Valuing the Unimportant

First Chronicles 4, 24-5, 26, is in the middle section of large genealogy, given in the first nine chapters of book of First Chronicles, and this has a reason and purpose behind it, and so we stop here even though it doesn't come off the page to us initially as very exciting stuff. When we realize which people are mentioned and which people are not, we realize what God was up to, as he mentioned, certain people, what God was underlying, what he was emphasizing. We will, as we've been doing in past weeks, not hit every verse between verse 24 and chapter 4 and verse 26 and chapter 5, but highlighting particular verses, and also notices we go down through here just in your eye as we walk down through this passage, the captions that just give you a picture, the broad picture of what's going on. We'll begin in 4, 24. The descendants of Simeon, then it lists them, 4, 28. They lived in Vershiva, Molada, Hazar Shual, Bilha, Asim, Toled, Bethul, Horma, Ziklag, Beth Markboth, Hazar Susim, Bethvary, and Shah-Arain. These were their towns until the reign of David. Their surrounding villages were Etten, Ann, Ramon, Turkin, Bashan, Five Towns, and all the villages around these towns as far as Bayehla. These were their settlements, and they kept the genealogical record. Verse 42, in 500 of these Simeonites led by Palatia, Nia Raya, Rafaia, and Azeal, the sons of Ishii, invaded the hill country of Syir. They killed the remaining Amalikites, these were non-Israelites, remaining Amalikites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day. Now chapter 5 verse 1, we move on from the sons of Simeon to another tribe, Ruben. The sons of Ruben, the first born of Israel. He was the first born, but when he defiled his father's marriage, Beth, his right as first born, were given to the sons of Joseph, son of Israel. So he could not be listed in the genealogical record in accordance with his birthright. This is why Ruben's not mentioned first, but Judah was, as we talked about last week, verse 2, and then Judah was the strongest of his brothers, and a ruler came from him, the right to the first born, belonged to Joseph. The sons of Ruben, the first born of Israel, Hanakh, Palou, Hezran, and Kharmi, verse 8, and Bella, son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel. They settled in the area of Arroa to Niva, and they all meon. To the east, they occupied the land up to the edge of the desert that extends to the Euphrates River because their livestock had increased in Gilead. During Saul's reign, they waged war against the Hagrites who were defeated at their hands. They occupied the dwellings of the Hagrites throughout the entire region east of Gilead. The Gattites lived next to them in Bashin as far as Salah, verse 17. All these were entered in the genealogical records that speaking of the Gattites brought up. The third tribe mentioned, and, in verse, sorry, in verse 11, verse 17, all these Gattites were entered in the genealogical records during the reigns of Joseph, King of Judah, and Jeroboam, King of Israel. Now the next tribe, the fourth tribe that's mentioned in this section, the half tribe of Manasseh, verse 23. The people of the half tribe of Manasseh were numerous. They settled in the land from Bashin to Bale-Hermann, that is to Sinir, Mount Herman. Hereins are reading of this text from 1 Chronicles 4 and 5. Let us give thanks to the Lord, the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Our God and Father, this is your word written for a purpose to edify your people to teach us about yourself, to teach us how we may live to glorify you. We ask that you accomplish that purpose, Jesus, by preaching to us now and by Holy Spirit, illuminating this word for us, bringing it to light, giving us understanding of your message to us today in the church. Here now, by your word, we ask in Christ name. Amen. Our sermon this morning is about valuing the unimportant. When I was going into sixth grade, this summer before sixth grade,

I by family moved from Rochester, New York to Columbus, Ohio, a small town outside of Columbus, much like Clayton, called Delaware, Ohio, first place of Rutherford B. Hayes. And in this town from sixth grade and through 12th grade, I went to school. I went to Frank B. Willis, junior high school, a man who was running for president and gave a presidential speech in his hometown after a big meal. During the middle of the speech, he wasn't feeling well, went off to the side of the stage, had a heart attack and died in this campaign. So I got to school in the afternoon. Frank B. Willis high school, Frank B. Willis junior high school, I think he was running against FDR, which nobody wanted to do, I guess. Went to Rutherford B. Hayes high school, and during this period of time from sixth grade to 12th grade, there was a guy in my class, sixth grade, and I remember meeting him at sixth grade, his name was John Barger. And John Barger was one of these guys that was overlooked, that wasn't respected, that wasn't honored in our grade. He had the posture of a stork, his head jetted out from his body, he was skinny, he was unafflatic, and it's sociologists talk about

