[SPEAKER_00]: We are here to open up God's Word, to meditate on Scripture together, to prepare our hearts for the communion table.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are in the series, as Kim mentioned, called the Kingdom of Heaven as like, and we're just looking at three of Jesus' parables from Matthew 13 on the Kingdom of Heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And today we are, as I mentioned in the last one, before we read the passage though, here's a story that ran in the BBC news this week that hours before there was a knock at their front door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nicola Dixon Dickinson and her husband Martin were at home discussing their household budget.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was earlier this month when the married couple of almost 40 years were chatting about post-Christmas, credit card bill and potential ways to cut costs for the coming year when Nicola's phone rang.
[SPEAKER_00]: The voice on the other end of the line said that she had won a raffle.
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't believe the caller assumed it was a scam and hung up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a representative from OMA's UK, a charity-based raffle, letting Nicole know that they were standing outside her house at her front door.
[SPEAKER_00]: A short time later, she was handed the keys to a five-bedroom lake house worth $9 million, and $500,000 in cash.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nicola bought the winning ticket for $50 with equivalent in British pounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never won anything in my life she said that morning we'd been talking about downsizing, about cutting costs, and now we've upsized.
[SPEAKER_00]: She entered the competition despite her husband saying that she wouldn't win it in a million years, and she said, I'm really glad I don't listen to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And her husband said, I'm really glad you don't listen to me as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: This win, she said, has taken so much pressure off us financially.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gives us security, stability, and peace of mind in a way that we've never even dreamed of.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here is the house that they won by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not too shabby in the legs district of the UK.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so who here now, let's be honest, who here has dreamed of something like this happening to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, show off hands, come on now, be honest, just about all of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Winning the lottery, finding some priceless treasure, maybe at a thrift store, waking up one morning to an email saying you've unexpectedly inherited millions of dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the ones from Nigeria, you know, dearest, sir,
[SPEAKER_00]: If you kindly deposit $50 into this account to confirm your identity, we will wire immediately $52 million to your account, which is sitting here in our vault just with your name on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not those ones, but nearly everyone has dreamed of something like this happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine if suddenly I came across millions of dollars' life would be so different.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many of my problems would be solved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would never have to worry about the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we know that it almost never works out that way, hardly anyone who's won a lottery has ended up being better off in the end, usually it ends in disaster with family breakdown, with jealousy and rivalries, and of course, the lure of easy wealth often traps people into the evil of gambling, uh, gambling addiction, which destroys lives and families.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even so, the dream of sudden, miraculous, unarmed wealth has captivated people since, well, pretty much from forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing new here.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are stories like this that date back to the very ancient world that imagine these exact kinds of scenarios.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also including warnings of what finding sudden wealth might do to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may know the ancient Greek story of Midas Touch, who is given a gift by the gods because of his greed to turn everything he touches into gold and it destroys his life and destroys everyone around him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, all of this may explain why the two very short parables of Jesus on this topic, among his shortest I think, about two men who unexpectedly discover immense treasure, just three short verses, are also some of Jesus' most well-known and most memorable.
[SPEAKER_00]: But don't let their brevity fool you, because the meaning behind these stories or the question, perhaps, that these stories ask you,
[SPEAKER_00]: is something that every person must enter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is essential to your discipleship.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's essential to your whole life.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: As a New Testament scholar, they'll bring to put it.
[SPEAKER_00]: These two parables make sense of all the others, of all of Jesus' other parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: All you might say, they open the door to understanding all of Jesus' other parables, because how you respond to these parables.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll pretty much determine whether all of the other parables that Jesus teaches.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, really the whole of Jesus' ministry will have any relevance to you at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I, so sometimes these are called the, the parables of the treasure in the field or the pearl of great price, let's read them together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew 13 verse 44, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.
[SPEAKER_00]: When a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy, he went and sold all that he had and bought that field.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls when he found one of great value he went away and sold everything he had and he bought it.
[SPEAKER_00]: word of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now last week, Linda preached on the parable of the mustard seed and the yeast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that parable, Jesus is teaching us about the miraculous, transformative power of the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even if it starts or appears to start out as something small and insignificant like a mustard seed or yeast,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet in God's kingdom, even small insignificant things like mustard seeds and yeast, or apparently small and insignificant people, or small and insignificant acts of faith, can be transformed in God's kingdom into something that is impossible and miraculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tiny seeds become mighty trees, a pinch of yeast can live in kilos of flour.
