There are some things revealed
in the Scriptures that are precious to God. They're precious to God. And I want to look at seven of
these things. I'm going to spend a great deal
of time on them because we have seven. But I want to look at
each one of them. And I want you to turn with me
to these seven Scriptures. And let's see what's precious
to God. And let's see if these things
are precious to us. The first thing we read about
here in Psalm 133 is the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This is precious. The text is dealing with brotherly
love. It says, verse 1, behold how
good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity. And then he tells what it's like.
It's like the precious ointment. upon the head, that ran down
upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the
skirts of his garment. That oil was made out of the
most costly, most valuable spices there were. And that oil represents
the Holy Spirit. That oil was poured out upon
Aaron. Aaron was the high priest. And
Christ is the high priest of his people upon who was anointed
with the Holy Spirit beyond measure. And this brotherly love and this
true brotherly love which is unity together and unity by which
We're joined to Christ in love. That's the true love, is first
to Christ. If there's love to Christ, there'll
be brotherly love. There'll be brotherly love. It's
the bond that binds His people together. And this bond that
binds us with Christ and binds us to each other is due to the
anointing of the Holy Spirit. That is, the Holy Spirit giving
us life and all things that pertain to godliness. We would not have
any idea that we'd been sanctified by the electing grace of God
the Father, that we'd been perfected forever by the one offering of
Christ, sanctified in Him by our sanctifier, had we not been
sanctified by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This is what
the Scriptures tell us in 2 Corinthians 13-14. I'll just read this to
you. But it's, he says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost. You see the
three joined together? And it's by this communion of
the Holy Spirit that we have, and that we're united to Christ.
So that in Christ, who is the King and the Priest, Each of
us who are brethren are made kings and priests unto God. We serve our King and we offer
up sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing in His sight by this holy anointing.
That's precious, isn't it? That's precious. Precious, precious. Here's the second thing, 1 Peter
2, 7. We're familiar with a few of these. We've looked at them
recently, but I want you to see these again. I didn't do these
in really a particular order, but I did put the anointing of
the Holy Spirit first because we have to have that before we
can behold these other things. But when we have that anointing
of that precious anointing of that oil of the Spirit, Christ
Himself is precious. Look at 1 Peter 2, 7. Unto you
therefore which believe, He is precious. He is precious. The all-important question is
this, what think ye of Christ? That's the all-important question. This is so, in proportion to
how the Holy Spirit makes us to see our dire, desperate, worthless
condition. That's how much Christ will be
precious to us in direct proportion to it. You see somebody that
could take or leave Christ, that don't care to really hear all
that much about him, it's because they don't think they need him
all that much. The person who can't live without Christ knows
he has no life without Christ. Christ is precious. It's like
a, you ever seen like a, A dovetail joint that goes, you know, they
go right together. That's how it is. It's disproportionate
to how God reveals our dire need is how we'll love and regard
him as precious. And it's him that's precious.
He is the fitness himself. The preciousness is in his person.
That's what the preciousness is. He's God the Son. If he were
not divine deity, then his work wouldn't have been effectual,
it wouldn't have been saving work. It's his divine deity of
his person. He's God the Son. He's God. He's
God. And he's man. And that means
that he was able as a man, the sinless, spotless man, perfect,
undefiled, separate from sinners. He was able to lay down his life
and make himself to be the substitute for his people. He was able because
He's spotless, the spotless Lamb. And He could do that, wherein
there's no other one that could do that. He's the only one that
could do that. And this one is... He's the one
who's precious to us because He's God and He's man. That means
all power in heaven and earth is given to Him so that just
as He provided everything for us when He went to the cross
and laid down His life for us, So it is that from His throne
of grace, He continues with all power and all in heaven and earth
to work everything to bring the truth to His people, to give
them life and faith and all things through the Spirit of God. He's
able to do this through His gospel. And because He's man, burdened
and touched with all the feeling of our infirmities. This same
one who has control of everything that is his, all things, from
the least little atom to the biggest thing me and you can
see. Every bit of it is in his omnipotent control. And this
same one knows exactly what you and I need, what we go through,
what we suffer, so they can sympathize with every one of our needs.
There's not a more precious one than Christ. He's precious. He's an honor. He's an honor.