popularity and standing in schools. The pecking order is typically determined by who can do what on the playground, among boys, as he goes through school. And so the kids that are given athletic talent tend to be on top of the pecking order, and those that aren't tend to be on the bottom. And John was one of these folks that was on the bottom. John had a very measly voice. He looked geeky, he was interested in his personal science experiments that he was doing at his home. He probably watched PBS and he played the viola. Nothing wrong with any of those things, but at that time in sixth grade, yeah, that didn't earn his status. In the pecking order of boys, he was overlooked, he was not valued, he was not honored in our class. Big nose, that's what the pastor is talking about this morning. Folks like John Barger, how do you deal with folks like that? What's a response in the church to be towards folks that are overlooked typically in society and overlooked in the church? There's one point this morning, one point sermon, I had a professor in seminary who when he would preach to us in our, we would have chapel services two or three times a week in the middle of the morning, and when Dr. Wilwini would get up to preach, he always had a one point sermon and we loved it, as easy to follow. And so you've got that this morning, hopefully it will be easy to follow, too. One point this morning, that point is this value, the unimportant value, the unimportant. This is what God is speaking to us through this passage in first chronicles this morning. One of several things will revisit this passage later, but for this morning we're concentrating on one aspect of these verses that we've been over. God says to you, value, the unimportant. This passage from 424 through 526, has been titled by one or maybe more, tribes easily forgotten, tribes easily forgotten. You recall if you've been here or been to church on tape, as some of us call it here, if you've missed and just gotten the tape,

that the people of God at this time receiving this book of the Bible were the people like Daniel who had been transferred out of the promised land conquered by Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar, and they had been ported off to Babylon as captives, as slaves, as servants in the Kingdom of Babylon. And they had lived there as early as 605 BC until 538 BC when they were released by Cyrus, the Persian who released all the people back to their homelands. And so this book is written to choose the people of God who had returned from Babylon. And when they returned from Babylon, they returned to the walls of Jerusalem being broken down, not one stone left upon another. They returned to a temple that had been burnt down, a town that had been decimated. And the question that the writer of Chronicles is answering is where do we go from here? What do we need? What is important for us to re-establish? How do we reorganize the Kingdom of God? Its capital city is decimated. The land, the promised land had been decimated before Jerusalem had been decimated by Nebuchadnezzar. So what do we do? Well, one thing that was easy to do was to forget certain tribes. There were 12 tribes in Israel. Last week we talked about the pre-eminence of Judah. Judah, the tribe of Judah, was listed first in the genealogy. The king came from Judah. The overseer of the tabernacle construction under Moses was a man who was a Judah height. And Judah was to be given pre-eminence among Israel that was reconstruction in Israel. Well, there were tribes that were easily forgotten, and these four tribes are listed in the section of the genealogy. What tribes were they? Well, the first tribe was Simeon. Why was Simeon easily forgotten? In 424 and following, if you've seen a map in the back of your Bible and if you have maps in the back of a Bible that you brought this morning, you can even look there. If there's a map on the 12 tribes of Israel and the promised land, you'll see that Simeon was a tribe that was furthest south. It was south of the tribe of Judah. But soon Simeon and that land became subsumed or included in or swallowed up in consideration by Judah, by the land of Judah. In fact, in Joshua 19 by this time, in verses 1 and 9 there, it lists the land that are in Simeon as being within Judah. Simeon geographically had lost its identity. It had been swallowed by Judah a much more prominent tribe. It was just considered part of Judah, and if you know about Israel's history where the northern and southern kingdom split, the southern kingdom is just called Judah, but the land of Simeon was included in that. We just never talk about that. We look over, not to our any kind of sin on our part, but it was just easier. It was shorthand, it's just called the southern kingdom, Judah. But the land of Simeon was included in that. But in our minds and in the minds of the people receiving chronicles, Simeon was overlooked. They didn't really matter. They were just kind of part of Judah anyway. By the time of David, Simeon had completely lost its identity and was simply counted as part of the tribe of Judah.

