421: Brad Dawson - Exhortation: The Pearl of Great Price (Matt. 13)

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   Welcome to Good Christadelphian Talks. Thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. Each week, we post a talk that we previewed from suggestions sent in by listeners from around the world. Then, we record a short intro beforehand as a personalized recommendation to you on why we are sharing the talk.

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   And now, let's talk more about this week's talk. Hey, everyone. This is Jason Hensley. And this week, we are going to be listening to Brother Brad Dawson. This is an exhortation that he gave at the Casino Ecclesia. And he gave it about three years ago in July of 2023. The exhortation is on the Pearl of Great Price.

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   And what I really loved and appreciated about it was the emphasis on learning to believe what God says. That that's really the crux of things. When we believe what God says, that completely reshapes the way that we see the world, the way that we experience our lives, and ultimately causes us to be willing to give up everything for that Pearl of Great Price.

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   So, this is Brother Brad Dawson. His exhortation is on the Pearl of Great Price, given in 2023 at the Casino Ecclesia. Enjoy. Good morning, brethren and sisters, and especially our newly adopted sisters. We rejoice with you this morning and rejoice in a confession that is witness that all the things that are esteemed to be valuable to be valuable to our carnal nature, that they're not worthy to be compared with the one pearl of great price.

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   No, it's a pearl of such great price that the biblical reality is we can never afford it. It's never afford it. It's a priceless object, one of a kind. A thing of such great beauty and power. Most men never actually see it. When they see glimpses of it, they think it too good to be true.

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   And so mock those who honour it. And yet the one who owns this great pearl, who knows it's irreplaceable value, its beauty, its power, more than anyone else. The opposite to some very blessed people that he chooses.

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   It's not an ordinary sale or a trade, as the owner is never going to part with the one pearl of great price. But it's an offer that he gives to some to own this pearl with him. The pearl is so valuable that he wants others to see it and share its beauty, not keep it all for himself.

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   And so he offers to some a covenant to become owners of this pearl. But the covenant is quite specific. For him to sign this covenant with you, you must give up. Anything else that you hold that's valuable. You have to decide if it's worth everything to you.

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   And he doesn't push you to decide. He wants you to make your decision with certainty of what you believe, not for what someone else might think.

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    Let's come over to Hebrews 11 with me. I'm just going to read from verse 24 about Moses. We read there from verse 24, Hebrews 11. By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.

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    For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. You see, God didn't force him. He offered him the one pearl of great price. And he let him choose.

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    And he believed that pearl to be greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. I was trying to work out what may be the relevant names of some of the pearls we have to give up, trade, or let go of, for the one pearl of great price. Some of the treasures of Egypt that we would understand.

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    Trying to condense them down to not too many different pearls of what men think is valuable, what they're striving after, what their goals are in life. Six that seem to be common are wealth, career, love, physical health, mental health, family. And I'm going to call them worldly pearls, as in the pearl of worldly wealth versus the one pearl of great price being full of treasure in heaven.

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    Etc. So when Moses gave up on being prince, he had to give up a very big pearl of wealth. Wealth to have whatever he wanted.

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    And he had to give up what you might say was a fairly successful career pearl. Prince of the greatest power in the world. Possible promotion one day to a fairly looked up to position, king of the world.

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    And another pearl that was maybe even harder to give up. The pearl of love, worldly love, not with God's wisdom. You see, what God records of the choice Moses had to make here. He records not that he refused to be a prince.

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    But that he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. You see, he had to walk away from a mum that raised him most of his life. And he had to leave a family that he'd been with for nearly 40 years.

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    Stephen says in Acts 7, And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up and nourished him for her own son. And what about pearls of physical and mental health? Stephen also says in Acts 7 that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. And he was mighty in words and in deeds.

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    He would have had access to all the wisdom of the world. All the training to be a mighty man. Had in honour. The best medical known. Soldiers to protect him. In a lot of ways, he was like Solomon in what he could have chosen. Yet unlike Solomon, who couldn't give up that pearl of worldly love.

