The Whole World Will Be Won By The Gospel

The Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew 13

Get open your Bibles to Matthew, Gospel according to Matthew chapter 13. This is the section of the parables of the Lord Jesus on the kingdom of God. Matthew uses the terminology kingdom of heaven synonymous, kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven.

It was what was expected. So Jesus is talking in a way, speaking in a way that you would anticipate the Messiah to be speaking. His emphasis is on the kingdom of God. That's a major theme from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible, kingdom of God.

Get used to that phrase and learn to love it and learn to give everything up for it. Matthew chapter 13, we're just going to read these two parables here. Hear now the words of the living and true God.

Matthew 13, 44. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then in his 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.

As far as the reading of God's holy word, let's pray together. Father, Lord, meet us here in this place submitted to you. Lord, standing and not falling before you because of Jesus. Lord, we know that we only can boast in Jesus.

We know that God that we don't deserve in ourselves to be holding your word. But because of Jesus, we are children of God, adopted, forgiven, washed, and Lord, we know that we can stand before you with confidence.

And please, God, we ask that you would give, Lord, the blessing of the teaching and illumination of your Spirit. Let it not be the words of a mere man. God, please get me out of the way. I do pray, of course, Father, that you would cause me to decrease, Christ to increase.

Lord, increase Christ's fame here. Bless God, us as your church. Open our eyes to your truth and then change us, Father, please. Help us, Lord, to not be distracted. Help us to, Lord, seek and find, to open and see, and we pray, God, that you would help in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The Messiah, the Prophets, and the Kingdom Breaking into History

So Matthew chapter 13, the famous parables of Jesus. These are the parables that are probably most recognizable of the Lord Jesus. I think people think about His parables, of course, about the kingdom.

That's the emphasis. There are seven parables here, all very important. One nice, tidy section of Scripture, Matthew chapter 13. And it's a powerful thing for us because when you think about what would you expect from the Messiah, what do you expect Him to sound like?

What do you expect Him to be like? If you have the Torah, the Tanakh, the Old Testament, the prophets, the law, you have the Psalms, the Proverbs, you have that Old Testament revelation, and you are seeped in.

It.

It's your whole life.

I mean, you are memorizing it. You don't even have a copy of it in your house. You don't have it on your shelf. You just get to get it in synagogue, and you're memorizing it, and you're telling about it, and you have it really written inside, right?

And you're waiting now in anticipation for that glorious revelation of the Messiah into.

The world.

And this particular time that they were living in was an exciting time. It was exciting because they knew that they were living in the time of the Messiah. They knew. They had the prophecies. They knew that God keeps His promises.

He makes promises about what's going to be in the future. He actually tells in Isaiah chapters 40 through 46 that one of the ways you distinguish Him from the false gods is He tells you the future before it happens.

And He can tell you the past and why it happened the way that it did. So they know, look, the way that I know that someone's a false prophet, Deuteronomy chapter 18, is that if they have a single false prophecy, they're not from God because God sustains the universe.

He holds all things together. He's the sovereign over it all. He's not like the false gods and false idols. And so I know that God, when He says something, He keeps His promises. I can anticipate it. So they knew from the Old Testament revelation that there was a timing issue of the kingdom.

It was going to break into history according to Daniel during the time of the fourth kingdom. Countdown from Daniel's day, the Babylonian kingdom, you move your way through history and now you're landing on Rome.

And they knew from Daniel's prophecies that it was during the time of the fourth kingdom, which was Rome, that God Himself, the text says, will set up a kingdom that will never.

Be destroyed.

They knew that this was the time. They had Daniel chapter 9, the prophecy of the 70 weeks. They could count. They knew to start counting from the time that the decree was made to restore and rebuild.

Jerusalem.

If you say, I have no idea what you're talking about, trust me, they did. And they could start counting down the days. They could count. Wait, one, two, three, four.

Okay, wait.

So where's the Messiah? This is why there's this fervor in the first century of, who's the Messiah? Where's the Messiah? You the Messiah? Who's the Messiah? Where is He? They knew. They knew. This was the time of the Messiah.