The next tribe that was easily overlooked was the tribe of Ruben, and that begins in our text here in chapter 5, verse 1 and following. The tribe of Ruben was easily overlooked because they lived on the other side of the river, the Jordan River, and let's do this for you folks. The Jordan River and east of that was not originally supposed to be part of the promised land. Just the land from the Jordan River on west into the Mediterranean Sea was Judah or was Israel. But there were a few tribes who through some special circumstances ended up living across the Jordan River. And so there was a geographical river boundary between the rest of Israel and these couple of tribes. Ruben was one of these tribes that lived east of the Jordan, and so they were easily forgotten. There was long term separation, no interaction virtually between the tribe of Ruben and the rest of the tribes of Israel who were on the west of the river. In addition to this, early in the divided kingdom of Israel, the tribe of Ruben was subjugated by foreign powers. We see this in 2 Kings 10, Haysiel, King of Syria, overran these lands in 838, very early in the history of Israel. Also their exile occurred 12 years before the exile of northern Israel. They were defeated faster. They seem to not have the blessing of God upon them. They were exiled faster. They were across the geographical boundary of the Jordan River so they were forgotten easily. We find out in chapter 5, verses 1 and 2 here that Ruben lost his double blessing. The first born was supposed to get a double portion of blessing from his father, but he loses it because of his infidelity. The filing of his father's marriage bed and so the double portion of blessing goes to Joseph. Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, whom Israel, Jacob blesses at the closing chapters of Genesis. So it's a result. It appears that Ruben has not amounted to. He also lost his leadership role as first born, which was rightly his. He lost that to Judah. Now the next tribe easy to forget was the tribe of God. We see that beginning in verse 11 and also the half tribe of Manasseh. These were the other tribes, the other people that lived east of the Jordan River and had that geographical boundary between them and the rest of Israel. In both of these tribes, God and the half tribe of Manasseh, just like Ruben had seemed to have no major nationwide role in Israel. Conclusion on all these tribes, these four tribes are three and a half tribes. They seem to be unimportant. That's your blank there. These tribes seemed to be unimportant.

The question is how do we treat people in the church? He seemed to us to be unimportant. A, we don't forget them. That's the message of the writer of Chronicles here. Don't forget these tribes just because he've been geographically separated from you, just because they seemingly have had no major role in the history of Israel, just because they were conquered sooner. They're your brothers. Don't forget them. And B, how do we treat those in the church? You seem to be unimportant. We treat them with honor. We treat them with honor. Where do we see this in this passage? How is the writer of Chronicles and God through the writer of Chronicles underlying this that these tribes are still to be treated with honor in post-Exile Israel? God gives us several things in this passage. It shows us not to leave behind those that seem to have contributed less. Those who were more likely to seem invisible. The tribe of Simeon. We talked about, they seem to be unimportant because their land was subsumed or swallowed up into the land of Judah. And they were no longer mentioned really by the time of David. Well, we see in this passage in 428-33 that the writer of Chronicles re-list their lands. If you look in that passage, you see he goes out of his way to re-list which lands along to them, not to Judah, but to them. This was a call to people in that day that Simeon would own these lands, not Judah, but Simeon. For Simeon was important. Simeon was to be honored. So their lands or your blankets or lands are re-listed as belonging to them. But secondly, when we see in verses 42 and 43 that years ago, the Simeonites had done something rather remarkable, deserving of honor from their brothers. They had expanded, that's her blank, they had expanded the territory of Israel by capturing the hill country of Seer, where they still lived at the day of the writing of Chronicles. We talked last week about the extreme importance of God placed in his kingdom of expanding territory. And the writer of Chronicles emphasizes that the Simeons are to be honored because they were people who expanded the territory of Israel before the exile. So they were to be honored. They were not to be forgotten. Ruben, through his unfaithfulness he had lost the blessings and privileges of the firstborn but none the less. The writer of Chronicles, here though he says they've lost the right to rule. They lost the double portion of blessing. None the less the writer of Chronicles mentions time and time again. Even in these first three verses of chapter 5 that Ruben is the firstborn. Yes, he lost the rights and privileges of the firstborn but he's still the firstborn. He's still the eldest, the brothers of Israel respect him. Brothers of Israel honor him. He was born first, the first male child of Israel, of Jacob. He adorns him with that name of firstborn. That's your blank there. He still acknowledged, he still acknowledged in some sense as firstborn. Also with Ruben, we have this account verses 8 through 10 of chapter 5. He reminds Israel that Ruben had expanded the territory of Israel. Again, the great emphasis of the writer of Chronicles that the kingdom of God is to be an expanding kingdom and he reminds the Israelites that the Rubenites had done that with the the Hegg rights. They