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    He realised that the love he could have stayed clean to. It was nothing compared to the love that he can learn in Christ. And the scary thing that goes on in my mind is, as I think through what Moses had to give up. And even when I know what Solomon went through, is that my mind says, it's so much.

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    He had to give up so much. And yet I shouldn't think that. You know, sometimes I think, and I think we all think that the trade God gives us for the one pearl of great price is a little like this story. I just want you to imagine a young teenager who's been trying to save up his pocket money and he's saved up $500.

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    Now he only gets pocket money, so he's taken a long time to save that much. And then one day he meets a man with an old pushbike, a bit rusty, a flat tyre. And the man says to him, look son, I really need that money. And I can swap you for my pushbike.

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    It won't be very easy to ride with a flat tyre. And the sea will give you blisters, but you'll be doing me a good deed as I really need the money. And as the boy had been taught to be kind and to care for others, he swapped his $500 that had taken him so long to save, and rode off painfully on the pushbike, thinking sadly of all the things he'd wanted to do with that $500.

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    Sometimes I think we can be beguiled to think that's what God is offering us. A trade where we keep looking back at what we could have had. A trade that's the right thing to do. But we don't feel overly like shouting for joy about it.

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    You know what the trade is far more like? Even for Moses with all he had to give. It's far more like if that young teenager who had saved up his pocket money for so long, he's been helping an old man clean up around his house, doing mowing, sweeping, pruning gardens. And the man's been chatting to him, teaching him things.

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    And he realises he's been taught to look after things, to care about people. And one day he says to the boy, I want to give you this house. The boy doesn't really know what to think. He says, but I can't afford it. It's a beautiful house. It's got a big lawn, beautiful gardens.

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    I can't afford it. The man says, I want you to have it. The only thing is, I want you to look after it well. When you have a family, to fill it with joy. And the boy says, well I'll gladly do that, but everything I have is nowhere near enough.

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    So can you imagine the boy there sadly wondering what he could have been doing with his $500? Or dancing through the house with great joy. Looking back when he's in the house with his family with so much gratitude for what's been given him. Now that's nothing like the reality of the great value of what we've been given.

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    But hopefully you see what I mean about our minds guiling us, to think that we have given much, when the reality is that God has given us great riches.

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    And when you look at Moses, that's exactly what he proves to us. He doesn't just imagine striving for these things, what they could give him. They were all in his reach. He could feel their true value. And what does it say of him again? By faith Moses, when he was growing up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy fleeting pleasures of sin.

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    He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt.

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    And in chapter 12 of Hebrews, verse 1, it says, Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. You see, Moses was witnessing to us that all those things aren't worthy to be compared, as Romans 8 .18 says. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

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    And Hebrews 11 is a whole chapter of people giving witness to us that all the worldly pearls they could have had, they're not comparable value to God's truth. That they were willing and grateful to give up the life they could have had for the one pearl of great Christ.

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    And they all did it by faith. What does it actually mean? By belief. Okay, one more story. And this is one that's really helped me see what it means to have faith. And if I'm living by faith alone.

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    Hopefully it works for you too. So you wrote in your letter for baptism, is he? About being brought up in the truth, but now believing and understanding yourself.

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    So I just want you to imagine yourself when you're younger being brought up in a house by a road that has some fast traffic on it. And on the other side of the road, there's a beautiful park that you love to go to. And when you were young, before you could understand, your parents kept you off the road by putting you inside a fence.

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    Before you understood that a bus can't stop instantly just because you run in front of it. And that's what God did with the law. But as with God, your parents never intended to keep you inside that fence forever. So when you're old enough, they taught you to cross the road. To look both ways for traffic before stepping out.

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    Because stepping out in front of a bus doing 80 will very probably kill you. Or leave you severely injured. And so you probably wouldn't make it to the park at all. And if you did, it would be a long, hard, painful way to get there. And that's very similar to our God warning us of things in our life.

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    But they taught you how to cross the road. What to be careful of. And you work out in your head what is true. And so what you do is guided by what you actually believe to be true. Which in this case, hopefully, is that what your parents told you is true. So you walk up to the side of the road.

