The treasure

This uh this morning's scripture reading is going to come from Matthew 13. Just a few verses today. Matthew 13 uh 44- 46. Jesus is telling us a parable once again about what the kingdom is like. Hear the word of the Lord. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. And then in joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls who on finding one pearl of great value went and sold all that he had and bought it. This is God's word. What do you treasure in life? What's your treasure? Is it your family? your home, your career, maybe it's a maybe it's a car or a baseball card collection or any variety of different things. What's your treasure? What occupies your thoughts, your attentions, your affections? What can consume you at times in life? Because that what Jesus told us is that where your treasure is there your heart will also be. And so we see with the course of our life that so much of our heart begins to reveal what we truly treasure. Jesus has here talked once again in a parable about treasure. And we're going to be looking at this great treasure that these two individuals are willing to give everything up in order to have this kind of treasure and that the kingdom is somehow wrapped in this understanding of what exchange is happening right here in this parable. And it seems like a no-brainer of a deal. It's a treasure after all. Aren't all treasures worth giving up everything? It's the treasure of all treasures. It's worth everything to find and to gain. It seems easy, but like all things in life, sometimes we don't know that it's a treasure. We don't necessarily see the value or feel the need for something greater or for something better. CS Lewis used to talk about it like this. He said, "We are often times there's this this life that we live where we are often times like children playing in the mud, making mud pies with dirt. Nothing wrong with that, but we could be offered a holiday at the sea." Now, that you know, Lewis lived a long time ago. Maybe the way that we would say it today is we're like children playing in the dirt when we could go to Disney World. What's your treasure? And Jesus wants to invigorate and help us to see that the treasure, as he's talked about over and over in his different parables of the kingdom, that it's worth giving up everything for. Because when you see the value of the treasure, you understand what is offered to you. It will change everything about your life. But do you know and recognize the value of the treasure? So we're going to look at three aspects of this story that we see literally right here from the pages. We we see finding, selling, and buying. So the first thing that we look at here is finding. The two individuals in this story uh both find the treasure in different ways. One is not looking for the treasure. He's just probably working for a land owner plowing a field and stumbles upon this treasure. The other individual is a dealer of pearls and is always in search of some sort of treasure. And it's like that oftentimes in life when we talk about discovering the gospel, discovering Christ, discovering the riches of the kingdom. Some of us were not looking for it in any way, completely disinterested or unaware or unneeded needful of anything better in life. And then others of us are spiritual people. We were spiritually hungry for some sort of meaning. And we had maybe journeyied from different philosophies or different religions, testing these things out, trying to find the formula that would make it work. And sometimes, like the first individual, we can go through life and we can begin to discover and see maybe sometimes the treasure in other people or maybe the treasure that's in the scriptures as they talk about it. Whatever it is, it begins to tell us and show us there is something better. And then we look at our current lot in life, maybe like this individual, and we begin to say, I want better, and this offers better, and I will sell and give up everything so I may have the field that holds that treasure within it. Or there's the individual of the pearls looking for spiritual value. And yet, the thing about every religion and philosophy and way of life is they kind of become like a diet. You sort of do it for a little while, kind of, you know, find out what works the secret formula and, you know, then you kind of make and get whatever you want. You serve it so that it might meet your end needs. But the treasure of all treasures, the treasure of the kingdom calls us not to find the formula. It's something that calls for all of our life when we find it. So what do they find? And what we see from scripture and what we know and Jesus doesn't fully unpack it here, but he has over the course of Matthew and will continue to do so is this very valuable thing. It's it's salvation. It's life. It's adoption. We're just going through scripture here, right? It's healing. It's forgiveness. It's grace. And Jesus is constantly calling people to lay down the ways of life that are not working to to drop these things and to embrace life in him. To repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. To come and turn to me all you weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Ultimate rest. Final rest. Not a striving to measure up in life to find affirmation or meaning or purpose but to find it by just receiving what is offered. It's a rich thing. And even in our own lives, if you think about that. Think about the message of grace, the message of forgiveness.