had expanded first of all because their livestock, we could verse 9, their livestock had increased so they had to expand. Deuteronomy 28 and 30 had said that God blessed people by expanding their livestock. This was the key for the readers of the passages to know that God had blessed the tribe of Ruben. He expanded their livestock. Also, they had overtaken in verse 10 the Hegg rights, foreigners of Israel. The writer of Chronicles points out here that early in King Saul's reign, the Rubenites had defeated the Hegg rights and come to live in their homes. That is, they too had expanded the territory of Israel. Now, when we look at the history of Israel and God's people coming into conquer this land, we're to be reminded that the Bible describes these people as grossly, grossly immoral people who are committing atrocities even to their own children, sacrificing their children to their false gods, living in injustice toward one another, not protecting widows and orphans, but taking advantage of them, living in great sexual immorality and immorality of all kinds, and that God had been gracious to them through the years, but that God's wrath toward them had stored up for a period of time and God executed his judgment against these nations and all their sins by sending in Joshua and the Israelites to execute judgment against them. So, we're not to look at the Hegg rights from a biblical perspective and say all those poor people, they were just mining their own business, they were innocent native tribes of Canaan, but rather were to see them as they're reported to be people of great atrocities to each other and to others. They were the Hitler Nazis that were committing great sins against mankind and just like if we were to hear of in World War II and just like if we were to hear of in World War II and it had it been in 1942, some allied forces had come into Germany and taken over the very subdivision that Hitler and his top generals lived in and defeated them and forced them out and begun to live in their very houses. We would rejoice at that knowing the atrocities, the brutalities that the Germans had done to the Jews in the same way. Biblical as we look at this passage, we see that the Rubenites had done this to these folks that had committed great atrocities and were to look at the Rubenites and say, wow, they did it. They trusted God and God won the battle for them and they're even living in the houses of these people that committed these atrocities. God accomplished significant victory through them so we should honor them, the Rubenites as such. Next, God, verse 17, even though God was insignificant in many ways lived across the river, they were still important to be listed in the genealogical records of two kings. This is most likely a military record showing the way that God had input and influence and one time served in the military of Israel. They have tribe of Manasseh, verse 23, your blank, there was records, the king's records, they were that important to make it to them. They have tribe of Manasseh, verse 23, and the report of Manasseh was numerous, Exodus 32 and Deuteron 33, report to us, that God said, I will bless you by multiplying your people. You'll have many children and grandchildren, and this will be a sign that I've blessed you. And the writer of Chronicles underlines this about the people of Manasseh that he had caused them to be numerous. God had blessed this people. What's the message? The writer of Chronicles points, the Semianites out is exemplary. They capture the whole country of Syria expanding the kingdom of God and he says, don't forget Semian, the forgotten. Semian and the Semianites are more valuable than you think. Likewise, he tells his readers, don't discard Ruben. He's been valued and blessed by God and the expansion of his livestock, and he's been valued and blessed by God as God used him against the Hegrates. Don't forget about the half tribe of Manasseh. God blessed them by making them numerous. Even God was important enough to be listed among the genealogical record of these two kings in Israel and Judah. Don't discard these folks in post-exilic Israel. Don't look over them. What does it say to us in the church today? Well, do we have anyone like Semian, Ruben, God, or the half tribe of Manasseh? Anyone in the church that might seem easily forgotten or unimportant? Might come on up here. No. Do we have anyone that's unimportant or that would be overlooked? I'm just kidding you might. Every church does. God has designed people in different way, given people different gifts and abilities, given people different personalities, but with our perspective that we grow up with as we grow up in this world, we don't always value the same thing God values, and sometimes as we value things and characteristics of people just like the world does, we need correction from God. Every local church body has those who, on first blusher in the world's eyes, might be considered unimportant. One of my favorite characters ever on Saturday Night Live, it's a guy named Bennett Brower, and the Bennett Brower was a character done by Chris Farley. Chris Farley, if you haven't seen him before, it's a huge guy. I'm just huge, not tall, huge, and Chris Farley did a lot of gross out kind of characters, and this is one of his gross out kind of characters. And he would come on the Saturday Night Live newscast as a guest commentary commentator, and he would end up talking about himself through the whole commentary, and he would put things in quotes, and he says, I'm surprised they still bring me out here, even though I'm not one of the beautiful people, though I'm not that spuffed, even though I don't shower every week, or wash under my arms. Anybody get grosser and grosser with the things that he would just term? Cameron's grossed out. If you get grosser and grosser with the things that he would term, that would just, that were ridiculous assumptions of somebody. Just because I don't wash my shirts,