It was exciting. And they knew the kingdom of God was breaking into history. It was a big deal for them. And so they knew what the story was. Messiah was coming to bring salvation, redemption. All the families of the earth were going to return to worship God.

They knew the Messiah was going to reign on His throne, the throne of David. They knew that all the tribes, tongues, nations, peoples were going to come and worship Yahweh because of this Messiah. Daniel chapter 7.

They knew it.

They knew what it was.

They knew the prophecy. Daniel looking in the night visions, and one like a son of man was coming on the clouds and he came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom.

That all the peoples, see there's a story, right? Everyone's going to come. So they're waiting. And now enter Jesus. Enter Jesus. He's got the genealogy that fits. He's fulfilling all the prophecy. They see His life and His ministry, His miracles.

And then they start hearing what's coming out of His mouth. And He fits the bill. He has the identity. He is God Himself in the flesh. He is sinless. He's the righteous one. He's fulfilling all the prophecies.

He's born of a virgin. He matches the identity of the Messiah. But then there's more. It's what's coming out of His mouth that identifies Him. Now we lose this today as evangelicals, modern day Western American evangelicals.

We've lost a lot of the meaning of the kingdom of God and the centrality the kingdom of God has to the story. You see, the Jews understood the Messiah was coming into the world, listen, listen, not to snatch His people out of it.

He was coming into the world to renew the world, to transform it, to destroy all the works of the devil and to remake creation. It was going to take what was lost and destroyed and where sin came in and just caused disharmony.

The Messiah was coming in to make things right again, to reconcile people to God. They knew that. They knew that the rule of God was multifaceted. It had to do with issues like justice in the earth, the law of God going out to the ends of the earth.

Isaiah has this magnificent prophecy. Isaiah chapter two, that it says that the nations are going to stream up to the mountain of God. And it's amazing because streams don't do that. Water doesn't go up.

Water goes down. Gravity does something there. And so this whole idea of these nations streaming up to the mountain of God means that God's going to draw those nations up to His mountain. There's that salvation of the nations.

And then it says that the law, the Torah, would go forth from Zion. That's the centerpiece of the people of God. It goes forth in the world. They knew justice, the law of God, salvation, redemption, the King reigns.

He remakes the world. God says, behold, Isaiah 65, I create a new heavens and a new earth. They knew. And then here's Jesus. He's the lawgiver. He sits down on the Mount of Olives and He speaks now as a lawgiver.

He corrects their misunderstanding and misapplication of the law itself. He shows them what the true intention of the law. He doesn't create a new law. He shows them the real intention of the law of God.

He doesn't do away with it. He brings it to its fulfillment. And then Jesus goes about healing people, taking out demons, showing His authority over the demons. He's forgiving sins. And then He gets to Matthew 13 and He begins to sound exactly like you expect.

He tells you what the kingdom of God is like. And so what does He do? He opens up and He tells us something that actually gives us a lot of hope. Listen, for those of you guys that want the world to know Jesus, that's because the Spirit of God lives within you.

You want to tell the world about the excellencies of Jesus and Him being the treasure, and you want to call people to Him for life. And then Jesus gives you, I love it, this beautiful parable at the beginning that tells you what to anticipate.

And two things about it. One, He tells you about what to anticipate in terms of false believers. He tells you what to anticipate. As you go out and you proclaim the gospel, the Son of Man is spreading those seeds.

It's going to fall on different kinds of ground. And there are times where you think it's legitimate, and then Jesus shows you no, it really had no root. It gets scorched. It gets taken away by the enemy.

It gets choked out. But then He tells you, but don't worry. There are times where it falls on ground that was prepared, right? It was, it was, it was, there was work and toil, and that ground is ready for the seed, and it penetrates, and then it bears fruits.

Sometimes a hundredfold, sometimes 60, sometimes 30. And Jesus says, this is what it looks like in the kingdom of God and the world. It's going to scatter out. You're going to see resistance. You're going to see people lose.

