Cherri Campbell continues True Value by contrasting the emptiness of purely material pursuits with the precious ways of God. Pursuing prosperity and preparing for retirement are not inherently wrong, but they become futile when the American dream takes priority over God and His kingdom.
Cherri defines the kingdom of God as His system, laws, ways, methods, purposes and plans operating under His rule. Material blessings gain lasting purpose when believers place God first and use what He provides to advance His kingdom, reach the lost and accomplish His will.
Although Isaiah declares that God’s thoughts and
SPEAKER 01 :
Good morning. Welcome to Victorious Faith. I’m Cherri Campbell. This morning, I’m going to continue sharing with you the message I began sharing with you yesterday that I preached in one of our Victorious Faith services called True Value, in which we are studying what is precious to God and what is precious to you. So join me now in our live service for the continuation of this message, True Value. Many people feel useless. I mean, we’ve heard about people say, why do we do this? Why do we get up and go to work and come home and go to eat and do this? What’s it all for? It’s useless. That’s all they can see because that’s all they’re doing. They’re living a futile life with really no purpose except to get a little more, get ahead. And some people it’s more even of a consuming desire to pursue the American dream. And we basically know what that is. To prosper, get rich, store up as much as you can so you can retire comfortably and get an RV and tour the country or whatever. But to retire comfortably at 65, 66, 67, whatever. Whenever you can retire and then just sit back, eat, drink and be lazy. That’s the American dream. And that’s why they go to work and they save up everything. But you know, if that’s all you’re doing, it’s useless. It’s futile. It’s foolish. It’s empty. It’s vain. If that’s all there is, if that’s all there is for many people and sad to say, even a lot of Christians, that’s all there is. That’s all there is in life. It’s empty, worthless, useless, vain, foolish, and futile. But God’s ways are precious. What else is precious? God’s ways. Pursuing the American dream is okay only as long as it is secondary to pursuing the kingdom of God. That means, as we’re going to see later, seek first the kingdom of God. What comes first? God and the kingdom of God. So it cannot be first or else it’s foolish, useless, vain, worthless, and empty. But if you keep God in his ways first, then the other can be used, the increase, the blessing can be used as tools for the kingdom of God. And then they’re not wasted. They’re not useless. They’re not vain. They have a purpose to fulfill God’s purpose and plan and will, which is reaching the lost, bringing his kingdom to earth. So pursuing the American dream is okay only as long as it’s secondary to pursuing the kingdom of God, which includes God as the king on the throne of his kingdom, God first. And then his kingdom is, and I have a whole series of teaching, which is very revelational. Almost everybody who has heard it said they have not heard it taught and explained like this. It’s on my YouTube channel. Called the kingdom of God. I encourage you to listen to it. The kingdom of God is the system, laws, ways, and methods of God. It’s the operation of God. It’s his system. It’s his domain and his territory, but it’s how he does things. It includes the spiritual laws of the kingdom. And so it is the system, laws, ways, and methods of God in the spiritual kingdom under his rule. It also includes his purposes and plans and what he considers valuable and important. Isaiah 55 verses 8 and 9 say, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Now, that just shows how superior his thoughts and ways are. And I want to point out, there are a lot of Christians who say, yeah, we just don’t know the mind of God. Well, I didn’t take time here to take you to 1 Corinthians 2, which says, but God reveals them to us by his spirit. The spirit searches the deep things of God, and he reveals them to us. I ought to show you. I pointed that out to show you that, yeah, God’s ways are higher than the natural man’s ways of thinking. Go to 1 Corinthians 2. I don’t think I have it in the notes there, do I? No, I didn’t include it. But I feel like I need to because a lot of Christians traditionally have just said, yep, God’s ways are past finding out. No, they’re not. They’re not past finding out. He wants us to find them out. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about tonight. Seeking, searching. Because they’re not found by people who don’t look. They’re not laying out like a big diamond or chunk of gold on the surface. Or anybody walks by, oh, there’s a piece of gold. I think I’ll take it. No, you got to dig in the ground for it. That means you got to dig in the word for it. They’re not on top. They’re not on the surface. But 1 Corinthians 2, and I am going to be reading some of this later when we get to the part about God’s precious wisdom. But let’s just start starting in verse 9. And people will quote verse 9 and stop. However, as it is written, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. They’ll say that right along with Isaiah 55. It’s past finding out his ways are beyond us. No, read the next verse. Verse 10 starts with the word, but, but God has revealed it to