The Value of the Kingdom

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Transcript:

I’m going to ask you to take out your Bibles this morning. Take out your Bibles and turn with me to Matthew chapter 13. Because we’re going to continue on this morning with our series on the kingdom.

After we’ve taken a couple of week detour, we’re going to go back to the kingdom and some of the things that Jesus taught about the kingdom. You know, two of the worst things to have to shop for are houses and cars. It’s awful, isn’t it?

I mean, unless you’re a millionaire and you just go out and buy whatever you want, it’s awful. And maybe my problem is because I’ve only ever bought used ones. Because the nice word is frugal, but probably the honest word is cheap.

Tight, yeah, that works too. And so when you’re cheap, frugal, tight, and you’re looking for something used, you never know exactly what you’re getting. until you’ve bought it.

You never know what kind of hidden problems you’re getting into, what kind of hidden problems there might be. And really, you just want to know that the money you’re about to invest is worth it. Because those are two of the highest priced items that most of us will ever buy.

We want to know that the money we’re about to invest is worth it, but it’s usually a little bit of a gamble. But occasionally, a deal will come along that is just so phenomenal that you know you’ve got to have it. I know I’m not pitching anything this morning for you to buy, but a deal will come along that’s just so phenomenal. You know you’ve got to have that.

That happened to me when I moved to Arkansas. I was getting so tired of commuting there every weekend, and I was to the point where I was desperate to buy a house, any house. I was desperate.

So I could get settled and quit looking and quit commuting. But I had looked at so many houses that they were starting to show up in my nightmares. And some of them were nightmare worthy.

I think I told you all some of the stories about when I house hunted in Norman, some of the horror stories. Some of the houses I looked at were nightmare worthy, but still, with all these houses, I could not find one that was in my price range and was worth the amount of money that they were asking for. Now, one day, I was with the realtor, and we were looking at a house that was really beautiful on the outside, but when you walked into it, it was just trashed like so many of the others that we’d looked at.

I mean, this one was so bad. I walked in from outside, walked into the living room, immediately turned around and walked back out. I didn’t even look at the rest of the house.

Holes in the wall. I don’t know if the family that lived there had like they were competitive sledgehammer throwers or something and they were practicing for the Olympics. I don’t know what had happened, but it was bad.

I walked out. And as I was waiting on the porch for the agent to lock up. I looked down the road and I saw that there was another house just down the road with a for sale sign.

And that house hadn’t been on any of the lists that we’d gotten. It must have been fairly new on the market. And I asked the agent if we could see that one.

So he made a few phone calls and got us inside. And it was just as nice on the inside as it was on the outside. And so I kind of let myself fall in love with this house.

You shouldn’t do that until you know what it costs. Okay, but I did. I let myself fall in love with this house.

And then I asked how much they were asking for it. And when the agent told me how much they were asking for it, there’s got to be some kind of mistake here. That can’t possibly be the right price.

But he said it was, and I thought, okay, that’s our price range. I’m going to move forward with this, all the while keeping in the back of my mind, what’s wrong with this house? But we went back to his office and we looked at the computer and pulled up all the information about the house.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the house that I could tell. It was just about two or three years old. And we found out it was a foreclosure and the bank was so desperate to get rid of it that they were selling it for only 70% of the appraisal value.

That doesn’t just fall into your lap every day, let me tell you. So at that moment, I had one priority in life to get a contract on that house. That became my only priority in life.

I forgot about lunch that day because I was focused on getting a contract on that house. It was the deal of a lifetime as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t a mansion.

I know some preachers live in mansions. I never have. It wasn’t a mansion, but it was nice and it was clean and it was well-maintained.

And more importantly, it was going for a lot less money than some houses that were in terrible shape. And so that day, I scraped together all the cash I could for the earnest money. And I hustled.

I was on the phone to Oklahoma City, and I was hustling to try to get the paperwork done yesterday. I wanted a contract on this house before anybody else found out about it. So I put everything on hold.

What I’m telling you is I put everything else on hold in life until that offer was submitted because I understood the value of that house. I understood the value of what I was looking at. And by the way, just to complete the story, I did get the house.

I lived there for a few years, and when God called us back to Oklahoma, the money that I made from selling that house at a price that was more consistent with the market helped support us while I was looking for a church. So it worked out really well for us. But here’s the point of the story.

