The Greatest Treasure Matthew 13:44-46; 51-52

What is faith? I remember having a conversation with my old neighbor about God. What he told me is that he believed in God. As he told me this, it occurred to me that he was operating under the common understanding in society about belief.

I knew this because he was a man who was not a practicing Christian by any stretch of the imagination. The common understanding of believing means to think something exists, to have an opinion about something, or to think that something is going to happen.

It is true that this is an accurate way to use the word belief. But biblically speaking, this is only a shallow way of understanding it. Biblically speaking, a disciple, one who truly believes, is one who has a deep belief in God.

In John 3 .16, Jesus says that if you believe in Him, you will have eternal life. But in John 8 .31, Jesus expands on what this true belief means. In that verse, He says that if you follow Him, you are truly His disciples.

To intellectually believe in God or to intellectually believe in Jesus does not mean biblical belief. It is one step in the process, but one cannot stop there. You must follow Jesus. You must obey Him in order to truly believe.

In order to truly belong to Him. A while back, I was listening to a Q &A with the late theologian R .C. Sproul. He was asked the question, how do you know you are saved? A common question that people ask.

He simplified it as much as he could. He answered, do you love Jesus? If you can honestly say that you have any love for the biblical Jesus, then you truly believe in Him. So believing according to the Bible is more than intellectually believing that God exists and believing in the central tenets of Christianity.

It is giving your life to God and His Son Jesus. It is loving Him more than anything. Even if you do it imperfectly. If you love Him this way, it is going to mean something very significant in your life.

The Treasure of the Kingdom and the Call to True Belief

As we continue our sermon series through Matthew this morning, Jesus is going to tell us how precious the kingdom of God is. It is so precious that it makes those who belong to the kingdom do things that are completely foreign to the world.

So at this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew 13. We will be looking at verses 44 -46 and verses 51 -52. If you are using a red Bible, it is on page 974. This sermon is titled, The Greatest Treasure.

I am going to begin by reading these verses. 44 -46 and 51 -52. 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. And then 51 -52. Have you understood all these things?

They said to him, yes. And he said to them, therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

Here is our big idea. Understand that Christ's kingdom is incalculably precious. Understand that Christ's kingdom is incalculably precious. And we will see one reason why in these verses. But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of where we were.

Last week we looked at Jesus' two parables that were closely related. These two parables are the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven. In these two parables, Jesus explained something small that grew into something very big.

The mustard seed was the smallest seed of the trees grown in Palestine, and yet when the seed grew, it was larger than the other plants that were around it. And the mustard plant was a bush, but it grew bigger than the other bushes and plants around it that it looked like a tree.

Jesus also used an illustration of the leaven in the bread. Leaven is what makes bread rise. And when a little leaven is added to a large amount of flour, what happens is that the whole flour is leavened.

Just as these realities of nature start small and become big, so does the kingdom of God. When you look at the world we live in, it looks like God's kingdom is small. But we must understand that God's now unassuming kingdom points ahead to something incomprehensibly great.

What we learn is that what grows for eternity outlasts all else. Now this leads us, once again, to our text this morning. And I'm going to begin by zeroing in on the first parable of verse 44. This parable is known as the parable of the hidden treasure.

Let's read this verse again. Where Jesus says, 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.

Once again, Jesus is telling us what the kingdom of heaven is like through a parable. Remember, a parable is a picture. It is a figurative way of communicating a divine truth. So far we have seen Jesus explain what the reception is like to the offer of his kingdom on earth.

He used a parable to explain that. That's known as the parable of the sower. We have seen him explain that the citizens of the kingdom and the citizens of hell both live together. That's the parable of the wheat and the weeds.

We have seen that the kingdom looks small now, but God is building an entity that will last forever and be far more glorious than any entity in human history. And this, of course, is the parable that I just mentioned.

The parable of the mustard seed. The parable of the leaven. Now in this parable, and another parable we are going to look at, Jesus teaches on the value of this kingdom. How valuable is it? When we think about things in life, we always wonder, right?

We always think about it. How valuable is this? And so Jesus is going to talk about the value of the kingdom of heaven. And of course, when we talk about the kingdom, what we are talking about is this future place.

And throughout the Gospel of Matthew, we have seen, how do you get to this place? John the Baptist preached the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom. His disciples that would come after him would preach the gospel of the kingdom.