[SPEAKER_00]: Musted seed faith is enough to move mountains.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the transformative, miraculous dimension of possibility of impossible becoming possible in the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kingdom of heaven is a place Jesus is teaching of miraculous, transformative power making things that should not be into things that are.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Paul says in one Corinthians, one, twenty-seven, for God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wires, God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong, God chose the lowly things of this world and despise things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him
[SPEAKER_00]: that are those who are in Christ Jesus, let the one who boasts boast only in the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in the kingdom of heaven, God chooses the weak, he chooses the small, he chooses the despised, he chooses the rejected, the powerless and the seemingly insignificant and he does the impossible through them and in them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now in the parable of the treasure and the pearl,
[SPEAKER_00]: What is being emphasized two things?
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, the immense joy that comes with discovering the infinite value of the kingdom of God and of all that the kingdom of God brings in the ministry of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And secondly, the responsibility or the necessity, the absolute necessity of doing whatever we must do to acquire it, of not missing the opportunity to enter the kingdom when it comes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of folks have noticed that the twin emphasis in these parables is all over the New Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have the immense joy of discovering the value of the kingdom and then the call, the responsibility to enter it, to acquire it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so lots of folks have noted that there's parallels here with lots of other things, so the call to experience both grace, but also then in grace to live a life of obedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: faith that leads to works because faith without works is dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you need both.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love, the experience of the love of Jesus which leads us to want to keep His commandments.
[SPEAKER_00]: So love and commandment go together.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this story it's framed as the treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: and of the cost to acquire it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another thing to note here is that both in last week's parable and in this one, Jesus interestingly is covering pretty much the whole social spectrum.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right last week the characters were a man and a woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: This week the characters are an apparently a poor man like a farmer or a day laborer, a farm worker at least, and a rich man, a jewel merchant,
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of them in the story is actively searching, and one of them isn't, just kind of comes across it by accident, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the point is I think everyone is included in these stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has left out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The invitation of these parables is to anyone who will listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Men, women, rich poor, Jude, Gentile, those of high status, those of low status.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those looking for God, those not looking for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has excluded from the invitation to enter God's kingdom, but that also means,
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a warning implicit in these stories, which is actually made explicit if you keep reading to the very next parable that Jesus teaches after this one, the parable of the fishing net, or the drag net, as it's sometimes called, which is saying that just as everyone is invited into God's kingdom and no one's excluded, so no one will be excluded from God's judgment in the end either.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is equality because everyone has given the same opportunity and everyone will face the same judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: All will stand before God in the end, and all will need to give an account of their lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the only thing Jesus says in the next parable that separates the good fish from the bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: The wicked from the righteous, those who inherit eternal life or those who inherit eternal death, will be whether the invitation of the kingdom was accepted, was joyfully accepted, whether we were prepared to leave everything behind in order to obtain it for the sake of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what's at stake here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these parables, the treasure and the pearl, are in the end about the call to discipleship.
[SPEAKER_00]: the call to accept the invitation that Jesus is giving you in the gospel to enter the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, if you're already a disciple of Jesus and I mean not just a Christian in name, not just someone who goes to church or prays occasionally, but I mean someone who has decided
[SPEAKER_00]: to follow his way, as imperfectly as you may do it, but you have made the decision at some point in your life to apprentice your life to the way of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you are convinced that he is your greatest treasure, then this parable actually is not going to teach you very much, because in a sense you're already living into what it intends.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll say, yes, and amen, you'll be encouraged, but this is a doorway that you've already passed through and praise God for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's two other groups of people that this parable is speaking to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, those are the first, are those who call themselves Christians, but they are not actually disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got a church, you might read the Bible occasionally, you pray sometimes to try to be a good person, but you have never actually made the decision to follow Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the honest intention of living into what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you believe in Jesus, you appreciate Jesus, but you don't follow Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've never made that deliberate choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: the second group of those who want to become disciples of Jesus, but they're not quite sure how, not sure how to enter into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And perhaps you've convinced that Jesus is the way that he's the best thing ever, but you're not sure what steps to take to get going into apprenticeship with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're gonna talk about that just at the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you remember back to the first parable we looked at in this series, the parable of the solar or the parable of the soils as it sometimes called, you might remember that there was only one type of soil out of four, only one that was the kind of good soil in which the gospel could take root, where discipleship could happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a great statistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three out of four either reject it,
[SPEAKER_00]: But the point is not the number of soils, those who accept it versus those who don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: What that parable is intended to do is to get you to sit up and ask yourself the question, am I the kind of, is my life the kind of soil in which the gospel has taken root and I have become a disciple of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the number, it's the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: M.I.