Unto you, therefore, who believe, He is precious. And so it is
in 1 Peter 1.19. And this goes right along with
that. When we see how precious He is, that's when we really
understand how precious His blood is. How precious His blood is. First Peter 119 says, we were
redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. Life is in the blood. If you have no life, no blood
in you, you will have no life in you. The life's in the blood. It's the most precious thing,
is blood. The life's in the blood. Well,
without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin.
There's no putting away of the sin of His people without the
shedding of blood. Christ's shedding of blood means
His life. Without Him giving His life,
in our room instead, there wouldn't be any putting away of sin. the blood of Christ, the life
of Christ. That's what links. That's the
link that brings together God's infinite holy justice and God's
mercy. That's the uniting bond that
joins together God's holiness with his love and his mercy and
his goodness to us. And that's the bond, that blood
is the bond that brings you and I into the union to see and delight
in His holiness, in His justice, in His righteousness. Because
that holiness, that righteousness, that justice demands His love
and His mercy and His kindness continue to us. because it's
all wrapped up in that blood. It's all satisfied and joined
together in that blood. And that's what makes us rejoice
in Him, is that blood. He purchased the church with
His own blood. It's precious to us because it's
precious to the Father. It's precious to the Father.
When God saves a sinner, whatever is precious to God, He makes
that precious to His people. And all of these things, they're
precious to Him. This holy unity that He creates
by His Spirit, that is precious to the Father. This One who is
God the Son in human flesh, He's precious to the Father. His blood
is precious to God the Father. And He makes that which is precious
to Him, precious to His people. He entered into that presence
of God with His blood. He purges the conscience of His
people with His blood. His blood continually cleanseth
us from all sin. The Lord said, when I see the
blood, I'll pass over you. Provided by God the Father, blood
shed by God, man, mediator. God presented to the Father by
our great high priest. Blood applied to our hearts by
the Holy Spirit of God. Blood rested in by every believer.
by His grace causing us to continually remember Him that the believer
has assurance and that assurance is in His blood. This is what
we're going to observe here today and take in the Lord's table.
The Lord said this cup is the New Testament in my blood. As often as you drink this, remember
me. Remember my blood. Remember my
blood. Here's the fourth thing. 2 Peter
1.1 I won't spend a great deal of
time here because we looked at this recently, but I do want
to point out something to you about this. When we have these
things given to us, faith is precious to us. Faith becomes
precious to us. He says, Simon Peter, a servant
and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like
precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior Jesus Christ. All these things are so inseparably
connected. Don't you see that, how all these
things are so inseparably connected? The gift of faith is precious
because through faith we believe God by believing in God Almighty,
Jesus Christ, our Savior. The object that the gospel presents
to us is who saves us. The object is that object of
Christ Jesus who we believe on. That's who saves us. That's why
faith is so precious. Everywhere in this book, the
only thing, the only thing, the only thing that a sinner is told
to do is nothing. That's it. You know what the
most impossible thing for a dead sinner to do is? Nothing. He can't do anything,
but he spends all his time trying to do something. But God gives
faith that does nothing. That's what faith does. Faith
casts everything into God's hand. Casts everything into the hands
of the Savior. That's what faith does. And trusts
Him to have done everything and to do everything needed to bring
me to the Father. And that's what the Scriptures
declare. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved. Because it's impossible for the
Lord Jesus Christ to fail. That's why God-given faith, it's
a look that saves. It's a look that saves. That
pole in the wilderness Moses lifted up. All that was required. That pole was a serpent lifted
up. That thing that was biting them
and killing them and destroying them. is what Christ was made
to be. He was made to be sin for us
who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. He was lifted up on the cross like that serpent
in the wilderness. He was lifted up to the right
hand of the Father, declaring that God is satisfied. He's lifted
up in the gospel we preach. And when God comes into the heart,
He's lifted up in the heart of a sinner. And this is what the
Scriptures declare to us. This is what Christ said to us.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so shall
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life." What else do I have to do if
you do anything else? you're not looking. If we do
anything else, we're not trusting. If we do anything else, we're
not believing. If we do anything else to try to bring ourselves
to God, we're not trusting God only. Look unto me and be ye
saved. In all the Levitical ceremonies,
in all the Levitical ceremonies, in all the shadows and the figures
and the types and all those ceremonies, they were objects to be looked
upon. That's what they were. For that
time, picturing that object who is Christ, who we look upon,
and all the works done by another, all the works done by another,
all the prophets, everything they declared, everything they
preached, everything they said, of Him, do all the prophets give
witness? That's what they were saying.