he was one that felt very overlooked, and very discriminated against, because of who he was, because he didn't wash his hair every week, and things like that. Certain things gain attention and the affection of others. Good looks, being buffed, being articulate, smart, athletic, talented, musical, whatever it is that we value in the world, talents and abilities and natural gifts, and it's our temptations that sometimes to treat people with these natural gifts and abilities and looks and whatever, with more respect. That's the natural thing that we do. It's natural for us. This week there was a new show on by the guy that used to be the sidekick of late night with Conan O'Brien, Andy Richter, and he left being Conan's sidekick. It's a show that comes on after Leno, and he started a new show on Fox, and there was a segment in the show where it showed in his imagining, and Andy is not a guy who's in shape by anyone's and his own estimation, and so there's a little two-minute segment where he envisions what it's like to be a beautiful person, and there's this guy that he works with who's just a stud, and so it shows his daydream of what it's like to be a beautiful person, and someone comes into this guy's office, and he's going to give him a pile of work to do. And the guy says, hey Frank, I was, oh I'm sorry, you're too good looking to do this work, I'll get someone else to do it. And it goes into all this stuff about how the beautiful women like this guy, no one gives them work, and he just gets to sit there and play with a yo-yo all day because he's given special privileges because of his looks and his abilities, and because he's articulate, and he knows how to dress, and all that kind of stuff, and that's what we typically do. We grant people like that more respect, and more honor, but maybe they're more shy, like Randy. Maybe they're not socially comfortable, or would under normal non-church circumstances not fit in socially. Maybe the way they contribute in the church is less obvious. We looked at this morning, the passage from 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul deals with this very same thing on an Old Testament professor in seminary, and when he would preach, he would preach from the Old Testament, and we'd prove his point from the Old Testament and say, okay, now guys, I know none of you believe the Old Testament anyway, so I'm going to go to the New Testament where it proves the same point. And at the same point, prove to us in First Chronicles, he was kidding. Proof to us in First Chronicles is just elucidated for us. It's underlined for us in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. There are no unimportant, no unhonoured people in the church, just because someone's a kneecap instead of the eyes of the body. It doesn't mean they're less important. We need kneecaps. I spent my

all but five games of my senior Socrates' in college injured because the back of my kneecap had become bumpy and from colliding and overuse. And so I couldn't run without pain in my kneecap and had to wear, if you ever see someone wearing a strap, just a strap underneath their kneecap and between their kneecap and the shin bone, that's what it means. Their kneecap has become bumpy and it doesn't slide straight up and down. And so when they run, it goes like this and it causes pain and friction that shouldn't be there. Yeah, yeah, remember if you're grimacing, that's what it felt like. Kneecaps are important. Pinkytows are important. Try to pivot without your pinky toe or when your pinky toe is sore. If you've ever had a broken toe, Paul is saying all parts of the body. Everybody who's a believer is a part of the body with different gifts, different natural and spiritual abilities that God has given. And so don't undervalue anybody in the church. You know, I have obvious, I have eye gifts here. I'm a pastor. God and the sovereignty for some reason or another has gifted me to be a teacher. And all my life people have said, oh boy, explain that clearly. Whether it was math and high school or something in junior high or or a scriptural thing. Sometimes they do it better than other times. But that's a very obvious gift. It's an upfront kind of thing. That doesn't make me any better than anybody. That doesn't make me any more valuable in God's sight than anybody. Church an essential gift to be able to teach and preach God's word. But so are other gifts essential. One of the gifts that Paul lists and his lists of gifts is the gift of helps. Now the gift of helps is it's the people that you don't see. It's the people that are that are here before you get here setting up stuff. It's the people that are breaking down the nursery after churches over. You know what? If that didn't happen, we'd be in trouble with the school and we soon wouldn't be able to meet here. That's an essential gift given to us, the church. We all have a certain giftedness of just being here and the matter of our presence brings encouragement to those that are here. Because we see, oh, there are others who believe too. It gives validity to my faith. Oh, I'm not a crazy man. I'm not the only one who believes these things. There are other people who believe these things. And so by our presence here, we offer a gift to the church. We serve a role in the body. Some of us are here and we're at a stage in our life where all we can do is show up. And that's okay. That's okay because just being here, in addition to being a duty of the believer to offer a praise and thanks to God, being here offers encouragement to others just by our very presence, even if we don't speak a word. The message for us is a church here in this passage is this. Don't value someone in the