[SPEAKER_00]: the kind of person is my heart, the kind of heart, is my soul, the kind of soul, which is good soil in which the seed of the good news has deposited itself and it's now beginning to bear fruit.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, M.I.
[SPEAKER_00]: really a disciple of Jesus or am I just playing church?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you care about that question, if that question bothers you,
[SPEAKER_00]: then these parables are for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't, if this doesn't bother you at all, if it's just like water off a duck's back, then what Jesus is saying here is not gonna help you at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like what Delus Willard says about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's now generally acknowledged that someone can be a professing Christian and a church member in good standing without being a disciple.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is apparently no real connection between being a Christian and being a disciple of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is bound to be confusing to a person
[SPEAKER_00]: What then we must ask is the state of soul or the state of the soil that would bring us to choose that condition?
[SPEAKER_00]: What would be the thinking the convictions about reality that would lead someone to choose the discipleship to Jesus?
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, you would feel great admiration and love.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would really believe that Jesus is the most magnificent person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who has ever lived, you would be quite sure that to belong to him to be taken into what he's doing in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it becomes your life, your whole life too is the greatest opportunity that you will ever have.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it gives you incredible joy to think that this offer has been made to you, that you have been invited to receive this treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's where these two parables fit into this picture because it's exactly those questions that this parable or these parables are asking you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that what you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: Go back to what Dallas says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are those questions?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are those attitudes of how what you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: is that what you feel about Jesus?
[SPEAKER_00]: If that is the case, if that's you, if that's describing your state of mind, your state of heart right now, then you are ready to become a disciple.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the first parable,
[SPEAKER_00]: a man who's either a day laborer or a hard worker on a farm, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The implication is that his poor is out working in the field.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he's plowing, or maybe he's soaring, we don't know, when clunk, he hits on something in the dirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's something quite solid, maybe he thinks it's a rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he stips down to kind of clear it out of the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to his surprise, it's not a rock, but it's a wooden box or a clay jar or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he opens it, he finds it filled with treasure beyond his wildest imaginations.
[SPEAKER_00]: A treasure of immense value, the kind of treasure that people only dream about.
[SPEAKER_00]: His whole life is about to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think of Aladdin and the Lamb, the treasures in the cave of wonders.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this might seem pretty unlikely, but as it turns out, bearing treasure in fields was a common practice at the time, especially during times as it was the time of Jesus, of foreign occupation and the threat of war.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were no banks, there were no safe, so people had to hide their wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the Romans were always on the lookout for unpaid taxes, for undeclared wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So pretty much, anyone with any kind of means would have to bury their wealth and hide it somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And remember the power of the talents, for example.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the same, you know, there's an image in that same story of a servant going and burying his master's wealth, so that he doesn't lose it or it's not taken away.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the point is this was very common.
[SPEAKER_00]: As was, finding treasures unexpectedly.
[SPEAKER_00]: As it turns out, someone might have buried some treasure generations ago that have forgotten about or the families forgotten about or the person who did it has died.
[SPEAKER_00]: And along you come now the new owner of a field and you discover it and it's yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it happens so frequently I discovered researching for this message that the rabbis actually had a whole bunch of rules about how you were to declare and claim and take ownership of treasure that you found
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's just some background, it's not really all that important.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is important is that this man has just suddenly come across a treasure of such immense value that he has some newfound wealth that is utterly and completely life-changing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this has just changed his life completely and he's so overcome with joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: that he quickly liquids everything he has, which is probably isn't much, in order to raise the money to buy the field so he can claim the treasure for himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, a single talent was worth about 20 years' wages.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're obviously talking about so much more than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is decades and decades, maybe hundreds of years of wealth at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I imagine his friends and family would be pretty, pretty distressed at this sudden frenzied selling of everything of value he has to raise money to buy a field.
[SPEAKER_00]: They might think he's gone crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: They might be worried that he's, you know, gonna ruin himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: They might try to stop him, but he doesn't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: His joy at the discovery, his joy at how this treasure is gonna transform his whole life, his future.
