Treasuring Our Truest Treasure: Matthew 13:44-46

The scripture reading this morning comes from Matthew chapter thirteen, verses forty-four to forty-six.

You'll find the text printed in your bulletin as well if you'd like to follow there.

Treasuring our truest treasure.

Let's hear the word of God.

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.

This is the reading of God's perfect, perfect word.

Let's ask the Spirit's work enlightening in our hearts to understand and to live such lives.

Father, thank you.

Thank you for the story that points us to the truest treasure this morning.

Oh Lord, Holy Spirit, by your spirit, would you please instruct us, enlighten us, or empower us to live such lives.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

This past month we have looked at our time, our talent, our treasure, our testimonies.

We've looked at what it means to be followers of Jesus, disciples of Christ.

And this morning, as we come to Commitment Sunday this day, we are going to focus on the truest treasure.

It's not our time, it's not our talent, it's not our financial treasure, it's not even our testimonies.

We're going to focus on the truest treasure.

Jesus Himself.

He is our greatest treasure.

This morning we're going to break that down: the search, the discovery, and the joy.

Parables, as we know, have one central meaning.

Don't try to go beyond that and try to exegete from these verses other things.

They're one central truth, as we're going to see.

Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like treasure.

Why did he say that?

Well, we all like treasure, don't we?

You know, if you're just a little boy, little girl, love to go through McDonald's and get the happy meal, what's the treasure?

What's the gift?

And that doesn't stop so much, does it, as we get older?

We like treasure.

We like to be surprised by something that we value.

I heard a man say one time, the the biggest difference for us adults as we get older and a little bit wealthier is the price of our happy bills just gets more expensive.

The things that we buy just to make us happy.

Well, Jesus is talking about treasure.

He said, the kingdom of God is like treasure.

So, first of all, the search for the treasure.

Two parables, one main point, finding true treasure.

Some people stumble on the treasure.

They weren't really looking for it as far as they knew.

Other people search for the treasure with a long time, an arduous journey.

Jesus doesn't say exactly what the treasure is in this story, only that this treasure justified selling all that they had to purchase it.

In both cases, they acquired this treasure because they properly assessed this treasure.

And then they pulled the trigger.

You have to pull the trigger, you have to take action.

They didn't just see the treasure, these people in the story.

They didn't just talk about it ad nauseum.

You know like we can do about things in life?

Important things.

Important things.

You know, like a will.

You know, you know you should have a will, but a lot of people don't have a will.

And it's really important.

It's just like it's one of those things that's easy to put off.

Well, Jesus is saying to us, some people stumble upon the treasure.

It's like it's hidden in a field.

This particular man finds it.

For whatever reason, he's walking across the property, and they didn't have banks back in Jesus' day.

There wasn't the first bank of Jerusalem.

They oftentimes buried their treasure on their property.

However, not surprising, sometimes that would go unspent because maybe the owner died suddenly.

Maybe in warfare, conquering nations would come and take the land.

There's all kinds of reasons why one could lose their treasure back in that day.

And yet, well, that really reminds me of the Apostle Paul's testimony.

Some people just stumble upon it suddenly.

Remember the Apostle Paul?

How many times does he give his testimony in the book of Acts?

I believe it's four or five times.

He never seems to tire of giving his testimony.

He's all of a sudden, he's a God, he's a Jesus hater.

He said he loved God, but he hated Jesus.

Well, you can't do that.

If you love God, you love Jesus.

If you love Jesus, you love God.

But he he hated Jesus.

He was on his way to Damascus to persecute the followers of Jesus.

And what happened?

The verse says, and suddenly a great light arose and shined brightly on Saul.

And there was a voice that came with the bright light.

Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

Why are you persecuting me?

Who was speaking?

Jesus.

Suddenly.

Sometimes it just happens suddenly.

And you didn't even know that you were looking for this treasure.

You were looking for something, and yet somebody shared the gospel with you.

You came to church and you heard this gospel presented.

Someone explains the gospel, and it sounds like it is really good news.

And you say to yourself, this is the treasure.

Not that, not that, but this is the treasure.

However, some people search again for a long time.

Some people are in church for years looking for something, looking for it, and they don't realize that the it really is Jesus.

They may examine lots of religions, lots of different philosophies, but like a gem expert in the story, looking for the best gem, regardless, whenever or however you find this treasure Jesus talks about this morning, you understand that you have to pull the trigger, that you have to receive this treasure, that you have to buy it.

Now let me explain if you're new to Christianity.

The Bible doesn't teach that you buy Christianity.