Look, look, look, believe, believe, Behold the Lamb of God. You know
what John the Baptist said? Look. Behold the Lamb of God. Look. Look. And everybody was
too busy doing to just look. Just stop and look. Christ said
this is the work of God that you believe on Him whom He has
sent. It's precious because not everybody
has it. It's called the faith of God's elect. It's what it's
called, the faith of God's elect. It's precious because it's the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
And it's precious because this faith is precious to God. Without
it, it's impossible to please Him. Them that cometh to Him
must come to Him believing that He is the rewarder of them that
diligently seek Him. Oh, I want some rewards. I want
some rewards for things I've done. It means He is the Savior,
the salvation of them that diligently seek Him. Those that diligently
come to Him and seek Him, He does all the saving. He does
all the saving. for you who believe Christ is
precious, this anointing is precious, Christ is precious, His blood
is precious, and this faith He's given is precious. Then Revelation
5.8. I'll show you the fifth thing.
I think we're going to have plenty of time. Revelation 5.8. Communion with our God, access
to our God, to know God hears us when we call upon Him. This is precious to the saint. This is precious to God. Revelation
5, 8. Revelation 5, 8. When he had
taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell
down before the Lamb. having every one of them harps
and golden vows. And these golden vows that they
had were full of incense. And that incense, that picture
of this, that sweet, fragrant incense, it says, which are the
prayers of the saints. That's where, it's there before
him, the prayers of the saints. The prayers of the saints that
are yet in this earth. There. Golden vows full of odor,
full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. Prayer
is the spiritual life of a renewed soul. That's what it is. Prayer is,
it's not when a whole church stands up together and says that
model that Christ gave when he taught his disciples how to pray.
That's not prayer. That's not prayer at all. Prayer
is life of the believer. You know the first thing that
Ananias was told whenever the Lord appeared to him and told
him to go to Saul of Tarsus. That one who'd been all his life
saying his prayers in the temple, praying and praying and praying
and saying, Oh, I'm so thankful I'm not like this publican over
here. I fast twice in the week and
I do this and I do that. All those times he said all those
things. For the first time, this was
the first thing the Lord said to Ananias, Behold, he prayeth. He prayeth. That's what the believer does.
Continually, constantly, in all his waking hours, he's constantly
living upon God Almighty. And we do call upon Him. We do
call upon Him. And when the Spirit of God enters
in and He creates life in us, because the excellency of God
is the excellency of God, because the excellency of Christ is the
excellency of Christ, because we behold how precious He is
and how precious His blood is, and we behold this great and
precious privilege He's given us to live and breathe in constant
communion with our God, We stop trying to put on a show and let
everybody see us pray and we start praying. We really start
praying. We start living. That's what
we do. And living is a communal breathing
in and breathing out of the life of God and communing with God. That's what prayer is. That's
what true prayer is. And the believer does this. Believer
lives in this. It's impossible for the excellency
of God, not to make it so. Not to make it so. Don't you
ever worry about having to make another man pray. If God's his
life, I guarantee he will. Does anybody have to remind you
to breathe? Anybody have to call you up and say, oh brother, now
let me remind you to breathe? No. It's your life, isn't it? That's what prayer is. It's life. It's the prayer. Look here of
the saints. That's what he said. There's
nobody that really prays but those who come to God through
Jesus Christ because the Spirit of God's in them. This is the
prayer of those who are saints. That's what every believer is.
He's a saint. Gonna be is. No, is. He's the same. And that's
who God hears. And why are these... Notice here
that it says there's somebody between those who were already
there in heaven and between those saints. It says here, the elders
fell down before the Lamb. Before the Lamb. The Lamb was
between them and the and the one who represents Jehovah. That means, brethren, our prayers
are incense, fragrant, a delight in the presence of God because
they come up to Him in the Lamb who is fragrant and pleasant
and precious in God's sight. That's why we have access. That's
why we live upon Him. That's why What we ask is precious
to him. Precious to him. Is that a burden?