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    You look both ways. And you see a bus about to drive past. And even though you want to keep walking to the other side of the road, you're not even slightly tempted to step out in front of that bus. You don't have to hold yourself back as the bus shoots past in front of you because even though you're not allowed to step in front of the bus, you want to.

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    See, it's not a temptation. Why? Because when your parents told you that it would severely kill you, you believed them. And in your mind, it became truth.

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    No longer just your parents' truth. It became your truth. When someone questions you, why don't you run in front of the bus? Your answer changes from, because mum and dad said so, to it will hurt me. Because it has become your truth. You see, what's changed is that you now believe.

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    And when does God count that one pearl of great price as being ours? When the truth, which you could say is the pearl, the truth. When what God's told us, when it stops simply being God's words and it becomes our truth.

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    When in our mind it stops being something that God said and it changes to being the bedrock of our life. The foundation of all the things that we do are based on it. Now it says of Abraham and us in Romans, from Romans chapter 4, no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith and gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

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    That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words that was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised up Jesus our Lord, who was delivered for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

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    Now Hebrews 11 .1, we all know this, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The word substance has the idea of foundation, the bedrock we base our life on.

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    Because we know the things that we hope for are true and are far more valued than worldly bells. In Romans 4, it says what worldly pearl Abraham had to give up. He had to be willing to leave it. The pearl of worldly wisdom, knowledge, science. Because in verse 19, just before we read there, it says of Abraham, from the God's Word translation, Abraham didn't weaken.

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    Through faith he regarded the facts. His body was already as good as dead. Now that he was about a hundred years old and years old and Sarah was unable to have children, he didn't doubt God's promise out of lack of faith. Instead, giving honour to God, he became strong because of faith. See, Abraham would have learnt a lot in his lifetime of travel, looking after cattle, a hundred years old and years old and years old.

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    And he knew the facts were, his body was nearly dead, Sarah was barren. That's what he had worked out. But what he based his life on, the bedrock, was not what he had worked out, but what God said.

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    And if what God said didn't work with what he had worked out, or seen, or been taught, he believed God. Because he had covenanted with God to give up that pearl of worldly wisdom and trust in truth. The one pearl of great price.

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    Now Isaiah 30 verse 1 reads, Woe to the rebellious children, said Yahweh, that take counsel, but not of me. And that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin. May God say, where do you go for counsel to guide your life? The world? What you know?

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    Or me? Abraham chose God. And God makes a fairly strong point of this. I was going to read some quotes. Deuteronomy 5 verse 32. You shall observe and do therefore as Yahweh your God hath commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. Deuteronomy 12 verse 32.

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    What things wherever I command you, observe to do it. Thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. It says in Joshua 1 verse 7. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper with us so ever thou goest.

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    And Proverbs 4, we read in Proverbs 4. Let thine eyes look right on. Let thine eyelids look straight before thee, ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil.

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    See, God's words, and God's words alone, are what can save us. We have to make them not just the truth, but our truth. Let's come over and read the last four verses of the Bible with me in Revelation.

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    We read there, chapter 22 from verse 18. He which testifies these things saith, surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. The last four verses that he's written to us. You see, you see the word, the words. For I testify, that he starts in verse 18.

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    And in verse 20, it says, he that testified, they mean to bear witness. And in John 18, verse 37, we've got the trial of Christ with Pilate. And Pilate talks to Christ and says, art thou a king then? Jesus answered, thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born.

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    And for this cause came I into the world. Lord, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.

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    And you see, he ends the Bible bearing witness to the fact that the truth has to be everything. Or it's nothing. What about the beginning of the Bible? Just turn back to Genesis chapter 3 with me.

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    We read from verse 1 of Genesis chapter 3. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

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    But what did God actually say? In chapter 2, verse 17, God says, Yes, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. God had said, If you eat it, you will die. But they said, If you touch it, or eat it, you will die.

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    Have you ever been tempted to eat or drink something that's deadly poison? To get a cup full of detergent and drink it because someone says it will be good for you.

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    You see, they didn't believe God that that bus would kill them. And so what they did, they tried to keep themselves back by adding a fence without realising one day they'd be tall enough to step over the fence and it would be powerless to stop them. Do you know what Colossians says about this?