You don't buy your way to heaven.

He's just using this strong language to teach us that it is of great value, great cost, but whatever you do, you must receive it.

As a matter of fact, what the Bible says, it actually is a gift.

This treasure that Jesus is talking about this morning is a gift.

You can't work for it, you can't pay for it, you can't earn it, not by your money, not by your good deeds, not by your volunteering for the church or anything else.

It's a gift.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

Jesus so loves this world that they gave.

He gave all of his life.

And that's what this parable is really pointing to.

Again, however we find it, it's a gift.

Well, why is it a gift?

Because what we know from the Bible is when you come to Jesus for salvation, he forgives you completely.

Complete forgiveness.

The Bible says, as far as the east is from the west.

Well, you can't get any farther than that.

Your sins, your transgressions are forgiven when you come to Christ.

He says you're completely righteous when you come to Christ.

When you come to Christ by faith, his perfect record is put into your spiritual account, and your very imperfect record was put in his account.

That's why the call to worship this morning, right, Hebrews?

That's why Jesus was buried outside the city gate.

He was buried where sinners, transgressors were buried.

That's where we deserve to be buried.

When you come to Jesus, it is a gift, but it's also an abundant life.

Jesus said, I came to give you life abundantly.

Let me ask you this morning, are you aware of your abundance today?

I know there's many things that we can be more aware of, perhaps.

We can be aware.

We can have an abundance of worry.

We can have an abundance of anxiety.

We can have an abundance of anger, impatience, you name it.

But Jesus says, the reason I came was to give you an abundance of joy.

Are you aware of that in this season of your life?

Or is there an abundance of other things that are robbing you of the joy that Jesus came to give?

Secondly, the discovery of the treasure.

Note both stories say he sells all that he has.

He sold all that he had and bought it.

So here's the truth: we are all spiritual appraisers.

You say, well, I didn't go, yeah, I'm not sure.

I'm not an appraiser.

Yeah, you are.

You didn't go to school for it.

But every one of us was born into this world with an eye for value.

Something that we think we need, we must get at whatever cost.

We're all spiritual appraisers.

But you know, Jesus said something in Luke chapter 9, verse 23.

Luke 9:23

He said something very important.

This saying that I'm going to read in a moment is found in all four Gospels.

No other saying of Jesus is given so much emphasis.

Okay?

Are you ready for this?

What did Jesus say that was ultimately important, recorded more than any other of his sayings?

For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

The moment that we step from this life to the next world, the moment I believe that we will know how true this is, the saying of Jesus.

What are we investing our life in?

For which treasure do we live?

I don't think you're gonna have to think about it.

I don't think you're gonna have to think about it ten minutes.

I don't think you're gonna have to think about it an hour, a week.

The moment we cross that threshold into the afterlife, we will know where we put our treasure.

Where are we investing our hearts and our lives?

Jesus knows that we are, Jesus speaks words of economics.

What does it profit a man?

Jesus is the master economist.

He knows that we all are looking for things in life.

He knows how quickly our hearts can get consumed by the stock market or by our 401.

He know, he knows these things.

He says, what does it profit you if you gather up in this life, you gather up in this world everything of value that you appraise to be of most value, and you miss the greatest treasure.

In an instant, you're gonna know in that moment it was all for naught.

If you miss it, if I miss it, we're gonna know in a second.

Wait a minute.

I wasted my life.

I I chased after things that I thought were gonna satisfy me.

I chased after things that I thought were gonna make me feel better about myself, build my identity, my ego, give me more comfort.

Gods of comfort?

Don't settle for lesser gods.

We all think about profit, don't we?

What do we gain, what do we lose?

When you discover the treasure that Jesus is talking about, when you treasure the truest treasure, the price tags always change.

That's just part of what it means to become a Christian.

Before you become a Christian, you have a price on certain things.

Some people will almost kill themselves trying to get the treasure of their career.

Washington, D.C.

knows that.

Some people will do anything to get what they think they apprize as being true treasure.

If I get this, then I'm gonna make it.

If I get this, then I know I know who I am.

Really?

No.

You get that and you're gonna need more.

And you get that and you're gonna need more.

Jesus says, What are you living for?

Some treasure is always demoted when we finally realize and properly appraise what Jesus is offering us.

One commentator put it like this here in the parables, no one tells the farmer or the merchant to do anything.

Did you notice that?

Nobody told the farmer or the merchant, oh, now go do this.

The treasure tells them everything they need to do.

Once the Holy Spirit works in your heart, once the Holy Spirit shows you the true value of Jesus, nobody has to tell you to do anything.