Here’s the point of that story about the house. I looked at dozens of houses when I was trying to move. But there was only one house that caused me to just sort of put everything else on hold and pursue that.

There’s only one house that did that. And that was because I found something that was really valuable, and I understood the value of it. That’s what made the difference.

And Jesus told two stories about two men who found themselves in similar situations. And we’re going to find this in Matthew chapter 13 as we continue this study of the kingdom. In two very short stories, Jesus described the value of the kingdom and how a person ought to respond to the kingdom when he or she truly understands the value of it.

So we’re going to look at verses 44 through 46 this morning. In verses 44 through 46, it says, Jesus said, The kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field. that a man found and rebury.

Then in his joy, he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one priceless pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it.

There’s the story. Jesus was a master storyteller. No matter how hard I try, there’s no way I can tell a story that short.

Y’all know this. But there, in three verses, he managed to tell two stories that illustrate something as profound as the truth about how much God’s kingdom is worth to you and me. See, Jesus revealed that the kingdom is worth more to us than everything else.

And he revealed that when we understand its value, everything else will drop away in comparison. When we understand the value of the kingdom, we’re going to be willing, if necessary, to walk away from everything we’ve ever held dear for the sake of the kingdom. Now, the story of the first man, the first story, starts with the man who found treasure buried in a field.

And Jesus compared that treasure to the kingdom of heaven, there in verse 44. And now, we might wonder why somebody would bury this priceless treasure in a field. But it makes sense back in their day.

In those days, they didn’t have banks. If you wanted to protect your valuables from robbers or from pillaging armies, one of the safest things you could do with them was to bury them. And if you did it really well, nobody would know it was there.

Of course, you could be like I probably would be and do it too well, and then you’d even forget where it was. And that’s apparently what had happened with somebody with this treasure. So this man was out in the field, and he was going about his business.

He might have been even plowing the field as a farm laborer or something like that. And he was just going about his business, and somehow he stumbled upon a buried treasure. It was buried.

That’s why I assume he might have been plowing the field. A few things we know, one of them, he didn’t put the treasure there. He just found it.

But I guarantee you, he was glad that he did, right? Wouldn’t you be? Are you all awake this morning?

Okay. He was glad that he found it because he instantly recognized the value of what he’d stumbled upon. And more importantly, because he recognized the value of it, he was determined that he had to have it.

He wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way. He had to have it. So he reburied the treasure, Jesus said.

And now we probably shouldn’t read too much into the fact that he reburied it and interpret that as, oh, we’re supposed to keep the kingdom of God a secret. That’s not what it means. We’re not supposed to hide the kingdom of God from others.

The focus of the story, both of these stories as we go through them, is on the value of the treasure. And so in the story, he was just acting like you would expect somebody to act under the circumstances. He was making sure the treasure would be there when he came back for it.

So the fact that he buried the treasure doesn’t mean we hide the kingdom of God. It’s just another indicator of how valuable the treasure was. He didn’t want somebody else to stumble upon it.

So the next thing he did was he went out and scraped together all the money that he could find so that he could afford to buy the field. He wanted the treasure, so he wanted the field as well. He was willing to do.

. . Jesus said he joyfully sold everything he had in order to buy the field and obtain the treasure.

Now, contrary to what some people have speculated about, there was nothing dishonest about this. Because according to their customs, if somebody lost something and it was later found and there was no clear indication of who it belonged to, then it belonged to the finder. It was finder’s keepers.

I already heard somebody whispering finder’s keepers. I don’t know who it was. But it was finder’s keepers.

The treasure didn’t belong to the landowner. I mean, he’s not the one who put it there. Or he would have known it was there and wouldn’t have agreed to sell the field, right?

The treasure had been put there by somebody a long time before, a long time ago. But now by finding it, the man in the field had the strongest claim to the treasure. But he was an honest man, apparently, and he wasn’t going to just go prospecting on somebody else’s property.

He wasn’t going to jump somebody else’s claim, so to speak. He was determined to do this the right way. He was going to give the landowner a fair price for the field, and he was also smart because he’s going to make sure there was no contesting claim, that his claim to the treasure was uncontested.

But all of that boils down to he recognized that the treasure was worth more to him than everything else he had. It was worth more to him than everything else that he had. And so he was determined he was not going to let it go.