That if you recognize your sins and you believe in Jesus, you will have eternal life. You will be a resident in this future kingdom. Remember last week we looked at the poor in spirit are the ones who are going to be there.

The people who recognize they need Jesus. They are sinners in need of a savior. And so there is this future blessed place, this kingdom, that God is preparing for those who love him. Where we are in the text right now, Jesus is no longer speaking to the crowds.

He is speaking to his disciples. These are the people who he will use to change the world when he is gone. So even though he teaches to the crowds during his ministry, his primary focus is the twelve.

That is where he spent most of his time. He spent most of his time for three and a half years with twelve men, so that they would be used by God to change the world. And once again, he uses a common illustration here that would have resonated with his listeners.

The disciples would have understood exactly what he is saying as he explains this parable about a treasure hidden in a field. The region of Israel was a minefield for treasures that were hidden under the surface of the earth.

At this time, the people did not have banks like we have, so they would hide valuables in the field to prevent intruders from gathering their treasured possessions. What we must also understand about this region of the world is that it was the international highway in ancient times.

This is why so many wars happened, and God's people, Israel, were constantly protecting themselves from foreign invasions. In fact, still today, they are constantly protecting themselves. I had a professor in seminary who said, Geography determines history.

Since Israel was a place often trotted upon by foreign nations, wars were inevitable, and if there are wars, there are fears of plundering. Plundering is when foreign enemies come and take your possessions.

The first century Jewish historian Josephus said, The gold and the silver and the rest of that most precious furniture which the Jews had and which the owners treasured underground was done to withstand the fortunes of war.

Invading soldiers loved to take the valuable possessions of the people they were invading, so people would hide their valuables in a secret spot to prevent these invaders from taking their treasured possessions.

For these reasons, the field in Palestine was full of treasures. The people who hid these possessions did not always return to them. You plan to return to them, but it doesn't always work that way. People die unexpectedly.

People are taken into captivity. They never come home, so there's treasures all over the place. As Jesus is telling this to his disciples, they would have known about the history of the land in Palestine.

They would have known that it was a common place for people to bury their treasures there and for others to find these treasures. Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to this treasure found in a field.

Once again, in verse 44, he says, The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. So in the story that Jesus is explaining to us, there's a man in someone else's field.

And while he is in this field, he finds a treasure that was buried there at a time preceding the time the present owner lived there. This treasure may have been hidden long ago, or it may have been hidden more recent.

We don't know that, but what we do know is that it preceded the time of the present owner. We know this is not the owner's treasure because he would have taken the treasure with him as he sells his field.

But in this parable, he does not. This treasure is fair game for anyone who finds it. In rabbinical law, they had a law that said the one who finds an object belongs to the finder regardless of where it is found.

If it's found in your land, too bad. Whoever finds it, keeps it. The old saying, finders keepers, losers weepers. In this parable, for whatever reason, this treasure has become partially visible. But this man does not want this treasure to remain visible because he wants it for himself.

If this treasure is here, then there must be more treasure in the field. So what's the best thing for him to do? The best thing for him to do is to buy the field. Then all the treasure will be his. So in the second half of verse 44, Jesus explains what the man does.

In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. In order for the man to get the treasure, he has to buy the land. And in order for him to be able to buy the land, he has to give up something that is of great cost to him.

So what is this great cost? That great cost is to sell everything that he has. We can see how much this treasure means to him. It means so much to him that he is willing to sell all of his possessions to have it.

The value of the treasure is far greater than what he already has. Jesus makes it clear that this treasure must be something extremely valuable. Then Jesus tells another parallel parable that the disciples also would have easily understood as he once again uses a common example from their time.

Verses 45 and 46. 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. What we see here is that Jesus tells the story of a merchant in ancient times.

A merchant was one who bought and sold. When I was in college, I used to work at a running store that sold running shoes, running apparel, running watches, and other items. We purchased the product from companies that produced these items and we sold them at a higher price.

This is business 101. You buy an item at a lower price and you make a profit by selling it at a reasonable higher price. Unless the market really sends the prices up, right? Which we're seeing right now.

In this parable, Jesus tells of a merchant who is in the business of selling pearls. Now, pearls in ancient times were a hot commodity. Pearls came from the sea as they were found in oysters. Many divers would risk their life to get their hands on the pearls that came from this sea life.