You just do it.

Because the Holy Spirit gives you the lens, he gives you the appraisal perfection that you need to adequately appraise that.

And you just do it.

You pull the trigger.

We all do.

We all pull the trigger on the thing that we prize the most.

The change of the price tags when we come to Jesus is always accompanied by repentance.

Saying, Jesus, I'm sorry.

Lord, would you forgive me for loving these things more than you?

Oh, if it was only so easy that this happened only at the moment of our conversion.

But we all know that to be not true.

From time to time in the Christian life, we can lose our perspective.

From time to time in the Christian life, we settle for lesser treasure, don't we?

That's why we have to ask forgiveness.

That's why we have to repent.

What a gracious act of God it is when he finds us lost on the wrong path, trying to go after the wrong treasure.

And the Holy Spirit says, You're on the wrong path.

You're looking for the wrong treasure.

And in that moment, he grants faith for us to see the real treasure, to see Jesus.

And we ask his forgiveness, don't we?

Yeah.

We say, Jesus, please forgive me.

I was trying to find, I didn't realize it at the time, because at the time, going after lesser treasures always feels right, doesn't it?

At the time, trying to build security, financial security, emotional security.

It just feels right.

Until the lights come on, and the Holy Spirit shines the light and says, no, no, no.

You're on the wrong path.

You're going in the wrong direction.

You're settling, as C.S.

Lewis said, for making mud pies in the slum.

Why?

You know, Jesus is waiting for you at the beach.

He's waiting for you by the seashore.

He's waiting for you.

Join him there.

What are you doing making mud pies?

This is worship.

This is worship on the spot.

I'm not asking you to go home and think about this.

I'm asking you right now to respond to the Holy Spirit.

You don't have to go home and think about this.

Ask the Holy Spirit right now.

Where am I investing my time and my talent and my treasure?

You ask him.

He'll show you.

That's just the way it works.

The discovery of the treasure.

It's not about the idols in our lives.

What is an idol?

Anything that takes up more space in your heart than God.

That's an idol.

Anything that takes more space in your heart than God is an idol.

Or my heart.

Holy Spirit, would you show me?

What am I really going after?

Would you please show me where my heart is really set?

We've talked about that the last few weeks.

At least once a year, I feel like it's my duty as your pastor to remind you of that great quote by Ashley Null.

Whatever the heart loves or cherishes, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.

That is worth really kind of memorizing.

Whatever the heart cherishes, whatever your heart finds most precious, your will chooses and your mind justifies.

Many of us think it would be the opposite.

Many of us think, you know, us, you know, brainiacs in Washington, you know, who lead with our heads, many of us would say, no, it's really what your mind set on.

It's what you set your mind on, and then your will kind of follows that.

No.

No.

Isn't that exactly what Jesus said we looked at two weeks ago?

For where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

For where your treasure is.

Look at your treasure and you'll find your heart.

The will and the mind are captive to what the heart wants most.

C.S.

Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity, saved this, what I'm about to read to you.

He saved this for the last page of the book.

There must be a real giving up of the self.

You must throw away blindly yourself to Christ.

Christ will indeed give you a real personality, but you must not go to him for the sake of that.

As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about, you're not going to Jesus at all.

The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether.

Your real new self in Christ will not come.

Come as long as you are looking for it.

It will come when you are looking for him.

Does that sound strange?

The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters.

Even in social life, you'll never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what kind of impression you're making on other people.

Everybody relate to that?

Get over it.

Just be you.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original.

Whereas if you simply try to tell the truth, you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

The principle runs through all of life from top to bottom.

Give up yourself and you will find your real self.

Lose your life and you will save it.

Submit to death, the death of your ambitions and the favorite wishes every day, and the death of your whole body in the end.

Submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life.

Keep back nothing.

Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.

Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, decay.

But look for Christ, and you will find him, and with him everything else is thrown in.

Those are beautiful words.

You find your treasure in Christ, and everything that is of real value will be thrown in with him.

There must be a real giving up of the self.

We don't get further down the path until we first give ourselves.

Which brings me to the last point: the joy in the treasure.

Then in his joy he goes and sells all.

One commentator put it like this: Joy is the engine of change.

Joy.

Did you ever think about that?

Where we find our joy, what did Jesus say in Luke chapter 10, verse 20, when the disciples came back, exhilarated from their ministry in the name of Jesus?

Luke 10:20

Jesus said, Rejoice not that the demons submit to you.

Rejoice not that you have these gifts that you're using in my name, but rather rejoice in what?

