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It is he who saves us, and it is he who gives us faith to believe, so that we become his people.

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It is God who gives us a heart that desires Jesus and counts him as precious above all things.

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Jesus is not just precious to us, but he's also precious to the Father. Go back a bit further in chapter 2 of 1

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Peter to verse 4. 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 4 says,

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Coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious.

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Some come to Christ and others reject him, but God has chosen Christ and counts him to be precious.

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Jesus is not merely precious to us subjectively as individuals, but he is precious to God the

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Father, and it is the Father who has said of the Son, You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

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This is my Son, hear him. The Father has deeply loved the

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Son since eternity past. Jesus was in the beginning with God, face to face with God, and yet at the same time was

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God. There is much glory and much love between the members of the

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Trinity, and God counts Jesus to be precious. This is a glorious truth, and there's another glorious truth we can think on tonight.

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As we are in Christ by faith, God counts us to be precious. United to the

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Son in salvation, the Father looks to us and is well pleased and considers us his beloved children, not by anything we have done, not by the works of our hands or by our lifestyle, but by the righteousness of Christ alone.

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Being transferred to us when we believe in him, we are clothed with the merits of Jesus, so that having reconciled us to the

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Father, the Son presents us as holy, blameless, and above reproach in his sight.

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As the elect of God, holy and beloved, as Colossians tells us.

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The sinner needs two things. He needs his sin removed, and he needs a righteousness that is perfect and complete.

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And it is Christ who does this for us. He takes away our sin, and he gives us his righteousness.

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For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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Here is the gospel, saved by faith alone in Christ alone, who reconciles us to the holy

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God, and we are caught up into this perfect, holy, immeasurable, Trinitarian love.

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If you are in Christ, how does God see you? He sees you as his precious child.

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God is there for you, therefore, never to leave you, never to forsake you, to discipline, if need be, for your growth and for your good, to forgive you, to hear you always in your prayers, because you have an advocate at the right hand of the

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Father. He is your Father, as you have believed in the Son, who is precious.

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Having considered Jesus as precious tonight, let's meditate a bit more specifically on when to count him as precious.

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In what moments of life should we lift our thoughts and our hearts heavenward to Christ and remember him to be our chief treasure?

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Well, in short, the answer is at every moment, every day, every moment, every month, every year, every decade, we should count

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Jesus as our chief treasure, the precious item that we have above all else, for he is precious to we who believe.

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However, let's meditate further upon some specific situations. In public,

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Jesus is precious. He is worth exalting and proclaiming and defending in public realms of our life.

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He is precious to us to the point we are willing to testify of him to many others around us openly.

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We are willing to share Christ, for he is precious. He is precious to us in private.

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If one truly counts Jesus as most valuable, he will treasure Christ in private when no one else is looking.

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Does the one who proclaims Christ openly enjoy the Savior behind closed doors?

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Jesus is precious in the fight with sin, for he has given us that glorious promise that with every temptation he provides a way of escape, and the believer can look not to his sin, but to his

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Christ and say, my captain owns this fight, and in him I will have the victory.

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He gives me the strength. He forgives when I fall short. He is a faithful high priest who can sympathize with us, for he was tempted as we are, yet without sin.

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Jesus is precious in times of joy, for we can look at what Christ has done. We can count the blessings and turn heavenward and thank the one to whom it all belongs.

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And as you consider your blessings from the Lord, remember that you have a far better blessing in Christ himself.

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He is our greatest blessing, our greatest mercy from the heavenly Father. He is the light that illuminates all things.

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He is precious in times of sorrow. In Christ we are reconciled to the

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God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulations. And Jesus is the man of sorrows.

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Acquainted with grief, he wept at the tomb of Lazarus. And to the soul that is hurting, go to your

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Christ. Find refuge, safety, and a place to weep at his feet, and he will bring you comfort.

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He's a hundred percent in control, and he's a hundred percent good. He is precious in times of pain.

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And what kind of pain, you may ask? What's the pain you face right now? What's the thorn in the side that God has allowed in your life?

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Jesus has ever more grace that is enough for you today and for tomorrow.

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Hold on to him, and let patience have its perfect work in you. He always holds on to you.

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He's not going to let go. Blessed is the 23rd Psalm, where we see our shepherd ahead of us, guiding us, leading us, moving things out of the way, and also bringing some things in, according to his good sovereignty.

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He is the one there with us in the valley of the shadow. He goes ahead of us.

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He is beside us, and the goodness and mercies of God pursue after us.

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The goodness and mercy of Christ is coming up behind us so that ahead and beside and behind is

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Christ, and it reminds us of that glorious Irish prayer, Christ beneath me,

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Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ within me, Christ when

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I sit down, when I lie down. Christ is with us in every situation, and he is precious.

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At every moment and in every situation, it is a good time to count Jesus as precious.

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All of our life moments should treasure him above all else. But perhaps there's a believer who finds that glorious activity hard, maybe a believer finds her heart cold to Christ.

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There are many reasons why a believer's heart can become cold to the Savior. There are dark nights of the soul where a child of God finds even loving

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Christ to be a hard thing. Oftentimes we're prone to wander, and idols of the heart can be deep -rooted.

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But at these trials, at these dark nights, O Christian, look not to your trial, look not to the sin that's ahead of you, look to your

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Christ. Find rest, strength, and power in him to move forward.

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Though it might not feel that he's present, he is present. We walk by faith, we do not walk by sight, we do not walk by feeling.

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We walk by faith. And if you don't feel Christ present, that doesn't mean he's not present. The truth of the matter is

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Christ is here with you. If you believe in him and trust in him, he's there.

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And he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So run to him.

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Run to him. When your heart seems cold, take it to the love of Christ for you. His love for you burns ever brighter, ever fervently for you.

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He cannot love you more, and he cannot love you less at this moment in time and forever.

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Let the love of Christ thaw and warm your heart to him. Meditate on the cross.

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Meditate on who Jesus is and what he has done for you. Write down what aspects of Christ do you think of that are most precious to you.

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Meditate upon the Savior. Read his word to know him more, to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

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And pray. Fellowship with him. Even when it's hard, pray.

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As one brother has said, pray until you've prayed. Practice thankfulness.

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Remember those Ebenezers, those times when Christ has been enough for you and has helped you this far.

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He's been faithful. He will be faithful still. And worship.

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Even when it's hard, bring adoration and praise to your Heavenly Father, to your

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Christ, who is precious. Worship him in the beauty of his holiness.

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Behold the King in all of his beauty. Look at your

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Christ and live. It's time for some prayers now.