[SPEAKER_00]: Means he is willing, more than willing to pay anything he has to the full cost, whatever cost to acquire it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course the second story is like it except that in this instance, the merchant has been searching, unlike the poor man, it's an accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this case, the merchant's been searching his whole life for the pearl that he's had in his dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he finds it, he is so overcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: The outcome's the same as in the first story.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's so overwhelmed by what he's found.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's Pearl of Great Price, that he too sells everything he has in order to obtain it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And although Joy's not mentioned explicitly in the second story, I mean, it's clearly implied who wouldn't be overjoyed at suddenly finding a treasure of such value, being sold for a fraction of its worth, this Pearl of Great Price.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's,
[SPEAKER_00]: Searching for, been looking for his whole life, so overwhelmed with joy, so overcome with emotion that is willing to just liquidate his entire business in order to obtain this one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe, again, his family and fellow merchants think he's gone crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to bankrupt himself, that he's going to end up penniless, that his ruining his reputation as a businessman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely, there can be no dual worth such a price they might have asked.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the merchant knows better, he doesn't care about their opinions, he doesn't care about their confusion, and he clearly does not care about the cost.
[SPEAKER_00]: In both cases, these men know that they have been presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity that they could not possibly pass up, in fact, to do so would be the ultimate foolishness.
[SPEAKER_00]: the greatest loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Dallas Willard says these little stories perfectly express the condition of the soul of someone who chooses life in the kingdom with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sense of the goodness to be achieved by that choice of the opportunity that may be missed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The love for the value discovered, the excitement and the joy over it all is exactly the same as it was for those who were first drawn to Jesus when he walked among us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is also the condition of soul from which discipleship can be effectively chosen today.
[SPEAKER_00]: So friends, for those of you who follow Jesus, let me ask you, let me ask you, do you remember
[SPEAKER_00]: What it was like when you first encountered the treasures of God's grace, his overwhelming love and mercy, his presence, that you experience for the very first time, do you remember what that was like?
[SPEAKER_00]: I sure do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember the exact time and place when I experienced the love of God for myself for the first time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was so overwhelmed that I immediately recognized myself in this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't say I've lived it perfectly.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that very moment in my life, I made the decision in my heart that no matter what, this is the most important thing that I will ever receive, and I'm going to give my whole self to it, come what may.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so overwhelmed by joy in the Lord and His love in His presence and the goodness of His mercy that I was willing to do exactly this to say yes and amen to whatever it is that I'm being offered here.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter the cost and in fact the cost for me was initially quite significant because when I chose to be baptized just a couple of weeks later after that event that my pastor at the time told me that he wouldn't baptize me unless I invited every single one of my classmates from school.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to hand write invitations to every single one of them, give them to school saying, I'd become a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be baptised and giving my life to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm inviting you to my baptism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you come and witness me, make a public declaration of my faith?
[SPEAKER_00]: As a teenager, social suicide.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did it because I loved Jesus more.
[SPEAKER_00]: His grace meant more to me than my reputation at school, and I hope by God's grace that it still does, but I'm asking you the question now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember when you first gave your life to Jesus?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember what that was like the first love that you experienced?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe you've never experienced it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And today you're asking, I want the soil of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want my heart and my soul to be ready to be, so that I can become a disciple.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know exactly what it is that this story is inviting into the what Dallas Willard is talking about here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So some people in this parable want to emphasize the cost
[SPEAKER_00]: They're the cost of following Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of what it's going to require to give up the sacrifices in order to gain the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They think that that's the emphasis in this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let me ask you, do you honestly think that the businessman who found the pearl was sweating over its cost?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course not, what about the man who found the treasure in the field, perhaps enough gold to set his family up in immense wealth for generations?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was he even remotely worried about what it was going to cost him to obtain it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course he wasn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was not giving a second thought to the fact that he's going to have to sell his old beat up rusted out to Roller in order to obtain a Bugatti, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course all of us would make that choice.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing these guys were worried about was whether they were going to miss the opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're going to get the deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the soul of a disciple.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this reveals the greatest secret about life in the kingdom of God, because I think the central point in both of these parables is the joy that the gospel brings into the lives of those who discover it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the cost, the cost comes later, but the joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: is what gives you the power, the strength, the ability to make the choice to pay whatever cost you need to, because the joy is worth so much more moved by joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, I've both of the two men, the farmer and the merchant, were willing to change their whole lives, to turn them inside out, so they sold absolutely everything that they had, as soon as they realized, the value of what they just found they'll prepare to pay the cost to obtain it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In case they might miss the opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first, I guess, the point I want to make here, and I guess I don't think we say this often enough, in church, but in the kingdom of God, obligation, guilt, requirements, commandments, et cetera, law, et cetera, et cetera, those things are not the engine of change.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they were, then the law of Moses would have been enough, and we wouldn't have needed Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We wouldn't have needed the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the scriptures, obedience, law, obligation, guilt, etc., etc., those things are never presented as the engine of change.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's presented to us as the engine of our change, of the engine of transformation.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we're overcome with joy in the Lord, that is the strength of our salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could say that joy is the engine of sacrifice, of course, if we're not for the fact that neither the farmer, nor the businessman, think for a moment, that they're making any kind of sacrifice at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of the surpassing value of the treasure they've found, the selling of their stuff was no sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was smart business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it was all joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither the firm and all the businessmen lost a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both made gains beyond their wildest dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the joy of discovering the grace of Jesus, in whom our hidden impulse words and collocions two verse three, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and the power of God has always moved women and men to make huge life-changing decisions and to engage in acts that two others might look like totally ruinous renunciation of all good sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is why Paul says, in one Corinthians one, that the message of the cross is, does anyone know what he says?
