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Today I am discussing Jesus' parable about the pearl of great value, taken from Matthew 13:44-46."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. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”Is there anything out in the world that you would sell everything you have for: your house, your cars, any investments you have, liquidate your retirement account, take all of that and sell it so you can get something of great value? You know, in order to do that, it would have to make everything you own pale in comparison to whatever that object is.So today, I want to look at two things 1) What does it mean, to sell everything you have in order to get this treasure? and 2) What is the parable of the pearl merchant all about?Then we’ll look more specifically at the parable of the pearl merchant and what that parable is all about. One thing in context to the parable - pearl merchants were wealthy people. They had to have some degree of wealth because they were always buying and trading pearls which had great value. And so, they had to have some degree of financial wealth in order to stock their inventory.

Today is the last message in my 4-part series on pride and humility. I want to look at how God has special regard for the humble, and then I want to look at how to integrate this life of humility into our personal lives. I want to share a few verses with you and look at how God has special regard and honor for the humble.Psalm 10:17. “Oh, Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble. You will strengthen their heart. You will incline Your ear.”Psalm 25:9 “He leads the humble in justice. He teaches the humble His way.”Proverbs 11:2 says, “When pride comes, then comes dishonor, but, with the humble, there is wisdom.”Proverbs 29:23, “A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor.”And lastly James 4:10, “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you.” God has incredible regard and honor for the humble, and what’s interesting is, He doesn’t have that kind of regard for anybody else.This is Part 4 of my 4-Part series. I hope you enjoy it!

This morning, I want to share a few more words with you about pride so that we can truly see how destructive it is in our lives. And then I’m going to share some words on humility. As I’ve said before, pride is so insidious and that it slowly grows and develops in our lives and becomes well-established without our knowledge. God hates it because of what it does to us. And I want to look at one more aspect of pride and how it impacts our thinking in how we regard other people.This is Part 3 of a 4-Part series. In these final two episodes, we’ll look at God’s promises to those who live humbly as they walk through life. There will be a major application in Part 4, so you don't want to miss it.

Today I want to look at the pitfalls of comparison. Comparing ourselves to others impacts our lives, our behavior, our relationships with others, and ultimately it impacts our relationship with God. Now, I’ll start by looking at some scriptures that I think will be helpful, staring with I Thessalonians 2:4, where Paul says, “Just as we’ve been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, so we speak not as pleasing men, but God Who examines our hearts.”How is my life, my thinking, my behavior, and the motive of my heart affected by what others think of me? In other words, why do we allow other people’s opinions of us to be the gauge in which we measure our lives? And why do we think our lives don’t count very much, unless they count in the eyes of others?This is Part 2 of a 4-Part series. In the final two episodes, we’ll look at God’s promises to those who live humbly as they walk through life. There will be a major application in Part 4, so you don't want to miss it.

Today I am starting a new series on the issue of pride and humility. In the first two episodes we’ll look at the issue of pride and just how deadly it is in our lives, and then, in the final two episodes, we’ll look at God’s promises to those who live humbly as they walk through life. There will be a major application in Part 4, so you don't want to miss it. I want to start with the book of Isaiah, chapter two beginning in the twelfth verse. It says, “For the Lord of Hosts will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty, against everyone who is lifted up, that he may be abased. And it will be against all the cedars of Lebanon that are lofty and lifted up, against all the oaks of Bashan, against all the lofty mountains, against all the hills that are lifted up, against every high tower, against every fortified wall, against all the ships of Tarsus, and against all the beautiful craft. The pride of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men will be abased, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.”Proverbs 16:5 states this in a similar way, “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Assuredly he will not go unpunished.” Throughout the Bible you’ll see a phrase, which we’ll talk about in some of our future episodes, which is this, “God is opposed to the proud.” Now, I think we all have this desire to know, well, who are the proud? Surely not me. I know there are a lot of proud and arrogant people out there, but surely not me. There are two ways to define pride. One of them is "justifiable self-respect"; the idea of striving for excellence and being the best that you can be; the idea of taking pride in what you do. That is a positive definition. But the pride that God detests, the pride that is such an abomination in His sight is arrogance. And arrogance is nothing more than an internal feeling or impression of superiority over others. The Greeks called it hubris, which meant too high a view of yourself.This is Part 1 of a 4-Part series. I hope you enjoy it!

Today I'd like to share my Good Friday message I gave last weekend, focusing on Isaiah 53. It is interesting to note that chapters 40-55 of Isaiah have to do with what God will do in the future, yet Isaiah was written over 700 years before Christ even enters the scene. Many scholars contend that this is the best single chapter in the Bible to explain what will happen in Jesus' crucifixion."Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." - Isaiah 53:4-6Do you see the significance of this? The crucifixion was all about us. Jesus did it for us, and He did it voluntarily - for you and for me. Watch on YouTube here