us. How? By his spirit. The spirit searches all things, even the deep. Those are the deep hidden things. And we’re going to talk about the deep hidden things. The deep hidden things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? God says, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. Who would know his thoughts except his spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except who? The spirit of God. Verse 12. But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God. We have the spirit of God who knows the deep things and the thoughts of God. Why? That we may understand. I got this passage underlined. I love it. I love it. I love it. Because. And I’m going to talk about the ways of God. The word of God. The wisdom of God. The hidden treasures. I sought those. Like I said. I’m a minister’s fourth generation. But I was born again when I was three. In church my whole life. I was in a girls program. In the church on Wednesday night. They had a boys and a girls. Kind of club like Girl Scouts. Boy Scouts. And we earned badges by doing steps. And we read the Bible. It was all Bible based. Memorize scripture. Read the Bible. And do different studies and things. And you earn badges. And through the whole program. Four or five year program. We read through the entire Bible. Genesis to Revelation. So as a child, I read Genesis to Revelation. I’ve had the whole Bible read cover to cover. Not all the maps, but you know what I mean. Not all the dictionary and concordance, but I read the text. And so I loved it. And then I remember late teens or early 20s, I got the revelation. And like I said, I’m jumping ahead on myself because we’re going to talk about the treasures. But I saw it as treasures. God, show me the treasures, those deep hidden things, the rubies and the emeralds and the sapphires and the diamonds that are hidden. They’re not on the surface. Lord, I want to see them. It’s called revelation. Anyway, we’ll get there in a minute, in a few minutes. But anyway, I sought it. I desired it. But… I was baptized in the Holy Spirit when I was in elementary school. I don’t even remember because as long as I can remember, I’ve spoken in tongues. Somewhere around age six, seven or eight, I started speaking in tongues. The spirit searches all things. That’s why it’s important to pray in tongues. The Holy Spirit, when you pray in tongues, you know, like on your computer, you get on the internet and you can download files, pictures to your computer hard drive. It’s a download off the internet onto your computer. Well, when you pray in tongues, you’re getting downloaded data from God’s spirit to your spirit. It’s spirit to spirit. And that’s what the Bible calls deep calls unto deep spirit to spirit. Now, when it gets in there, you don’t necessarily know it all at once, but it’s been deposited. That’s when you pray in tongues. But as you seek the Lord and seek his word, the Holy Spirit brings up things into your mind and brings revelation and insight and understanding and opens the eyes of your understanding. Then you begin to see things. But it comes a lot through that download when you pray in tongues. So I encourage everybody should pray in tongues every day. The spirit searches all things. Okay, let me back up. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. But, don’t stop there, but God has revealed it to us. How? By his spirit. The spirit searches all things, even the deep, the hidden things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God, his ways, his thoughts, except the spirit of God. And we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God. We have received his spirit that we may understand what God has freely given us. Glory to God. And then if you read the next verse, this is what we speak not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the spirit, expressing spiritual truths and spiritual words. That’s speaking in tongues. Words taught by the spirit. Words taught by the Spirit. That’s speaking in tongues and it’s also speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Expressing spiritual truths and spiritual words. So I wanted to point that out to you. Back to the notes. We can know his thoughts and they are precious. His thoughts, his ways are higher than the natural man. But we are not without a teacher. We have the Holy Spirit to show us. Now, God’s way. So back again, the kingdom of God is the system, laws, and ways, and methods of God. That’s the kingdom of God. So in Matthew 13, verses 44 to 46, the kingdom of heaven is like what? Treasure. We’re talking about what’s precious. What does God call precious? A treasure. And he said the kingdom, Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is treasure. Hidden. See, it’s not for everybody. It’s not just laying on the ground on the surface, sticking up like a rock out of the ground for you to trip over like a stump that you just trip over when you walk along blind. No, you got to dig in and look for it. It’s hidden. It’s treasure, but it’s hidden. You got to seek it. What you just heard was the continuation of a message that I preached in one of our victorious faith services called True Value, in which we are studying what is precious to God and what is precious to you. And we will continue this message again tomorrow. So join me again tomorrow and remember, God loves you. You are blessed and highly favored by the Lord.
