What makes a painting worth $450 million? And what makes a sinner even more valuable? Join Pastor John Bradshaw and examine a parable that shows you how precious you are to God.

<p>What makes a painting worth $450 million? And what makes a sinner even more valuable? Join Pastor John Bradshaw and examine a parable that shows you how precious you are to God.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

The Lost Sheep

Before we get in the Word, let's pray and expect God's blessing.

Father in heaven we're grateful that we can gather around the Bible.

Lead us by your Spirit we pray and we thank you.

When I wore a younger man's clothes, I was living in London, England, working in an ice cream store in Leicester Square.

It was the Haagen-Dazs ice cream restaurant.

There are probably also healthier places to work.

But I worked there for 13 days before getting another job.

The Haagen-Dazs ice cream restaurant at which I worked in London, England was on Leicester Square.

And if you know anything about the geography of the West End in London, then you will know that Leicester Square is just a stone throw.

You've got to have a pretty good arm, I suppose, but a stone throw from Trafalgar Square.

And when you go down to Trafalgar Square, 1 of the most important and outstanding objects there, in addition to Nelson's Column in the middle or thereabouts of the square, is the National Art Gallery or the National Gallery.

The National Gallery there is always fabulous paintings and pictures.

You don't even have to like art or highbrow art to like what's there at that gallery on Trafalgar Square in London, England.

So while I was working in Leicester Square, I would trundle down to Trafalgar Square and wander around the Art Museum.

I knew that once I went back to my home country of New Zealand, there'd be nothing remotely like it there, so I should take the opportunity to soak in some of the artworks and see if I could develop an appreciation for this sort of thing.

So while I was there, they happened to be holding an exhibition of Impressionist art and so there were paintings by Monet and Van Gogh and Cezanne whom I actually just love and others and I appreciated that art and if you've ever wondered about fine art I mean good art I mean expensive art You may have wondered what it would take to own 1 of those pictures.

How much do you think is the greatest price ever paid for an artwork?

Well, let's start with painting number 5.

It's a painting by the American artist Jackson Pollock.

Fifth highest price paid for a painting, at least at the time this list was published.

You know these things change on an ongoing basis.

But at the time of checking, fifth most expensive work of art, painting that is, in the history of the world, 200 million dollars and it's a painting by Jackson Pollock.

By the way if you look at the top 10 or the top 20 you know there's some interesting works of art.

1 of them is in fact number 6 by the American painter Mark Rothko.

It's just colors, sort of a shape, maybe it's a rectangle, sort of a frame and just some colors.

It's beautiful, it's impressive, a cynic would say it looks like something a high schooler might bring home, but a high schooler who could do that has a pretty bright future.

1 of the most expensive paintings ever is a Picasso, 1 of his abstract things with bits and pieces of bodies and I don't know, bicycles or vases or I don't know you can never really tell when you're looking at a Picasso 1 of his abstracts.

Number 4 a painting by Paul Gauguin it's nice I mean here I am the art critic.

Now what I really like, anything by Cezanne is going to be fantastic.

Painting number 3, that is third most expensive painting ever.

So if you have some spare change, or if you're saving for something, you might be able to pick it up for a little more than that.

And I don't know if I want to admit this, so I'll phrase it differently.

I don't know if you've ever heard of Willem de Kooning.

Of course, there are some particularly well-educated and some art mavens and so forth.

You're all over de Kooning, not some of us.

Willem de Kooning's painting 300 million dollars for a painting by a seriously good artist but somebody many of us, many of you, many of some people have never heard of.

Now if I were to ask you which artist painted the most expensive painting ever you probably could guess this if you thought about this.

Had a conversation with somebody once and asked the question and they said was it was it Michelangelo but wait he was really more of a sculptor really wasn't he?

No it was Leonardo da Vinci and the painting is entitled Salvatore Mundi savior of the world and it sold not that long ago to somebody who must have had an awful big piggy bank, paid 450 millions of dollars for a single painting, just 1.

0 and by the way was it really by Leonardo da Vinci?

The painting is reportedly by, or reputed to be by.

With some of these old paintings, there's not really any real way of telling for sure.

But the buyer figured it was a da Vinci, thought he was on to a good thing, wrote a check, well a big long number including lots of zeros, $450 million.

So what makes a painting worth 450 million dollars?

Or let me ask the same question from another angle.

Think about it because of course you might say, oh no, no painting is worth 450 million dollars.

No football quarterback should earn 30, 40 million dollars a year.

No house in our neighborhood should sell for 600000 dollars.

No vintage car should sell for 3000000 dollars.

Oh that's a reckless amount of money, perhaps we might say.

I mean you wouldn't pay 3000000 dollars for that old car or 700, 000 or 2000000 or 10000000 or whatever it might be for that house and you wouldn't pay that much for whatever it might be and what is it that gives these things their value?

$450 million for a painting, that's a gargantuan sum of money.

Well quite simply, someone was willing to pay that much.

Why should a quarterback earn $30 or $40 million a year?

Because someone is willing to pay that much.

Why should that house on that street sell for that much money?

Because someone was willing to pay that much.

Now in all seriousness Salvatore Mundi, the painting by Leonardo da Vinci, might 1 day sell for 50 bucks.

That is if suddenly everybody decided the thing was worthless, not worth having, not worth paying the money for.

You and I both know that there are certain things that lose their value owing to whatever factors, but all that means is that there came a time that nobody was willing to pay that much for that thing.

If somebody doesn't value it, the price on the other hand goes down.

Think for a moment with me if you would, of the most valuable thing ever purchased.

We are going to look at a parable together.

Back to Menu

The Lost Sheep

Transcript

Description

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Luke-- Jesus, Our Savior and Friend

08. Luke: The Mission of Jesus

38m

If I Had a Thousand Lives to Live

36m

Making Your Campus Ministry Thrive

3. Capturing the Decisive Moment

58m

Lost

02 The Lost Coin

58m

The True Medical Missionary

56m

ACM: 4 The Mystery of God

51m

The Parables of Jesus

The Parable of Jesus: The Company You Keep

28m

God’s ROI

51m

Getting Through to God

04-Sincere Sinners

28m

Cory Reeves Weekend

The Value

34m

Restoring the Joy

49m

Fresh Manna by Moise Ratsara

Seeking the Lost

34m

Sound Doctrine