What is your value?

Thank you very much, Mr. Miller. Once again, good afternoon, everyone. Once again, good to have you all here with us. Appreciate very much getting to see your smiling faces. It is so nice to be together. It is so nice to have the opportunity to gather together. Certainly do appreciate it. Brethren, this past week, there was a phenomenon that took place that the United States hasn't really seen since the fall of 2008. Last time something like this was seen, its origins were found in the housing market when there was demand for housing, interest rates, you know, low interest rates, predatory subprime lending, and things like that, which led to skyrocketing house prices and ultimately a perfect storm that created a housing bubble which came apart in the spring of 2007 and eventually popped in the fall of 2008. Many of you remember this. Most likely it hasn't been all that long ago. It hasn't been... it's only been, you know, 12 years ago since all of this happened. But as the fundamental and the foundational kind of aspects of the housing markets began to come apart at the seams in 2007 and 2008, so too did the rest of the market. Financial markets lost 30% of their value as this ripple effect found their way into different aspects of the stock market, different aspects of the bond market, commodities, etc. Many of you, again, likely remember this particular bubble.

Some of you might even have some pretty strong emotions regarding this particular bubble. You know, it was, again, very challenging. I know at the time when it popped in 2008, Shannon and I were some of the only folks in our neighborhood who kept our house. You know, our neighbors to the north and south of us, their homes foreclosed, the neighbors across the street on all three houses across the street foreclosed, the folks kind of kitty-corner to us in the back, their home foreclosed, and you know, our neighborhood completely in 2008 did a complete and total, you know, renewal of people coming in. Our home lost a third of its value, put us significantly upside down in our mortgage, and quite frankly, looking back on it, I'm thankful that's all that happened. You know, God was incredibly merciful. Again, we lost neighbors on all sides, but for those of you that remember that time that you were homeowners or business owners, it was a challenging period. And what's really fascinating about it, I think the part to me that's so interesting is that in many ways, fundamentally, your home didn't really have any less value, realistically. It was still a 3-2, you know, still three-bedroom, two-bath house. It was still on an acre. It was still on a city lot, or it had, you know, it was a 4-3, or it was a 5-4, if you're, you know, particularly, you know, affluent, perhaps. But it was still the same home it was before the bubble popped. But the difference is now, as a result of supply and demand, a shaky economy, maybe nervous purchasers, the removal of all that subprime lending that was pushing things forward, the number of buyers dropped, and the equity in your home plummeted. It's not the only economic bubble that's ever occurred in the United States. There was another one in the late 1920s. You might have heard about it. Some of you might have lived through it, you know, not the not the 20s themselves, necessarily, but the after effect of that time during the Roaring 20s. During the mid to late 20s, there was a bull market on the stock market that took place. Individuals started to want to take advantage of that, so they began leveraging debt, and they began buying stocks, they began buying commodities using debt and credit, and ultimately that drove the stock market up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up. It just kind of kept going. But at some point in time, all that goes up must come down. In 1929, kind of September 3rd, roughly, the bubble began to deflate. By October 24th, Black Thursday occurred. The crash began to hit. There were 13 million shares that were sold on that day as the markets panicked. The Dow fell 38 points. You know, we hear that number and just kind of laugh because we have a regular dip now of 400 to 600 and don't necessarily blink an eye. But 38 point drop on the Thursday, went into the weekend. By the following Tuesday, there were 16.5 million shares changed. That was October 29th, Black Tuesday, and the stock market had officially crashed. Cheap shares equal people buying, so there was a rally on the markets that wasn't very long-lived. By the early 1930s, the United States was into a Great Depression, and that Great Depression lasted for quite some time. So these kind of things have happened before. In fact, you may have heard of probably the most well-known example of what is called a speculative bubble. It took place in the Netherlands in the 1600s. It took place in the Netherlands in the 1600s, and I know a number of you... I had somebody get me a prop. I know a number of you have been to Dutch Brothers before, okay? I know a number of you have been to Dutch Brothers. Dutch Brothers is a great Oregon company. It was founded in Grants Pass area in 1992.