He was willing to give up everything, anything that held him back from the ultimate prize. And then Jesus told the second story. He told a similar story about the pearl merchant.

This merchant was out one day in search of fine pearls. And somebody who made his living in this way would probably have seen hundreds or even thousands of pearls during his career. He knew pearls.

Probably got sick of looking at pearls. Probably saw pearls in his nightmares. He’d seen big ones and small ones.

He’d seen expensive ones and cheap ones. He’d seen all of them. And he knew the value of pearls when he looked at them, and he was out in search of the next big find to add to his collection or his inventory.

But while he was out looking for pearls, he found one that was greater than he could have ever imagined finding. When he came across this priceless pearl, or I like what the King James calls it, the pearl of great price, when he came across this pearl, he instantly recognized its immense value. he instantly knew he was looking at something truly special. Because after he had looked at thousands of pearls, thousands of pearls, this one caught his attention in a way that no other ever had.

And the merchant was so awestruck by the beauty and by the value of this pearl that he went and sold everything he had. Now presumably this includes the rest of his pearl collection that he’d spent years building up. All of his other pearls.

He sold everything just to get his hands on this one pearl. He gave up everything for that one pearl. Why on earth would he get rid of the rest of his inventory just for one pearl?

It’s because he recognized that this one pearl was worth more than all the others put together. So he was willing to part with anything he had ever valued just to have this one pearl. It was worth that much to him.

And Jesus used both of these situations to help us understand the value of what he offers us. Because he compared both of these things to the kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven. You see, God reaches out to us with a priceless treasure of salvation.

And he reaches out to it, as we see from the story, to people at different places in their lives. Just look at the difference between the two men. The first man was out in a field, going about his business, not really looking for anything in particular when he just sort of stumbled across this priceless treasure.

He was living his life, not realizing that he was about to be confronted by something that was going to change his life. And the second man, in contrast, didn’t find the pearl totally by accident. Now, Jesus told us he was out that day looking for pearls, just as he probably did every day or most days, and he was hoping to find something of value, but he could have never imagined what a valuable pearl he was about to find.

And the contrast between these two men reminds us that God has a way of causing us to encounter his priceless treasure from different places in our lives. If I asked all the people in this room who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior at some point in their lives to come up this morning and give testimonies of where they were in life and what they were doing when God called them to salvation in Jesus Christ, you’d a variety of stories. Now I’d probably also get an earful afterwards for calling you up without any warning.

But you’d hear a variety of stories. Some of us, like the man in the field, were just living our lives, not giving much thought really to anything beyond ourselves when he showed up. Maybe we were focused on our jobs or our families or just getting by at the point when God sort of invaded our world and offered us a priceless treasure.

Now some of us were like the pearl merchant, actively searching for something more, something that would make a difference. We were on a quest maybe to fill the hole in our lives with something that we knew was missing. We just didn’t know what.

Some people were seeking fulfillment in money or relationships or substances or philosophies, you name it, seeking fulfillment in something. They were out looking for something when God showed up and offered them a treasure that would satisfy the longing of their souls once and for all. But even though these two men came across the treasures in different ways, their reactions were the same, weren’t they?

See, they were both overwhelmed with joy over what they had found. They were overwhelmed with joy over what they had found. Verse 44 says that the man from the field was so overjoyed that he went out and sold everything.

It says he joyfully did it. I can’t imagine this, all right? I can’t imagine that he would do this joyfully.

He must have been impressed by the treasure. Have any of you ever tried to have a garage sale? I hate doing that.

I hate it. If I need to get rid of a bunch of stuff, I would rather drag it all out into the driveway, pile it up, and light it on fire. Then haggle with strangers for a quarter over it, okay?

I’ve done garage sales. I don’t mind going to them, but I hate doing them. Maybe you enjoy it.

I hate it. A lot of times, we’ll just give stuff away rather than try to deal with selling it to somebody. It’s a lot of hassle to sell all that stuff.

So for him, not only to make the sacrifice of parting with all of his stuff, but to go through all the hassle and all the trouble of selling it to get the money to buy the land, that tells me he had to have been beyond excited over what he had found. He had to be to go to all that trouble. And the same goes for the pearl merchant.

Verse 46, when it describes the pearl merchant, doesn’t specifically use the word joy the way verse 44 does, but you can see it in his reaction. He was just like the man from the field. He was so excited over what he had found that he sprang into action.

