TREASURES TO BE REDEEMED

Sermon Notes, March 15, 2015

Rev. Dick Guizar

            Rev. Guizar’s message was titled “Treasures To Be Redeemed,” and his scripture basis was 1 Peter:18-23. “¹⁸ For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. ²⁰ He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. ²¹ Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
²² Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.^{[a] 23} For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”
            Pastor Guizar told a story of a little boy whose most precious possession was his baseball glove.  The boy was throwing it in the air and catching it, when he threw it a little too hard and it sailed up into the chimney.  The boy got a ladder and climbed up on the roof and peered into the chimney.  He couldn’t quite reach his glove so he climbed into the chimney after it.  It was so precious to him that he was willing to go down in the chimney for it. 

God looks at us that way.  We were so much of a treasure to Him that He sent His Son to die for us.  No one passes beyond God’s grace, or sinks so low they can’t be redeemed.

A man was arrested for having one-eighth of a gram of cocaine.  He was sent to 15 years in prison, and served two-and-a-half years of it.  While he was there, he got saved.  He was a treasure that Jesus came to redeem.  When Jesus said “It is finished” on the cross, he was saying “They’re mine!  I got ‘em back.  No more sacrifice is needed.  They’re mine.”

A scraggly-looking homeless guy came into a packed church service.  He walked down the aisle and sat on the floor in front of the altar.  Bill, one of the ushers, came down the aisle and sat down beside him.  The preacher continued his sermon, saying “You may not remember what I preached about today, buy you’ll never forget what just happened.”  The homeless man was a treasure to be redeemed.

When we get married , besides all the good things about us, our spouse also gets all the “stuff” inside.  It’s treasure to be redeemed.  Broken people, with “stuff,”  God sees as treasure to be redeemed.  Romans 8:16 tells us that we can know we are God’s children.  His Spirit bears witness with our spirit.  Like the little boy and his baseball glove, God sees something in us as a treasure to be redeemed.