They've now expanded throughout the western United States, and they have a very unique brand of enthusiasm and slinging coffee. One thing you will find, you know, your baristas are very friendly at most coffee places that you go to. The folks at Dutch Bros are another level friendly and enthusiastic. You roll up and roll their window down, and they're like, you know, you're gonna have a moment of, whoa, wait a minute, but they are stoked, they're excited, they're ready to sling you some coffee. We like Dutch Bros. We love Dutch Bros. But their cups have kind of a lot of different things that are uniquely Dutch, right? I mean, they're Dutch Bros. They have things that are uniquely Dutch. The cup has a windmill on it. Cup has a windmill because the Netherlands is famous for its windmills.

A number of those windmills are used to grind grist, like different grains for flowers, and a number of them also are designed to move water using kind of an Archimedes screw principle, which is a really cool design, especially for the 1600s. But the other thing that you're gonna see on just about every Dutch Bros cup, and it's hard to see on this one, but they're there, are tulips. Little itty-bitty tulips in between each of the words right here around the bottom of this particular cup. Why is that? Well, it's those tulips where the speculative bubble of the 1600s lies.

In the late 1500s, tulips began to arrive in Europe from Turkey, and the Dutch people loved them. I mean, these were things that were just beautiful—and tulips are beautiful, they're a beautiful flower—but the Dutch people loved them, and they commanded this certain degree of, like, exoticness that would come along with things from the east, such as oriental rugs, spices, things that you couldn't get in the Netherlands. And so, instantly, these tulips became an item of luxury.

They became a status symbol in many ways, like a Rolex or a McLaren would be today. Right? So it had this degree of status, but they were also notoriously fragile. By the early 1600s, the cultivators had learned a lot about the plants—you know, things that we just simply take for granted today. We want to get a tulip, we go down to the store, and we buy some tulip bulbs.

Right? But they were still learning exactly how these things reproduced in the 1600s. They were trying to figure out how it worked. What they learned was that if it grew from seed, it took up to 12 years for that plant to flower. But if you took one of the little bulbs and you replanted it, it would flower the following year. And so suddenly now there was supply. But the demand is something that they, you know, underestimated very much.

They also discovered that certain tulips would create these really cool little striped multicolored patterns, and those became incredibly rare. Those became incredibly rare. At that point, you get this really interesting situation that occurs in the Netherlands. Basic economics runs on supply and demand. Right? We're not going to get into all the, you know, insanity of the economics of the stock market and things, but supply and demand is essentially the way it operates.

If the supply is greater than the demand, the price is cheap. But if the demand is greater than the supply, the price is much, much higher. And so at that point, there was this massive discrepancy between these two things. The tulips were highly sought-after and there wasn't enough of them to go around. And so the value of these tulips gradually got more and more and more.

And as they got more and more and more valuable, people wanted them more and more. And so you get this feeding frenzy, this positive feedback loop, so to speak, that occurs to where at some point the value of that item becomes whatever someone is willing to pay for it. It has nothing to do with the fact that it's a flower anymore. It has everything to do with, I just want to pay more than that guy does, because I want it more than he does.

And if you look at our housing markets, you look at a number of other things, is that not the way they work? You look at your home and what it's worth, you know, is it worth what somebody's necessarily willing to pay for it depends on where the swing in the market is, right? So the value of those things are worth what people are willing to pay for them.

In about 1634, the demand reached this feverish pitch, and so many people were interested in purchasing and trading these bulbs that the demand completely overran supply. I was looking this up on website, it's called Investopedia, but a single bulb at that point in time in 1634 became worth as much as 4,000 to 5,500 florins.

Now, it's difficult to put this exact price on a florin, but given the prices of items that they have recorded and how much it cost in florins to get them, they estimate today the bulbs were trading between 50,000 to 150,000 US dollars for a tulip bulb. One tulip bulb, okay? Because the market drove the price through the roof, because there wasn't enough to go around. Everybody wanted them. And so at that point in time, they began to list them on the stock exchange of Amsterdam, and professional traders began trading in these bulbs, because it seemed, you know, really apparent that a guy could make money if he owned some of these bulbs.

And again, the prices continued to go higher and higher and higher, but like we said earlier, whatever goes up must come down.

By 1637, the bubble burst, the tulip market crashed, and people who previously had a lot of money and a lot of ability to offload things and a lot of affluence found themselves sitting on tulip bulbs. And all that that tulip bulb now was worth. A lot of people got stuck holding the bag, possessing these tulip bulbs, ultimately, which were now worth nothing but their inherent value as a beautiful flower. The events of tulip mania didn't have a massive ripple through the economics of the Netherlands, because they weren't necessarily tied to individual economic, you know, dollar amounts per se, but it's interesting to consider what can happen when you have a value placed upon a commodity and a frenzy of people who desire that particular commodity. The events of this particular thing ultimately led to the Netherlands being full of tulips. In fact, if you look at... go to Google... go to Google Images at some point and type in Netherlands on the image search, guaranteed one of the photos that comes up will be a sea of tulips with windmills in the background. That's just an incredibly Dutch thing, okay? So that's how Netherlands got full of tulips.