Easter weekend is really different from all other weekends and holidays on the calendar. Because if you think about it, we’re commemorating two of the most significant events in all of human history. And of course, Easter weekend, I guess some would say, started last night on Maundy Thursday, but really, it starts in my mind today, on Good Friday, that somber day where we reflect on the Crucifixion and then leads on to Sunday when we celebrate joyfully Resurrection.Today I want to share with you some thoughts on both of these events, and then I’m going to, at the end, bridge them together, really pull it together into a central theme.I want to read to you two verses out of the book of Acts. It’s Acts chapter 17, and it’s where Paul gives his famous sermon at Mars Hill in Athens, Greece. You know, Paul goes into Athens, that was the center of learning and scholarship where all the Greek philosophers were, and as you’re reading, Paul interacts with some of the stoics who were a certain school of philosophers there, and they are so fascinated by him, they take him to the Ariopagus which is this place where he can stand and speak to a big group of people and have discussion, kind of like Hyde Park in London. And Paul gives this brilliant talk, and he quotes their philosophers. He quotes their poets, and then he gets right down to the end of his sermon. And this is the way he closes it. He says, “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because He’s fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, through a man who He has appointed having furnished proof to all men, by raising Him from the dead.”Now, one of the first things that strikes me about these words is that Paul says that God has fixed a day out in the future when He’s going to judge the world. And he says, “He will judge the world justly and in righteousness.”So, as we think about this judgment, we have to ask the question. But when you think of any kind of judgment, what is the criteria? What is the scale that’s going to be used to judge us by?

How can we find real peace? Physician, futurist and author Richard Swenson's work focuses on what he calls, “cultural medicine.” I’d never heard of that. He researches the intersection of health and culture. He looks at how culture impacts our mental, emotional, our psychological, and even our physical health. Interestingly, he wrote these words well before this current pandemic came along. Listen to what he says,“People have always been stressed.” He said, “It’s simply part of living this life.” He says, “There’s always been change to cope with. There have always been economic problems, and people have always battled depression. It’s the nature of life to have its ups and downs. So, why all the fuss?” He said, “I’m not the one making the fuss. I’m only writing about it. I’m only being honest about what I see all around me. I sit in my examining room and I listen to people. Then I report what I hear. And, I can tell you,” he says. “Something is wrong. People are tired and frazzled. People are anxious. People are depressed. People don’t have time to heal anymore.” This is interesting. He says,“There’s a psychic instability in our day that prevents peace from implanting itself very firmly in the human spirit. And, despite the skeptics,” he says, “this instability is not the same old nemesis recast in a modern role.” He says, “Something has changed.”And, I find that phrase, psychic instability, to be a good term for what’s going on in people’s lives. I’ve heard from two different news sources that at least a third of the people in our country, right now, are having real mental health issues. And, you know, I believe that that’s true.So, what I’d like to do is drill down and get to the heart of this issue. Because it strikes me that this Coronavirus has really shattered our assumptions that our world is safe and it’s well under control, that we have things under control. This is one of the reasons I believe that nations, particularly our nation, has drifted away from God; we feel secure. We don’t really need Him. But when we do this without recognizing it, we are throwing open the door for fear to infiltrate our lives. Why is that? Watch on YouTube

A couple of years ago, I noticed something in the Bible that I had never recognized, and in the book of John, whether you are aware of this or not, there are 21 chapters, and it dawned on me that the last 11 chapters, over 50 percent of the book of John, deals with really the last week of Jesus’ life. And then you have the Resurrection. I share that because in John chapter 11, we read of an incredible event that ultimately led to the crucifixion, which is what we reflect on Good Friday. What happened was that this event pushed the religious leaders to the edge. They finally realized, we have got to get rid of this guy. And the event that I am speaking of, which you may or may not be familiar with, is when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.John 11:19 says, “There were many, there were many Jews present who had come to console Martha and Mary.” In other words, Jesus performed this incredible miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead in front of a crowd of people. He didn’t do it in a vacuum. Think about what, I mean, imagine if you were there! But there was a crowd, and, as word gets out in this Jewish community, just think of kind of the explosion that probably took place. And the talk that went around. But what you notice is that there were three basic ways that people responded to this incredible event, and I want to talk about those this morning with you a few minutes and look at these responses. Then I would ask you to look at your own life and ask, "How is this pertinent to me in my own response to this man Jesus?"

Why did Jesus’ death change everything forever? What did He mean when He said, “It is finished?”Well, the answer glimmers all through scripture, but it’s packaged precisely in Romans 1:17, where the apostle Paul writes, “For in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed. A righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, 'the righteous will live by faith.' For in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed.”Well, from the outside, it doesn’t seem like much, that a Man died on a cross. I’ve heard the Gospel likened to a jalapeño pepper; it looks cold on the outside but when you bite into it, it will burn like no tomorrow. Ingest the Gospel, understand it down to the core of your being and it will burn its way down to every fiber of your being and have an impact on everything that you do and every decision that you make. How you spend your money. How you treat your wife. How you treat your ex-wife. How you discipline your children. Everything you do, this Man’s death on the cross wants to touch. Why? How?If you understand the Gospel, and you really absorb it and you are taken to the emotional and psychological, the ontological cleaners with it, you can’t help but come away from this message and be changed by it.There’s nothing more important than Jesus’ crying from the cross, “It is finished.”Today's talk is by my friend Paul Walker, who spoke at our Good Friday Mens' Breakfast several years ago. I pray that it blesses your life!