Why do we as a church, as a body of believers exist? 

<p>Why do we as a church, as a body of believers exist? </p>

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Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor

Our Greatest Privilege

Loving Lord, thank you for this beautiful new day, a new day of life. And just pray that you be with us as we consider spiritual things and, and calibrate our minds towards the mission. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Back in 2008, there was a burglary in Berlin. Some thieves managed to steal a very expensive and precious gold coin that Canada had lent to a Berlin, Berlin Museum. It was called the maple leaf coin. It had Queen Elizabeth on one side and a maple leaf on the other. And the coin weighed 229 pounds. And they're still not sure how these four thieves were able to get this coin out of the building, down a ladder across the street, across some railroad tracks into a getaway car. They eventually apprehended some thieves. They never did recover the coin. They're afraid that it's been melted down now and, and converted to money. You know, there's, we have a gold rush in America. I don't know if you, if you know that in Australia, they had a gold rush also. Matter of fact, the largest gold nugget ever found was found in Australia and it weighed 173 pounds, like a one gold nugget. They turned it up with a wagon wheel by accident. And in Australia, in honor of their gold history. Of course, in Sacramento, we've, you know, we got a lot of history surrounds us with Sutter Creek and the gold rush in San Francisco. I think the first gold up here was found actually on Sutter's Mill, if I'm not mistaken. Well, in honor of that, in 2011, the Perth meant wanting to outdo Canada. They achieved an incredible triumph for the successful casting of the world's largest gold bullion coin. It's called the Australian Kangaroo, one ton gold coin. And it tips the scales. It's 99.99% pure gold. And this colossal coin is 31 inches around and four inches thick. And it's worth 50 million Australian dollars depending on the economy, their, their dollars worth less than ours now. But that's the biggest coin in the world. It's not the most valuable coin necessarily in the world. For coin collectors, one of the most valuable coins, well, there's a few that depends on what auctioneers or what people will pay at an auction for more than a hundred years, one of the most valuable coins in America has been an 1804 silver dollar. It's known as a king of US coins. The coin is dated in 1804, but actually it wasn't made until 1834, which is one reason it's so rare. The president at that time, he wanted to mint a number of coins to be gifts for international figures that he was gonna be visiting. And so he asked the men to make a limited number of these coins, but they didn't have a dye for 1834 coins. So they pulled out their old dyes that they found from the 1804 coin that was 30 years old, and they issued a number of silver. Now their, they're the original 1804 coin dye was made for gold, but they use it now for silver. So they made a limited number of these 1804 silver dollars. And the guys in the mint realized, hey, you know, these are gonna be valuable someday. So they made a few extra for themselves that they ended up selling. And I think that one recently sold one coin, a $1 coin sold for $3,000,737 in Dallas, Texas. So Luke 15, verse eight, then all the tax collectors in the centers drew near to him to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes complained saying, this man receives sinners and he eats with them. So he spoke a parable to them. Actually, he speaks three parables. He talks about the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. You only find this in Luke, by the way. I'm gonna talk about the lost coin. Not very long. What woman having 10 silver coins if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search successfully until she finds it. And when she has found it, she calls her friends and her neighbors together sane rejoice with me. I've found the piece which I lost. Likewise, I say to you, there will be joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. You ever lost something precious and you had to search for it. Now you might be thinking it's a coin. Oh, well, you know, she lost one out of 10. But in, in Bible times, it's, it's implied. These are not coins that are used in regular currency. Sometimes when a woman got married, different family members would bring them a coin. The coins were pretty special because, you know, in the Bible, when they paid coins actually didn't come around until the time of, oh, they, they became popular in the time of maybe the Persians and the Romans before that, when the children of Israel left Egypt and they got paid for the wages, did they get coins or did it say they spoiled the Egyptians? Even the Egyptians paid them with gold jewelry. I mean all the, they didn't, I dunno why they never thought about just pressing it into equally weighed coins. But back then they gave him bracelets and rings and that's all. That was their money back then. And when uhs are paid, Rebecca for watering his camels, he took themand or jewelry. They didn't have coins back then. They didn't paper money. Chinese invented that. That's fairly new. So these were usually something that she received at, at her wedding as a dowry or gifts. And they're very precious. And when one was gone, it was a tragedy and she looked high and low. I lost a car key yesterday. Now, you know, it's not one of these typical car keys. You just plug in, you turn the key. It is one of these expensive things that you see. I just lost my chap stick now and I looked online, I couldn't find it. I looked online and $140 to replace it. So I I I was looking high and low. I knew I had it. And I looked, I mean, you, you folks would be laughing. Yesterday was trash day. And so I thought, could it have fallen out of my pocket into the trash? And the trash now was not full of, it wasn't good. I mean, I dumped the vacuum dust in there and it was, it was a mess. And I thought, well, you know, for a hundred dollars, I, I looked through the trash and so I, I didn't look very deep, but