[SPEAKER_00]: He is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: For God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached.
[SPEAKER_00]: To save those who believe, Jews demanded a sign, Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ, crucify the ultimate gift, the ultimate treasure, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those whom God has called both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and as it is written,
[SPEAKER_00]: Noah has seen, and Noah has heard, and no human mind has conceived, the things that God has prepared for those who love him.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the joy of the Lord that you can see in your heart of hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Noah has seen, Noah has heard, no mind has ever possibly conceived, the good things that God has prepared for those who love him have encountered his love.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the treasure friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the Pearl of Great Price.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the invitation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the offer that's being made to you in the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it leads us not to a life of drudgery and misery and guilt-ridden moralism, but to unimaginable joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what's the point, let's be clear, it's not telling people to sacrifice, say that again, sorry, it's not by telling people to sacrifice that they're made willing to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: in theological languages, not by preaching the law that people will desire to keep God's commands.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's first by telling people about the treasures of God's kingdom, that people will then be made willing to do whatever is necessary to pay any cost to acquire it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this didn't just start in the New Testament with the gospel, even in the Ten Commandments, they even the Ten Commandments begin with joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the immense treasure of this invitation for the people of Israel to enter into covenant with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the Lord says, when He introduces the Lord to them, He says, I am the Lord your God who has brought you out of slavery in the land of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been your Redeemer and now I want to be your father forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have freed you from slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've called you to be my people and now I'm going to show you what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is how you live into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 10 commandments to the people of Israel were never seen as an overwhelming bought burden, they were seen initially, at least, as the greatest source of their strength and their ability to live in blessing.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Psalm 19 declares, I delight in your commandments, O Lord, for your law has been my delight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And without your law, I would have perished in my affliction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will never forget your precepts for by them you have preserved my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, of course, I'm a preacher, and I preach.
[SPEAKER_00]: really because I want all of you to live more joyfully and more fully and completely in the kingdom of God, that's my heart's desire for all of you, but the temptation for us preachers is trying to tell people that the way to be a disciple,
[SPEAKER_00]: is to give more time, give more money to the church, to pray more, to serve more, to be more dedicated to Christ, to be a better person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And none of those things are wrong in themselves, but they will just become the law that kills you if you don't know why you should do any of those things in the first place.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I could try and motivate you by guilt, but it will break your hearts, or I can try and motivate you by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, which will lead you to everlasting joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, guilt, the beauty, I mean, not the beauty, but the, you know, the way of guilt achieves results faster, which is why a lot of preachers and pastors go that way because they think if I can just, maybe they don't do this consciously, but if I can just guilt people a little bit, they'll respond immediately and they'll get on board with whatever it is that I'm wanting them to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we go the route of grace, that takes more time because grace requires the Lord in His Spirit to work in our hearts to start to change the way we feel, to start to change the way we think, start to change the way we act, which is slow, sanctifying work.