In the ancient world, they spoke of pearls being almost priceless. The ancient Egyptian ruler, Cleopatra, owned some of the finest pearls and one author said that in today's currency, they were worth several million dollars.

We know that he owns pearls as a seller of pearls and in search, he finds one pearl that is better than all the pearls he has. As an expert, he knows he needs to do whatever it takes to acquire this pearl.

He concludes that it is better for him to sell all of his pearls for this one pearl. This would leave him with far greater value. Earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 7, verse 6, Jesus told His listeners not to throw pearls before pigs.

What He meant was, do not waste your time sharing the Gospel with those who will not listen. It's not worth your time. Move on to the one who will listen. So in this way, He's describing this person who's rejecting the Gospel, who's hostile toward Christianity, as a pig.

And He says, don't throw pearls before pigs. The kingdom of heaven is a pearl. It's precious. This precious, earthly vessel, pearls, will also be in the eternal kingdom in the New Jerusalem. In Revelation 21 -21, the Apostle John saw this vision.

He said, the twelve gates were twelve pearls. Each of the gates made of a single pearl. So the New Jerusalem is going to be unlike anything we've seen on this earth. This giant city. It's going to be incredible.

And in that place, there will be pearls. So what we see here is that Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to this precious, earthly commodity. So in these verses, Jesus has explained that the kingdom of heaven is like treasure in the field where one is willing to sell all that he has to own that field.

And secondly, He compares the kingdom of heaven to a precious pearl where a merchant is willing to sell all of his other pearls to gain this one pearl. It's clear that Jesus is describing the incalculable value of the kingdom of heaven.

Remember, the kingdom according to theologian Graham Goldsworthy is God's people in God's place under God's rule. What we have seen throughout the Gospel of Matthew is that the kingdom will not be enjoyed by every human.

In fact, a minority of people in human history will enjoy this kingdom. I don't say that on my own authority, but on the authority of Jesus. In Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14, He said that the way is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, but the way is hard and it is narrow that leads to life.

Most of the world does not want to receive Jesus. Most of the world does not see Him for who He really is. As we think about this, we must understand human nature. Every human has desire. A desire is what we want.

Another way to say it is we desire what makes us happy. We go to college at the place where we think we will be happiest. We choose a career where we will be happiest. We choose a spouse that will make us happiest.

We choose where we live where it will make us happiest. We choose our favorite food because it will make us happiest. This is how humans operate. And God made us to operate this way. We have desire. And what we must understand about desires, my old pastor used to say, we do what we do because we want what we want.

And we feel what we feel because we want what we want. This desire that we have is meant for us to find our satisfaction in Christ. Not in idols. In Christ. The reason the kingdom of heaven is so great is because of who is going to be there.

Many people in our world believe there is a heaven, but what they don't understand is that it is far different from what they believe heaven is. Heaven is a place of holiness because God is holy. Heaven also would not be heaven without Jesus.

Anyone who thinks about heaven and does not think about Jesus' presence there does not understand the true heaven. I once saw a video of a legendary sports figure talking about being reunited in heaven with his wife who passed away many years earlier.

Now the part about God may have been edited out since the secular company made it. However, in the clip, all the talk was about being reunited with his wife. As great as that will be, and that will happen, that is one of the great joys of heaven, that's not the focus of heaven.

The one we should long to see more than anyone is Jesus. Heaven would not be heaven without Him. As you walk into our building, there's a verse on the wall, on the blackboard on the right, that says Psalm 1611.

That verse says, You make known to me the path of life. In Your presence there is fullness of joy. At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. At the 140th anniversary celebration, I explained this verse, and what I told a full sanctuary that morning is that everyone wants to be fully happy forever.

That's our desire. That's human desire. But this can only be found in one place. Jesus Christ. It is through Jesus alone that we enter this joyous, forever relationship with our Creator. This is why the kingdom of heaven has the greatest value.

Nothing on earth can compare it with it. This is why when as Christians, we explain our Christian faith to someone, we should say that Jesus is my Lord and Savior and Treasure. We usually forget that last piece.

He's my Lord. He's my Savior. And my Treasure. He is our Savior because He has saved us from the judgment that we deserve for our sins. He is our Lord because He runs our life, not us. He is our Treasure because nothing on earth is as valuable as Him.