It was a result of one of the largest speculative bubbles in human history. Now this past week, as I mentioned, the United States saw something similar, which has been building for the better part of a year. Some of you that listen to the news or listen to the radio, you likely heard something about this this week, as a lot of people were talking about it. The video game company GameStop was a company that was particularly hit hard by the pandemic. GameStop, for those that are not familiar, is a brick-and-mortar online... or a brick-and-molar... molar...

brick-and-mortar retailer... there's the word... that sells video games and video game consoles, primarily. And they're a company that's had some challenges.

They're a company that has been slowly declining in value over time because, as people move from brick-and-mortar to retail or to online retailers, they just don't go into these brick-and-mortar companies. So because of the shift in things, basically GameStop existed because there would be a release of a new console like the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation 4 and now the PlayStation 5, and their market value would increase significantly because people are coming through the door and then it would slowly begin to drop off until the next console and then it would jump and then it would slowly drop off. Well, addition to that, there's been this long slow downward trend and, as a result of that, there were a number of hedge funds on Wall Street that determined that the company was going to go under, so they began to short the company. And what that essentially means is they began to bet on the demise of the company of GameStop.

They began to bet on their demise. In fact, they bet so much that they said, I think that the shares are going to go down to a certain price by a certain date and, if they do, then I tend to gain a lot of money in the options. The other thing that they did was they sold the company short, which means they borrow shares from their broker. They sell them at a higher price. Okay, they pocket that money and then they wait for the price to drop and then they rebuy the shares at a lower price and they give those shares, the cheaper ones, back to the broker and they pocket the difference. So, for example, just kind of an analogy to help explain this a little bit, it's like if you were someone who could get an Xbox console for $450 when they retail for $500, but you run around and you tell everybody you know, I can get you an Xbox console, all it's going to cost you is $500. So you run out and you go out to try to buy all of these things and if you buy them all for $500 and you only pay $450, you pocket the difference. Okay, that's essentially kind of along the lines of an analogy that helps explain this, but about a year ago, there was a gentleman that noticed that GameStop was being so heavily shorted, in fact, they had borrowed 140% of the shares of the company. So they borrowed more shares than the company actually has. And he realized, wait a minute, that's gonna come back and bite these guys. So he started buying shares. He also went online and he began to encourage other people to buy shares. And in doing so, the person in the analogy who said, I can get you an Xbox for $500 and I'll just pocket the extra 50 bucks, suddenly there's no Xboxes to be found when you go back and you try to buy them back. And those people who are holding those Xboxes get to say however much they want to spend or they want to sell them to you for. And so maybe the price of that Xbox is $700 or $1,000, but you still have to buy them and you still have to get them to the people you promised that you would get them back to. What that did was that caused the price of that stock to skyrocket. That stock a year ago, GameStop was trading at $3.93 a share a year ago. Thursday morning, well, it was about a 30 a share about a month ago, 80 a share a couple of weeks ago, and about a hundred a share at the beginning of this week. As demand again began to outpace supply, then you saw this exponential jump in price and ultimately Thursday morning, GameStop stock for a brief moment traded at $483 per share. The gentleman who hedged his bets with a $53,000 original investment when it was $393 a share was sitting on 23 million. Now he hasn't sold those shares yet, so that's not realized gains, and it could do all kinds of stuff at this point, but suddenly now all these hedge funds that had promised that they would return these shares, there's no shares to return, and so the price climbs and the price continues to go up.