And then you're going to see those who truly had a heart ready, and it prepared, were prepared for it, and it grew into fruit. And then Jesus tells you the story of the weeds in the field. In His day, it's highly significant.

You've got this wheat field, not a weed field. That's significant. It is a wheat field. It's dominated by the wheat. And then an enemy comes in, Jesus says, and he sows wheat among the weeds. And what takes place is that, the question is, by the angels?

Do you want us to go out now and to rip them up? And Jesus says, no, you'll take up the wheat with them, wait until the close of the age, the end of the age, and then. And you saw, I think, the fulfillment of that in the destruction of Jerusalem.

You see those weeds that were sown into the kingdom, the false brethren, right? Even the Jews who said that they knew God, they looked like wheat, a lot like wheat. Darno looks like that. It looks a lot like wheat.

And so did those early Jews. But at the close of the age, what took place? Those weeds were destroyed. In the destruction of Jerusalem. And then you have Jesus do something amazing, and I told you that I think that my friend Doug Wilson is right, when his commentary on this was, these are the parables that many modern day commentators wish weren't there.

We almost wish Jesus didn't say it.

It's too hopeful.

It's too victorious. It's too total victory. The two parables Jesus gives, one, the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, smallest of.

All seeds.

When it goes into the ground, it then grows up to be this tree that can be bigger than a man. And Jesus says the birds of the air nest in its branches. The kingdom of God is this insignificant little thing that goes into the ground, and then it grows up.

And it's unbelievable. It's big. It's huge. It's so much bigger than it started. Jesus says the insignificant becomes significant. The weak becomes strong, right? You can't underestimate the work of the kingdom of God in history.

You might think that it's nothing, but it becomes something that overpowers your preconceived notions. And, you know, I said also that in history, God's pattern in the world with His kingdom is very much like that mustard seed picture that He gives to us.

Look anywhere you go in history. You want to go to Ireland? You want to talk about Patrick? You want to talk about Scotland? You want to talk about England? You want to talk about America? The kingdom of God growing throughout history has always been mustard seed to large tree.

You want to talk about the pilgrims coming over to bring the gospel over here and surviving only because they have a few kernels of corn? You want to talk about the work of God in history anywhere has always been mustard seed to large tree.

And then Jesus adds a special punch by giving another parable that's much like it. It's the same thing. It's just a different way of saying it. He says that the kingdom of God is like leaven hidden in three measures of flour.

And I told you last week that three measures of flour is a lot of bread. It's a lot of bread. It's about 45 commercial one and a half pound loaves. So it's a huge expanse of flour. And Jesus says it's like a woman who hid this leaven into that and she makes all this bread.

What happens when you put leaven in this dough is it spreads, it permeates, it gets it and reaches its way all the way throughout. And Jesus, of course, I think is hearkening back to the story of Sarah and the three visitors coming.

When these three visitors come to meet Abraham and Sarah, Abraham tells Sarah, he says, go and make a morsel of bread for these guys. And she ends up baking 45 commercial loaves, right? But she does it with three measures of flour.

And of course, Jesus is hearkening back to that, right? Isaac was the same situation. It was a mustard seed. Getting its way to Jesus. Isaac, the seed that would ultimately bring about the blessing of the entire world was this nothing little thing, right?

A barren woman in an insignificant part of the world in some tent somewhere in the dirt. Not the well-to-do, not the wealthy, not the cosmopolitan, not the metropolitan. This was a nothing little family.

And God takes a little leaven and puts it into the world and it begins to permeate and move its way throughout the loaf. And then you get Jesus explaining here something significant about that parable of the weeds.

The Treasure in the Field and the Pearl of Great Price

And then you get to the parable, of course, of the treasure in the field and then the pearl of great value, or the famous way of saying it is the pearl of great what?

Price.

Not Joseph Smith's false version. But the pearl of great price. So here's, let's explain. First and foremost, the kingdom of heaven is like, verse 44, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure. So when we say what's the treasure, Jesus says, he tells you what it is.

How do you unpack the parable? Well, here's what we don't get to do.

We don't get to be creative.