That your names are written in the book of heaven.

That's what you rejoice in.

The Apostle Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 1, he talks about the inexpressible joy.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

Is joy a characteristic of your life?

Would the people who know you well say, This is a person of joy?

I pray that they would say that of me.

Are we known for our joy?

The Apostle Paul said to the Galatians, what happened to all your joy?

You used to have it.

Where and how and why do we lose our joy?

The joy-killers.

The joy-killers in life.

Whenever we set our heart's affection on a lesser treasure, we will lose our joy.

It's just a matter of time.

Does finding the treasure lead to selling all that we have, or does selling all that we have lead to the treasure?

Yes.

We know the love of Christ.

The love of Christ compels us.

The love of Christ drives us.

Joy killers are lesser treasures resurfacing in our lives.

Would you think about that for a second?

Have you lost your joy?

Are you losing your joy?

And there are so many things today that can rob us of our joy.

Economic uncertainty, family situations.

There's so many things that can rob us of our joy.

Jesus says, I want you to come back to the source of your joy.

The source of your joy is not in it.

The source of your joy is in me.

Oh, friends, this is true.

We sell all because Jesus invested all.

Jesus is the only treasure that brings a growing joy.

You know, when you try to find your joy in your possessions, boy, that can be a headache.

A lot of people today just have more stuff to keep up with.

A lot of people have more stuff to have to take care of.

A lot of people have more stuff to be anxious about.

Jesus says, that's not why I created you.

I created you for a relationship with me, that you would find me as your truest treasure.

Thank you, Jesus.

We sell because Jesus has invested all.

Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame?

That's a verse I just can't get beyond.

That verse that just grabbed my soul over the years.

Jesus saying, said of Jesus, who for the joy set before him endured the cross.

We really don't know that much, do we, about what he endured?

We know a lot of things, but we don't know everything.

He looked shame in the eye.

He basically spit in the face of shame.

We don't really know how shamed he was shamed.

It was horrible.

He looked into the cup and he saw that he was going to drink the dregs of the cup of the Father's wrath for the joy set before him.

Well, you know what that's really saying for you.

For me.

That he would do that.

Who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame.

In his joy, the king sold all.

In our joy, we sell all.

Our hearts to his heart.

But we can only do it because we understand first his heart.

His heart grabs our hearts.

His heart causes us to demote the other things in our lives that have usurped his value to us.

The price tags change when you become a Christian.

I've noticed in my life I have to go back and inspect the price tags.

Sometimes I forget.

You have that problem too?

Sometimes we end up putting the wrong price on the tag.

Is there something in your life now that you have assigned value higher than it can give?

Is there something that you're living for right now that's just draining your joy?

It's leaving you anxious, confused, empty.

Jesus says, Come to me, all you are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.

I'm inviting you this morning to come to Jesus.

That's where I need to come.

So that I'll treasure the true treasure.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned William Borden, known as the Borden of Yale University in the early 20th century of the Borden family, very, very wealthy, famous family.

Some of you remember if you were here at age 25, he went to Egypt, went to Cairo to be a missionary to people that had never heard about the love of Christ.

Well, you remember, I'm not going to go back over the inscription on his tomb, but there's another saying about William Borden, about his life.

No reserves, no regrets, no retreats.

That's a man who found his treasure in Jesus.

No reserves.

I think what he meant by that is I'm not going to be a follower of Jesus, wink wink, but where I'm really putting my comfort and my security is in my bank account.

No, he's saying no.

I'm putting my security in Jesus.

No regrets.

He didn't have to regret one thing when he met Jesus.

He knew that he gained real treasure in this life.

And no retreats.

I'm not going back.

When I meet Jesus, when I've met Jesus in my life, and I have found him to be my truest treasure, I'm not going to walk back on this.

Are you walking back?

Are you wondering if this is really worth it?

Are you wondering if you've made the right decision?

Put your eyes on Jesus.

Put your eyes.

Tom, put your eyes on Jesus.

Would you pray with me?

So, Father, here we are.

We've heard your word, the words of Jesus.

Holy Spirit, we're asking you to search our hearts.

Search me and show me if there's anything that's grieving you, messing up my life, messing up other people's lives.

Holy Spirit, would you show us where our hearts are really set?

Would you show us the prizes, the things of this world that we really value?

Would you forgive us?

Even this day, perhaps we're changing the price tags.

Lord Jesus, we want you.

We want you.

Only you, above all treasure.

Please hear us.

Please do a deeper work in us this day.

Amen.