Is that a burden? Is that a duty? Is that a...
Oh, that's a privilege. And let me ask you this. Is it
a burden? Is it a duty? to take every last
minute care and detail of all your worry from all your sin
and all your trouble in this world. It is a burden for you
to completely, thoroughly give that to somebody else and not
have to worry about it anymore. Is it? That's what prayer is.
That's what prayer is. And that's not a burden to call
upon Him. to approach his throne of grace
in time of need. That's not a burden, just not
a burden. But chiefly, this is a precious
before God because it comes up through Christ. And this is what
he says, and it shall come to pass that before they call, I
will answer. While they are yet speaking,
I will hear. I will hear. Here's the sixth
thing. God's thoughts towards us. His
thoughts towards us. Psalm 139, 17. Psalm 139, 17. How precious also are thy thoughts
unto me, O God. How great is the sum of them. Can you add them all up? I don't
even know all the thoughts of God toward me. I just know, I
try to preach to you Thursday night about His exceeding great
and precious promises that are revealed in this book. And I
didn't scratch the surface of what's revealed in this book
about His exceeding great and precious promises. And there's
exceeding great and precious promises which are His thoughts
towards us. His promises are His thoughts
towards us. Precious towards us. Their thoughts
exceedingly great and precious toward us that aren't even revealed
in this book, that we don't even know about. God's thoughts of
his people are as infinite as God is. He, when there was no
time, y'all, what's the, who was the cartoon that said infinity
and beyond? There's no, is there beyond infinity? He's infinity. Infinity. when there was nothing but God,
when there was no time or anything, His thoughts toward His people
was choosing them in Christ, electing them unto salvation
in His Son. His thoughts were of sending
His Son to redeem us. His thoughts were of regenerating
each one in time and bringing us into this blessed union. His
thoughts were of keeping us and preserving us through His Gospel. His thoughts of bringing us into
glory with Him forever. These were the thoughts that
He had towards us. And as infinite as his thoughts
are towards his people, they're unchangeable towards his people.
How many times have your thoughts changed this morning? Have they
changed any this morning? His haven't. Look, he said, I
know the thoughts I think towards you, says the Lord. Thoughts
of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end. Look at
Psalm 55-7. I want you to look at, I do want
you to look at this one. Psalm 55, 7. Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord,
and he will have mercy upon him. Do you hear that? Forsake your thoughts and come
back to the Lord. Why? For He will abundantly pardon.
For He says, My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways,
and My thoughts than your thoughts. You see, He had to condescend
to get us to even understand something of how much higher
His thoughts are than our thoughts. He had to condescend to show
us that as far as the heaven that you can see are from the
earth, so his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His thoughts
are a lot higher than that than our thoughts. But he had to condescend
to that degree just for me and you to even understand something
about his thoughts to us. You see that? Oh, my thoughts? What I thought? That don't matter. That's not going to save anything. You know what the problem is
when we have a little bit of prosperity in this world is?
And the problem with that is we start thinking it was our
thoughts that got us there. So we're smart enough now we
don't need God. His thoughts are higher than
our thoughts. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And
all His thoughts are communicated to us in Christ Jesus, His Son.
He's the expression of all His thoughts. Thoughts of peace and
not of evil to give you an expected end? Where are those? They're
all in Christ. All of them are in Christ. because
he was stricken, smitten of God and wounded. It's through his
wounds that God communicates his thoughts to us. You see,
that was his thoughts to us. What you see hanging on Calvary's
tree, just what we can comprehend with our natural understanding,
that was God's, that's the thought of God, of the justice of God
towards me and you. but Christ risen, redeemed, seated
at the right hand of God, that's God's thoughts of mercy towards
us. So that his thoughts toward us are not thoughts of evil,
thoughts of good towards his people. He brings us to an expected
end. If you think about this, every
troubling thought I have and every troubling thought you have,
is this not so? You that believe God and understand
him and understand his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
Tell me if this is not so. Every time you have trouble,
and trouble is all in us. It's within us. That's where
the trouble is. That's where the trouble is.
The trouble is not in the waves themselves. The trouble's in
our heart. The waves are in our heart. And
every time those waves and those troubles, we have those troubles.