You know, there are things in all of our lives, and I know this is all of us. We've done things, we've said things. You don't get a doover. You can't take it back. And there is no amount of penance or good works or anything that's going to reverse that, that's going to change that. And maybe there are even people and individuals in life, you know, they would never forgive you. And maybe you can't forgive yourself. And yet there is this message that says you're forgiven. Not because of anything that you have done, but because of what Christ has done and accomplished for you and you can have it. It's available to you. That is a lifegiving, lifechanging message there. When you go, I I don't deserve it. I got to figure out how to measure up. I got to do all the inputs to gain it. And and Christ says, no, come to me. Receive from me. That is the treasure that changes everything about life. It's not just going to heaven. It's deeper and more meaningful. And we will over the course of life plum the depths of the meaning and the implications of the gospel. Yes. Is it forgiveness of sins? Yes. Is it salvation and and and an entrance into the kingdom of God? A world where there is no evil, where every tear is wiped away? Absolutely. Is it identity and adoption? A child, a son, a daughter of God? Absolutely. It's all of these things, its meaning, its purpose, its identity, all of it bound into the riches of it. And think about that for just a second. That treasure and what that means. See, if the God of heaven who is full of all resources and all power loves you unconditionally, gave his own son for you, then what does that mean for life? Like think about for example, you know, if if if I am worried about li living and surviving, how am I going to make it in life and I'm always consumed with what what about this and and and money and my job and and keeping this house and all of the different things in life? But if the God of infinite resources who loves me and promised to care for me, then doesn't that free me in some way to not be anxious? Didn't even Jesus himself in Matthew 6 remind us? Don't take up all the thoughts about what will we be clothed, what will we wear, what will we eat, for the Gentiles think about these sorts of things. The gospel frees you of the anxieties and the fears. You know, you you may live a life where you feel that you are always trying to measure up. You always feel like I've done so much wrong in my life and I I need to to to be I need to be make up for all the wrong that I've done. And yet the gospel says no. the grace and the forgiveness and the healing, it comes me because I had the power to achieve it and I love you unconditionally and I grace it and shower it upon your life. And so we can stop spending our lives trying to measure up, trying to make something of our lives, trying to to to to develop our identity or meaning or purpose in this life in a way that that makes God and other people around us say, "Yes, aren't you great? Yes, you measure up. Yes, you're validated. Yes, you're accepted. You see the achievement that we're always can be grinding at doing. And yet the gospel says, "No, you are already loved. You already belong." And it frees you from performance. Think about how many of us have been living our life. And I've seen individuals I know you can live your life trying to make your mom or your dad proud. 50 years old parents passed away and you could still be living trying to achieve. I know an individual right now that comes to mind in my life who is doing that in his life. And your heavenly father says number one I'm your father. You look to me. Find the validation and the love and the acceptance that you so crave in me. I give it to you. And as much as we want to make our parents proud, that can become an idol that drives us in life instead of freeing us. The treasure in all sorts of ways frees us from fear, frees us from anxiety, frees us from performance, frees us from a life that feels like we always need to to measure up. It graces us. The God of all power and resources who loves us, frees us to receive from him. And one of the ways though in this story is that we begin to see is that the treasure is received through selling. Now I know sometimes you go you look at it you go, "Oh, see there's the cost. That's the trick. You got to do all these things in order to get the treasure." But that's not what Jesus is actually trying to communicate in this parable. It's the exchange of life. The treasure means that he is the Lord of all of your life. It's receiving him. It's receiving his life. It's it's letting go of all of the old the broken ways of life that were not working, that were not lifegiving, that were performancedriven, that were conde condemnational in your life, and releasing these things, giving them up because when you find something that's truly valuable in life, that's truly lifegiving, like the message of the gospel, I mean, wouldn't you give anything for it? Wouldn't you give anything in exchange for something so free and so beautiful? And that's what Jesus invites us to do. It's not a workspace thing. It's let go of those things. Drop them. They are not necessary anymore. You know, if you um if you're a musician, for example, and let's say um when you see something of great value, you'll do anything to possess it. You know, imagine a a musician. They're on vacation. They see a flea market. They go to the flea market and they find a 1963 Fender Vibrio amp. First year they put reverb within the actual amp itself. You're like, "Whoa, this thing's" And it's $25. You're like, "This is amazing." Like you, you know, maybe as a musician, you would see like this incredible value. This is a historic piece of of music, right? This is this thing is like this is the first year they put reverb in amps. It's amazing. And you would automatically im immediately find the value in that thing. And what would that what would let's say you didn't have any money on you didn't have your card on you or anything like that. And you were like, uh, I mean, here I got these Ray-B band sunglasses. You want to take these? I'll trade you for them. They're they're $100, right? Or this watch. I'll give you this watch. It's it's worth 50 bucks. It's it's it's worth more than that amplifier. You would begin to just try to barter something so that you could have that thing. Because when you see something that is worth value like that, you'll do anything to have it. And that's the