church according to the world's standards. Here's your blank value. Value every person in the church. Include them. Honor them. You're next blank every. Every member in the church is important and valuable to God. Every member is adding something valuable to the church. Even if it isn't obvious, even if the person isn't up front, even if the person is not doing something that you can see, the world may look over certain people and discard them, but we don't in the church. That's the message of the writer of Chronicles to the people during his time. It's the temptation for you to look over Simian and Ruben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, but don't do that. We don't operate that way in the kingdom of God. And the message to the church is the same. Don't overlook the kneecaps and the Achilles tendons and the pinky toes and the pinky nails of the church because they serve an essential purpose. We don't overlook. We don't undervalue people in the church. Every member, and here's why, every member in the church is someone God that's your blank. If someone God put great value on in dying for them. We value people in general because God has said his image is upon them. That's why we don't murder. No matter how bad a person is, we allow God's institution of government to take care of justice and we don't murder because a person bears the image of God on them. But even more so, if Jesus has died for a person, that person carries great value and worth. And so we don't denigrate them. We don't make them unimportant or valueless in our society, in the church. God considered from all eternity every person he would create and chose to give some a place of honor. Not because they would be great, but because he wanted to show off his mercy. That's the case with everyone in the church. We're a result of God wanting to show off his mercy to people who didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve his mercy neither did you, neither did anyone else who's ever lived in the face of the earth except for Jesus. No one has counted among God's people. No one here this morning is here because he or she is a beautiful person or a talented person or somebody that God said, boy, I could really use him or her. God can use a donkey to speak his message. He did so in the Old Testament scriptures. So if God values a person this highly, if he's chosen to honor him or her with eternal life and membership in the kingdom of God, like he had the semianites and the Rubenites, etc., then you and I should not see someone as insignificant. Something happened to John Barger my senior year. It wasn't a tragedy fortunately. John Barger who we had devalued from six grade on because he wasn't athletic because he was interested in science projects and at home and because he was grinding telescope lenses, he was. Something happened to him a senior year and I don't know what it was, but we started noticing him and we started seeing, hey, this guy had something to offer, something interesting to say. He had been doing more than watching TV like all of us through all these years and he actually had some thoughtful things to say and you know what, he had a pretty, what we had thought before was a stupid and queer sense of humor. All of a sudden the period to us is being rather ingenious and he would say things that really caught our our fancy and made us laugh and he would do stuff that was just completely off the wall and we had a fun time and John that senior year had a fun year and he became one of my good friends that year. One time we used to, in French class, we had been with the same French teacher for four years and she was a good sport and we had done funny things around the classroom. She'd be out in the hallway watching students go by and we'd get in the classroom and set funny stuff up for. One time we would we would go up in the big long curtains that went over top the registers, you know the registers that put out heat and air conditioning here about this wide and the window, about three yards wide from the window and so we would go up there and we would hide behind the curtains. We'd leave our books on the desk and then hide behind the curtains as class started and see how long we could stay up there before she noticed A, we weren't there and B, we were actually there but hiding behind these curtains up on the registers from B out here and so one day John had actually helped me play off this thing where I took off my shoes and put my shoes under the curtain so that they were just the toes of them were sticking out and so class started and I was there in my seat and she saw all those shoes but she hadn't noticed anyone absent other than whom she had noticed and John had helped me distract her in this and she goes over and she said who's behind here you know kind of joking and whips the curtain back and there's nobody there but my shoes but John was a part of that and enjoying in the fun of things his gifts his abilities his humor became appreciated and that's really a picture for us in the church didn't matter that John still kind of walked like a stork didn't matter that he was interested in some other things that we weren't interested in I went over to his house and his CD collection was classical music I like classical music but I went by classical CD but the church had such people in its midst people that were yet to discover just like we discovered John Barter after all that time we discovered him to be a great treasure the church has such people in its midst undervalued left behind overlooked by the world the valuable in the sight of God and a valuable part offering valuable things to God's household the church offering valuable things to the kingdom of God so God says to us this morning beyond all doubt value the unimportant value the unimportant that's what we're right