It's called a short squeeze. Now this has been done in a lot of different places this week. In fact, there was a headphone manufacturer, a Koss, they went from 60 a share to 130. AMC Theaters went from $2 to $23. This happened all over the market this week, and for a lot of people they took a look at this and they saw it ultimately as a sign of what is to come. That we've reached this point where market speculation has gotten so out of control, just like the tulips, just like the 20s, just like the housing boom, that we could very well be looking at the beginning of the burst of that particular bubble. Now it's going to be interesting to see what comes in the coming weeks and months, but what's fascinating to me about all of this is that the valuation of that stock had nothing to do with GameStop's company fundamentals. Now, I won't say nothing to do. They have some improvements in some things. They definitely are worth more than $3.93 a share. $3.93 a share. Sorry, let me put the decimal point in there to make that clear. But are they worth $4.83 a share? At the moment, it's worth whatever somebody's willing to pay for it, and that is the market, apparently, that is GameStop at this point in time. Value of a business is derived by a lot of complex factors. There's a lot of technical analysis that goes into it. It has to do with the company's earnings, its business plans, it has to do with a lot of other little technical fundamentals that give you the idea of how much that company is actually worth. But again, at times, we talked about the tulip market, we talked about the housing market, we talked about the roaring 20s, and then what we saw this past week. Sometimes none of that matters, and it's worth whatever person is willing to pay for it. The title of the sermon today is, What is your value? What is your value? You know, we think about ourselves, we think about ourselves as individuals, we think about our self-worth and the value that we ultimately place on ourselves. These kind of things, you know, self-worth has gotten a lot of press over the years, particularly in the past several years, from a standpoint of social media and how that impacts our self-worth, in particular among our teens and our young people, as social media really amplifies the effect that society has when it comes to actually determining one's own self-worth or value. And again, it's a concern that has been brought up a number of times in a lot of places regarding young people in particular, but you know, adults often face some of the same issues that our teens do and our young adults do with regards to their own value and self-worth.

Today, we tend to base our value on external factors. We look at things that that are, you know, outside, so to speak, at times, and we judge our self-worth on that. So, by example, sometimes we determine our self-worth based on the people we know. Based on the people we know, if, you know, we know people who are prominent or who are influential, then, you know, our sphere of friends, perhaps, is how we determine our self-worth. We look externally and we see, hey, you know, these are the individuals I know, they're important, therefore, I must be important, too. Right? And we have this kind of this view of our self-worth that's wrapped up in an external factor of the people that we know. We might also base our self-worth on our occupation, maybe even the importance of its perception in society. And if you ever noticed how often people are willing to be rude to a waiter, you know, I don't know why they're not necessarily willing to be as rude to their doctor, but I think it ultimately has something to do with our society's perception of employment and our society's perception of what is a, you know, essential, quote-unquote, to use that term, job and what it's not.

And the pay, again, is in accordance. So sometimes, I think people can have their self-worth valued upon what it is that they do. They can have feelings of self-worth based on if they determine that, you know, I wished I had done more and I haven't, so therefore, my self-worth is wrapped up in that. Sometimes, base our self-worth based on our possessions, base our self-worth based on what we own, base it on our possessions, based on our income, about the car that we have.

Sometimes, we base it whether or not we're keeping up with the Joneses or whether the Joneses have run us roughshod, you know, we kind of base our self-worth based on that. We compare ourselves to others, and maybe we see people who are performing better than we are and we conclude somehow that we are worth less, not worthless, but worth space less, right? And one of the other things that we often judge our self-worth on is physical or emotional appearance. You know, we look at how we look and we look at the supermodels that we see on magazine covers and television and movies, and we conclude I don't look like them, and so therefore, maybe I don't have the same level of worth as they do based on the amount of focus that society puts on those individuals.

You know, maybe our six-pack looks a little more like a barrel, you know, or a one-pack, so to speak. Maybe we have a few more wrinkles than we had a few years prior, you know, and we look at that and that gets to us. That kind of hits us a little bit. So there's a lot of other factors. This is just a couple, but there's a lot of other factors that can affect our self-worth.

Some of the things that occurred in our past can ultimately affect our self-worth, whether we were victims of abuse or somehow had other trauma in our life. They call these things ACEs, negative events in our childhood. They're adverse childhood experiences. Sometimes those can result in us seeing ourselves in a negative light and ultimately concluding that we are worth less than we truly are. And part of that, I think, too, not just externally, comes about from us kind of knowing a little bit of what goes on inside the company, too.

We know the challenges that we face spiritually. We recognize perhaps the fruit that we have or maybe even a lack thereof. We recognize that we really should be living this life more effectively. We know about our study schedule, our prayer schedule, our meditation, our fasting, and maybe we kind of struggle a little bit with that and we begin to believe the lies that Satan tells us that we have no worth.