Psalm 73, verses 25 and 26, describes well the one who knows the value of the kingdom. The psalmist writes, Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

It's a great verse to memorize. As we hear the psalmist say this, we need to ask ourselves the question, does this describe us? Do we feel this way about God and His Son Jesus? A genuine believer will have this.

And this person can rightly say, honestly say, that God is the Treasure of my life. This does not mean that God is the only Treasure in our lives. We have other Treasures. The most obvious ones that come to mind are our family and friends.

But what we must understand is that these Treasures come from the ultimate Treasure, God. This is why the psalmist can say, There is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. All of the Treasures in life point to the ultimate Treasure, God Himself.

As we enjoy the things of life, we enjoy the giver of those things. In heaven, there will be loved ones. There will be streets of gold. There will be pearls as we have seen. There will be a river bright as crystal.

There will be the Tree of Life. It will be a place so much greater than anything on earth. The reason it will be great is the One who is the Author of all majesty, beauty, goodness, and pleasure is the One who created it.

He's the source of it all. The greatest part is that His very presence will be there. You get this picture at the end of Revelation of this light, this piercing bright light. You see this throughout the Bible, by the way, but it's going to be there.

There's going to be no need for the sun because the light of God, the light of the Lamb is going to light up the whole city. God's people will dwell with Him forever, enjoying Him and enjoying this glorious place that He has created for His people.

And as citizens dwell with God, this will be the experience of fullness of joy as Psalm 1611 describes. And what is so marvelous about this is that it won't end. It goes on forever. I remember as a child, loving summers.

We're going through summer right now. No school for three months. You can sleep in. The weather is warm. The days are long. And you can play with your friends. I had a group of friends. We would go down to the park and play baseball.

We had a home run derby. We'd set up our bikes. Our bikes were the fence. Whoever hit the most over the bikes won the home run derby. That's what we did. Let's go to the gas station. Let's get a soda.

This is so much fun. The bright lights. The sun and enjoying that time together. But in the back of our minds, we're thinking, this is going to come to an end. September is coming. Which means school is coming.

Think of how depressing Labor Day weekend was as a child. Knowing that the fun of summer was gone and the school year was starting. Now there was the rare student who actually looked forward to school.

I was not one of them. But in the future kingdom of heaven, it's not going to be this way. Every day will be great. And it won't end. 18th century pastor and hymnist, John Newton, wrote arguably the most famous hymn ever written, Amazing Grace.

In the fourth line, he wrote, when we've been there for 10 ,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we'd first begun. What Newton communicates is that when God's people are in God's place under God's rule, in the future, His people will forever praise God.

And His people will forever be full of the joy that only comes from Him. Living in God's presence will be a place where this fullness of joy is forevermore. As we think about how great this is, this should impact the way we live.

He already explained, Jesus already explained to us that the kingdom of heaven is like a man selling all that he has so that he can buy the field that is full of treasure. It's like a merchant selling all of his pearls to buy the most precious pearl he has ever found.

Jesus described what one's response should be to this. In Luke 9, verses 23 -24, He said, If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.

Then He says, What does it profit for a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? The Olympics are going on right now. If someone wins a gold medal, that just has to be the highest experience there is.

It's not. We're here in the middle of nowhere. Wisconsin. And we have a much greater experience than the person who wins gold who doesn't know Christ. Think about that. We have the treasure. The treasure isn't the gold medal.

It's Jesus. And Jesus communicates something very clear here. He wants all of us. And if He cannot have all of us, then He will have none of us. Jesus will not take second place in our lives. In John 2, verses 23 and 24, the Apostle John talked about those half-hearted people.

And he said, many people believed in His name when they saw the signs He was doing, but Jesus on His part did not entrust Himself to them because He knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

Jesus knows sinners. He knows what sinners are like. He knows of someone that hasn't given him or herself fully to Him. The one who does not fully give himself to Him, He will not have. Jesus told the rich young man in Matthew 19 -21, if you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in Heaven.

And come, follow Me. Essentially what Jesus told the man is give up your former life. Give up what your idol is. Which in this man's case was his wealth. But the narrative tells us how this story ended.

As Matthew narrates, when the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. God wants us to say no to our idols and follow Him. He wants us to say no to the things that put Him in second, third, fourth, fifth in our lives.

Jesus calls us to leave all of that behind in order to follow Him. As I was growing up in the evangelical church, I don't remember this being taught much at all. Christ was not the treasure. He was the ticket into Heaven.