Can't do that with God's word. You don't get to be creative with God's word. You can't just insert your own key of understanding Jesus' parables. If we're going to understand Jesus' parables rightly, we have to use his own words here.

As a key.

And he says, the kingdom of God, they were waiting for, the kingdom of heaven is like, it's like treasure in a field. And so what is the treasure?

What is the treasure?

It's the kingdom of God. Now, I mentioned, this is important to me and I think to Jesus, I mentioned that evangelicalism in the West today has lost sight of the value of the importance of the kingdom of God in terms of the major theme in the Bible.

But Jesus says, watch, this is what the kingdom of God is like for the people of God. It's like treasure hidden in a field.

Why?

Well, I would say salvation for the world is a treasure. I'd say eternal life as a gift of God's grace to me is a treasure. I'd say Jesus ruling on his throne, destroying all of his enemies, recreating all of creation, making all things new, bringing forth justice and his law, bringing us to final resurrection, I'd say that's a treasure.

I'd say that is a glorious thing. And Jesus says, I want you to think about my rule in the world like this treasure that's hidden in a field. And as Jesus explains it as a treasure, we need to think about how they thought about it because we don't do it like them.

We don't. We have banks. Now, I'm not asking you to be like, yay, Chase, right? Or yay, all these bankers, yay, there's gifts from God, right?

No.

But I am asking you to think about it in terms of how they did. They didn't have banks like you and I as safe places to put their money and their treasure. If they wanted to have their treasure for later, they would hide it up.

So for example, you know the famous verse, thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against you.

That's how the Jews thought about it.

From Psalm 119, God, your word, I have, the word is treasured up in my heart. You can see when they had treasure or something valuable, they had to dig it. So, for example, if they had something valuable, they would maybe dig a hole under their bed and they would store it there and cover it up so that they could draw from it later, pull from it later.

And so they had a lot of treasure in the earth. It's not something completely foreign. Who's the famous drug dealer? They got a show about him on Netflix now. What's his name again?

Pablo Escobar.

Same situation. It's not necessarily an old thing. It's a modern thing as well. For example, they say that Pablo Escobar had so much money coming in at one point that he just started burying money all over Colombia.

And they said that to this day, there are millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars buried all over Colombia right now. Want to take a trip, right?

It's the truth.

It's there.

It's all over. And I ain't going to find it. Someone's going to run across it. Someone's going to run across a field and buy it for that treasure that's buried there.

But they did that.

They had treasure buried. And so when Jesus says, guys, it's like this, the kingdom of God should be like this to you. It's like this.

There's a field there.

There's a for sale sign there. It's for sale. You know, someone says, hey, this is all for sale. I'd like you to purchase it. I'm selling. And great.

Okay.

I'll go take a look.

And you're going in this field. And while you're in the field, the guy says, I only want this price. And you find as you're walking around with your family, do you want to build here where I think your room could go here and my room can go here.

And this is where we'll play. And wait a minute.

What's this?

And you start digging and digging and you realize that right there on this land, this guy is selling for peanuts is a treasure hid there. And it is a treasure beyond comprehension. And this guy wants peanuts for the land.

And so Jesus says, watch the kingdom of God is like this. It's like a treasure hidden in a field. And he says, when a man finds it, cover it up. And he says, then in his joy, joy, he goes and he sells all that he has to buy that field and buys that field.

Now, just consider for a moment, if you walked onto a field that was for sale, it was dirt that was for sale for you to build on. And you found an amazing treasure there. You don't, when you know the value of it, you don't buy it begrudgingly.

You don't buy it in a way where it's like, no, like where you're miffed about it.

Right?

No, you do.

Oh my goodness.

Look what's there.

I heard some stories recently of police seizures of vehicles, right? Where police will seize vehicles. Sometimes they get vehicles and they just literally steal them from innocent people. And that's sinful and unjust.

And that takes place on a regular basis. They literally steal them from innocent people. And sometimes they'll steal them from, or take them, sorry, take them from criminals. And sometimes these criminals have very sophisticated ways of hiding treasure in their vehicles.