We're not going to succeed. We're incapable of being loved. And ultimately, we can begin to conclude very, very quickly that we really are not worth much in the long run. But brethren, is that true? Is that what God believes? Let's turn to Matthew 10. Matthew 10. Is that what God believes? You know, sometimes I think when we believe something and we, you know, feel it very, very much very real to us, you know, when we feel something that's very real to us, like there's times that we can believe that into being in some ways.

We can actually reach a point where we begin to believe it so much, we begin to believe that lie so much, that we absolutely feel it to be real. But what does God say? What does God say? Matthew 10. Matthew 10. We'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 29. Just kind of jump in here. It says, "...are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? Not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father's will, but the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Verse 31, "...do not fear therefore you are of more value than many sparrows." So one thing we can absolutely conclude from Scripture is you are definitely worth more than a sparrow. In fact, more than many sparrows is what it specifically says. I'm obviously joking, but the reality is here, God gives us a lot in this particular passage. He talks about how two sparrows are sold for a copper coin. These birds that are everywhere, you know, they're all over the place.

You know, there's not a lot of value to them necessarily in that regard, but you can sell two of them for a single copper coin. But he goes on to say that not one of them dies apart from God's will. He goes on to tell his disciples the very heads or the very heads of their hair.

The very hairs of their head are numbered. You know, God knows and cares for us such as he numbers the hairs on our head. And if nothing happens apart from God's will in the world of the sparrows, then the same goes for us. God's not distant. God's not watching from afar, just, you know, asleep behind the wheels, so to speak.

He is intimately involved in his creation. He is intimately involved in your life, and he says, he concludes here, do not be afraid, do not worry for you of our or our of much more value than many sparrows. Let's go just a couple page back here to Matthew 6. Matthew 6 is kind of a similar thought, kind of a similar analogy. Matthew 6, we'll go ahead and pick it up in in verse 24. Matthew 6 verse 24 here talking about the relationship that we have with God, the relationship that we have with the world around us. He says, verse 24, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

Says you cannot serve God and and mammon, ultimately you cannot serve God and money, but mammon was an idol.

Mammon was something that was very, very specific in that regard. Says, therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Says, look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Are you not of more value than they? Verse 27, which of you by worrying can add one cubit to a stature? Really like that, you know. Which of you by worrying can make yourself taller? You know, wish it was a little bit taller, right? So why do you worry about the clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin. And he says, and yet I say to you that not even Solomon, in all of his glory, or in Solomon, sorry, in all his glory, was not a raid like one of these. Now if God so closed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, verse 31, do not worry, saying, what should we eat, and what should we drink, or what should we wear? For after all these things the Gentiles seek, for your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. You know, once again, Christ makes the point that we are worth so much more than the birds of the air. God cares for them, he feeds them, despite their not sowing or reaping or gathering into barns, that God feeds them, and God cares for them. And he says, are you not more valuable than they? Are you not worth more to God than they are? So we know, based on this, we shouldn't worry about our food, or drink, or clothing. Ultimately, these are the things the Gentiles seek, but God knows we need these things. He ultimately concludes by telling them to seek first the kingdom of God and these things and in God's righteousness, and these things, all these concerns that we have, will be added unto us. Right? He says sufficient for the day is its own trouble. So he's not saying here that we'll necessarily be incredibly wealthy. He's saying that our needs will be taken care of. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that we won't live more comfortably than most, or some.

It's not a guarantee. God's guarantee is that He will care for us, and that's gonna look different from person to person. It's gonna look different from circumstance to circumstance, and ultimately how He takes care of us is gonna look different from person to person and circumstance to circumstance.

But God says, you take care of the things that are truly important, and He says, I'll take care of the rest. He says, you worry about the things that really matter, and I will take care of the rest. He says, because you're worth more than sparrows, you're worth more than lilies, and you're worth more than the grass of the field. Now, how much are you worth to God? How much are you worth to God?

The answer to that is you are precious. You are absolutely precious. Let's go to Isaiah 43. Isaiah 43. Isaiah 43, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 4.