I kind of ferreted it around in the trash a little bit. And I went into a laundry. I thought maybe it fell out. And I went through the laundry hamper and pulled through. And when you're searching for something, you know, have you ever looked for something? You go back and then you say it was there. And I missed it the first time. So I not only looked in the obvious places once I looked like three or four times, I checked my pocket 50 times. I mean, I'm looking all over the house. And Karen, I had a lot of other plans for yesterday when I'm looking all over for this key. Well, I found it this morning. It's kind of funny. How I found it is it occurred to me I can't start my car unless the key is in the car. I'll leave the second key in the bedroom and I'll go see if the car starts. And it's started. So it's somewhere in the car, but I haven't found it yet, but I know it's there now that on my car is running on its own. So this woman, she looks high and low. Now what does she do? First of all, what's a woman? Church? Church? A church. She's lost one 10th of something very precious. Can you think of something biblically that comes in denominations of 10 Commandments. And she lights a lamp. What is a lamp of, symbol of in the Bible? My word is a lamp under my feet and a light to my path. And she gets out the broom. Well, you have to speculate little, but the broom is usually something you use for just diligence and, and work. And she begins to sweep the house and she carefully searches it says she sweeps. She's looking in all the corners, she's going underneath the bed. She's gonna just comb every area. You probably heard before that when a child get gets lost, I heard that a child was lost in Utah, five year old, and they got 220 rescuers together. And when they're combing a wooded area, they spread out, you know, like five yards apart. And they get in a big line and they just completely sweep the areas so that everybody is looking over every inch as they move forward because they're looking for something precious. They don't wanna miss it. Child could be unconscious. So she is sweeping through every area. And finally, because of that diligence, she finds it. And what does she do? She calls her friends. And never. Now, if I said, Hey guys, I lost a dime out of a dollar, we're gonna have a party come over and celebrate you. Like, oh, what's wrong with Doug? Matter of fact, I can't understand if you've got a hundred cheap and I lose one and I find it, I probably wanna throw a party. But back then, that was really precious to them. And so this woman, all her friends know that she's looking and she's anxious and this is something from her wedding. And she calls 'em all together and she rejoices. And Jesus then goes on to say, likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Now. Now when you think about why you came to work this morning, did you ever think I came to make the angel sing? One of my big fears, you heard me say it many times, is that we should ever forget. I was watching a Memorial Day as special on PBS yesterday and they were interviewing some of the few remaining Pearl Harbor survivors. And they said, we're so afraid that people are gonna forget what happened back then, and that America's gonna become lax again. We were caught off guard. And you know, I think there's a danger that we can forget as a church sometimes why we do what we do. And it just turns into a job and pretty soon it, it gets mundane. You know, God warns us not to forget certain things. And when you come to work here, you're doing the most important work in the world. I heard about this church they were building in England years ago. It's, it's an old evangelistic illustration. And a reporter wanted to go interview the workers and there was just a beehive of activity as they were all working on this church. But, so he went and he talked to one man who was, you know, putting in the windows. He said, so tell me about what you're doing. He said, well, I'm putting in the windows and I'll tell you, this is really difficult because these stained glass windows, your regular windows are a lot easier. These things are so complex and I'm ready to rip my hair out. And then he goes and he talks to another man that's framing a door. And he said, well, I'm, I'm framing up the doors here. And it's just, you gotta get 'em really precise. These church doors are really heavy. And he goes up on the roof and he talks to a guy up on the scaffolding doing the roofing. And he says, yeah, well, so I'm up here doing the roofing. And he said, and these church roofs, they're, they're very difficult. He said, I like it much better working on regular houses because they're all uniform. He says, these things are round and they're odd shapes and they got these flying duchess buttresses. And he said, it's making all the seams work. I can't guarantee it's not gonna leak. Then he goes down into the basement and a plumber's putting in the boiler to heat the church. And the reporter said, so what are you doing? He said, I'm building a monument to the glory of God. I guy down to the basement, he's got the right attitude. He's, I'm building a monument to the glory of God. So whatever you do here, it's part of making angels sing. The last words of Christ should be the first priority of Christians said, go teach baptize. And you know, let's never take it for granted. When we get these testimonies, we hear 'em all the time. I hope you hear 'em too. That of people who say, I was reading, I was watching whatever the means is, and my life has been transformed. I mean, that's what we're doing. That's really exciting that you're involved in seeing lives transform. God forbid we should ever forget the how wonderful it is, what a privilege is. I still pinch myself. It's a privilege to be involved in God's work. Amen. This media was brought to you by Audio verse, a website dedicated to spreading God's word through free sermon, audio, and much more. If you would like to know more about audio verse or if you would like to listen to more sermons, please visit www.audio verse.org.

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Our Greatest Privilege

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