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    In Colossians 2. Colossians 2 from verse 20. Colossians 2 from verse 20. They are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

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    Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. It's what he really says is you can't touch, you can't eat, you can't touch, or you'll die. You see, they didn't believe God and instead of realising this and coming to God for strength, they thought they could add to God's words to hold themselves back.

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    But they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. You see, the one pearl of great price, it has to be everything or it's nothing.

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    And I just want you to think back to Moses before I finish this morning. What he had to give up. He had to give up great riches. He had to give up family. He had to give up his own wisdom and power. He had to give up being king of the world.

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    Now there's another man in scripture that willingly gave up all these things as well. 2 Corinthians 8 verse 9 we read there For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he began poor that ye through his poverty might be rich.

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    Now our Lord could well and truly have not only turned stones into bread but also into gold or any other valuable substance to make unimaginable riches if he wanted if he believed that it was worth more than the one pearl of great price.

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    What about family? We read in Mark 3 of Christ's family says of Christ then he went home and the crowd gathered again so that he could not even eat and when his family heard of it they went out to seize him for they were saying he is out of his mind and then down a bit further his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent him and called him.

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    And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, Your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you. And he answered them, Who are my mother and my brothers? And looking around at those who sat around him, he said, Here are my mother and brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

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    And also, he says of his family in John 7 and 5, Neither did his brethren believe in him. So he had to be willing to leave the love of his family when they wanted to stop him doing God's work. Now it says his mother would have a sword pierce her soul, and he had to be a part of that.

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    What a wisdom, power, and honour. John 5 .30 I can of mine own self do nothing. As I hear, I judge. My judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. Mark 10 .18 Jesus said unto him, Why call us thou me good?

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    There is none good but one, that is God. John 7 .18 He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory. But he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.

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    Mark 26 .39 And he went a little further and fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. As he gave up his own honour and wisdom, and even his life.

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    And what of being king of the world. In Luke 4 we read, And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them.

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    For that is to live it unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

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    You see, all the things that Moses could have had, Our Lord willingly left them behind as well. And with all the abilities of our Lord, It was far more than Moses or even Solomon could have ever become. Yet willingly he gave it up. Because he knew, he believed, The truth was, it was nothing compared to what God offered.

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    You see, without God's truth, everything else becomes worthless. And he said to Pilate during his trial, For this purpose was I born, and for this purpose I have come into the world, To bear witness to the truth.

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    And in Hebrews 11 we have a whole chapter of amazing witnesses, Witnessing the power of, power and the pricelessness of what they believed in. God's truth. Which they had taken on as their truth. For which they willingly gave up everything else, Because it was worth it. And chapter 12 starts with us standing with them.

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    A great cloud of witnesses. And what are we doing? Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Hebrews 3 we read, Therefore, holy brothers, you who share a heavenly calling, Consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, Who was faithful to him who appointed him, Just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house.

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    For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. As much more glory as the builder of the house Has more honour than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, But the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, To testify, to witness the things that were here to be spoken later.

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    But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house. If we indeed hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

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    Now we come here often to look to Christ. And he is bearing witness to the truth of his creation. To use the words of Philippians, He's holding forth the word of life. The one pearl of great price. And he bears witness with so many of the faithful. Those that had believed and made the truth theirs.

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    That it's worth it. It's exceedingly worth it. And I want to remind us, All of us, Of the price of the covenant we have made. Like easy this morning.

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    Everything. All that we had and could have in this world. And I want to remind us also that sometimes we can feel like it's a big price we have paid. That those things had value. Like we're doing God a favour by keeping his truth. But the truth is, The price is ridiculously cheap.

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    And most of all I want to remind us that we have been given the one thing of real value in this world. Beyond all the glory and power and honour of the kingdoms of men. And Christ bears witness to that. That in the choice between those things and the truth. The truth is better.

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    Exceedingly better. And we've been given something of such value that the pilots of this world can never come close to its value. We've been given the one pearl of great price. Hold fast to it and never let it go.

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    Find more on your podcast. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.