Isaiah 43, and okay, we'll do verse 1. I always say that, and then I decide I want to start earlier. I should just start making sure I start in 1 and just read the whole thing. Verse 43, or chapter 43 in verse 1, says, But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I've redeemed you. I have called you by your name. He says, You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flames scorch you, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seabay and your place, since you are precious in my sight. You have been honored, and I have loved you. Therefore, I will give men for you and people for your life. He says, Fear not, I am with you. I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west, and I will say to the north, Give them up, and I will say to the south, Do not keep them back. Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Everyone who has called by my name, whom I have created for my glory, I have formed him. Yes, I have made him. You know, God here is speaking to his children Israel through through Isaiah, people that he had chosen, and he says to them they are precious in his sight, that he loved them, that he was with them because he had made them. And, brethren, mind you, this is despite the fact that they were unfaithful at times. They were rebellious at times. God was with them. He promises ultimately to deliver them from their bondage and their captivity, not just physically, but spiritually through Christ the Messiah. And he actually goes on further down in this, and we won't we won't read it, but if you want to take a look at it, it begins in verse 19. He goes on to talk about this end time deliverance that is to come as well, and this spiritual deliverance that would occur, that this highway of return in the desert, this space where the people would return and they would come to him and they would build that relationship with him. Like, that's that new thing that he talks about in verses 19 to 28. That he would bring them back to him, that he would return them despite that rebellion, despite that captivity, which he goes on in this passage and says it was for their own sake, that that captivity was for their own sake. Despite all those things, Israel remained his special people. They remained a people whom he saw the value of and whom he cared for despite, again, their challenges. The book of Hosea talks about this. Flip over to Hosea. Hosea is an interesting book. There's a lot of parallels between the book of Hosea and the things that we see today, prophetically, but if you turn to the book of Hosea, we're gonna go ahead and pick it up in Hosea 1 and verse 1.

But Hosea was a prophet that lived during the time of Jeroboam II, and this time you can jot this down in your notes. It's recorded in 2 Kings 14, 23 through 29, and it's recorded as a time that was incredibly challenging to the people of Israel. Jeroboam II was an evil king. He followed in the sins of Jeroboam I, who had ultimately caused Israel to sin through idolatry. And under Jeroboam II, the affliction of the people of Israel was incredibly bitter. In fact, it talks about in 2 Kings how there was no helper for them. You know, it was an incredibly bitter time for the people of Israel, and there was no helper.

They felt very much like they were on their own. When you take a look at extra-biblical writings of this time period, kind of some of the different histories, they helped to illustrate a little bit the challenges that were occurring under Jeroboam and the conflict that they had with Syria at the time. Syria had been losing economically and militarily to Israel for a bit, and ultimately they were able to claim a lot of territory. They claimed territory to the north of Israel, and they claimed territory to the east of Israel.

And that brought in a great deal of economic wealth and a great deal of consolidated kind of militaristic power. And as a result of that, there was this economic windfall that enabled the elite in Israel to abuse that incoming wealth and economic status. Archaeological digs at the time from that time period illustrate a huge disparity between what we might say the haves and the have-nots.

They talk about these massive manners, these huge manners that were built for the elite and the rich at that time, and then they talk about the Havels and the small, you know, huts that were built for the poor of Israel at that time as well. So they believe very much that there was a huge wide range of differences between the classes at that point in time in Israel and a great gap in wealth.

Hosea 1, verse 1, says, The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beery, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. When the LORD began to speak by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, Go take yourself a wife of harlotry, and children of harlotry, for the land is permitted great harlotry by departing from the LORD. And so God is symbolically making a point to Israel here through Hosea. So he went and he took Gomer, the daughter of Deblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

And the LORD said to him, Call his name Jezreel. For in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel, which shall come to pass in that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." So there's a prediction here of a militaristic defeat that ultimately would break the strength of Israel in that militaristic defeat.

Says, And she conceived again and bore a daughter, and God said to him, Call her name Lo Ruhama, which means without mercy, essentially. Call her name Lo Ruhama, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel. I will utterly take them away, yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, or battle, by horses, or horsemen.

Says when she had weaned Lo Ruhama, she conceived and bore a son, and God said, Call his name Loami, which basically means not my people. For you are not my people, and I will not be your God. You know, so we might conclude, you know, at first glance from these passages, that God wrote off Israel.

That they disobeyed him, they rebelled, and so therefore that was it. Game over, we're done. They would no longer be his people, that he would no longer show them mercy. And Israel certainly suffered, you know, consequences from their choices and their actions. They were under siege by the Assyrians, which was a horrific situation. You know, the southern kingdom was under siege as well, ultimately, and conquered by the Babylonians, taken into captivity. But it was these captivities which God talked about in Isaiah 43 for the good of his people. For the sake of his people, they would come under captivity. You think about times throughout history in which the Jewish people have experienced persecution and captivity.