[SPEAKER_00]: doesn't often achieve immediate results sometimes, the transformation is very dramatic, but other times it's just day by day obedience, growing in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, which over time makes you into a more joyful, more whole, more healthy, more dedicated and faithful person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what this parable is inviting you into, not guilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a warning here, but Jesus is not trying to guilt you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's trying to invite you to see the treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in response to the treasure, then say, yes, Lord, I'm all in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I give my whole self to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just kind of let you behind the curtain a little bit there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Feel a little bit vulnerable.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is, friends, in the kingdom of God,
[SPEAKER_00]: Joy must come before sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't sacrifice your way to joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the discovery of the beauty of Christ before the decision to follow Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the gospel before the commandments.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the treasure before the sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when you truly do discover the treasure that is Christ, you don't need anyone to tell you to sell everything you have to obtain Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: to count everything else as rubbish in order that you might gain price.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, here in this parable, no one's telling the farmer or the merchant, okay, dude, you better sell everything you own in order to acquire that treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they immediately know what they have to do when they come across the treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the same way when you experience the grace of Jesus, when you experience His love and His mercy and the power of His forgiveness, you know exactly what it is you need to do in that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one needs to tell you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The treasure itself tells you everything that you need to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, friends, no one goes reluctantly, sadly, the morning, groaning into discipleship with Jesus, because if that's the case, they haven't really understood the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now some of you who know C.S.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lewis' story will know that he described himself as the most reluctant convert in all England, when he became a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: But immediately, having given his life to Jesus, he describes in one of his follow-up books how surprised he was by, joy, his reluctance quickly turned into celebration, and that's what it is like for all of us who follow Jesus, if that isn't the case, then we haven't understood the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Jesus said, no one looks back after putting His hand to the plow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, no one who looks back after putting His hand to the plow is suited to the kingdom of God, which means that no one goes in by moaning the cost.
[SPEAKER_00]: because they understand the opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're too focused on the treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so one of the things that prevents many Christians from entering wholeheartedly into discipleship with Jesus is this idea that it's going to be immensely difficult and that it's going to ruin your life that if you really give your who's heard something like or thought something like this before that if you really give your life over to Jesus, then he's going to take away everything that you like,
[SPEAKER_00]: and he's going to force you to go become a missionary in some place that you don't want to go and you're going to live the rest of your days in hard work and misery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eating food you don't want to eat, sleeping where you don't want to sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is that's not what happens at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: People think here about the much misunderstood teaching and say, look 14, where Jesus says that if you want to enter the kingdom of God, you must hate your family, you must hate your own life, you must take up your cross, forsake everything that you own, and unless you do those things, you cannot be my disciple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Jesus did say those things, but the point of that teaching is to say that as long as you think,
[SPEAKER_00]: that anything may be truly more valuable than life with Jesus in His kingdom, then you simply can't follow Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't be His disciple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your heart just won't be in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what He's saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're saying, I don't want you to be in my kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying you don't want to be in His kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your heart's just not in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may believe in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may even be forgiven of your sins, but you don't really want to learn anything from Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: because that's what discipleship is learning how to walk in the way of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one author put it like this, and I need to land this plane because we've got to come to the communion table.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we now need to end our services after one hour and 15 minutes, as of next week, otherwise we are gonna have chaos.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a mathematics teacher in high school who might say it was student.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was definitely said to me on a number of occasions, but unless you understand decimals and fractions, you cannot by any means do algebra.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's not that the teacher doesn't want the student to do algebra, but they know and it's not because they're a bad person, but they know that if you haven't learned decimals and fractions, you won't be able to do algebra.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like unless you've made that first decision, that this is the most important thing in your life, Jesus is saying, you can't enter the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't be my disciple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put it differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to ride a Harley on your first try if you've never even learned how to ride a pushback.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to kill you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you don't truly believe that Jesus is the greatest treasure in the world and is worth everything to obtain him, that life in his kingdom is of infinitely greater value than anything else in the world, what he's saying is you just can't be my disciple.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this counting of the cost is not about the morning everything that we might lose or might have to give up in order to follow Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not about wallowing in pity or misery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Counting the cost is about coming to a point of clarity and decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where I want to end this this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Counting the cost is what the man who found the pearl and the man who found the treasure did.
[SPEAKER_00]: They counted the cost not because they wanted to be moan what they had to give up.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were counting the cost, but they're asking themselves, do I have enough to obtain this treasure?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I have enough to enter in?