They'll do it in ways that even experts still can't find all the stuff that's there. And I heard a recent story of a man who bought one of these cars that the police had seized, not necessarily from a criminal, but they seized the car.

The man bought the car at auction and when he got home, he discovered inside of it thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.

Right?

Now, what's the proper response? When you purchase something, property, and they say it's all yours now and you find a treasure inside, I think the response is elation, right?

Yes!

This guy did something I wouldn't do. He went back to the police and said, hey, I found this. That's not how this works. When you purchase something with your money, you own that property. That means everything that was in there belongs to you.

Thank you very much. So I have my own opinions on that decision. But another thing I recently saw is a man who flips houses. He went and he bought one of the houses to flip and to sell. And so he purchased the home straight away, clean cut.

I own the house now. And when they were in the house getting it cleaned up and renovated to turn around and flip it, he found a massive, massive cash of money. And that's the kind of thing. How do you approach it when you find this thing and now there's treasure there?

When you see it, it's joy, right? And if, watch, if you went into one of these houses to flip it and you saw, the guy says, look, I don't want the house. You can buy it. Here's the price. Do you want the house?

Buy the house. And you go in to look around and you see that there is, there are boxes and boxes of diamonds stored underneath the floorboards.

What do you do?

If you realize that the turnaround value is 50 times what you'd put into it, how do you respond when you see it? Not in an upset way, like, oh man, I got to sell my stuff to buy those stupid house with all these diamonds, right?

How do you do it?

You're excited.

You're not doing it in a way where you're sort of like halfway in. You're all in. You know, if you went to go buy a house to flip it and you saw just a pallet of diamonds and gold bars and the person's like, 50 ,000, it's garbage.

I don't care less about it. You know that you would say, okay, we're going to live in motel six for a couple of weeks, sell all of our stuff to buy that house because there's treasure there that I want.

We're going to be rich. We're going to be wealthy. So what if I get to sell my stuff? It is nothing in comparison to this. And Jesus says, think about the kingdom of God like that. Remember the movie Goonies?

Yes. Goonies. I watched that till the VHS broke, right? Till the tape broke. You ever do that?

Right?

Watch it till the tape broke. And I remember that the thing about the film that gets everyone into it is you're like, it's a treasure map. It's a treasure map. And they're on this amazing adventure, right?

Their chunk is there and yet right sloth and baby Ruth and like, you know, you know, like it brings them all these amazing memories. But like that moment, the climax of the story is where they finally break into where the treasure is.

And it's like, whoa, this silly little map led to this amazing treasure. And that's what makes the movie so exciting is like these kids just ran into this amazing.

Treasure.

And then it floats away. But that's besides the point. The point is, is that treasure is what draws us. And Jesus says, think about it like treasure. And notice that it says that he sells all that he has in his joy.

Not in a way that is begrudgingly. It's not in a way where he's dissatisfied. He's excited to do it. He wants to do it. He's happy to do it. Nothing's holding him back. And then Jesus tells another parable that's just like it.

But it's just another way to say it. Verse 45, again, the kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God is like a merchant in search of fine pearls who in finding one pearl of great value went and sold all that he had and he bought.

It.

So now Jesus switches the story from a man who just stumbles upon a field and finds treasure.

In it.

It's for sale and he buys it. So now it's a merchant. It's a businessman. It's a person who turns things around for money and he's searching in the marketplace and he runs into a pearl of great value.

It's something that everyone else missed apparently and here it is. This thing that has so much value and he's a merchant. He knows how to be wise with his money. He's good with his money. He knows how to turn things around with his money.

He knows where the value is. And so he sees this pearl of great price and he does what? It says he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Why?

Because he recognizes the value of it. He sees the difference between the stuff that he has and the great value of this. I think there's a really, I love the way that, again, Doug had a great way of putting this.

I'm going to use it. I'm going to borrow it from him. I think he went through these parables well. He said, imagine that you are in the dark and you're walking on a field and you're going to polish some rocks and you've got sort of this gravel in your hands.