You think about the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in the 70s AD. You know, the dispersion that occurred at that time as they ended up in various places throughout the Roman Empire, and their way of life was cracked down on in persecution. You might imagine these were times of incredible challenge. They were times of extreme difficulty. You know, we mentioned last week we talked just briefly about how Jeremiah records a great deal of the challenges that were going on at this time, and you get this beautiful, like, lamentation of Jeremiah in Lamentations as well as the book of Jeremiah as he watched his nation fall apart, and as he watched his nation essentially come apart at the seams.

And as you might imagine, as many of you are seeing in some ways similar things, you know, as we've seen a decline in America over time, it's hard to watch. You know, it's hard to be a part of it. It's hard to experience and see the decline over the past, you know, several decades. Morally, you know, in particular. Morally. But it's really important to think about what God says next in verse 10 of Hosea. Okay? So he's just concluded they will be not no longer be my people.

They will no longer, you know, have mercy. And in fact, I'm gonna break their power, you know, in this situation in the Valley of Jezreel. But notice what he says in verse 10. He says, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered, and it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people. What does he say? He says, there it shall be said to him or to them, you are sons of the living God.

He goes on and says, then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together. They shall appoint themselves one head and they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

You know, God hasn't written off Israel and Judah. You know, he hasn't written them off. The promises that God made to Abraham, that his descendants would be as the sand of the sea, the stars of the heavens, those are promises which God upheld. Those are absolutely promises that God upheld. The promises were physically and spiritually, God would bless the children of the world, or bless, you know, Abraham's children as well as the children of the world, through him. Those are blessings that God followed through on.

Those are blessings that God provided. And God makes the point here that while for a time they were without mercy and were not his people, that at a point in the future they would once again have his mercy and they would once again be his people. That a time would come in the future in which he would be their God and they would be his people and they would once again receive his mercy. And we see that reference throughout Scripture of the joining of Judah and Israel at the time of Christ's return and the return ultimately and of God's kingdom.

You know, you think about putting yourself in the position, though, of Israel at these times. You know, you consider being a random person in Judah during the siege.

You consider being a random person in Israel during the siege in the conquest. You might look around at that time and conclude that we're not worth a whole lot, ultimately, in the whole scheme of things. Here I am in captivity.

I'm a slave to some Babylonian or I'm a slave to some Assyrian who mistreats me, who ultimately, you know, causes me to, you know, tries to cause me to defile my God.

My nation's gone. Here I am in captivity. God isn't with me. You know, we might have that conclusion, but what was God's position in all of it? What was his position? We see that God upheld his promise. We see that God had a long-term vision. We see that God saw the true value and the true potential of Israel in the future. Now, what does that mean for us? Why does that matter? Where are we going here, Ben? Come on. Here's where we're going. Philippians 1 verse 6.

Philippians 1 and verse 6. God sees long-term. God does not see the short-term per se. Yes, the short-term is there, but God is a long-term investor, so to speak.

Philippians 1 and verse 6. Apostle Paul writes to those in Philippi, he says, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making requests for you with all joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. He says, being confident, says Paul, of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. In other words, God will finish what he started. God will finish what he started. He didn't start something that he has no intent to finish. God didn't decide to call you, to provide you the opportunity to be part of his family, give you the down payment of his Holy Spirit, that symbol of his intent to purchase us, you know, that earnest money, so to speak, only to then turn around and give up on us. That's not how God works. Only for God, somehow, to look at us and say, you know what? Well, that was a stinker of an investment. That didn't work out so good. Maybe that person wasn't worth it after all. God finishes what he starts. The only person who can prevent that from occurring is us.

Through our despising of that birthright opportunity that he's given us, our refusal to accept the call that he has provided us, or, once we have, turning and running from him every opportunity that we get. Whatever that form may take in our life, the only person who can stop that process from going to the end is us.