He did the same thing that the man from the field did. And the same thing is true for those who are confronted with the kingdom and really recognize the value of the kingdom, really recognize the value of what God’s offering. There’s a joy in the realization that our sins can be forgiven and that we can have eternal life in the presence of God.

There’s joy in that, isn’t there? okay for me for me and ken there is sometimes I ask y’all questions and I think you’re afraid they’re trick questions now there’s joy in in knowing that our sins can be forgiven there’s joy in finding that eternal life there’s there’s joy in knowing that jesus christ can spare us from the eternity and hell that we deserve as a consequence for our sins there’s there should be joy in knowing that. It’s called the good news for a reason, right?

When you hear that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins in full, and when you hear that he offers you forgiveness and eternal life, if you’ll just repent and seek his forgiveness and trust him as your savior, when you hear that, it ought to be the best news you’ve ever heard, and it ought to be the greatest relief you’ve ever experienced. I mean, if you really understand what God’s offering, it ought to be those things. If we don’t find joy in this priceless treasure that God offers, it’s because we still don’t understand the value of what we’re looking at.

Now the example that comes to mind of this is the rich young ruler. Like I’ve talked about him recently in this series on the kingdom. He walked away from Jesus sad, right?

He walked away sad because he still didn’t understand that what God offered him was worth far more than the riches he was being asked to give up. he was just focused on all that he’d have to give up. He wasn’t focused on God and what God does.

He was focused on what he’d have to do. And when we truly recognize what God’s offering us, when we truly understand the value of what it is that he’s offering us, that he’s offering us something that we can get nowhere else, it’s a cause for joy. I’ll take it a step further.

It’s a cause for celebration. It ought to be. But it’s also a prize that’s worth surrendering everything else for.

these two men were willing to part with everything they owned just so that they could get their hands on the treasure that they’d found now the lesson for us from these stories is not that we can buy our way into the kingdom of heaven it’s not that we can buy our way into the kingdom of heaven if we’ll just sell all of our stuff and use that money to buy our way in doesn’t work that way there is a price involved in us entering the kingdom but it’s not a transaction of money and It’s not a transaction of good works because Jesus already paid the price in full. And he already provided all the righteousness that we needed to get in. There’s a price, but Jesus paid our way into the kingdom when he died on the cross for our sins.

He paid our way in. I want to be very clear in discussing this this morning. That’s the only way we get into heaven.

That’s the only way we get into heaven is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Not through anything that we do. So then what’s the significance of them giving up everything they had to obtain this treasure?

If it’s not to tell us you have to give up everything to get in, then what’s the point of it? It’s to show us the value of the kingdom. It’s to show us what the kingdom is worth.

The whole point of these stories is not to focus on what we give up for the kingdom. It’s to focus on how much the kingdom is worth. That it would be worth surrendering all those things.

The kingdom is worth so much more than all the other things that we hold on to. Giving things up doesn’t, again, it doesn’t buy our way into the kingdom. But holding on to some things may hold us back from entering in.

Now to explain the difference there, to explain what I mean, I need to take you back to the story of the rich young ruler again. I need to point you back to that. Giving up his money, as we talked about all those weeks ago, giving up his money would not have been enough to get that man into heaven.

But Jesus told him to give up his money. Why did he do that? To show the rich young ruler that he loved his money more than he loved God.

To show him that there was a sin problem in his heart because the rich young ruler thought he was totally righteous. To show him that he loved his money more than he loved God. And that idolatry, that worship of money held him back from a relationship with God.

That sin of idolatry ultimately held him back from the kingdom. Jesus told him to give up his money to diagnose the problem. And then there was another man who’s recorded in the Gospels who wouldn’t follow Jesus until he’d buried his father.

And a lot of Bible scholars think his father wasn’t even dead yet. He’s just old. So he’s saying, Jesus, let me wait around a few years.

And so Jesus still called him to walk away from his family. Why did he do that? It’s because the man was using his elderly father as an excuse to put off following Jesus until it became more convenient.

So do those stories mean that everyone has to give up all their money or leave their families to make it into the kingdom, to make it into heaven? No, that’s not what those stories mean. Do those stories mean that giving up those things are enough for us to get into heaven?