Your hands are full of gravel and you have a plan for this gravel. You think it's valuable. You love polishing rocks, right? You love making it look nice and so you've got a handful of gravel and you're walking through this field in the dark and underneath you, your feet are crunching on gravel the whole time.

You're in the dark and you've got your hands full of gravel and you're crunching what you think is gravel under your feet and as you're making your way back to the house to polish these rocks and make them beautiful, maybe to sell them, the sun starts to rise and as the sun starts bringing light down to your feet, you look down and you realize that you're walking on a sea of diamonds and gold, a sea of diamonds and gold.

Now what do you do with the gravel in your hands? Do you try to bend down and keep the gravel and start putting diamonds and gold on top of the gravel? What do you do with the gravel in your hands when you realize that you're walking on a sea of diamonds and treasure?

What do you do?

You drop the gravel and you do it like, oh shoot.

What do you do?

No, it's joy. It's what am I standing on? And you drop that gravel and you scoop up those diamonds. You fill your arms with it.

Why?

Because that treasure is greater than what you thought was treasure. It's like those shows. You ever see the game show where, I don't even know what it's called, but it's entertaining where they have you in a store, like a Best Buy or something like that, and they have you on a line and they give you like two minutes to run throughout the store and just to snatch every possible thing you can in two minutes, right?

Imagine you start to run into that store for that game and the first thing you see is gummy bears and underwear, right? Now, that's pretty valuable, right? Both those things, I would say, are essential, okay?

Gummy bears and underwear. You fill your arms up with gummy bears and underwear and you're running through the store and all of a sudden, when your time's running out with all these gummy bears and underwear, you realize that I'm passing right now some hard drives, computers, and jewelry.

Well, what do you do with the gummy bears and underwear? Like stomp and contemplate? Well, these are some good gummy bears, right? My dog ate all my underwear.

What do you do?

No, you immediately enjoy, you drop to grab the better treasure. And here, I think, is the problem with us in the kingdom of God and seeing it as treasure and all that comes with it, or not recognizing the value of it, is that we don't recognize that the things that we thought were treasure are not really anything in comparison to the treasure of the kingdom of God.

And when, as believers, we often see opportunity for the kingdom of God or the gospel, we sometimes respond in a way that is not joyful. We don't invest in the kingdom of God. We don't give up our stuff for it because we don't see its value.

It doesn't look valuable to us. We don't see the purpose of it. We don't see what's in it for me. And so, we don't let down our gravel. We continue to hold on to the gummy bears.

Why?

Because I think this is a treasure. I can't really see that as a treasure. We don't give our time. We don't give our money because the truth is we don't really see that treasure as really treasure. But Jesus says, it is.

It's the treasure. The apostle Paul recognized it. It's one of my favorite sections of scripture. The apostle Paul is talking about his resume. He's dealing in his day with people who are criticizing his ministry.

And they look really good. They look like super apostles. These guys are bragging on their own accomplishments and their own gifts and the things that they can do over and above Paul. And so, Paul has a moment in Philippians chapter 3, sort of a breakaway from his norm, where he actually does something.

He says, all right, I'll play. I'll play.

Let me play. You want to compare resumes?

Let's do it.

Paul has a moment where he does a little bit of tongue-in-cheek boasting. He says, okay, here's what we'll do. I'll lay out my resume. I am of the tribe of Benjamin, it's a big deal, circumcised the eighth day.

He says, as to the law, I'm a Pharisee. As to zeal, he says, I persecuted the church. So he says, here's my resume. I have the strictest view of the law. I was so zealous, I persecuted the church. I tried to destroy it.

I surpassed people in all my endeavors, in all my zeal. And he says, this is what I think about all that treasure. This is what I think about all the stuff that I built up. This is what I think about all the rocks.

He says, I count all this as dung. And the word there, by the way, that he uses for dung is scubalon. And I can tell by the reaction in most of your faces that you don't know what that means, because I just cussed in church.

Scubalon is probably one of the roughest words he could have chose to use. It's beyond the word crap. And so he says this, here's what I think about my resume and all of my accolades and all my labor, all my treasures that I worked so hard for.