Do they not all end, do they not all come to an end when Christ
speaks peace and says be still and makes our thoughts to stop
right on Him and to think of Him? There's where the trouble
ends, doesn't it? When He brings us to behold Him
and makes us to think upon Him. That's when the trouble really
ends. It could be, it could be, the house could be on fire, a
tornado could be on the way, and hell could be falling down
out of the sky, and we'd have peace in our heart. When he says
it, that stuff is not the trouble. The trouble is in our thoughts,
in our heart. He gives that peace in the heart.
That's why his thoughts are precious to think about. Because this
is what he says about every one of his children. This is his
thoughts towards his children. The precious sons of Zion. The
precious sons of Zion. This is God's thoughts towards
his people, redeemed in Christ. The precious sons of Zion are
comparable to fine gold. Fine gold. There he is condescending
again to something we can kind of enter into. It doesn't take a man long to
start Worried about fine gold, does it? If you have some fine
gold and you misplace it, you'll hunt high and low for it. You'll
look all over the place for it. You won't be able to get any
sleep at night for thinking about where in the world did I put that?
Where is it? He says, that's what my sons
are. You think God's going to forget
them? You think he's not going to bring them to himself, save
them, protect them? How precious are your thoughts
unto me, oh God. How great is the sum of them.
Alright, here's the last thing. Psalm 116.15. You've heard this scripture before
at funerals quite a bit. Psalm 116.15. Precious in the
sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. If you read this
whole scripture, this whole psalm, it's talking about his foot being
nigh well slipped and nigh well gone and how he sank down to
the lower parts and how that that God saved him because he
was precious. It goes back to everything I
say is connected. This is a picture, first of all,
of Christ because his blood was precious in God's sight. God
raised him from the dead. God raised him to newness of
life. And because His blood is precious
in God's sight, the blood, the life, the actual well-being of
His saints is precious in His sight. So that He's going to
save us our foot from slipping. He's going to protect our foot
from slipping. When He brings us into that trial and our old
man dies and that new man is renewed day by day, that's a
precious death in God's sight. A precious death in His sight.
And finally, at last, when the saint of God dies, when he would
depart this life, he says, it's precious in the sight of God.
Whenever we think about death, our sight of death, our view
of death causes us somewhat to tremble when we think about our
own. And it causes us fears and doubts and things. And when we
have a loved one who dies, somebody that's near and dear to us, we
have views of it as the end. We have views of it as this is
it. Though they may be a believer
and die in the Lord, we still sorrow that. From our viewpoint,
we have a sorrow of death as being the end. But let me ask
you this question. Do you rejoice, you fathers and
mothers, whenever you were expecting and looking forward to that newborn
baby. And they laid that newborn baby
in your arms. Was that newborn precious in
your sight? Precious in your sight. The biggest,
the best, the fatherest, the highest any believer ever gets
in this life. Though we do grow, though we
do grow up in maturity, as believers, the highest we ever get, whether
we're dying in infancy or whether we live to be, whether Willard Scott announces
our birthday on the news in the morning. We're gonna still be an infant.
We'll still be a baby compared to the glory hereafter. Still
be a baby. And so when I get this verse
and I start thinking about it, I picture that when a child of
God, when a saint of God passes from the womb of this world into
the presence of his heavenly father, it's as precious to our
Lord as when they laid that newborn baby in the arms of an expecting
father and mother. Wasn't that all rejoicing? It
was all joy, wasn't it? Precious. and the sight of the
Lord is the death of His saint. You know, the highest glory,
the end for which God made this earth to glorify Himself is to
save His children from death. To save His children from death.
Whenever one of His saints passes out of this body of death, out
of this world of death, into His presence, Can you imagine? That's all I can do is try to
imagine the glorious jubilation in heaven toward Christ Jesus,
the glory of God, who is shown again his victory
over all sin and death. Can you see that? precious in
His sight, precious anointing of the Holy Spirit, the preciousness
of Christ Himself, the preciousness of His finished work, His blood,
the preciousness of faith whereby we believe on Him, the preciousness
of access into God's presence to His throne of grace, the preciousness
of His thoughts toward us, the preciousness of the death of
His saints, These things are precious to God. Are they precious
to you? Are they precious to you? I pray
the Lord to make it ever more so, ever more so. Amen.