[SPEAKER_00]: They were coming to a point of decision, a point of reckoning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And out of their decisiveness,
[SPEAKER_00]: came there overwhelming joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as Delus Willard says, it's not about some dreadful price that you must pay to be Jesus' apprentice.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no such thing as a dreadful price for the pearl or the treasure in question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the reality is, and this is, I think, what's implied in the story, do these men have enough to buy the treasure, buy the fields, obtain the treasure, or to obtain the pearl?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they don't, they don't have enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we understand later on in Jesus' teaching,
[SPEAKER_00]: In order, we might gain everything in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the cross means.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was for the joy set before him and for you that he was willing to endure the cross and despise its shame so that you might inherit a treasure that you could not pay for, that you could not earn, that you don't deserve, but is pure gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we come this morning to this same moment of clarity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the question I want to ask you, I guess, is have you made the decision in your own hub?
[SPEAKER_00]: At some point, or maybe today is the day, or maybe you have in the past, but that decision has faded into the background, choked out by all kinds of other commitments and worries and concerns and priorities.
[SPEAKER_00]: then anything else you may have to give up in order to receive what he wants to give you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the question these parables are asking you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I put it really simply, do you actually intend to follow Jesus?
[SPEAKER_00]: You might have joy at finding Christ, and now you need to act on that joy, because in both of these stories,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the men discover the treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's unimaginable treasure, but they now need to make a decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: They need to take some steps, and they need to make take some actions in order to obtain it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, both things here are being emphasized.
[SPEAKER_00]: Join in the Lord at what is being offered in Christ, and then your decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: to receive that treasure and to do whatever you need to do to obtain it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the basic motive of all discipleship.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Dale Bruno puts it, let me finish with this quote, Joy enables selling, but only selling gets the treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this parable, selling is a condition, not for finding the treasure, but for having it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The basic motive of discipleship for all discipleship's difficulties is certainly joy, joy in discovering the reality of Jesus, and the wisdom of His commands.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there are base notes in the Gospel too, and obedience to the commands must complement joy in their discovery if you are ever to have the discovery.
[SPEAKER_00]: I conclude that few places in the New Testament as perfectly spell out the two main focus of the gospel grace and obedience and put them in their proper order as to the treasure parables first, the treasure and then the selling but without the selling there is no possession of the treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the treasure parables we are, in the landscape of come here to me and I will give you rest, the joy of the gospel and to take my yoke upon you and learn from me, that's the demand of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as we come to the communion table, together, I'm going to invite the band to come on up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to use this as an opportunity, just simply be honest with the Lord, to come before Him, and maybe do one or three things, one, if you've never actually made the decision with intention to follow Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come to the table and say, Lord, I want to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be your disciple.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to follow you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know the joy of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be transformed by your love.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to give myself to you just as you've given yourself to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, if you have made a decision like that at some point in the past, but it's faded into the background of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've allowed it to be overwhelmed as in the parable of the soar by other weeds, by other concerns by other commitments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just use this as a moment to say, Lord, bring me back to my first love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remind me of what it means for me to know the treasure of your grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're in the third category of folks who you've done this and you're living into this, you've given your life to Jesus and you're living for Him joyfully and fully then just take use of this time as a time to celebrate the goodness of God and the goodness of the gospel and to thank Him again for all that He's done for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: After all Paul says that this cup that we drink is a cup of thanksgiving for all the Christ has done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're not sure if you fit into any of those, you can use this as a chance to say, well, Lord, Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus said, I can ask, and if I ask, I'll receive, if I seek, I will find, if I knock the door will be opened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure what I believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure where I'm at, but I'm gonna ask you to show yourself to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ask me to reveal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ask him to reveal his treasures to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: His goodness to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe he will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Believe he will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let me pray as we prepare ourselves to come to the communion table.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord Jesus, on the night that you were betrayed, you took bread and you broke it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You gave it to your disciples and you said,
[SPEAKER_00]: Take an eats, all of you, for this is my body, which is given for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then after supper you took the cup and you said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Horde out for the forgiveness of sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: For as often as we eat this bread and we drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Jesus, in this moment, as we come to the table, as we remember what it's all about, these symbols of bread and wine are symbols of the treasure and the pearl.
[SPEAKER_00]: Symbols of the beauty and the majesty and the greatness and the generosity of your kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot as we come to these elements, as we come to the table, prepare our hearts to receive them by faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And wherever we're at in our journey, wherever we're at, in terms of this call to discipleship.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray that this moment will be a moment where the Holy Spirit challenges us, can vex us comforts us, whatever it is that we need in order to take a step forward, or to make a decision for the first time, or to celebrate again what you have done, to be renewed in the joy of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in Jesus' name we pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.