And whether we believe the lies, whether we believe the lies that Satan tells us, because what makes this challenging, what makes this life so difficult, is that our adversary is out to destroy us. Satan is out to destroy us. He works, you know, in our mind, he works through the experiences that we have that we draw this conclusion, ultimately, from the challenges that we face in our own personal issues. And sometimes those issues can be incredibly deep-seated. They go back years and years and years. But he gets us to look at the emotions that we experience, and he gets us to look at the temptations that we face and the sin that we commit, and for us to somehow come to the conclusion that ultimately we're not worth the investment, that we are incapable of truly being loved. That if other people knew who I really was, or knew who we really were, that we couldn't be loved. You know, that's not the way God works. That's not the way that God works. That God couldn't possibly love us. That's not the way God works. Brethren, that's a lie. That's a lie. It simply is. You know, our self-worth is not about our accomplishments, it's not about our job, it's not about who we know, it's not about what we own, or the car that we drive, or the, you know, number of packs that you can count in your abs. I'm still telling you a one-pack is a thing. It's not about our beauty, it's not about our influence, or how many likes we get on social media.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the abuse and the trauma that we experienced in our past, despite how powerfully those things can ultimately affect our lives going forward. Particularly if we don't get them taken care of. Brethren, our self-worth is defined solely by the price that someone is willing to pay for us. Our self-worth is defined by the price that someone is willing to pay for us. This past week, a share of GameStop stock that traded six months ago at, six months to a year ago, at $3.93 a share, sold for $483. Because someone was willing to pay it. The fundamentals of the company didn't matter. Made no difference at all in that scenario. That was the value of that stock at that moment in time, because, quite frankly, everyone wanted a piece of it and was willing to pay whatever it took. Brethren, what was our purchase price?

What was our purchase price? What are you worth? What are what is your value? What was your father willing to pay for you? Let's go to 1 Peter 1, verse 17. 1 Peter 1 and verse 17. 1 Peter 1 and verse 17 says, And if you call on the Father, again 1 Peter 1, verse 17, if you call on the Father who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. Okay? Be wise. Verse 18, knowing that you are not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers. Verse 19, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Brethren, you were not redeemed with gold or silver.

Your purchase did not come about as a result of tradition from your ancestors.

Peter says you were redeemed with something worth far more than silver or gold. Quite frankly, brethren, your share price cannot be expressed in dollars.

There is not a fortune on this earth that could purchase you because you've already been sold. You've already been bought. And the price with which, or the price that was paid for you, was the precious blood of God's only begotten Son. Our great God saw that you are worth a lot more than you think you are.

Maybe. I mean, if you think a lot of yourself, maybe not, but no. Our God saw that you are worth so much more than you think you are. He saw an ability for there to be a significant return on his investment. So he chose you. He placed his spirit in you as a down payment or earnest payment, his intent to purchase, and he is waiting to redeem the increasing value of that investment until the right moment. You know, as we bring things to a close here today and we think about what we've talked about with the bubbles that have built, the burst in 1600s in Netherlands and people sitting on piles of worthless tulip bulbs at that point in time, the stock market that crashed in 1929, the housing market that came apart at the seams in 2008, when that one safe investment that everybody always tells you, real estate, one safe investment, turns out it wasn't so safe. What goes up will come down. It absolutely will. And some folks who are playing into the GameStop craze are gonna get rich.

Absolutely they are. Other folks are gonna lose everything when that comes down. Those astronomically high prices are going to stop at some point in time.

They're going to come down. But it's interesting to me as you look at this, you know, this as it's unfolded over this past week, that there's an incredible lesson in it. And I think that incredible lesson is that the value of something is worth what a person is willing to pay for it. You know, markets, housing prices, those things, they go up, they go down. The valuation of you and your calling is unchanging. It doesn't change with the markets. It doesn't change with the economy.

Your valuation and the purchase price that was paid for you is unchanging.

Because it's the blood of Christ. It always has been the blood of Christ. He died so that you and I may live. Brethren, God saw something in you which illustrated to him your future potential. It may not be realized now.

You know, Mr. Welch wrote about in his MMS, you know, E-News, kind of his personal this week of, you know, why me? You know that idea of why me? And I know you've, many of you have probably had that conversation with God before. But he's called you and he's offered you eternal life. He's redeemed you with the blood of his son, paying a price more than all the fortunes of this world combined to purchase you. Brethren, let that sink in. Truly, let that sink in as to the value that you have in the eyes of your Father. Let us recognize that. Let us live in accordance with that value. Let us represent that value to this world. Let us go out and represent the value that Jesus Christ's blood is. In our workplace, our families, his husbands, wives, his fathers, mothers, his neighbors. Let us all live in accordance with that price that was paid for us because, brethren, we were bought with an incredible price. A truly incredible price. So let us glorify God in our body and in our thoughts, words, actions, not becoming slaves to anything but the one who saw our true value and purchased us knowing what we can and what we will become.