message that Christ is trying to show us here today is that when we see something as rich and as beautiful of the gospel, you will release so many of the things that you deem of lesser value. You will have a new Lord. Jesus reminds us to take up your cross and follow him. He also reminds us in Matthew 10:39 that whoever finds his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. When you see the true riches of the kingdom, you are willing to lay aside the things that are of lesser value. You will reorient your whole life because you can't have two treasures. You can't have two things that occupy your heart and your affections and your attentions in life. Something has to reign there. Something has to own that space in your heart. And Jesus reminds us a man can't have two masters. You're going to serve one or you're going to serve the other. And so in life is the exchange of letting go and laying aside. That's what the individuals in this text do is it says that they sold all that they had or in the Greek as much as they had which is all everything. They're willing to lay all of these things down because they see the immense value of the treasure itself. True faith will cost you your idols, your self-righteousness, and your autonomy. It will call you away from trying to serve these ways of self-righteousness, working your way to be acceptable to God. It will call you away from forms of life of seeking validation and meaning and purpose in things that only God alone can give. Not your marriage, not your kids. None of these different things in life should occupy the ultimate highest thing of our heart. Augustine, St. and Augustine who lived in the 4th century reminds us that part of the problem of life is that our loves they get out of order. They get disordered. And so it is that whenever your treasure is not God and his kingdom and something else begins to occupy that number one, it's an idol and it begins to trickle down and distort everything. You take a marriage and you say, "You need to fulfill all my deepest longings and spiritual desires for everything, meaning purpose in life." Number one, that's an incredible pressure to put on a person. And they're never going to fulfill it. It's impossible. They can't be that. They can't do that because only God can ultimately fulfill those things and not fail you and call you to something better in himself. So true faith cost you your self-righteousness, your idols, and your autonomy. You can't truly have the treasure unless you're willing to surrender other things. Um there's a there's um a story I heard years ago that somewhere in Africa they will catch I think it's true. If I'm not, I'm just making up the story, but the illustration still serves true that uh that that they'll put um pumpkin seeds into like a a contraption that has a small hole that a monkey can slip his hand in order to catch the monkey. He can slip his hand into and get the seeds and the nuts out of this this thing. This whether it's a I think it might be a giant pumpkin, you know, put his hand in there, but once he grabs the food and his fist is baldled up, he can't actually pull his fist. And apparently this kind of monkey that they're trying to capture will not let go of the nuts. He will not. Even as you approach him and he's like jerking and trying to get out, he will not. There's no impulse in him that says, "Let go and you'll find freedom." And so it is in life that we can hold on to these other things thinking that they are more valuable. They're more life-giving. They will give us what we need and serving those things and those idols in life and not letting go. And you'll never find the freedom or the treasure itself until you are willing to lay aside those things. And they can manifest themselves in a variety of ways. Martin Lloyd Jones was a physician uh a century ago in in England and he uh he actually was incredibly talented. He was um he was a medical doctor in the 1920s and he was a rising star. In fact, he was the assistant medically as a doctor to the guy that was the doctor of the king. So, he's he is the like the rising star. He is in the elite circles in the medical industry as a surgeon. And uh and somewhere in the midst he grew up with legalism and religion was sort of just this side thing. And God began to birth something in his heart and he heard the gospel and it changed everything about his life. And it wasn't that being a doctor was bad, but he began to sense that God was calling him to something different. Saying, "You're looking for that achievement and that purpose and all those things in this career in this industry, and I'm calling you to go serve me and become a pastor." And so for Martin Lloyd Jones, that obedience, that grabbing hold of all that God wanted for him meant laying aside these idols of living in order to embrace what God had for him. And it meant that he went to a very impoverished community at a very small chapel in a rural community in England and became a pastor. And people thought he was nuts. He had literally lost his mind. He was throwing away a talented career and a brilliant mind. And yet God used him amazingly. He raised him up and that analytical mind that he had was brilliant at dissecting the scriptures. and he had this long ministry that we even know and look at today as being one of the brilliant people of the uh prep pastors in England of his generation. It doesn't mean that we all need to quit and go into the ministry. That's not the point of it. It's just that he understood part of embracing the kingdom and the values of the kingdom. Man, I'm not autonomous and I'm not going to seek the different idols of life for validation. I want that treasure. And and there are times in life where I'm walking along up the mountain of God. And he says, "Lay that aside. Take your shoes off. Is this bad?" No. But it's not necessary. I'm calling you up the mountain of God. And so with selling, we are called to lay these things aside. Finally, we see buying both the individuals in this story that they're literally parallel here where it says that they sold as much as they had and then they went and bought bought the field or bought the pearl of great price. They both in this moment bought something. And you know, one of the things as I thought about this part is, you know, you can find the treasure. you can begin to sort of reorient your lives and your value system in some way towards that treasure and yet you could still stop short of