That’s not what they mean either. Those stories are examples of people who encountered the priceless treasure that Jesus offers eternal life with him in the kingdom of heaven. They encountered that treasure, but they refused to receive it because they let themselves be held back by something that they imagined to be better.

But instead, the man in the field and the pearl merchant, they encountered the treasure and they recognized its value and they determined that nothing in the world mattered enough to hold them back from the treasure that they had found. You see, all of this, it’s not about what we give up to obtain the kingdom. Because anything that you and I have to give up isn’t worth all that much in eternity anyway.

This is all about the value of what Jesus is offering. He’s placed before us a treasure that’s worth more than everything else in this world. He’s set before us a treasure that we can’t obtain anywhere else.

He’s offered us eternal life in the kingdom, enjoying perfect fellowship with the God who made us and loves us. And Jesus offers us this priceless treasure, not because we deserve it, but because He’s already paid for it on the cross. He shed His blood and He died on the cross to pay for our sins in full.

Because of that, our slate can be wiped clean. Our sins can be forgiven. We can receive eternal life in the kingdom of heaven.

And sometimes people will be, they’ll allow themselves to be held back by things. Sometimes it’s because their self-righteousness, their sense of self-righteousness is too valuable to them. Sometimes people reject Christ. When that’s the case, they reject Christ because they can’t bear to admit they’ve sinned against a holy God and that they need a Savior.

You ever heard somebody say, I’m not a sinner? We all know that’s not true. You take a long, deep look in your heart and the Bible guarantees you won’t like what you find.

And we don’t like to admit what we find there. Sometimes our self-righteousness, and some people can’t get to that point, can’t let go of that perception that I’m a good person, and they let that self-righteousness hold them back from Christ. Sometimes it’s a person’s pride that’s too valuable to let go of, and they reject Christ because the thought of humbling themselves enough to repent and seek God’s forgiveness is just too much. It’s kind of like when we let our pride get to the point where we can’t say, I’m sorry, because we can’t humble ourselves at that point.

The thought of going to God and actually asking for His forgiveness. I can’t do that. I’m too proud.

Other times people have some particular sin that’s just too valuable to them. And that’s the valuable thing that they’re holding on to, they think. And they reject Christ because they worry that He’s either going to make them give up those sins or else He’s going to change their hearts so they no longer desire those sins ready to give them up.

Maybe some of you in here this morning are in that boat, holding on to something that you feel like is too valuable to give up for what Christ is calling you to. Don’t let something like that keep you from taking hold of what Jesus offers. What he’s offering you, salvation, is infinitely more valuable than any pride or self-righteousness or pet sin or anything else that we hold on to in this life.

These two men in Jesus’ stories, they obtain priceless treasure because they understood its value and they let nothing stand in their way. We have the opportunity today to be like them. Not by purchasing our salvation.

I’m not telling you go scrounge under your couch cushions and come up with all the money you can to buy your way into heaven. It’s not by purchasing our salvation, but it’s by determining that there’s nothing in this world that is so valuable that it ought to hold us back from what Jesus offers. There’s nothing in this world so that it ought to hold us back from receiving by faith the priceless treasure that Jesus Christ offers us.

He offers to forgive sinners. And He offers to rescue us from an eternity in hell. If we’ll repent, meaning change our mind about our sin and change our minds about God, if we’ll repent and we’ll seek His forgiveness, trusting entirely in Jesus Christ as our one and only Savior.

Not thinking, I can be good enough. It’s Jesus plus my good works. No, realizing that we’re sinners and we’ve blown it with God.

There’s no ability that we have to get to heaven on our own. We have to trust Jesus. And as our musicians come forward this morning, we’re going to stand and sing a closing song.

And if you know you need to seek God’s forgiveness this morning and trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, I’d invite you to deal with God during this time. Take this opportunity as we sing another song in praise of our God. Take this opportunity to deal with Him again and to deal with Him now.

You just have to acknowledge your sin and ask His forgiveness and believe that Jesus Christ died to pay for your sins in full and that He rose again. If you need to ask questions this morning or talk more about what Jesus did for you on the cross, maybe you don’t completely understand or don’t feel like you understand enough, then you’re more than welcome to come visit with me or visit with somebody else as we sing. Really, come find me any time after the service.

That’s fine, too. Be glad to answer any questions I can. But if you’re ready to trust Christ as your Savior this morning, you can also deal with God right where you are.