And one of the staples of my ministry is I do not want to see us make the same mistake. It's damaging. The fruit of it is not good. A number of years ago, I heard a pastor explain that so many Christians treat Jesus like He's a ticket.

What do you do with a ticket when you go to a sporting event, a movie, a concert? You throw it away. You got where you want. You don't need the ticket anymore. Jesus was treated as fire insurance when I was growing up.

He will get you out of hell. And nobody wants to go to hell. But it was never explained clearly that Jesus is Heaven. Heaven would not be Heaven without Him. He is the source of all pleasure and joy. That drink that you like, that food that you like, that spouse that you love, those children that you enjoy, the fields that you enjoy when you go for a walk, the water that you enjoy when you go for a boat ride.

Who made all that? God did. Really, what you love is Him. People who understand who Jesus is are willing to give themselves fully to Him. To the one who gives Him or herself fully, there is a fight with idolatry.

It doesn't mean you're completely gone from this fight. But there's a fight. But there's repentance. And this repentance says, I don't want my idols. I want Jesus. Lord, help me to love you more. A genuine believer loves Him.

But as we grow, we love Him more. The true believer wants to give up your past life. The man was willing to sell all he had to buy the field. The merchant was willing to give up his best pearls to find a pearl that was even greater.

In our lives, can it be rightly said that our desires are so ordered that Jesus is the strongest voice in our lives? That He is the ultimate treasure of our lives? That when we leave this world, we'll be able to say we still have the most valuable as we will have Him.

Right? You come into the world with nothing. You leave with nothing. 1 Timothy 6 says, but if we have food and clothing, we'll be content. We don't need greater things in life because we already have the greatest.

This is why the Apostle Paul can say in Philippians 121, to die is gain. And only Christians can say that. For everyone else, death is not gain. But for the Christian, to die is gain. The one who devotes him or herself fully to Christ never regrets it.

This is why Jesus can say, whoever loses his life in this world, giving up Satan's plan, giving up the pull of the world, giving up your selfish desires, if you give that up, you will save your life. You will have the only thing that is truly life.

Only in Jesus is there fullness of life forever. Understand that Christ's kingdom is incalculably precious. And we have seen this. We have seen one reason why in verses 44 -46 and that reason is that it is incalculably precious.

And as Jesus is teaching this precious truth to his disciples, it is their responsibility to take this and other truths and proclaim this to the world. And this is why Jesus tells them what he does in verses 51 and 52.

He tells them, have you understood all these things? They said to him, yes. And he said to them, therefore, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

In one author I was reading summarized this well. Jesus was asking, have you understood what I have been saying about the kingdom in these parables? Do you comprehend the truth that the present form of the kingdom will continue to have good and evil in it?

Do you realize that believers will continue to grow in numbers and to permeate and influence the world? Do you know that entering the kingdom involves the recognition of the worthlessness of everything a person has apart from salvation in Jesus Christ?

Do you see that the final separation of the righteous and the wicked is inexorable and inescapable, and that the fate of both is eternal? The righteous to everlasting life and the wicked to everlasting punishment.

End quote. To all of this, the disciples answered yes. This is their responsibility. Take this to the world. I'm with you for three years. Talk about this kingdom. Talk about how great it is. Take this with you to the world.

And Jesus was going to leave the world not too long after this. And here we are, 2 ,000 years later. And it's our responsibility to take this world, to live it, to show that he is the treasure of our lives and then to hand this to the world.

It is the one who has been gripped by the glories of the kingdom of God who will do this. Now next Sunday is a special Sunday as Sean mentioned earlier. We have a baptism and Cassie Johnson, who some of you have gotten to know over the last several months, will be baptized.

And since we're having a baptism, I think it would be appropriate for me to preach on baptism. What is it? Why is it important? So we will look at that next Sunday. We're talking about two different modes of baptism.

Why is one biblical and why is one not? So I look forward to doing that with you. But before we do that next week, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in heaven, what a wonderful God you are. Lord, help us to love you more.

Help us to hate our sin more. Help us to love you more. Help us to realize this treasure that we have that is eternal. Help us to realize that the things of this world are passing away. Help us to live in light of that.

Thank you for these stories that Jesus gives us to help us to understand how precious he is in his kingdom. It is in his name we pray. Amen.