it. You could still not actually possess and take hold. You sold everything. You're reoriented but then not actually making it your own. You can clean up your life, you know, you can start to see the treasure and see, okay, that's that thing I want. and you begin to reorient your values, but you somewhere at the end don't really get it. And you don't really purchase and receive it in the fullest sense. And you wind up actually turning it into a worksbased righteousness of where you're like, you know what? I' I'm going to clean up my life and I'm going to act as one who has the treasure, but I'm not really going to have the joy and the life and the unworthiness and all of the things that come when we truly understand the measure of this offer and let it blow our mind and bring us to places of worship and places of gratitude in life. And so we can easily begin to lose our way. One of the things that I find so often times with the solutions of this world is that they often do that. They offer us a better way of living. They offer us a freedom, let's say, from alcoholism aa and they give us a process of steps that we can follow. But we need ultimately to be filled with something. It's not just letting go of things in life. It's not just getting rid of the alcohol or the idol or whatever it is. It's also receiving what God has for us. Receiving his salvation, receiving his grace, receiving his life. Otherwise, we're like the man in the parable that Jesus tells where an unclean spirit is driven out of him. It goes and then returns and finds the soul of that man. His house is swept. His life is put in order, but it's empty. It's not filled with anything. It's clean. It's tidy. It's a shiny people, but it doesn't have the spirit of the living God dwelling within it. And so Jesus says that a worse he goes and finds seven demons and they fill that man. And the and the state of the man is worse than when he begun. So in our lives, we can stop short. We can begin to orient our lives and yet not actually take hold of the treasure in all of its fullness, understanding the beauty. We can spend our life like the elder son in the prodical son parable, working for the dad's appreciation, working to earn the dad's love and affection. And when his dad freely gives it to the younger brother brother who has squandered all his wealth and the father goes out to talk to the other older son. I always remember this. He says, "Son, all I have is already yours. You've been trying to earn it your whole life. You've been trying to like measure up and have this treasure. It's yours." He had cleaned his house. He'd ordered his life. He understood there was some great wealth out there. but he didn't really ever receive it. And so here we see these individuals are both also called to receive what God has for them, the treasure of all treasures. Worship team, would you guys go ahead and come on up as we get ready to close? But one of the one of the beautiful things also about this story is Jesus tells this and we're invited to receive the treasure itself. But you know who else is the treasure?

It's you. You're the treasure. You are God's treasure. That Christ came and he saw you. Each of you loved you from the foundations of the earth. That the God of all the heavens sent his son. And what did he do? He sold. He gave up his life, his glory, his throne, his divinity. Took on human form. And he paid for each of you. He purchased something. He purchased you, your forgiveness, your grace.

Just remember that today that both are true. In one sense, we are called to the treasure of the kingdom. The gospel, God, Christ himself being that treasure. And yet also in some way, that's a treasure because God made you first, his treasure. He sought for you. In in just a second here, we're going to we're going to stand and we're going to respond to a song. But, you know, I thought about this this week and I want to give each of us just a time to respond to this to this this message because as I thought about it this week, sometimes we can understand that treasure. We can understand the the value of it and all its goodness, but you know, we take it and we can sort of set it on the shelf and life is hard and time goes by. And that treasure kind of gets some dust and grows old. And you know, we begin to not forget about it. We begin to forget about it. You know, we begin to focus on just trying to survive and not thrive. We're just trying to figure out today. And sometimes the truths of the gospel, they just don't ring as bright or as loudly anymore. And it's not that we've lost salvation. We haven't turned from God. We're not apostate or anything like that. It's just the treasure begins to lose its value. Jesus reminds us, return to your first love. And this morning, as I a word sort of for this morning that I thought about as I prayed over this text this week was some of you, I think, including myself, need to be renewed. You need to be renewed and reminded of the value of the treasure that you have. You need to be renewed and refreshed

because life can get so hard sometimes and you can just feel disappointed or worried or anxious. And we can grind at life and just kind of keep everything going. but we can sort of lose our joy. And so just as we sing here, I would like to just as a response open up this time. If that's you, I'm going to invite you up. I'm going to pray over you at the at the end here of our song. And I know this is something we don't normally do, but just just right here in the front just and why why do this for for a couple reasons. One, because we're here to meet with God. We meet with him in the song and the fellowship in the word, but I want to give an opportunity for us to also meet with him now. But there's also a second piece about this is there's just a part of being transparent and honest before God and your brothers and sisters. It humbles your pride that says, "I got it all figured out and my life is good and clean and tidy." And you say, "No, you know what? I need some renewal. I need the Lord to just refresh my spirit." And something about that humbling allows the Lord to come into those places and to meet you in those spaces. But it also tells your brothers and sisters as well like it's okay to not be okay so that we can be honest with one another. So if that's you, I just invite you and then we'll sing and then I'll pray over those and pray over us at the end here. So if you would let's stand and sing as we respond.